What is Satan offering Christ, the world or the sinful world?

Matthew 4:8 (ESV)

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

In short

When the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, he offers him

all the kingdoms of the world, which remain sinful.

When the devil tempted Jesus, he offered him all the kingdoms of the world and all their glory if he would worship Satan. Does this mean the devil offered Jesus the world or the sinful world?

Jesus came into the world to take the punishment for sins, and offer forgiveness, reconciling humans with God. When the devil tempted Jesus by offering him the world, Jesus had not yet completed his ministry, so sin remained in the world. This means that the only world Satan could offer Jesus was a sinful one. One might object on the grounds that the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, which suggests that the kingdoms do not include sin. It is true that the kingdoms of the world have some glory. That’s because humans are created in the image of God and have the capacity to develop beautiful architecture and systems. Still, the humans who operate in the world are also corrupted with sin and so the glory reflected in the kingdoms of the world might reflect the image of God, but still, these kingdoms are tainted by the corruption of sin.

Some might also wonder how the devil could offer Jesus any kingdom, considering that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity and was with God at the creation of the world. This implies that the kingdoms of the world belong to Jesus already, and the devil has no power to give these away. While it is true that the second person of the Trinity was with God at the creation of the world, the human nature of Jesus was not. Further, we know from Scripture that God has given Satan some freedom to operate in the world. Thus, when Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world, like any human, Jesus was tempted to acquiesce. Instead, he resisted the devil’s schemes becoming the great high priest, the only human to obey God perfectly. Jesus Christ is the God-man, who is crowned with the kingdoms of heaven and earth by the Father, because even he obeyed God perfectly.

Jesus came to remove the sins of the world, and Satan tried to prevent this by offering Jesus the kingdoms before he accomplished his ministry. Since the sinful world was the only world on offer, Satan offered Jesus the sinful world.

Interpretation 1:
Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, not mentioning that the powers of evil are operative.

Summary:

After God left Adam and Eve to tend the garden, we find out that an evil being was operative in the world. He tempted Adam and Eve and they listened, disobeying God. Sin and Satan have had enormous power over the world ever since, and so God sent Jesus Christ to solve the problem of sin. The solution entailed Jesus’ perfect allegiance to God and suffering. In Matthew 4:8, Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world. The offer involves immediate prestige and power. Still, the kingdoms of the world would always remain under the power of sin and Satan, unless Jesus resists the temptation and obeys God’s will.

God is perfect and the source of all good. He has a plan that he accomplishes through righteousness, faithfulness, patience, and mercy. Satan also has a plan, which he accomplishes thought deceit, anger, and violence. While we might be enticed by the immediate reward of following Satan’s plan, we must resist by following the example of Jesus Christ. Jesus disregarded the immediate rewards of sin and instead chose to obey God, which involved suffering. And since God’s plans are perfect, the result is triumphant glory.

Advocates:

Donald Carson
Leon Morris
John Nolland
David Turner
Jakob van Bruggen

Minor differences:

None of our authors makes a distinction between the world and the sinful world. Presumably this is because Jesus at the point of Matthew 4:1–11 had not yet accomplished his ministry, and only his ministry could remove the sin of the world. This means that the only world that Satan could offer Jesus was a sinful one. So the kingdoms are sinful by default.

John Nolland characterizes the kingdoms of the world as the devil’s gift, and antithesis of the kingdoms of heaven as God’s gift.¹ It is not clear where Nolland derives the notion that the kingdoms of heaven are God’s gift. Are the kingdoms of heaven God’s gift to the Messiah or humans? How does Nolland make sense of the fact that after the resurrection, all authority in heaven and earth is given to Jesus (Matthew 28:18)? In any case, for Nolland, like the others, the kingdoms of the world are fraught with sin.

There is one subtle difference between Donald Carson and Leon Morris concerning what might have motivated Jesus to acquiesce to the devil’s temptation. Carson explains that the devil showed Jesus the splendor of the kingdoms, but without showing their sin. Jesus would have known from his baptism (Matthew 3:17) that his ministry was connected with the Davidic kingship and the suffering servant. Thus, the temptation for Jesus would have been to abandon allegiance to the Father to avoid suffering.²

Morris explains things slightly differently. Rather than suggest that Jesus was tempted to avoid suffering, Morris suggests Jesus was tempted to compromise. Jesus might have looked at the kingdoms of the world and thought that he could do good for them.³ Of course, in order to do good for the kingdoms he would have to put himself in a position of power, for this is how the world operates. The devil offered him a simple means to obtain this position, which involved worshipping Satan.

Arguments

Explanation:

When the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world, he shows him the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Matthew 4:8). The fact that there is glory in the kingdoms of the world should not surprise us. We know that God created humans in his image. Theologians often take this to mean that humans have special capacities that allow them to think rationally, create art, and engineer buildings. God created the world good, and there are aspects of the kingdoms of the world that reflect the glory of the creator.

At the same time, we know that death entered the world through the sin of Adam after he was tempted by Satan. And once death entered the world through Adam it spread to all people because all people sin (Romans 5:12). The fact that sin was in the world when Jesus was tempted by the devil is the reason for Jesus’ coming into the world in the first place. Jesus came to remove sin.⁴ Still, to remove sin would involve suffering and even death on the cross. Satan offers Jesus immediate control of the kingdoms of the world, kingdoms in which sin is ubiquitous.

Counterargument:

All we know from the text is that the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. It is possible that what the devil showed Jesus is all of the boundaries and structures of the great cities of earth. That is to say, the devil might have shown Jesus the various buildings, temples, canals, as well as the stretches of land, mountains, and countryside belonging to each kingdom. Aside from the people, these are the glorious aspects of the kingdoms of the earth that Jesus would reign over if he worshipped the devil.

Response to counterargument:

It is possible that by kingdoms of the world the devil only showed Jesus the structures and boundaries of the kingdoms, excluding the sinful people, but this seems unlikely. While land might play a role in the gloriousness of a kingdom, the number of people under the submission of the ruler plays another important role. The fact is, rulers do not just conquer lands; they conquer groups of people, so that the more people in one’s kingdom, the more glorious one’s kingdom. Thus, we should assume that when the devil showed Jesus the kingdoms of the earth and all their glory, this included the buildings, boundaries, landscapes, and people. And since Christ had not yet accomplished his ministry, the sins of the people remained. Thus, the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world and all their glory, not mentioning that sin is everywhere.

Explanation:

When the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world in all their glory, he does so while he is operative in the world.⁵ We know from Scripture that God has allowed the devil a certain range of influence over the created world. For example, in Job we find Satan standing before the Lord in heaven and suggesting that if Job is tempted, he would curse God (Romans 5:12). God then allows Satan to go and tempt Job Job 1:12). We also know from Matthew 16:1–28 that when Jesus explains to his disciples that he must suffer in Jerusalem, Peter rebukes Jesus for such a suggestion. Jesus responds to Peter with the statement, Get behind me, Satan! (Matthew 16:23). Clearly Satan is active in the world. Finally, we find reference to the activity of Satan in the world in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In Ephesians 6:12 Paul explains that Christians do not struggle against flesh and blood, but against the dark spiritual forces that reside in the heavenly places.

In other words, when the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world in all their glory, he is offering a domain where God allowed Satan to operate. This implies that the kingdoms he offers are the kingdoms of the world, which are sinful. Of course, we know that a day is coming when the devil will be thrown into the lake of fire forever (Revelation 20:10).

Counterargument:

Just because the devil has a certain degree of power in the world does not mean that he could offer the world to Jesus. In fact, we know from Scripture that Jesus was involved in the creation of the world (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16–17), so the devil can only offer Jesus the world in some limited fashion. Thus, we cannot state that the devil offers the whole world in all its glory, but we should state that the devil offers Jesus the sinful world.

Response to counterargument:

It is true that the devil offers Jesus the sinful world but that’s because the only world available for him to offer was a world in which sin operates. Further, while it is the case that the Word was involved in the creation of the universe, the human nature of Jesus did not exist until he was born of the virgin Mary. This means that the temptation of Satan was a true temptation aimed at the human nature of Jesus. Even though the Christ existed as the second person of the Trinity from all eternity, and was involved in the creation of the world, in his human nature, Jesus, the God-man, had the opportunity to inherit the world by obeying God or the devil. Jesus chose to obey God, thus redeeming the human nature from the powers of sin.

Added to this, we do concede that the devil offered Jesus the world in a limited fashion in the sense that the devil can only operate insofar as God allows him to.

Possible weaknesses:

It is hard to say what the weakness of this view might be. The only world that existed at the time when the devil tempted Jesus was the sinful world, so it is hard to see how any other world could be on offer. One could qualify the devil’s statement with the phrase to the exclusion of the heavens. In this sense, the devil offers Jesus the world to the exclusion of his reigning over heaven. This is implied by the fact that if Jesus worshipped the devil, he would not have been fit to rule over heaven and earth. Of course, Jesus is the great priest who obeyed God perfectly, so he did not fall to the devil’s scheme. To summarize, the devil does not simply offer Jesus the world; he offers Jesus the world to the exclusion of heaven.

Interpretation 1:Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, not mentioning that the powers of evil are operative.

Interpretation 1:
Satan offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, not mentioning that the powers of evil are operative.