<p>1:12 <em>And the Spirit immediately drove him into</em>- The Greek <em>ekballo</em> means to cast out, to drive out from one place to another. But Matthew and Luke both say He was &quot;led&quot; by the Spirit into the wilderness. There were therefore both push and pull factors. He was led by the Spirit, perhaps in the form of an Angel. The allusion is to Israel at their baptism at the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1,2); immediately afterwards, they too entered the wilderness, for 40 years instead of 40 days. we note that the Lord's quotations against temptation were all from the Deuteronomy passages concerning Israel's experiences in the desert. They were <em>led out </em>of Egypt, and yet they were also <em>cast out</em> of Egypt. The Lord's 'driving out' could therefore refer to opposition which forced the Lord to leave that area, as if there were some who strongly reacted against the declaration that He was God's Son; we read the same of how He was cast or driven out from Nazareth. Yet Israel's experience was typical of that of all God's people. And that experience is being made the prototype for what happened to the Lord at His baptism. Whilst the Lord's baptism differed in some dimensions from ours, clearly we are to see our baptisms as a participation in His; or rather, the other way around. His baptism enabled Him to enter into ours. See on 1:13 <em>took care</em>.</p><p>Note how Legion was 'driven' by 'the demon' into a wilderness (Lk. 8:29)- as if to imply that the Lord's wilderness experience enabled Him to identify with the episodes of mental illness experienced by the man. So many of His experiences were likewise to enable Him to enter into the essential experiences of us His people.</p><p><em>The wilderness</em>- There is an intended connection with the fact that John had been living in and preaching in &quot;the wilderness&quot; (1:3,4). Clearly the same &quot;wilderness&quot; is in view. The very place where John had preached about Jesus' Messiahship and Kingdom was where He was now being tested. It follows that His temptations were therefore related to the things which John had preached about Him there, and the fact that in that very same place, the crowds had apparently agreed to follow this new Messiah. All the temptations were concerning these things and the Lord's temptations were to misuse them. This is more ground for considering the temptations to have been internal to the thought processes of Jesus, as argued in our comments on the wilderness temptations on Matthew 4. But perhaps we can also speculate that we are intended to think of &quot;the wilderness&quot; as the location of persons who believed in Jesus as Messiah and wished to see His Messianic Kingdom. So there's no reason why the satan / adversary could not have been a Jewish person or persons suggesting to Jesus these ideas of immediate Messianic rule. The temptations departed from the Lord for a period, implying they returned (Lk. 4:13). And elsewhere we read of Him going out into deserted places s.w. &quot;wilderness&quot; and praying (1:35,45; Lk. 5:16) or struggling with crowds who wanted an immediate Messianic Kingdom (Mt. 14:13,15; Mk. 6:31; Jn. 11:54)- perhaps suggesting that the same temptations returned later in His ministry.</p>