Temptation and Passion

J. Neyrey points out the links between the temptation of Jesus early in Luke and the passion narratives later in Luke. Luke’s account of the temptation ends with Satan leaving until a more opportune moment, and it is commonly noted that Satan reappears in the passion narrative, entering Judas (Lk 22:3-6), attempting to sift Peter (22:31), and overseeing the “power of darkness” that reigns at the time of Jesus’ betrayal and trial (22:53). Neyrey also links the “temptations” from the crowd during the crucifixion with the temptations of Satan. As summarized by Craig Evans (in Evans and James A Sanders, Luke and Scripture ), “Three times Jesus is taunted (‘Let him save himself if he is the Christ of God,’ ect., 23:35, 37, 39), just as earlier Satan three times had called his relationship to God into question (‘If you are the Son of God’).” This is part of Neyrey’s development of an Adam-Jesus typology at work in Luke. Satan’s three temptations in ch 4, he argues, parallel the temptations of Adam: Like Adam, Jesus is tempted concerning food, concerning dominion, and tempted to defy death. If that’s the case, then the “temptation” of the cross is the climactive reversal of the temptation in the garden. Jesus is tempted at a “tree,” the cross; the cross is a tree of judgment, and the crowd functions simultaneously as tempting Satan and tempted Bride. Jesus is tempted to come down from the cross and NOT accept the death in order to save the bride, as Adam feared to step in to save his bride and avoided the death that he should have endured.