Lapide, a Jewish scholar agrees. Jesus is speaking completely within the confines of the arguments of the Judaism of His time. Jesus uses the common way of speaking to give His Torah explanation, and that He in no way intends to express Himself ‘antithetically’ about Torah and tradition, and that He intends the radically break with it even less. That is a Christian construction that came afterwards.
Jesus came to fulfill the Prophesies and the Law. Jesus, from the time of his youth would try to set the stage for this change, bu using scripture to show how all was coming to a head. Moses and the Mosaic Law, changed the Old Dispensation that came out of Genesis. Now the Mosaic Law was about to be updated. Nobody likes drastic change, so there was resistance, especially political, by those whose power and prestige was based on the Law.
One prophesy that was addressed by Jesus, was the coming of the Messiah. The anticipated Messiah was supposed to become powerful and able to rescue the Jews and then assume control over their enemies. Jesus to them, did not fit that bill. He was humble but precocious.
However, before older Jesus began his ministry, he went into the desert to fast and pray. He was visited by Satan, who among other things, offers Jesus the wealth and power of all the Kingdoms of the earth. Jesus does not question Satan's authority to do so, but he rather declines the offer. Had Jesus accepted this offer, he would have become the Messiah everyone expected; rich and powerful, having control over all the kingdoms of the Earth. By refusing the offer, he altered the future. To become the Messiah, he learned, he had to bow and serve Satan.
Jesus had been well known, by the Rabbis in his town, as being very precocious since his youth. When he returned from his fast, and told of his experience with Satan, and how the Messiah was connected to Satan, and not directly to God, the crap hit the fan. Their love changed to hate since he implicated them as connected to works of Satan.
Even today when I tell this way of looking at the Temptation of Jesus, and even though Satan in the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is a metaphor for Satan and law, this is not easy to swallow. It implies the Old and most of the New Testament, besides Revelation, after Genesis, and after the fall, was under Satan's authority.
However, this Satan Authority premise can be suported, by God resting on the seventh day. The first six days of Creation, has God building something and then resting; a day is done. After the six days, and the final rest, there is no direct indication that God ever works again, until Revelations of the New Testament. The miracles of Moses are more like maintenance and not the epic building of days 1-6. This lack of direct evidence of God back to work, would imply God was on a prolonged Sabbath Rest; in human years. He assinged others to do the work, of maintenaence, as God rested. The tradition of the human Sabbath, is not work, but if needed assign others to work for you.
Satan appears to have been was assigned to be the Lord of the Earth, in charge of humans and earth, after the fall, while God was resting. This rest is longer than assumed. When God gets ready to go back to work and epic creation he forms a New heaven and Earth in Revelation 22 and a bejeweld city of Jerusalem descends fron the sky; epic God caliber stuff
What Jesus did, by not accepting the offer of Satan; CEO, to be his Messiah, as God; Chairman of the Board, rested, was to cause a political divide in Heaven, that leads to a war. The Angels did not like Satan tempting the son of God, as God rested. Their job was to protect Jesus as even Satan says;
Mathew 4-6. If you are the Son of God,' he said, 'throw yourself down. For it is written: ''He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.''
Revelation 12:7–107 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.
Up to the war in Heaven, Satan was condoned by God in Heaven, to be his CEO; Lord of the Earth, as God rested. But after tempting Jesus, there was a change in management; Satan is fired; Satan is then thrown to earth, and is now no longer condoned in Heaven. Humans still assumed the Old dispensation of Satan in Heaven, was still in effect, since nothng appears to change on earth. However, the old way is no longer sanctified by heaven; laws of God becomes the laws of man and exiled Satan.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
When Satan is thrown from Heaven, the earth become under chaos; spirital disorienation. God is not yet working, but is getting ready and Jesus is about to replace Satan as the CEO; faith and love condoned by Heaven.
