THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS
(Matthew
4:1-11)
BY ALLEN
ROSS
While the biblical narratives give
us what we call the story lines, the quotations in the story reveal what is
actually going on and why. So we focus on the quotations a good deal.
The New Testament narratives are
filled with citations from and allusions to the Old Testament. This should not surprise
us because our Old Testament was their Bible. And they knew it well – they were
people of the book. So though we are in the New Testament, we have to spend a
good deal of time searching the Old Testament to get the full understanding and
background.
And we can think for a few moments of
parallels and contrasts between the two great temptations – the first that plunged
the human race into sin, and the second that opened the way for victory over
Satan. Perhaps the most celebrated “study” of these two events are the works of
John Milton, “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained.” It is at the temptation
of Jesus that Satan realized that he could not ruin Jesus as he had the parents
of the race, and therefore that he could not stop God’s plan of redemption.
You might want to make a list of
comparisons and contrasts: In Genesis Adam and Eve were in a lush garden with
all the food that they could eat; in Matthew, Jesus is in a wilderness where he
has been fasting for forty days. In Genesis the temptation was to eat; and in
the wilderness the temptations of Jesus began with eating. In Genesis the
temptation was to be like God by disobeying God; in Matthew the appeal to Jesus
was to be the king, but without obeying God. In Genesis, Adam and Eve sinned
because they did not know precisely what God had said, not as well as Satan
did; in Matthew, Jesus was victorious because He knew Scripture better than
Satan. In Genesis, after the pair sinned, angels barred them from the tree of
life; in Matthew, after Jesus drove the devil away, angels came and ministered
to Him.
So with this history in mind, we can
look now into this little passage in some detail. Mark 1:12,13 mentions the
temptation, but does not include the details. Luke 4:1-13 provides a parallel
account to what Matthew has. This raises an incidental question: How did these
writers know about the event? The simplest answer is that Jesus told His
disciples, and that report found its way to Paul and therefore Luke. The only
significant difference is that in Luke the second temptation is concerning the
kingdoms of the world, and the third is the temptation to jump from the
pinnacle of the temple.
Putting things in a slightly
different order is a frequent characteristic of the different gospels, whether
parts of an event or a teaching, or major events. The different gospel writers
are writing for different audiences and are arranging the materials for their
individual purposes. It does not make a major difference in the interpretation
of the passage if one of them comes before another. Matthew’s is probably the
original, and Luke seems to have reordered it with the Gentile world in mind. We
can appreciate why Luke would have the emphasis on the kingdoms of the world
being Satan’s to give coming before the temptation in the temple of Jerusalem.
The
Text
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit
into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting for forty
days and forty nights, He was hungry.
3The tempter came to Him and said, “If you are the Son of
God, tell these stones to become bread.” 4Jesus answered, “It is
written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from
the mouth of God.’”
5Then the devil took Him to the holy city and had Him stand
on the highest point of the temple. 6”If you are the Son of God,” he
said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
‘He will commend His angels
concerning you
and they shall lift you up in their hands,
So that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
and they shall lift you up in their hands,
So that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the
Lord your God to the test.’”
8Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed
him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9”All this I
will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” 10Jesus
said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your
God and serve him only.’”
11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
Observations
The structure of this narrative is
relatively easy to trace: there is in introductory section providing some
details, then three temptations with three answers, and then an aftermath. The
main focus of the study will, of course, be on each of the three temptations,
to determine what the temptation actually was and how Jesus dealt with it.
The introduction, the first couple
of verses, tells us a couple of very significant things. First, that He was led
by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is
the same Spirit that just descended on Jesus at His baptism. Almost immediately
this Spirit forces the temptation. This has to be given some careful thought.
What it indicates is that it was the plan of God for Jesus to begin His ministry
with this challenge--and that it was not the devil’s doing. The devil was
willing to tempt Jesus, to be sure; but it was the Spirit of God leading Jesus
to it. The devil could tempt Jesus with every power he had, but he would not
succeed. The temptation episode was God’s way of showing that Jesus was the
perfect man, that He could resist sin, that he could defeat Satan.
The second thing for us to consider
here is the devil, Satan. This is the first introduction to him in the Gospel.
Somewhere along the way you should read up on Satan in a good Bible dictionary.
This is that old Serpent (Rev. 12:9) who had been in the Garden; this is the
prince of demons, the god of this world, the fallen angel (or archangel) who
seeks to destroy God’s work. The Gospels do not shy away from affirming that
there is a whole spiritual world around the physical world, filled with angelic
beings, some of whom rebelled against God with their leader Satan and are
therefore evil. These that are the fallen angels, devils, demons as they are
called, do the work of their prince, attacking and inflicting all kinds of
disorders on those who want nothing to do with God. But that prince, the devil
himself, undertakes the more significant efforts. He was successful in getting
Adam and Eve to sin and plunge the world into darkness; but he was not able
here to defeat the Son of God.
Third, we are told that Jesus had
been fasting for forty days and forty nights, and was hungry. There is no
reason to doubt that it was forty days and forty nights as the text says; but
“forty” is a common number in the Bible for a period of difficulty, hardship,
or suffering. One thinks immediately of the Israelites’ wandering for forty
years in the wilderness – one whole generation. Forty days was a good long time
to be fasting; and that duration is here underscored with the symbolic meaning
that it was forty days, the number of duration and testing. You could look in
some of the resources for the symbolical meaning of numbers to find other
passages where this occurs.
In the aftermath of the contest, we
read how the devil left Jesus and angels came and ministered to Him. The enemy
left as a defeated challenger; and the angels of God came to Jesus and served
Him in ways that we cannot quite imagine. But they must have affirmed to Jesus
with comfort and encouragement that He had done everything well and had won the
victory over Satan.
But the center of this study will be
the three temptations themselves, so we should look at them now to determine
what they meant, and how they were met.
Analysis
of the Temptations
1. Turn stones into bread. The first temptation picks up immediately on the fact that
Jesus was hungry, that he had not eaten for forty days. The tempter said, “If
you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
There is a fine point of grammar
here that you would probably learn from a good commentary (unless along the way
you studied Greek). You can still understand the temptation without knowing it,
but knowing it helps just that much more. Sentences that begin with “if”
(called conditional sentences) have different meanings. Some are contrary to
fact, and some are not contrary to fact. The way it is written in the original
indicates the type. For example, Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here [but
you were not], Lazarus would not have died.” That is a condition contrary to
fact. That is not what we have in the words of Satan here. When he said, “If
you are the Son of God,” he did not mean “If your are the Son of God [but you
are not],” but rather he meant “since you are the Son of God.” He knew who this
was, and would build his temptation on it. He was saying, “Look, you are
divine! Why should you be hungry? Just change some stones to bread.”
Now then, we have to ask what was
wrong with that. Was there anything wrong with making something to eat? He had
the power to do it. He multiplied food later for people who were hungry. So why
was this a temptation?
The answer, I think, is that Jesus
had come out into the wilderness to fast for forty days. That was a spiritual
exercise that had a very important place in His life at the moment. But the
devil wanted to ruin the mission of Jesus, and so if he could convince Jesus on
this seemingly trivial thing to abandon a spiritual work, then he would have had
him. The temptation was to turn His spiritual nature into a means of satisfying
His material need without reference to finding the will of God. In fact, he
would be doing the will of the devil. The devil simply chose a little thing for
the test; but it would have destroyed the work of Christ.
The perfection of Jesus is displayed
in His refusal. Hunger was not wrong, especially in a spiritual time of fasting
(fasting was designed to focus attention on the spiritual and away from the
comforts of life). And Jesus was announcing to Satan, and to all of us who will
hear it, that it is better to be hungry than to be fed without any reference or
recourse to the will of God. Satan had hit the nail right on the head--Jesus is
the Son of God. But the essence of Sonship is obedience to the will of the
Father. He would not, therefore, act independently of the will of the Father.
Jesus knew that the Spirit had led Him into a place that necessitated hunger,
and so He would fulfill that task.
In response Jesus quoted from the
Book of Deuteronomy: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that
proceeds from the mouth of God.” If you go back and read Deuteronomy 8 you will
see that the topic there is about the Israelites hungering in the wilderness
for forty years. God tested them in the wilderness so that they would learn
that they must obey what comes from the mouth of God. He gave them Manna; but
to acquire it and enjoy it required that they follow God’s instructions
carefully. The main point was that if they obeyed the LORD He would provide
their food. And so it was more important to obey God than to have all the food
they could eat (recall that Adam and Eve chose to eat rather than obey God’s
word).
So Jesus saw through the clever
little ploy of Satan. He defeated the temptation by appealing to a clear
principle of Scripture. But He was not just quoting a favorite verse; He was
drawing in the whole context of the passage to show that if God puts you in a
place of deprivation for some spiritual purpose you do not try to change it
solely for the purpose of satisfying your physical needs. The first thing that
the person must do is try to discover what God is doing through the
deprivation, what spiritual growth is desired and how it should be achieved.
This would show that one does not live by bread alone, but by everything that
God says and does.
2. Throw yourself down from the
temple. If the first test was in the realm
of the physical, the second is a test of the spiritual. In fact, the test
strikes at the heart of the previous victory. Jesus had escaped that temptation
by showing that He was not just physical but spiritual, that He could accept
the hunger and the weakness if it meant obeying God. And so Satan wants Him to
do something spectacular to demonstrate that He is spiritually perfect. Satan
was saying to Jesus, “Very well, you have shown your trust in God in response
to my first appeal; so now show your trust in God by flinging yourself from the
pinnacle of the temple.” This, no doubt, was to be in full view of all the
assembled people; they would witness that God was with Jesus in a very special
way.
What is interesting now is that
Satan himself quotes Scripture in making the appeal. He quotes from a psalm
that says that God will give the angels charge over him so that he will not
dash his foot against a stone (Ps. 91:11,12). The psalm is a psalm of trust,
telling how God protects his people. It was never intended to be claimed apart
from practical wisdom. God promises to protect His people; but He has also given
them common sense.
The response to this temptation is a
little more involved. At the outset one should consider the source: if the
devil, or, more obviously for us, someone who has no inclination to obey
Scripture, if such a person prompts you to do something that it looks like the
Bible says you can do, you would be wise to think it through very carefully. A
lot of Scripture is quoted out of context, or partially, and needs to be
investigated.
Jesus’ response is also from
Scripture: “It is also written, ‘You shall not put the LORD your God to the
test.” This also comes from Deuteronomy, 6:16. This is the chapter in the Law
that is foundational to Israel’s faith. It had the creedal statement in it,
“Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone.” The chapter then exhorts the
people to obey His commands, and to do what is good and right before Him--but
warns them not to test God.
The moment an individual puts God to
the test, that person gives evidence that he or she does not really trust God.
The context of Deuteronomy 6:16 refers to Massa and Meribah in the wilderness
where the people murmured against God and tested Him--because they did not
believe He could or would give them water (“Massa” is one name; it is derived
from the verb in Hebrew nasa,. “to test”; the other name is “Meribah”; it is
from the verb rib, “to strive”). A trust that is weak or wavering seeks a sign
or a dramatic intervention to make it steady.
So Jesus said, “No, my trust is
perfect; I do not need to do anything heroic to prove it. And I will not test
God’s word by doing something foolish--at your prompting.” And so the spiritual
nature of Christ retained its dignity and lived out its quiet, confident trust
in the Father. He refused to do something dangerous to see if the angels would protect
Him.
3. Fall down and worship me. The last temptation is amazing in its boldness. It is
almost as if the devil realized he was not winning, and so with nothing to lose
calls for Jesus to worship him. Its purpose was to prevent the work of the
king, the work for which He had come into the world.
He took Jesus to a high mountain and
showed him all the kingdoms of the earth. This verse seems to suggest something
mystical, something supernatural. There is no mountain in Israel high enough to
see much of anything. But the idea is probably that the devil provided some
vision of these kingdoms. And the promise was that he would give them to Jesus
if only Jesus would fall down and worship him. Luke adds that Satan claimed he
had been given these kingdoms and it was his right to give them to whomever he
wished. Satan was saying to Jesus, “Look, you came as the king to inherit the
nations. Here they are. Why go through the trouble of being the suffering
servant to get to the crown. Give me one moment’s homage and I will abdicate.”
Well, even in the words of Satan
there were some clues that this was a malicious temptation. First, the offer
was coming from the one who is the prince of liars. Who would knowingly do a
deal with the devil? Jesus will later explain (John 8:44) that he was a liar
from the beginning and the truth was not in him. What a lie this was. Did Satan
actually imagine for one moment that the Son of God would believe him? Never
would Satan have given him the kingdoms; that was simply the bait for him to
bow before the evil one. Unfortunately, far too many people have believed the
evil tempter. Adam and Eve surely did.
Second, all Satan could offer were
the “kingdoms,” plural kingdoms--these warring, divided, conflicting powers and
races in the world. Who wants them? The Father had promised the Son a Kingdom,
united in peace and righteousness and harmony. Of course, there is no way to
inherit such a kingdom apart from redemption, apart from changing human nature
to make it fit for the kingdom, for without it there would never be peace and
harmony in the world. Satan’s offer is a cheap substitute.
So Jesus’ response was, “Away from
me Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the LORD your God, and serve Him only.’”
This too comes from Deuteronomy (6:13). It is the cardinal truth of Scripture:
worship God only. For the righteous there would not even be a thought of bowing
down and worshiping the prince of darkness. Jesus would hold to that principle;
He would never worship Satan. And so He would receive the kingdom in God’s
time, and in God’s way--by defeating Satan, first here in the temptation, and
later at the cross.. And His will be a far better kingdom than this world could
ever offer.
Old
Testament Background
As mentioned above, the obvious
parallel and necessary background is the temptation in the Garden. The tempter
there came in disguise, in the form of a serpent, a creature that the humans
were to rule over; here Satan did not come in disguise, but in a bold and
direct attack on Jesus.
In the Garden the tempter took the
ploy of questioning what God had said. If you make a detailed study of that
passage, Genesis 3:1-7, against the background of chapter 2, you will see that
Eve made three changes in the wording (or was it Adam who told her in
correctly?): first she diminished the privileges (God had said “you may eat to
your heart’s content of all the trees,” but she simply said, “we may eat”);
second, she added to the prohibition (God had said, of this one tree “you must
not eat,” but she added, “neither may you touch it”); and third, and most
importantly, she was not convinced of the punishment of death (God had said,
“You shall surely die,” and she said, “lest you die,” leaving it as a
contingency). When the tempter saw this, he immediately denied the penalty for
sin in exactly the words of the Creator: “You shall not surely die.” And this
is the lie from the beginning, that you can sin and get away with it, or that
God will not punish people whom He has made over sins like this.
The two observations to be made here
are: Satan knew more precisely what God had said and was able to draw them into
a discussion about the word of God with that advantage, and Satan boldly denied
that there was a penalty for sin. This is why Jesus said that he was a liar
from the beginning (John 8:44).
With that in mind we can see in
Matthew 4 that Jesus could defeat Satan because He knew the word of God better
than the tempter. He could come back with the wider picture: It is also
written. Often temptation requires “getting rid of” one verse, or a prohibition
that stands in the way (“if only that passage could be explained differently”).
But the victorious believer will know how all of Scripture works, and that
behind a prohibition or an instruction there is a general theological revelation
that will govern the interpretation and application of details.
But we can also see that there is no
trivial temptation. Eating from the tree in the Garden? – such a little thing.
Turning stones into bread? – harmless. But each was a prompting from the devil
to go against the will of God. And when anyone chooses to act contrary to what
the living God wills, that person has chosen death. Satan knew that. We often
do not; we often think something small can be winked at, easily rationalized,
even though we know at the time it is not what God wants. The Bible is filled
with examples of this, and the more you study the Bible the more you will see
them. One classic example is the case of Moses. Commanded to “speak” to the
rock and bring water from it, he lost his temper and hit it (Num. 20). For that
he was not allowed to go into the promised land. Who could blame Moses after
putting up with the people for forty years in the wilderness? But, in the eyes
of all the people he disobeyed God and gave them the impression that God (and
he) was (were) getting fed up with the people. God wanted them to see His power
– not Moses’ anger.
Well, in the Garden the aftermath of
the temptation is also instructive. The text of Genesis 3 tells us that when
the woman realized that the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to
the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom, then she took and ate.
This is probably what John is
referring to when he talks of the cravings in the world as the lust/desire of
the flesh, the lust/desire of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 1:16).
Temptation worked on all three levels – desire of the flesh to eat, desire of
the eyes for beauty, and the desire to be like God, spiritual pride. But when
they ate, all that they discovered were guilty fears and their vulnerability to
evil.
New
Testament Correlations
Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews tells us that we have a High Priest,
Jesus Christ, who was tempted in every way as we are, yet remained without sin
(Heb. 4:14-16). This means that He fully understands all that we face in this
world--He was tempted in every way, not just in these three temptations at the
outset, but throughout His life on earth. Therefore, Hebrews says, we may
approach the throne of grace in prayer with confidence so that we may obtain
mercy and grace to help in the time of need. Prayer to Christ in the times of
temptation and rial is therefore critical for victory over temptation. And this
makes sense--seek help from the one who did it.
James. If you look in a Bible study book, or a dictionary, or a
theology book, or a concordance, you should find New Testament teachings on
temptation or on Satan rather easily. James tells us “Resist the devil and he
will flee from you” (4:7). That indicates that the devil will go where there is
the least resistance. It also indicates that the human heart is capable of
producing a good bit of evil without the devil’s prompting, a point that James
makes in his epistle.
2 Corinthians. Paul also tells us that Satan masquerades as an angel of
light (2 Cor. 11:14--but read the whole section of verses 1-15). Paul tells us
that thanks to Scripture we are not ignorant of Satan’s devices, and therefore
should be able to resist the tempter. But it will require more knowledge of
Scripture, and better spiritual perception (see Hebrews 5:11-14). By knowing
Scripture well, we will both know what the whole plan of God is for our lives,
and we will be better able to perceive what would undermine it.
Conclusions
and Applications
So we have here a great drama between
Satan and Christ. It ends with Christ’s victory over the tempter because of His
knowledge and use of the word of God. The attack of Satan was made against
every vulnerable point--hunger, trust, and responsibility--and when these were
held firmly, there was no other area the devil could attack. He struck at the
material or physical need of food, but he found one who knew the spiritual was
more important than the physical; he struck at the spirit’s confidence in God,
but found one whose trust in the Father did not need testing; and he struck at
the carrying out of the divine commission, but found one who was determined to
carry out that plan in a divine way. Thus was Satan defeated.
What did this mean for Christ’s
mission? It was a foretaste of the victory at the cross. Here Jesus defeated
the tempter who tried to ruin His mission. But here Christ demonstrated that He
would not be deterred from His mission. It was a very significant spiritual
victory over the devil. And it would have given Jesus a tremendous boost (if we
can say that reverently); He would know that the anointing of the Spirit gave
Him the power to resist the evil one and to fulfill His mission.
On the theological level you might
want to get off on an aside and think about what was going on here
theologically. It makes a good little discussion. People often wonder whether
or not Christ could have sinned, and if not, was it a real temptation? We would
probably say that as Jesus He could be tempted, but as the divine Son He could
not sin (and so it is bound up in the mystery of the two natures). But we would
also say that at the moment of the temptation Jesus may not have known this--it
was a real temptation and He worked through it. But Heaven knew He would not
sin. In His time in this world there were times when Jesus had that greater
knowledge and insight, and there were other times that He did not seem to have
it or use it. And when and how this works is hard for us to know. But this was
a true temptation. Satan thought he could win. Jesus fought back with His
knowledge and obedience of Scripture. And Heaven was not surprised that He
defeated Satan. And I do not think Satan was all that surprised either.
The applications or lessons that can
be drawn from this passage are many – and you may think up others as well.
One very clear one would be the
necessity of knowing Scripture, knowing what God’s will is (not for a career
for your life, but the day in and day out spiritual life of devotion and
obedience to God). This involves both understanding and being able to use the
word of God in making choices between what is good and what is evil.
Another application would be the
inspiration that can be drawn from the fact that Jesus as perfect man defeated
Satan. Therefore, because he was tempted and because he was victorious, he
understands us and stands ready to help. So prayer to him for victory would be
a good lesson.
Other lessons can then be drawn from
the individual temptations (and these have been discussed above so I will not
go into detail here). The first had to do with knowing what is most important
in life – obeying the word of God – and not living only to satisfy the flesh,
or making a living, or using spiritual resources just to meet physical needs.
Living by obedience to God has fallen on hard times today when so many are only
interested in security of life through investments and entitlements, or
indulging themselves in the good things of life. Seeking the good life can
truly crowd out the spiritual things.
The second temptation had to do with
trusting God. Those who truly know God and experience the reality of their
faith daily do not need to find something spectacular to convince themselves
and others. Today there is a growing pre-occupation with miraculous signs. Now
God will do miraculous things – when He chooses to do them. But if people seek
the spectacular in order to believe, or to convince themselves of the faith, it
betrays a week faith.
Remember how in the vision of the rich man and the poor
man Lazarus in their rewards, and the rich man asked Abraham for Lazarus to be
sent to his family to warn them, thinking that they would believe if one came
back from the dead? The answer was, “If they do not listen to Moses and the
prophets [Scripture], they will not be convinced even if one rises from the
dead” (Luke 16:31).
The third temptation had to do with
fulfilling the commission or plan of God with a shortcut, not doing God’s way.
This is the common temptation to avoid the means to get to the ends, or as is
said, the end justifies the means. But with God there is a way to accomplish
His plan for your life, and it calls for absolute devotion and obedience to
Him. But Satan always offers shortcuts, that if looked at carefully, will ruin
your life.
So there are a number of very useful
lessons that can be drawn from this account. These should start your thinking.
You can probably meditate on these for a while and find other examples of how
the temptations would work in life, and how knowing what God wants would
prevent them. The bottom line is that Jesus demonstrated for us how to achieve
victory over temptation. In other words, we do not have to sin. There are ways
to spiritual success, if we are willing to take them.
One thing that the rabbis taught on
temptation is helpful. You work the issues and temptations and choices out like
a business person, with a profit-loss ledger. If you make this choice and do
this, what are the benefits, and what will the cost be? In many cases the cost,
including fallout afterward, is just too high. A wise decision will count the
cost.
If Christ had followed any one of
these temptations, the immediate result might not have seemed so great, but the
overall results would have been disastrous – He would have been a sinner,
another fallen human like us, unable to redeem anyone, and the mission would
have been ruined by the devil. But that was not going to happen, for the Father
sent the Son into the world to redeem us, and by doing that He had to conquer
Satan.
