TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (Matthew 4:1)

   SHEMA ISRAEL = HEAR,  ISRAEL!

Mathew's scenes shift from the wilderness to the Temple, and finally to a very high mounain, each culminating in Jesus quoting Deuteronomy (8:3; 6:16 and 6:13), all close in content and position to the Shema - the  first word of Deuteronomy 6:4 in Hebrew is used as the name of the verse as a whole ("Hear, O Israel, YHWH is our God, YHWH alone / is one"
The story in Matthew is a logically constructed unit with one organizing idea - the Shema - the demand of Deuteronomy 6:5 to love God with one's whole heart, soul, and might, so that the tripartite division of human faculties is explicated in the three episodes of Jesus' temptation, describing Him as  one who lives in total dedication to the one God of Israel; or the fullness of the mesianic office, which combines :
- a prophetic Messiah (Moses in the wilderness, the prophet per excellence, according to Deut 18;18), 
-  a priestly Messiah (the Temple as center of the priestly office),  and
-  a political Messiah (world dominion offered on the mountain), each episode containing a strong antithesis to popular conceptions of these messianic offices.
A variety of complex motifs coalesce, forming a confessional narrative in which four intentions merge:
First, the title Son of God binds together baptism and temptation;
the baptism of Jesus culminates in his being declared Son of God, the temptation describes the cost of this Sonship.
Second, in the temptation narrative Jesus is presented as the authentic interpreter and doer or God's will in Scriptures.
Third, the dominance of the title Son of God marks the temptation as a christologically and soteriologically oriented narrative.
Finally, factually, and perhaps intentionally, the story implies a radical criticism of popular conception about the eschatological agent of God.
The true Son o God does not abuse his status for self-preservation, he refrains from using his power for protection against death, and he refuses to exercise world dominion in any form other than that bestowed on Him by God in consequence of his death and resurection (Ulrich W. Mauser).

• < Prev
• Next >