"And deliver us from temptation". Both natural and moral man can not understand this prayer. Natural man
wants to try out his strengh in the adventure, in the fight, in the
encounter with the enemy. That is life. "if you don´t play you will
never win". Only the life that has been in danger of death is life that
has been won. This is what the natural man knows. Moral man also knows that
his knwoledge is true only when it has been verified and tested, he knows that evil
exist only because of good and that it would not have sense if evil does not exist. That is
why moral man call the evil, his dayly prayer is "get me into temptation; I need
to verify the power of good in me".
If the temptation were what both natural and moral man understand about it - the verification
of his own strengh - whether be his vital, moral and even christian strenghs - into resistance,
then Christ´s prayer would be really incomprehensible...
The temptation the Bible talks about does not have anything to do with the testing of my strengh,
because due to the very essence of the temptation, according to the Bible, is that all my strengh -
(to my horror and with nothing I can do to help) turns against me; all my powers - including my good
and pious powers (the strengh of my faith) fall on the hands of the enemy´s power, and they are now driven
to his field before me. Before my powers can be try out, they are stripped from me. "My heart is
terrified, my vigor has left, and even the light of my eyes is gone" (Psalm 38:10).
This is the decisive fact of the christian´s temptation, that he is abandoned, abandoned by all his powers
- in fact attacked by them - abandoned by all men, abandoned by God. His heart trembles, and he has fallen
into the darkness. His very self is nothing. The enemy is everything. God has "left him" (Ausburg
Confession, XIX), "He has abandoned him for a short time" (Is. 54:7). Man is alone during his temptation.
Nothing stand him. The devil has space for a while. How can the abandoned man face the devil?
How can he protect himself?. The prince of this world himself is opossing him. The time for the downfall
has arrived, the eternal and irrevocable downfall. Who will deliver us from the claws of Satan?
