Tennyson's representation of King Arthur, and the difference is clear. King Arthur's character becomes tiresomely wooden and mechanical; we love the rhythm of the poetry but are wearied by the manufactured perfection of the King. But in the Jesus of the gospels we have moral reality, which is impossible without struggle. If in the end the total impression of his life is one of amazing confidence and peace, it is not the peace of an unruffled pond where no wind blows; but the peace of a planet's orbit where two antagonistic forces have played their parts.

When we seek to understand the nature of the Master's temptation we must turn from the analogy of our experience and the testimony of the disciples to the self-revelation of Jesus. Surely we have his own account of his inward struggle in the story of the temptation in the wilderness. The record of that trial never could have been known unless he had told it. The Master in his account of the three-fold solicitation of the Evil One is dramatizing, in vivid form, after the familiar manner of Ezekiel and Jeremiah, an intense, inward, spiritual struggle. "These are the typical temptations," he seems to say, "which have assailed me, and with which my soul particularly battled when at the beginning I fought out the principles of my ministry in the solitude of the wilderness." Just as the Sermon on the Mount is a sample of the kind of preaching that Jesus continually was doing, so the temptation in the desert is a sample of the kind of moral trial he continually was enduring. If, then, we have here his own account of his temptations, with what eagerness must we turn to study the nature of them!

One element is common to these three typical temptations of the Master: they are all concerned with the use of his unusual power. He had just been baptized. It was one of the crises of his life. His acceptance of the Messiahship, his new consciousness of mastery, his overwhelming sense of divine mission, made it a profound and stirring moment. And, as though the trial of power had a vital connection with the baptism of power, Mark says that "straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilderness to be tempted." All his temptations were struggles not to misuse his power. The problem of the Master was a problem in self-restraint.

How clear is the spiritual struggle which is pictured by

the first temptation, "Command that these stones become bread!" (Matt. 4:1-4). The Master was tempted to use his power selfishly. Consider the powers which were in the Master's possession; think of that ability to inspire devotion, which awakened the envy of Napoleon; measure the actual effect of his personal impact on the world, "lifting empires off their hinges and turning the stream of centuries out of its channel"; and then weigh the meaning of the temptation to use such power selfishly. To be entrusted with billions, and to spend none of it upon yourself, consider the significance of that! The marvel of Christ's character lies not alone in what he did, but in what he refrained from doing. His reserved and utterly unselfish use of his personal endowments; his refusal to turn the hard stones of his experience into the bread of self-satisfaction although he was hungry and was able to work the change, this is our Lord's unexampled masterpiece in the realm of character. He tells us that it cost a hard struggle. He won the battle so completely that we never would have supposed he even was tempted to live a selfish life, unless he had informed us. Now we cannot doubt that all his life, until at the trial he craved not the hard stones of rejection and death but the comfortable bread of release and rest, he was inwardly resisting the desire to use his power for himself. When we imagine what we would have done, had we possessed his endowments; what, indeed, we are doing now, with the endowments that we do possess; we must feel the wonder of the Master's victory over this first great temptation.

The meaning of the second trial in our Lord's life is equally clear. He was tempted to cast himself down from the temple's pinnacle and to expect God to keep him from any harm (Matt. 4:5-7). Translated into the terms of daily life the significance of this is easily perceived. "I was tempted," Jesus says, "presumptuously to demand that God suspend his divine laws to protect me from suffering."

To undertake the work of saviorhood in a wicked world is always like casting oneself down from a height; it involves suffering and death. But the Master, with his perfect trust in God's illimitable love, with his consciousness that he had been sent by God on a divine mission, was tempted to demand that "angels should bear him up in their hands lest he dash his foot against a stone," that is, to expect immunity from the inevitable consequences of savior

hood. That immunity never came. Not a law of ordinary penalty for great love in an evil world was ever suspended to protect him. He had to drink the cup to its dregs. His life was dashed against the stones.

Unless the Master himself had told us of this temptation, we might not have suspected its presence in his heart. He paid the price of saviorhood so gladly and fully, he accepted ingratitude and persecution so uncomplainingly, he went to Calvary so fearlessly, that we cannot see from the outside this inward temptation to expect exemption from suffering. But now that he tells us plainly of his struggle, we can feel its presence throughout his life. When Peter suggests that he must not suffer, Jesus feels the pull of the old trial and calls the suggestion Satanic. In Gethsemane he is tempted imperiously to require God to exempt him from the cross. Why must he, the well-beloved Son of God, endure that shame? The agony of that final dealing with his old temptation brings blood to his brow, before he conquers it at last, and says, Thy will, not mine be done (Luke 22:39-46). When we consider the way we resent the necessity of suffering, even when it comes as the consequence of our own sin, or as part of the ordinary course of human life; when we think further of our unwillingness to endure the suffering that comes from avoidable sacrifice for others, we can understand a little the Master's struggle. But before his victory over it, before his full acceptance of his work of saviorhood with all its consequences, we must stand in inexpressible wonder.

The third typical temptation of the Master is suited only to the powers of a supremely great personality. "I was shown all the kingdoms of the world," says Jesus, "and was offered them, if I would adopt Satanic means to get them I was tempted to substitute a temporal kingdom for an · internal, spiritual empire” (Matt. 4:8-10).

We have no abilities to which such a temptation could appeal. We can grasp it only in imagination. But if we can think of ourselves as possessing such endowments as belonged to our Lord, to which Christendom today bears impressive witness, we can guess something of the force of this temptation. The Messianic expectations of his people cried to him for a Kingdom, of righteousness, to be sure, but external, material, founded, if need be, on force. The people offering him a crown begged him to yield to the solicitations of the tempter (John 6:15). Peter at

Caesarea Philippi rebuked him for resisting longer the opportunity, and during the last week at Jerusalem the aroused and dangerous hopes of the multitude persuaded Caiaphas that Jesus must die or be the center of a revolution (John 11:47-50). That it cost the Master an inward struggle to surrender all thought of earthly empire, we never could have suspected unless he had told us. Even when the crucifixion was the alternative, he resisted the solicitations of the tempter with such absolute finality that were it not for his account of the wilderness experience, we never could guess that he had even thought of an external kingdom.

To be gifted with supernal powers and never to use them selfishly; to be sent on a divine mission and never to expeu God to stop the lions' mouths; to be offered a temporal kingdom and to be crucified for a spiritual one, that was the temptation and triumph of Jesus. He was tempted in all points like as we are, but we never have been tempted as he was. A man would have to be built on Christ's scale to face his moral trials. On the glistening summit where he lived, there were gales in which we never could have stood; they would have blown us off!

TOPICS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION

94

STUDY VIII.

The Master's Fearlessness

DAILY READINGS

First Day, Eighth Week

Matt. 12:9-14. And he departed thence, and went into their synagogue: and behold, a man having a withered hand. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be of you, that shall have one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man of more value than a sheep. Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the sabbath day. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, as the other. But the Pharisees went out, and took counsel against him, how they might destroy him.

Consider how a man who lives up to his best always has to run counter to many of the established customs of his day. Jesus, for example, was living an ideal life in an unideal world, and a clash was inevitable. In today's passage the clash is between his love of men and the customary Sabbath laws. Broaden the application of the truth behind this special disagreement, and consider how certain it is that any man who lives a really Christlike life will have to meet the hostility of many ordinary customs in business, in society, in college. Are you living a life that is on the average plane, doing what everybody else does, drifting with the current, or are you following your best ideals enough so that you definitely clash with some of the unworthy habits in the social life about you? Think over the points of conflict.