Did the Holy Spirit leave Jesus when temptation was present in Luke 4?

Question

Luke 4 states:

¹And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness_ESV

and:

¹³And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

¹⁴And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. _ESV

Had the Holy Spirit left Jesus during the temptation? In other words, does "led by the Spirit" (v1) followed by "returned in the power of the Spirit" (v14) imply the Spirit was absent from Jesus during the intervening period? If so, why did the Spirit leave?

Answer 1

"And Jesus ... was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil."

There is no indication in the Greek text of Luke 4:1-14 that the Spirit left Jesus to fend for himself, even briefly, when he was πειραζόμενος ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου ("tempted of the devil" in KJV). Ergo, the same motivation that moved him to go INTO the wilderness apparently remained with and continued to motivate him during the entire 40 days Jesus spent IN the wilderness.

Answer 2

The simplest solution is a simple clarification of a possible misunderstanding of the grammar. Luke 4:14 could more accurately, albeit more clunky, be translated as:

"And Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee..." Or "And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit..."

The phrase "to Galilee" εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν is in the Accusative which in simple terms commonly means it is receiving the action of the main verb. While "in the power" ἐν τῇ δυνάμει is Dative and "of the Spirit" τοῦ πνεύματος is Genitive, which is possessive. Both are referring back to the subject, Jesus, not the verb.

So you see the verb "returned" is not directed to the Spirit or the power of the Spirit at all. It is just describing how he returned.

Here are some other translations:

NIV Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

NLT Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit’s power. Reports about him spread quickly through the whole region.

NASB And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district.

NET Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the surrounding countryside.

Answer 3

It is not so: imagine, a hero burning inside with a 🔥 of courage on a battlefield is tempted by a cowardly friend of his: “Let us run away!” Of course the first soldier will censure the second: “Begone, you, coward!” Why should one think that the 🔥 of courage was extinguished in him while the tempter was tempting him?

How much more so with the Lord! Yes, how incomparably and transcendentally more so with the Lord Jesus Christ!

Answer 4

No. The text wasn't refer to the Holy Spirit in v.13: "he [the devil] departed from him [Jesus] until an opportune time"

Answer 5

The holy spirit is gods own divine magic Consider it a force that can not only enter into your shell so to say,but it always encompasses not only you but the entire earth if you are not in tuned with the holy spirits frequency than it is difficult to receive alone not for Jesus but for men. God said where two are gatherd in his name his spirit will come "church" that's why when the holy spirit "god's majic" moves in a congregation you can get the conviction in a non believers heart to accept and have faith in a savior hes has never seen that's blind faith and it is wonderful to fall and feel the god send you back out!

Answer 6

The book of Hebrews, speaks about Jesus being tempted in every way and was yet without sin, Yes the School of the holy spirit will lead you to be tested for example like a swimming coach He will train you in the water but will let you do the swimming alone in order for you to perfect your skills but will never leave you but will watch over you same approach is seen in the book of revelation when the Lord Jesus emphasizing us to overcome to receive the rewards from Him

Answer 7

First of all, in Trinitarian tradition, Jesus had no need for the Holy Spirit, because each is a person of the Holy Trinity. Luke 4 tells us that Jesus was easily able to overcome the temptations that Satan threw at him.

The earliest account of the temptation of Jesus is in Mark 1:12-13. Here, we are not told how Satan tempted Jesus, but the Spirit was apparently not present. Instead, angels ministered to Jesus during the forty days in the wilderness, resulting in an interesting mental image if we read the three temptations of Luke (and Matthew) back into this account:

Mark 1:12-13: And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. 13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.

In Luke's more detailed account of the temptations (and in the parallel account in Matthew) it appears Jesus was entirely alone while Satan tempted him. It is hard to imagine the angels or the Holy Spirit permitting Satan to demand that Jesus worship him, or allowing Satan to take Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. Although we are not actually told this, it has to be assumed that the Holy Spirit must have left Jesus, at least while he was in the wilderness.

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Now we can look at the account even more critically in order to understand its true meaning. Dale C. Allison Jr. ('How to Marginalize the Traditional Criteria of Authenticity', published in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Volume 1, edited by Tom Holmén and Stanley E. Porter - page 14) asks us to look at this account as an unhistorical fiction intended to help readers to understand the historical Jesus. He says:

Most modern scholars have rightly judged this to be unhistorical, an haggadic fiction produced through reflection on scripture. Yet whoever composed it clearly did so in the knowledge that Jesus was (a) a miracle worker who (b) sometimes refused to give signs, (c) thought himself victorious over demonic forces, (d) was steeped in the scriptures, (e) had great faith in God, and (f) was a person of the Spirit. So what we seem to have in Q 4:1-13 is an illustration of the obvious fact that historical fiction can inform us about history. The story, which narrates events that probably never happened, nonetheless catches Jesus in several respects. Here the inauthentic incorporates the authentic.

If most modern scholars have judged this to be unhistorical, then we need not try to understand whether the Holy Spirit had left Jesus, or why. Allison says that the story narrates events that probably never happened, but nonetheless catches the authentic Jesus.