Luke 4
The Spirit leads the full-of-the-Spirit Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, where three temptations target the identity declared at the baptism: stones into bread tests the Father's provision, the kingdoms of the world tests the path to the messianic inheritance, and the temple pinnacle tests the reliability of the divine protection. Each temptation is defeated with Deuteronomy — the word of God against the misuse of Scripture. Jesus returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit and delivers the programmatic Nazareth sermon, reading Isaiah 61 and declaring today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. The positive reception turns hostile when two Elijah-Elisha illustrations suggest that the kingdom's grace may reach Gentiles before Israel — the congregation attempts to throw Jesus off a cliff, but he walks through the crowd. Capernaum becomes the new ministry base: in the synagogue an unclean spirit confesses Jesus as the Holy One of God and is expelled; Peter's mother-in-law is healed at evening; at sunset the entire sick population of the city is healed at the door. The chapter closes with Jesus refusing to be confined to Capernaum: I must proclaim the kingdom to the other towns also, for that is why I was sent.
Luke 4:1
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness — full of the Holy Spirit (plērēs pneumatos hagiou) is Luke's characteristic description of those whom the Spirit empowers for ministry. The Spirit that descended at the baptism now leads Jesus into the wilderness — the same Spirit is both the gift at the baptism and the guide into the testing. The wilderness is not where the Spirit abandons Jesus but where the Spirit takes him.
Luke 4:2
Where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry — the forty days of testing echo Israel's forty years, Moses's forty days, and Elijah's forty-day journey. He ate nothing during those days communicates genuine physical privation — the testing occurs in the context of real hunger, real physical weakness. At the end of them he was hungry: the understatement is characteristic of Luke — forty days without food produces genuine, extreme hunger.
Luke 4:3
The devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread — the first temptation targets the baptismal declaration (you are my Son) and the physical need (hunger): if you really are the Son of God, use that status to solve your physical problem. Tell this stone to become bread: the specific stone suggests a stone shaped like a loaf — the visual representation of the need. The temptation is to use the divine identity for self-provision rather than trusting the Father's provision.
Luke 4:4
Jesus answered, it is written: man shall not live on bread alone — Deuteronomy 8:3 is the response: the verse from Israel's wilderness experience addresses the same temptation that Israel faced with the manna. Man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God: the provision of the Father is more fundamental than physical food. Jesus refuses to short-circuit the Father's provision by using divine power for self-service.