Verse 6
And the devil said unto him, To thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it.
Satan indeed exercises a great authority on earth, but it is illegal and usurped authority, dramatically contrary to the implication of what he said here to Jesus. The conviction of this student has ever been that this satanic promise was merely a big lie. If Jesus yielded, he would not have won the kingdoms of the world, he would have lost them; and redemption for mankind would have been thwarted. God rules in the kingdoms of human beings (Daniel 4:26); Satan is a liar and the father of liars (John 8:44); and, despite the fact that there was a tawdry, carnal sense in which Satan is indeed the "god of this world," his arrogant boast here was totally false. Christ answered him without regard to the truth or falsity of Satan's promise, because it actually had no solid significance.
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