SKANDALON 2 (c): [iii] false teachers, Satan's agents

This leads us on to v.7, where ‘skandalon’ is used three times by Jesus (though not by the NIV!). If we translate ‘skandalon’ simply as ‘temptation’ here (rather than the NIV’s “things that cause people to sin”), we can get the full impact of the saying: “Woe to the world because of temptations! For it is necessary for temptations to come, but woe to the person through whom the temptation comes !”. As we have seen, “God tempts no one” – that is Satan’s job; but temptation is part of God’s plan, for an untested faith is not really faith at all. But all too often Satan uses other people as his agents of temptation, and Jesus makes it clear here that such agents are fully responsible for their actions, and that to do the Devil’s job for him by destroying or corrupting the faith of a young Christian is particularly culpable. It is interesting to note here the parallelism of Jesus’ comments on Judas in Matthew 26.24: “The Son of Man goes to his death as is written of him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it were well for him had he never been born.” We read in John 20.3 that “Satan entered into Judas”, but it was Judas himself who ‘opened the door’. Both these passages clearly teach those two great truths, divine sovereignty (“it is necessary”, “it is written”) and human responsibility (“woe” – ‘ouai’ in Greek).