In Genesis 1 and 2 we have a God-created man, a man who was not able to withstand the temptation of God’s enemy. If we were Adam and if we knew what we know today, it may be that we would have partaken of the tree of life immediately in order to equip ourselves with the Triune God. God Himself is man’s equipment. Once we become equipped with the Triune God by partaking of the tree of life, we become a God-man.
As the God-man, the Lord Jesus did not wait for the tempter to come to Him. Rather, led by the Spirit, the Lord went out to meet the tempter. In Genesis 3 the tempter came to an unequipped man. But in Luke 4 the equipped Man went out to meet the tempter.
In Genesis 3 the God-created man was not equipped by God and with God. Instead, he was a man without God as his equipment. At this point I would refer you to Paul’s word concerning the armor of God: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the Devil” (Eph. 6:11). To put on the armor of God simply means to put on God as our armor, that is, to equip ourselves with God. In Ephesians 6 the church as the corporate new man is equipped with God as his armor. Every piece of this armor is an attribute of God.
In contrast to Adam, who did not equip himself with God, the Lord Jesus was born a God-man. Because He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, He had the essence of God. In His very being He had the divine essence as His element. For thirty years He lived in this divine essence. He was conceived of this essence, He was born of this essence, and He grew in this essence and lived by it. How marvelous! The Lord was not only full of God—He was God. Because He was God in man, He was the God-man.
When the Lord Jesus came forth to minister at the age of thirty, He denied Himself and was baptized. When Adam was in the garden, he did not deny himself. He did not set himself aside. This was one reason Adam failed.
When the Lord Jesus set Himself aside at the time of His baptism, the economical Spirit descended upon Him to anoint Him. As a result, He was a Person both essentially of God and economically for God. He was a Person saturated with God Himself essentially and anointed with God economically. Inwardly, He had God as His intrinsic element, and outwardly He was covered with God as His power. The Man-Savior was full of God inwardly and clothed with God outwardly. As such a Person, He was equipped and ready to fight against God’s enemy and defeat him.
Instead of waiting for the enemy to come to Him, the Lord Jesus, being led of the Spirit, went to the place where the enemy was. The enemy came to the garden to attack Adam, but Jesus went to the wilderness to attack the enemy. When He was led by the Spirit to the wilderness, He was full of God essentially and economically. Thus, He was ready and equipped to deal with the enemy. He went into the wilderness as a warrior and, in the highest standard of morality, He defeated Satan.
When the Lord Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil, He was the highest kind of man. Not only was He a man created by God; He was also a man equipped with God. He was a God-man, the One in the highest standard of morality.
This morality is a matter of having the human virtues strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes. When the human virtues created by God are strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes, that is the highest standard of morality. God is expressed in the living that is according to the highest standard of morality. If we understand this matter, we shall understand the basic and crucial principle followed by Luke in writing his Gospel.
The living in the highest standard of morality is the underlying principle in the Gospel of Luke. In this Gospel we see the Lord Jesus as the God-equipped Man living a life to express God. Because He expressed God, He lived in the highest standard of morality.
This highest standard of morality revealed in the Gospel of Luke is much higher than the morality taught in any kind of philosophy. Confucius, for example, taught morality, but what he taught was not the highest standard of morality. On the contrary, at most, it was a matter of the development of the human virtues. There was no strengthening or enriching of the human virtues with the divine attributes.
In order to be strengthened and enriched in our human virtues with the divine attributes, we need to have God within us essentially, and we need to have God upon us economically. This means that we need to be born of God in order to possess God’s essence. We also need to be anointed with God in order to have Him as our power. When we have been born of God to have His essence and have been anointed by Him to have Him as our power, then we become a God-man, ready to live in the highest standard of morality. In this kind of living the human virtues are strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes.
In 4:1-13 we see that the fully equipped Man-Savior was led by the Spirit to the wilderness where He faced the tempter and defeated him. His victory qualified Him to carry out His God-given ministry. For this reason, from 4:14 He began to minister. The preparation of the Man-Savior, therefore, was completed in His being tested. After gaining the victory over the Devil’s temptation, He was fully prepared and equipped to carry out the ministry God had given Him.