Article March 14, 1931 Issue

Temptation Overcome

CHARLES W. J. TENNANT

"Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." This would be a very difficult passage to comprehend without the light of spiritual understanding which the study of Christian Science enables one to gain. The spirit here mentioned must be the "Spirit of truth" spoken of by Jesus as leading "into all truth." It led Jesus up, which is significant—up to a higher consciousness. This is comprehensible when we understand the meaning of "wilderness" given on page 597 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy: "The vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence." The "Spirit of truth" led Jesus up to the consciousness of the allness of God, Spirit. It seems strange at first sight that in this exalted state he should have been tempted by the devil, but the reason seems clear when we think it out in the light of divine metaphysics.

If one had a closed box in which one knew there was nothing but darkness, the unreality or nothingness of the darkness could be proved only by opening the box in a lighted room. To open a box in a dark room would not prove the unreality of darkness. In the Bible we are taught that evil is darkness. The "devil," which figuratively represents all evil, is referred to as the darkness of error, the opposite of Truth.

The meaning of the word "tempt" in the above passage might well be that given in the Oxford Dictionary for the Latin word temptare, from which it is derived, namely, to handle, test, try. This is precisely what Jesus did. He handled evil (darkness) by exposing it to the light of Truth, which destroyed it there and then.

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