Matthew 4:1-11: The Source of Temptations
(Also see Luke 4:1-13.)
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
Jesus answered, "It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’"
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
"‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’"
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’"
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’"
Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. (NIV)
How do Christ’s temptations affect us? These temptations were more than what they seem from a casual glance. They were temptations about what kind of ministry Jesus would have. Jesus faced these temptations throughout his ministry. Christians also face these temptations in ministering to other people. Too often, these temptations trap churches throughout history.
These temptations were at the end of Jesus' forty days of prayer and fasting, immediately preceding His baptism and the beginning of his ministry. The forty days and nights in the desert remind us of the forty years that the children of Israel wandered in the desert before they entered the promise land. Moses fasted for forty days and nights when he was with the Lord on Mount Sinai. In fact, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy to answer each of Satan's temptations. Not only did Jesus quote from Deuteronomy, but with two verses in chapter 6 and one from chapter 8, He quoted from the heart of Deuteronomy, chapters 5 through 8. Satan quoted one verse from the Psalms.
When God sent His Son into the world, His foremost thought was to redeem the inner person. The person remaining after death is more important than the temporary physical world. Satan urges us to short cut how God desires to develop the inner person. Satan attacked each of the three parts of the inner person (will/volition, intellect/cognition, emotion/intuition) in the opposite order from the way, the truth, and the life. The verses Jesus countered with are also in the opposite order from their occurrence in Deuteronomy.
The temptation to turn the stones into bread was the temptation for Jesus to focus His ministry on meeting physical needs of people struggling to survive in this life rather than on the true purpose for life. It sees meeting physical needs as the end, rather than the compassion learned from the sharing.
The temptation to jump from the temple was the temptation for Jesus' ministry to focus on convincing people through external appearances rather than through absolute truth changing a person on the inside. Limiting truth to perception ("I only believe what I see") makes truth relative. Relative truth can easily degenerate to allowing convincing arguments to have more importance than fact.
The temptation to worship Satan is the temptation to bring people into submission by governmental might rather than leading them to let God rule through faith in their hearts. It sees doing the right thing as more important than having the right thoughts and motives. But, laws forcing correct action devoid of good motives leads to hypocrisy. Interpreting laws with the wrong thoughts and motives leads to circumventing the good intentions of the laws often with disastrous results.
In summary, Satan tempts us to reduce life to the physical, the technical, and the scientific, ignoring loving relationships with people and with God, thus ignoring the spiritual aspect of life. Satan tempts us to dazzle with appearance, even to the point of a shallow hypocrisy or deceit, rather than to struggle with the overwhelming depth of God’s absolute truth. Satan tempts us to force people to be good against their will rather than to build goodness through character and integrity based on faith in God.
©2001 Perry Vernon Webb. You may quote this page in part or the whole as long as you do not alter the wording and reference this Internet page as the source of the quote.
Footnote on other temptation passages
How to receive a new life in Christ.
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