A Plausible Lie
Bishop Harvey Goodwin. Luke 4:6-7 And the devil said to him, All this power will I give you, and the glory of them: for that is delivered to me… "For that is delivered unto me." One of the additions made by Luke to our knowledge of the temptations is the monstrous assumption of power and royalty on the part of the tempter. There is something fearful in the language which he uses — God had never given over the power to Satan. "Thine," we truly confess in our prayer to our Father in heaven, "is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." It was a lie, such as might have been expected to proceed from the " father of lies." Yet there was sufficient appearance of truth to make the lie plausible. Anybody looking upon the world would say, especially at the time of the Temptation, that the power and glory were acknowledged by general consent to belong to the prince of evil. Thank God that it is not so, and thank God that Jesus Christ came into the world to prove how false Satan's words were, and to claim the power and the glory wholly for God His Father. (Bishop Harvey Goodwin.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. WEB: The devil said to him, "I will give you all this authority, and their glory, for it has been delivered to me; and I give it to whomever I want.