Daily Bible Reading 23rd April 2026 // Luke 4:1-13
1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were over, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
and him only shall you serve.’”
9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to guard you’,
11 and
“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
If, then, we are to assume the representative character of our Lord's Temptation, and that He was tempted as the last Adam, we may therefore expect that the temptations followed the general pattern of those that assailed the first Adam in the Garden of Eden. And, of course, this is what we do in fact see here. Adam and Eve were tempted to eat unlawfully the forbidden fruit; so was Christ: 'If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread'. Adam and Eve were promised 'Ye shall be as gods'; so was Christ: 'All this power will I give thee...'. Adam and Eve were tempted to presume upon God's word: 'Ye shall not surely die...'; so was Christ: 'He shall give his angels charge over thee...'. The parallel is very striking, and very significant. The great difference is: Adam and Eve fell; but Christ stood firm. Here, then, is the beginning of the great reversal of the effects of sin in the world, the divine counter-offensive, the first stroke of the battle that was to lead to final victory over sin and Satan at the cross and in the resurrection.
If, then, we are to understand Christ's temptations in relation to His Messiahship, it is clear that they have much to say to us today, as they have to all - whether the Church or the individual - for they came to One whose business and desire was to establish the kingdom of God and promote the gospel in the world. They have therefore particular reference to the dangers and pitfalls that lie in wait for any who put their hands to this work. Let the Church learn, therefore, from them, let fellowships learn, let individuals learn, from these temptations what the Lord wants us to learn, that we may avoid mistakes that lead to disaster and loss in the work of the kingdom. 'It is necessary', says James Denney, 'to be on our guard against false ideals, and even more against false methods of pursuing true ones.'