Again the Devil takes Him to a very high mountain, and shows to Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him. I will give all these things to You if falling down, You will worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Go, Satan! For it has been written: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve Him only.” Then the Devil left Him. And behold! Angels came near and ministered to Him. (Matthew 4:8-1)

Today we will deal with the third temptation of Jesus in the wilderness by the Devil. In this temptation the Devil is said to take Jesus onto a very high mountain and say to him that if He would fall down and worship him he would give him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

We should be able to recognise this as a familiar voice in us all. The love of self or self interest appeals to something very base in us, in our natural man. There is a side of us that desires to be independent of any authority in our lives, it’s a side that thinks it knows best and feels it has a right to do whatever it likes. This dark side of our nature is called in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity our proprium; a more modern term that comes close is that of our ego. It’s the “me first” part of us, which becomes manifest in and through thoughts of self interest – what this Scripture calls the Devil.

In order to understand what’s going on here we need to have a clear idea in our minds of what is meant by worship, for the temptation is a call to fall down and worship the Devil. On the surface there is nothing subtle in this, it’s a call to a blatant rejection of God in favour of what the world has to offer. It’s difficult to see how those who are seeking to become more spiritual could ever fall for such an obvious call to abandon God for the Devil. But of course what is set forth clearly in the text is not so obvious in our experience of temptation. We have already established that the Devil is self interest, and we all can, I think, appreciate the subtleties with which this aspect of our nature can take hold of our reasoning faculties to justify its desires.

When we take a broad view of the term worship then worship is not something we do but what we are, it’s how we live our lives and so refers to our life in its entirety. It’s the way we are with others, the decisions we make, what we choose to fill our minds with, the quality of our conversations, the attitudes we bring to our home, relationships, work and recreation, how we regard our communities, what we value – all this makes up our life. The attitudes, motives and thoughts that we enter into these spheres of our existence will say something about what it is we worship at the inner level of our heart. So our worship or what we worship, is tied into the core love around which everything in our life revolves. This is either the love of self or love to the Lord and the neighbour, the neighbour being the Lord or good in another. Whichever of these loves takes the centre in our life its opposite gets pushed out to the periphery. When the love of self is centre stage, then our love for others is merely an extension of our self interest, which means it isn’t really a genuine love at all. But when the love of our neighbour, of good, takes centre stage in our life, we are then able to hold the influence of our self interest in subordination to those loves and affections grounded in the Lord.

Self interest always seems to promise what we think will make us happy. The only counter to its seductions through the false promises of fulfilment that it offers, can be found in spiritual teachings drawn from the Word which make it clear that what the love of self promises, it actually can’t deliver. Placing self first above the interests of others leads to unhappiness because it’s an attitude that shuts off the inflow of heavenly qualities into our minds. The Lord can’t support such a state of life because it’s contrary to the created order for our life and so is destructive to our spiritual health and wellbeing. If we could really grasp this, we would be well on the way to finding true fulfilment.

It is a principle of Spiritual Christianity that nothing outside of ourselves, not people nor things, can fulfil us, or meet the true needs of the human heart. But that’s all self interest has to offer us. Self interest or the Devil won’t direct us inward to the Lord, or the love of our neighbour, for this would be its own destruction. All its got is what’s outside of us and by getting us to focus externally on people or things as objects that can meet our needs, it keeps us from dealing with the real issues of spiritual life which are inner issues to do with our connection to the Lord through integrating His Word into our lives.

We become conscious receivers of love from the Lord to the degree that we willingly resist our tendencies to put ourselves before others. When we understand that the only thing that can make us truly happy is our being able to receive this love more inwardly into our life, we then see that we have to work to bring every tendency to control, manipulate or put ourselves ahead of others under the authority of those spiritual principles that empower us to love the Lord and our neighbour as ourselves.

Heaven is where love to the Lord and our neighbour find their fullest expression. Of angels we read that they live in mutual love, which is a love of each for all others for the benefit of the whole. Such love reflects something of the Divine, for we know that God is Love. He is the kind of love that has not even the slightest degree of self interest within it, and because He has no self interest in Himself He is the fullness of perfection. Self interest is at the root of all the negative forms of fear and destructive behaviours that people exhibit and experience, which is why hellish states of life are so wrapped up in fear. Where the Lord is shut out, fear is the inevitable result. So if we want to be fulfilled and free of fears, we need to work with the Lord to have our self interest or proprium brought into line.

One positive way of working to achieve this is to consciously work to see that our interactions with others come from a loving motive. If we find it difficult to act from such a motive with someone in particular then we can take that as the Lord revealing some area or attitude in ourselves that needs work. It’s very useful to set tasks as a focus for this type of reflective spiritual work because when you have a task you can then see what resists its application. The task doesn’t create the resistances, these already exist within us but we have simple been unaware of them until we set the task. The task creates the conditions needed for us to be able to see what stands opposed to the spiritual life. Once seen, we can look to the Lord to give us further insights into the condition so we can change our responses and open up the way for the Lord to remove those things that keep us bound in selfish states of life and destructive negative emotions.

Self interest promises us the world but ultimately, only delivers heartache and suffering to ourselves and those around us because it cuts us off from the life of the Lord whose presence always brings healing and wholeness to everything it comes into contact with. So the Devil or self interest takes those it would tempt onto an exceedingly high mountain. From here can be seen all the glory of the kingdoms of the world, which it tries to convince us will fulfil the central, pressing desires of our heart. The temptation to Fall down and worship me… is to look after number one, to put my self before others with the promise that all that I desire will be given. It is of course a lie, but one that is presented as a truth in virtually every corner of our lives in the world. The illusion is cast everywhere – in the media, books, movies, the way news stories are framed, those held up as hero’s and role models – they all look to confirm the lie as something true.

The Lord’s response to this temptation demonstrates the need to base ones life on spiritual teaching drawn from the Word, which everywhere instructs us that we are to worship and serve the Lord God only. This is the only counter to the destructive influence that self interest has in the human mind. But what do we mean by worshiping and serving the Lord our God? The terms Lord and God are important terms in the doctrines of Spiritual Christianity and they have a very specific meaning, which is able to bring a real practicality and spiritual practice to what is being said here. Dual terms are often used in the Word and when these terms are used together they point us to the essential nature of the Divine and in where we can find Him if we are to worship and serve Him as we are instructed to do here.

The term Lord is a term that refers to the Divine Love. In the Old Testament the term Lord is used in translating the name Jehovah which means being or what is, what is real, or what is the essential substance of all that exists. Spiritual Christianity teaches that the source of everything is the fullness and perfection of love which is the Divine love. And because love is the source and maintainer of all that exists, it is what rules in everything and so is what is understood by the expression Lord. Now love operates by the laws of its own being – for example, it is a law of love that it will not force itself on anyone but will leave them in freedom to choose to return love or not – this is a law of love, or a principle of wisdom. Such principles in Spiritual Christianity are understood by the term God in the Word. So God refers to the Divine Wisdom or the Wisdom through which, and according to which, Love operates.

Therefore to worship and serve the Lord God alone is to devote one’s life to love and to finding the wisdom through which it can be expressed more fully and completely in our dealings with others. It makes complete sense that a life that is looking to make love its central principle through seeking the wisdom found in truths or spiritual teachings, is a life that is progressively moving away from self interest into a more genuine sense of what it is to love the Lord and one’s neighbour. This enables us to see more fully what is meant by the Lord being our saviour. It’s talking about the power of love to deliver us from the destructive effects self interest has on our spiritual wellbeing when it is placed at the centre of our lives. When we make love the centre it brings heaven into our lives and pushes self interest with all its hellish and devilish influences out, so that we may enter into the living worship of the Lord’s life instead.

So what tasks will you set for yourself in your worship to the Lord?

That which causes the severance is chiefly self-love, and also love of the world, though not so much as self-love does. The reason a person does not know this is that his life is devoid of charity, and when his life is devoid of charity, how can he see that the life of self-love and its desires is so contrary to heavenly love? Also there is within self-love and its desires a kind of flame, and from it a feeling of delight which so affect a person’s life that he can scarcely conceive of eternal happiness consisting of anything else. For this reason also many people suppose that eternal happiness means becoming great following the life of the body and being served by others, even by angels, while they themselves are not willing to serve anybody except for the concealed motive of being served themselves. When at such times they assert that they wish to serve the Lord alone, it is a lie, for people who are ruled by self-love wish that even the Lord should serve them. And to the extent this does not happen they depart, so strong is the desire in their hearts to become lords and rule the entire universe. What kind of government it would be when the majority, or indeed all, are like this, anyone can think out for himself. Would it not be a government like that exercised in hell where everyone loves himself more than anybody else? This is what lies hidden within self-love From this it may become clear what the nature of self-love is, and also from the fact that it conceals within itself hatred of all who do not submit themselves to it as its slaves. And because it conceals hatred, it also conceals forms of revenge, cruelty, deceit, and further unspeakable things.

Mutual love however, which alone is heavenly, consists in not only saying but also acknowledging and believing that one is utterly undeserving, and something worthless and filthy, which the Lord in His infinite mercy is constantly drawing away and holding back from the hell into which the person constantly tries, and indeed longs, to cast himself. He acknowledges and believes this because it is the truth. Not that the Lord or any angel wishes him to acknowledge and believe it just to gain his submission, but to prevent his vaunting himself when he is in fact such. This would be like excrement calling itself pure gold, or a dung-fly a bird of paradise. To the extent therefore that a person acknowledges and believes that he really is what he in fact is, he departs from self-love and its desires, and loathes himself. To the extent that this happens he receives from the Lord heavenly love, that is, mutual love, which is willing to serve all. These are the people meant by the least who become the greatest in the Lord’s kingdom, Matt. 20:26-28; Luke 9:46-48.

These considerations show what it is that severs the external man from the internal – chiefly self- love. And the chief thing that unites the external man to the internal is mutual love, which is in no way attainable until self-love departs, for they are complete opposites. The internal man is nothing else than mutual love. The human spirit itself, or soul, is the interior man which lives after death. It is organic, for it is joined to the body so long as the person lives in the world. This interior man – that is, his soul or spirit – is not the internal man, but the internal man is within the interior when the latter has mutual love within it. The things that belong to the internal man are the Lord’s, so that one may say that the internal man is the Lord. Yet because the Lord grants an angel or man, so long as his life has mutual love in it, a heavenly proprium so that he has no idea but that he does good from himself, an internal man is therefore attributed to a person as though it were his own. The person in whom mutual love dwells however acknowledges and believes that everything good and true is not his own but the Lord’s He acknowledges and believes that his ability to love another as himself- and if he is like the angels, more than himself- is a gift from the Lord and that he ceases to enjoy that gift and its happiness to the extent he departs from acknowledging that it is the Lord’s (Arcana Coelestia 1594{3-5})

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it has been written in the Prophets, “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You; the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” John came baptising in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for remission of sins… (Mark 1:1-4)

Then the Devil takes Him (Jesus) to the holy city, and he set Him on the wing of the temple. And he said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it has been written: “He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and they shall bear You on their hands, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, Again it has been written: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” (Matthew 4:5-7)

And after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, The time has been fulfilled, and the kingdom of God draws near. Repent and believe in the gospel. (Mark 1:14-15)

Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, If one is not generated out of water and Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God. That having been generated out of the flesh is flesh, and that having been generated out of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:5-6)

We should have it clear in our minds now that these temptations of Jesus by the Devil represent the essential nature of all the kinds of temptation a person can possibly undergo in their journey to make the Word a more central part of their life. If we are to apply the Text to our own lives then we need to see what each aspect in it represents in the inner world of our affections and thoughts. When we see this, then we can begin to work to have the inside of the cup, that is the motives and thoughts of our hearts, cleaned as the Lord commands. It’s important to ensure that our external life is in order, but it is even more important to ensure that the motives and thoughts that underlie our external activity are also being worked with. There are two levels of repentance illustrated in the Gospels, the first is captured in the baptism of John which is a baptism of repentance. This has to do with getting our externals in order, and so the Gospel tells us that John preached a baptism of repentance. Jesus too, we are told preached repentance, but with a difference, for where John preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus we are told preached repentance for the kingdom of God was near.

How easy it is for us to pass over such differences as insignificant. We need to remind ourselves that ever dot and tittle of the law or Word is significant and vitally important to our eternal spiritual well being. For were we to think that the messages that John and Jesus preached were the same then we might fall into thinking that an ordered external life, a life of Church going, of good works, of compliance with moral, civil and social expectations is enough and all that is required as to the spiritual life. But compliance with the things of the exteriors is not necessarily compliance with the interior spiritual life. The good and the evil can live very similar external lives, the difference lies not in the external behaviour but in the motives that underlie the behaviour. Unless the inside of the cup is attended to, all that is done externally is but ashes and dust.

Jesus himself declared that the kingdom of heaven is within you. And so when He says that we are to repent for the kingdom of God is near, He is saying that the kingdom or rule of Godly principles for our life is only a response away. To repent means to turn from habitual ways and modes of being and to allow the Word to govern our inner attitudes and thoughts. It’s a word that expresses the need for action, for change. When we respond to the Word in acknowledging when our attitudes are not of a spiritual or heavenly quality, and at the same time look to the Lord, through resisting our tendencies to react unthinkingly from what is lower within us, He can then make available new affections that have the spiritual wellbeing of all as their chief concern. The kingdom of God is in us when we are grounded in a genuine love for the Lord’s Word. This is what heaven is, it is love to the Lord and love to our neighbour. No other states of life exist there, and so when these loves rule in our life, the kingdom of God is not only then near, but has come in the power and glory of heaven.

So the Word’s message is two fold in regard to repentance. It’s more external sense is like John’s message and instructs us concerning how we are to regulate our behaviour in the external world. Don’t lie, or cheat, or steal, do good, love others etc. Do all things that are to be done and are important for maintaining a well ordered moral and civil society. So for those who first hear the Word, the challenge is to change how they behave, to work to align their behaviour with their new found understanding of truths from the literal sense of the Word. But the Word doesn’t just address external behaviour, it seeks to address our inner attitudes as well and this is the inner message of repentance. This is the message of interior or spiritual truths which is represented by the message of repentance that Jesus preaches. So where John represents the external meaning of the Word directed towards the external life of the natural man, Jesus represents its inner meaning which is instruction for strengthening the inner life of our spiritual man.

Emphasis on external repentance is for the sake of the natural man and it often comes with fairly strong external supports. We can see this in any human community, where there are certain expectations in regard to acceptable behaviour. These external social constraints mould peoples’ external behaviour into what is acceptable to the group. This is as true for a faith community as any other human community, where the constrains of belonging to the group are captured in a demand on its members to act in a certain way. Internal applications of repentance don’t have these external pressures to conform, and so its practise is from an inner motivation, and as such it is a truly free act on the part of a person’s will and it is this that makes it spiritual. No person or external conditions can get us to reflect on our motives or thought life. This is purely something between the Lord and the individual and it is this level that the inner meaning of the Word is directed. This is where the kingdom of heaven has to rule if we are to experience heavenly states of life. Jesus said that if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven we need to be born of both water and of the spirit.

The terms water and spirit, like the terms John and Jesus, both refer to these levels in the Word. Water and spirit are both described in the Word as cleansing agents, and so refer to the Word’s cleansing function on the human mind and life. We can see this from John’s own statement in regard to the Lord when he said in Luke 3:16…

John answered all, saying, I indeed baptise you with water; but He stronger than I comes, of whom I am not fit to loosen the thong of His sandals. He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit and fire

All baptisms are cleansings, and spiritual cleansing takes place by means of the Word as we bath our minds in its truths. First in a more external way as we take the Word and look to clean up our external life, speech and behaviour, this is using natural truths of the Word as water. But to be baptised in the Holy Spirit and fire is a more internal cleansing by the spirit of truth and refers to the application of spiritual truths with a view to having our inner life cleansed.

So let’s now return to our text for today and draw out its application in regard to our inner life…

Then the Devil takes Him to the holy city, and he set Him on the wing of the temple. And he said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it has been written: “He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and they shall bear You on their hands, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, Again it has been written: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

The Devil manifests within our minds as desires that flow from the love of self and the world, he is everything in us that is grounded in selfishness or self interest. The Lord on the other hand is everything in us that is grounded in a genuine concern for the spiritual wellbeing of others, which flows from a love for his Word. So, given that we have both the Word of the Lord and the Devil or self interest within the natural level of our minds, we are open to the experience of temptation, for temptation is the experience of an inner conflict between the false ideas and perspectives of our self interest and the true ideas and perspectives the Lord offers us through His Word. This is a battle we are constantly engaged with if we are committed to the inner spiritual life. The Scripture presents the dynamics of this inner conflict through the Lord’s life as a conversation, a toing and froing of words between Himself, as a representation of the activity of truth in our minds and the Devil, as a representation of those desires that give rise to false ideas.

All speech is a product of thought and so corresponds to it. So where we see conversations going on in the Word we are being presented with something to do with our own thought processes. We read then that, the Devil takes Him to the holy city, and set Him on the wing or pinnacle of the temple. What’s going on here? Well the Devil is self interest and what this is saying spiritually is that there is a tendency in us all for self interest to take hold of the Word or its truths and exalt them by placing them on the highest point of the temple. Now the temple is God’s dwelling place, and as such must represent the human mind or spirit for this is the true dwelling place of the Lord. When self interest takes hold of truth it seeks to use it for its own ends, so what is being described here is our struggle against a tendency to use the Lord’s Word or truth to promote ourselves over others.

When self interest takes truth and lifts it up, it does so from evil motives. It’s a condition that manifests as a kind of hardness towards those we see as different to us. Often it comes to the fore as high-mindedness, arrogance, and self-righteousness clothed in religious or spiritual garments. Such attitudes are a short step away from a dangerous form of hypocrisy that we need to guard our spirits against. Inherent in this tendency is a complete disregard for, or wilful blindness to the fact that spiritual teachings point out that such attitudes have no place in the kingdom of heaven. The temptation to cast himself down can be seen being played out on a large scale today in the clash of major religious fundamentalist ideologies, where all kinds of atrocities can and are and have been justified in the name of God.

The temptation is to take truths, If you are the Son of God and use them to build a case for promoting ones own interests, which is what is captured in the words, throw yourself down. This is a temptation to bring down truths to serve self, which is justified in the mistaken belief that because the name of God has be evoked to justify ungodly actions, this somehow makes them okay in God’s sight, that, He shall give his angels charge over you, and they shall bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Such is the reasoning of self interest or the Devil in its handling of spiritual truths, whatever the religious persuasion.

While it is easy to see this kind of behaviour in events on the world stage, it is not so easy to see that its seeds lie within all our hearts, that the condition is not exclusive but is rather a general human condition. We all have these tendencies within our unregenerate nature. What the external events should do is motivate us to find the root causes within ourselves. The larger scale can serve us as a mirror for the smaller scale of our own lives, a harsh word, engaging in gossip, holding grudges, freezing people out, all work to bring hardship into the lives of others. What we fail to see is that, while such behaviour may affect the person at whom it is directed, it actually has a destructive impact on our own spiritual welfare. We can’t engage in such behaviour on the one hand and welcome the kingdom of God into our lives on the other, for the two are incompatible. To try and do so is what it means to tempt the Lord God. Once we take truths into our lives we are given a responsibility to examine our own lives in their light, seeking out those inner attitudes that cause us to use them to judge others and justify our negative behaviours.

And he said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it has been written: “He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and they shall bear You on their hands, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, Again it has been written: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”

Temptations lead to confirmation of true beliefs, implanting them, and making them voluntary, so that they become the good qualities related to love for others. For a person uses true beliefs to fight against bad inclinations and misconceptions, and his mind is aligned with truths, so when he wins, he is confirmed in them and implants them. And the bad inclinations and misconceptions he has confronted, these he regards as the enemy, and he rejects them. Temptations also subdue self-indulgent impulses that come from self interest and worldliness, and they make someone humble. This makes him able to accept heavenly life from the Lord, which is new life, the life of a regenerated person. (Arcana Coelestia 8966. by Emanuel Swedenborg)

Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit, to be tempted by the Devil. And having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He hungered. And coming near to Him, the Tempter said, If You are the Son of God, speak that these stones may become bread. But answering, He said, It has been written: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every Word going out of the mouth of God.” Then the Devil takes Him to the holy city, and he set Him on the wing of the temple. And he said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it has been written: “He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and they shall bear You on their hands, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, “Again it has been written: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Again the Devil takes Him to a very high mountain, and shows to Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “I will give all these things to You if falling down, You will worship me”. Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it has been written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve Him only.'” Then the Devil left Him. And behold! Angels came near and ministered to Him. (Matthew 4:1-11)

Last time we looked at the importance of the idea that God, as He is in Himself, cannot be subject to temptation…

Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God is not tempted by evil, and He tempts no one. (James 1:13)

It is inconceivable that there could be anything in God to which the Devil could appeal so as to tempt Him. This then presents a question that needs addressing: for if we hold to the truth that Jesus Christ is God, then how are we to understand what it says here, where clearly the literal sense of the Word speaks of Him being tempted? If we conclude that God can be tempted, then we attribute to Him the finite limitations, frailties and weaknesses common to ordinary human beings. He effectively ceases to be God; for by definition, God as He is in Himself has nothing in common with creation—He is infinite, wholly other.

Spiritual Christianity teaches that God, as He is in Himself is above the comprehension even of the highest angels. No finite being can conceive of anything of the Divine Being as He is in Himself; He is beyond the mental grasp of every human and angelic intellect and so is unapproachable in this respect. But of course, the Divine Love desires to give all that it has to another, and as this Love is received within the limited capacity of finite minds, it becomes clothed with finite qualities. We see this throughout the Word.

In the Old Testament, the One Divine Being presents Himself to the Israelites on mountains, in pillars of cloud and fire, and between the wings of the cherubim that cover the mercy seat in the tabernacle. He is described as riding upon the wings of the wind and bowing the heavens to come down, as if He travels through space and time. We also see God appear as a man and angel before Abraham and Jacob, and in a burning bush to Moses. These are natural ideas, ideas that describe God in finite terms. Yet we know that God possesses nothing of what is finite within Himself, for imperfection, limitation and finite attributes belong to creation, not to the Creator.

So we see that the Word clothes the Divine in finite ideas—which are the only kind of ideas that we can grasp with our limited, finite minds. In doing this, the Word presents the means by which we can build up some idea of God, albeit very limited, giving us something that we can approach. Each person takes those ideas that are compatible with their state or attitude to spiritual things. This is why different people draw different ideas of God from the same Text, and why the same person experiences different ways of reading the Text at different times in their life. Such differences don’t lie in God as He is in Himself, nor are they found in the Word; they are constructed in accordance with the state of the affections and beliefs of the receiving mind.

A person who comes to the Word confirmed in their unbelief will find nothing in it to change their mind; in fact, their experience will most likely confirm their preconceptions. Another person who comes to the Text looking for a God who will support hard, judgmental attitudes tied to a sense of moral or racial superiority will find all they need in the literal sense to support that view, giving expression to religious fundamentalism. One who wants a God to support their pursuit of wealth and power will find plenty to justify a materialistic prosperity gospel. Yet another coming to the Word seeking to become more loving and understanding will be led to see that God is nothing but mercy, compassion, and love.

And while we have been speaking of these different attitudes as different people, we must also remember that all these varied approaches exist within an individual as varying states of mind, according to our moment-to-moment reception of the inflowing Divine life. Those states of mind that seek a God in their own image will find one; those that seek to be recreated in the image and likeness of Divine Love and Wisdom will be led into a fuller, more genuine sense of the true, loving nature of God.

Natural reasoning regarding spiritual and Divine things of the Word leads to projecting finite attributes onto the Lord as He is in Himself. This is something that a spiritual understanding of the Word helps us avoid. Spiritual Christianity teaches that the Word’s clothing of God in finite attributes is an appearance of truth which appeals to the sensual or natural thinking our minds are locked into before our spiritual faculties are opened. The need to present things in this way is seen in Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus in the Gospel of John. Here Jesus uses imagery related to the natural birth of a human being to describe the spiritual process of regeneration by saying that a man must be born again. Nicodemus struggles to get a sense of what He is saying to him and in the end Jesus makes this telling statement, which applies to every person seeking truth…

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (John 3:12)

The way Truth initially presents itself in its literal reading is in the form of a story filled with imagery drawn from natural human experiences of life in the natural world. This provides relatable material that aligns with our natural ideas and affections from which a rudimentary natural idea of God can be formed. If we are willing to take this and make changes in our life, the Lord leads us into a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the Word. But this progression only occurs as a person looks to the Word to examine their patterns of thinking and feeling in the light of its truths. As they begin to use the Word to see the things in themselves that are opposed to the kingdom of heaven, their understanding of the Word opens and transforms. Its stories describe their own inner processes and offer what is needed to navigate their spiritual life.

The Divine Life is presented in the Gospels in the person of Jesus Christ, and just as we dealt with the finite terms attributed to God in the Old Testament, the same principle must be applied to the New Testament. In other words, what we have presented in the person of Jesus Christ is a finite representation of the One and only God, the Divine Being, the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists. In the person of Jesus Christ, we have God presented in a form that we can grasp with our minds and so approach and love. This must be the case, because we know that God as He is in Himself cannot be limited by finite attributes otherwise He wouldn’t be God. If we don’t see this, then, when we read the Scriptures we end up either attributing human frailty and weakness to God or rejecting God in Jesus Christ altogether.

Jesus said that no one comes to the Father except through Him—that He is the only way to the Father. Essentially, what He is saying is that without a finite representation of the Father (which He is, as He Himself alluded to when He said, “I and my Father are One”), we have no way of connecting with God. This is why the Word states that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved.

Through holding to the idea that the life of Jesus is a representation of the operation of Divine Love and Wisdom in the human mind, we avoid thinking sensually about the Divine and can see that the presentation of God being tempted in the person of Jesus Christ is an appearance of truth. God is not able to be tempted; but what is constantly being tempted or tried is our finite understanding of God—which is, the Lord within us.

We all carry an idea of God, of truth. If we are serious about spiritual life and are making an effort to live from spiritual principles and teachings, then we will see that life constantly challenges our commitment to live from such principles rather than self-interest. It is in these challenges that we discover what temptation, spiritually understood, is really all about. The purpose of temptation is a very positive thing from a spiritual perspective, as it is a process designed to strengthen our commitment to live from spiritual principles as the basis for our life.

The spiritual principles or truths that we have acquired from the Word are actually the Lord with us. No finite being has or can ever have a perfect understanding of truth, because the perspectives that we carry are constantly influenced by self-love and self-interest. It is this self-love that tries or tempts the truths in our minds. These truths or spiritual principles are not from us; they are from the Lord, and so are the Lord with us. The challenges that arise from the love of self, which seeks to undermine them, are what is understood in Spiritual Christianity as the Devil tempting Jesus in the wilderness. So with this in mind, let us look at the first of these temptations…

And coming near to Him, the Tempter said, If You are the Son of God, speak that these stones may become bread. But answering, He said, It has been written: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every Word going out of the mouth of God.”

This first temptation offered by the Tempter, by the self-absorbed sense of self or proprium, appeals to a state of hunger. Hunger, spiritually speaking, is a state in which there is a felt recognition of something lacking and a desire to fill that space. The temptation offered by this self-loving proprium is to rely on our habitual ways of understanding the world to feed this hunger, rather than relying on the Word. If we reflect on our inner processes, we see that this temptation confronts us every day as we try to live from spiritual principles. Whenever we drift from those principles, we gravitate back into old habits of being that give ground to the Tempter.

The temptation begins with the command to speak: speak that these stones may become bread. To speak is to give expression to thought, and it is the process by which an inner belief is activated and assigned power.

Stones in the Word symbolise hard, objective facts or literal truths stored in the memory. In a positive sense, stone can represent the permanent nature of universal truths, like the Ten Commandments written on tablets of stone. Conversely, people being ‘stoned to death’ represents the destructive impact of false ideas on our lives. False perspectives can beat us down spiritually with negative self-talk, false guilt, and self-incrimination, doing as much damage to the spirit as a barrage of stones inflicts on the body.

In this passage, the stones represent false ideas because it is the Tempter, the proprium based in self-love, that is offering them. The “facts” and “truths” of this sense of self are the conclusions drawn from sensual thinking, which directly contradict the core spiritual teaching that all life flows in from the Lord. Instead, the natural mind lives and acts from the belief that it is an independent, autonomous agent and the source of its own life. It sees no need to examine its feelings and thoughts in the light of what the Word teaches, nor any need for shunning thoughts that counter the kingdom of heaven. It feels good and fed when these false beliefs—these false stones—are lived from and given expression in speech and action.

So this is a process in which the native sense of self attempts to make what is false (the stones) appear good, using it as bread to nourish and satisfy our hunger for connection with the Lord. Except, in the place of the Lord, the ‘self’ is made the God that we worship and connect with.

Jesus’s response, as the Word, embodies the only defense available to us:

…It has been written: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every Word going out of the mouth of God.”

Our ability to resist the thoughts and rationalisations that flow from self-love comes entirely from the Word. Without spiritual principles, we are left only with self-intelligence—which will always lead us in a self-endorsing loop of ownership, accusation, self-righteousness, and justification, before returning to guilt and condemnation again. True spiritual life (what is genuinely human within us) is only sustained and fed when our natural, default way of thinking and feeling is brought under the authority of the Word.

This inner dynamic between our self-intelligence and the Word is precisely the conflict between our rational and natural minds described in the doctrines of Spiritual Christianity:

But one is scarcely able to describe these matters to the ordinary mind because the majority do not know that every person possesses an internal, a rational, and a natural, and that these three are quite distinct and separate from one another, so distinct in fact that one can be at variance with another. That is to say, the rational, which is called the rational man, can be at variance with the natural, which is the natural man; indeed the rational man is able to see and perceive evil that is in the natural, and if it is a genuine rational, is able to correct it, see 1904. Before these two have been joined together man is unable to be whole or to experience the serenity of peace, since the one is in conflict with the other. For the angels present with a person govern his rational, while the evil spirits present with him govern his natural — and this gives rise to conflict.

If in this conflict the rational prevails, the natural is placed in subjection, and the man is thus endowed with conscience; but if the natural prevails, he is not able to receive any conscience at all. If the rational prevails, his natural becomes as though it too was rational; but if the natural prevails, the rational becomes as though it too was natural. In addition, if the rational prevails, angels draw nearer to that person, implanting within him charity, a celestial quality which comes through the angels from the Lord; and at the same time the evil spirits move some distance away from him. But if the natural prevails, the angels move further away, that is, more towards his interiors, and the evil spirits draw nearer to the rational, constantly attack it, and fill the lower parts of his mind with forms of hatred, revenge, deceit, and the like. If the rational prevails, the man enters into the serenity of peace, and in the next life into the peace of heaven; but if the natural prevails, though during his lifetime he seems to experience serenity, he enters in the next life into the unrest and torment of hell.

From these considerations one may know the nature of a person’s state so far as his rational and so far as his natural are concerned. There is nothing else that can bring him blessing and happiness except the conformity of his natural to the rational when both are joined together. This is achieved solely by means of charity; and charity originates wholly in the Lord.

(Arcana Coelestia 2183 {2-4})

Disclaimer: Audio is AI generated.

Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit, to be tempted by the Devil. And having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He hungered. And coming near to Him, the Tempter said, If You are the Son of God, speak that these stones may become loaves. But answering, He said, It has been written: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but on every Word going out of the mouth of God.” Then the Devil takes Him to the holy city, and he set Him on the wing of the temple. And he said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it has been written: “He shall give His angels charge concerning You, and they shall bear You on their hands, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.” Jesus said to him, Again it has been written: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” Again the Devil takes Him to a very high mountain, and shows to Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him. I will give all these things to You if falling down, You will worship me. Then Jesus said to him, Go, Satan! For it has been written: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve Him only.” Then the Devil left Him. And behold! Angels came near and ministered to Him. (Matthew 4:1-11)

Blessed is the man who endures temptation, because having been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to the ones loving Him. Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God is not tempted by evil, and He tempts no one. (James 1:12-13)

In this four-part series we are going to look at the Lord’s temptations in the wilderness by the devil, just after He was baptised by John in the Jordan. This can be found in the fourth chapter of Matthews’s Gospel. You will have noticed that the temptations are conveyed as a set of three. The first temptation the devil incites is for Jesus to make stones into bread, the second is a temptation to cast Himself down from the height of the temple to see if God would undertake to preserve Him and the third is an offer of power and glory if He would worship the devil.

These three temptations actually describe the nature of every form of temptation that a person can experience, so they are serve as a general overview of the kinds of forces that come against us when we seek to live a life guided and directed by spiritual principles. With this in mind, we will look at these temptations as descriptions of our own internal process so that we can better understand how the Lord, as Truth from the Word in our minds, is tried and tested as our sense of self becomes more grounded in heavenly or genuine spiritual things through the removal of our attachments to the loves of self and the world.

It’s important that we don’t take these accounts too literally or we will miss how they apply to our lives. The apostle James declares that God cannot be tempted by evil. But if Jesus is God, we can reasonably ask why the Gospel speaks as if God is able to be tempted by evil or the devil at all. It’s hard to imagine how the one God of heaven and earth- who is Goodness and Truth itself, in whom there is nothing of evil or falsity – could ever hold within Himself any desire to which the devil could appeal. How then are we to understand what is described here? How is it that Jesus who is God can be tempted?

Well, God as He is in Himself cannot be tempted. This is captured in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity which state that the Divine Good and the Divine Truth is above being tempted. But what can be subject to temptation is the Lord as He is found within the limitations of a finite human mind. So what we have described in the Gospels in historical language is how God continues to take on the frailties of a finite human mind and it is in this state of life that He can be tempted. Leaving the historical elements behind, I want us to focus on what is captured symbolically or representatively within them so that we can see what this all means for us now, in the present. The Lord becomes incarnated in a finite human form every time He enters into us and it is on this level that the story of His temptations are to be understood.

To do this we have to set aside ideas of space, time and person as much as possible and enter into a more spiritually orientated view. This means that rather than thinking of Jesus and the Devil merely as historical figures in a physical confrontation in the wilderness, we begin to see them as an embodiment or representations of opposing spiritual realities that exist in all of us. This kind of approach to Scripture is what is meant by Spiritual Christianity. The Devil in this sense is not to be thought of as some person-like entity, but is to be seen as a personification of our own ego or proprium when it finds its delight in the love of self, which manifests in all our tendencies to selfishness that look to dominate and manipulate others. The term Satan on the other hand, represents that strongly felt dynamic which in religious terms is called the love of the world. This is our tendency to define things and people materially or as objects to be owned and possessed.

What then do we have in the figure of Jesus? Jesus in the Gospels is the personification of the Lord’s desire for the salvation of the human race as it is able to be perceived by us on the natural plane of existence. He represents the operation of Divine truths or spiritual principles which are subject to the limitations of human weakness and frailty. This human weakness and frailty is not found in the Lord Himself but in the minds of all those He is looking to save, which is of course everyone. We are the ones who put limits on the Lord’s ability to bring about our emotional, psychological and spiritual healing. And because it goes against the nature of love to force itself on anyone, He allows His love and wisdom to take on whatever limitations are necessary within us to leave open the possibility of drawing us into a more meaningful relationship with Himself as the source of all that is good and loving. What the Lord is constantly seeking to do is save us, which from the perspective of Spiritual Christianity is to remove the hell of our selfishness out of us so that heaven might flow in from within.

So let’s look at this passage of Scripture and see how truths operate within us in the battle for the salvation of our souls, or our deliverance from the tyranny of self-centred living.

Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit, to be tempted by the Devil. And having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He hungered. (Matthew 4:1-2)

The most important truths we can take from this statement are the ideas that firstly, all genuine spiritual temptations are directed at the Lord or what is of the Lord in a person. And secondly, it is the Lord Himself who battles against the evils of self love in our defence. It often feels like the struggle to see good overcome evil and truth to overcome what is false in our life is something we are doing from ourselves, but it is critical from the standpoint of our spiritual well-being that we recognise that this is an appearance given to maintain our sense of autonomy, freedom and independence. The reality is that it is not us at all that does this but it is the truths that we have taken into our lives which give us this ability, and these truths from the Word are actually the Lord with us. This acknowledgement is very important as it helps us to keep a healthy dependency on the Lord and holds off any tendency to fall into thinking we are self sufficient in spiritual matters. All states of life that lead to positive results as far as our spiritual growth and development are concerned are governed by the Lord in us through the truths we have taken into our life.

This Scripture is written in such a way as to reflect this, by saying that the Lord undergoes temptation, despite the fact that God cannot be tempted. Jesus then is said to be led into the wilderness by the Spirit. Internally, it is Jesus as He exists within us that is being led by the Spirit. We can see then, that what takes the leading role in guiding and directing this Jesus, that is, in guiding and directing the the Lord’s desire for our salvation, is the Spirit. What, we may ask, is this Spirit? In the Gospel we learn it is the spirit of truth. There is a tendency to think of the Spirit as something intangible, vague, vapourish or ethereal but the teachings of Spiritual Christianity show it is anything but. These teachings define the spirit as truth, that is as spiritual ideas, concepts or principles that can lead and guide us in life. This is an extremely useful way of viewing the Spirit in this text, as something which directs us to the Word, which is where these truths and spiritual principles can be found. For truths make up the spirit or breath of life for the Church within each of us. It isn’t something mystical or intangible at all, it’s right here in the Word. To be led by the Spirit is to be led by the spiritual principles of the Word and it is these principles, as they are taken into our lives, that lead and guide the operation of the Lord’s desire for our salvation within us. Or if you like what leads the Lord’s desire for our salvation, Jesus, is the Spiritor truths or those spiritual principles we are working to make a more integrated part of our lives.

This desire for our salvation, or Jesus, the name literally means Jehovah Saviour, is said to be led up into the wilderness. The use of the word up in the original Greek alludes to the fact that all temptations that arise as a direct result of being in the effort to live a spiritual life, despite how things may appear or feel, are designed to lift us into a closer union with heavenly influences through breaking our attachments to the lower sensual and bodily delights of the natural man. Truths or spiritual principles are living things and so are in a constant kind of movement, urging us on through various states of life which the Lord organises and directs for our spiritual well being. One kind of state that is often described in Scripture is that of a wilderness state. This is a state in which temptations and struggles in the spiritual life take place. Indeed without a sense of being in a wilderness state there is little chance that a person is undergoing temptation. The two ideas, temptation and wilderness are very closely linked in the Word.

Being in a wilderness state arises when we are learning truths and are trying to apply them by using them to recognise the affections, thoughts, and behaviours in our life that support state of selfishness, and so undermines what is truly spiritual. The main idea associated with this word wilderness as it occurs in the Greek is that of feeling alone. In such a state we can feel very much on our own in the struggle. It is a desert state or one of feeling deserted – abandoned. It may feel that we are not making any progress and this can lead to discouragement. It’s the struggle that comes from seeing ourselves as we are and at the same time seeing where we feel we should be spiritually. This creates a hunger within us for the promise of something better, a desire to realise our spiritual potential. When we make an effort to give up our attachments to those which things we know are detrimental to achieving real spiritual goals and fulfilling our spiritual aspirations, we are in a state of spiritual fasting or hunger.

Spiritual fasting involves abstaining from things in our life that shuts out angelic qualities being expressed through us. For example, maybe you’re aware of some pattern of thinking that commonly leads you into negative states which are directed towards yourself or others. When you look to the Lord to find the ability to resist such things from dominating your life and make sincere efforts to work against their influence, you are spiritually fasting. You are fasting because you are no longer allowing yourself to mentally feed on the self-centred delights that gratify some lower desire.

But just as fasting from food in the natural leads to hunger, so fasting from selfishness in all its forms leads to a growing spiritual hunger, a hunger that looks to be satisfied through finding fulfilment on a higher spiritual level for our life. It comes as a yearning to be freed from the behaviours, patterns of thought and feelings that drag us down or keep us isolated from others. This hunger is really the Lord’s own desire for our spiritual well being or salvation making itself felt in our own experience. This is what is meant in the Scripture by the statement that Jesus was hungry having fasted forty days and forty nights. Part of the process of temptation is to find ourselves feeling discouraged and wondering if the power of those things that seem to rob us of peace and promote anxieties and worries will ever be broken. Our engagement with the Word, its truths, the Lord, opens up our sight and gives us a vision of what might be. Once we have seen this, then we also see that between where we are and what the vision promotes is a wilderness that must be crossed.

The Lord hungers for our good and His hunger will only ever be satisfied with our free response to His call on our life. A call to resist our evils, our tendencies toward self centredness and embody angelic qualities so that we might know heaven. The struggle to do this opens up the way for doubts to enter in and these doubts are represented by the voice of the love of self or in the literal sense of the story the Devil, which is constantly asking us to settle for something less than the Lord has purposed for us. 

What temptations, or the conflicts that constitute temptations, accomplish, scarcely anyone is able to know. They are the means by which evils and falsities are broken up and dispersed. They are also the means by which an abhorrence of these is produced, and a conscience is not only given but also strengthened, and man is accordingly regenerated. This is the reason why those who are being regenerated are led into conflicts and undergo temptations and why those who do not experience them during their earthly life do so in the next life, provided they are such as can be regenerated. And it is for these reasons also that the Lord’s Church is called ‘militant’. The Lord alone however underwent from His own strength or power the most cruel conflicts that constitute temptations, for He was beset by all the hells and constantly overcame them.

[2] It is also the Lord alone who fights in the temptation-conflicts of those who do undergo these. Man by his own power can accomplish nothing in the slightest against evil or hellish spirits, for they are so closely linked to the hells that if one were vanquished another would rush to take his place, and so on for ever. They are like the sea pressing against every part of a dike. If the dike were to develop a split or crack the sea would never cease to pour through and flood the land until nothing was left standing. It would be like this with man if the Lord alone did not bear up against the conflicts experienced by man in temptations. (Arcana Coelestia 1692)

Over the next three parts of this series, we will examine each of the three specific temptations in detail and see how they unfold in our daily lives.