And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
Luke 4:5-7
I do not think most people realize the full weight of Christ’s temptation by Satan to have all the kingdoms of the world. If Jesus had actually given into this temptation, then certainly, He would have been given the whole world since Satan is god of this world; the world is his to give away if he chooses. The world was given over to Satan when man disobeyed God in the Garden, when man trusted in Satan’s word rather than trusting in God’s word, choosing to obey Satan as master instead of obeying God. Through this act, man’s dominion of the world was given over to Satan. For this reason, the kingdoms of the world are rightfully Satan’s to give to whomever he chooses, as described in Luke 4:6.
Satan asks for Jesus to worship him and in exchange, Satan will give Him all the kingdoms of the world. The act of worship does not merely mean to praise someone – it also means to bow down and obey them as one’s master. If Jesus had bowed down to Satan, Jesus would have accepted Satan as His master. And as the Bible says, “a servant is not greater than his master”, and thus, Satan would then have become greater than Jesus Himself, having a higher position than Jesus, which is exactly what Satan’s goal was with his original rebellion in Heaven: to rise above God’s throne. If Satan successfully made Jesus bow down to him, Satan would have accomplished the very thing which he attempted in Heaven which had him cast out of Heaven in the first place.
Through Christ’s holy and royal blood, He inherits the entirety of creation from His Father (inheritance is through the blood, in this case, from Father to Son). If Jesus had bowed down to Satan in the wilderness, thus becoming the servant of Satan, then Satan would have become the ruler of all of creation: Christ’s inheritance would have been given over to Satan. This is just like how Satan took dominion of the earth away from Adam and Eve, by making Adam and Eve obey him as master. Ultimately, if Jesus was successfully tempted, Satan would have become seated higher than Jesus Himself, and thus the entire cosmos would have been given over to Satan – and as a trade off, Jesus would merely have been given the kingdoms of this world, becoming a lesser god of this fallen world while losing His authority over all of creation. But of course, Jesus resisted all of Satan’s temptations in the wilderness, even resisting Satan’s offer to be given all the kingdoms of the world.
