The Temptations of Jesus and the walk of the Christian
Matthew 4:1-13.
Deut. 8:2-20
Life provides us with defining moments, moments which set the course of our lives, whether for good or evil. We can see such defining moments in the lives of men and women in the Bible. Joseph experienced a defining moment when he chose to reject the advances of his master’s wife. Daniel’s defining moment seems to be described in the first chapter of the Book of Daniel, where he purposes, along with his three friends, not to be defiled by the king’s choice food. Peter’s “great confession” was one of his defining moments. Even Judas had his defining moments (cf. John 12:1-8; 13:18-30).
I believe that our Lord’s baptism and temptation was a defining moment in His life and ministry. Here, the course of His life and ministry was proclaimed, tested, and confirmed. Every one of the Synoptic Gospels includes an account of our Lord’s baptism and temptation. John’s Gospel also includes an account of our Lord’s baptism, but does not mention His temptation. This may be due to the fact that John emphasizes the deity of our Lord, beginning in the very first verses of his Gospel and God cannot be tempted.
Since this study is about the "Temptations" we will not be giving much space for the baptism but only a casual visit. The baptism and temptation of our Lord not only provide a defining moment in the life of our Lord, they are also a crucial prerequisite to the saving work of our Lord. In addition, through the temptations of Jesus we will learn much about Satan and how to deal with temptation in our lives. As our Lord Himself says in our text, “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” These verses in Matthew, including the words spoken by our Lord, are “words that have come from the mouth of God.” Therefore, they are life-giving words.
Many interpretations of the baptism of our Lord have been suggested and in the final analysis we can conclude two things for certain.
The baptism of our Lord was a testimony to John, identifying Jesus as Messiah.
The baptism of our Lord was a confirmation to the Son of His high calling.
Even if only these two suggestions are accepted, surely we could agree that this event fulfilled all righteousness. Here all the righteous program of God was coming to culmination.
The two events, the baptism and temptation of our Lord, cannot be separated. They are linked together both chronologically and logically. Chronologically, the temptation of our Lord immediately follows His baptism. Matthew connects the two events by the word, ‘then,’ Mark and Luke ‘and.’ Logically, the two events are inseparable. At the baptism our Lord’s calling and testing is told. In the wilderness, our Lord’s fitness for such a mission is tested. In the temptation, Satan never assails the identification of Christ as Israel’s Messiah He simply attempts to divert Him from His task. In the wilderness experience the Bible has recorded a trinity of tests which reveal the character and cunning of Satan and the perfections of Messiah which qualify Him to die for the sins of His people.
Now coming to the temptations of Christ we find that Satan’s first line of attack concerns the hunger which our Lord experienced due to His 40-day fast:
“And the tempter came and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But He answered and said, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’” (Matt. 4:3-4).
Satan’s suggestion was based on several erroneous premises or presuppositions. Let’s read between the lines to get them on the record.
First, a God Who is good would not deprive one of His creatures of food when he is hungry . Going without food cannot be the will of God. Such was the insinuation in the temptation of the first Adam in the garden. “Surely a good God would not withhold such a good thing as this fruit,” Satan suggested.
Second, Satan supposes that men serve God and submit to His will because God bribes them to do so with material blessings. Remember Satan’s statement to God concerning Job: “Then Satan answered the Lord, ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’” (Job 1:9). Satan simply could not conceive of the Lord Jesus submitting to the will of the Father when it meant personal discomfort.
Had our Lord followed Satan’s solicitous advice several situations would have been inevitable.
First of all, if personal pleasure comes before God’s will our Lord would never have gone to the cross of Calvary. If submission and obedience did not involve personal sacrifice, the atonement would never have been accomplished. Then, too, if physical needs have priority over spiritual necessities, then our Lord would never have preached the gospel. All His life would have been spent feeding the hungry and healing the sick. The only result of our Lord’s coming would have been some kind of ‘great society’ with no salvation wrought for men. Also, our Lord could never have spoken on the subject of discipleship and self-denial ( cf. Matthew 10:31-39; Luke 9:23, 57-62) unless He Himself had experienced it.
Our Lord’s response indicates several vital principles of Christian service, as relevant for us today as they were 2,000 years ago.
First of all the physical hunger which our Lord experienced was the will of God for His life. The account of the temptation begins: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1, cf. also Luke 4:1).
Our Lord was Spirit-led to the wilderness where He decided on the 40 day fast.
Second, obedience to the will of God takes precedence to one’s physical appetites. That is one of the implications of the statement, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’ (Matt. 4:4). Physical appetites are good because they are God-given. Bread is important to physical life, but there is no real life apart from obedience to the revealed will of God. Third, physical deprivation in doing the will of God is not bad, but good, for it tests our faith and strengthens it. This is the force of the context of our Lord’s quotation in Deuteronomy chapter 8. Note the words which immediately precede those quoted by our Lord to Satan:
“And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did no t know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:2,3).
Israel hungered in the wilderness is by the will of God. The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire led them through their journey. When it stopped they had to stop and when it began its journey they had to follow. Submission cannot be tested in abundance and fullness It can only be tested in adversity. We do not test the obedience of our children by telling them to go and buy ice cream, but by telling them to go to the doctor for a shot. Israel’s faith was strengthened as they learned to trust God for their every need.
Likewise, our Lord’s hunger was a test of His submission to the Father’s will. Just as God provided sustenance for the Israelites in the wilderness, so He would do for His Son, in His own time. The Son would not act independently of the Father to provide food for Himself. After the test was completed, God did supernaturally provide for this need (Matt. 4:11).
Finally, the measure of a man is not to be found in the assertion of his rights, but in his submission to God.
Having failed in the first recorded effort, Satan moved to an alternate approach:
Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he stood Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will give His angels charge concerning You; and in their hands they will bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shalt not tempt the Lord your God’” (Matt. 4:5-7).
This was a very subtle challenge for Jerusalem was the sacred city, and the temple was the center of Israel’s religious life. Furthermore, the Old Testament prophecies anticipated Messiah’s public presentation at the temple (Mal. 3:1). Besides this, there was a rabbinic tradition that Messiah would reveal Himself from the roof of the temple As a rule, the Jews expected Messiah to be introduced in some kind of blaze of glory, and a spectacular leap and miraculous deliverance would precisely fill the bill.
Satan’s presupposition in this challenge was that God’s faithfulness is best demonstrated by the spectacular. In addition, there is the implicit assumption that God's faithfulness should be put to the test. If God was the Father of our Lord Jesus, let Him prove it, and in such an unusual way that no one could miss it.
The most distressing possibility had our Lord failed this test is that the Jews would have immediately hailed Him as Messiah. What would have been tragic about such an occurrence is that the Kingdom would have been established on the wrong basis, not right, but might. The moral and spiritual foundations of the Kingdom would have been completely over-shadowed by the spectacular and material elements.
Satan said, “it is written.” Our Lord responded, “On the other hand (literally, ‘also’), it is written …” (Matt. 4:7). Satan had used one passage, but he had ripped it out of context. Worse yet, he interpreted and applied it inconsistently with other Scriptures. Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture.
Second, our Lord reminds Satan and every Christian that testing is not trusting. The 91st Psalm which Satan quoted from speaks of the quiet confidence which the child of God possesses. But divine protection does not encourage presumption. Our Lord’s reply again from the book of Deuteronomy is that, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Deut. 6:16).
The context of this quotation is the incident at Massah, where the Israelites demanded that God provide water. Submission and demanding are at opposite ends of the spectrum. God was challenged to vindicate Himself by acting in a specified way. This was putting God to the test. We might say it was attempting to force God’s hand. Real faith and trust delights in God’s manifestation of Himself in the mundane. It is not faith, but failure when we demand God prove Himself in the spectacular. Over and over in the life of our Lord the Jews demanded a sign (e.g. John 6:30), but our Lord continually refused such requests.
It is sad to see Christians putting God to the test today by insisting on the spectacular. “I expect a miracle,” Those who are terminally ill are instructed to ‘take a stand of faith’ that God has healed them. Doctors, nurses and family are informed that "a miracle is on the way". In this we are wrongly assuming not only that suffering is improper for the saint, but it demands that God jump through our hoops, and God act just as we have purposed. The Bible knows of none of this.
There are those who are regarded as faith healers who call upon God to heal, without leaving Him the option of continued illness or death, and who insist that Jesus receive all the glory. But in His earthly life Jesus refused to heal men for His own glory. His miracles were both selective, limited, and always purposeful.
Finally, there is the use of the spectacular to win a hearing and acceptance for the Gospel. Our Lord refused to put up a show in order to be accepted. He chose to be accepted because of His message, not His miracles . There is far too much "show business" of the Gospel in our times. Everything from comedians to popular entertainers putting on a musical concert are employed to get men’s attention. Our Lord rejected all such actions. He came to establish a church for sinners , not a circus for the bored.
Having failed in his first two efforts, Satan makes one last ‘no holds barred’ attempt to divert our Lord from His mission. Our Lord has so frustrated Satan that all masks and facades have been torn away. It is here we see Satan at his worst. The proposal was simple and straight-forward:
Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the Kingdoms of the world, and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things will I give You, if you fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Begone, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only” (Matt. 4:8-10).
Satan had come to realize that our Lord could not be deceived. As I see it, Satan puts aside the deception and lays all his cards on the table. In offering our Lord the kingdom of the world, Satan proposes to exchange that which was his most valued possession for that which he most diligently aspired, the worship of God Himself. There are no deceptions here , just a hard-nosed business proposal: Give up your kingdom for mine, the future for the present, with only the bow of the knee. Satan had desired to be ‘like the most high’ (Isaiah 14:12-14), to exercise the prerogatives and privileges of God. To receive homage from Messiah would be worth any price.
To once bow the knee to Satan is to forever be in his service. Our Lord’s kingdom would have been one of fallen men in rebellion against Himself. To serve Satan would have been God in rebellion against Himself, something inconceivable.
Before we deal with the principles of Scripture which our Lord did employ, let me suggest another passage which makes Satan’s proposal preposterous and ludicrous. It is a passage which our Lord may well have been meditating upon during the 40 days in the wilderness. Psalm 2 may alluded to the testimony of the Father at Jesus’ baptism. A look at the entire Psalm gives ample reason for our Lord’s rejection.
If you will look at this Psalm in your Bibles, you will see that the present state of the world is described. In verses 1-3, the nations are in an uproar, in open rebellion against God and His Messiah. Such is the kingdom which Satan offers in exchange for Messiah’s Kingdom. In verses 4-6 God laughs at man’s rebellion and promises to bring the world into subjection through His ‘anointed.’ In verses 7-9 Messiah speaks and promises to declare God’s decree to men, because of His divine appointment. But note especially verse 8:
“Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as thine inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Thy possession” (Psalm 2:8).
Think of it; God invites His Messiah to ask of Him, and He will give the nations as an inheritance. Satan offered his broken-down kingdom; God offers the nations. How hollow Satan’s offer must have sounded in contrast to that which God offers in Psalm 2.
One final comment about Psalm 2. Look at verses 11 and 12:
“Worship the Lord with reverence, And rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son, lest He become angry, and you perish in the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” (Psalm 2:11,12).
Verses 11-12 give the response appropriate to those in opposition to God and His Messiah. Worship Him! Do homage to Him! Fear His anger! Serve Him! Think of it. Satan had the arrogance to request worship from Messiah, rather than to fall before Him.
Incredible, you say. But let me ask you, my friend. Have you acknowledged your rebellion against God, your sin, your pride? Are you trying to enlist God in your service rather than surrender to Him? If so, you are, in the words of our Lord, a child of the devil’ (John 8:44). To fail to surrender to Him and to serve Him is to repeat the sin of Satan. May God keep you from it.
Now the principles which our Lord applies to this situation.
The first principle is that God alone is to be worshipped. Here is where Christianity departs from other ‘religions.’ Many world religions gladly add Jesus to their host of deities, but God demands exclusive obedience and worship. In His humanity, our Lord could not submit to or worship any other than the Father.
The second principle is that worship necessitates service. Satan requested what appeared to be only a momentary act of worship, a mere bending of the knee. But such is never the case with true worship:
“You shall worship the Lord Your God, and serve Him only” (Matt. 4:10).
True worship involves service. Satan hoped our Lord would underestimate the implications of bowing the knee in worship.
There is a great deal of lip service in our worship services.. The man who tells us that he worships God in the woods and on the lake on Sunday has some real inconsistencies with our Lord’s concept of worship. He may truly see God’s hand in His creation and praise Him for this, but where is his service? Like love and marriage, worship and service must come together.
Sometimes I fear that the church of Jesus Christ has borrowed the techniques of Satan in evangelism. Satan presented his offer as though it were but a trivial request to worship him, while the implications were both profound and permanent. I often have the feeling that Christians are attempting to bring men and women into the kingdom without spelling out the implications. The ideals of "dedication" , "commitment" , of "dying to oneself" are all missing. We put these long-term commitments in proverbial ‘fine print.’ That is not God’s way, but Satan’s.
Let us begin by calling attention to several important observations about the wilderness, the setting for our Lord’s temptation.
First of all our Lord’s wilderness experience identified Him with the nation Israel.
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he fasted forty days and forty nights he was famished
Our Lord’s ordeal in the wilderness for 40 days and nights certainly links Him with the nation Israel, just as Matthew has already done earlier (see Matthew 1:1-17; 2:15). Israel first underwent its “baptism” and then was led into the wilderness for 40 years, where God tested them:
1 For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Corinthians 10:1-2).
1 You must keep carefully the entire commandment I am giving you today so that you may live, multiply, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 2 Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these forty years through the desert so that he might, by humbling you, test to see whether deep within yourselves you would keep his commandments or not. 3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and feeding you with unfamiliar manna to make you understand that mankind cannot live by food alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth (Deuteronomy 8:1-3).
Jesus was baptized by John and the Holy Spirit, and then He immediately went into the wilderness, where He fasted for 40 days and nights and was tempted by Satan. Jesus is the “true Israel,” the “true Son of God,” which is evident by the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him, and by His victory over the temptations of the devil. Whereas Israel failed the testing, Jesus was victorious
Now lets be Serious. What’s the assumed application of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness? We been told (over years of preaching) that this event is a set of “principles” on how Christians can resist temptation. Or to put that another way, it’s about us. But honestly, is this really what’s happening at this moment? Is Jesus really offering an example how we can personally resist the temptation of the devil? Is this a tutorial for daily living? Of course not!
What we are witnessing here has little to do with us except as it involves Jesus’ willingness to take on the burden of humanity to save us. What we are beholding is our Lord – the second Adam – obeying where the first Adam failed to obey (Romans 5:17). We see him bowing his will to the Father’s, taking the suffering of the cross upon himself and redeem us from our bondage. Jesus isn’t offering a lesson on how to resist temptation.
Although Jesus’ hunger was no doubt fierce, the first temptation isn’t really about hunger per se. Nor is it about how you and I can use the Word of God to resist the devil (although we can.) It’s about Jesus choosing the suffering and indignity of the cross over his rightful dignity as the Son of God. “Why would the Son of God suffer under the consequences of humanity’s rebellion? Why not simply command stones to be bread and relieve the indignity? Why suffer such demeaning pain for such unworthy subjects?” It’s a valid question. The only answer to this question is grace (Titus 2:4-7).
Additionally, the second temptation has little to do with Jesus proving his sonship to Satan. Nor, is it about how we can trust God in a trial (although we can .) In obedience to the Father Jesus took on humanity and veiled his glory in order to take up the cross (Isaiah 53:2-3). Basically, “Why suffer the pain of the cross when you can reveal yourself as the Son of God in a (self-serving) display of your glory?” In this scene Jesus’ humility is beyond compare. The Son of God refused his rightful status in order to save men whose determination to exalt themselves above God had condemned them in the first place.
The third temptation comes directly to the point . It is a blatant attempt to have Jesus avoid the anguish of the cross and, thereby, disobey the Father (Hebrews 12:2-3). He could be declared “Lord of Lords” without bearing God’s wrath on behalf of sinners if he merely subjected himself to Satan. In response Jesus commits to do that which humanity had failed to do in the very beginning – worship God only.
Now to understand as to what is meant by " man does not live by bread alone" we must go to its original setting - Deut. 8:2-3. In this chapter we find Moses giving Israel an understanding of what they have been through over the past forty years, and the purpose God has had in these difficult, dangerous, and fearful times. Moses tells the Israelites that God has had three primary purposes for the apparent random paths and wasted years as they trudged back and forth through the wilderness for four decades, led by that mysterious cloud that was never content to let them settle down or get too comfortable.
The first purpose we note is the humbling of the people of God. Moses tells Israel: "And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you…" (Deuteronomy 8:2).
Three times in this chapter God's humbling process in the wilderness is referenced. Israel was too proud of its past. Over and over again the grumblings and murmurings were about the food they ate in Egypt. Now God had to humble them by bringing about a situation where they could not do anything to solve their problem. We learn from this that God highly prizes humility, and that there is something about needy, desperate, dry, parched, helpless wilderness experiences which prove most useful for the production of humility in His children. Moses goes on to say:
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 8:3)
The second purpose after humbling Israel was to allow them to hunger. This goes against how many believe God should do things. We often assume that His promises to meet our needs should mean that we will never hunger again. We rub the lamp (Aladdin's) express that we are hungry and a banquet of rich foods will be immediately placed in front of us. We will go through our day totally stuffed and fighting off indigestion morning, noon, and night. We expect this to be the case with physical food and every other need or desire that we will ever have.
What we assume and what we actually experience are entirely different. When you walk with Christ you discover that although God is generous and kind, He is not altogether averse to allowing us to sometimes experience some very real hunger pains. He does not always feel the need to come immediately running to our aid the moment we call upon Him, like some cosmic waiter, fearful lest he forfeit his tip by annoying his customers with the slightest delay. We find this revealed in the ministry of the Lord Jesus. Matthew tells us that Jesus said to His disciples: "I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And I do not want to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way" (Matthew 15:32). Afterward Jesus collects a few loaves of bread and fish, and multiplies them to feed the huge crowd. But what we sometimes don't think about is that these people did not just suddenly get hungry after three days. No doubt on day one they were getting hungry. By day two many were famished. And by day three they were near the point of fainting. Jesus came through with the miracle of provision that they so desperately needed, but He did allow them to hunger for a while before He acted. Jesus, being the perfect expression of the Heavenly Father was revealing an aspect of the ways of God: allowing His children to hunger for a season, and then working dramatically to fully satisfy that hunger.
And he . . . suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee.—A process naturally humbling. He might easily have fed them without “suffering them to hunger.” But He did not give them the manna until the sixteenth day of the second month of the journey (see Exodus 16:1; Exodus 16:6-7). For one whole month they were left to their own resources. When it appeared that the people had no means of providing sustenance during their journey, “they saw the glory of the Lord” in the way in which He fed them; and for thirty-nine years and eleven months “He withheld not His manna from their mouth.”
Let's look at the Deuteronomy passage once more: "So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna…" But before that what was the major cause of their grumbling and murmuring? Wasn't it the lack of food and water? - . Exodus 15:22-24; Exodus 16:1-3. They remembered the Egyptian Leeks, garlic pots of meat etc. They were needed to get rid of the taste of these Egyptian foods before the Lord gave them the heavenly food of manna.
And fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know.” How this follows their suffering from hunger! See the connection. Here are the three steps–
1. Egyptian food.
2. Wilderness hunger.
3. Heavenly manna.
Egyptian onions and garlic and heavenly manna did not come at the same time; they were separated by an interval, and that interval was hunger.
The process of allowing us to hunger, to become needy, indeed to become desperate is one of the primary ways God humbles us. Needy, desperate, helpless, famished people tend to lose much of the pride they possessed when things were going so well, and their lives and storehouses overflowed with abundance. It is hard to be boastful and proud when you live on the very edge of total collapse.
But humbling was not the only thing that had been going on. Moses mentioned another divine process that was happening in their wilderness wanderings: they were being tested. He states: "God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not" (Deuteronomy 8:2). The idea of God testing His people is thoroughly Biblical, found in both the Old and New Testaments. In the book of Revelation Jesus tells the church at Smyrna: "The devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days…" (Revelation 2:10). That which is in our heart must be revealed and manifested. And nothing does this better than long, hard, tiring, scary, pressure-filled, difficult times. Moses describes the means by which God shepherded His people in the wilderness with these words:
…who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water… (Deuteronomy 8:15)
Understanding that God tests us is of tremendous importance in following Christ. Often, when difficult times spring upon us, our only concern is to try to find relief and get out of the situation as quickly as possible. We will employ any means at hand, lawful, questionable, or clearly unlawful, to disengage ourselves from this terrible wilderness with its dreadful fiery serpents and miserable thirsty land. The quicker we can get out of our wilderness, the better off we'll be. God tests us so that we know who we are. He already knows what we are made of.
Moses reveals to Israel one further purpose for their wilderness wanderings. It was God's means to do them good and bring them into amazing blessings and abundance. Moses tells the people of Israel that God: "fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end…" (Deuteronomy 8:16). We are not humbled because God delights to bring us low and make us wriggle like worms. We are humbled so that when God sees we are ready, He can bless us with His abundant goodness, and know that the blessing will do us no harm. We can carry our abundance with a posture of humility and not be destroyed by it. Dry, fearful, humbling wilderness seasons, complete with fiery serpents and scorpions, are God's means to hollow out reservoirs in our spirits which can contain His gifts in such a way that when His favor begins to fall like rain all over our lives, we can resist the temptations toward pride, and become a blessing to the world.
And WHY is all this? The Lord sums it all up in those words—”to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” - Deut. 8:3. What a spiritual light these words cast upon the whole!
And thus we learn this lesson, “that man does not live by bread alone.” He cannot live by doctrines in the head. He cannot live by religious forms. He cannot live by rites and ceremonies. He cannot live by anything that springs from creation. His life is first given by God, and his life is maintained by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
