The poem focuses on the spiritual trial of the Son of God, who, after baptism, retreats into the wilderness where the Tempter assails him with successive temptations. Milton frames these events with divine counsels and a demonic council, then stages debates and encounters in which scriptural wisdom, humility, and disciplined endurance defeat pride, deceit, and worldly enticement. Across compact books the narrative contrasts the ruin brought by earlier disobedience with recovery achieved through steadfast obedience, portraying redemption as moral victory won by restraint, faith, and the refusal of corrupt power.