Glorification

By Nathaniel Dandridge Pendleton
1941

Part III
THE GLORIFICATION OF THE RATIONAL

I. THE WILDERNESS TEMPTATION

On returning from His baptism in the Jordan, the Lord was led aside into the wilderness, and there tempted of the devil forty days, during which time He ate nothing. At the end of the period He hungered, and the devil tempted Him, saying, "If Thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread." (Luke 4: 3.) The Lord answered him, saying, "It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." (Luke 4: 4.)

A world of doubt was involved in this wilderness temptation. It was one of three recorded in the New Testament which covered all. In effect it implied a repudiation of the Lord's Divinity and of His power to save. The Lord's reply to the tempting spirit was instant and convicting. He met the evil challenge not by compliance with the request, but by raising the issue to a higher level, or by an interior repudiation. In place of a miraculous conversion of the, stone into bread, He answered the evil spirit by saying, "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." The truth here represented is that while material bread sustains natural life, it is the Word of God, which sustains spiritual life. Herein the Lord was tempted. He felt, in a degree incomprehensible to man, the weight of doubt which struck not only at His realization of His Divinity, but also it was an assault upon His power to save mankind.

In a like though lesser degree this temptation afflicts men. It is an assault upon their faith in the Lord. If, and when, this faith falls into doubt, the ensuing temptation is crucial, and the man, as if by his own volition, turns either to, or away from, the Lord. Doubt opens to this turning and to its fateful consequence. Every man must pass through this uncertainty in order that his decision may be made and confirmed for good or evil. It is of concern how, or by what means, this crisis may be met; with what argument, or by what proving, may man's choice be made. The appearance to man is that his choice is primarily intellectual, but the reality is otherwise. Decision in either direction is reached and determined through his affections more than by his reasoning. The loves of man's life are the underlying factors which move and determine his choice. By comparison, man's conscious reasoning is superficial, and indeed futile, if not sustained by his affections. Reason, by itself, yields to negation, and in the end confirms denial. Love is that which conjoins. It is the essential influence which takes to itself the things which are agreeable and confirms them. By love is here meant the affections which man has inherited, or acquired and confirmed, as self-benefits. These are his own. They determine the quality of his spirit. As to them the man is tempted, and it is with reference to them that his decision is made for good or evil.

With the Lord, when He was a Man in the world, this plane of human life was composed of His maternal inheritances. Through them alone could He be tempted. When the devil said to Him: "If Thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread," His temptation was most grievous, since there was that in Him from the world and the mother which could be profoundly affected by the devil's insinuation. But there was also that within Him from His soul to which no evil influence could reach. From this, His Divine inheritance, He was interiorly empowered to answer the devil, and His reply, though not an outstanding miracle, was such that the tempting spirit was silenced. The Lord answered by a literal quotation from the Scripture, when He said "Man doth not live by bread alone." (Deut. 8: 3-4.)

It is not of record that the Lord performed an outstanding miracle to convince the devil. The spirit of evil is beyond conversion. Instead, a Divine affirmation sufficed. In the truth of Scripture lies the power of total resistance and competence to repel every evil insinuation. By this appeal the Lord set an example for men, that they should do likewise. When He said, "Man doth not live by bread alone," the devil departed, from Him. We note, therefore, that the power of the Lord with man lies in the Scripture which is all comprehensive. To the Divinely revealed formulas seeking strength to the Scripture is there contained man must appeal in resist when in temptation, for to quote to affirm the eternal truth of God. By so doing the mind of man is opened and power from above inflows and resistance is sustained. Spiritual security, therefore, lies not so much in a reasoned argument as in an instant affirmation of revealed truth. Only so may man receive and maintain spiritual states of life which are interior gifts, and which enable him to join in that which is signified by the feast at Cana, where the Lord turned the water into wine. There He did that which, indeed, He could not do when in the wilderness.

At Cana His Messianic powers were fully demonstrated, not to convince the devil, but to confirm the good in faith. The Lord was there in a state of power. He was environed by believing men. It was as if He were empowered by the presence of faith in the minds of others; but in truth it was He who empowered the faithful. Even as He turned the water into wine, so also at Cana He could have made bread of the stone. The difference was one of place and circumstance, or rather of state. While He could do no outstanding miracle in the wilderness, yet He could there answer the devil effectively by quoting the Scripture. This involved an interior repudiation which inaugurated a change of state by a dispersion of all that was represented by the wilderness, and which opened the way to that which was signified by His deed at Cana.

The Divine significance of the Cana miracle was that the Lord, when in the world, and in the power of His Divinity, converted the faith of the Jewish Church into Christian truth; or, what is the same, He turned the Jewish water into Christian wine, and this to the end that an internal church might be raised up in place of the former Jewish ritualism. This the Lord did by virtue of His power as the Son of God, and it was this, concerning which the unbelieving devil tempted Him by producing a well-nigh overwhelming appearance that men could not be saved. This appearance was the stone of the Lord's temptation, which pertained to the wilderness, wherein power departed from Him. Also the wilderness represented that of the Jewish faith which could not be redeemed, namely, their traditions - regarded by them as sacred. Yet there was no limit to the Lord's power when He was in a state of exaltation. Equally with the turning of the water into wine, He could, then and there, have made of the stone, bread. Indeed, it was of need that He should so do, and this, in effect, He did at a later date when He joined the bread and wine in instituting that which is known as the Holy Supper. From this it appears that the devil demanded that of the Lord which indeed He must do, but not in the wilderness - not when in a state of temptation.

There was more than a seeming likeness between the miracle requested in the wilderness, but there withheld, and the state of the Jews in their rejection of Christianity. Their heart of stone could not be converted, but has remained firmly resistant to internal truth throughout the ages. Only the water of their Scripture could be turned into the spirit of wine.

The first three evangelists record the wilderness temptation. They place it immediately after the Lord's baptism. The apostle John makes no mention of that temptation, but in the place where we may look to find it, there is, instead, the miracle of turning the water into wine. While in the first three evangelists the Lord, immediately after His baptism, passes to the forty days' temptation, in John the anticipated account of the wilderness temptation 'is not recorded. In place of it John tells of the Lord's going to Galilee and there attending the marriage feast. This notable difference marks a wide distinction, the cause of which is revealed by the internal sense only. When that sense is seen, reconciliation becomes manifest, and the two divergent accounts are joined; the one is a sequence of the other. Also the statement of the Writings that that which the letter divides the spiritual sense unites, is thereby demonstrated. Yet we may readily understand that those whose faith is dependent upon the letter only, can not but question so marked a difference which implies a seeming contradiction. No satisfactory answer can be found save that which the internal sense implies.

The Lord's state, as represented by John, could have no part in the wilderness, but only in the feast at Cana, by which a state of regeneration was signified. The love represented by John is known only to the angels, or to the regenerate, and to them but in part. For this love, in itself, is Divine. In the highest sense the beloved disciple stands for the Lord glorified, or a state of His glorification. For this reason no record of the wilderness temptation is given by John; instead, the miracle of the water and the wine, or the raising of the ancient Scripture into a New Testament, and in the end, the conversion of that Testament into its high spiritual significance. Because John represented the Lord in this, it is recorded of that apostle that he should live to see the Second Advent. This was not said of John the man, but of the Lord and of His love for mankind, which carried through to the end of the first Christian era to His Second Advent. The truth herein could not be openly told at the time, but only represented. It has ever been so with the Scripture record. Its Divine meaning could only be represented; and this, because it is not given man to foresee future actualities, but only their containing representations. Of these the Word of God is outwardly composed to the end that both men and angels may, as if of themselves, find their way in life; confessing the supreme truth which lies beyond their strictly human vision, namely, that they are led by the Lord alone; and in case they willfully persist in evil, even then they are guided by the law of His merciful allowance, and this in preservation of their human freedom.

Interior confession of the Lord's unceasing guidance can, however, be made by the religious only; with them it is a requirement of saving faith and is called for because it is the supreme truth of life, which of itself lies quite beyond the realm of human apperception save as man is guided by revelation. Confession, when so guided, opens to interior appearances of truth in ever higher degree, since beyond these appearances no man or angel may ever pass. To live in and under appearances of truth is therefore man's portion, both here and hereafter, and it is well so, since only thereby may man be guarded from the self-assumption of life. While man may know that the Divine is in him, yet he must be saved from the presumption that this Divine is his own. That he may not so do, he was first born into the world of nature - there to receive and ever retain a graft which carries with it an impress of death. This is man's proprium. It is an enduring possession which distinguishes between man and his Maker. Yet even so it may be moved to receive a semblance of life, not unlike the sands of the sea when blown upon and lifted by the four winds of heaven.