Victory
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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.”
Christ’s mission could be fulfilled only through suffering. Before
Him was a life of sorrow, hardship, and conflict, and an ignominious
death. He must bear the sins of the whole world. He must endure
separation from His Father’s love. Now the tempter offered to yield
up the power he had usurped. Christ might deliver Himself from the
dreadful future by acknowledging the supremacy of Satan. But to do
this was to yield the victory in the great controversy. It was in seeking
to exalt himself above the Son of God that Satan had sinned in heaven.
Should he prevail now, it would be the triumph of rebellion.
When Satan declared to Christ, The kingdom and glory of the
world are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it, he
stated what was true only in part, and he declared it to serve his
own purpose of deception. Satan’s dominion was that wrested from
Adam, but Adam was the vicegerent of the Creator. His was not an
independent rule. The earth is God’s, and He has committed all things
to His Son. Adam was to reign subject to Christ. When Adam betrayed
his sovereignty into Satan’s hands, Christ still remained the rightful
King. Thus the Lord had said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “The Most
High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He
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will.”
Daniel 4:17
. Satan can exercise his usurped authority only as
God permits.
When the tempter offered to Christ the kingdom and glory of the
world, he was proposing that Christ should yield up the real kingship
of the world, and hold dominion subject to Satan. This was the same
dominion upon which the hopes of the Jews were set. They desired
the kingdom of this world. If Christ had consented to offer them such
a kingdom, they would gladly have received Him. But the curse of sin,
with all its woe, rested upon it. Christ declared to the tempter, “Get
thee behind Me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.”
By the one who had revolted in heaven the kingdoms of this world
were offered Christ, to buy His homage to the principles of evil; but
He would not be bought; He had come to establish a kingdom of
righteousness, and He would not abandon His purpose. With the same
temptation Satan approaches men, and here he has better success than
with Christ. To men he offers the kingdom of this world on condition