4
THE KINGDOMS OF MAN: POWER RELIGION (1)And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve (Luke 4:5-8).
This temptation is the third and final one in Matthew (Matt. 4:9-10). The chronological sequence provided in Matthew's Gospel is more likely than the one in Luke's, because it ends with the culminating desire of man: to rule his own kingdom. Why Luke's Gospel presents a different sequence is a mystery to me.
The theocentric principle here is the worship of God. It is not clear which passage in the Old Covenant that Jesus was paraphrasing. One possibility: "Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name" (Deut. 6:13).(2) It may have been this: "I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me" (Deut. 5:6-7).
The choice here was obvious: the kingdom of God vs. the kingdoms of man. The test involved an assessment of costs and benefits. A present-oriented power-seeker would have picked the kingdoms of man. Jesus did not choose this. We can infer several reasons for this refusal.
Who Owns the Earth? It is obvious that this vision of the kingdoms of man was no earthly vision. The earth is a globe. There is no earthly mountain that allows you to view all of man's kingdoms at one time. This was a representative mountain, the pinnacle of man. It was what the Tower of Babel was meant to be: "And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (Gen. 11:4). This was a place where man would imitate God, viewing his kingdoms.
On what legal basis did Satan make this offer? None. It was a lie. He did not possess either the power or the authority to reward Jesus for worshiping him. He did not possess such power, for he is a creature under God. He did not possess such authority, because he is in rebellion.
Then why is Satan described as the prince of this world (John 12:31; Eph. 2:2)? Because mankind transferred covenantal allegiance to him through Adam. Adam surrendered allegiance to God and substituted allegiance to his own judgment. But in doing so, he merely substituted the worship of Satan for the worship of God. Adam was in a position to choose whose word he would accept: God's or the serpent's. He was never in a position to establish himself as lord of creation. God alone has this authority. To imagine that man possesses it is to substitute foolishness for wisdom. It is to worship power rather than lawful authority. But Satan possesses more power than man. Man will lose this contest. Power religion is Satan's religion. Man cannot come out on top in this religion.
Because God delegated authority to man, Adam possessed the ability to switch his allegiance. In doing so, he came under the dominion of sin. Sin now rules man. Satan and his fallen angels exercise power from time to time, but man's sin is their avenue to power in history. This is why Paul wrote: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace" (Rom. 6:12-14). This describes a spiritual war. It is a spiritual war fought on the battleground of ethics. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph. 6:12).
So, when Satan offered the kingdoms of man to Jesus, he was offering to give to the last Adam (I Cor. 15:45) what the first Adam had surrendered to him. If Jesus had accepted the offer, He would have recapitulated the Fall. This offer was a variation of the serpent's original offer: to render unto Satan what belongs to God. The worship of Satan was implicit in man's acceptance of the truth of the offer, both in the garden and on the mountain. In the name of man's sovereignty, Satan lured Adam into subordination to him. He tried this again with Jesus.
No Other God Jesus' answer was clear: only God may be lawfully worshipped. The kingdoms of man must be formally restored to their previous legal condition: a unified kingdom of God. There is one God, one faith, one baptism (Eph. 4:5). There is therefore only one legitimate kingdom in history. Any man who seeks to exercise sovereignty over all the kingdoms of man is calling for unification of these kingdoms under himself. He has fallen for the old lure, "ye shall be as gods" (Gen. 3:5).
Jesus had come to restore covenantal unity to the kingdoms of man: a unity of confession. He was God's agent in this restoration. His was the kingdom prophesied by Daniel. "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever" (Dan. 2:44). Any man who would challenge the establishment of God's kingdom in history would be wise to heed Daniel's warning to Nebuchadnezzar: "That they shall drive thee from men, and thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will" (Dan. 4:25).
There is no other God. There is no other permanent kingdom. But there are pretender gods. There are pretender kingdoms. Satan was a pretender god offering Jesus pretender kingdoms. Jesus did not accept the offer, for He knew the truth: there is no other God but God. Satan could not deliver on his promise.
The Lure of a Kingdom In a frequently quoted but rarely believed passage, Jesus warned, "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mark 8:36). Men build sand castles and call them kingdoms. These may be large sand castles or more modest ones. But their fate is the same: to be washed away (Matt. 7:25-27).
This warning was not given only to that handful of men in history who believe they are in a position to build a kingdom. It was given to every man who believes that he can construct walls around his life that cannot be penetrated by his enemies. "The rich man's wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit" (Prov. 18:11). The only possessions that are guaranteed to stand the test of time are stored outside of time. "Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Luke 12:33-34).(3)
This temptation has been used again and again in history to lure men to destruction. In the twentieth century, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all sought to build permanent kingdoms, and all failed.(4) The kingdoms of man all suffer the same fate: to be swallowed up by time.
Satan's lure is a powerful one in history. Arrogant men build political kingdoms in confidence. Fearful men build economic kingdoms because they know no other way. The effort in both cases is futile. Economic kingdom-builders are afflicted by a kind of madness. "A man to whom God hath given riches, wealth, and honour, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it: this is vanity, and it is an evil disease" (Eccl. 6:2). The rich man builds up an inheritance for others. He cannot control what his heirs will do with this accumulated wealth.
Wealth, Safety, and Power The first temptation had to do with the creation of wealth. If man can take stones and turn them into bread, he escapes the curse of nature. He returns to the garden of Eden on his own authority, on his own terms. The third temptation in Luke's account offered Jesus life without the risk of pain. Man escapes another curse of nature. If he then rules over all of men's kingdoms, he replaces God. He imposes curses and blessings as a sovereign.
The first temptation offered pure autonomy to Jesus: on His own authority, to turn stones into bread. The third asked Him to acknowledge His physical subordination to God and the angels, but not His ethical subordination: forfeiting His messianic redemptive assignment. The second got to the covenantal point: His worship of Satan. The previous temptation had sought to lure Him away indirectly from the worship of God. This one called Him to break covenant with God openly.
The first temptation involved the sin of magic. The third was ethical: tempting God. This one was political. The others offered to place Jesus outside of nature's constraints. This one offered to place Him outside of history's constraints. All three offered Him below-market costs of living. Food, safety, and power were His for the asking, Satan assured Him. But we are never offered something for nothing, except God's grace. There was an implied exchange: the surrender of Jesus' soul. This exchange is always a bad bargain. The hidden costs are eternal.
Why did Satan believe that Jesus might fall for one of these temptations? Did he believe that Jesus' perfection was vulnerable? He must have. He understood that Jesus was a representative of the race of man. He believed that he had an opportunity to lure Jesus into a recapitulation of the Fall of man: the acceptance of power religion. Satan has great faith in power. These were the lures that tempted him. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (Isa. 14:12-14). This was Isaiah's warning to Babylon (Isa. 13:19). But to warn Babylon, he invoked the imagery of the archetype of all political kingdom-building: Satan's rebellion. I conclude that Satan must view God's exercise of power as power for power's sake, not as extensions of God's character. He is himself blinded ethically by the lure of power. Satan's religion is the power religion.
Conclusion Jesus did not substitute allegiance to Satan for allegiance to God. He understood the fundamental principle of biblical religion: man's covenantal subordination to God. Man is under God (Gen. 1:26-28). He is required to honor God by worshipping Him as the sovereign Creator. Jesus refused to break covenant with God by adopting either magic or empire-building politics, both of which are forms of the power religion. He recognized the hidden costs of the power religion: the loss of one's soul. Power religion publicly offers something for nothing. In fact, it demands something supremely valuable (eternal soul) for something far less valuable (temporary power). Power religion is ultimately a religion of nothing for something. "Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have" (Luke 8:18).(5)
Our priority as covenant-keepers is to affirm the kingdom of God by shunning the kingdoms of man. We must seek to transform man's kingdoms through evangelism. This is not a call to pietistic withdrawal from social involvement. On the contrary, it is a call to worldwide dominion in history -- a dominion guaranteed by Christ for His people.(6)
Footnotes:
1. This adapted from is Chapter 3 of Gary North, Priorities and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Matthew, electronic edition (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 2000), published on the freebooks.com Web site.
2. This is Hendriksen's opinion. William Hendriksen, New Testament Commentary: An Exposition of the Gospel According to Luke (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1978), p. 237.
3. Chapter 25, below.
4. Hitler's promised thousand-year reich lasted from 1933 to 1945. Stalin's kingdom lasted from his access to power 1928 to its collapse under Gorbachev in 1991. Mao's People's Republic of China began in 1949 and still exists in name and as a military force, but his successor, Deng, allowed the peasants of Red China to adopt capitalist ownership in 1979. Private ownership of the means of production spread rapidly through the Chinese economy. So did an economic boom. So has the Christian church.
5. Chapter 15, below.
6. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., He Shall Have Dominion: A Postmillennial Eschatology (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1997).
If you are interested in receiving Dr. North's FREE monthly e-mail newsletter send an e-mail to:
If this book helps you gain a new understanding of the Bible, please consider sending a small donation to the Institute for Christian Economics, P.O. Box 8000, Tyler, TX 75711. You may also want to buy a printed version of this book, if it is still in print. Contact ICE to find out.