Hey there – I remembered when we first went over the part about bowing there was something very good in it. So, I went back and looked at some older files and one thing I ran across was the part that Satan “asked” Jesus to do it. Here is the section I found. I believe there was another time we typed up some notes on this subject that were very good, but I haven’t found those. I just remember really liking that section. I just wanted to forward it on to you just in case you saw something here you would like to include. I don’t remember the “asking” part in the “bowing down” section quite the way it is stated here. It may not be needed, but it was good. 🙂
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If it is true that before he came to earth, the Son did not know that Satan was evil, he most certainly found it out during the Temptation, for when Satan attempted to persuade him to bow down and worship him by offering the Son great riches, the Son would have known such a request came from a wicked heart.
But it wasn’t simply the bowing down part that would have made it clear that Satan was wicked. Throughout biblical history, righteous men had responded to visitations from heavenly beings by fearfully bowing down, even collapsing before them (Gen. 19:1; Num. 22:31; 1Chron. 21:16; Ezek. 1:28; Dan. 10:7-10). So, the mere concept of a man falling down in a worshipful attitude before a powerful heavenly being would not have seemed out of order. Even as late as the book of Revelation (19:10), the apostle John, overwhelmed by a heavenly messenger’s presence, fell down at the feet of the messenger to worship him!
The critical difference between Satan and every other heavenly messenger before whom men fell is that none of those other messengers asked men to bow and worship them, nor did any of them ever attempt to persuade men to worship them with promises of great riches. It was simply the power of the presence of God’s messengers that caused holy men to bow. Satan, on the other hand, coveting the honor that all creatures gave to God, openly grasped after it. That evil deed, if nothing else, would have let the Son of God know that he was dealing with a wicked creature.
At the same time, we can assuredly say that if Mary’s son had shown up in the wilderness without God’s Son dwelling within his temple, he would have been overwhelmed by the terrifying, “anointed cherub” from heaven; but not so, the Son. The Son has never bowed to anyone but the Father, and never will.
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Amy B
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Hi Amy.
There is some truth in all that, but I wrote those paragraphs before I understood that Jesus bowing to Satan would have only been a formality, a symbolic acceptance of the position Satan was offering him. It is not surprising, then, that Satan asked him to bow. It was a way of saying, “Do you accept my offer?” Anyone at that time in history would probably have expected it and would have been shocked, as Satan no doubt was, that there was no bow, that is, no acceptance of the “honor” offered to Jesus.
Those old paragraphs that you found fall short of communicating what was really going on between Jesus and Satan at that moment. That’s why I cut them out.
Thanks for the comments, though. We are on a journey, aren’t we?
jdc