Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’ ”
Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set 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 command his angels concerning you,’ and, ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’ ”
Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’ ”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 5, 7 Christ was tempted all manner of ways and still…
Christ was tempted all manner of ways and still overcometh, that we also through his virtue may overcome.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit…
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
Ver. 1. Then was Jesus led up] Lest haply the people, hearing that testimony from heaven, should come and take him by force to make him a king, as Joh 6:15; to try their love also to him, who was thus overclouded as the sun in his first rising.
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Led up of the Spirit] The better to fit him thereby for the ministry. Luther observed of himself, that when God was about to set him upon any special service, he either laid some fit of sickness upon him beforehand, or turned Satan loose upon him; who so buffeted him (again) by his temptations, ut nec calor, nec sanguis, nec sensus, nec vex superesset, that neither heat, nor blood, nor sense, nor voice remained: the very venom of the temptations drank up his spirit, and his body seemed dead, as Justus Jonas, that was by and saw it, reported of him in his epistle to Melancthon. {a} Hence also it was that in his sermons God gave him such a grace, saith Mr. Foxe, that when he preached, they that heard him thought, every one, his own temptation to be severally touched and noted. Whereof when signification was given unto him by his friends, and he demanded how that could be? "Mine own manifold temptations," saith he, "and experiences are the cause thereof:" for from his tender years he was much beaten and exercised with spiritual conflicts, as Melancthon in his Life testifieth. Also Hieronymus Wellerus, scholar to the said Mr. Luther, recordeth, that he oftentimes heard Luther his master report of himself, that he had been assaulted and vexed with all kinds of temptations (saving only with that of covetousness), and was thereby fitted for the work of the Lord. Whence also he was wont to say that three things made a preacher, -meditation, prayer, and temptation.
Into the wilderness] Likely the wilderness of Sinai, where Moses and Elias had fasted before. These three great fasters met afterwards in Mount Tabor, Mat 17:3. God promiseth to turn his people’s fasting into feasting, Zec 8:19. The devil took advantage of the place here, to assault our Saviour in the desert, but was beaten on his own dunghill, that we might overcome through him that loved us, Rom 8:37, the fiend being already foiled by Christ.
To be tempted of the devil] No sooner was Christ out of the water of baptism than in the fire of temptation. So David, after his anointing, was hunted as a partridge upon the mountains. Israel is no sooner out of Egypt than Pharaoh pursues them. Hezekiah no sooner had kept that solemn passover, than Sennacherib comes up against him. St Paul is assaulted with vile temptations after the abundance of his revelations, 2Co 12:7. And Christ teacheth us, after forgiveness of sins obtained, to look for temptations and to pray against them, Mat 6:13. While Jacob would be Laban’s drudge and pack horse, all was well; but when once he began to flee, he makes after him with all his might. All was jolly quiet at Ephesus before St Paul came thither; but then "there arose no small stir about that way," Act 19:23. All the while our Saviour lay in his father’s shop, and meddled only with carpenter’s chips, the devil troubled him not. But now that he is to enter more publicly upon his office of mediatorship, the tempter pierceth his tender soul with many sorrows, by solicitation to sin. (πειραζω from πειρω, to pierce through.) And dealt he so with the green tree? what will he do with the dry? Temptations (besides those that come from God, which are only probationis, approval, not perditionis, damnation as the other) are of two sorts: for either they are of seducement, Jas 1:14, or of buffeting and grievance, 2Co 12:7; either of allurement or frightment. ( Irritamenta, vel terriculamenta.) In the former we are pressed with some darling corruption, whereto our appetites by nature have the most propensity; in the latter we are dogged with foulest lusts of atheism, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, &c., that nature startles at: in these the devil tempts alone, and that so grossly, that the very flesh is ashamed of it. But in the former, that come more immediately from the flesh, the devil only interposeth himself, and speaks his good word for them; whence they are called messengers of Satan, 2Co 12:7; Eph 4:27, we are said in anger to "give place to the devil;" and in resisting of lusts, we "resist the devil," Jas 4:7.
{a} Lutherus in oppidum Eisleben honorifice introductus est, valetudine admodum imbecilla, et tantum non desperata: quod sibi accidere semper, cum magni quippiam aggrederetur, dixit. Melchior Adam.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 This is mentioned by two of the other evangelists,…
This is mentioned by two of the other evangelists, Mar 1:12; Luk 4:1 Luke saith that, being full of the Holy Ghost, he returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit, & c. Mark saith, immediately the Spirit drove him. Great manifestations of Divine love are commonly followed with great temptations. Others observe, that temptations usually follow baptism, the beginnings of spiritual life, and covenants made with God. He
was led up: some think he was taken up; Mark useth the word εκβαλλει, the Spirit thrust him out: we must not understand an act of compulsion, doubtless he went voluntarily.
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Of the Spirit; the Holy Spirit, that lighted upon him as a dove.
Into the wilderness. Mark’s saying, Mar 1:13, that he was there with wild beasts, lets us know that it was not such a wilderness as John began to preach in, Mat 3:1; but a howling wilderness full of wild beasts. The end is expressed in the last words,
to be tempted of the devil: thus his temptations are distinguished from Divine temptations, such as Abraham had, Gen 22:1; and by tempted here is meant solicited, or moved to sin, in which sense God tempteth no man, Jam 1:13. The general notion of tempting is, making a trial; God makes a trial of his people for the proof and manifestation of their gracious habit. Satan, by moving to sin, makes a trial of corruption, which was the reason that, although Christ was tempted, that he might be able to succour those that are tempted, Heb 2:18, and that he might taste all those evils to which we are exposed, and might overcome the devil; yet when the Prince of this world came, he could effect nothing against him, because he found nothing in him to comply with his motions.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 Observe, 1. The great humiliation of the Son of…
Observe, 1. The great humiliation of the Son of God, how exceedingly was he humbled by the horrid temptations wherewith he was assaulted, than which nothing could be more grievous to his holy heart. What could be more burdensome to him that was brought up from eternity with God the Father, than to be shut up in a wilderness with the devil, there to be baited by him so many days, having his ears files, though not defiled, with horrid blasphemies spit upon the holy and reverend name of God! Oh deep abasement and wonderful humiliation of the Son of God!
Observe, 2. The time when Christ entered the lists with Satan, implied in the word then! that is first, immediately after his baptism; he is no sooner out of the water of baptism, but he is in the fire of temptation:
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secondly, immediately after the Spirit descended upon, and the Father had by a voice from heaven, manifested his complacency and satisfaction in him: This is my beloved Son, &c.
Note thence, That great manifestations of love from God, are usually followed with great temptations from Satan.
Observe, 3. The place where this combat was fought, and that is, in the wilderness.
Learn thence, That no place can privilege us from temptation, or be a sanctuary from Satan’s assualts: the solitary wilderness has a tempter in it, yea Satan sometimes makes use of men’s solitariness, to further his temptations: a cell, a nunnery, or a cloister, are as open to Satan as the open fields, and the persons that live in the have a tempter without, and an inticer within as well as other men.
Observe, 4. The efficient cause of Christ’s going into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan: He was led up of the Spirit, says St. Matthew: The Spirit drove him, says St. Mark: that is, the Holy Spirit of God, not Satan the unclean spirit, for the devil is seldom if ever called the spirit, but usually some brand of reproach is annexed, as the evil spirit, or the unclean spirit.
Christ was led by the Spirit; that is, he was carried by a strong impulse of the Spirit of God into the wilderness, to be tempted by Satan.
Learn hence, 1. That none of the children of God are assaulted, are ordered by divine and special dispensation. Satan could not assault our Saviour till he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for that end; and he shall not assault any of his members, but by divine permission.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 We have here the story of a famous duel,…
We have here the story of a famous duel, fought hand to hand, between Michael and the dragon, the Seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, nay, the serpent himself; in which the seed of the woman suffers, being tempted, and so has his heel bruised; but the serpent is quite baffled in his temptations, and so has his head broken; and our Lord Jesus comes off a Conqueror, and so secures not only comfort, but conquest at last, to all his faithful followers. Concerning Christ's temptation, observe,
I. The time when it happened: Then; there is an emphasis laid upon that. Immediately after the heavens were opened to him, and the Spirit descended on him, and he was declared to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, the next news we hear of him is, he is tempted; for then he is best able to grapple with the temptation. Note, 1. Great privileges, and special tokens of divine favour, will not secure us from being tempted. Nay, 2. After great honours put upon us, we must expect something that is humbling; as Paul has a messenger of Satan sent to buffer him, after he had been in the third heavens. 3. God usually prepares his people for temptation before he calls them to it; he gives strength according to the day, and, before a sharp trial, gives more than ordinary comfort. 4. The assurance of our sonship is the best preparative for temptation. If the good Spirit witness to our adoption, that will furnish us with an answer to all the suggestions of the evil spirit, designed either to debauch or disquiet us.
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Then, when he was newly come from a solemn ordinance, when he was baptized, then he was tempted. Note, After we have been admitted into the communion of God, we must expect to be set upon by Satan. The enriched soul must double its guard. When thou has eaten and art full, then beware. Then, when he began to show himself publicly to Israel, then he was tempted, so as he never had been while he lived in privacy. Note, The Devil has a particular spite at useful persons, who are not only good, but given to do good, especially at their first setting out. It is the advice of the Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus 2:1), My son, if thou come to serve the Lord, prepare thyself for temptation. Let young ministers know what to expect, and arm accordingly.
II. The place where it was; in the wilderness; probably in the great wilderness of Sinai, where Moses and Elijah fasted forty days, for no part of the wilderness of Judea was so abandoned to wild beasts as this is said to have been, Mar 1:13. When Christ was baptized, he did not go to Jerusalem, there to publish the glories that had been put upon him, but retired into a wilderness. After communion with God, it is good to be private awhile, lest we lose what we have received, in the crowd and hurry of worldly business. Christ withdrew into the wilderness, 1. To gain advantage to himself. Retirement gives an opportunity for meditation an communion with God; even they who are called to the most active life must yet have their contemplative hours, and must first find time to be alone with God. Those are not fit to speak of the things of God in public to others, who have not first conversed with those things in secret by themselves. When Christ would appear as a Teacher come from God, it shall not be said of him, "He is newly come from travelling, he has been abroad, and has seen the world;" but, "He is newly come out of the desert, he has been alone conversing with God and his own heart." 2. To give advantage to the tempter, that he might have a readier access to him than he could have had in company. Note, Though solitude is a friend to a good heart, yet Satan knows how to improve it against us. Woe to him that is alone. Those who, under pretence of sanctity and devotion, retire into dens and deserts, find that they are not out of reach of their spiritual enemies, and that there they want the benefit of the communion with saints. Christ retired, (1.) To make his victory the more illustrious, he gave the enemy sun and wind on his side, and yet baffled him. He might give the Devil advantage, for the prince of this world had nothing in him; but he has in us, and therefore we must pray not to be led into temptation, and must keep out of harm's way. (2.) That he might have an opportunity to do his best himself, that he might be exalted in his own strength; for so it was written, I have trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me. Christ entered the lists without a second.
III. The preparatives for it, which were two.
1. He was directed to the combat; he did not wilfully thrust himself upon it, but he was led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the Devil. The Spirit that descended upon him like a dove made him meek, and yet made him bold. Note, Our care must be, not to enter into temptation; but if God, by his providence, order us into circumstances of temptation for our trial, we must not think it strange, but double our guard. Be strong in the Lord, resist stedfast in the faith, and all shall be well. If we presume upon our own strength, and tempt the devil to tempt us, we provoke God to leave us to ourselves; but, whithersoever God leads us, we may hope he will go along with us, and bring us off more than conquerors.
Christ was led to be tempted of the Devil, and of him only. Others are tempted, when they are drawn aside of their own lust and enticed (Jam 1:14); the Devil takes hold of that handle, and ploughs with that heifer; but our Lord Jesus had no corrupt nature, and therefore he was led securely, without any fear or trembling, as a champion into the field, to be tempted purely by the Devil.
Now Christ's temptation is, (1.) An instance of his own condescension and humiliation. Temptations are fiery darts, thorns in the flesh, buffetings, siftings, wrestlings, combats, all which denote hardship and suffering; therefore Christ submitted to them, because he would humble himself, in all things to be made like unto his brethren; thus he gave his back to the smiters. (2.) An occasion of Satan's confusion. There is no conquest without a combat. Christ was tempted, that he might overcome the tempter. Satan tempted the first Adam, and triumphed over him; but he shall not always triumph, the second Adam shall overcome him and lead captivity captive. (3.) Matter of comfort to all the saints. In the temptation of Christ it appears, that our enemy is subtle, spiteful, and very daring in his temptations; but it appears withal, that he is not invincible. Though he is a strong man armed, yet the Captain of our salvation is stronger than he. It is some comfort to us to think that Christ suffered, being tempted; for thus it appears that temptations, if not yielded to, are not sins, they are afflictions only, and such as may be pleased. And we have a High Priest who knows, by experience, what it is to be tempted, and who therefore is the more tenderly touch with the feelings of our infirmities in an hour of temptation, Heb 2:18; Heb 4:15. But it is much more a comfort to think that Christ conquered, being tempted, and conquered for us; not only that the enemy we grapple with is a conquered, baffled, disarmed enemy, but that we are interested in Christ's victory over him, and through him are more than conquerors.
2. He was dieted for the combat, as wrestlers, who are temperate in all things (Co1 9:25); but Christ beyond any other, for he fasted forty days and forty nights, in compliance with the type and example of Moses the great lawgiver, and of Elias, the great reformer, of the Old Testament. John Baptist came as Elias, in those things that were moral, but not in such things as were miraculous (Joh 10:41); that honour was reserved for Christ. Christ needed not to fast for mortification (he had no corrupt desires to be subdued); yet he fasted, (1.) That herein he might humble himself, and might seem as one abandoned, whom no man seeketh after. (2.) That he might give Satan both occasion and advantage against him; and so make his victory over him the more illustrious. (3.) That he might sanctify and recommend fasting to us, when God in his providence calls to it, or when we are reduced to straits, and are destitute of daily food, or when it is requisite for the keeping under of the body, or the quickening of prayer, those excellent preparatives for temptation. If good people are brought low, if they want friends and succours, this may comfort them, that their Master himself was in like manner exercised. A man may want bread, and yet be a favourite of heaven, and under the conduct of the Spirit. The reference which the Papists make of their lent-fast to this fasting of Christ forty days, is a piece of foppery and superstition which the law of our land witnesses against, Stat. 5 Eliz. chap. 5 sect. 39, 40. When he fasted forty days he was never hungry; converse with heaven was instead of meat and drink to him, but he was afterwards an hungred, to show that he was really and truly Man; and he took upon him our natural infirmities, that he might atone for us. Man fell by eating, and that way we often sin, and therefore Christ was an hungred.
IV. The temptations themselves. That which Satan aimed at, in all his temptations, was, to bring him to sin against God, and so to render him for ever incapable of being a Sacrifice for the sins of others. Now, whatever the colours were, that which he aimed at was, to bring him, 1. To despair of his Father's goodness. 2. To presume upon his Father's power. 3. To alienate his Father's honour, by giving it to Satan. In the two former, that which he tempted him to, seemed innocent, and therein appeared the subtlety of the tempter; in the last, that which he tempted him with, seemed desirable. The two former are artful temptations, which there was need of great wisdom to discern; the last was a strong temptation, which there was need of great resolution to resist; yet he was baffled in them all.
1. He tempted him to despair of his Father's goodness, and to distrust his Father's care concerning him.
(1.) See how the temptation was managed (Mat 4:3); The tempter came to him. Note, The Devil is the tempter, and therefore he is Satan - an adversary; for those are our worst enemies, that entice us to sin, and are Satan's agents, are doing his work, and carrying on his designs. He is called emphatically the tempter, because he was so to our first parents, and still is so, and all other tempters are set on work by him. The tempter came to Christ in a visible appearance, not terrible and affrighting, as afterward in his agony in the garden; no, if ever the Devil transformed himself into an angel of light, he did so now, and pretended to be a good genius, a guardian angel.
Observe the subtlety of the tempter, in joining this first temptation with what went before to make it the stronger. [1.] Christ began to be hungry, and therefore the motion seemed very proper, to turn stones into bread for his necessary support. Note, It is one of the wiles of Satan to take advantage of our outward condition, in that to plant the battery of his temptations. He is an adversary no less watchful than spiteful; and the more ingenious he is to take advantage against us, the more industrious we must be to give him none. When he began to be hungry, and that in a wilderness, where there was nothing to be had, then the Devil assaulted him. Note, Want and poverty are a great temptation to discontent and unbelief, and the use of unlawful means for our relief, under pretence that necessity has no law; and it is excused with this that hunger will break through stone walls, which yet is no excuse, for the law of God ought to be stronger to us than stone walls. Agur prays against poverty, not because it is an affliction and reproach, but because it is a temptation; lest I be poor, and steal. Those therefore who are reduced to straits, have need to double their guard; it is better to starve to death, than live and thrive by sin. [2.] Christ was lately declared to be the Son of God, and here the Devil tempts him to doubt of that; If thou be the Son of God. Had not the Devil known that the Son of God was to come into the world, he would not have said this; and had he not suspected that this was he, he would not have said it to him, nor durst he have said it if Christ had not now drawn a veil over his glory, and if the Devil had not now put on an impudent face.
First, "Thou has now an occasion to question whether thou be the Son of God or no; for can it be, that the Son of God, who is Heir of all things, should be reduced to such straits? If God were thy Father, he would not see thee starve, for all the beasts of the forest are his, Psa 50:10, Psa 50:12. It is true there was a voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son, but surely it was delusion, and thou was imposed upon by it; for either God is not thy Father, or he is a very unkind one." Note, 1. The great thing Satan aims at, in tempting good people, is to overthrow their relation to God as a Father, and so to cut off their dependence on him, their duty to him, and their communion with him. The good Spirit, as the Comforter of the brethren, witnesses that they are the children of God; the evil spirit, as the accuser of the brethren, does all he can to shake that testimony. 2. Outward afflictions, wants and burdens, are the great arguments Satan uses to make the people of God question their sonship; as if afflictions could not consist with, when really they proceed fRom. God's fatherly love. They know how to answer this temptation, who can say with holy Job, Though he slay me, though he starve me, yet I will trust in him, and love him as a Friend, even when he seems to come forth against me as an Enemy. 3. The Devil aims to shake our faith in the word of God, and bring us to question the truth of that. Thus he began with our first parents; Yea, has God said so and so? Surely he has not. So here, Has God said that thou art his beloved Son? Surely he did not say so; or if he did it is not true. We then give place to the Devil, when we question the truth of any word that God has spoken; for his business, as the father of lies, is to oppose the true sayings of God. 4. The Devil carries on his designs very much by possessing people with hard thoughts of God, as if he were unkind, or unfaithful, and had forsaken or forgotten those who had ventured their all with him. He endeavored to beget in our first parents a notion that God forbade them the tree of knowledge, because he grudged them the benefit of it; and so here he insinuates to our Saviour, that his Father had cast him off, and left him to shift for himself. But see how unreasonable this suggestion was, and how easily answered. If Christ seemed to be a mere Man now, because he was hungry, why was he not confessed to be more than a Man, even the Son of God, when for forty days he fasted, and was not hungry?
Secondly, "Thou hast now an opportunity to show that thou art the son of God. If thou art the Son of God, prove it by this, command these stones" (a heap of which, probably, lay now before him) "be made bread, Mat 4:3. John Baptist said but the other day, that God can out of stone raise up children to Abraham, a divine power therefore can, no doubt, out of stones, make bread for those children; if there thou has that power, exert it now in a time of need for thyself." He does not say, Pray to thy Father that he would turn them into bread; but command it to be done; thy Father hath forsaken thee, set up for thyself, and be not beholden to him. The Devil is for nothing that is humbling, but ever thing that is assuming; and gains his point, if he can but bring men off from their dependence upon God, and possess them with an opinion of their self-sufficiency.
(2.) See how this temptation was resisted and overcome.
[1.] Christ refused to comply with it. He would not command these stones to be made bread; not because he could not; his power, which soon after this turned stones into bread; but he would not. And why would he not? At first view, the thing appears justifiable enough, and the truth is, the more plausible a temptation is, and the greater appearance there is of good in it, the more dangerous it is. This matter would bear a dispute, but Christ was soon aware of the snake in the grass, and would not do any thing, First, That looked like questioning the truth of the voice he heard from heaven, or putting that upon a new trial which was already settled. Secondly, That looked like distrusting his Father's care of him, or limiting him to one particular way of providing for him. Thirdly, That looked like setting up for himself, and being his own carver; or, Fourthly, That looked like gratifying Satan, by doing a thing at his motion. Some would have said, To give the Devil his due, this was good counsel; but for those who wait upon God, to consult him, is more than his due; it is like enquiring of the god Ekron, when there is a God in Israel.
[2.] He was ready to reply to it (Mat 4:4); He answered and said, It is written. This is observable, that Christ answered and baffled all the temptations of Satan with, It is written. He is himself the eternal Word, and could have produced the mind of God without having recourse to the writings of Moses; but he put honour upon the scripture, and, to set us an example, he appealed to what was written in the law; and he says this to Satan, taking it for granted that he knew well enough what was written. It is possible that those who are the Devil's children may yet know very well what is written in God's book; The devils believe and tremble. This method we must take when at any time we are tempted to sin; resist and repel the temptation with, It is written. The Word of God is the sword of the Spirit, the only offensive weapon in all the Christian armoury (Eph 6:17); and we may say of it as David of Goliath's sword, None is like that in our spiritual conflicts.
This answer, as all the rest, is taken out of the book of Deuteronomy, which signifies the second law, and in which there is very little ceremonial; the Levitical sacrifices and purifications could not drive away Satan, though of divine institution, much less holy water and the sign of the cross, which are of human invention; but moral precepts and evangelical promises, mixed with faith, these are mighty, through God, for the vanquishing of Satan. This is here quoted from Deu 8:3, where the reason given why God fed the Israelites with manna is, because he would teach them that man shall not live by bread alone. This Christ applies to his own case. Israel was God's son, whom he called out of Egypt (Hos 11:1), so was Christ (Mat 2:15); Israel was then in a wilderness, Christ was so now, perhaps the same wilderness. Now, First, The Devil would have him question his sonship, because he was in straits; no, says he, Israel was God's son, and a son he was very tender of and whose manners he bore (Act 13:18); and yet he brought them into straits; and it follows there (Deu 8:5), As a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Christ, being a Son, thus learns obedience. Secondly, The Devil would have him distrust his Father's love and care. "No," says he, "that would be to do as Israel did, who, when they were in want, said, Is the Lord among us? and, Can he furnish a table in the wilderness? Can he give bread?" Thirdly, The Devil would have him, as soon as he began to be hungry, immediately looking out for supply; whereas God, for wise and holy ends, suffered Israel to hunger before he fed them; to humble them, and prove them. God will have his children, when they want, not only to wait on him, but to wait for him. Fourthly, The Devil would have him to supply himself with bread. "No," says Christ, "what need is there of that? It is a point long since settled, and incontestably proved, that man may live without bread, as Israel in the wilderness lived forty years upon manna." It is true, God in his providence ordinarily maintains men by bread out of the earth (Job 28:5); but he can, if he please, make use of other means to keep men alive; any word proceeding out of the mouth of God, any thing that God shall order and appoint for that end, will be a good a livelihood for man as bread, and will maintain him as well. As we may have bread, and yet not be nourished, if God deny his blessing (Hag 1:6, Hag 1:9; Mic 6:14; for though bread is the staff of life, it is God's blessing that is the staff of bread), so we may want bread, and yet be nourished some other way. God sustains Moses and Elias without bread, and Christ himself just now for forty days; he sustained Israel with bread from heaven, angels' food; Elijah with bread sent miraculously by ravens, and another time with the widow's meal miraculously multiplied; therefore Christ need not turn stones into bread, but trust God to keep him alive some other way now that he is hungry, as he had done forty days before he hungred. Note, As in our great abundance we must not think to live without God, so in our greatest straits we must learn to live upon God; and when the fig-tree does not blossom, and the field yields no meat, when all ordinary means of succour and support are cut off, yet then we must rejoice in the Lord; then we must not think to command what we will, though contrary to his command, but must humbly pray for what he thinks fit to give us, and be thankful for the bread of our allowance, though it be a short allowance. Let us learn of Christ here to be at God's finding, rather than at our own; and not to take any irregular courses for our supply, when our wants are ever so pressing (Psa 37:3). Jehovah-jireh; some way or other the Lord will provide. It is better to live poorly upon the fruits of God's goodness, than live plentifully upon the products of our own sin.
2. He tempted him to presume upon his Father's power and protection. See what a restless unwearied adversary the Devil is! If he fail in one assault, he tries another.
Now in this second attempt we may observe,
(1.) What the temptation was, and how it was managed. In general, finding Christ so confident of his Father's care of him, in point of nourishment, he endeavors to draw him to presume upon that care in point of safety. Note, We are in danger of missing our way, both on the right hand and on the left, and therefore must take heed, lest, when we avoid one extreme, we be brought by the artifices of Satan, to run into another; lest, by overcoming our prodigality, we fall into covetousness. Nor are any extremes more dangerous than those of despair and presumption, especially in the affairs of our souls. Some who have obtained a persuasion that Christ is able and willing to save them from their sins, are then tempted to presume that he will save them in their sins. Thus when people begin to be zealous in religion, Satan hurries them into bigotry and intemperate heats.
Now in this temptation we may observe,
[1.] How he made way for it. He took Christ, not by force against his will, but moved him to go, and went along with him, to Jerusalem. Whether Christ went upon the ground, and so went up the stairs to the top of the temple, or whether he went in the air, is uncertain; but so it was, that he was set upon a pinnacle, or spire; upon the fane (so some), upon the battlements (so others), upon the wing (so the word is), of the temple. Now observe, First, How submissive Christ was, in suffering himself to be hurried thus, that he might let Satan do his worst and yet conquer him. The patience of Christ here, as afterward in his sufferings and death, is more wonderful than the power of Satan or his instruments; for neither he nor they could have any power against Christ but what was given them from above. How comfortable is it, that Christ, who let loose this power of Satan against himself, does not in like manner let it loose against us, but restrains it, for he knows our frame! Secondly, How subtle the Devil was, in the choice of the place for his temptations. Intending to solicit Christ to an ostentation of his own power, and a vain-glorious presumption upon God's providence, he fixes him on a public place in Jerusalem, a populous city, and the joy of the whole earth; in the temple, one of the wonders of the world, continually gazed upon with admiration by some one or other. There he might make himself remarkable, and be taken notice of by every body, and prove himself the Son of God; not, as he was urged in the former temptation, in the obscurities of a wilderness, but before multitudes, upon the most eminent stage of action.
Observe, 1. That Jerusalem is here called the holy city; for so it was in name and profession, and there was in it a holy seed, that was the substance thereof. Note, There is no city on earth so holy as to exempt and secure us from the Devil and his temptations. The first Adam was tempted in the holy garden, the second in the holy city. Let us not, therefore, in any place, be off our watch. Nay, the holy city is the place where he does, with great advantage and success, tempt men to pride and presumption; but, blessed be God, into the Jerusalem above, that holy city, no unclean thing shall enter; there we shall be for ever out of temptation. 2. That he set him upon a pinnacle of the temple, which (as Josephus describes it, Antiq. 15.412) was so very high, that it would make a man's head giddy to look down to the bottom. Note, Pinnacles of the temple are places of temptation; I mean, (1.) High places are so; they are slippery places; advancement in the world makes a man a fair mark for Satan to shoot his fiery darts at. God casts down, that he may raise up; the Devil raises up, that he may cast down: therefore they who would take heed of falling, must take heed of climbing. (2.) High places in the church are, in a special manner, dangerous. They who excel in gifts, who are in eminent stations, and have gained great reputation, have need to keep humble; for Satan will be sure to aim at them, to puff them up with pride, that they may fall into the condemnation of the Devil. Those that stand high are concerned to stand fast.
[2.] How he moved it; "If thou be the Son of God, now show thyself to the world, and prove thyself to be so; cast thyself down, and then," First, "Thou wilt be admired, as under the special protection of heaven. When they see thee receive no hurt by a fall from such a precipice, they will say" (as the barbarous people did of Paul) "that thou art a God." Tradition says, that Simon Magnus by this very thing attempted to prove himself a god, but that his pretensions were disproved, for he fell down, and was miserably bruised. "Nay," Secondly, "Thou wilt be received, as coming with a special commission from heaven. All Jerusalem will see and acknowledge, not only that thou art more than a man, but that thou art that Messenger, that Angel of the covenant, that should suddenly come to the temple (Mal 3:1), and from thence descend into the streets of the holy city; and thus the work of convincing the Jews will be cut short, and soon done."
Observe, The Devil said, Cast thyself down. The Devil could not cast him down, though a little thing would have done it, from the top of a spire. Note, The power of Satan is a limited power; hitherto he shall come, and no further. Yet, if the Devil had cast him down, he had not gained his point; that had been his suffering only, not his sin. Note, Whatever real mischief is done us, it is of our own doing; the Devil can but persuade, he cannot compel; he can but say, Cast thyself down; he cannot cast us down. Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and not forced, but enticed. Therefore let us not hurt ourselves, and then, blessed be God, no one else can hurt us, Pro 9:12.
[3.] How he backed this motion with a scripture; For it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee. But is Saul also among the prophets? Is Satan so well versed in scripture, as to be able to quote it so readily? It seems, he is. Note, It is possible for a man to have his head full of scripture-notions, and his mouth full of scripture-expressions, while his heart is full of reigning enmity to God and all goodness. The knowledge which the devils have of the scripture, increases both their mischievousness and their torment. Never did the devil speak with more vexation to himself, than when he said to Christ, I know thee who thou art. The devil would persuade Christ to throw himself down, hoping that he would be his own murderer, and that there would be an end of him and his undertaking, which he looked upon with a jealous eye; to encourage him to do it, he tells them, that there was no danger, that the good angels would protect him, for so was the promise (Psa 91:11), He shall give his angels charge over thee. In this quotation,
First, There was something right. It is true, there is such a promise of the ministration of the angels, for the protection of the saints. The devil knows it by experience; for he finds his attempts against them fruitless, and he frets and rages at it, as he did at the hedge about Job, which he speaks of so sensibly, Job 1:10. He was also right in applying it to Christ, for to him all the promises of the protection of the saints primarily and eminently belong, and to them, in and through him. That promise, that not a bone of theirs shall be broken (Psa 34:20), was fulfilled in Christ, Joh 19:36. The angels guard the saints for Christ's sake, Rev 7:5, Rev 7:11.
Secondly, There was a great deal wrong in it; and perhaps the devil had a particular spite against this promise, and perverted it, because it often stood in his way, and baffled his mischievous designs against the saints. See here, 1. How he misquoted it; and that was bad. The promise is, They shall keep thee; but how? In all thy ways; not otherwise; if we go out of our way, out of the way of our duty, we forfeit the promise, and put ourselves out of God's protection. Now this word made against the tempter, and therefore he industriously left it out. If Christ had cast himself down, he had been out of his way, for he had no call so to expose himself. It is good for us upon all occasions to consult the scriptures themselves, and not to take things upon trust, that we may not be imposed upon by those that maim and mangle the word of God; we must do as the noble Bereans, who searched the scriptures daily. 2. How he misapplied it; and that was worse. Scripture is abused when it is pressed to patronize sin; and when men thus wrest it to their own temptation, they do it to their own destruction Pe2 3:16. This promise is firm, and stands good; but the devil made an ill use of it, when he used it as an encouragement to presume upon the divine care. Note, It is no new thing for the grace of God to be turned into wantonness; and for men to take encouragement in sin from the discoveries of God's good will to sinners. But shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? throw ourselves down, that the angels may bear us up? God forbid.
(2.) How Christ overcame this temptation; he resisted and overcame it, as he did the former, with, It is written. The devil's abusing of scripture did not prevent Christ from using it, but he presently urges, Deu 6:16, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. The meaning of this is not, Therefore thou must not tempt me; but, Therefore I must not tempt my Father. In the place whence it is quoted, it is in the plural number, You shall not tempt; here it is singular, Thou shalt not. Note, We are then likely to get good by the word of God, when we hear and receive general promises as speaking to us in particular. Satan said, It is written; Christ says, It is written; not that one scripture contradicts another. God is one, and his word one, and he is one mind, but that is a promise, this is a precept, and therefore that is to be explained and applied by this; for scripture is the best interpreter of scripture; and they who prophesy, who expound scripture, must do it according to the proportion of faith (Rom 12:6), consistently with practical godliness.
If Christ should cast himself down, it would be the tempting of God, [1.] As it would be requiring a further confirmation of that which was so well confirmed. Christ was abundantly satisfied that God was already his Father, and took care of him, and gave his angels a charge concerning him; and therefore to put it upon a new experiment, would be to tempt him, as the Pharisees tempted Christ; when they had so many signs on earth, they demanded a sign from heaven. This is limiting the Holy One of Israel. [2.] As it would be requiring a specia
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–10 And when he had fasted forty days..... As Moses…
And when he had fasted forty days..... As Moses did, when he was about to deliver the law to the Israelites, Exo 34:28 and as Elijah did, when he bore his testimony for the Lord of hosts, Kg1 19:8 so did Christ, when he was about to publish the Gospel of his grace, and bear witness to the truth. "Forty nights" as well as days, are mentioned; partly to show that these were whole entire days, consisting of twenty four hours; and partly to distinguish this fast of Christ from the common fastings of the Jews, who used to eat in the night, though they fasted in the day: for according to their canons (z), they might eat and drink as soon as it was dark, and that till cock crowing; and others say, till break of day. Maimonides (a) says, they might eat and drink at night, in all fasts, except the ninth of Ab. What is very surprising in this fasting of our Lord, which was made and recorded, not for our imitation, is, that during the whole time he should not be attended with hunger; for it is added,
he was afterwards an hungered; that is, as Luke says, "when" the "forty" days "were ended", Luk 4:2 which seized upon him, and is related, both to express the reality of his human nature, which though miraculously supported for so long a time without food, and insensible of hunger, yet at length had appetite for food; and also that very advantageous opportunity Satan had to attack him in the manner he did, with his first temptation.
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(z) T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 12. 1, 2. Misn. Taanith, c. 1. sect. 5. (a) Hilch. Taanith, c. 5. sect. 5.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Then - After this glorious evidence of his Father's…
Then - After this glorious evidence of his Father's love, he was completely armed for the combat. Thus after the clearest light and the strongest consolation, let us expect the sharpest temptations. By the Spirit - Probably through a strong inward impulse. Mark i, 12; Luke iv, 1.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Jesus, in the wilderness, is tempted by Satan, 1-11.
CHAPTER IV.
Jesus, in the wilderness, is tempted by Satan, 1-11.
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He goes into Galilee, 12;
and Capernaum, 13.
The prophecy which was thus fulfilled, 14-16.
He begins to preach publicly, 17.
Calls Simon Peter, and his brother Andrew, 18-20.
Calls also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, 21, 22.
Preaches and works miracles throughout Galilee, 23.
Becomes famous in Syria, and is followed by multitudes from
various quarters, among whom he works a great variety of
miracles, 24, 25.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV.
Verse 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit] This transaction appears to have taken place immediately after Christ's baptism; and this bringing up of Christ was through the influence of the Spirit of God; that Spirit which had rested upon him in his baptism.
To be tempted] The first act of the ministry of Jesus Christ was a combat with Satan. Does not this receive light from Ge 3:17. I will put enmity between the woman's seed and thy seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10 Mat 4:1. Then — After the afore-mentioned glorious manifestation…
Mat 4:1. Then — After the afore-mentioned glorious manifestation of his Father’s love, by which he was armed for the combat. Was Jesus led by the Spirit — By a strong impulse of the Spirit of God, of which he was full; into the wilderness — Probably, the wilderness near Jordan, which, as Mr. Maundrell, who travelled through it, assures us, is a miserable and horrid place, consisting of high, barren mountains, so that it looks as if nature had suffered some violent convulsions there. Our Lord, probably, was assaulted in the northern part of it, near the sea of Galilee, because he is said by Luke to be returning to Nazareth, from whence he came to be baptized. To be tempted of the devil — That is, the chief of the devils, Satan, the everlasting enemy of God and man. The proper meaning of the original word here, and in other places of the Old and New Testaments, translated to tempt, is to try. Hence we sometimes, as Gen 22:1, read of God’s tempting men, as well as of the devil’s tempting them. But there is this difference between the temptations, or trials, that are immediately from God, and those that are from Satan, by God’s permission. We are tempted, or tried, by God, that our righteousness, our faith, love, patience, and every grace and virtue, may be manifested, approved, and further increased: and therefore, as James says, Blessed is the man who, in this sense, endureth temptation. But the devil tempts, or tries us, in expectation of finding us insincere, or unstable, and with a view to lead us into sin by his subtlety and power; in which sense God, who cannot be tempted with evil, or see any thing desirable in it, tempteth no man. Doubtless, it must have been for some very great and good ends that the Holy Spirit thus moved our Lord to repair into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. For though, by his repairing thither, he might partly intend to enjoy a devout retirement, that as man he might give vent to those sacred passions which the late grand occurrences of the descent of the Spirit upon him, and the miraculous attestation of a voice from heaven, had such a tendency to inspire; yet no doubt he foresaw that this season of intercourse with heaven would be followed by a violent assault from hell, and he went into the wilderness with a view also to meet and combat with the grand adversary of mankind. Probably, as Theophylact observes, one grand end might be to teach us that when we have consecrated ourselves to God’s service, and have been favoured with peculiar marks of divine acceptance, and the consolations of his Spirit, we must expect temptations; and to teach us, by our Lord’s example, how we may best and most effectually resist them, even by an unshaken faith, 1Pe 5:9; and by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, Eph 6:17. 2d, Our Lord was tempted thus, that his perfect holiness might be tried and approved. 3d, That Satan might be conquered, which he never had perfectly been by any man before. 4th, That Christ might become a merciful and faithful high priest, one who can succour his people in time of need, and pity them when they happen to fall by temptation. The apostle assigns this reason expressly, Heb 2:17-18. And, 5th, That assurance might be given to his people of an everlasting victory over, and deliverance from, the power of Satan.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit -…
Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit - Led up by the Spirit. Luke says Luk 4:1 that Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit;” and it was by his influence, therefore, that he went into the desert to be tempted. It was not done by presumption on the part of Jesus, nor was it for a mere display of his power in resisting temptation; but it was evidently that it might be seen that his holiness was such that he could not be seduced from allegiance to God. When the first Adam was created he was subjected to the temptation of the devil, and he fell and involved the race in ruin: it was not improper that the second Adam - the Redeemer of the race - should be subjected to temptation, in order that it might be seen that there was no power that could alienate him from God; that there was a kind and a degree of holiness which no art or power could estrange from allegiance. Mark Mar 1:12 says that this occurred “immediately” after his baptism; that is, in his case, as not unfrequently happens, the great temptation followed immediately the remarkable manifestation of the divine approbation and favor. In the clearest manifestations of the divine favor to us we may not be far from most powerful temptations, and then may be the time when it is necessary to be most carefully on our guard.
Into the wilderness - See the notes at Mat 3:1.
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To be tempted - The word “tempt,” in the original, means to try, to endeavor, to attempt to do a thing; then, to try the nature of a thing, as metals by fire; then, to test moral qualities by trying them, to see how they will endure; then, to endeavor to draw people away from virtue by suggesting motives to evil. This is the meaning here, and this is now the established sense of the word in the English language.
The devil - This word originally means an adversary, or an accuser; then, any one opposed to us; then, an enemy of any kind. It is given in the Scriptures, by way of eminence, to the leader of evil angels - a being characterized as full of subtlety, envy, art, and hatred of mankind. He is known, also, by the name Satan, Job 1:6-12; Mat 12:26; Beelzebub, Mat 12:24; the old Serpent, Rev 12:9; and the Prince of the power of the air, Eph 2:2. The name is once given to women 1Ti 3:11; “Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers;” in the original, devils.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 Jesus Christ was led by the Holy Ghost, immediately…
Jesus Christ was led by the Holy Ghost, immediately after his baptism, into the desert,[1] to prepare, by fasting and prayer, for his public ministry, and to merit for us by his victory over the enemy of our salvation, force to conquer him also ourselves. By this conduct, he teaches all that were to be in future times called to his ministry, how they are to retire into solitude, in order to converse with God in prayer, and draw down the blessing of heaven upon themselves and their undertaking. What treasures of grace might we expect, if, as often as we receive any of the sacraments, we were to retire within ourselves, and shut out, for a time, the world and its cares. Then should we come prepared to withstand temptation, and should experience the divine assistance in every difficulty through life. The life of man is a warfare on earth. It was not given us, says St. Hilary, to spend it in indolence, but to wage a continual war against our spiritual enemies. In the greatest sanctity there are often the greatest and most incessant trials; for Satan wishes nothing so much as the fall of the saints. (Haydock) --- By these trials, we learn the strength we have received from above, we are preserved from self-complacency and pride in the gifts of heaven; we confirm the renunciation we made in baptism of the devil, and all his works and pomps; we become stronger, and better prepared for future attacks, and are feelingly convinced of the dignity to which we have been raised, and of which the enemy of souls endeavours all he can to deprive us. St. John Chrysostom hom. xiii. Both St. John the Baptist and our divine Master, by retiring into the wilderness for contemplation, prayer, fasting and suffering, have given a sanction and an example to those holy men called hermits, who have taken shelter in their sanctified retreats against the dangers of the world. (Bristow)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
St. Mark (chap. i, ver. 13) tells us, Christ was with wild beasts, eratque cum bestiis, Greek: meta ton therion.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Matthew Chapter 4
Matthew Chapter 4
Having thus in grace taken up His position as man on earth, He commences His earthly career, being led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The righteous and holy man, the Son of God, enjoying the privileges proper to such a one, He must undergo the trial of those devices through which the first Adam fell. It is His spiritual condition which is tested. It is not now an innocent man in the enjoyment of all God’s natural blessings, who is put to the proof in the midst of those blessings which should have made him remember God. Christ, nigh to God as His beloved Son, but in the midst of trial, having the knowledge of good and evil, and as to outward circumstances come down into the midst of man’s fallen state, must have His faithfulness to this position fully tried with respect to His perfect obedience. To maintain this position, He must have no other will than that of His Father, and fulfil it or suffer it, whatever might be the consequences to Himself. He must fulfil it in the midst of all the difficulties, the privations, the isolation, the desert, where Satan’s power was, which might tempt Him to follow an easier path than that which should be only for the glory of His Father. He must renounce all the rights that belonged to His own Person, save as He should receive them from God, yielding them up to Him with a perfect trust.
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The enemy did his utmost to induce Him to make use of His privileges, “if thou be the Son of God,” for His own relief, apart from the command of God, and in avoidance of the sufferings which might accompany the performance of His will. But it was to lead Him to do His own will, not God’s.
Jesus, enjoying in His own Person and relationship with God the full favour of God as Son of God, the light of His countenance, goes into the wilderness for forty days to be in conflict with the enemy. He did not go away from man, and from all intercourse with man and the things of man, in order (like Moses and Elias) to be with God. Being already fully with God, He is separate from men by the power of the Holy Ghost to be alone in His conflict with the enemy. In the case of Moses, it was man out of his natural condition to be with God. In the case of Jesus, it is so to be with the enemy: to be with God was His natural position.
The enemy tempts Him first by proposing to Him to satisfy His bodily need, and, instead of waiting on God, to employ according to His own will and on His own behalf the power with which He was endowed. But, if Israel was fed in the wilderness with manna from God, the Son of God, however great His power, would act in accordance with what Israel should have learnt by that means, namely, that “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” The Man, the obedient Jew, the Son of God, waited for this word, and would do nothing without it. He was not come to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. This is the principle that characterises the Spirit of Christ in the Psalms. No deliverance is accepted but the intervention of Jehovah at His own good time. It is perfect patience, in order to be perfect and complete in allthe will of God. There could be no sinful lust in Christ; but to be hungry was no sin, yet it was a human need, and what harm in eating when hungry? There was no will of God to do it, and that will by the word He came to do. Satan’s suggestion was, “if thou be the Son of God, command”; but He had taken the place of a servant, and this was not commanding: he sought to get the Lord out of the place of perfect service and obedience, out of the place of a servant.
And note here the place the written word has, and the character of Christ’s obedience. This character is not simply that the will of God is a rule; it is the one motive for action. We have a will arrested often by the word. Not so Christ. His Father’s will was His motive; He acted not merely according to, but because it was, God’s will. We delight to see a child who would run off to something it delights in, stop and cheerfully do its parents’ will when called to do it. But Christ never obeyed thus, never sought a will of His own, but was stopped by His Father’s. And we are sanctified to the obedience of Christ. Note further that the written word is that by which He lives and by which He overcomes. All depended here on Christ’s victory, as all did on Adam’s fall. But for Christ, one text, rightly used of course, suffices. He seeks no other: that is obedience. It suffices for Satan; he has no reply. His wiles are thus defeated.
The first principle of conquest is simple and absolute obedience, living by words out of God’s mouth. The next is perfect confidence in the path of obedience.
In the second place then, the enemy sets Him on a pinnacle of the temple, to induce Him to apply to Himself the promises made to the Messiah, without abiding in the ways of God. The faithful man may assuredly reckon on the help of God while walking in His ways. The enemy would have the Son of man put God to the test (instead of reckoning on Him while walking in His ways) to see whether He might be trusted in. This would have been a want of confidence in God, not obedience; or pride, presuming on its privileges, instead of counting on God in obedience. [12] Taking His place with Israel in the condition they were in when without a king in the land, and, quoting the directions given to them in that book to guide them in the godly path there taught, He uses for His guidance that part of the word which contains the divine injunction on this subject, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”; a passage often quoted as if it forbade excess in trusting God; whereas it means not to distrust, and try if He is faithful. They tempted God, saying, Is God indeed among us? And this Satan would have had the Lord do.
The enemy, failing to deceive that obedient heart, even by hiding himself under the use of the word of God, shows himself in his true character, tempting the Lord, thirdly, to spare Himself all the sufferings that awaited Him, by shewing Him the inheritance of the Son of man on earth, that which would be His when He had reached it through all those paths, toilsome yet necessary to the Father’s glory, which the Father had marked out for Him. All should now be His, if He would acknowledge Satan by worshipping him, the god of this world. This in fact was what the kings of the earth had done for only a part of these things; how often done for some trifling vanity! but He should have the whole. But if Jesus was to inherit earthly glory (as well as all other) the object of His heart was God Himself, His Father, to glorify Him. Whatever might be the value of the gift, it was as the gift of the Giver that His heart prized it. Moreover He was in the positionof tested man and a faithful Israelite; and whatever might be the trial of patience into which the sin of the people had brought Him, be the trial ever so great, He would serve none but His God alone.
But if the devil carries temptation, sin, to the utmost, and shews himself to be the adversary (Satan), the believer has the right to cast him out. If he comes as a tempter, the believer should answer him by the faithfulness of the word, which is man’s perfect guide, according to the will of God. He does not need to see through everything. The word is the word of Him who does, and in following that, we walk according to a wisdom which knows everything, and in a path formed by that wisdom, and which hence involves absolute trust in God. The two first temptations were the wiles of the devil, the third, open hostility to God. If he comes as the open adversary of God, the believer has a right to have nothing to do with him. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” He knows he has met Christ, not flesh. May believers resist if Satan would tempt them by the world, remembering it is Satan’s domain in fallen man!
The believer’s safeguard, morally (that is, as to the state of his heart) is a single eye. If I seek only the glory of God, that which presents no other motive than my own aggrandisement, or my own gratification, whether of body or mind, will have no hold upon me; and will shew itself in the light of the word, which guides the single eye, as contrary to the mind of God. This is not the haughtiness that rejects temptation on the ground of being good; it is obedience, humbly giving God His place, and consequently His word also. “By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer,” from him that did his own will and made it his guide. If the heart seeks God alone, the most subtle snare is discovered, for the enemy never tempts us to seek God alone. But this supposes a pure heart, and that there is no self-seeking. This was displayed in Jesus.
Our safeguard against temptation is the word, used by the discernment of a perfectly pure heart, which lives in the presence of God, and learns the mind of God in His word, [13] and therefore knows its application to the circumstances presented. It is the word that preserves the soul from the wiles of the enemy.
Observe also that, consequently, it is in the spirit of simple and humble obedience that power lies; for where it exists, Satan can do nothing. God is there, and accordingly the enemy is conquered.
It appears to me that these three temptations are addressed to the Lord in the three characters, of man, of Messiah, and of Son of man.
He had no sinful desires like fallen man, but He was an hungered. The tempter would persuade Him to satisfy this need without God.
The promises in the Psalms belonged to Him as being made to the Messiah.
And all the kingdoms of the world were His as the Son of man.
He always replies as a faithful Israelite, personally responsible to God, making use of the Book of Deuteronomy, which treats of this subject (namely, the obedience of Israel, in connection with the possession of the land, and the privileges that belonged to the people in connection with this obedi nce; and this, apart from the organisation which constituted them a corporate body before God). [14]
Satan departs from Him, and the angels come to exercise their ministry towards the Messiah, the Son of man victorious through obedience. What Satan would have Him try God about, He has fully. They are ministering spirits for us also.
But how profoundly interesting is it to see the blessed Lord come down, the Son of God from heaven, and take-the Word made flesh-His place among the poor godly ones on the earth, and, as having taken that place, owned of the Father as His Son, heaven being opened and opened to Him as man, and the Holy Ghost coming down and abiding on Him as man though without measure, and so forming the model of our place, though we were not yet in it; the whole Trinity, as I have said, being first fully revealed when He is thus associated with man; and then, we being slaves to Satan, going in this character and relationship to meet also Satan for us, to bind the strong man, and give man through Him this place also: only for us redemption was needed to bring us where He is.
John being cast into prison, the Lord departs into Galilee. This movement, which determined the scene of His ministry outside Jerusalem and Judea, had great significance with respect to the Jews. The people (so far as centred in Jerusalem, and boasting in the possession of the promises, the sacrifices, and the temple, and in being the royal tribe) lost the presence of the Messiah, the Son of David. He went away for the manifestation of His Person, for the testimony of God’s intervention in Israel, to the poor and despised of the flock; for the remnant and poor of the flock are already in chapters 3, 4 clearly distinguished from the heads of the people. He thus really became the true stock, instead of being a branch of that which had been planted elsewhere; although this effect was not yet fully manifested. The moment corresponds with Joh 4:1-54.
We may remark here, that, in John’s Gospel, the Jews are always distinguished from the multitude (called the people in the Gospels). The language, or rather the pronunciation, was entirely different. They did not speak Chaldee in Galilee.
At the same time this manifestation of the Son of David in Galilee was the fulfilment of a prophecy in Isaiah. The force of that prophecy is this:-although the Roman captivity was far more terrible than the invasion of the Assyrians when they came up against the land of Israel, there was nevertheless this circumstance which altered everything, namely, the presence of the Messiah, the true Light, in the land.
We observe that the Spirit of God here passes over the whole history of Jesus until the commencement of His ministry after the death of John the Baptist. He gives Jesus His proper position in the midst of Israel-Emmanuel, the Son of David, the Beloved of God, acknowledged as His Son, the faithful One in Israel, though exposed to all Satan’s temptations; and then at once, afterwards, His prophetic position announced by Isaiah, and the kingdom proclaimed as at hand. [15]
Footnotes for Matthew Chapter 4
[12] We need confidence to have courage to obey; but true confidence is found in the path of obedience. Satan could use the word in guile, but not turn Christ the Lord from it. He still uses it as the adequate divine weapon, and Satan still has no reply. To have forbidden obedience would have been to shew himself Satan. As regards the place in which the Lord was dispensationally, we may remark the Lord always quotes from Deuteronomy.
[13] There must be no other motive for action than the will of God, which, for man, is always to be found in the word; because, in that case, when Satan tempts us to act, as he always does, by some other motive, this motive is seen to be opposed to the word which is in the heart, and to the motive which governs the heart, and is therefore judged as being opposed to it. It is written, “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” This is the reason why it is so often important, when we are in doubt, to ask ourselves by what motive we are influenced.
[14] A careful examination of the Pentateuch will shew that, though needed historical facts are stated, yet the contents of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers are essentially typical.The tabernacle was made according to the pattern shewn in the mount-the pattern of heavenly things; and not only the ceremonial ordinances, but the historical facts, as the apostle distinctly states, happened unto them for types, and are written for our instruction. Deuteronomy gives directions for their conduct in the land; but the three books named, even where there are historical facts, are typical in their object. I do not know if one sacrifice was offered after they were instituted, unless perhaps the official ones (see Act 7:42).
[15] And we may remark here, that He leaves the Jews and Jerusalem, as already remarked, and His natural place, so to speak, what gave Him His name, Nazareth, and takes His prophetic place. The casting of John into prison was significant of His own rejection. John was His forerunner in it, as in his mission, of the Lord. See Mat 17:12. The testimony of Jesus is the same as that of John the Baptist.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 4. (Mar_1:12-20; Luk_4:1-13; Luk_5:1-11; Joh_1:19-28; Joh_4:43-46)
FIFTH SECTION
JESUS RENOUNCING THE WORLD, AND COMMENCING HIS CONQUEST OF IT. WHILE PREPARING FOR THE PUBLIC DISCHARGE OF HIS OFFICE, HE HAS TO ENCOUNTER THE THREEFOLD TEMPTATION OF SATAN, CORRESPONDING TO THE THREEFOLD FORM IN WHICH A WORLDLY-MINDED PEOPLE HAVE SHAPED TO THEMSELVES THEIR HOPES OF THE MESSIAH. THUS JESUS IS CONSTRAINED TO CONCEAL HIS DIGNITY FROM THE PEOPLE, AND TO COMMENCE HIS WORK IN THE DESPISED DISTRICT OF GALILEE. BUT GOD GLORIFIES HIM IN THE HOMAGE PAID TO HIM BY HIS DISCIPLES AND THE PEOPLE
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4. (Mar_1:12-20; Luk_4:1-13; Luk_5:1-11; Joh_1:19-28; Joh_4:43-46)
Contents:—The threefold temptation of Christ by Satan through the secular notions of the Jews concerning the Messiah, and His threefold victory over the Tempter.
A. Mat_4:1-11
(The Gospel for Invocavit, or First Sunday in Lent)
1Then was Jesus led up of [by]1 the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of 2 [by]1 the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward a hungered.2 3And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 5Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a [the]3 pinnacle of the temple, 6And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time4 thou dash thy foot against a stone. 7Jesus said unto him, It is written again,5 Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 8Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
On the Literature of the History of the Temptation, comp. Danz, p. 993, and Supplement, p. 109; Winer, i. 556, Supplement, p. 79; Hase, Leben Jesu, § 55. On the history itself, comp. Ullmann on the Sinlessness of Jesus; Alex. Schweizer, Ueber die Dignitat des Religionsstifters, in the “Theol. Stud. u. Kritiken,” vii. 564. For other works, comp. Meyer’s “Commentary,” p. 100. See also especially Könemann, Ueber die Versuchungsgeschichte in “Rudelbach’s Zeitschrift” for Matt 1850: and Laufs in the “Stud. u. Kritiken” for 1853. p. 355.
We have no right, with Ewald and Meyer, to infer from the mysterious character of the history before us, and from the detailed and circumstantial manner in which it is related, that the account given by Matthew (and by Luke) is a later embell shment of the more simple and older tradition recorded in the Gospel by Mark. Evidently, Mark furnishes only a general summary of the event, which requires to be supplemented by the details furnished by Matthew and Luke.
Mat_4:1. Then was Jesus.—Τότε, i. e., after the Spirit had descended upon Him. The first operation of the Holy Spirit, when the Lord had attained to the full consciousness of His character as the God-Man, and of His work as the Redeemer, was, not to lead Him into that world which He was to save, but to drive Him out of it into the wilderness. No doubt the primary object of this was to afford an opportunity for blessed rest and joy, in the consciousness of His character and mission. But, secondly, the Saviour had now to consider the difficult question, how to reveal Himself to His people, without conforming to their spurious, secularized views and hopes concerning the Messiah. It was this counterfeit of the true Messiah among Israel which, so to speak, repelled Him, and drove Him into the wilderness The third motive for His going into the wilderness lay in the fact, that the reign of Satan was the cause of all the misery in the world. Hence Christ had to commence His work by conquering Satan; and this He did for the whole world, when He met and overcame him in the personal contest here described.
He was led up, ἀνήχθη,—i. e., from the desert banks of the river to the wilderness of Judæa properly so called. Tradition has given to this wilderness the name of Quarantania (wilderness of Jericho, Jos_16:1). Comp. Robinson II. 552 [i. 567]; Schubert iii. 73; v. Raumer, p. 47. “From Joppa, on the Mediterranean, the road leads by Ramlah for about seven hours through the beautiful plain of Sharon. Other six hours’ journey over the calcareous and desert mountain tract of Judah brings you to Jerusalem. The road is exceedingly difficult, going alternately up and down hill. From Jerusalem the mountain tract extends for other five hours eastward, when it descends into the valley of Jordan by Jericho. At this eastern slope of the chain is the steep mountain called Quarantania, where, according to tradition, the temptation of Christ took place. The name is derived from the Lord’s fasting for forty days. According to Hasselquist, the mountain is high and conical, and most dangerous of ascent. A deep precipice descends at the side of it. On the summit are the ruins of an ancient Greek monastery, perhaps that built by the Empress Helena. All along the mountain are caves and holes, which formerly were tenanted by hermits; at the base a brook springs,—according to tradition, the same which Elisha healed (2Ki_2:19-22).” For further particulars, comp. v. Raumer, as above, Note 78. The district is better explored in the direction from the Mount of Olives. “The wilderness of Jericho, extending between that town and the Mount of Olives, or rather Bethany, is a district full of precipitous rocks and deep hollows (comp. Joseph. Antiq. x. 8, 2). The scene presents the appearance of a most desolate wilderness, especially after passing the Caravansary which now bears the name of the Khan of the Samaritan (comp. Luk_10:30), about two hours from Jerusalem: comp. Maundrell, Journey, p. 109. From this wilderness the road descends, after a further journey of two hours, down a precipitous height into the plain of Jericho. At the northern boundary of this plain rises a steep, calcareous mountain, very difficult of ascent, which bears the name of Quarantania, because, according to tradition, Jesus passed forty days fasting in one of the many caves on its side. The northern portion of this desert was connected with the wilderness of Bethany, Jos_18:12.” Winer, art. “Wüste,” No. 4.—As the wilderness of Quarantania lies close by the banks of Jordan, there is no sufficient reason to doubt the correctness of this tradition. The wildness of this desert, as indicated in the expression of Mark: “He was with the wild beasts,” points to the same conclusion.
Of (by) the Spirit.—The context shows that the Holy Spirit is here meant. The idea that it referred to the personal spirit of Christ, or to a state of ecstasy (Paulus), could only have been broached from defective theological views. The expression ἀνήχθη implies, indeed, an extraordinary state of mind on the part of the Lord, indicating a wonderful impulse, but not a miraculous transportation (which is not meant even in Act_8:39, or in 2Ki_2:16)—an idea still more clearly expressed in the parallel passage in Mar_1:12. Meyer aptly remarks: “The two opposite principles, ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος and ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου, are evidently here placed in pragmatic correspondence or juxtaposition. Besides, the whole circumstances of this history, occurring immediately after the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus, show that the Evangelist intended to relate the victory of Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, over the devil (comp. Luk_4:1-2). This consideration alone is sufficient to refute the arbitrary invention of Olshausen, that, during the forty days in the wilderness, Jesus had been forsaken by the Spirit.”
To be tempted of (by) the devil; πειρασθῆναι.—Such was the final object. The Holy Spirit led Him purposely to this contest with Satan. In this conflict He was to be tempted by the devil, to show whether or not, in the exercise of His free determination, He would prove Himself, and continue, the organ of the Holy Spirit in opposition to that satanic principle, or spirit of the world, by which the hopes of Israel concerning the Messiah had been perverted, so as to become even matter of temptation to Him. The basis and commencement of the work of salvation was necessarily a personal contest and victory of the Saviour over the principle of evil, as manifested in the corruption of the world. For further remarks on the tremendous collision between these antagonistic principles, comp. the author’s “Leben Jesu” ii. 1, p. 205.—Διάβολος, from διαβάλλω, to row over, carry across, to slander, accuse, calumniate; hence διάβολος, the slanderer in general, and also, in the most particular sense (Job 1; Rev_12:10), the accuser. In the Old Testament he is called Satan, שָֹׁטָן (Job_1:6-12). The term means, adversary in general, adversary in war (1Ki_5:4—in the Hebr. text, Mat_5:18; Mat_11:14); and with the article, הַשָּׂטָן, the adversary or enemy κατ’ ἐξοχήν: the prince of the fallen spirits (Genesis 3; 2Co_11:3; Rev_20:2; Joh_8:44, etc.).
As the cause and origin of the fall of man, Satan is the prince of the kingdom of darkness, which has sprung up and developed on earth in opposition to the theocracy; the seducer of man to their destruction, and hence the principal enemy of Jesus (Mat_13:28). Comp. works on Dogmatics (among others my Positive Dogmatik, p. 559 sqq.) on the question whether the devil should be regarded as a person, or merely as the symbol of what is called the principle of evil (as if what is evil could have a real, and not what merely appears to be a principle).
Mat_4:2. And when He had fasted forty days.—Besides the mythical theory, which we at once set aside, there are four different views entertained by commentators in connection with this event. First, as regards Christ’s fasting, some refer it only to the want of His common nourishment (Rosenmuller, Kuinoel, Kuhn, etc.); while most interpreters understand it as meaning absolute and entire abstinence from food (comp. Luk_4:2; Deu_9:9). Secondly, as regards the duration, some critics regard the “forty days” as a sacred number, and hence as denoting an indefinite period of time (Köster, Henneberg, Neander); while most commentators take it literally. In favor of the literal view, we refer to the circumstance that Moses and Elijah fasted for forty days (Exo_34:28, and 1Ki_19:8), in both which instances we have a record of supernatural, and miraculous events. Besides, the addition of the clause, “forty nights,” and the remark in Luk_4:2, “He did eat nothing,” show that both the time and the act are not meant figuratively. Still the expression must not be understood as implying a legal and absolute fast of forty days. Similarly, Jesus said of John that he came “neither eating not drinking,” although we know that his nourishment consisted of locusts and wild honey. The feature which characterized this solemn fast, and distinguished it from every similar event, was, that the Saviour was wholly absorbed by spiritual realities; a state which, although never fully attained by any person, yet, even in the modified degree reached by ordinary men, renders them, for a considerable period, independent of the common necessaries of life. The fast of Jesus formed a striking contrast to the worldly-mindedness of the Jews (as that of Moses and of Elijah had been); it was a higher expression of the feelings and of the fasting of the Baptist; and at last, when, after the lapse of forty days, He was an hungered [or hungry], it became the occasion for the grand assault of the tempter. Comp. our remarks on the freedom of some men from common wants under extraordinary circumstances in the “Leben Jesu” ii. 1, p. 212; Heubner, p. 34.
Mat_4:3. And the tempter came to Him.—The participle πειράζων is here used as a substantive, as characteristic of the person. It is one of the chief characteristics of Satan that he is the tempter. First, the tempter in the guise of a friend, then the accuser and open enemy. Various views are entertained as to the manner in which the tempter approached the Lord, or, in other words, as to the mode of this temptation. We may reduce the different explanations to five classes. The temptation has been regarded, 1. as an external occurrence; 2. as a supernatural internal occurrence, or a vision; 3. as an inward ethical transaction, or a psychological occurrence; 4. as a parable; 5. as a myth.—Again, viewing it as an objective or external occurrence, it has been regarded, (a) as real, in the sense of having been a literal apparition of Satan in the form of a man or an angel. This is the view of many orthodox commentators. But against this, we set the fact, that under no other circumstances, and at no other period, Satan had ever assumed human form; and also, that there are other circumstances in this narrative which cannot be taken in their literal sense,—such as, that Satan took the Lord to the holy city, or that he placed Him on a high mountain, from which all the kingdoms of this world and their glory could be seen. It has been argued, (b) that what the Evangelist here describes as a real objective occurrence, must be traced to earliest tradition, which invested the symbolical idea of a contest between Messiah and Satan in this mythical form (Strauss); or else, that the misunderstanding must be ascribed to the Evangelists themselves, who viewed and recorded as something external what in reality was an inward transaction, and either told them in the form of a parable, or else was only intended as a parable (Schleiermacher). To this view, in a somewhat modified shape, we shall again advert in the sequel. Meantime suffice it to say, that the idea of a myth must be at once discarded, whatever we may say of the other suggestions advanced. Or, (c) it has been maintained that an external occurrence is here described in symbolical language, and that the tempter was an ordinary man. “This,” says Meyer, “is the case with the absurd suggestion of some interpreters, who substitute for the devil an ordinary personage, such as a member of the Sanhedrin, or a priest, who had come to question and to gain over Jesus, or to lay a snare for Him.” (V. der Hardt, Venturini, Möller, Rosenmüller, Kuinoel, Feilmoser; see also Bengel, who thinks that Satan had appeared “sub schemate γραμματέως quia τὸ γέγραπται ei ter opponitur.”6) However, the suggestion that the devil employed some member of the Sanhedrin as his special instrument—which, of course, Rationalists would repudiate [since they deny the existence of one devil, though they cannot get rid of the many devils—P. S.]—can scarcely be characterized either as rationalistic or as absurd. We know that Satan did employ Judas as his special instrument (Joh_13:27), and that “this devil” came out against the Lord as His enemy (Joh_14:30). Still, this view does not quite agree with the symbolical elements contained in the narrative before us.—According to the second interpretation above mentioned, the whole occurrence was merely a vision. In that case, it may be regarded, (a) as a vision called forth by the devil (Origen, Cyprian, Theodorus of Mopsuestia on Luk_4:1, Olshausen, and latterly again Heubner, p. 39). Against this we urge, that the devil could not have possessed the power of presenting to the Lord in a vision, either his own apparition, or the pictures of these temptations. (b) As called forth by God Himself (Farmer, Enquiry, etc., London, 1761),—a view which would render this occurrence wholly mysterious and unintelligible; or (c) as called forth by natural causes (Clericus, Paulus, Gratz, and many other commentators),—not a historical event, but a psychological and ecstatic state of mind; or lastly, (d) a “significant morning dream” (Meyer [not the commentator, H. A. W., so often quoted in this work, see below] in the “Studien u. Kritiken” for 1831, p. 319 sqq.). But it is sufficient to reply that decisive ethical conflicts do not take place in the form of dreams.—According to the third view above mentioned, this narrative must be considered as an inward ethical transaction or conflict: (a) A conflict which took place in the imagination of Christ (Eichhorn, Dereser, Weisse, etc.). Against this view it has been urged, that such an inward conflict, arising from a felt sense of the allurements of evil, could not be reconciled with the sinlessness of Jesus. (b) An inward conflict excited by the devil (Krabbe); but we are at a loss to know the medium through which the enemy assailed Christ, (c) An inward transaction to which the disciples gave an objective form, as if it had been an external event (rejection of the false conceptions concerning the Messiah—Ullmann); but if we dismiss the idea that they consciously and purposely clothed the event in a symbolical form, we are shut up to the mythical theory. (d) A fragmentary, symbolical representation of transactions in the inner life of Jesus (Neander). But this were to spiritualize away and to weaken a great historical fact.—According to the fourth view above mentioned, we are to regard this narrative as a parable, not so much of what Jesus Himself had experienced, but of what His disciples should keep in view and guard against (J. E. Chr. Schmidt, Schleiermacher, Usteri, Alex. Schweizer, Baumgarten-Crusius). But de Wette rightly objects, that in that case the whole meaning of a temptation would be lost—and, let us add, of the temptation κατ’ ἐξοχήν. (Against this parabolic view, comp. also Hasert, in the “Stud. u. Krit.” for 1830.)—Lastly, according to the fifth view above proposed, we must regard this narrative as a pure myth (Strauss, de Wette, Gfrörer, Meyer). Thus Meyer boldly asserts, that “nothing is left but to conclude that what the Evangelists considered and described as an actual event, was merely an ideal event, or a myth.”7 In reply, we simply remark that modern theology has happily overcome the mythical theory. The only thing mythical, in our opinion, is the view entertained by some divines, by which the sacred history, so full of symbolical significance and religious life, is transformed into a purely external transaction.—The main objection to the various explanations which we have just sketched, is that they proceed on the old scholastic plan of predicating an absolute alternative (a mode of interpretation which has frequently obstructed the right interpretation of Scripture), and that they do not sufficiently appreciate the various moral agencies brought into play, and their mutual influence. Nothing appears to us more natural, than that immediately after the baptism, in which Christ entered upon His work as Saviour of the world, He should have encountered and entered upon a spiritual conflict with the spurious ideas which the men of His age entertained about the Messiah. The influence of these perverted views concerning the Messiah upon His own mind, would necessarily give rise to an assault and temptation of Satan. In truth, Satan had thus perverted the hope of Israel concerning the Messiah, for the very purpose of turning aside the Messiah Himself. Thus far, then, the narrative presents an inward transaction indeed; but, at the same time, also a real and actual transaction between Christ on the one hand, and the popular expectations and the kingdom of Satan on the other. But what had at first been an inward transaction, concluded with an outward event, which in some respects is mysterious. Satan really employed, it seems to us, some of the chief priests and scribes as his instruments to tempt Christ to undertake the part of such a worldly Messiah as the Jews at the time expected. (Comp. the ὀπίσω μου here and Mat_16:23.) The whole history of this temptation—both in its inward and outward phases—Jesus afterward communicated to His disciples in the form of a real narrative, clothed in symbolical language. The difference between this and a mere myth lies in the simple fact, that it really took place, partly as an inward, and partly as an outward transaction; and in the circumstance that speaker and hearers employed and listened to the symbolical language in which the narrative was partly clothed, in the full consciousness that it was such. The various interpretations to which we have above adverted ignore several important circumstances; such as, that, in accordance with his mission, it was the duty of John to point out the Messiah to His people, and, of course, more especially to the representatives of the people; that, at the very time when Jesus was in the neighborhood, a deputation from the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem had arrived to inquire whether he was the Messiah; that John returned, and must have returned, a truthful reply; and lastly, that this deputation could not but take some notice of the directions which the Baptist had given them. Besides, we must remember that, at the commencement of Christ’s work, it was not merely some kind of temptation, but the great temptation, which had to be overcome—i.e., the temptation arising from the lust of the world, even as, at the close of His course, He had to encounter the temptation from the burden and grief of the world. Lastly, it is manifest that so decisive an inward conflict could not be merely the result of an extraordinary state of mind, without having been called forth by some deep historical antagonism; and that, as it could be neither wholly internal nor wholly external, it must have combined both these elements, or, in other words, that it was caused and excited by the devil, and carried into execution through a human medium. We can readily conceive how human sympathies, more particularly Jewish chiliastic influences, may have acted upon the human nature of Christ. Nor can we doubt that a definite outward instrumentality was employed. Such could not have been wanting in this grand decisive moment of the history of the kingdom of God; and the glorious reality and the consequences of such an era, are themselves sufficient to sweep away the cobweb structures of any mythical theory. Hence we agree, 1. with Ullmann, in admitting that the transaction was inward, but caused by external agency; 2. with v. d. Hardt and Bengel, in believing that the transaction concluded with an outward event, to which only allusion is made in the narrative; 3. with Schleiermacher, in concluding that the history is clothed in a symbolical and parabolic garb.
Mat_4:3-4. First temptation.—The first temptation is occasioned by a feeling of hunger on the part of Jesus, and by the expression of it. If Thou be the Son of God, v. 3—couched in the form of a doubt to incite the Saviour to prove Himself such. The word υἱός is put first, to lay emphasis on the Sonship. The expression implies three things: First, that if the Son of God had come, He must be the expected Messiah. Secondly, that the Messiah could not be any lower personage than the Son of God Himself, in the metaphysical sense of this term. Thirdly, that the greatest miracles might be expected to be wrought by Him.—Εἰπ ὲ, ἵνα, Speak, in order that. The effect is to be produced by a creative, or rather a magical utterance. It may be asked whether the tempter meant this in the literal or the symbolical sense, like the statement of the Baptist: “God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.” Whatever view we take of this point, it was a covert suggestion to give Himself up to the satanic principle, either by arbitrarily perverting the spiritual power of working miracles into an unholy art of magic, or as a call, in pompous Oriental phraseology, to transform the wilderness into a storehouse, by pronouncing a formula of surrender to the vanity of the world. Probably the tempter intended that it should bear a double meaning, as was also the case with the second temptation. The point of the temptation lay in the suggestion that it seemed incompatible for the Son of God, who could do all things, to suffer hunger. But—doubt would add—to suffer hunger seems to imply that you are not the Son of God. Thus, in the present instance, the doubt would appeal to His power, to His reason, and even to the duty of confirming the declaration that He was the Son of God. The Son of God cannot be limited or hardly beset; He cannot suffer or participate in the wants of humanity; He must at once sweep away every difficulty and want by an act of omnipotence. The Lord resisted this temptation by quoting the Scripture, Deu_8:3,—the passage being quoted by the Evangelist according to the Septuagint. The original (addressed to Israel) reads: “Jehovah suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna (which thou knowest not, neither did thy fathers know), that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread (upon bread) only, but by everything (upon everything) that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” The Septuagint renders: ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ παντὶ ῥήματι τῷ ἐκπορευομένῳ διὰ στόματος Θεοῦζήσεται δ ᾰνθρωπος. In the Gospel of Matthew we have ἐν instead of ἐπί—in, or by, every word (not thing) that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live. According to Olshausen, the Saviour intended to point out an antithesis between earthly and heavenly food. De Wette suggests the following explanation: “If ordinary means of nourishment fail, the Lord will employ extraordinary means to preserve us alive by His creative Word.” But these extraordinary means—the manna—are here generalized as “everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord,” and applied in a symbolical sense, to indicate that man is not absolutely dependent upon any kind of external nourishment, and that his real life is sustained by the word of God. Hence the meaning of Christ’s reply is this: If even man is not absolutely dependent upon the bread that perisheth,—if he does not live upon bread only, but rather upon the word of God,—how much more must this be true of the Son of God, whose life flows from the Father, and not from the bread of earth, and who accordingly depends for the preservation of His earthly life, not on any arbitrary interference, nor on satanic device or agency, but on the Father? But the Son of God has condescended to become man, and as such is willing to share the wants and sufferings of humanity. In conclusion, the difference between the idea of miracles as laid down in the Bible, and that entertained by the tempter—or even by some modern theologians—deserves notice.
Mat_4:5-7. Second temptation.—In the Gospel of Luke this is mentioned as the third temptation. This divergence arises not from any historical inaccuracy, but from the symbolical view which each of the Evangelists connected with these assaults. The symbolical element which appeared in the first temptation, “Command that these stones be made bread,” comes out more distinctly in the present instance. We trace it, first, in the significant expression, παρα λαμβάνει αὐτόν, he takes Him by force with him, or takes Him to himself as a companion (in his journey); and, secondly, in the term εἰς τὴν ἁγίανπόλιν, צִיר הָקֹּדֵש(Isa_48:2; Neh_11:1), to denote Jerusalem,—so called on account of the temple. (To this day the Arabs call Jerusalem the place of the Sanctuary, or the Holy City.) The devil is here represented as having free access to the most sacred places, and as familiar with them: He setteth Him (ἵστησιν)—not by force, for such he cannot exercise; besides, he had not yet dropt the mask and shown himself the evil one. He appears as wearing a religious garb, as one who had authority in the temple, and setteth Jesus as his guest in a spot which commanded the most extensive view. The supposition of Jerome, that Jesus was carried thither through the air, is purely fantastic;8 equally unsatisfactory is the suggestion of Olshausen, that He was in a state of mental transport. It is quite possible that Jesus had at the time gone for a day to Jerusalem, and that this circumstance may have formed the external basis for this temptation. Be this as it may, the fact that Satan set Jesus on the (not a) pinnacle [literally: the wing] of the temple (τὸ πτερύγιον τοῦ ἱεροῦ ), implied the suggestion that He should by satanic means become the priest-king of that temple. It is true, the expression τοῦ ἱεροῦ here used, was applied to the whole set of buildings connected with the temple, while the word ναός referred to the principal building of the temple. But the more general expression of course included the temple itself, to which, besides, the word πτερύγιον specially points. Nor is there anything inconsistent in the account of Josephus, that the roof of the temple was covered κατὰ κορυφήν with pointed rods to protect it from being occupied by birds, as the κορυφή of the temple was probably only the most holy place. Nor can the great sacredness of the locality be urged as an argument, since the special object in view was to place Jesus in the most sacred locality. The real difficulty of taking the statement, that the Lord was set upon a pinnacle of the temple, in its literal meaning, lies in this, that Christ was neither priest nor Levite, and that the idea of setting Him publicly in such a place is entirely incompatible with a secret conflict between Christ and Satan. On the same ground we must dismiss the notion, that the devil set him on any other prominent place of the temple. Some commentators have supposed that this “pinnacle” belonged to an out-building of the temple, such as the hall of Solomon on the east side (Joseph. Antiq. xx. 9, 7), or the στοὰ βασιλική on the south side (ibid. xv. 11, 5), both of them rising along a frightful precipice. Kuinoel, Meyer, and others suppose that the scene must have occurred at the south side of the temple, from the description which Josephus gives of its dizzy height. But this would necessitate the strange supposition, that the Evangelist represented the tempter as proposing to the Lord a descent, either into the poor valley of Kidron, or into that of the Cheesemakers. If the narrative is taken literally, the object must have been rather to work some ostentatious miracle for the proud city of Jerusalem itself. In this respect, also, the temptation had its double meaning, the main point lying in the suggestion that Jesus should yield to Satan, place Himself at the head of the priesthood, and in that character be presented to the people. With this object, and in this sense, Jesus was set on the pinnacle of the temple, and probably somehow or somewhere in the temple itself. The spiritual attitude which He was to assume is the main point.
As Jesus had turned aside the first suggestion of the tempter by the word of God, the enemy supported his second assault, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down, by a quotation from Psa_91:11-12, “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways: they shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” This passage seemed all the better suited for the purpose in view, since in its primary application it referred not exclusively to the Messiah. The plain inference was, that if such a promise had been granted to all pious men, it must apply all the more forcibly to the Messiah. But the application of this promise was evidently false, as the expression, in all thy ways, was not equivalent to the ways of thine own choosing. Indeed, the tempter wholly omitted this clause when adducing the passage. Jesus replied to this quotation—which in its original form was a poetical description of the promised help, and now was grossly misinterpreted in its literal application—by referring to a passage in the law: Ye shall not tempt Jehovah your God, Mat_4:7. Deu_6:16. In the present instance, Christ addressed it to Satan personally, Thou, instead of Ye,—a change all the more appropriate, that every tempting of God on the part of man is directly caused by the enemy of souls. Πάλιν does not mean “on the other hand” (Erasmus and others), but again (Meyer, Engl. C. Ver.). Bengel: Scriptura per Scripturam interpretanda—more especially a poetical phrase by the precise statements of the law. This reply to Satan is already an attack upon him, since he is here characterized as tempting the Lord.
Mat_4:8-10. Third temptation.—“The high mountain ( Mat_4:8) from which all the kingdoms of the world could be seen, must not be looked for upon any of our maps; it neither refers to the Mount of Olives, nor does κόσμος mean Palestine (Kuinoel), but it applies to the heathen world over which Satan held exclusive dominion” (Meyer). Luke adds, ἐν στιγμῇ χρόνου, to indicate the magic character of the vision. And the glory of them, τὴν δόξαν αὐ τῶν. “The rich country, the splendid cities and palaces, perhaps also the riches which they contained (although these could scarcely have been seen from the top of a mountain).”—De Wette. The idea of any magical influence of Satan upon the vision of the Lord seems to us quite inappropriate (comp. Lange: “Worte der Abwehr,” p. 41). It is not worth while to show at length that Satan could not have exercised such influence over the eyes of the Saviour. In our opinion, the prospect from such a high mountain as that of the wilderness of Quarantania, or near Jerusalem, was sufficient to offer an appropriate basis for a rhetorical description of the world, its kingdoms, and their glory.9 Of course the mountain must still be viewed as a symbolical expression, to designate the political and chiliastic prospects which the Jews portrayed to themselves at the time when Messiah should come to conquer the world by worldly means. Nor must we, with Meyer, exclude Palestine from this vista, since the course of the ambitious conqueror, as sketched by the enemy, was to commence at the temple itself. For, although it is true that Satan had greater power over the heathen world than over Palestine, we must not confound (as Meyer does, p. 105) the later views of the Jews (as given in Eisenmenger’s “Entdecktes Judenthum,” ii. p. 820, etc.) with those of the New Testament. In the New Testament Satan is designated as ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου (Joh_12:31), with special reference to his sway over Palestine in opposition to Jesus; while the expression κοσμοκράτωρ , in Eph_6:12, alludes more particularly to the heresies by which the Church of Christ was endangered. We must not look in the word of God for the gross, fanatical, and mythical ideas of later rabbinical Judaism. The passage before us refers to the moral reign of darkness which extended over the whole ancient world, although we must ever be careful not to admit the validity of Satan’s pretension that he exercised in any sense absolute sway over the world.
In this third temptation, Satan appears in his proper character. Hence also it is not prefaced by “If Thou be the Son of God.” On the contrary, he rather seems to claim this honor for himself, as Luke plainly indicates in the words, ὅτι ἐμοὶ παραδεδοται . The awful proposal, that Jesus should fall down and worship Satan, and do him homage, is to some extent modified, when we bear in mind the peculiar political and religious import of the word ὅτι ἐμοὶ παραδεδοται among Orientals. We do not imagine that Satan intended to demand an act of absolute adoration, but an act of homage, which, however, necessarily implied worship. Primarily, it was not (as Strauss supposes) a temptation to idolatry, though it is true that, in its ultimate meaning and bearing, all idolatry is devil-worship. Nor does this demand involve a direct threat on the part of Satan that he would let loose against Jesus the whole power of evil (Ebrard), although Satan’s claim to absolute sway over the whole world implied that he was its lord and master. Viewed in this light, the third temptation, from the lust of the world, pointed already to that which Christ had to endure at the close of His course from the sorrow and misery of the world. The incredible presumption and impudence of Satan’s demand (which, indeed, was covertly implied even in the first and second temptations) is in some measure accounted for by his well-known axiom, “that every man has his price at which his virtue may be bought.” The point of the temptation lay in the boldness of the design—Satan spreading out all at once a rushing picture of absolute sway over the world and of its glory, and then offering all this to the lowly and rejected Son of David, who of right could claim all the nations of the world as His inheritance, and the utmost ends of the world as His possession. Gerlach suggests that the proposal to found the kingdom of Messiah by outward power and pomp, and not that of paying outward worship to Satan, formed the main point of the temptation. But this must evidently have been the consequence of a surrender and homage to Satan.
Mat_4:10. Then saith Jesus unto him.—At last the mask was thrown off: Satan appears in his real character, and is treated accordingly. Hitherto the Lord had, in compliance with the usual forms of intercourse, dealt with him according to his assumed character, as one who seemed anxious to promote the mission of the Messiah, although He sufficiently showed that he had read the motives of Satan,—having in His first reply designated him as one who held men in contempt, and in His second as the tempter. But now he meets the pretensions of Satan to absolute power by a display of His own supreme authority. Get thee hence, Satan. [In Greek a single word, ὕπαγε , begone, out of my sight.] (The addition ὀπίσω μου is not sufficiently authenticated, and apparently an ancient interpolation derived from Mat_16:23, which seems to apply not to Satan, but to Peter, whose right place as a follower of the Lord was behind, not before Him.) The passage with which Christ dismisses the enemy (Deu_6:13) is none other than the fundamental principle of Monotheism. It is given in the form of a free quotation from the Septuagint; the word προςκυνήσεις , which Satan had used, being retained, instead of φοβηθήσῃ. Laying emphasis on the main idea of the Old Testament passage, our Lord says, “Him only shalt thou serve.” The devil is expressly designated as Satan, because in this temptation he displayed his real character as the adversary of christ. Lastly, the answer of the Lord conveys the expression of His enmity to all that is satanic in the world, and to the carnal hopes and views entertained about the Messiah. It is, so to speak, a declaration of war on the part of Jesus against Satan, and that on account of the daring promise to make Jesus Lord of the world if He only submitted to his conditions. “Tentatorem, quum is maxime favere videri vult, Satanam appellat.”—Bengel.
In looking back on this threefold temptation, we conclude that Satan offered to the Lord immediate possession of His Messianic inheritance on condition of His employing satanic agency, in the form of magic, of false religious enthusiasm or fanaticism, and of false and demoniacal worship. His first proposal was to confer on Jesus the office of a magician-prophet; his second, to make Him the chief and prince of a grand hierarchy; his third, to invest him with the office of demoniacal and all-powerful monarch of the world. But, manifestly, these were the three great traits of the carnal and perverse expectations which Israel entertained concerning the Messiah: the first temptation representing more especially the erroneous tendency of the Essenes, who lived in the wilderness; the second, the spurious religion of the Pharisees, whose centre was the temple service; and the third, the godless policy of the Sadducees, whose ruling passion was worldliness. The common psychological applications of this narrative—such as, that the first temptation was to sensual enjoyment, the second to fanatical pride, and the third to ambition—do not exhaust the deep bearing of the event, although they are implied in the interpretation above proposed.
The following is the chronological order of events: 1. The baptism of Jesus. 2. The forty days’ fasting. 3. The deputation to John the Baptist from Jerusalem (John 1). 4. The temptation of Jesus. 5. The return of Jesus to John by the banks of Jordan (Joh_1:35). 6. His return to Galilee ( Joh_4:43).
Mat_4:11. The victory.—The triumph of the Saviour appears in these two facts: The devil leaveth Him; angels come and minister unto Him, thus paying Him real homage, διηκόνουν αὐτῷ. Bengel: “Sine dubio pro ceo, ac tum opus erat, sc. allato cibo [undoubtedly, by doing that which was then necessary, namely, by bringing Him food]. Comp. the feeding of Elijah by an angel, 1Ki_19:5.” Thus Piscator, Wolf, and many others,—among them, Meyer. Others understand the expression as denoting supernatural Divine support (Maldonatus, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Kuhn, Ammon, Ebrard). It deserves notice, that most critics who at present defend the view that the text implies a miraculous supply of food by the ministry of angels, characterize the whole narrative as a mere myth. When Jesus had undergone these temptations, He returned from the wilderness into the company of men. Hence any such miraculous supply of food for the body by angels would have been unnecessary. In our view of the passage, the Lord having conquered Satan, and established His glorious supremacy not only over man, but also over the spiritual world, now entered into converse with ministering angels (Joh_1:51), realizing in the supernatural and heavenly support which He now enjoyed, in the fullest sense, His own declaration, that man lives not by bread alone.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The narrative before us establishes, in our opinion, two facts—that Jesus could be tempted, of the possibility of His falling; and again, that He was tempted, yet without sin. This threefold victory of His sinless soul marks another stage in the Gospel history. Before that, the God-man had, in the free exercise of His will, risen to full and joyous consciousness of His character and mission; now this consciousness became a settled divine-human mind or disposition over against all temptations and allurements of the world. From His first and decisive conflict with evil, which ever and again tempted Him during the three years of his earthly ministry, He came forth victorious to rear His kingdom on a spiritual and eternal foundation.
2. Solemn celebration in the wilderness of His full attainment to consciousness of His character and vocation, victory over the temptations of Satan, and maturing of the plan for His work—such are the three great phases in the preceding narrative, none of which can be separated from the other.
The first of these three phases was that of solemn celebration. Bearing in mind that Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, we infer that He went up in the full and deep consciousness of His vocation as the God-man. Heaven had been opened over him the wings of the blessed Spirit had been upon and around Him. He had the testimony of His Sonship, and of the delight of the Father in Him. In the blessed enjoyment of these glorious realities, forty days passed without His feeling the common wants of humanity. But Jesus did not shut up within His own breast this His “being equal with God,” as if it had been robbery (Philippians 2),—least of all when He had just submitted to that baptism, in which, while humbling Himself to become the companion in sorrow of sinners, He had also attained the full consciousness of His theanthropy. Hence the solemn inward feast celebrated in the wilderness served as preparation for His work: the fulness of the Spirit, the fulness of love, the fulness of life within His soul—all summoned Him to be the Deliverer of His people and the Saviour of the world, even as the Father had called Him by His baptism and by the Holy Ghost; and in the depth of His sympathy with humanity, He heard not only His own people but a fallen world entreating deliverance.
But this very cry of the world contained a shrill discord which constituted His temptation. With infinite longing Israel waited for the advent of Messiah. But this glorious hope had become fearfully distorted in the false theology of the synagogue, in the ideas current among the people, in the hierarchical tendencies of the age, and in the general vanity of this world. Hence, while this longing for salvation in the inmost heart of humanity was a loud call for Jesus to reveal Himself to the world as the long-expected Redeemer, He was repelled by the false and unspiritual picture of the Messiah who was the object of the carnal hopes of Israel. The Holy One recognized in these perversions the agency of Satan. Thus far there could be neither doubt nor temptation. But that which in itself was evil had assumed a human form; it had been embodied in human representations, ideas, and aspirations; and in this its human form it made its appeal to His sympathies. This spurious and unholy Messianic expectation appeared most closely intertwined with the loftiest aspirations and the holiest hopes of humanity. It was this seeming combination of two very different elements which might give rise to doubt and difficulty. The Saviour must now discern the spuriousness of this combination; and, to separate its heterogeneous elements, He had to overcome the temptation arising from the fanatical sympathies of His people and of the world. This constituted His temptation. Its point lay in the attractions of human sympathy, allurement, and entreaty; as also, in the apparent connection between what was perverse and what was holy. In His conflict with this temptation, it assumed a threefold form. In the first assault, the Prophet, in all the pride and self-sufficiency of a Magician, stands before His mind’s eye; in the second, the High Priest, in all the pride and self-sufficiency of hierarchical pomp; and in the last, the King, in all the pride and self-sufficiency of secular policy and power. All these pictures are presented in their most attractive features, as painted in the bright anticipations of an expectant world, as drawn with all the cunning of Satan, and as reflecting in a distorted form His own person and vocation.
But He has overcome the threefold inward assault upon His soul (comp. the Gospel of Luke)—and the cravings of hunger indicate the weariness consequent upon this tremendous conflict. The victory which He has achieved in inward conflict, must now also appear in actual and historical incidents, and the outward temptations of Satan succeed His inward struggle.
This threefold historical victory of the Lord over the tempter also marks the grand scheme on which His work as the Saviour of the world was to be carried on. In opposition to the false principle of the world, He clearly realized the truth; in opposition to the spurious plans of Messiah’s kingdom cherished by the world, He chose what was spiritual; in opposition to the false ideas entertained about the work of salvation, He manifested Himself as the true Prophet, Priest, and King. To reject the spurious plans of the synagogue, was at the same time to adopt the true scheme of His mission. Modern [German evangelical] theology commenced with a more full appreciation of the human nature [and sinless perfection] of Jesus, and first spoke of His plan or design. Thus Reinhard has written a work on the Plan of Jesus; Ullmann has rejected the idea of any such scheme, but Neander has vindicated its higher bearing. If by the expression, “plan,” or “scheme,” we mean that the Saviour was distinctly conscious of the principle, the development, the means and the goal of His work, the Lord had undoubtedly a matured “plan.” But it was the leading characteristic of this plan, that it rejected and eliminated all that was merely external, every secular calculation; and that, in unfolding its own glorious proportions and spiritual phases, it proved mainly a negation of all the chiliastic schemes of the synagogue. One of its principal features consisted in this, that while these spurious pictures of the Messiah presented a Saviour who was such in name and appearance only, Jesus would manifest the character and the works of the true Messiah, and that He would avoid even the designation of Messiah, until by His working He had redeemed and purified its idea, which had been so fatally perverted (comp. the “Leben Jesu,” ii. 1, p. 231). Then Jesus chose the path of suffering instead of that of joy; humiliation unto obedience, instead of glory by self-exaltation. Hence, when at the close of His course the accuser tempted Him to despair, amidst the sorrows and under the burden of a guilty world, the Redeemer once more conquered, and entered upon the path of glory. Indeed, the most difficult part of His work was accomplished at the outset of His mission, when, in the power of the Spirit, He overcame Satan and the satanic temptation, connected with the spurious messianic expectations. He conquered Satan as the tempter in all the temptations of worldly allurement. Thus was the kingdom of darkness shaken in its inmost principle. This threefold victory unfolded and appeared in His ministry upon earth; and His triumph over the temptations of allurement, or over the tempter, in the strictest sense of the term, formed the prelude to His victory over the temptations of sorrow and suffering, or over the accuser, which awaited Him at the close of His course.
Thus the history of Christ’s temptation is of infinite import. The destruction of the foundations on which rested the kingdom of darkness, and the structure of the basis on which the salvation of man was reared, are connected with the mystery of those solitary conflicts which had been fought and gained before He entered on the discharge of His public ministry.
3. The following contrasts are significant for christology. The first Adam in paradise, Christ in the wilderness.—Moses (Exo_34:28; Deu_9:9; Deu_9:18) and Elijah (1Ki_19:8) in the wilderness, Christ in the wilderness.—The fasting of John, the fasting of Christ.—The magic of the world, the prophetic office of Christ.—The hierarchy of the world, the priesthood of Christ.—The political despotism of the world, and the kingdom of Christ.—Essenism and Christ.—Pharisæism and Christ.—Sadducæism and Christ.—Chiliastic tradition and perversion of Scripture by Satan; the word of God, and ever only the word of God, as adduced by Christ.—Christ in the wilderness tempted by the allurements of the world.—Christ in the garden tempted by the sorrow and burden of the world.—The tempter at the commencement of the public ministry of Jesus; the accuser at the close of it.—The offers of Satan, and the triumph of Christ and its results.
4. The symbolical import of the number 40 lies in this, that it contains multiples of ten and four:—ten is the perfect number for life, law, and freedom; four is the number for the full circle of the world. During these forty days, Christ, by the free act of his will, really overcame the world and the spirit of the world, even as Moses had done typically.10
5. As it was fitting that Christ should commence His work by conquering Satan, so also was it in keeping with the tendency of evil to overturn the kingdom of God first of all in its Founder—and that by means of pretended but false friendship.
6. By His victory over the tempter, Christ has for ever separated His kingdom from the demoniac principles, plans, and manifestations of Jewish and carnal Christian chiliasm.
7. The first consequence of Christ’s threefold renunciation of the world in His victory over Satan, was, that He betook himself to Galilee.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Seasons of great quickening and joy are generally followed by great temptations. 1. This appears from the history of Abraham, of David, of Peter, and of the Lord. 2. The reason of this is, that the Lord would lead His own to perfection from stage to stage.—Christ’s festive season a fast, and Christ’s fasting a festive season.—From His festive celebration as the Son of God, Jesus as the Son of man enters immediately into conflict, in order to prove the truth of the testimony concerning His Divine Sonship.—The temptation of Christ, a manifestation by historical facts of the choice and decision of which His baptism was the sacramental sign.—By his threefold temptation and victory, Christ manifests Himself as the victorious Messiah, or the Christ of God: 1. as the infallible Prophet; 2. as the faithful High Priest; 3. as the Supreme King.—The decisive conflict between the fulness of the Spirit in Christ and the appearance of spirituality in Satan.—The Holy Ghost leads the Lord to this decisive conflict with the devil.—Christ attacking human corruption at its root by conquering Satan.—The victory of Christ the preservation of Christians.—The threefold temptation and the threefold victory of the Lord.—How and in what manner our trials may become temptations of Satan.—Every temptation of Satan is, to the child of God, in reality a trial of faith.—What constitutes temptation is, that through the influence of the enemy we misunderstand and misinterpret the trial of our faith.—Temptation assails us through earthly instrumentality: more especially, 1. through our wants; 2. through spiritual delusions; 3. through worldly prospects and hopes.—How victory over one may become the occasion of another temptation.—How our first victory opens the prospect of the triumphs to follow.—Our temptations are numbered.—By the word of God, Christ triumphs even over the chiliastic traditions connected with the word of God.—Christ ever and again conquers by the word of God: 1. by His first quotation, over false doctrine; 2. by His second quotation, over a false interpretation of Scripture; 3. by His third quotation, over false and assumed authority.—The power of this saying: “It is written.”
The first temptation. Christ has undergone for us the temptation of human want and suffering.—Let not the contrast between our spiritual high estate and our outward circumstances become a snare to us.—According both to the Old and the New Testament, temptation commences with doubt.—The tempter in the form of an angel of light.—Temptation to distrustfulness.—Magic and miracles.—The magician and the prophet.—Miraculous sustenance and magical sustenance11 are two different things.—The magical manna [das Zauberbrod] which the world prepares for itself in its wilderness. 1. Its origin: (a) by wicked devices; (b) by wicked works. 2. Its apparent character: (a) boundless wealth; (b) boundless enjoyment. 3. Its real character; (a) guilt; (b) bankruptcy.12 4. Its final consequences: (a) poverty and want of the inner man; (b) poverty and want of the outer man.—He who would selfishly seek to convert stone into bread, will in reality convert even bread into stone.—Satan watches for the distress of man, to make it an occasion for transforming him into a beast of prey and a wicked spirit.—Such is the high calling of man, that he lives not by bread only.—Whoso depends on the mouth of God, his mouth shall not want food.—The judgment of Satan and that of Christ concerning man, in his want and distress. Satan in effect says: Man is a wretched being, suffering hunger; Christ says: So far as the real life of man is concerned, he is infinitely exalted above the mere animal cravings of hunger.—Christ would rather suffer hunger with man, than commit sin with supernatural spirits.—Trust in God ensures victory over the wants of the world.—The empty phrase of Satan rebutted by the simple word of Christ.—The bread of earth becomes transformed by the bread of heaven.—Christ has also conquered spurious anchoresism and asceticism.
The second temptation. The holiest things may be perverted to become the most vile temptation: 1. A stay in the holy city. 2. The prospect from the pinnacle of the temple. 3. The promise contained in an inspired psalm.—The victory of the Lord over religious fanaticism.—Destruction of the temple of spurious enthusiasm.—Victory of the great High Priest over the priestcraft of the world.—Christ and the show-miracles of the hierarchy.—The pomp of the temple, and worship in the spirit.—The giddy height on the pinnacle of the temple and the holy calm of the Lord.—Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God; for, 1. to tempt God is to impute evil to God Himself, since it is an attempt to drag Him into the ways of our own choosing; 2. to tempt God is to suffer oneself to be tempted by the evil one; 3. hence, to tempt God were to attempt rendering the Spirit of light subservient to the spirit of darkness.—To tempt God is to involve oneself in contradictions; for it implies, 1. faith without obedience; 2. prayer without self-surrender; 3. action without warrant from on high; 4. success without comfort or assurance.—Even the dictates of common sense may serve as a warning against fanaticism.—Where a way is already prepared, we are not warranted in attempting to make dangerous experiments for ourselves.—Pride goes before a fall.—The temple-stair itself a sermon.—Fanaticism mistakes excitement for spiritual emotion.—Fanaticism and priestly pretensions spring from one and the same religious delusion.—Christ vanquishes the fanatical pride of the priesthood by calm reverence for the Godhead.
The third temptation. Christ vanquishes the secular spirit of the world: 1. in its pomp; 2. in its pretensions; 3. in its cunning and deceit.—The kingdom of Christ as contrasted with those of the world.—When Satan offers to give away the world in exchange for an act of humble adoration, he shows himself to be, 1. a liar; 2. a deceiver; 3. a maligner of God and man.—The attractions of power, and the desire of exercising it absolutely and indiscriminately, are the two greatest temptations.—Satan has only the right of claiming as his own the worldliness of the world: 1. its vain show; 2. its guilt; 3. its despair.—Despotism and spurious worldly cunning, and their dark background.—When wickedness shows itself undisguised, we ought to designate it by its proper name.—Christians must meet every spurious claim to authority over their consciences, by an appeal to the word of Him who wields rightful authority over the conscience.—Daring usurpers will at last be met and confounded by the royal dignity and authority which belongs even to the humblest believer.—By serving God, Christ vanquishes the sinful service of the creature.—“Him only shalt thou serve.”—Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.—The ministry of angels after the assault of the devil.—Christ the Prince of angels, by his victory over the prince of the kingdom of darkness.—The greater the conflict, the more glorious the victory.—In all temptations Christ is our victory.
Starke:—We must prepare in retirement for important public undertakings.—God often permits His dear children to be visited by the most grievous temptations.—Solitude a training-school of the Holy Spirit.—Solitude is frequently the occasion of temptation.—In our temptations, let us ever distinguish between what comes from God and what from Satan.—Such a High Priest became us who was tempted in all things, Heb_4:15.—Frequent conflicts render the Christian strong.—They fit ministers for their work.—Oratio, meditatio, tentatio faciunt theologum.—We may readily recognise the bird of hell by its song.—Fasting as perverted by the Papacy, etc.—Moderation and temperance a continuous fasting.—Christ hungered because He partook of our infirmities.—Christ can have compassion on us when we suffer from hunger or thirst.—The devil adapts his temptations to the nature and circumstances of man.—If the devil ventured to approach the Son of God, how can the most advanced among us expect to be secure from his assaults?—Outward prosperity is not an evidence of sonship.—The word of God our armory.—Even the devil cannot set aside the Scriptures.13—All depends on the blessing which the Lord gives.—Outward means cannot sustain us, but God by outward means.—God is a supply which never fails or leaves unsatisfied.—If Satan does not succeed in one way, he will try another.—In his own way, the devil is learned in the Scriptures.—To pervert Scripture is to follow in the wake of the devil.—Satan fell by his pride and arrogance, and now seeks to ruin others in the same manner.—To expose oneself to danger, except in the way of our calling, from necessity, or with the direct warrant of the word, is presumption.—Satan encompasses the fall of carnal men by showing them even a small portion of this world.—Satan promises his servants what he himself does not possess, nay, what God has in Christ already promised and given to His own.—It is no right to hear blasphemy without reproving it.—He who would prevent us from serving God, and persuade us to serve the world, is Satan so far as we are concerned.—There is a “hitherto and no further” in every temptation.—Every honest conflict will certainly be followed by victory.—Christ has triumphed for us.
Gerlach:—The word of God is our armor against Satan.—Christ takes as His shield the law of God: Thou shalt! He was made under the law (Gal_4:4).
Heubner:—If solitude has its advantages, it has also its great dangers.—Satan appears here in his true character: he arrogates to himself what belongs to God alone—dominion over the soul; in short, he claims to be God.—The man who in his aims is actuated by ambition and love of power, is thereby rendered unfit for the service of God; yet how many theologians are impelled by such motives!—The temptation of Christ; 1. wherein it consisted, and how it was resisted (three stages, three victories); 2. its consequences: Jesus proving Himself to be the Holy One; Jesus our model in similar conflicts; Jesus our refuge and strength.—How temptations followed Christ throughout His course.—The impotence of all temptations in the case of Christ.—Comparison between the temptation of Christ and that of Adam.—Marheineke:—How closely good and evil border upon each other in our human nature!—Harms:—The conflict between good and evil. This conflict is threefold: 1. A conflict between doubt and trustfulness; 2. a conflict between presumption and modesty; 3. the conflict between the lust of the world and the love of God.—Schleiermacher:—The temptation of the Lord viewed with reference to our state and position in this world.—Bachmann:—The temptation of Jesus the Son of God in the wilderness. It was a temptation, 1. to doubt the word of God; 2. to presume upon the word of God; 3. to reject the word of God.—Greiling:—The three passions by which men are commonly tempted to sin (covetousness, pride, ambition).—Reinhard:—The decisive periods which commonly occur in the life of every man.—Ahlfeld:—The conflict of Christians with the tempter: 1. His attack; 2. their defence; 3. the victory.—(Comp. also Three Sermons on the History of the Temptation by J. P. Lange, Barmen, 1836. Brückner: The History of the Temptation of our Lord. Four Meditations, Leipzig, 1857.)
ADDENDA
BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR
The Sinaitic Manuscript of the Bible, which Professor Tischendorf rescued from the obscurity of the Convent of St Catharine on Mount Sinai, and carefully edited in two editions in 1862 and 1863,* two years after the issue of the third edition of Dr. Lange’s Commentary on Matthew, has been carefully compared in preparing the American edition of this work from Chapter 8 to the close of the Gospel of Matthew. I thought I was the first to do so, but just before I finished the last pages of this volume, I found that Bäumlein, in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John,** and Meyer, in the fifth edition of his Commentary on Matthew, both of which appeared in 1864, had preceded me, at least in print. No critical scholar can ignore this manuscript hereafter. For it is the only complete, and perhaps the oldest of all the uncial codices of the Bible, or at least of the same age and authority as the celebrated Vatican Codex (which is traced by some to the middle of the fourth century), and far better edited by the German Protestant Professor, Tischendorf, than the latter was by the Italian Cardinal, Angelo Mai. In the absence of a simpler mark agreed upon by critics (the proposed designation by the Hebrew א has not yet been adopted, and is justly objected to by Tregelles and others on the ground of typographical inconvenience), I introduce it always as Cod. Sin., and I find that Dr. Meyer in the fifth edition does the same. As I could not procure a copy of the printed edition of this Codex till I had finished the first seven chapters, I now complete the critical part of the work by adding its more important readings in the first seven chapters where they differ from the textus receptus, on which the authorized English, as well as all the older Protestant Versions of the Greek Testament are substantially based.
*Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum, sive Novum Testamentum cum Epistola Barnabœ et Fragmentis Pastoris (Hermæ). Ex Codice Sinaitico auspiciis Alexandri II., omnium Russiarum imperatoris, ex tenebris protracto orbique litterarum tradito accurate descripsit Ænotheus Friderious Constantinus Tischendorf, theol. et phil. Dr., etc. etc. Lipsiæ, 1863. The text is arranged in four columns and covers 148 folios; the learned Prolegomena of the editor 81 folios. There is besides a magnificent photo-lithographed fac-simile edition of the whole Sinaitic Bible, published at the expense of the Emperor of Russia, in 4 volumes (3 for the Old and 1 for the New Testament, the latter in 148 folios), under the title: Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus. Auspiciis augustissimis imperatoris Alexandri II. ed. Const. Tischendorf. Petropoli, 1862. A copy of this rare edition I have also consulted occasionally, in the Astor Library of New York. For fuller information on this important Codex (in the words of Tischendorf: “omnium codicum uncialium solus integer omniumque antiquissimus”), we must refer the reader to the ample Prolegomena of Tischendorf, also to an article of Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, vol. vii. (1864), p. 74 ff. (who is disposed to assign it to a somewhat later age), and to Scrivener’s treatise, which I have not seen.
**Hengstenberg, in his Commentary on John, concluded in 1863, pays no attention whatever to this Codex, and is very defective in a critical point of view
Mat_4:5.—Cod. Sin.: εστησεν, text. rec.: ἰστησιν (E. V.: setteth). Lachmann and Alford adopt ἔστησεν with B., C., D., Z., while Tischendorf (7 ed., 1859) and Meyer retain ί̓στησιν. The aorist interrupts the flow of the prœsens historicum in this verse (παραλαμβάνε…λέγει), comp. Mat_1:8; Mat_1:10, and may have been a correction from Luk_4:9.
Mat_4:10.—ὀπίσωμου, behind me, is wanting in Cod. Sin., as in other important witnesses, and in Elzevir’s ed. (see the apparatus in the crit. editions), and is probably an old insertion from Mat_16:23, where Peter is addressed. Comp. Lange’s Exeg. Note on Mat_4:10, p. 85.
Footnotes:
[1] Mat_4:1.—[By is more expressive of ὑπό as distinct from ἐκ.]
[2] Mat_4:2.—[Brit. ed.: an hungered. Better in modern and usual English: He afterward hungered, or was hungry.]
[3] Mat_4:5.—[Gr. τὸ πτερύγιον. See Com.]
[4] Mat_4:6.—[Lest haply, μήποτε.]
[5] Mat_4:7.—[Again it is w., πάλιν γέγραπται.]
[6][But Bengel means that Satan himself appeared to Christ under the disguise of a scribe, not wishing to be known as Satan.—P. S.]
[7][H. A. W. Meyer ad Matthew 4. p. 125 (5th ed.) pronounces the Temptation an ideal history, i. e. a myth, which, however, implies a historical truth, inasmuch as it reflects and symbolizes the real fact of Christ’s victory over the empire of Satan, which runs through his whole life. But this concession removes the ground for all valid objection to the real historical character of the narrative. For what is internally true and consistent may become a real fact. Of Hegel’s maxim: Alles Vernünflige ist wirklich, und alles Wirkliche ist vernünflig, the first clause (everything reasonable is real) is more truthful than the second.—P. S.]
[8]Connected with this view are other similar notions formerly entertained, such as, that the wilderness was that of Arabia,—the mountain, Mount Sinai, or. Mount Tabor, or Mount Nebo: that Jesus was in a state of lowest humiliation, and passive in the hands of Satan, who carried him away through the air, etc. Comp. Starke.
[9][Jos. Addison Alexander on Mat_4:8 (p. 85), places the scene of this temptation on the Mount of Olives, and thus explains the vision of all the kingdoms: “Sheweth, causes Him to see, not upon a map or picture … nor by an optical illusion . . but either by a voluntary and miraculous extension of His vision on His own part or by a combination of sensible perception with rhetorical description . . an actual exhibition of what lay within the boundary of vision, and an enumeration of the kingdoms which in different directions lay beyond it, with a glowing representation of their wealth and cower (and the glory of them).”—P. S.]
[10][Here the Edinb. trsl., misled by a strange error of the first edition of the original, substitutes twice the number seven for ten, the work of God for life, law and freedom world and time (Weltzeit) for orb or circle of the world (Weltkreis), etc., and thus obscures or perverts the sense of the passage completely. Dr. Lange anticipated the correction of the later editions of Matt. in the preface to the first edition of his Com. on Mark.—P. S.]
[11][“Wunderbrod und Zauberbrod,”—literally: wonder-bread and magic bread. The sense is plain enough. But the term admits of a wide application. Not only magicians, sorcerers and soothsayers, but all those who live of dishonest gain and humbug, may be said to eat Zauberbrod.—P. S.]
[12][Schuld; Schulden,—literally: guilt; debts. The Edb. trsl. has difficulties, which is too general.—P. S.]
[13] [Comp. Shakspeare, Merchant of Venice, Act I., Scene 3, where Antonio says to Bassanio:
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart;
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!” —P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–10 And when he had fasted forty days and forty…
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights--Luke says "When they were quite ended" (Luk 4:2).
he was afterward an hungered--evidently implying that the sensation of hunger was unfelt during all the forty days; coming on only at their close. So it was apparently with Moses (Exo 34:28) and Elijah (Kg1 19:8) for the same period. A supernatural power of endurance was of course imparted to the body, but this probably operated through a natural law--the absorption of the Redeemer's Spirit in the dread conflict with the tempter. (See on Act 9:9). Had we only this Gospel, we should suppose the temptation did not begin till after this. But it is clear, from Mark's statement, that "He was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan" (Mar 1:13), and Luke's, "being forty days tempted of the devil" (Luk 4:2), that there was a forty days' temptation before the three specific temptations afterwards recorded. And this is what we have called the First Stage. What the precise nature and object of the forty days' temptation were is not recorded. But two things seem plain enough. First, the tempter had utterly failed of his object, else it had not been renewed; and the terms in which he opens his second attack imply as much. But further, the tempter's whole object during the forty days evidently was to get Him to distrust the heavenly testimony borne to Him at His baptism as THE SON OF GOD--to persuade Him to regard it as but a splendid illusion--and, generally, to dislodge from His breast the consciousness of His Sonship. With what plausibility the events of His previous history from the beginning would be urged upon Him in support of this temptation it is easy to imagine. And it makes much in support of this view of the forty days' temptation that the particulars of it are not recorded; for how the details of such a purely internal struggle could be recorded it is hard to see. If this be correct, how naturally does the SECOND STAGE of the temptation open! In Mark's brief notice of the temptation there is one expressive particular not given either by Matthew or by Luke--that "He was with the wild beasts" (Mar 1:12), no doubt to add terror to solitude, and aggravate the horrors of the whole scene.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 § 17. — TEMPTATION OF JESUS, Mat_4:1-11.
§ 17. — TEMPTATION OF JESUS, Mat_4:1-11.
For great missions the preparation is great trials. It was befitting that the newly inaugurated Prince of Light should come into a trial-contest with the prince of darkness. Our views of this transaction we present with sincere diffidence, giving often what appears to us as on the whole the best solutions, rather than dogmatic certainties.
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We can view this transaction neither as a mere train of thought, as a vision, as a parable, nor a myth; but as a great verity, occupying a most significant place in the system of sacred realities. The first Adam truly was tempted, and fell; the second Adam was as truly tempted, and won the victory.
Hence he became the great head of triumphant humanity. Tempted in all points as we, he shows how to overcome. We remark:
1. The history implies in the abstract human nature of Jesus the power to sin. This is necessary in order to a responsible, free agency. If he had no power to choose sin, it is difficult to see how he could be tempted to a choice, not only impossible, but consciously impossible. If he could not comply with temptation, there could be no danger, and truly no temptation at all. If he was unable to comply with the temptation, there was no virtue in the non-compliance. He was that much no free agent; his non-compliance was necessary and mechanical, and so non-meritorious. The supposition that Christ could not sin raises him above all fitness to be an example for us as one “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.” Propose such a pattern to a fallible sinner, and he can answer conclusively, “Make it impossible for me to sin and I will be as holy as he.” None but a free agent can be an example for a free agent, Nor is any but a free agent capable of responsible probation. This free agency implies not, indeed, a preferential state of soul for evil, as exists in depraved man, but a susceptibility, as in the perfect first Adam, to impressions which, voluntarily followed out to excess or misdirection, would become sin. This view implies no uncertainty of his accomplishing our redemption. For, in full view of all possibilities, the infinite wisdom and foreknowledge of God had selected, for Messiah, that being, of all others, who, he foresaw, would, with perfect free will, prefer God to Satan, and, in spite of all temptation, prove true to his redemptional office. Hence, while there was an intrinsic possibility in the thing, there was a full and perfect certainty upon which the divine mind could rest, that that possible catastrophe of his fall would not take place.
2. In the whole transaction we are to view the Saviour in pure humanity. As he is led by the Spirit to the scene, so the blessed human one stood sole and singular in the universe — a pure lone man, as the first Adam himself, leaning, indeed, as every Christian may, on the divine arm, yet as truly able to fall by his own will from all union with God, as our first progenitor, and truly able, by freely standing, to maintain an identification with God, impossible to the man of Eden.
3. As God said to Satan of Job, so now, we conceive, he said of his Son: “Behold, he is in thine hand, but save his life.” Satan had it in his power to tempt him only with apparent good. Not now was his hour and power to try him with untold agonies. But by withstanding the temptations to the apparently good, the man Jesus proved his fitness to stand the terrible ordeal of ill.
4. This surrender to Satan was greater, we think, than is ordinarily conceived. So far forth as the necessities of the trial required, yet with no power of violence or contamination, our Lord’s person was in his hand. How else did Satan take him to the temple’s summit, or to the mountain top? Or how did he make all the kingdoms of the world visible to his eye? The miracles indicated in the first query maybe supposed to be performed, 1. By creating the conceptions in the Saviour’s mind; or, 2. By snatching his soul from his body; or, 3. By transporting his person so with the quickness of a thought, that he is not to be conceived as on his way at any intermediate point. We adopt the last as being perfectly supposable, and as best meeting the honest demands of the literal history. The miracle suggested in the second question above, of making visible to his eye all the kingdoms of the world, but simply requires that we frame our ideas to the unparallelled statement. It is as conceivable that Satan should endow a human eye with miraculous vision, as that he should fire the human blood of Job with miraculous heat, and compel it to fling out boils upon the skin. That he should do this upon a high mountain, where the natural eye could see as far as possible, accords with the universal rule that the miraculous should never be used where the natural will suffice; or rather that the natural should furnish a nucleus for the miraculous, just as our Saviour, touching with his finger, or with a clay and spittle ointment, the eyes of the blind, formed a nucleus for the miracle of restoration of sight.
1. Led up… into the wilderness — As the preposition up indicates that the wilderness was high ground, and the circumstances of the temptation suggest the nearness of the temple, we may accept the tradition which assigns the wilderness of Judea and Mount Quarantania as the locality. This is in the mountainous region toward Jericho, within a brief distance of Jerusalem. Dr. Durbin thus describes the scene on his journey from Jerusalem to Jericho:
“After pursuing our way for an hour or two down the rugged ravine which forms the road, we turned to the left, and ascended into the desolate and blackened mountains of the ‘Wilderness of Judea,’ the scene of John the Baptist’s ministration and of our Lord’s temptation. Of all places in the world, it is naturally fittest for the centre and kingdom of Satan the destroyer; for, as Maundrell says, ‘it is a most miserable, dry, barren place, consisting of high, rocky mountains, so torn and disordered as if the earth had suffered some great convulsion, in which its very bowels had been turned outward.’ This fearful wilderness, not ten miles east of Jerusalem, has always been the abode of violence and misery. The very road on which we passed was the scene of our Lord’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
“About half way between Jerusalem and Jericho we passed the crumbling walls of a large khan, with immense cisterns. Following the rugged road, often through avenues cut in the rock, we came, by two o’clock, to the eastern edge of the wilderness which overlooks the plain of Jericho, clad in deep green verdure, caused by the fertilizing streams of the Fountain of Elisha. Beyond it, deep in the valley, and as yet invisible, flowed the Jordan, while the view beyond was closed by the dark masses of the mountains of Moab, inviting the eye of the pilgrim to select Nebo and Pisgah. I paused on the brow of the mountain, near the well-preserved remains of a Roman aqueduct, which once supplied water to the city of Jericho, and gazed upon this wide and gloomy panorama encircling the rich green plain which lay spread out far away below me. Immediately around was the dreary wilderness already described; to the right, in their deep, sunken bed, lay the still waters of the Dead Sea; far to the left, the mountains of the wilderness projected into the Jordan, and closed the plain to the north. In that direction, just above the Fountain of Elisha, rose above the rest the dark, thunder-scathed head of Mount Quarantania, which tradition assigns as the ‘exceeding high mountain’ from which Satan showed our Lord ‘all the kingdoms of this world.’ Its summit seems inaccessible; yet a little chapel is perched upon it, and its side next the Jordan is cut into caverns and chambers, in which we saw at night the flitting taper of the hermit, or of the pilgrim doing penance during Lent.”
Of the Spirit — So Eze_3:14 : “The spirit lifted me and took me.” So also Act_8:39 : “The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip… Philip was found at Azotus.”
To be tempted — Put to the test. His virtues were to be tried by a contest with his and our great adversary. The heads of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of hell must meet in contest. How vapid to reduce all this to a vision! The devil — The Diabolus or Accuser. The being who accused Job, and who brings ever a charge against God’s elect. He is not the “personified principle of evil,” but a being deeply animated by the purpose of evil.
1. We have no more right to reduce Satan and hell to figure, than we have Christ, angels, and heaven, nay, God himself. If there are good beings in the body there are also bad. So, also, if there are good bodiless spirits, there may be bad. It is no more contrary to the nature of God’s government that there should be a Satan, than that there should be a Nimrod, a Tamerlane, or a Mohammed.
2. Though Satan is not omnipresent nor omnipotent, he may fill a vast space with his presence. We know not how much of the earth he may overshadow at the same moment. And we know not how numerous the demoniac angels who do his bidding, and through whom he tempts the sons of men.
3. The allusions to his fall from a state of purity are too numerous and pointed to leave a doubt as to its being a doctrine of Scripture. Such are Joh_8:44; Jud_1:6; 2Pe_2:4.
4. Satan is crafty beyond measure, but very little wise. There may be depths of cunning and masses of knowledge in him, and yet many of the plainest, simplest things of redemption, Christ, and Scripture, may be utterly unintelligible to his fatuity. The simplest saint, though immeasurably outwitted by him, may be deep, beyond his comprehension, in the things of God. So the bee can build her comb with the science of a profound mathematician without being able to count three.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1. led up of the Spirit] The agency of…
1. led up of the Spirit] The agency of the Spirit of God is named in each of the Synoptists. St Mark uses the strong expression “the Spirit driveth him forth.” St Luke uses the preposition ἐν (in) denoting the influence in which Jesus passed into the wilderness.
the wilderness] See note on ch. Mat_3:1, but the locality of the temptation is not known.
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The desert unpeopled by men was thought to be the abode of demons. So Jesus meets the evil spirit in his own domains, the Stronger One coming upon the strong man who keepeth his palace (Luk_11:21-22). The retirement preparatory to the great work may be compared with that of Elijah and of Paul. It is perhaps an invariable experience in deeply religious lives to be taken into the desert of their own hearts and there to meet and resist the temptations that assailed Christ.
of the devil] Gk. διάβολος. Hebr. Satan = one who opposes, an adversary. The Greek word conveys the additional ideas of (1) deceiving, (2) calumniating, (3) accusing.
Ch. Mat_4:1-11. The Temptation of Jesus. Mar_1:12-13; Luk_4:1-13
St Mark’s account is short; the various temptations are not specified; he adds the striking expression “he was with the wild beasts.” St Luke places the temptation of the Kingdoms of the World before that of the Pinnacle of the Temple.
Generally it may be remarked the account can have come from no other than Jesus Himself. The words of the Evangelist describe an actual scene—not a dream. The devil really came to Jesus, but in what form he came is not stated. These were not isolated temptations in the life of Jesus. Cp. Luk_22:28, “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations.” But they are typical temptations, comprehending all the forms of temptation by which human nature can be assailed. For, as it has often been said, the three temptations cover the same ground as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1Jn_2:16) in which St John sums up the evil of the world.
Viewing the temptation in a personal reference to Jesus Christ we discern Him tempted (1) As the Son of Man—the representative of humanity—in whom human nature in its perfection triumphs over sin. An important element in the Atonement. (2) As the second Adam regaining for man what the first Adam lost for man. (3) As the Son of Abraham following the fortunes of his race, tempted in the wilderness as the Hebrews were tempted. A thought present implicitly in our Lord’s answers. (4) As the true Messiah or Christos rejecting the unreal greatness which was the aim of false Messiahs.
The lesson of each and all of the temptations is trust in God and submission to God’s will—the result of Metanoia (repentance).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–10 (1) The narrative of the Temptation is confessedly one…
IV.
(1) The narrative of the Temptation is confessedly one of the most mysterious in the Gospel records. In one respect it stands almost, if not altogether, alone. It could not have come, directly or indirectly, from an eye-witness. We are compelled to look on it either as a mythical after-growth; as a supernatural revelation of facts that could not otherwise be known; or, lastly, as having had its source in our Lord’s own report of what He had passed through. The first of these views is natural enough with those who apply the same theory to all that is marvellous and supernatural in our Lord’s life. As a theory generally applicable, however, to the interpretation of the Gospels, that view has not been adopted in this Commentary, and there are certainly no reasons why, rejecting it elsewhere, we should accept it here. Had it been based upon the narrative of the temptation of the first Adam, in Genesis 3, we should have expected the recurrence of the same symbolism, of the serpent and the trees. Nothing else in the Old Testament, nothing in the popular expectations of the Christ, could have suggested anything of the kind. The ideal Christ of those expectations would have been a great and mighty king, showing forth his wisdom and glory, as did the historical son of David; not a sufferer tried and tempted. The forms of the Temptation, still more the answers to them, have, it will be seen, a distinct individuality about them, just conceivable in the work of some consummate artist, but utterly unlike the imagery, beautiful or grand, which enters into most myths. Here, therefore, the narrative will be dealt with as the record of an actual experience. To assume that this record was miraculously revealed to St. Matthew and St. Luke is, however, to introduce an hypothesis which cannot be proved, and which is, at least, not in harmony with their general character as writers. They are, one by his own statement, the other by inference from the structure and contents of his Gospel, distinctly compilers from many different sources, with all the incidental variations to which such a process is liable. There is no reason to look on this narrative as an exception to the general rule. The very difference in the order of the temptations is, as far as it goes, against the idea of a supernatural revelation. There remains, then, the conclusion that we have here that which originated in some communication from our Lord’s own lips to one of His disciples, His own record of the experience of those forty days. So taken, it will be seen that all is coherent, and in some sense (marvellous as the whole is), natural, throwing light on our Lord’s past life, explaining much that followed in His teaching.
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Led up of the spirit.—Each narrator expresses the same fact in slightly different language. St. Luke (Luk_4:1) “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led in the wilderness.” St. Mark (Mar_1:12), more vividly, “Immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness.” What is meant by such language? The answer is found in the analogous instances of seers and prophets. St. John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Rev_1:10). The Spirit “lifted up” Ezekiel that from his exile by the banks of Chebar he might see the secret sins of Jerusalem (Eze_8:3). The “Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip” (Act_8:39). Those who spake with tongues spake “by the Spirit” (1Co_14:2). The result of this induction leads us to think of the state so described as one more or less of the nature of ecstasy, in which the ordinary phenomena of consciousness and animal life were in great measure suspended. That gift of the Spirit had on the human nature of the Son of Man something of the same overpowering mastery that it has had over others of the sons of men. A power mightier than His own human will was urging Him on, it might almost be said He knew not whither, bringing Him into conflict “not with flesh and blood,” but with “principalities and powers in heavenly places.”
To be tempted of the devil.—We are brought, at the outset of the narrative, face to face with the problem of the existence and personality of the power of evil. Here that existence and personality are placed before us in the most distinct language. Whatever difficulties such a view may be thought to present, whatever objections may be brought against it, are altogether outside the range of the interpreter of Scripture. It may be urged that the writers of what we call the Scriptures have inherited a mistaken creed on this point (though to this all deeper experience is opposed), or that they have accommodated themselves to the thoughts of a creed which they did not hold (though of such an hypothesis there is not a particle of evidence), but it would be the boldest of all paradoxes to assert that they do not teach the existence of an evil power whom they call the Enemy, the Accuser, the Devil. Whence the name came, and how the belief sprang up, are, on the other hand, questions which the interpreter is bound to answer. The name, then, of devil (diabolos, accuser or slanderer) appears in the LXX. version of 1Ch_21:1, Job_1:6; Job_2:1, as the equivalent for the Hebrew, Satan (the adversary). He appears there as a spiritual being of superhuman but limited power, tempting men to evil, and accusing them before the Throne of God when they have yielded to the temptation. In Zec_3:1-2, the same name appears in the Hebrew and the LXX. connected with a like character, as the accuser of Joshua the son of Jozedek. In Wis_2:24, the name is identified with the Tempter of Genesis 3, and as that book belongs to the half-century before, or, more probably, the half-century after, our Lord’s birth, it may fairly be taken as representing the received belief of the Jews in His time.
Into conflict with such a Being our Lord was now brought. The temptations which come to other men from their bodily desires, or from the evils of the world around them, had had no power over Him, had not brought even the sense of effort or pain in overcoming them. But if life had passed on thus to the end, the holiness which was inseparable from it would have been imperfect at least in one respect: it would not have earned the power to understand and sympathise with sinners. There was, as the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, a divine fitness that He too should suffer and be tempted even as we are, that so He might “be able to succour them that are tempted” (Heb_2:18).
The scene of the Temptation was probably not far from that of the Baptism, probably, too, as it implies solitude, on the eastern rather than the western side of the Jordan. The traditional Desert of Quarantania (the name referring to the forty days’ fast) is in the neighbourhood of Jericho. The histories of Moses and Elijah might suggest the Wilderness of Sinai, but in that case it would have probably been mentioned by the Evangelists.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Vers. 1-11. THE TEMPTATION. (Parallel passages: Luk_4:1-13; a summary…
Vers. 1-11. THE TEMPTATION. (Parallel passages: Luk_4:1-13; a summary in Mar_1:12, 13) The Father"s acceptance of the Lord"s consecration of himself for the work of the kingdom does not exclude temptation, but rather necessitates it. Psychologically, the reaction from the ecstasy of joy in hearing the announcement of Mat_3:17 was certain; ethically, such testing as would accompany the reaction was desirable. Even the Baptist was, as it seems, not without a special temptation during this period. (cf. Joh_1:19; and Bishop Westcott"s note) At the very commencement of his official life the Lord is led consciously to realize that he has entered on a path of complete trust (even as his brethren in the flesh, Heb_2:13) for all personal needs, a path which required great calmness and common sense, and along which he must take his orders for final victory, not from worldly principles, but direct from God. In Luke the order of the second and third temptations is reversed. Against the supposition of Godet and Ellicott, that St. Luke is historically correct, the "Get thee hence Satan!" (ver. 10) seems conclusive. At any rate, for St. Matthew"s aim in this Gospel the temptation that he places third is the crucial one; the true King will not take an irregular method of acquiring sovereignty.
Then; temporal. Mark, "and straightway." Immediately after the descent of the Holy Ghost upon him. Was led up ... into the wilderness. Up (Matthew only); from the Jordan valley into the higher country round, (cf. Jos_16:1) in this case into the desert. (Mat_3:1) There is nothing told us by which we may identify the place, but as the scene of the temptation must have been near the scene of the baptism, namely, on the west side of Jordan, (Mat_3:1, note) it may be presumed that the temptation was on the west side also. The sharp limestone peak (Godet) known since the Crusades as Quarantana, "from the quarantain, or forty days of fasting" (Trench, Studies," p. 6), may, perhaps, have been the actual spot. The only important objection to this is that directly after the temptation (as seems most probable) he comes to John in "Bethany beyond Jordan," Joh_1:28 (not necessarily to be identified with "Bethabara" of the Received Text; its locality is quite unknown). If he went east of Jordan after the temptation, he would still be on one of the great roads to Galilee. (Luk_9:52, etc.) The conjecture that the fasting and temptation took place on Sinai is suggested by the analogy of Moses and Elijah, but by absolutely nothing in the Gospels. Led up of the Spirit into the wilderness; Mark, "the Spirit driveth him forth;" Luke, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led in the Spirit in the wilderness" (with a leading that lasted throughout the temptation, heto ... en ... en ... peirazomenov ). He was no doubt himself inclined to go apart into the desert that he might meditate uninterruptedly upon the assurance just given, and the momentous issues involved in his baptism; but the Holy Spirit had also his own purposes with him. The Holy Spirit cannot, indeed, tempt, but he can and does lead us into circumstances where temptation is permitted, that we may thereby be proved and disciplined for future work. In Christ"s case the temptation was an important part of that moral suffering by which he learned full obedience. (Heb_5:8) Notice that even if the expression in Mat_3:16, "the Spirit of God descending," does not in itself go beyond the expressions of Jewish teachers who deny his Personality, it would be hard to find so personal an action as is implied by the words, "Jesus was led up of the Spirit," attributed to the Spirit in non-Christian writings. For Isa_63:10, Isa_63:11, 14 is much less definite, and passages, e.g. in Eze_3:12-14, interpret themselves by Eze_1:21. To St. Matthew himself the Personality of the Holy Ghost must, in the light of Mat_28:19, have been an assured fact. To be tempted of the devil. So Luke; i.e. the great calumniator, him whose characteristic is false accusation; e.g. against men; (Rev_12:10-12) against God. (Gen_3:1-5) Here chiefly in the latter aspect. Each of the three temptations, and they are typical of all temptations; is primarily a calumniation of God and his methods. Mark has "of Satan," a Hebrew word equivalent to "adversary," which the LXX nearly always renders by diaballw . (compare also Num_22:22, Num_22:32) Probably by the time of the LXX the idea of the evil spirit accusing as in a law-court, was more prominent than the earlier thought of him as an adversary. Spiritual resistance by the evil spirit to all good is a less-developed thought than his traducing God to man, and, after some success obtained, traducing man to God. Evil may resist good; it may also accuse both God and those made after the likeness of God.
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HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. The leadings of the Spirit.
Whether we are to understand an impulse from Christ"s own spirit, or a direction of the Divine indwelling Spirit, need not be disputed, because the two may be regarded as included, and the relation of the one to the other may be shown. The analogy of such verses as Eze_8:3 Act_8:39 Rev_1:10 suggests a state of ecstasy. As Bushnell expresses it, "The fact is signified that the Spirit, coming here upon him in the full revelation of his call, raises such a ferment in his bosom of great thoughts and strangely contesting emotions, that he is hurried away to the wilderness, and the state of privacy before God, for relief and settlement.
I THE IMPULSE AS A NATURAL SUGGESTION. If we place ourselves in our Lord"s circumstances, we shall realize that we should have felt and acted precisely as our Lord did. Compare his action when the news came of John Baptist"s death. At once he said to his disciples, "Come ye into a desert place, and rest awhile." There is no more natural feeling than the desire for seclusion when the heart is oppressed with great and anxious thoughts. Illustrate by the impulsive flight of Elijah into the desert of the Tih, by St. Paul"s flight into the desert of Arabia, and by our Lord"s seeking seclusion in Gethsemane. That there was a certain intensity in our Lord"s impulse after his ordination is sufficiently explained by the unusual character of the descent of the Spirit on him. We need not hesitate to say that he was moved by his own desires.
II THE IMPULSE AS A DIVINE OVERRULING. God may be in our impulses. He often is. He works through them. They are in the Divine sanctifying. This truth is even explicitly stated: "The Spirit witnesseth with our spirit." This, indeed, is the higher truth apprehended by the devout soul, who can see, and is always glad to see, the Divine in things, God working in what seems, to casual view, merely human work. The difficulty may be suggested, that we may easily be subject to delusions if we follow our impulses. In reply it may be said:
1. There is no danger, if we are open-souled, sincere, as Jesus was.
2. If we are trustfully seeking Divine guidance, as Jesus was.
3. If we are prepared to use the divinely provided tests, which will reveal any mere self-seeking in our impulses. R.T.
Vers. 1-11. The temptation of Christ.
I THE PREPARATION,
1. The Spirit. He was "full of the Holy Ghost". (Luk_4:1) The Spirit had descended from heaven like a dove, and abode upon him. He was now in the full consciousness of his Divine mission. His sacred human nature was filled through and through with the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost: "God gave not the Spirit by measure unto him". (Joh_3:34) His holy soul must have glowed with a deep, heavenly joy in ineffable communion with the Father, in the calm contemplation of the blessed work which lay before him. He had hitherto led a quiet life; he had wrought no mighty works; he had not taught, save by the silent influence of the beauty of holiness. We know not what deep, unutterable thoughts had stirred his heart; we cannot penetrate the inscrutable mystery of the union of the Divine and human natures. We know that in his early youth he was continually advancing in wisdom. His mind unfolded itself gradually; perhaps the conception of the mystery of his Being, the wondrous memories of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, the knowledge of his sacred mission, of his blessed office, dawned little by little on his holy human soul. Now he had reached his thirtieth year; he was in the full strength of manhood, bodily and intellectual; he had received an august consecration. He was declared by the heavenly voice to be the beloved Son of God; the holy Dove had revealed him to the Baptist as the Christ, descending upon him with a message of peace from God to man, as, ages before, the dove had brought to the ark the welcome token that the wrath of God had passed away. He was "full of the Holy Ghost," strengthened for his work by that sacred Presence, as afterwards he was strengthened by the angel in his awful agony. But great joy is often followed by great sorrow; very high spiritual experiences are often succeeded by seasons of peculiar temptation. It was so with Christ the Lord; it is so with advanced Christians now. The abundant grace vouchsafed unto them, the felt presence of the Holy Spirit, is granted to prepare them for the coming trials. They are strengthened with all might by his Spirit in the inner man, that they may be able to bear themselves manfully in the dread conflict, and to win the victory through his assisting grace.
2. The wilderness. The Spirit led him thither; it may be, to the dreary solitudes of Quarantana; it may be, to the rocks of Sinai. There was need of lonely meditation, of sustained prayer, of solitary preparation for his momentous task. Such an episode of solemn calm occurred in the lives of Moses, of Elijah, of St. Paul. Such an episode was interposed now between the wondrous manifestations of the Divine Presence and the hurry of hard, wearying labour that was to follow. The Lord was made like unto us. In his perfect humanity he needed, as we do, time for quiet thought, time to collect himself, to brace himself for the coming trials, to realize the great change that was at hand, the strange contrast between the life that was coming, crowded with works of power and labours of love, and the peaceful seclusion of Nazareth which was now for ever past. We need our quiet days, time for recollection, self-examination, and solemn thought. We must find time for meditation, if we are to advance far in the spiritual life. The Spirit led our Lord into the wilderness; the Spirit leads us from time to time to retirement for solitary devotional exercises.
3. The tempter.
(1) The tempter found our Lord in the wilderness. Solitude has its dangers, as well as busy life. The hermits, who in old times used to retire from the busy haunts of men, had their own peculiar trials. They could in some degree escape from outward temptations; they could not escape from their own thoughts, their own sinful hearts, the power and allurements of the evil one. Their temptations were different, but to the full as great as those of active life. Probably the danger was greater; for God did not create us for the wilderness, for solitude; he has given us work to do for him. That work commonly lies in the world, among men. Work is a necessity for us. It was a curse; it becomes a blessing if it is performed in faith and loving obedience. Work is a great safeguard against temptation. Without work the thoughts run wild; often they wander into sinful fancies; often, turned always inward, they become morbid and unnatural. Solitude is good sometimes, for a while; but it should be an episode in a life of active work for God.
(2) The Lord was absolutely pure and holy. No sinful thought ever arose in his sacred heart; in his case there could be no temptation from within. But Satan tempted him. The temptations came from without, from the direct agency of the evil spirit. They did not harm him; they glanced off from the clear surface of his holy, soul. But they were real temptations. He hungered, as we do; he had all our natural longings for food, for rest, for other objects of human desire. The suggestions of the wicked spirit solicited him, harassed him; he felt the appetite, the rising desire. But he crushed it down by the strength of a holy will. He set us an example; he overcame Satan for us.
(3) The Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted. It was part of his humiliation, part of his suffering, part of his redeeming work. It was necessary that he should learn, by his own experience in his sinless human nature, the bitter trials of temptation; that, having himself suffered being tempted, he might be able to succour them that are tempted; that we might have the help of his Divine sympathy in our temptations. It was necessary for our salvation that he should in our flesh overcome the devil; that as Man, in our human nature, he might conquer that sin by which death came into the world; that as in Adam all died, even so in Christ might all be made alive. He hath given us an example, teaching us that by self-denial, prayer, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, we too may resist temptation. But, more than this, if we are his, he abiding in us and we in him, then his victory is ours; in the strength of his victory we overcome the same dreadful enemy: "God giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Therefore he was led by the Spirit to be tempted. We sometimes seem to be led into temptation; the temptation may be necessary for us, to try our faith, to brace our energies, to make us approved soldiers of the cross. He cannot be a conqueror who has never fought a battle; that virtue is not the highest which is pure simply because it has never met with temptation. But "God will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able." He who suffered being tempted is with his people in their hour of trial; his sympathy is their comfort; his strength their victory. It" need be, they are in heaviness through manifold temptations; but the trial of their faith is precious; it will be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
(4) The temptation was necessary, but it must have caused the Lord exceeding anguish. We have admitted sin into our hearts; we have loved it in our madness; we cannot tell the intense loathing and horror which the presence of sin must cause in a pure and holy soul. The Lord Jesus, the most Holy One, endured for our salvation"s sake to be confronted with that hateful being whose home is in the darkness and the burning flame, whose heart is filled with malice and cruelty, thirsting to destroy those precious souls whom the Lord loved so dearly, for whom he gave himself to die. The close presence of evil, that loathsome thing which God hates, the wicked suggestions of Satan, must have been intensely horrible to the blessed Saviour. He endured all this for us; he loved us with so great a love.
4. The fasting. The Lord was absorbed in high thoughts and spiritual communion with the Father; this lifted him up for a time above the ordinary needs of humanity. His fast was miraculous, like the fast of Moses, of Elijah. But it is our example also in a measure; we too must fast and pray if we would conquer as the Saviour conquered. Our Father will reward those who fast after the pattern of the Lord, in the like spirit, in faith and in humility. We must practise self-denial in little things, if we would gain strength to support us in the dread conflict with the tempter. Bodily exercise profiteth little in comparison with the inner spirit of self-mortification; but we cannot afford to despise those outward helps; and certainly we cannot do wrong in following the example of our Lord and. his apostles. (Act_13:3 Act_14:23 1Co_7:5 2Co_6:5)
II THE FIRST TEMPTATION.
1. The suggestion of the tempter.
(1) The doubt. "If thou be the Son of God." So he tempted Eve, "Hath God said?" So he tempts us now with his evil whispers, breathing doubts into our souls doubts of the truth of God"s revelation, doubts of his power and love, doubts of our own conversion: "If thou be a child of God." He suggests again and again that terrible "if," harassing our souls with miserable fears and awful perplexities. He knew probably that Jesus was the Son of God; Jesus knew it certainly with a full, Divine consciousness. God grants the peace of God sooner or later to all who come to him in humility and faith. They may be sorely tried for a time with anxious doubts; but they shall find rest for their souls in Christ their Saviour. Only let them trust even amid fears; and in his good time the saddening doubt, "If thou be a child of God," will make room for the blessed assurance, "I know that my Redeemer liveth;" "I know whom I have believed.
(2) The tempter"s bidding. "Command that these stones be made bread." It was an appeal to the bodily appetite, the lust of the flesh; the temptation once addressed to Eve tree was good for food." The Lord hungered. It was not meet, the tempter whispered, that the Son of God should be so distressed; it needed only to put forth his power. That power was his for the good of souls; the devil would have him use it to supply his own wants. So he tempts men now to use for worldly advancement, worldly glory, means that were given them to work out their own salvation, to help on the work of God in the world.
2. The Lord"s answer.
(1) "It is written." This was the first word, as far as we are told, spoken by our Lord after his baptism. He was the Son of God; he was full of the Holy Ghost; but he begins his ministry with the simple words, "It is written." He meets the tempter with the sword of the Spirit. So must the Christian now. The memory should be stored through and through with the sacred words; they should be wrought into the heart by holy thought and diligent obedience, written there by the Holy Spirit of God. Then they will be at hand ready for use in the hour of trial, in the deadly struggle. Then search the Scriptures; be not content with the knowledge of the letter; but pray for grace to realize and to know by personal experience that inner spiritual meaning without which "the letter killeth.
(2) "Man shall not live by bread alone." "Man," the Lord says. He meets the evil one as a Man, in our human flesh, and as a Man he conquers. He conquers for us, in our humanity; he sets us an example that, through spiritual union with the one holiest Man, we men may share his victory, and overcome, even as he overcame. And this is his lesson: "A man"s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Life conies from God; he breathed into man"s nostrils the breath of life. He fed the Israelites in the wilderness with manna, the bread of heaven; he sustained his blessed Son in the wilderness throughout that lengthened fast; he can in his own way support the life which he gave. The soul that trusts in God will not mean only common food by the "daily bread" for which we pray. Life is too great a thing, too Divine a gift, to be supported wholly by things outward. The true life, life worthy of the name, life worth living, needs a Diviner food the Bread that came down from heaven, the Lord Christ himself. Man doth not live by bread alone; he will lose his life who seeks only that earthly bread. Christ is the Life the Life of the world; they live indeed, in the full meaning of life, who have that Life abiding in them; they live in the faith of God, trusting in him. The words which proceed out of his mouth are the food of their souls, the stay of their hearts; for the Word of God is living and powerful; it liveth and abideth for ever.
III THE SECOND TEMPTATION.
1. The suggestion. Again the doubt; the tempting, or perhaps the sarcastic, "if." But this time pride was the weak point in human nature which the tempter sought to find in the Lord the pride of life. The tree, he had once whispered to Eve, was a tree to be desired to make one wise. He took him to the holy city, to the temple. Alas! the devil can find an entrance there, into the very Church of Christ; sometimes he has found an entrance into the highest places in the visible Church. Pride has been the ruin of many who are set over their brethren; spiritual pride has ruined many a Christian who once seemed not far from the kingdom of God. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, perhaps the pinnacle from which, years afterwards, James, the Lord"s brother, was cast down to meet the martyr"s death. He set the Lord there on high as the Lord of the temple, the Messiah, the great King, the royal Priest. He bade him cast himself down. It would display his power, his dignity, his Divine majesty. Such a miracle, in such a place, before the eyes of assembled priests and people, would at once establish his claims; he would be recognized at once as the Lord that was to come, the Priest after the order of Melchizedek; and that without difficulty, without painful self-denials, without the cross.
2. The scriptural quotation. The words were true, but there was an important omission. "He shall give his angels charge over thee," said the psalmist, "to keep thee in all thy ways." "In all thy ways in all the ways marked out for us by his providence, not in self-chosen ways, which he had not appointed. The holy words of Scripture may be misapplied; they may be used to suggest a meaning which they were never intended to convey; they may be bandied about in controversy, and employed simply as means to gain a theological victory. Such a use of the Bible tends to produce pride. "Knowledge puffeth up." Pride perverts the sacred words; holy and humble men of heart, led by the Spirit of God, enter into their deep and blessed meaning. The devil might have misled some vain man; to such the Scripture quoted might have seemed apposite, and so he might have been beguiled to his ruin. But the Lord was meek and lowly in heart; he sought not honour from men; there was no thought of display, no ostentation in his holy soul. He knew what the Scripture really meant. The blessed angels are charged with the care of God"s saints; they do keep them in all their ways; they do bear them in their hands; but not if they cease to be saints, not "when the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity;" not when he becomes presumptuous and self-willed. Misquoted texts, misapplied Scripture, did not ensnare the Lord; they will not ensnare the humble Christian who trusts not in his own knowledge or his own strength, but in the living God.
3. The Lord" s answer.
(1) Again the appeal to Scripture: "It is written again." Scripture is best interpreted by Scripture; one part of Holy Writ throws light upon another. The devil takes the text which seems to suit his purpose; he isolates it; he draws wrong conclusions from it. The Lord brings another passage to bear on the suggested act. He teaches us how to use God"s Holy Word. We must compare Scripture with Scripture; we may not "so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to another.
(2) "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." It is tempting God to put ourselves into dangers to which he has not called us, to expect his help in self-chosen ways, to look for his miraculous interposition to save us from the consequences of our own folly. To trust God is faith, to tempt him is presumption. We cannot trust him with too entire a confidence while we are walking in the path of obedience and duty, the path marked out for us by his providence; but to choose our own path, to thrust ourselves into perilous positions, to think of forcing, so to speak, a miracle from God, this is fanaticism, not faith. Christ"s miracles were part of the great scheme of redemption; they were wrought to relieve distress or to increase the faith of his followers; not needlessly, not to display his power or to satisfy curiosity; not at the bidding of Satan, or the Pharisees, or Herod. The Saviour would not work a miracle from any of these lower motives; it would have been inconsistent with his high and holy character. Such a miracle, if it were possible, would be the work of a faith like that described by St. Paul a faith which, though it might remove mountains, was destitute of the blessed grace of love, and therefore nothing worth in the sight of God.
IV THE THIRD TEMPTATION.
1. The suggestion. Satan had long ago whispered to Eve that the tree was "pleasant to the eyes." He had tempted her through the lust of the eyes; now he raises before the eyes of the Lord a vision of unexampled grandeur. As the angel (Rev_21:10) carried away St. John in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed him that great city, the holy Jerusalem; so now the tempter showed our Lord all the kingdoms of the world, a dream of world-wide empire, majesty, and power beyond all that Alexander had once attained, or that Tiberius then possessed. Satan had been twice defeated. He felt that he must put forth all his energies. A small bribe might lure weak men to their destruction; it does not need a kingdom to ensnare them. Satan offered to the Lord the empire of the world. It was a tempting prospect. The Lord knew that he was the Messiah, the Prince of the kings of the earth; all this glory was rightfully his; he was to rule over the nations, and his rule was for the happiness of mankind. It seemed now within his grasp. He would use it (so, perhaps, the tempter whispered; so he would whisper, we know, to a mere man in such a position) he would use it for the best interests of the human race; he would put down the avarice, cruelty, lust, oppression, which reigned rampant in the world; he would improve the condition of the poor; he would put a stop to war and violence and bloodshed; he would introduce universal peace, universal happiness; and that at once and with ease, without self-sacrifice, without labour, without the cross; at once, by one simple act (so a weak man might say) an act which, perhaps, was not right, but which was only momentary, which could be soon repented of, the guilt of which would be as nothing compared with the great good that was to follow. So a man might reason with himself; so in smaller matters many men have reasoned with themselves, and have deceived themselves. The end, they said, sanctified the means; they would do evil, so they thought, that good might come. But they deceived their own hearts; the temptation came from the wicked one. Men never do evil from good motives; the thing cannot be. They may say so; they may have said it so often to themselves that they have come almost to believe it by force of habitual self-deceit. But the motive was really selfish, their own interest, their own gratification, their own ease. The good end was only talk, mere pretence to gloss over their sin, to hide their real character from men, even, if it might be, from themselves; if it were possible, from their God. It is Satan who suggests the sinful compliance; he conceals its wickedness; he uses it to destroy the soul. And his promises are deceitful; he offers the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; it is not his to give; he is a liar from the beginning; he promises, he does not give; his deluded followers lose their own souls, but do not always gain the good things of this world. Or, if they gain them, they find that rank, riches, pleasure, bought by sin, are but dust and ashes in the mouth vanity of vanities. The enjoyment is but a dream, a phantom; the misery, alas! is very real.
2. The Lord"s answer.
(1) He calls the tempter by his name, Satan, the adversary. He had revealed himself now; his previous advances had been insidious; he had even claimed the countenance of Holy Scripture. Now he stands confessed as the enemy of God; he claims the worship which is due to God alone. The Lord expresses his indignation: "Get thee hence, Satan!" It is right to call an evil thing by an evil name; the use of fair names for foul things is one of the deceits of the wicked one; it tends to hide the malignity of sin, and helps to entrap unwary souls. A transgression is not an indiscretion; a sin is not a misfortune.
(2) Again he says, "It is written." The Bible is many-sided; its range extends over all the needs of humanity; there is help to be found there against all temptations. Whatever our difficulties may be, our perplexities, our trials, we shall find light and guidance in the blessed Word of God, if we have been used to study it aright in earnest prayer, in dependence on the promised aid of God the Holy Ghost.
(3) "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God." Here is the Christian"s victory. God must be first in our hearts. Nothing can be right which tends to turn our soul"s devotion from the Lord. However fair the prospect may seem, whatever excuses Satan may suggest, however he may palliate the guilt, or hide the danger, or draw enticing pictures of advantages to follow, here is the one only right answer, the answer of the Lord Jesus to the tempter: "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." Our heart"s allegiance is due to God; he is our rightful King. To try to serve two masters, to halt between God and the world, is to fail in that allegiance, to transfer it to "the world-rulers of this darkness;" it is, in effect, to take Satan for our master, to worship him instead of God. The one hope of safety in the midst of dangers is to hold fast to the prime duty, the highest privilege of the Christian: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." He who herein imitates the Saviour is more than conqueror.
V THE VICTORY.
1. The devil leaveth him. He had failed completely. The clear, calm decision of the Saviour"s holy soul, the resolute will, sorely tried and harassed, but ever steadfast and unflinching in the path of duty, had defeated the tempter at all points. He had nothing more left that he could do: he fled, awed by the Saviour"s perfect purity. So the devil fleeth now before those who resist him in the strength of Christ. Our victory is sure if only we are steadfast; for Christ hath conquered for us, and we are his and he is ours.
2. The angels came. The strife was o"er, the battle done; angels came and ministered to the wants of the triumphant Lord. They had watched the struggle, we may be sure, with the deepest, the most awful interest; they had sympathized with the blessed Lord in the intense anguish of that dread agony of temptation. They rejoiced in his victory. Even so they help the Christian warrior now in his conflict against the same dreadful foe: "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him;" and "There is Joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." The moments of victory victory after sore temptation, are sweet beyond expression; they are sweetened by the unseen presence and sympathy of the blessed angels, rejoicing with the Christian"s joy, "singing sweet fragments of the songs above" to cheer the wearied pilgrim.
LESSONS.
1. The devil who tempted Christ tempts us now. Temptations will come; they come every day; but there are decisive moments in the life of every one. Prepare for those decisive conflicts by prayer for the Spirit, by meditation, by the practice of daily self-denial.
2. Imitate the Saviour. Treasure in the heart the blessed words of Holy Scripture.
3. Love not the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are not of the Father, but of the world.
4. "Resist the devil, and he shall flee from you.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Ver. 1. Christ tempted.
The very fact that Christ was subject to temptation is immensely significant, both as regards his nature and life and as regards our experience of temptation.
I THE PICTURE OF CHRIST. We see him assailed by the tempter, wrestling with the fiend, and flinging the monster at every bout. Jesus tempted in the wilderness appears Very different from the Christ seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Here some remarkable features of his nature and work are unveiled.
1. His perfect humanity. Plainly Jesus was a Man. He lacked nothing that is truly and essentially human. Fie had a human soul to be tempted, as well as a human body to suffer hunger. In the temptation he comes down to the level of our poor, toiling, fighting humanity. Thus all the grandeur of his Divinity does not remove one jot from the completeness of his humanity.
2. His brotherly sympathy. "He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin", (Heb_4:15) in order that he might be able to succour the tempted. (Heb_2:18) This was his apprenticeship to his office of High Priest. He understands our battle with evil, for he fought a similar battle himself.
3. His redeeming work. Christ came to overthrow the works of the devil. He began by facing and conquering the spirit of evil himself. Satan had never been completely vanquished before. The utter rout of his forces in this battle in the wilderness must have left him weakened for all future encounters.
4. His victorious purity. Christ was tempted, yet he,did not fall. He came out of the ordeal tested and revealed in his sinless strength. Now it cannot be said that the goodness of Christ is only perfect because he had not an opportunity to do wrong. He was met by the strongest possible inducements to sin. Yet he resisted them. The result was all gain. It was good for Christ to be tempted. Therefore he was led by the Spirit to the wilderness.
II THE REVELATION OF TEMPTATION.
1. Temptation may come from without. St. James shows how it often springs up in our own hearts from the evil lurking there. Old sins shed seeds which spring up as new sins. But this is not the only way in which temptations arise, or the first man could not have been tempted, nor could Christ. Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent, and Christ was tempted by the devil.
(1) Therefore a good man is not to expect to be free from temptation.
(2) Temptation is no sign of sin. The tempted need not accuse themselves of guilt in their being liable to temptation. Sin only begins when we yield to temptation in our own wills.
2. Temptation lays hold of innocent desires. Christ was tempted by sinful appeals to what was innocent within him. He was tempted to gratify natural desires hunger, etc., but in a wrong way. He had not our indwelling sins to urge him to evil, but he had greater powers to keep in control. It would seem that, with the descent of the Holy Spirit at his baptism, there had come the consciousness of his great and awful power to work miracles. His temptations were inducements to abuse that power for selfish ends. Every new acquisition is a new ground for temptation; every enlargement and growth of faculty carries with it fresh possibilities of evil and also, if the evil is resisted, of good. W.F.A.
HOMILIES BY P.C. BARKER Ver. 1. The preliminaries of the ordeal temptations of Jesus Christ.
The baptism of water, to which Jesus Christ had submitted in obedience to the human nature which he had assumed, and to the conditions under which he had assumed it, is now succeeded by the more significant, far more intrinsic, inward baptism of temptation. Let us here consider
I WHAT THIS BAPTISM OF TEMPTATION REALLY MEANS AND AMOUNTS TO. It means a testing, practical investigation into
(1) the moral direction of a man"s will; and
(2) the strength of it in that direction.
The present associations of the word and the thing temptation in the minds of us all are perhaps almost without exception of an unfavourable kind. It arises from the fact that temptation in the original example of it, and in the infinite majority of all cases from that time to the present, issued in disaster. Our way, therefore, is both to dread it for ourselves, and to attach a bad name to it. But if the issue of the original temptation had been the opposite of what it was, and had the amazing majority of all succeeding cases taken pattern of it, we can easily imagine how the mere utterance of the word would have availed to strike a joyous key-note; and the word itself been the watchword of noble endeavour and enthusiastic effort. Till Jesus, however, the word knew no association of this kind. It is, then, in this sense that Jesus and temptation are brought into relation. His moral bent and the strength of it are to be as really and as fairly tested as were those of the first Adam. Nor is it less evident that, while the temptation-test of the first Adam was presented to him in the simplest possible form, and when he was no way "a-hungred," that of the second Adam is described in brief in that threefold form which stands for all the rest as regards its matter, and with every accompanying circumstance of aggravation.
II AT WHOSE INSTANCE THE DATE OF IT WAS DETERMINED. Though Jesus was always moved by the Holy Spirit, yet it is here with distinct emphasis said, "He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." In that dimmest background of time to which the garden of Eden belongs, it is at present impossible to institute comparison between the age of Adam and that of Christ on the days of their temptation respectively; but it may be held that there is a ripe time, an exact time, in the life of every man, known to the Spirit and appropriated by the Spirit, for the critical temptation of life. It is true that we cannot say that temptation is, except in a few cases, the final, deciding one, so far as time is concerned; but perhaps oftener than men think it is to solemn truth the crucial one, the one on which hinge many succeeding victories, each made easier, or disgraceful defeats, each less regretted and less striven against. Surely it is legitimate and real source of comfort for all those who seek the right, and would do faithfully the battle with the tempter, to have this view of the time and occasion of the battle put before them on such high authority, that they are adapted and timed of the Spirit. It may also well be observed here that so surely as the Spirit led, so meekly Jesus followed. He followed without resistance, without murmur, and without shrinking, so far as his own conflict or humiliation in meeting such an enemy was concerned. Calm submission before conflict, steadfast determination to encounter the enemy in the path of our life, and unfaltering trust in the Stronger than self, these are the omens that go before the successful as well as the valiant spiritual warrior.
III THE PLACE OF THE TEMPTATION. It can scarcely be sustained that the "wilderness" (described here by the same word as in vers. 1 and 3 of the previous chapter) denotes absolutely desert tracts of country. It must probably mean the same as in the former chapter, the thinly inhabited and vaster pastoral stretches of country. There can be no doubt, however, that some point is to be understood as made in this kind of scene or theatre being appointed for Christ"s temptation. In the world"s actual life the occasion of temptation abounds in the crowd and in the solitary place. It is still a study and a question in which it may abound most. On the other hand, perhaps, it may be held and in analogy with much else in matter quite different that though in the crowded city temptation may be yielded to most recklessly, yet conflict, and the fiercer and more prolonged conflict, and remorse, and the fiercer and more prolonged remorse, find solitude to a special degree their thriving ground, and make it all their own as battle-ground. The analysis would be of this kind. In the wilderness:
1. The larger force and number of the spiritual powers of the individual will have the chance of coming into action. The calculating will be more and more manifold with the effect of making the consenting more deliberate.
2. The position will be a clearer one of antagonists just opposed to each other, the one with no help from friends on which to fall back; the other when he would do his worst, with no hindrance arising from a sense of intimidation, as conscious that others are onlookers, and they such as sympathize with his victim, not with himself. The sense of isolation will be a weakness to the assaulted; the sense of unobservedness will be added unscrupulousness to the assaulter.
3. The feelings of the tempted will be naturally and almost inevitably highly stimulated, probably often in a morbid condition. It would need a spirit to which all goodness and all strength were already native to remain uninfluenced by the associations or, otherwise put, the non-associations, of the wilderness. Nevertheless, the victory once won, these shall leave the victor stronger than if all surroundings had been in his favour.
4. Though the trial must be in these aspects severer, yet, everything considered, it will also be the fairer test of the person in his own real self.
IV THE PERSON OF THE TEMPTER. It is stated with distinctness that Jesus was led up was led up by the Spirit, was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness in order to be tempted, i.e. meet the ordeal of temptation, and this at the ministration of "the devil." The naturalness and very harmony of the verse and the narrative are with a ruthless gratuitousness set at nought if we are not at liberty to learn here
(1) the personality of the devil, as a thing upheld by the authority of the New Testament. We learn
(2) that our great Head and Leader, the second Adam, the Captain of our salvation, the Author and Finisher of our faith; was ordained to meet the ordeal of temptation, in what must be considered. the most direct and the most fierce and concentrated form. We may very probably be justly reminded here
(3) that both the genius of temptation at the first, as temptation is constituted in the present Life, originated with Satan, and also that it is still and always really his peculium, in whatever disguised and sugared form of circumstance, apparent accident and the like, it may seem to address us. Temptation now, like painful labour and the sweat of the brow, has in secondary and derived aspects its points of interest, its uses of advantage, and even phases to ask admiration. But primarily, none of these things can be credited to it. We may be reminded
(4) that Satan is probably never far to seek or difficult to be found. Jesus is "led up of the Spirit into the wilderness," but not in consequence of any appointment with Satan to meet him. He is sure to be found. B.
HOMILIES BY MARCUS DODS Vers. 1-11. The temptation of Jesus.
In his baptism our Lord was proclaimed as the Messiah. This must have intensified his feeling of the burden and glory of his vocation. A ferment of emotions must have been stirred in his soul. The inquisitive, critical eyes around him, the eager questioning to which he must straightway have been subjected, the necessity of determining what course he should pursue, made solitude a necessity for him at this time. He must ascertain with definiteness the principles which are to guide his work. And the great problems which presented themselves as he looked forward to his work were these: What use may I make of the powers committed to me? What means may I legitimately use to convince the people? What kind of Messiah am I to be? His mind had to work itself clear of all popular fallacies regarding the coming kingdom, and his heart had to face and count the cost of all that would come of resisting or disappointing popular expectations. Rejecting, therefore, the idea that he might use his miraculous power for his own comfort, he affirmed from the first the principle that he lived and worked for others. Rejecting the idea that he was to be a mere Wonder-worker, he at once adopted the slow way of moral influence and waiting on God"s time. And, thirdly, rejecting the idea that he might be an earthly Prince, he from the outset sustained the role of a spiritual King.
I THE TEMPTATION TO USE HIS MIRACULOUS POWER FOR HIS OWN SUSTENANCE AND COMFORT. Absorbed during all these days in thought and mental conflict, the claims of intense bodily hunger at last make themselves felt. He finds himself faint, far from any dwelling where he could get food; ready to perish, and too giddy, sick, and spent to seek for relief. But he carries in his own Person the power to turn the very stones of the untilled hillside into bread. Why should he not use this power? Because he has taken the nature of man, to live a human life under human conditions, and were he to relieve himself of every threatening danger and evade every difficulty by a quick appeal to his supernatural power, this entrance into human life would be a mockery. His freedom from sin would have been no example to us if the danger and discomfort of resisting sin and living righteously were only in appearance. (Compare the chapter in "Ecce Homo," on Christ"s credentials: "This temperance in the use of supernatural power is the masterpiece of Christ. It is a moral miracle superinduced upon a physical one... The kind of life he prescribed to his followers he exemplified in the most striking way, by dedicating all his extraordinary powers to beneficent uses only, and deliberately placing himself for all purposes of hostility and self-defence on a level with the weakest.") Every young man looking forward to his career should bring himself to the measure here presented. I have certain gifts, means, capabilities, by which I can secure comfort and position in the world. For whose benefit am I to use what I have? He would be a fool who feared to bid every young man choose as Christ chose. You foresee discomfort, the obscure and dingy ways of poverty; you foresee what you would sum up in one word, "starvation." But choose as Christ chose, and though you may make what men will call a very poor thing of life, or lose it, you will find life eternal. Let no parent be so ill a counsellor as to turn away a son from generous self-sacrifice. Every man has his time of temptation; and once committed to certain courses of choice, is hampered.
II THE TEMPTATION TO WIN THE PEOPLE BY AN ASTOUNDING FEAT. The vulgar seemed to expect that the Messiah would leap from a pinnacle of the temple. And now that Jesus was proclaimed, how could he more readily win the people"s assent to his claims? He had not been in a hurry to proclaim himself, but now something must be done. The leap had no horror for Jesus; had it been warranted, he would not have feared it. It was an easy method compared to the tedious instruction; the slow, disappointing appeal to right feeling; the weary ministry he actually chose. How often must this temptation have returned when he met stupid, prejudiced, contemptuous people! How easy to refute their accusations by stupendous miracle! But to work a miracle merely to show that he had the power, to give a sign to those who merely asked for a sign, Christ constantly refused. His miracles had always another motive and a real occasion. Miracles did convince men of his Messiahship, but only when they saw that the miracles were dictated by loving consideration of the actual necessities of the men about him. And suppose such a leap, or any other such marvel, had been the manifestation of God! How feeble, how incongruous a testimony! Shall we ourselves take the quick road or the slow one? Shall we force God"s providence? Are we to make opportunities for ourselves, or to wait till God gives us occasion? Shall we expect God"s help when we have not used the ordinary means for escaping from danger or attaining our object (not used the stair to get down from the pinnacle)? We tempt God when we neglect the ordinary means.
III THE TEMPTATION TO BE AN EARTHLY, NOT A SPIRITUAL KING. No one ever felt so much capacity to govern well, to reform social abuses, to lift a people to the pinnacle of glory. He felt in himself a power he must have longed to exercise for men"s temporal welfare. Satan whispered, "You have come to bind men in a universal brotherhood, but it is hopeless to effect this by acting on men individually and spiritually. Men do not care to be delivered from sin; they do not wish to be led back to God, and you will never make the world what you wish it. But make an earthly kingdom for yourself; that is possible; no mere shadowy imagination. The people are now waiting for a leader who will throw off for them the Roman yoke, and lead them to dominion." We know this temptation in its petty appeals to our avarice or love of display, to our hankering after posts of influence, to our desire to be known. We know it also when we wish Christ had provided for his people earthly good as well as spiritual. Nothing but a preference for what is spiritual will secure us against the temptation to wish, either for ourselves or others, what constitutes the glory of this world.
USES.
1. Temptation is possible without sin. Until the will consents, sin is not committed. Our Lord was tempted, yet without sin.
2. The depth and reality of our Lord"s humiliation. His ability to sympathize is founded on his being of one nature with us, and living a life unsheltered from the temptations which assail us. D.
HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-11. The temptation.
This appears to have extended through the forty days of the sojourn of Jesus in the wilderness. Mark says, "He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan". (Mar_1:13) The text describes only the acme at the close of the forty days. It is given as a specimen of the wiles of Satan, and forms an epitome of all the temptations he has ever contrived. From it we learn
I THAT SATAN IS ARMED WITH FORMIDABLE POWERS.
1. Probably he appeared in an assumed shape.
(1) For he appeared to the manhood of Christ. He is introduced as "the tempter," but not named. Jesus did not give him his name until the tempter had fully discovered himself as the god of this world (ver. 10).
(2) This was not the only instance in which Satan assumed a disguise. He tempted Eve under the form of a serpent. After the fall he enshrined himself in men. Demoniacs. Some suppose that Satan appeared to Jesus in the character of a scribe, as he appealed to the Scriptures. He "fashioneth himself into an angel of light". (cf. Zec_3:1 2Co_11:14)
(3) Beware of the devil in disguises. In men: "One of you hath a devil." In good men: Peter. (Mat_16:23)
2. Probably he literally transported the body of Jesus.
(1) Jesus was in "the wilderness." Certainly not a rural wilderness in the vicinity of Bethabara; for he was in solitude, and "with the wild beasts". (Mar_1:13) The presumption, then, is that it was "the wilderness of the people;" for what other could be distinguished as "the wilderness"? Analogy also suggests the desert of Sinai, for there Moses and Elijah also had "fasted forty days". (cf. Exo_34:28 1Ki_19:8)
(2) Thus, then, the "prince of the powers of the air" would have hurried the body of Jesus, as in an elemental chariot, over an interval of two hundred and fifty British statute miles, in order to "set him on the pinnacle of the temple." Philip was carried by the Spirit of God from the desert of Gaza to Azotus. (Act_8:39; see also 1Ki_18:12 2Ki_2:16 Eze_3:11-15)
(3) From the holy city Satan then carried Jesus away to the summit of "an exceeding high mountain." Could this have been that "high mountain" upon which the Transfiguration afterwards took place? It is noteworthy that, in the Transfiguration, with Jesus appeared in glory Moses and Elias, who, like him, had fasted. (Mat_17:1-3) If Hermon was that mountain, then about a hundred miles would have been traversed. If Nebo, whence Moses viewed the promised land, then about twenty-five, miles.
(4) With such an adversary it is obviously our wisdom never to contend single-handed. We have the promised help of God. With all our armour we should be armed with "all prayer". (Eph_6:13-18)
3. He wrought wonderfully upon the imagination of Jesus.
(1) This must have been so, if, as some suppose, Jesus had been simply carried by Satan mentally from the wilderness to the holy city, and from thence to Hermon or some other eminence.
(2) But from the mountain summit he certainly wrought wonderfully" upon the imagination of Jesus when he "showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them." Luke adds, "in a moment of time." Such a view of the tetrarchies of Palestine as could be obtained from Nebo or any other mountain summit scarcely comes up to the description, "all the kingdoms of the world," or "all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth". (see Luk_4:5, Greek) The panoramic effect Wrought by Satan upon the phantasy of Jesus was wonderful.
(3) Herein we are warned never to cherish an evil imagination. If we yield ourselves to the power of such a master of image-working we place ourselves at the mercy of the impersonation of cruelty.
II THAT SATAN WIELDS HIS ENERGIES WITH SUBTLETY.
1. He selects a wilderness as the theatre of his operations.
(1) A wilderness, in the natural sense, is a wild, uncultivated waste. Such certainly was the desert of Sinai. In the metaphorical sense it is a state of mental solitude, depression, perplexity, or suffering.
(2) In such a state Satan finds us at a disadvantage, and then plies his arts with vigour. When the spirit is bruised he would excite in us rebellious thoughts of God and harsh thoughts of men.
2. He practises adroitly upon our necessities.
(1) Our Lord was "a hungered," and Satan tempted him to supply his need by supernatural means. If he finds us a hungered he may tempt us to supply our need by illicit means. He would have us justify thievery under the plea of necessity.
(2) The temptation is to distrust Providence. That Providence cannot lack resources which fed a nation in the wilderness for forty years. Angels in due time ministered to Jesus brought him food. (cf. 1Ki_19:4-8)
(3) "Man does not live by bread alone." The animal part of the man lives on bread; the nobler part of the man is nourished by faith in the Word of God. The spirit must not be starved in unbelief to supply the wants of the body. Be that feeds the soul will feed the body also. (Mat_6:33)
3. He turns our weapons against us.
(1) If we say, "It is written," Satan also will say, "It is written." He will take care to put his own interpretation upon the Scripture he quotes. Therefore we must say, "It is written again." To do this we must study the Scriptures. The Scriptures are the best interpreters of themselves. To the comparison of spiritual things Satan has no answer. Ignorance is danger.
(2) If we profess to trust in God, Satan will tempt us to trust in our faith alone. "Cast thyself down: for it is written," etc. He would push our confidence to the extreme of presumption.
4. He "bids up" for the soul of the good.
(1) He will, if possible, subvert us with trifles. Satan has a malignant pleasure in vanquishing and destroying us with trifles.
(2) Where trifles will not serve, he bids higher. To Christ he offered "all the kingdoms of the world." The bribe which Christ refused Antichrist accepts. (cf. Rev_13:2, Rev_13:4, Rev_13:8)
(3) Every man has not his price. There have been those who have laid down their lives for the truth. The race of the martyrs is not extinct.
III THAT GOD SUPERINTENDS THE CONFLICTS OF HIS SAINTS.
1. He strengthens them for the battle.
(1) "This is my beloved Son Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit," etc.
(2) So the Transfiguration, wherein the pores of the body of Jesus were avenues for the streaming glory, was preparatory to that ordeal of agony in Gethsemane, wherein the same pores became the avenues for his blood.
(3) In your conflicts remember your baptisms. "Do not question the validity of your baptism because it was succeeded by a fierce temptation" (Dr. Parker).
2. He permits temptations for gracious ends.
(1) Christ was Divine, therefore invulnerable. Why, then, was he "led up of the Spirit" to be tempted? For our benefit. That he might be our Exemplar.
(2) Temptations are our educators. Who can grow in patience, in long-suffering, in courage, without trial?
3. He retains Satan under his control.
(1) Satan was permitted to convey Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple (Alford supposes this to have been the royal portico of Herod, overlooking at a fearful height the valley of Jehoshaphat). Satan was not permitted to push him over. He was permitted to convey Jesus to the summit of the mountain. He was restrained from dashing his foot against a stone.
(2) The will of God, as a chain, limits and restrains the evil one. This Satan confesses. (cf. Luk_4:6) Remarkable illustrations of this principle are furnished in the history of Job (1:12; 2:6).
(3) That will is defined in the promises for our confidence and comfort. (see 1Co_10:13 Heb_2:18)
4. He gives final victory to the faithful.
(1) The "forty days" of our Lord"s temptation in the Wilderness correspond to the "forty years" of Israel"s pilgrimage. This is evident from the allusion to the manna (cf. vers. 1-4 with Deu_8:3). Both may be taken as representing the pilgrimage of life.
(2) As the temptation became fierce at the close of the forty days, so may we expect fierce assaults towards the close of our pilgrimage.
(3) But Satan will leave us at death. "Then," viz. at the end of the forty days. "Then," viz. when Jesus resolutely avowed his complete devotion to God devil leaveth him.
(4) The rout. of Satan is the signal for the ministry of angels. With a convoy of angels the victorious Spirit ascends to heaven. J.A.M.
The model temptation.
All the best writers hold that, whatever may have been the outward machinery of the temptation, the temptation was really a spiritual struggle. It was no model of our human temptations if it was not. Some have thought that the devil appeared as an old man, and talked with Jesus. But evidently all the things were suggestions to his mind; the first from the feeling of hunger and the sight of the stones; the others from his anxious thoughts about the modes of executing his mission. The suggestions themselves were not evil; the sin could only have come by our Lord"s yielding to them when he knew that they opposed the will of God. It would help us greatly if we could see that suggestion to the mind is not sin; our dealing with the suggestion makes the sin. It is, perhaps, better to conceive of the devil here as a personification of the enticing force of evil suggestion. Suggestion is suggestion of the devil whensoever it is an enticement to wrong. Olshausen says, "The temptation of Jesus took place in the depths of his inward life," in the sphere of his soul. By way of introduction, the probable scene of the temptation may be described, with a view to bringing out the effects of nature on sensitive, poetical minds. Illustrate the influence of the awful silence, and towering mountain-forms, of Sinai on Elijah. The Apostle John gives the great world-forces of temptation as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride Of life". (1Jn_2:16) Read our Lord"s temptation in the light of St. John"s terms.
I THE LUST OF THE FLESH; OR, THE TEMPTATION THAT COMES THROUGH MAN"S APPETITES AND PASSIONS, The force of the first temptation lies in the natural cravings of hunger and thirst; these set men on intense endeavour to satisfy the craving. With the consciousness of possessing miraculous power, our Lord was tempted to use his trust for the relief of his own needs. Illustrate by the hungry man who is tempted to steal. The claims of the flesh may urge us to do what we know is wrong.
II THE LUST OF THE EYES. Temptation through the intellect. Conscious mental superiority may lead men to deceive their weaker fellows, and deceive themselves, by persuading themselves that such deception is for their good. There is a special temptation for the intelligent.
III THE PRIDE OF LIFE. Pride in the command and use of worldly forces, state, class-privilege, equipage, soldiers, etc. To Christ the temptation came in this form: "You are superior; you know you are superior; assert your superiority, and men will bow down to you. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John A. Broadus 1886 · Public Domain On v1 Mat 4:1-11.
Mat 4:1-11.
The Temptation
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The Temptation concludes Matthew’s account of events connected with our Lord’s entrance upon his public work (see on "Mat 3:1; Mat 3:13"). That work was now about to begin, and he was doubtless meditating upon it. Some recent critics go to great lengths in speculating upon the "plan" of Jesus, at this and subsequent periods. There is little or no indication of any plan, and such unsupported speculations seem unprofitable and unwise. But his meditations in beginning his work would furnish the natural occasion for such special temptations as are here depicted. These are also recorded by Luke, (Luk 4:13) and briefly mentioned by Mark. (Mat 1:12 ff.)
Mat 4:1. Then (see on "Mat 3:13", viz., when he had been baptized.) Luke implies, and Mark states, that it was ’immediately’ after the baptism. Led up, i. e., from the valley of the Jordan (see on "Mat 3:6") into the higher land.[1] Into the wilderness (see on "Mat 3:1"). Some recent writers (Stanley, Plumptre) make it east of the Jordan, but the general use of the term in the N. T. favours the common view that it was on the west. Luke’s ’returned’ (Mat 4:1) also favours this view, but does not settle the question, for Jesus may have crossed below the Lake of Galilee, and come through Perea to be baptized, as the Galileans often took this route to Jerusalem. The notion that it was the wilderness of Sinai is founded only on the fact that there occurred the forty days’ fast of Moses and of Elijah.—It was certainly a very retired and wild part of the ’wilderness,’ for Mark says, with one of his vivid descriptive touches, ’and he was with the wild beasts.’ A tradition which appears first in the time of the Crusades places it in a mountain just west of Jericho, hence called Quarantania, (a place of forty days; compare quarantine, a forty days’ detention). This mountain is six or eight miles from the traditional place of the baptism, and rises some fifteen hundred feet almost perpendicularly from the plain of the Jordan, which is here at its widest part. In the rocky face of the mountain are the openings of numerous artificial caves, made by monks of the Crusading period, perhaps some of them by old Jewish Eremites. But to our modern feeling it seems unlikely that our Lord withdrew to a cave, and probable that he went further away from the populous plain of Jericho. Some think (Schaff) that Quarantania may have been the place of the third temptation, if not of those preceding, which is quite possible. After all, it may he that a special providence caused the precise locality of this and many other events in our Lord’s history to be left unknown, for the purpose of restraining superstition. The Spirit, viz., the Spirit of God, well known and just mentioned. (Mat 3:16) Luke says he was ’full of the Holy Spirit.’ From the time of his baptism (see on "Mat 8:16") we find frequent statements that the God-man, the Mediator, was specially and powerfully under the influence of the Holy Spirit, (Joh 3:34; Luk 4:14; Mat 12:28; Act 1:2) as had been predicted. (Isa 42:1; Mat 12:18; Isa 61:1; Luk 4:18) The term led, employed also by Luke, appears to denote only an internal impulse wrought by the Spirit. Mark (Mar 1:12) expresses the same idea by a strong figure, literally, ’the Spirit casts him forth into the wilderness.’ "This is the language of the prophet-paroxysm, seized with an irresistible impulse; so the ’holy men of old’ were impelled by the Spirit." (Eze 40:2)(Beeeher.)
[1] The meaning of this ’up’ was obscured to early and later translators by their ignorance of the geography of Palestine. The Latin versions and the Pesh. Syriac have simply ’was led.’ Tyndale gave ’ledd awaye’, and was followed by Cranmer and Geneva.
To be tempted. The Greek word signifies to try, or make trial of, to test. The motive of such testing or trial may he good or bad. (1) The object may be to ascertain character, to develop and make manifest its excellencies, or to expose its faults, that they may be mended. So in Joh 6:6, ’prove’; 1Co 13:5, ’examine’; Rev 2:2, ’tried’; Gen 22:1 (God ’did tempt’ Abraham; Rev. Ver., ’prove’); Exo 20:20, ’prove,’ etc. (2) The object may be unfriendly, bad. (a) Men ’tempt’ God, test him in some improper way, because they lack confidence in the fulfilment of his promises or threats. So below in Mat 3:7; (Deu 6:16) Exo 17:2, Exo 17:7; (Psa 95:9) Isa 7:12 Act 5:9, Act 15:10. (b) Men, or Satan and his subordinates, ’tempt’ men, test them, with a view to draw out evil tendencies and entice into sin. So here, and in 1Co 7:5, 1Th 3:5, etc. (This sense does not occur in the O. T.)[1] In all cases there is a: testing, trying, and the difference lies in the nature and design of it. Our English word, ’tempt,’ was formerly used in all these senses, but is now restricted to the bad sense; and some confusion arises, for example, in the translation of Jas 1:2-15, where there is a transition from the good to the bad-from ’trials’ to ’temptations.’ Of the devil. The Greek word diabolos (borrowed in Latin as diabalus, from which come Italian diavolo, French diable, English devil, German teufel, etc.), is the term regularly employed in the Sept. to translate the Hebrew name Satan. (Job 1:6 ff.; Job 2:1, 1Ch 21:1 Zec 3:1-2)[2] The latter signifies ’adversary,’ ’opposer,’ while diabolos strictly signifies ’slanderer,’ ’false accuser,’ but in the N. T is used as practically equivalent to Satan. So Mar 1:13 has ’tempted by Satan,’ and see below, Mat 4:10. (Compare Mat 16:23 and Joh 6:70; also Rev 12:9) The term ’devil’ in the N. T. is strictly a proper name, as much so as Satan; his subordinates should be called ’demons,’ as in the Greek (see on "Mat 8:28"). To the real existence and personality of the devil the Scriptures are fully committed. He is represented as the chief of the fallen angel (Mat 25:41; compare Mat 9:34), and through these he it able, though not omnipresent, to be carrying on the temptation of many persons at the same time. He is, of course, limited in knowledge, though immeasurably superior to man.
[1] Alford remarks that the Greek word here employed, peirazo, does not have this sense in the classics. True; but the simpler and more common form, peirao, is repeatedly so used.
[2] Plumptre erroneously states that the Greek word is different in Zec 3:1, Zec 3:2. In using all commentaries, including the present one, readers will find it worth while to "verify the references."
How could Jesus be tempted? Was it possible for him to sin? If this was in no sense possible, then he’ was not really tempted, certainly not ’like as we are.’ (Heb 4:15) But how can it have been possible for him to sin? If we think of his human nature in itself, apart from the co-linked divinity, and apart from the Holy Spirit that filled and led him, then we must say that, like Adam in his state of purity, like the angels and every other moral creature, his humanity was certainly in itself capable of sinning, and thus the temptation was real, and was felt as such, and as such overcome while yet in virtue of the union with the divine nature, and of the power of the Holy Spirit that filled him, it was morally impossible that he should sin.—A substantially similar view is well stated by Edersheim.—Jesus was tempted on other occasions also, as is implied in Luk 4:13, and affirmed in Luk 22:28, and Heb 4:15. It has been remarked (Ullmann) that there are in the nature of things two great classes of temptations, the one to commit positive evil, and the other to shrink from what is right. In the former way Jesus was tempted here, and when the people wanted him to be king (Joh 6:15); in the latter way he was tempted in Gethsemane, and when Peter tried to dissuade him. (Mat 16:22, Mat 16:23.) Why should Jesus be tempted? We can see some of the reasons. (1) It gave proof of his true humanity, proof that he possessed a real human soul. (2) It was part of his example to us. (3) It formed part of his personal discipline; (Heb 5:7-9) and (4) of his preparation to be a sympathizing intercessor. (Heb 2:18, Heb 4:15) (5) It formed a part of that great conflict in which the "seed of the woman "was to "bruise the serpent’s head." (Gen 3:15) In this first great struggle of the conflict the destined conqueror came off completely victorious.
During the forty days (Luk 4:2), and at other times, our Lord was doubtless tempted by suggestion to his mind, as we are; but in the three signal and final temptations here described, it seems to be distinctly declared that Satan appeared in bodily form and with actually spoken words, and this fitted the scene for distinct and impressive description. To make it a mere vision, is without the slightest warrant. And while it is possible to regard the history as merely a vivid description of a series of internal temptations, it does no small violence to the language and the entire colour of the narrative. Note especially the correspondence of the two expressions, ’the devil leaves him.... angels came and ministered to him,’ where few who believe the Bible at all will question that the angels appeared in bodily form, as on so many other occasions. The desire of many commentators to reduce the scene to internal suggestion, apparently arises from two causes. (1) Some wish to lessen the difficulties of the narrative. But those who are repelled by the idea of Satan’s personal appearance will be equally reluctant to admit his personality; so that there is nothing gained, and the difficulties of the subject are in fact inherent and have to be accepted. (2) Others wish to assimilate the Saviour’s temptations to our own. (Heb 4:15) But this desire is amply met by considering his temptations during the forty days and throughout his career. (See above.) Every point connected with this series of temptations has occasioned a vast amount of speculation, often of the wildest character. Yet the subject from its very nature calls for guarded interpretation, great moderation in conjecture, and willingness to remain ignorant where we have no means of knowing; and it requires to be discussed in a spirit of profound reverence and humility. Familiar as we have grown with the simple narrative, it presents one of the most wonderful, mysterious, awful scenes of the world’s history. O dark and dreadful enemy, ever plotting our ruin and exulting in our woe, here thou wast completely conquered on earth, conquered by a man, and in the strength of that Spirit whose help is offered to us all.
Mat 4:2. It is best to understand the fasting as entire abstinence from food. The word does not necessarily mean this, nor does even the strong expression of Luke, ’he did not eat anything in those days,’ for Luke uses equally strong language of Paul’s companions in Act 27:33, where he can only mean that they had taken very irregular and inadequate food, as it were nothing at all. (Compare below Mat 11:18.) Still, the literal meaning is preferable here, because nothing to forbid it, because also in the corresponding cases of Moses and Elijah the fasting is usually understood to have been entire, and because we thus best see the force of the statement, ’afterwards he was hungry,’ or, as Luke, ’and when they (the forty days) were completed he was hungry,’ leading us to suppose that during the forty days be was not hungry, but supernaturally sustained. The time was the same as in the case of Moses, (Exo 34:28) and Elijah, (1Ki 19:8) and was perhaps typically related also to the forty years spent by Israel in the wilderness. (See on "Mat 2:15"). We do not know what originally caused the adoption of forty as a sacred or solemn number. (Gen 7:12 Deu 9:25, Deu 10:10 Eze 4:6 Act 7:23, and often.)"Jesus had forty days before his public appearance; forty days, as if for preparation, before his ascension." (Act 1:3) (Bengel). And forty nights, added (by Matt. alone) perhaps because the Jews were accustomed to speak of the night and day as together constituting one period (see on "Mat 12:40"), or because they frequently fasted during the day and then ate at night, (2Sa 1:12) while here it was day and night, as in Est 4:16. The design of the Spirit that he be tempted was probably not the sole design of this retirement our Lord, thus secluded and supernaturally sustained, doubtless spent his time in prayerful communion with his Father, as often afterwards, (Luk 6:12 Joh 6:15) and probably also (see on "Mat 4:1") in meditation upon the great work he was about to commence. So Moses and Elijah, as lawgiver and reformer. Our Lord’s fasting was not an act of self-mortification, if he was preternaturally sustained and is not an example to us. To make it the authority for a regular annual "fast " of forty days by all Christians ("Lent ") is wholly unwarranted, and very strange. (Compare Alexander.)
Mat 4:3. Came to him—we cannot tell in what form. If thou be—art—the Son of God. The form of expression in Greek is most naturally understood as assuming that the supposition is fact, as shortly before declared. (Mat 3:17) Wyclif ’art’; Tyndale to K. James ’be.’ The Greek is not subjunctive but indicative. The tempter puts the matter in this form in order to invite Jesus to establish the fact by a miracle, and in order to intimate that he certainly i has the right thus to satisfy his hunger. ’Son’ is by its position in the Greek emphatic. God’s ordinary creatures may suffer, they cannot help it; but if thou art his Son, it is unworthy of thee thus to suffer, and unnecessary—’speak, that these stones may become loaves.’ It does not follow, on this view, that I Satan fully understood what was involved in I Jesus’ being God’s Son; and this ignorance will account for an attempt otherwise not only I audacious but absurd. Those who prefer the view that he really doubted whether Jesus was God’s Son, are at liberty so to interpret the phrase, ’if thou art’ etc., though it is a less natural and less common use. Command, etc.,—or, speak that... may become. (Compare the same construction in Mat 20:21.[1] Luke (Luk 4:3) has ’speak to this stone, that it may become a loaf,’ as if pointing to a particular one. (Compare Mat 3:9; Mat 7:9). ’Become’ is the literal and exact translation. These stones, lying around, as in Mat 3:9. The English word ’bread’ being only used collectively, we have to introduce ’loaf,’ ’loaves’ to give the exact idea. (Compare Rev. Ver. margin, and see on "Mat 26:26").
[1] A non-final use of hina, see on "Mat 5:29".)
This first temptation thus appears to be twofold (and so of the others); he is tempted to satisfy hunger, and in such a way as will prove him to be the Son of God. Our bodily appetites form the occasion of many of our severest temptations. Yet these appetites are not sinful in themselves; the sin consists in seeking excessive or essentially improper gratification of them, or in seeking lawful gratification by improper means. Jesus was tempted to work a miracle in order to relieve his hunger. We could say before hand whether this would be right, but we see throughout his history that he never performed miracles merely for his own benefit; they were all wrought to do good to other and to attest his divine mission.—And this attestation was never given to those who asked it from improper motives. (Mat 12:38 ff; Mat 16:1 ff.) He paid no heed to the taunt (Mat 27:40): ’If thou be—or art—the Son of God, come down from the cross’ (the first clause being precisely the same as here). And so he takes no notice, in replying to the tempter, of the proposition that he should by the miracle prove himself the Son of God. Nor does he condescend to refer to the attesting voice from heaven. (Mat 3:17) We have no reason to believe that our Lord had ever wrought a miracle up to this time, the ’beginning of his miracles’ (Joh 2:11) taking place shortly after. He would not begin till his ’hour’ had ’come.’ (Joh 2:4) The miracles of his childhood, so numerous in some apocryphal gospels, are without historical foundation, and most of them quite unworthy of him, as child or man.
Mat 4:4. It is written, perfect tense, it stands written (so in Mat 2:5, and below in Mat 4:6-7, Mat 4:10, and often). Our Lord meets every temptation by a quotation from Scripture. The Father’s word was to him the sword with which he conquered the great spiritual enemy. (Eph 6:17.) This quotation is from Deu 8:3, and the two below are from the same book, which is rich in spiritual and devotional matter. Notice, too, that all the passages he thus applies to himself are from precepts given to Israel in the wilderness, at the opening of the national career—there being a typical relation between Israel and the Messiah (see on "Mat 2:15"). Possibly (Godet) he had, during his retirement, been specially meditating on the account of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness. This quotation agrees with the Septuagint, and differs from the Hebrew only in inserting ’word,’ where the Hebrew has simply ’all that goes forth from the mouth of the Lord.’ And this is really the meaning of the Greek, ’every word that goes[1] forth,’ etc., i. e., whatever he says that man shall live on. There is no propriety in understanding here a reference to the spiritual life as sustained by God’s word, viz., by the Scriptures; the Hebrew phrase and the connection in Deuteronomy quite forbid such an idea. God fed Israel with manna, a thing unknown to them and their fathers, "that he might make thee know that man shall not live on bread only, but on all that goes forth from the mouth of the Lord shall man live"—that the support of life is not absolutely dependent on ordinary food, but it may be sustained on whatever God shall choose to say, to appoint. And so Jesus will not work the miracle to obtain ordinary food, because God can, if he should think proper, command food to be supplied him in an extraordinary way. And this appears to have been done, through angels (see on "Mat 4:11"). To insist on making the passage, in spite of the connection in Deuteronomy, and here, apply also to spiritual food, as so many do, is unreasonable, and dishonouring to the Bible, which is not a book of riddles, but given for practical instruction, and must be interpreted on principles of common sense, or it cannot be interpreted at all—Man shall not. Thus he identifies himself with humanity, applying as a matter of course to himself what is true of mankind. And he conquers temptation not as God, but as man, by the power of the Spirit and of the lessons that are ’written.’ Shall not live, viz., such is the divine plan or appointment. By—or, upon—bread, as that on which life rests for support. So, ’upon every word,’ etc., or according to another reading ’in every word,’ i. e., in the use of, which amounts to the same thing. Out of is here literally ’through.’
[1] Tyndale borrowed from the Vulgate the Latin term ’proceeds,’ and most English versions have followed him, but the simple and exact English reprieving to ’goes forth.’
Mat 4:5. Then, compare on Mat 4:1. Luke (Luk 4:5) simply connects by ’and,’ and gives the two remaining temptations in the reverse order, seeming (Bengel, others) to follow the natural order of topography—first the desert, then a high mountain in the desert, then Jerusalem. Matthew’s is the natural topical order, the second temptation being just the opposite of the first, and the third forming the climax. It seems natural also that the severe rebuke of Mat 4:10, should put an end to Satan’s attempts, and accordingly Luke, in the correct text, does not give it. (See also below, on Mat 4:8.) Taketh him—literally, takes him with him, or ’along with him,’ does not prove that he was carried involuntarily or supernaturally (see the same word in Mat 17:1; Mar 4:36, etc.), nor does Luke’s term ’led’ prove the contrary. We have no means of determining the manner of going, and are left to suppose that Jesus went as men usually go, and so that the devil did likewise. The word up, Tyn. to King James, is not here in the Greek. The holy city, i. e., Jerusalem, regarded as holy because the seat of the temple and its worship. Compare Isa 48:2 Dan 9:24 Neh 11:1 Mat 27:53. Some Jewish coins were inscribed (Gill, others), ’Jerusalem the holy’; old Jewish prayers also have ’the holy city’ (Wünsche), and the Arabs now call Jerusalem El-Kuds, ’the holy.’ (As to Jerusalem, see on "Mat 21:10".) and setteth. Rev. Ver., And he set. The correct text has the past tense, but the meaning is substantially the same. A pinnacle of the temple.[1] Our Lord, who did not belong to the priesthood, is nowhere said to have entered the naos, but only went into the hieron, i. e., into the courts, as other Jews did. On the inner side of the wall enclosing the great outer court ran a long portico or colonnade, the roof of which also covered the top of the wall, and sometimes was built up above the wall to a great height. The outer battlement of such a roof, rising above the outer wall, is probably what is here called ’pinnacle,’[2]and ’the pinnacle’ suggests some well-known or remarkable pinnacle. It is doubtful whether this was ’the portico that is called Solomon’s’ (Joh 10:23; Act 3:11), on the east side of the temple enclosure, and described by Josephus ("Ant., "20, 9, 7) as of great height; more probably it was what he calls "the royal portico" (of Herod), on the south side, and which he represents ("Ant., "15, 11, 5) as "one of the most remarkable works under the sun." Below the wall enclosing the temple court, there was an immense substruction extending up from the bottom of the ravine, and so deep that one could not see to the foot of it (probably the southeast corner); "on this arose the vast height of the portico, so that if one should look down from the summit of its roof, putting together the depths, he would grow dizzy, the sight not reaching into the unmeasured abyss." This high-wrought description at least presents us with a scene very suitable to the temptation in question.
[1] The N. T. has two Greek words translated ’temple.’ The one (hieron), signifying ’sacred (place),’ denotes the whole sacred enclosure, comprising the several courts (see on "Mat 21:12"), as well as the sacred house itself. This last, the sacred house, into which none but the priests entered, is designated by the other word (naos, rendered ’sanctuary’ in Mat 23:35, and Mat 27:5, Rev. Ver.), found in Luk 1:9, Luk 1:21-22; Mat 23:16-35; Mat 26:61 (Mar 14:58); Mat 27:5, Mat 27:40 (Mar 15:25); Mat 27:51; (Mar 15:38; Luk 23:45); Joh 2:19-21; Act 17:24; Act 19:24 (’shrines’); and in every passage of the Epistles and Revelation in which Com. Eng. Ver. has ’temple,’ except 1Co 9:13 (which has Hieron.) is the word used in every passage of the Gospels and Acts in which Com.. Eng. Ver. has ’temple,’ except those just named and Luk 11:51, (literally ’house.’)
[2] The Greek word may from its use in the Sept., be readily understood to mean battlement, parapet, or the like. (Grimm, Bleek). The passage in Eusebius "Hist.", ii., 23, relied on by Bible Comm., and others, to show that a pinnacle of the naos was here meant, is confused, as proves nothing.
Mat 4:6. This temptation, like the first, appears to have been twofold, appealing to a natural feeling and also to Messianic aspiration. Many persons when looking down from a dizzy height feel a strong disposition to throw themselves down; with some, the feeling is intense and almost irresistible; and it is not unreasonable, and not derogatory to our Saviour, to suppose that here also Satan tried to take advantage of a natural feeling, as he had before done with hunger. Let him throw himself down, and see if God would not protect him; and thus descending in so public a place and supernaturally protected, he would be observed, and at once hailed by the populace as ’he that should come.’ This last seems to have been part of the idea presented; for otherwise why take him to the temple (Lightfoot, Lutteroth)? A precipice in the wilderness would have sufficed for the mere temptation to throw himself down; the carefully chosen place indicates that the idea was also to exhibit himself in public. Keim : "At the same time a test of the protection God would extend to his ambassador, and a miracle of display by which the faith of Israel might be won for God’s messenger." As Jesus had in the former case fortified himself by quoting Scripture, so the tempter supports his suggestion by quoting a promise of protection amid dangers. This passage, from Psa 91:11 f., applies to any one who trusts in God, and by eminence to Jesus. The quotation follows Sept. and Hebrews, with the omission of a clause not important to the application (’to keep thee in all thy ways’), such an omission (Toy) as the New Testament writers often make. It is therefore not proper to say, as is often said, that Satan misquoted; it was a misinterpretation and misapplication. The expression, in their hands they shall bear thee up, as a mother or a nurse supports a child (Num 11:12 Deu 1:31, Isa 49:22, Act 13:18, margin; 1Th 2:7), is of course figurative, referring to providential protection. Satan treats it as if we were authorized to expect its literal and supernatural fulfilment; and while there are of course limitations to such a promise (see below), he takes no account of these. Observe that the plural ’angels’ renders it improper to quote this passage in support of the Jewish fancy of a guardian angel attending each individual. The passage corresponds to Heb 1:14, where the angels are said to minister to God for the benefit of his people. ’Lest haply’ is more probably the meaning here, than ’lest at any time.’
Mat 4:7. It is written again. What Satan had quoted is indeed found, but in another place is written that which forbids what he suggests and is seeking to justify. There is here an illustration of two important rules of interpretation: that a figurative expression must not be so understood as to bring it in conflict with unfigurative passages; and that an unlimited promise or statement must not be applied to cases forbidden by other teachings of Scripture.—This quotation is from Deu 6:16. It follows Sept., and differs from Hebrews only in using singular instead of plural ("Ye shall not," etc.), thus rendering more pointed the application to an individual—The Greek word here rendered ’tempt’ is a compound of that ordinarily used (see on "Mat 4:1"), and has a somewhat more emphatic meaning; but we can hardly express the difference in a translation. To ’tempt God’ is to test, or put him to the trial, in order to see whether he can and dill fulfil his promises. The App of the Amer. Revisers would here render ’make trial of.’ This Ahaz (Isa 7:12) with affected humility declined to do. Deu 6:16, refers to the ease in which the Israelites tempted Jehovah at Massah (’temptation’), by requiring a supply of water to prove that he would fulfil his promise to take care of them. (Exo 17:2, Exo 17:7. Compare Psalms 78, 18, Psa 96:8-9, 1Co 10:9; Heb 3:9) Ananias and Sapphira (Act 5:9) tempted the Spirit of the Lord, by virtually putting him to the test whether he would know and reveal their villainy. Peter declared (Act 15:10) that it would he tempting God to act as if they wanted further proof of his will that the Gentiles should not be required to bear the yoke of the ceremonial law. And so Jesus intimates that it would be tempting God to plunge voluntarily into danger, as if to make trial whether he would fulfil his promise of protection. These cases show the nature of the sin in question. Its source is in all cases unbelief. This was understood by the author of Wisdom, Deu 1:2: "He is found by those who do not tempt him, and he manifests himself to those who do not distrust him."—It is unwarrantable to say (Alexander, others) that the passage as quoted by our Saviour has a double application, so as at the same time to rebuke Satan for tempting him. Such "double applications" of Scripture are almost always fanciful, save in the case of prophecies and types.—Throughout his ministry our Lord acted on the principle here involved. He never went voluntarily into danger, and always prudently turned away from the wrath of his enemies, save when some duty called.
Mat 4:8. In the third temptation Satan no longer says ’If thou art God’s Son,’ no longer attempts to incite Jesus to prove his Sonship or Messiahship by miracle; and as if conceding that he is Messiah and will found a kingdom, he proposes to aid him in making it a splendid earthly kingdom, in subordination to himself. That Messiah would have a magnificent earthly kingdom was the general expectation of such Jews as were now expecting Messiah at all; and the disciples clung tenaciously to this notion throughout our Lord’s ministry. The tempter hopes to work upon such a conception in Jesus. Neander: "Herein was the temptation, that the Messiah should not develop his kingdom gradually, and in its pure spirituality from within, but should establish it at once, as an outward dominion; and that although this could not be accomplished without the use of an evil agency, the end would sanctify the means." Many a man, before and since, has with Satan’s secret help surveyed the glittering spectacle of boundless dominion, and so burned with the fierce longings of ambition that he was ready for anything that would bring success. Alas! how nearly was this idea of a world-wide kingdom, held in allegiance to Satan, fulfilled by some in the Middle Ages who boasted the title of Vicar of Christ.
Here also, as in the former cases, the temptation of Jesus seems to have been twofold, appealing to a natural feeling—the love of power, the desire to rule over others—and at the same time suggesting a way in which his Messianic mission might be expeditiously carried through.
Taketh him—or, takes him along with him, as in Mat 4:5. Luke (Luk 4:5) says, ’led him up,’ Rev. Ver. What the exceeding high mountain was, it is quite impossible to judge. As the highest mountain on earth would no more have sufficed for a literal view of all the kingdoms of the world than the highest near to Jerusalem, there is nothing gained by going far away in our conjecture. Tradition names a mountain near Jericho (see on "Mat 4:1"), but with no great probability. Sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world. Some understand a literal view of all the districts of Palestine. But there is no proof that the term rendered ’world’ (Kosmos) was ever used to denote merely Palestine, though this has been often asserted; and the districts of Palestine would at that time hardly have been called kingdoms; besides that the significance of the temptation is much clearer and more striking on the other view. It is best to understand a sort of vision. It may certainly be conceived that Satan had the power, while Jesus looked round from the mountain top, to cause such a view to pass before his eyes; and Luke’s phrase "in a moment of time" seems clearly to indicate that it was supernatural. Alford : "If it be objected that in that case there was no need for the ascent of the mountain, I answer, that such natural accessories are made use of frequently in supernatural revelations; see especially Rev 21:10." Bengel: "Shows—to the eyes what the horizon embraced; the rest he spoke of and perhaps pointed towards."Keil : "In the case of both Jesus and Satan experiences arc possible which are impossible for mere man, which we cannot adequately represent to our minds, and have no right to deny." We may very well take ’all the kingdoms’ as a hyperbole, (compare Ezr 1:2) especially as many parts of the earth would present little that was glorious, or attractive to worldly ambition. And the glory of them, is added because their glory was especially paraded before his view. But Jesus would look beneath the glittering surface, and see hollowness, degradation, suffering, ruin. Doubtless his ardent desire to save men was not weakened by this panorama, but greatly strengthened. Throughout his subsequent ministry the idea of a glorious and all-embracing earthly kingdom was often pressed upon him by the multitude, and constantly cherished by his chosen followers, but rejected by him. How much more truly glorious the ’kingdom not of this world’ (Joh 18:36) which he did found; and how blessed a thing it will be when ’the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ.’ (Rev 11:15 Rev. Ver.)
Mat 4:9. All these things, the Greek placing the emphasis not so much on ’all,’ as on ’these things.’ The claim which Satan here implies, and in Luk 4:6, expressly asserts, viz., that he possesses the control of the kingdoms of the world and their glory, is not wholly unfounded, for the Scriptures speak of him as the prince or god of this world. (Joh 12:31, Joh 14:30, Joh 16:11, 2Co 4:4) As to the precise nature and limitations of this power we are not informed; but it has been committed to him, (Luk 4:6) and the Revelation of John teaches that it shall one day be withdrawn. Wilt fall down,[1] as in Mat 2:11, the usual posture in the East, whether for adoration or for homage. Worship. See on "Mat 2:2". There has been difference of opinion as to whether it here signifies idolatrous worship, (compare 1Co 10:20 Rev 9:20) or only homage as to a civil superior; but the latter, paid to Satan, would necessarily lead to the former. The tempter proposes that Jesus shall recognize the worldly power which Satan is allowed to exercise, and shall conform his messianic reign to existing conditions by acknowledging Satan’s sovereignty. Jesus was in fact to reign over this world, yet not as successor or subordinate to Satan, but by utterly overthrowing his dominion. (Compare Mat 12:25, Mat 12:28).
[1] Literally, ’if thou fall down.’ This subjunctive was natural in early English (so Wyclif), and is barely possible still. To say’ if thou wilt fall down’ (Tyndale and all since) is ambiguous, seeming to introduce the element of willingness, which is not in the original. Yet it makes a smoother Eng. phrase, and so is best in a popular version.
10. Get thee hence,[1] ’begone,’ or, ’away with thee,’ here said in abhorrence or disgust, though sometimes in kindness (as Mat 8:13). Satan, see on "Mat 4:1". It is written, see on "Mat 4:4". The quotation here is from Deu 6:13, and follows Sept. It differs from Hebrew in introducing ’only’ or ’alone,’ which merely expresses what is indicated in the Hebrew by the emphasis; and also in substituting for the general term ’fear’ the more specific term ’worship,’ which makes more manifest the affiliation of the passage to the matter in hand. (See on "Mat 2:6".)
[1] Many MSS. and versions (some that are early) add ’behind me,’ manifestly an assimilation to Mat 16:23, where there is no variation in the reading.
Mat 4:11. Leaveth him. An example of what was afterwards taught by James (Jas 4:7), ’Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.’ Luke (Luk 4:13) says, ’for a season.’ Doubtless his temptations were frequently renewed throughout the Saviour’s ministry (compare on Mat 4:1), and especially when it was about to close. (Joh 14:30) Bengel: "This temptation is a specimen of Christ’s whole state of humiliation, and an epitome of all the temptations, not only moral but spiritual, which the devil contrived from the beginning." Angels came; came near to him (same term as in Mat 4:3). Ministered, or, were ministering—unto him. This word signifies to attend as a servant, wait on, etc., often with particular reference to supplying food (comp, Mat 8:15, Mat 25:44, Mat 27:55; Luk 8:3, Luk 10:40 ’serve’; Luk 12:37; Act 6:2 ’serve’). And so apparently here. They waited on him as human friends might have waited on one whom they found hungry, weary, lonely. To Elijah (1Ki 19:6-7) an angel brought food before the forty days’ fast; to Jesus at its close. He had refused to relieve his hunger by turning the stones into loaves of bread, referring to the case of Israel, to whom God supplied food in an extraordinary way; and now God I makes an extraordinary provision for him. He had refused to try an experiment upon a promise of angelic help (Mat 4:6), and now angelic help comes unsought. The term employed, ’were ministering to him,’ not simply narrates the fact, but vividly describes it as going on. And so, with the baffled tempter withdrawn, and angels engaged in ministering to him, this wonderful and affecting scene comes to a close.
Our Lord is now fully prepared for his work as Messiah. At his baptism the Father gave him an extraordinary recognition and greeting. During the forty days he has doubtless reflected upon the need and the character of that saving work which he has come into the world to do. And now the tempter’s proposals have familiarized his mind with the thought of three principal wrong courses which will often during his ministry be proposed to him, and which he will always instantly reject as he has done here—he will never use his supernatural powers to relieve his own natural wants, nor to make a display before man, and he will utterly avoid the favourite Jewish notion of a brilliant worldly kingdom, obtained by worldly means and used for worldly purposes.[1]
[1] The legendary temptation of Sakhya Muni (afterwards Buddha) has sometimes been likened to the temptation of Christ. Edwin Arnold, in "The Light of Asia,"has borrowed phrases and ideas from the Gospel, so as to give a false appearance of resemblance. When these are removed, and details which he omits are restored, the two accounts have no resemblance beyond the bare fact of a person being specially tempted when meditating a great work for the good of mankind, which is doubtless, in one shape or other, a universal experience. See Kellogg,"The Light of Asia and the Light of the World,"ch. iv., especially p. 145-153. Bishop Lightfoot has shown (Colossians, p. 151-157) that there is no evidence of any influence of Buddhism on the Essenes, or that Buddhism was known in Syria during the first Christian century.—The idea of a special temptation of the Messiah by Satan was quite contrary to all Jewish conceptions and expectations. See Edersheim, Book iii., ch. 1.
Homiletical And Practical
Mat 4:1. The occurrence of this special season of temptation immediately after our Lord’s baptism and when he was about to enter on his ministry, while not wholly analogous to the case of his disciples, yet corresponds with a not infrequent experience.— Sir 2:1: "My son, if thou art coming near to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptation."—Euthym.: "That thou also after baptism mayst no longer lead thyself, but rather be led by the Spirit, and that if after baptism thou fallest into temptations thou mayest not be confounded."—Gill: "And so it often is, that after sweet communion with God in his ordinances, after large discoveries of his love and interest in him, follow sore temptations, trials, and exercises." —God often brings his people into temptation (Mat 6:13), and so he brought the Captain of their salvation.—Milton (Heb 2:10)(Par. Reg.):
But first I mean
To exercise him in the wilderness;
There he shall first lay down the rudiments
Of his great warfare, ere I send him forth
To conquer sin and death, the two grand foes,
By humiliation and strong sufferance.
Some men have fancied that they would escape temptation by fleeing to solitude—and others by seeking society; behold, Jesus is tempted both in the wilderness and in the Holy City. There is here (1) a discipline to the tempted Redeemer; (2) an example to his tempted followers, and (3) a lesson of failure to the tempter. Three distinct practical evils are prevalent as to the devil, each of which must help him. (a) Some deny his existence, i. e., either his personality or his agency—which gives him an admirable opportunity to carry on his work unsuspected. (b) A few persons associate him with the sublime conceptions of Paradise Lost, and thus feel a diminished abhorrence. (c) The great mass associate him with all that is ridiculous. The instinctive desire to shake off horrible thoughts has led to this, as men joke in a dissecting-room, and it has grown customary, and gained strength from prevailing scepticism. The practice of applying ludicrous designations to the devil, and making him the point of amusing stories and jests, as well as the grotesque nursery descriptions and stories, can never fail to be very hurtful, and should be avoided and discouraged.
Sir 2:2. Greg. Naz., (in Wordsw.): "Christ hungered as man, and fed the hungry as God. He was hungry as man, and yet he is the Bread of life. He was athirst as man, and yet he says, Let him that is athirst come to me and drink. He was weary, and is our Rest.... He pays tribute, and is a King; he is called a devil, and casts out devils; prays, and hears prayer; weeps, and dries our tears; is sold for thirty pieces of silver, and redeems the world; is led as a sheep to the slaughter, and is the Good Shepherd." —Edersheim: "Moses failed after his forty days’ fast, when in indignation he cast the tables of the law from him; Elijah failed before his forty days’ fast; Jesus was assailed for forty days, and endured the trial."
Sir 2:3. The demand for special proofs of the divine mission of Christ is often made in a wrong spirit, by persons whom those very proofs would not convince; as Satan afterwards witnessed numerous miracles wrought by Jesus, but without effect.—Geikie: "No temptation is more difficult to resist than the prompting to do what seems needful for self-preservation, when abundant means are in our hands." —Morison: "The prime temptation of millions, though they often realize it not, is to use improper means of making their bread."
Sir 2:4. Our Lord was ’tempted like as we are,’ and be resisted like as we must. If he had wrought a miracle for his own relief, that would have been no example for us; but it was an example that he should in trying circumstances trust in God and wait-and that he should be guided and sustained by what ’is written.’ If we would imitate this example, let us become thoughtfully imbued with the principles of Scripture, (Psa 119:11) and familiar with its precepts and examples, so that they may be naturally suggested to the mind, or readily recalled, just when they are needed.—Origen (Wordsw.) "He routs the tempter by what all may wield, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Eph 6:17.) Hence learn the value of Scripture, and the impotence of Satan against it." —Stier: "As Eve in the beginning rightly opposed the tempter with God has said! but alas, did not persist therein—even so now the Lord; but he holds firm." —Lightfoot: "Observe (1) That the first word spoken by Christ in his ministerial office is an assertion of the authority of Scripture. (2) That he opposeth the word of God as the properest incounterer against the words of the devil. (3) That he alledgeth Scripture as a thing undeniable and uncontrollable by the devil himself. (4) That he maketh the Scripture his rule, though he had the fullness of the Spirit above measure." —Henry: "As in our greatest abundance we must not think to live without God, so in our greatest straits we must learn to live upon God." —There is a common saying, ’Necessity knows no law.’ But it ought to know the law of duty.
Sir 2:5. Henry: "Pinnacles of the temple are places of temptation. (1) High places in the world are so. (2) High places in the church are in a special manner dangerous."
Sir 2:6. Henry: "We must avoid going from one extreme to another—from despair to presumption, from prodigality to covetousness, "etc.—Lange: "The holiest thing may be perverted to become the most vile temptation. (1) A stay in the holy city. (2) The prospect from the pinnacle of the temple. (3) The promise contained in an inspired Psalm."—One of the subtlest and sometimes mightiest forms of temptation to a devout mind is the misapplication of Scripture, so as to give apparent warrant for doing what we incline to. We need not only to know the language of Scripture, but to understand the real meaning and legitimate application. A great aid in this is to compare other passages, as our Lord here does.—Bengel: "Scripture must through Scripture be interpreted and reconciled."—Wordsworth: "The devil may tempt us to fall, but he cannot make us fall; he may persuade us to cast ourselves down, but he cannot cast us down."
Sir 2:7. True faith never tries experiments upon the promises, being satisfied that they will be fulfilled as occasion may arise. We have no right to create danger, and expect Providence to shield us from it. The love of adventure, curiosity as to the places and procedures of vice, the spirit of speculation in business, the I profits of some calling attended by moral perils,—often lead men to tempt God. It is a common form of sin. (See Chalmers’ Sermons on the Temptations.) Griffith: "We violate the organic conditions of health, and then expect some miracle of restoration. We devote ourselves to seeming duty, labour on in what we fancy must be saintly self-sacrifice, till the brain is fevered, the strength is exhausted, and imbecility and death come in to punish the presumption of ’testing the Lord our God.’ " —Jesus did afterwards work miracles equivalent to those proposed in the first and second temptations, when he multiplied food, and when he walked on the water; but in these cases he was using his supernatural power for the benefit of others.
Sir 2:8. See Milton’s description in Par. Regained, Book iii. Sir 2:9. How often are measures adopted by preacher or church that are unworthy of Christianity, and defended only by urging that they take, that they succeed. But Christ would not rule over the world by Satan’s help, and we must not seek to advance the kingdom of holiness by unholy means.—Theophylact: "Now also he says to the covetous that the world is his, so that they gain it who worship him."—Schaff: "Satan’s greatest weapons are his half-truths, his perversions of the truth."
Sir 2:10. Often the only proper way to deal with the tempter is to bid him begone. Augustine: "It is the devil’s part to suggest, it is ours not to consent." —Jer. Taylor: "The Lamb of God could by no means endure it when tempted to a direct dishonouring of God. Our own injuries are opportunities of patience; but when the glory of God and his immediate honour is the question, then is the occasion for the flames of a clear shining and unconsuming zeal."
Sir 2:11. Grotius: "Formerly conqueror of our first parents and long conqueror of the human race, but now conquered by Christ, anal to be conquered by Christians. (1Jn 5:18.)" Griffith: "The successive temptations may be ranked as temptations to under-confidence, over-confidence, and other confidence. The first, to take things impatiently into our’ hands; the second, to throw things presumptuously on God’s hands; the third, to transfer i things disloyally into other hands than God’s." —Lorimer: "The spirit of evil takes things that are right in themselves and perverts them to our undoing; as here, the instinct of self-preservation, the feeling of self-confidence, the hope of self-aggrandizement." We can see in these temptations a progression. (a) The tempter appeals to, (1) a bodily appetite, (2) an obscure nervous feeling, (3) ambition, which is wholly of the mind. (b) He proposes (1) a useful miracle, (2) a useless miracle, (3) a gross sin. (c) He seeks to excite, (1) distrust of God, (2) presumptuous reliance on God, (3) worldly-minded abandonment of God.
John A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (American Baptist Publication Society, 1886) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1–10 To be tempted of the devil.
Mat_4:1
To be tempted of the devil.
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The possibility and necessity of the temptation
I. If our Lord had not become incarnate He would never have been tempted, for temptation is not possible to God. God is above the possibility of temptation; the beasts are below it. The possession of an animal nature is not the only source of temptation, or the angels who kept not their own principality could never have fallen. The conditions of and moral goodness possible to a creature involve the possibility of its opposite. Was not Christ too good to be tempted?
1. All human goodness needs the strain of temptation to reveal its reality and depth. Even when that goodness, as in the case of the Man Christ Jesus, and in His case alone, is absolutely without fault or imperfection, temptation is still required to prove its strength, and by the proof to reveal the depth and solidity of its foundations in the soul. The ship that lies at anchor in the harbour when hardly a breath of wind ripples the surface of the water, may hold to her moorings, but this is no proof of the strength and soundness of her cable, for no strain has been put upon it; but if she is out at sea, and caught in a furious storm, and drifting fast on to a lee shore, and then lets go her anchor, and it holds, there is proof enough of the quality of her cable. But temptation strengthens goodness by assaulting it. There are some shells which cling to the rocks in spite of the continual buffeting of the tides, but those shells are thickest and strongest where the tide has smitten them with its fullest might, and so the defences of the soul against evil are strong in proportion to the evil which has been resisted. And this is why no human character becomes stable or strong in goodness until it has been exposed to temptation. Shield it from all the fierce blasts of temptation, preserve it in a forced isolation from the world, and it will remain as unstable as water beneath a summer sky: but let the rough frosts of winter fall on it, and the biting winds lash it, and it will slowly knit itself into compact and solid strength, and, like the ice, will defy the storm which has only given it strength by attacking it. But we have not exhausted the meaning of our Lords temptations.
1. They had a representative as well as a personal significance. He was the Head of the human race.
2. It was the first great act of the redemption of the race from sin.
3. The shame and reproach of our first parents are rolled away, as the Son of Man returns from this conflict victorious. (G. S. Barrett, B. A.)
The reality of the Temptation
1. The evangelists were thoroughly convinced of its reality.
2. The other references to it in the New Testament point in the same direction (Heb_4:15; Heb_2:18).
3. Assuming the existence of Satan he is not likely to have engaged our Lord in any unreal way. What is meant when it is said it was impossible for Christ to have sinned? Certainly not that it was a physical impossibility, as when we say that it is impossible for a man of luxury to feel the temptation a starving man feels to steal. It was a moral impossibility; He would not elect to yield. We are certain of Christs immovable loyalty to righteousness. Temptation is not in itself an admission of moral imperfection, so was not inconsistent with the holy character of our Lord. All Christs temptations came to Him from without, not from within Him. An inward bias to evil is not essential to temptation; temptation may appeal to what is best within us, to satisfy lawful appetites by unlawful means. Thus the reality of Christs temptations remain unbroken.
The practical results of this admission
1. The reality of Christs temptations affects their entire moral significance. We feel the moral sublimity of His character.
2. It affects us as well as Himself: His sympathy with us and our realization of His sympathy with us.
The Instrument and the Divine ordering of the Temptation
1. We may learn that it is never the will of God we should voluntarily enter into temptation.
2. We ought to pray that God would not bring us into it.
3. But should God lead us, as He led Christ, into temptation, then we may confidently appeal to God for grace to overcome. (G. S. Barrett, B. A.)
The Tempters power limited
1. By the fact that he is a mere creature.
2. By the providence of God.
3. By mans will.
4. We ought not to exaggerate the power of Satan, let us beware of underrating it. (Norman Macleod, D. D.)
Reasons why our Lord was led to be tempted
1. In order that the reality and glory of His Sonship might be made manifest.
2. That He might redeem man from the evil to which he was subjected by the fall of the first Adam.
3. That He might become experimentally acquainted with the evil of sin.
4. The temptation of our Lord was a chief element in His sufferings for us as our Mediator.
5. Evil is compelled to glorify God. (Norman Macleod, D. D.)
What Satan knew of Christ
1. There seems little reason to doubt that Satan knew Jesus to be the promised One, whose advent the prophets had foretold. The artful use he made of Scripture upon the pinnacle of the temple sufficiently shows his acquaintance with Holy Writ.
2. Satan also supposed, apparently, that Christ possessed superhuman powers.
3. But although Satan was thus far m possession of the truth respecting Christ, it does not follow that he knew the whole truth respecting Him.
4. If Satan had no just view of the person of Christ, of His true divinity, he would necessarily have imperfect views of His perfect holiness. Even if this view be not admitted, if any person should still believe that Satan did understand the divinity, and consequently the immaculate purity, of our Lord, it is not incredible nor surprising, even on this supposition, that he should attempt to lead Him into sin. For it is possible that he was judicially blinded, that he might not see the hopelessness of his attempt. (L. H. Wiseman.)
The entrance into Temptation
I. The time of the temptation. Immediately after our Lords baptism. The time reveals one object of the temptation-the unveiling of the tactics of the Evil One; it was for a precaution to us. The opening of heaven from above was followed by the opening of hell from beneath. We have to guard the treasure of grace after it is given. When we are expecting peace and joy we have suddenly to enter into struggles, darkness, and desolation. God has an object in permitting the assaults of Satan at such a time; to keep the soul low when from the presence of Divine favour there may be risk of self-exaltation.
II. The influence under which Christ was led to the scene of conflict-led up of the Spirit.
1. The source of the influence. The Holy Spirit. This in accord with other notices of His relations with the incarnate Lord. Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost; preached under His guidance.
2. The extent of the Spirits influence. A stronger term is used by St. Mark-The Spirit driveth Him. We must not enter into temptation unless it be under the guidance of the Spirit of God in the way of providence. The Spirits movements are often to be known by their contrariety to our inclinations, and should lead to solitude, mortification, etc.
III. The place whither Christ was led. Christ called to meet the tempter in the wilderness, that by His unassisted might the victory should be won. Thus He sanctified times of retreat and states of retirement. They should form a part of the preparation for the ministerial office. (W. H. Hatchings, M. A.)
The Personality of Satan
I. The personality of the Evil One. Influence is that which flows out from personality. In proving the existence of God arguments from design are used; so it would be difficult to reconcile the condition of the world in its misery with the Divine goodness unless some other agent be at work in it. All nations in the past have borne witness to a belief in spiritual beings. The evil of the inner life bears the same testimony; no mental law accounts for it. Made clear by revelation. Christs words and work proclaim existence of the Evil One. The writers of the New Testament testify to the personality of Satan (Act_5:3). The temptation makes this clear.
II. His qualifications for the office of Tempter.
1. Skill; he has an angelic nature; great experience.
2. Power;
(1) rule, power;
(2) does not stand alone in his work;
(3)the third source of power lies in that mysterious relation between fallen man and the Tempter which necessitated redemption, and which justified the expression, Prince of this world.
3. Malice: with skill and power is combined unceasing hostility to God and man. But while we note the extent of Satans power we must not forget its limits. As a creature he possesses finite capacities. His knowledge is restricted in two ways: he cannot discern our thoughts, nor by himself read the future. True, he has acquired a conjectural knowledge. Also limits placed upon his power: on the Divine side there is the law of permission; on our side, of free will. Formidable as the enemy is, there is no ground for despondency, nor excuse for failure in the conflict. In the history of the Tempter see an instance of the fearful way sin may be permitted to run its course. (W. H. Hatchings, M. A.)
Study the Enemy
Among military rules there is one in all authors which brings some advantage with it to study the nature and condition of our enemy. (Hacker.)
The temptation of Christ
I. A few general considerations upon this subject.
1. That we are to understand the account of the Evangelist as the history of an actual occurrence.
2. It may assist our thoughts to be reminded of the true character of our Lords person.
3. That this history represents one great being, as the head of others, employed in the work of tempting men, and frustrating the designs of God.
4. Did Satan know the Person he assaulted? and could he have any hope of success? He knew something of our Lords character, as appears from the question, If Thou be the Son of God. But wicked minds often commit great blunders and engage in hopeless tasks.
II. Great practical lessons which the transaction appears designed to teach.
1. The deep humiliation of our Lord.
2. The variety of those temptations by which men are assaulted.
(1) They are subject to necessities.
(2) They are tempted to presumption.
(3) Temptations to the worldly spirit.
3. We see here the means of effectually resisting temptation.
4. That temptation simply considered is not sin. (R. Watson.)
The temptation
I. The circumstances under which it took place.
1. Time when happened.
2. Influence by which directed.
3. Place where enacted
4. Exercise by which prefaced-Fasted.
II. The particulars of which it consisted.
1. Distrust.
2. Presumption.
3. Apostacy: to renounce His allegiance to God.
(1) The vision.
(2) The offer.
(3) The condition.
III. The consequences.
1. Satan defeated.
2. Jesus comforted.
Uses:
1. Warning.
2. Direction.
3. Encouragement. (H. Parr.)
The temptation of Jesus
I. Why was Jesus tempted?
1. Because He was a man.
2. Because He was the Messiah.
II. What is the significance of the several temptations?
1. In the first, Christ is urged to satisfy hunger by working a miracle. Christ refused, because miraculous power must not be used simply for personal advantage. Christ recalls the great fact that God feeds man with spiritual food.
2. Satan perceives Christs frame of mind: Is Christ filled with confidence in His Father? From the Temple roof Christ is asked to cast Himself down. The act urged would have been presumptuous, ostentatious, and untimely. The third temptation was to sacrifice principle to policy. All His suffering might be prevented by a momentary act.
III. Lessons.
1. Temptations ply us through the constitutional avenues of our being.
2. Scripture may be misapplied to lead us into sin.
3. Resistance of temptation is aided by familiarity with Gods Word.
4. A Divine peace follows the resistance of temptation. (Sermons by the Monday Club.)
Christ tempted of the devil in the wilderness
I. Why our Lord was tempted.
1. Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest, etc.
2. To convey to all His people an assurance that there is a limit to the power of Satan.
II. How our Lord was tempted.
1. The time selected.
2. The circumstances skilfully adapted to the temptation.
III. How to overcome temptations.
1. To have Gods Word in our hearts.
2. To have Gods fear before our eyes. (D. Moore, M. A.)
Christ tempted in the wilderness
I. The person tempted.
1. See here the depth of our Lords abasement.
2. See the height of His love.
II. The part which God took in our lords temptations. Led by the Spirit.
III. The time of our Lords temptations.
1. It was immediately after God had put on Him special honour.
2. Just before He entered upon His great ministerial work.
IV. The place where the Lord Jesus was tempted. Look on the exalted Jesus as the once tempted Jesus. (C. Bradley.)
The temptation of Jesus
I. The sons of God are not exempted from temptation. Many new converts cherish false expectations concerning the peace which, in the Word of God, is promised them.
II. Temptation is not the same thing as sin. To be tempted may cause us much pain and sorrow, but it is not sin.
III. Temptations are divinely ordered, both as to time and measure (ver. 1; Job_1:12; Job_2:6).
IV. After a season of special grace, we may expect a season of special trial. Then (ver. 1). It is not the vessel in ballast but the vessel richly laden that is in danger from pirates.
V. Satan adapts his temptations to our character and circumstances. Hence our watchfulness must be intelligent and comprehensive.
VI. The holiest things may be perverted by satan into instruments of temptation (vers. 3, 4, 6).
VII. Though temptations are varied in form, they are few in kind. Jesus was tempted to three things. Then the devil leaveth Him, because he had exhausted all his means of assault.
VIII. Victory itself may expose us to assault. We must not think we are rid of him when we have beaten him off. Watch.
IX. In the Word of God we have A sufficient armoury of defence (vers. 4, 7, 10).
X. In the stress and agony of the conflict, when we are tempted to yield by the fear that resistance is hopeless, let us remind ourselves that god has promised grace to support us in the struggle, and a glorious reward when the victory is won. (Anon.)
Moral testing
I. The necessity for some moral testing at the outset of life.
II. Preparations for testing come in our outward circumstances.
III. Such testings, or temptings, take a great variety of forms.
IV. The essence of all such testing is the finding out whether we really mean to live for Self or to live for God.
V. The force to resist evil lies in having our will set on God.
VI. The weapons with which to resist evil are Gods Word. Learn:-
1. Well-taught childhood prepares for the temptations of life.
2. Early decision for Christ is the best safeguard against the tempters power.
3. Temptations come to men still in the same three forms as they did to Jesus (1Jn_2:16).
4. We only conquer as we are strong in God and in His Word.
5. A first conquest of evil should not lead us to think that the Tempter is conquered, nor make us cease to watch and be sober. (W. O. Simpson)
Satan tempts those who are
I. Beginners with difficulties;
II. Progressors with languor. Satan makes out the way of holiness to be-
(1) Long;
(2) rough;
(3) uncertain;
III. The perfect with scruples and anxieties. Satan destroys-
(1) Tranquillity of soul;
(2) All spiritual joy;
(3) All sense of progress. A scruple is metaphorically derived from a small stone, which, getting inside the shoe or sandal, causes pain to the feet at every step. (James Marchant.)
Our great adversary
His-
I. Poverty. He had nothing to offer Jesus Christ sufficient to allure Him.
II. Impudence. Repelled once, he returns to the attack. No sense of defeat or shame.
III. Weakness. He did not cast our Lord down. He had no power to force.
IV. Craftiness. He attacks our Lords weakness by fasting. He graduates his temptations.
V. Is false.
1. Promises that which he cannot give.
2. That which he has no intention of giving. (Matthias Faber.)
The retirement of our Lord into the wilderness teaches
1. Humility when most favoured by God; when most illumined and blessed by His Spirit.
2. The necessity of preparation for every work done for God, if that work is to be really fruitful.
3. All missionary and ministerial work is to be begun with self.
4. Preparation is necessary against the temptations of the Evil One. (S. Baring. Gould, M. A.)
Temptations
I. Temptations of Satan are to be feared:
(1) For the skill and method with which he tempts;
(2) Because his warfare is spiritual.
II. Temptations are successive and variable. Satan
(1) changes the objects and manners of the temptation;
(2) Not tempting in more than one particular at a time.
III. Temptations are preserved by Satan in order and method.
1. With pleasure, then with vainglory.
2. With riches and ambition.
IV. Temptations and their purposes are often hidden. The serpent is seldom seen in its entire or full length.
V. Temptations are set like snares. There are many social questions on which he suggests an inversion of Gods moral laws.
VI. Temptations are often made in secret. They lose their power if divulged. Many n plot is overthrown by discovery.
VII. Temptations are suited to opportunity. There are certain moral qualities nearly allied to certain vices; as harshness to cruelty and pride; as softness to luxury and dissipation.
VIII. Temptations have opposite methods. Gentle persuasion first, violent constraint afterwards.
IX. All temptations are alike in effect.
1. Some strike the tempted one, laying him low by unexpected occurrences.
2. Others creep into the mind little by little, killing while resisting by soft suggestions.
X. Temptations are intermittent. The devil departs for a season, but returns to be victorious when least expected. (Claude de Lingeirdes.)
It is not enough for Him to fulfil the law, but He suffers Himself to be tempted to break it. (Farindon.)
How we are to overcome our temptations
I. We are all tempted. Satan is behind all temptations.
II. Some occasions are more suitable to the tempters purposes than others. Moments of joy, sorrow, or unwatchfulness he often seizes.
III. The temptation to sin for the sake of bread is common, and many are misled by it. Many who shrink from dark ways are guilty of distrust in their temporal circumstances. What an affluence of victorious power there is in that, Hence, Satan. (Dr. J. P. Lange.)
I. Though the devil come not in person to us, as he did to Christ, yet he comes by his instruments. Balak sent to Balaam.
II. There be some that will say they were never tempted with kingdoms. It may well be, for it needs not, when less will serve. The devil need never carry us so high as the mount, the pinnacle is high enough; yea, the lowest steeple in all the town would serve the turn. Let us but stand in our window, or in our doors, if he will give us but so much as we see there, he will tempt us thoroughly. We will accept it, and thank him too.
III. In temptation there is both fire to consume our faith, and a dart to wound our consciences, (Bishop Lancelot Andrewes.)
The temptation of Christ, and its subjective results
1. Succour.
2. Sympathy.
3. Example. (T. McRae, M. A.)
The temptation of Jesus
1. Divinely permitted.
2. Humanly conditioned.
3. Diabolically caused.
4. Cunningly planned.
5. Successfully resisted. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
Analogy confirm the doctrine of a tempter
Do not men tempt each other? Sinners entice. Some men are public tempters; tempters of a nation, of an age, to bad feelings, principles, and practices. A Voltaire is a tempter by his wit; a Hume, by his sophistry; a Rousseau, by eloquence; a Byron, by the splendours of poetic genius. Every bad man in an elevated situation is a public tempter. (R. Watson.)
Satan an indirect tempter as the corrupter of our nature
Green wood will not burn; dry wood soon takes fire; he then who, although he does not act the part of an incendiary, dries the wood in order that it may the sooner ignite, has a real share in the cause of the conflagration. (W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)
The soul must select a guiding influence
As when a ship nears land, various pilots are sometimes seen to approach and bid for her guidance; then one, and then another, comes up to the vessel till the terms are settled, after which the successful applicant may be watched as the ship is towed out of the channel into the river. So the soul must agree to accept some guiding influence amongst the different ones which beset her, and to be controlled and conducted afterwards by it. (W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)
Spiritual delight varied by severe temptation
This mingling of contraries runs through all our history. The scenery of a human life, like the scenery of nature, has its fertile plains, its grim ravines, its bleak and barren hills. Now it is bathed in the sunlight of a great joy, again it is overcast and saddened by the sorrows whose memory will never fade. (H. Shaw.)
Close to those sunlit heights there yawn downwards at our feet black and awful precipices, and one false step may be fatal. (G. S. Barrett, B. A.)
Christian maturity a safeguard against temptation
The smallest bird can pick off the blossoms of a tree; if that blossom be not nibbled away, but grow a fair apple, the hurt is small that the fowls of the air can do unto it: so the firstlings of a godly life are in the greatest danger; Satan wants no sagacity to observe his advantages, but is aware that if the camp put their spade into the ground for a few days, and cast their trenches, they will hardly be displanted. (Hacket.)
Christ is no sooner out of the water of baptism than He is in the tire of temptation. (Burkit.)
Temptation a ministerial qualification
Ministers should not only be men of science, but of experience. (T. Manton, D. D.)
Temptation a tes of ability for special work
This is not without the good providence of God, who hereby will prove His servants, to whom He will commit some special work. (T. Manton, D. D.)
The tempter seeks to destroy eminent men
If Satan can foil the leaders, the bands are soon overcome; smite the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; cast down cedars, and they will crush many shrubs with their fall. (T. Taylor.)
Temptation no evidence of Divine disfavour
Jesus was not less the well-beloved Son of God in the wilderness of Judaea, than when He had just come up out of the waters of Jordan. (D. Bagot, B. D.)
The tempter seeks to frustrate eminent grace
The unfurnished house is safe; danger is to be apprehended only when the dwelling is well-stocked with money, plate, or jewels. The traveller may proceed with immunity, whose empty purse presents no attraction to the robber. (T. Smith.)
The wicked insensible to temptation
The bird that is captured by the fowlers snare, or overspread by his net, is unaware of her thraldom so long as she ties still, or continues feeding on the earth; but no sooner does she try to soar aloft and seek the heavens, than her perplexity begins, and the more she strives, the more she feels herself ensnared. (T. Smith.)
Temptation conducive to strength
No man was ever worth much who did not pass through some severe ordeals. A mushroom or a cucumber may be raised in the summer-house: not so the oak. When you want that to grow you plant it on the mountain slope, where it strikes its roots deeper into the soil, and becomes more compact in its fibre, because of the resistance it offers to the passing storm. The human frame, if it is to acquire strength, must not be wrapped for years in swaddling clothes, but trained to run in the race, and wrestle in the strife. The good soldier is not made in time of peace. (Dr. Landels.)
Inward purity the best defence against temptation
Put a burning match to tinder or gunpowder, and it will kindle presently; but put it to water, and it will quench it straight: so it fareth in temptations. Our corrupt hearts, like tinder, do easily suffer corruption to kindle in us; but Christs most holy heart did presently quench the evil of Satans motions. And thus we see how Christ was tempted, and yet without sin. (W. Perkins, D. D.)
Solitude favourable to temp-ration
The lonely tree stands more exposed to the tempest than that which is encircled by its fellows. (W. Perkins, D. D.)
Temptation conducive to beauty
The pebble cannot be polished without friction, nor can the graces of the Christian be fully developed without trials. (L. H. Wiseman.)
A Christian tempted in business is like a ship in a gale; occupation and necessary, duties are the friendly windward headlands which break the force of the gale, under whose shelter the vessel may ride in safety; but he who is tempted in solitude is like the ship which has to encounter the full fury of the hurricane in the unsheltered open sea. (L. H. Wiseman.)
Divine sympathy the outcome of Divine temptation
We read that when King Richard I. had been on the sea near Sicily like to be drowned, he recalled that ancient and barbarous custom whereby the goods of shipwrecked men were escheated to the crown, making provision that those goods should be preserved for the right owners. (Dr. Taylor.)
The tempters allies within the sold
If we had no enemies to batter down our wails and holds without us, we have inward and domestic rebels and traitors which continually betray us.
The tempter first seeks to pain a little advantage
As a cunning thief, if he can find room but for the point of a wrenech, will quickly make strong doors to fly open. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
The tempter ignored is the tempter assisted
Some deny the existence of Satan. He knows that he can often work most effectually where his presence is least suspected. As a perfect orator wholly forgets himself, being absorbed in his subject, so Satan, as a consummate tempter, is willing to be himself forgotten, if his ends be accomplished, A thief never wishes to make himself conspicuous. Accordingly, the most subtle and dangerous temptations are precisely those which we least imagine come from the devil. (L. H. Wiseman M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 5
Chapter 5
His Temptation - Mat_4:1-11
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MUCH has been written on the possibility of temptation in the experience of a sinless Being. The difficulties which have been raised in this region are chiefly of a metaphysical kind, such as it is possible-for some minds, we might say inevitable-to raise at every point in that mysterious complexity which we call life. Without attempting to enter profoundly into the question, may not an appeal be made to our own experience? Do we not all know what it is to be "tempted without sin,"-without sin, that is, in reference to the particular thing to which we are tempted? Are there not desires in our nature, not only thoroughly innocent, but a necessary part of our humanity, which, nevertheless, give occasion to temptation? But on its being recognised that to follow the impulse, however natural, would lead to wrong-doing, the temptation is instantly repelled and integrity perfectly preserved. In such a case there is temptation, conflict, victory-all without sin. Surely then what is possible to us on occasion, was also possible to our Lord on all occasions, all through His pure and spotless life. His taking our nature indeed involved not only the possibility, but the necessity, of temptation.
The passage before us records what is known as the Temptation, by which it is not, of course, meant that it was the only one. Our Lord was all His life exposed to the assaults of the Tempter, which seem indeed to have increased in violence as He approached the end of His life. Why, then, is this attack singled out for special record? The reason seems obvious. It marks the beginning of the life-work of the Messiah. In His quiet home at Nazareth Jesus must have had the ordinary temptations to which childhood and youth are subject. That was the time of quiet preparation for the great campaign. Now, the war must begin. He must address Himself to the mighty undertaking of destroying the works of the devil. The great adversary, therefore, wisely endeavours to mar it at the outset, by a deliberately planned series of assaults, directed against all the vulnerable points of that human nature his great antagonism must wear. From this time onward our Lords whole life was to be a warfare, not against the rage of wicked men only, but against the wiles of the unseen adversary, whose opposition must have been as bitter and relentless as that of his representatives in flesh and blood. From the nature of the case, the conflict waged in the spiritual sphere could not appear in the history. It belonged to that hidden life, of which even the closest disciples could see but very little. We get a hint of it occasionally in certain looks, and words betokening inward conflict, and in those frequent retirings to solitary places to pray; but of the actual soul experience we have no record, except in the case of this first pitched battle, so to call it, of the lifelong conflict. It is evident that our Lord Himself must have given His disciples the information on this deeply interesting subject which enabled them to put it on record, for the encouragement and comfort of His people in all time to come. Blessed be His Holy Name, for this unveiling of His hidden life.
The greater portion, indeed, is still veiled. A dark cloud of mystery hangs over the forty days. Nothing else is told of them in this Gospel than that Jesus fasted for that time-an indication of sustained intensity in the life of His spirit. From St. Mark and St. Luke we learn that the temptation lasted throughout the entire period-a fact not at all inconsistent with sustained spiritual elevation, for it is just at such periods that man is most exposed to the assaults of the enemy. We may not penetrate the darkness of these forty days. Like the darkness in Gethsemane, and again, from the sixth to the ninth hour on Calvary, it forbids entrance. These were times when even "the disciple whom Jesus loved" could not be with Him. These are solitudes that can never be disturbed. Only this we know that it was necessary that our Saviour should pass through these dark "cloud-gates" as He entered on and as He finished His priestly work on earth.
But though we cannot comprehend what our Lord did for us during these forty days, when He "recovered Paradise to all mankind." we, may, remembering that He was tempted not only as our Representative but as our Exemplar, endeavour with all humility and reverence to enter into this soul-experience of our Lord, so far as the vivid representation of its main features in the inspired record warrants.
It is always difficult to tell the story of soul-experience in such a way as to come home to the common mind and heart of humanity. It will not do to tell it in the language of philosophy or psychology, which none but those familiar with such discussions could understand. It must be addressed to the imagination as well as to the pure reason. If this had been sufficiently kept in view, it might have saved many a difficulty on the part of those who have set themselves to discover exactly what were the outward circumstances of the temptation, forgetting that here especially it is the inward and spiritual with which we have to do, not the outward and physical. It is not what happened to the body of Jesus, -whether it was actually carried to a pinnacle of the Temple or not, -with which we have any concern in connection with the subject of temptation; but what happened to His soul: for it is the soul of man, not his body, which is tempted.
It is above all things necessary to hold firmly to the reality of the temptation. It was no mere sham fight: it was just as real as any we have ever had when most fiercely assailed by the tempter. This will, of course, dispose of the vulgar idea that the devil appeared in recognisable shape, like one of Dores fiends. Some people cannot rise above the folly of imagining that there is nothing real that is not material, and therefore that our Saviour could have had no conflict with Satan, if Satan had not assumed some material shape. The power of temptation consists of its appearance of being suggested without sinister intent. Our Lord was tempted "like as we are," and therefore had not the advantage of seeing the tempter in his proper person. He may have appeared "as an angel of light," or it may have been only as an invisible spirit that he came. However that may be, it was unquestionably a spiritual experience; and in that consists its reality and value.
In order firmly to grasp the reality of the conflict, we must not only bear in mind that our Lord had to contend with the same invisible adversary whom we must encounter, but that He had to meet him just as we have to meet him-not as God, but as man. The man Christ Jesus was tempted, and in His human nature He triumphed. He had "emptied Himself" of His Divine attributes; and to have had recourse to them when the battle raged too fiercely for His resources as a man, would have been to have acknowledged defeat. What need was there to show that God could triumph over Satan? There needed no Incarnation and no wilderness contest for that. Had it not been as a man that He triumphed there had been no victory at all. It is true that He went into the wilderness in the power of the Spirit; but so may we go into any wilderness or anywhere. It was through Divine strength He triumphed, but only in that strength made perfect in human weakness according to the promise which is valid for us all. Here too "He was tempted like as we are," with the same ways and means of resisting the temptation and overcoming it as are available to us. It follows from all this that we should not look at this temptation scene as something quite foreign to ourselves, but should endeavour to enter into it, and, as far as possible, to realise it. Observe first the close connection with the baptism. This is made prominent and emphatic in all the three accounts.
Evidently, then, it supplies the key to it. The baptism of Christ was His consecration to the work of His Messiahship. And let us not imagine that He had any ready-made plan for the accomplishment of it. His was no stereotyped life-work, such as that which most of us take up, in which we can learn from those who have gone before how they set about it and proceed accordingly. Even with all that advantage most of us have to do not a little hard thinking, before we can lay our plans. Could it be, then, that He who had such a work before Him had no need to think over it, and plan it, and weigh different methods of procedure, and face the difficulties which every one who enters on a new enterprise has to meet? Do not let us forget for a moment that He was a real man, and that in planning the course He would pursue, as in all other points, He was tried like as we are.
Accordingly, no sooner is He baptised, than He withdraws by Himself alone, as Moses and others had done when about to enter on their work, to commune with God and to take counsel with His own thoughts. Was He free from all misgiving? Let us not imagine that it was impossible for Him to doubt. Tempted in all points like as we are, He must have known this sore temptation. One may well suppose, then, that He was visited again and again with misgivings during these forty days, so that it was not at all unnatural that temptation should take the form: "If Thou be the Son of God."
Look now at the first temptation, and mark the double human weakness to which it was addressed. On the one hand doubt-"If Thou art the Son of God"; on the other, hunger-for He had fasted long and had as strong a craving for bread as any of us would have had in the circumstances. See now the force of the temptation. He is suffering from hunger; He is tempted to doubt. How can He have relief? "If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Special powers are intrusted to Him for His work as Messiah. Should He not use them now? Why not? So in his subtlety suggests the tempter. In vain. He had taken His place among His brother-men, and would not separate Himself from them. They could not command stones to be made bread; and would He cease to be their brother? What saith the Law? A well-known passage leaps into His memory: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Man must trust in God, and when he is hungry in the wilderness, as Israel was of old, must look upwards for his help. So must I; so will I And He bears the hunger, repels the doubt, and conquers His subtle foe.
The thought of the doubt that must exist in other minds if not in His own, gives occasion for a second assault. To have proved His power by commanding the stones to be made bread would only have gratified a personal craving. But would it not advance His work to make some signal display of the powers by which He shall be accredited-do something that would attract universal attention; not in the desert, but in Jerusalem; -why not show to all the people that God is with Him by casting Himself from the pinnacle of the Temple? "If Thou be the Son of God. cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning Thee; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou dash Thy foot against a stone." One sees at once the added force of this temptation. The hunger remains, together with the weakness of body and faintness of spirit which always accompany it. And the very weapon He used to repel the first assault is turned against Him now, for His adversary has found a passage of Scripture, which he uses with great effect. Moreover, the appeal seems to be to that very spirit of trustfulness which stood Him in such stead in His first encounter. Is He not hard beset? What then? Does He in this emergency summon to His aid any ally denied to us in similar stress of trial? No: He does exactly what we have to do in the same case: meets Scripture quoted with a bias by other Scripture thought of without prejudice. He recognises that the Scripture first presented to His mind is only a part of the truth which bears on the case. Something more must be had in view, before the path of duty is clear. To meet the distracting thought, this word occurs, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. It is one thing to trust, another to tempt." I was trusting when I refused to command the stones to be made bread. But I should be tempting God were I to cast myself down from a pinnacle of the Temple. I should be experimenting upon Him, as did the children of Israel at Meribah and at Massah (for that is the connection of the words He quotes) when they said, "Is the Lord among us or not?" I must not experiment, must not tempt, I must simply trust. Thus victory is gained a second time.
If it is not right to begin His work by any such display as that which the Tempter has just suggested, how shall it be begun? A question surely of unexampled difficulty. The air was full of expectancy in regard to the coming of King Messiah., The whole nation was ready to hail him. Not only so, but even the heathen nations were more or less prepared for His coming. Why not take advantage of this favourable state of things at home and abroad? Why not proclaim a kingdom that will satisfy these widespread expectations, and gather round itself all those enthusiasms; and, after having thus won the people, then proceed to lead them on to higher and better things? Why not? It would be bowing down to the prince of this world. It is clearly a temptation of the Evil One. To yield to it would be to fall down before him and worship him in exchange for the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them. It would be gaining the allegiance of men by methods which are not of God, but of the great adversary. He recognises the device of Satan to lure Him from the path of self-denial which He sees to be the path of duty; accordingly, with energy He says, "Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." In establishing My kingdom I must show Myself to be a servant and worshipper of God and of Him only; accordingly, no worldly methods must be used, however promising they may seem to be; the battle must be fought with spiritual weapons, the kingdom must be established by spiritual forces alone, and on truth and love alone must I depend: I choose the path of the Cross. "Get thee hence, Satan."
The crisis is passed. The path of duty and of sorrow lies plain and clear before Him. He has refused to turn aside to the right hand or to the left. The Tempter has been foiled at every point, and so must withdraw, for the time, at least, "Then the devil leaveth Him; and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1. Then was Jesus led of the Spirit. Mark…
1. Then was Jesus led of the Spirit. Mark says he was driven by the Spirit, a phrase that indicates a sudden and forcible impulsion. Into the wilderness. Tradition has placed the scene of Christ's temptation in that part of the wilderness of Judea which lies between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and particularly in the mountain called Quarantania, from this forty days' fast. To be tempted. Christ must be tempted—1. Because it was impossible that one who came to overthrow the kingdom of Satan should not be attacked by the great adversary at the very threshold. 2. It was to test him. 3. It was to prepare him, by being tempted like as we are, and yet gaining the victory, to “succor them that are tempted.” 4. It was to set an example for us when we are tempted. The three great temptations mentioned by Matthew are the three great classes of temptations to which men are now exposed. Of the devil. Here the existence and personality of Satan are placed before us in the most distinct language. The devil is, (1) A person (Eph. 2:2; 6:12; Heb. 2:14; Jude 6); (2) A fallen angel (John 8:44; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). The word devil means false accuser.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 There is only one way of understanding the narrative,…
CRITICAL NOTES
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS—GENERAL REMARKS
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There is only one way of understanding the narrative, viz. as the history of a real occurrence, of an actual temptation of our Lord by the devil as a person. Such a history it is clearly the intention of the Evangelist to give; and the only difficulty which this interpretation has, peculiar to itself, is that it presupposes two things, which are also presupposed throughout the rest of Scripture: the possibility of the supernatural, and the personality of the tempter. If either of these is denied, the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith must necessarily fall with them. To deny the supernatural is to deny what is asserted in every page of the Gospels; and to deny the personality of the tempter is virtually to assert that the temptation was suggested from within, not from without, an assertion incompatible with the perfect sinlessness of Christ, and with all the edifice of Christian truth, of which that sinlessness is the foundation (Mansel).
The account can have come from no other than Jesus Himself.—The words of the Evangelist describe an actual scene—not a dream. The devil really came to Jesus, but in what form is not stated. These were not isolated temptations in the life of Jesus (cf. Luk_22:28), but they are typical temptations. They cover the same ground as “the lust of the flesh,” etc. (1Jn_2:16) in which St. John sums up the evil of the world (Carr).
The temptation remains equally real, whether we conceive that the tempter appeared in bodily form and actually carried the body of our Lord from place to place, or whether we suppose that, during it all, Christ sat silent and apparently alone in the wilderness (Maclaren).
The possibility of temptation in the experience of a sinless being.—May not an appeal be made to our own experience? Do we not all know what it is to be “tempted without sin,” without sin, that is, in reference to the particular thing to which we are tempted? Are there not desires in our nature, not only thoroughly innocent, but a necessary part of our humanity, which, nevertheless, give occasion to temptation? But on its being recognised that to follow the impulse, however natural, would lead to wrong-doing, the temptation is instantly repelled and integrity perfectly preserved. In such case there is temptation, conflict, victory, all without sin. Surely then what is possible to us on occasion, was also possible to our Lord on all occasions, all through His pure and spotless life. His taking our nature, indeed, involved not only the possibility, but the necessity of temptation (J. Monro Gibson).
Mat_4:1. Then.—After the baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. “Straightway” (Mar_1:12, R.V.). “The consciousness of His Messiahship … then required to be confirmed through an inner conflict” (Wendt). Wilderness.—Locality not known. Tradition has fixed on a high ridge called Quarantania (from the forty days) in the neighbourhood of Jericho. “An almost perpendicular wall of rock twelve or fifteen hundred feet above the plain” (Robinson). Tempted.—To tempt is, literally, to stretch out, to try the strength of. But generally used in a bad sense, meaning to entice, solicit, or provoke to sin. The devil, διάβολος =a slanderer, a traducer. “The devil” is always used in the Bible to signify an evil spirit, never to personify the evil in man or in the world (Abbott).
Mat_4:2. Forty days and forty nights.—“Forty,” a sacred and representative number. Used in Scripture in connection with the facts of temptation or retribution (Farrar). Does not follow thence that it is not to be taken exactly (Olshausen). May, however, be used in a general way for a long time. The fast, moreover, may not have been an absolute abstinence from food, though this would be less of an impossibility in the East than under the conditions of western life, food, and habits (Tuck). The fast was naturally sustained. It was a time of profound and absorbed meditation on His mission, and all it involved; our Lord was, as we should say, “carried away,” so as to be wholly indifferent to material things (ibid).
Mat_4:4; Mat_4:7; Mat_4:10. It is written.—The words of all the three answers to the tempter come from two chapters of Deuteronomy, one of which supplied one of the passages (Mat_6:4-9) for the phylacteries or frontlets worn by devout Jews. The fact is every way suggestive. A prominence was thus given to that portion of the book, which made it an essential part of the education of every Israelite. The words which our Lord now uses had, we must believe, been familiar to Him from His childhood, and He had read their meaning rightly (Plumptre).
Mat_4:5. Then.—The order of the second and third temptations is inverted in the narrative as given by St. Luke; but the latter does not, like St. Matthew, use words implying chronological sequence. St. Matthew’s appears to be the true chronological order:
1. From the use of the word then in Mat_4:5; Mat_11:2. From the nature of the temptations rising in degree to the last (Mansel). A pinnacle.—The (R.V.). A certain well-known projection. Whether this refer to the highest summit of the temple, which bristled with golden spikes (Jos., B. J., V. Mat_4:6); or whether it refer to another peak, on Herod’s royal portico, overhanging the ravine of Kedron, at the valley of Hinnom, an immense tower built on the very edge of this precipice, from the top of which dizzy height, Josephus says one could not look to the bottom (Ant., XV. xi. 5)—is not certain, but the latter is probably meant (Brown).
Mat_4:7. Tempt.—To tempt God is to put Him to the proof—to demand evidence of His power and of His will to fulfil His promises, instead of waiting patiently and trusting in Him (Mansel).
Mat_4:8. An exceeding high mountain.—This some regard as proof that all that passed in the temptation was in the region of which the spirit, and not the senses, takes cognisance. No “specular mountain” (Milton) in the whole earth commands a survey of “all the kingdoms of the world,” etc. (Plumptre). It is enough that the thought and the temptation of earthly despotism and glory were present to the mind of Jesus (Carr). World.—See Joh_12:31; Joh_14:30; Eph_6:12 (R. V.).
Mat_4:10. Worship.—Deu_6:13. A free and easy translation of the original Hebrew, but true to the spirit (Morison).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_4:1-11
Open War.—After Jesus has been set apart for, He here sets forth for, His work. In doing so He finds at once that it is a work of conflict and strife. And that of strife, too, in all respects of the most serious kind. With the great adversary! In the wilderness! By God’s own appointment! And in such a way as to touch, also, the very springs of His life! (Mat_4:1). Is it to be much wondered at, that, in preparing for it, He seems to forget everything else; even, it would appear, for nearly six weeks of fasting, His own bodily wants (Mat_4:2, “afterward,” and cf. 1Ki_19:8; also, in a measure, Act_10:9-16; 2Co_12:3). From the first we see that to Him the work before Him was more than His “necessary food!” (cf. Joh_4:32). The actual encounter in this primary conflict consists of three principal parts. There is:—
I. A temptation to doubt.—Great is the craft, in every way, with which this first “assault” is both conceived and “delivered.” It is suited exactly to the Saviour’s condition. To one just beginning to be conscious of the pangs of extreme hunger (Mat_4:2), how great a temptation is any prospect of food! It is suited exactly to the Saviour’s character. There is no offering here of what would be sought after by the self-indulgent and sinful; nothing costly; nothing stimulating; nothing far-fetched. All that is spoken of is such “loaves” as were similar in appearance to the rounded “stones” of the desert (Mat_4:3, R.V., marg.). More than this would have rather repelled than tempted the nature attacked. It is suited exactly, once more, to the Saviour’s claims and position. Only a little before He had been proclaimed as God’s Son in a peculiar degree (Mat_3:17). If He really was such, why should He be allowed to suffer as He was doing? The Son of God without bread? Why should He allow it Himself? Why not “command these stones” to supply Him with “bread”? The answer to this subtlety—to all this subtlety—is equally simple and perfect. It comes, in effect, to this: “Although in truth the Son of God, I am here as a man; and ‘man’ has been appointed and also been taught to live in entire dependence on God” (Mat_4:4). In other words, “This ‘temptation to doubt’ is to Me the more ground for belief.”
II. A temptation to presumption.—One avenue of evil is closed. The act of closing it opens another. How great, here also, the subtlety shown! How skilfully the previous reply of the Saviour is turned into a fresh means of attack! “Dost Thou depend upon God? Then depend on Him to the full. See, here is His house! Here its loftiest point! Are not His angels about Thee? Are they not charged to preserve Thee? To preserve Thee in all Thy ways? To preserve even Thy feet from coming in contact with the idle stones in Thy path? Show Thy faith then in this promise—Thy faith in their care—Thy faith in Thy rights—by casting Thyself down from this height” (Mat_4:5-6). One ray of truth, as before, clears away all this mist of deceit. God’s promises must be fulfilled in the way that God wills. It is forbidden to man—it is forbidden to any man—thus to put His truth to the test. For to do so would be, in effect, to cast doubt on that truth. This is “written” of old. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Mat_4:7; Deu_6:16).
III. A temptation to treason.—The subtlety of this temptation seems to lie partly in the fact that it makes use of the two previous repulses for a further means of attack. Twice assaulted as the Son of God, the Saviour has answered as man. He shall now be tempted as man. Partly in the fact that it makes its appeal to that which has so often proved the ruin of the great ones of the earth. How often has ambition conquered those who have conquered nearly all else! Seeing, therefore, the marked greatness of Jesus, and convinced of it all the more—in all probability—from the very defeats under which he is smarting, the evil one now seems to have made up his mind to attack Christ on that side. He takes Him, accordingly, to the summit of an “exceeding high mountain,” and shows Him a sudden and far-reaching prospect of “all the kingdoms of the earth.” If He will only do homage to him, as their present possessor, all shall be His (Mat_4:8-9). What a prospect! What easy conditions! Was there ever before so dazzling a prize to be had on such terms? Not for a moment, however, is it so regarded by the Man assaulted thereby. The other temptations had come in disguise as it were. This, on the contrary, is a naked incentive to treason. Unlike the other temptations, therefore, it meets at once with a direct and naked rebuke. “Get thee hence, thou adversary; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve”. (Mat_4:10).
1. The issue of this great conflict is very instructive.—On the one hand, the evil one goes. On the other hand, a company of “angels” come in his place (Mat_4:11). Why not before? Because they are not to share in Christ’s work. Why now? Because they sympathise with it. How often they are found to show this in the great crises of that work! His birth (supra chaps. 1 and 2). His agony in the garden (Luk_22:43). His resurrection (Mat_28:2, etc.). His coming again (Mat_25:31). Observe now, however, that they come to sustain Him in—not to take Him away from—that work. The devil has only “departed from Him for a season” (Luk_4:13). Other and greater conflicts have yet to come. Something as with Elijah in 1Ki_19:5-8, these angels have come to prepare Him therefor.
2. The retrospect of this conflict is equally instructive.—See how momentous a thing in every way is the ministry of this Jesus. The Spirit of God directs it from the first. The whole humanity of Christ is absorbed in it from the first. The mightiest powers from below, with the subtlest of temptations and most resplendent of bribes, are set in action against it. The elect angels also—so far as they can—come to give it their aid. Everywhere it is watched—this blind earth alone excepted—with the deepest concern.
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_4:1-11. The victory of the King.—Every word of the first verses of this narrative is full of meaning. “Then” marks the immediate connection, not only in time but in causation, between the baptism and the temptation. “Of the Spirit”—then God does lead His Son into temptation. For us all, as for Christ, it is true that, though God does not tempt as wishing us to fall, He does so order our lives that they carry us into places where the metal of our religion is tried. “To be tempted”—then a pure, sinless, human nature is capable of temptation, and the King has to begin his career by a battle. “Of the devil”—then there is a dark kingdom of evil, and a personal head of it, the prince of darkness. He knows his rival, and yet he knows Him but partially. To a sinless nature no temptation can arise from within, but must be presented from without.
I. The first assault and repulse in the desert.—Ere Jesus enters on His work, the need which every soul appointed to high and hard tasks has felt, namely, the need for seclusion and communion with God in solitude, was felt by Him. So deep and rapt was the communion that, for forty days, spirit so mastered flesh that the need and desire for food were suspended. But when He touched earth again the pinch of hunger began.
1. The sphere of the temptation.—The physical nature. Hunger, in itself neutral, may, like all physical cravings, lead to sin. Satan had tried the same bait before on the first Adam. At the beginning of His course Jesus is tempted by the innocent desire to secure physical support; at its close He is tempted by the innocent desire to avoid physical pain. He overcomes both.
2. The act suggested.—Seems not only innocent, but in accordance with His dignity. The need is real, the remedy possible and easy; the result desirable as preserving valuable life and putting an end to an anomaly, and the objections apparently nil.
3. The true nature of the act as dragged to light in Christ’s answer.—The bearing of the words quoted on Christ’s hunger is twofold.
(1) He will not use His miraculous power to provide food, for that would be to distrust God, and so to cast off His filial dependence.
(2) He will not separate Himself from His brethren, and provide for Himself by a way not open to them, for that would really be to reverse the very purpose of His incarnation and to defeat His whole work.
II. The second assault and repulse on the temple.—If Jesus was, in bodily reality, standing on the summit of the temple, the tempter, profoundly disbelieving the promise, may have thought that the leap would end his anxieties by the death of his rival. But, at any rate, he sought to lead His faith into wrong paths, and to incite to what was really sinful self-will under the guise of absolute trust. Our Lord’s answer strips off the disguise from the action which seemed so trustful. To cast Himself into dangers needlessly, and then to trust God (whom He had not consulted about going into them) to get Him out, was to “tempt” God. True faith is ever accompanied with true docility. He had come to do His Father’s will. The lessons for us are weighty. Faith may be perverted.
III. The final assault and repulse on the mountain.—Satan has no more to say about “the Son of God.” He has been foiled in both his assaults on Christ in that character. If He stood firm in filial trust and in filial submission, there was no more to be done. So the tempter tries new weapons, and seeks to pervert the desire for that dominion over the world which was a consequence of the Sonship. He has not been able to touch Him as Son; can he not spoil Him as King? They are rivals; can they not strike up a treaty? The hopeless folly of the proposal is typical of the absurdities which lie in all sin. Satan’s boast, like all his wiles, is a little truth and a great lie. His servants do often manage to climb into thrones and other high places. But the father of lies did not say that if he gives a kingdom to one of his servants he takes it from another. He did not say that his gifts are shams, and fade away when the daylight comes. He did not say that he and his are, after all, tools in God’s hands. The temptation was not only to fling away the ideal of His kingdom, but to reverse the means for its establishment. Neither temptation could originate within Christ’s heart, but both beset Him all His life. Christ’s last words are not only His final refusal of all the baits, but the ringing proclamation of war to the death, and that a war which will end in victory. The last temptation teaches us both the nature of Christ’s kingdom and the means of its establishment.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Christ tempted. (To young men.)—Christ here beginning the work of His life. His years in Nazareth were not wasted. He consecrated labour; made working man’s condition honourable.
I. Tempted through His body’s appetite.
1. Nothing wrong about hunger.—In itself nothing wrong in working a miracle to supply it. But to do it at the devil’s bidding was another matter. “If Thou be the Son of God,” q.d., “Does this look like it?” Reflection on God’s love and providential care.
2. Must only suggest to you an ordinary temptation of young men inseparable from their youth and vigorous constitution. Timothy cautioned by Paul: “Flee youthful lusts.” Eating and drinking right per se, but may lead into grosser sins. This other passion right, but leads into grosser and more debasing sins than any other. Remember, only to be satisfied, like Christ’s hunger, in accordance with the will of God; never at the devil’s bidding.
3. If to be of any use for God, keep tight hand on all body’s appetites, all natural cravings.
II. Satan would have Christ needlessly thrust Himself into danger, presuming on safety.—“Cast Thyself down; angels will see Thee safe.” So with young men.You will be safe on that race ground or in that music-hall.Your strength of character is safeguard enough. Or with young Christian men.You may dance.You can go to the theatre and come away unharmed.You are a Christian! You can take the good and leave the evil. No man is safe in self-sought danger. There is danger! Look at the company! Look at the entertainment, generally unworthy a sensible young man, always uncongenial to a godly man! How many young men there ruined by the experiment proposed to you! See who await you at your exit! As well may you expect to rub against a sweep or a miller or a tarred fence and show nothing, as to go to the actual theatre or racecourse and not be the worse. No man may then claim God’s protection. Keep out of danger. Err on safe side. “Descend amongst the crowd in the temple courts and they will more easily believe Thee, Son of God,” q.d., “Go into danger to do good.”
III. “Just once worship me, the world shall be Thine!”—q.d. “All will be Thine, but at what a price! Here is a short and easy road to Thy kingdom.” To young men: “Will get on if only you give up these scruples and bow with the rest. Need only do it once. Just one simple act. Need not really in heart give up anything important.” “Only once” ruined our race; has ruined many a young man since. “Only once” carries the principle: “Cannot get on, to stand so stiffly by Sabbath and religious notions.” Then don’t get on. Be a beggar all your days, but a godly beggar. Be an “unsuccessful man” all your life; see others weighted with fewer scruples get before you in the race and grasp the prizes; but keep your God. Let their carriage wheels bespatter you as, for principle’s sake, you trudge painfully along; yet you are infinitely the gainers! Have none of the devil’s “short cuts” to advantage or prosperity.—H. J. Foster.
Christ’s temptation and the pastoral office.—I. That our ministry may be in harmony with the spirit of Christ, and so exert saving power, its first requisite is experience of our own personal liability to temptation.—This is a quite different experience from a merely general knowledge of our sinfulness. Nor does this liability to temptation lie merely, as people say, on the weak side which every man has. Christ had no weak side. It was His Sonship, His very might and strength, upon which His temptation fastened. And so it is on the strong side of every good Christian man that his chief danger lies, in that which is best and most vigorous in his nature, in his peculiar endowment and excellence, in the very thing which men are to regard as a good gift of God. Hence arises liability to temptation in the three forms of it seen in the temptation of Christ.
1. The temptation (Mat_4:3) to turn natural or spiritual blessings selfishly to account for our own enjoyment and honour.
2. The temptation (Mat_4:6) to stand out and shine before the crowd as a specially gifted man of God, or to attain quick and magnificent results.
3. The temptation (Mat_4:9) to pay homage to the spirit of the age, and to make terms with powers and tendencies which are in the ascendant.
II. Victory is found in a spirit of which the positive elements are—
1. A self-renouncing love of God, which seeks life and strength, not in its own resources, but in the cleaving of the inner nature to the word of God.
2. A humble faith which has more desire to cleave to the definite commands of God than to usurp Divine and glorious promises.
3. Undaunted hope, which does not allow itself to be dazzled by the worldly splendour that strikes the eye, and by the power that rules in the world.—J. T. Beck, D.D.
The Saviour’s temptation.—I. The temptation of our Lord was the result of Divine appointment.—“Jesus was led up of the Spirit.” What the Divine purpose was we may gather from the manner in which His temptation, is in the Epistle to the Hebrews, connected with the exercise of His priestly functions.
1. It was meant to promote that perfection which was necessary to qualify Him for interposing effectually on our behalf both as victim and as priest.
2. The temptation also enabled Him to sympathise with us in our trials, and to help us when engaged in spiritual conflicts like His own. Through these combined effects of His temptation it is that we can “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may
(1) obtain mercy, and
(2) find grace to help us in every time of need.”
II. The scene of the temptation.—It is in the crowd and bustle of life, especially of wealth and fashion, that inducements to evil most abound. The solitude of the desert is freer from temptation, and, moreover, it is more favourable to its resistance, because of the opportunity it gives for quiet reflection and prayer. Therefore we cannot think of our Saviour being tempted in the wilderness without being impressed with the fact that there is no place in this world altogether free from temptation.
III. The time of the temptation is still more significant.—The voice has just testified, This is My beloved Son. What can the devil have to do with Him then? But it was when Moses was on his way down from the Mount, from holding close converse with God, that he gave way to anger and broke the tables of stone. It was just after the victory in Carmel that Elijah was found under the juniper tree. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona,” was closely followed by “Get thee hence, Satan.” It is always on the eve of a specially bright and joyous experience that Satan needs most vigilant attention. Our foe is most malignant when our spiritual elevation is at its highest.—W. Landels, D.D.
Mat_4:3. Reflections on Christ’s first temptation.—
1. No wonder men find themselves daily solicited by Satan unto sin; for Satan’s style from his continual practice is the tempter. It is his trade to tempt.
2. It is possible that such as God loves may be troubled by Satan.
3. It is no wonder to find Satan calling in question the adoption or regeneration of any of God’s children, for he dare call in question the sonship of the Son of God, notwithstanding that within a few days before this, the Father and the Holy Spirit from heaven had borne witness to it.
4. Satan fits his temptations into men’s present case and condition.
5. In tempting, Satan pretends to be careful of helping the tempted party to a better condition. Here he seems desirous both to have bread provided for Christ in His need and also to see Him made manifest as the Son of God by such a miracle.
6. Satan’s temptations are more than one; a number linked together.—David Dickson.
Mat_4:5-7. Our Lord’s second temptation.—
I. Our Lord was carried from the wilderness to the holy city.—Understand by this how all our circumstances in the world may be changed, and yet the tempter be with us still. Hundreds of men have gone out into the desert thinking that in that way they should escape temptation, but it has found them out. The spirit of evil has shown them that they do not escape from him by escaping from men. Then they have run back into the holy city; they have thought that they were exposed to danger because they were away from the ordinances of God. But there, too, they have found there was no security; it has only been a change from “Command these stones to be made bread,” into “Cast thyself down from hence.”
II. Consider what was the particular temptation of our Lord when He was brought into the holy city.—I have no doubt that when our Lord was reflecting on the iniquities of the holy city the devil suggested to Him the thought, “What avails it to be a Jew, to be a citizen of God’s city, a member of the holy nation, when holiness and purity and unity have utterly deserted it? If Thou be the Son of God set an example of throwing away these vain privileges.” Precisely this temptation is presented to all of us this day.
III. Understand next from this history of our Lord’s second temptation that we are not to plead love to our brethren as any excuse for going out of God’s way or doing work which He has not set us to do.—Our Lord was urged to cast Himself down from the temple that He might convince the Jews of their unbelief. He who urged Him to it wished Him in that very thing to commit an act of unbelief. Thousands of such acts have been committed by men who thought that they were honouring God and helping their brethren. They were doing neither. To be working together with God is our highest honour. When we are not doing this we cannot be working any good to ourselves or to any other man.—F. D. Maurice, M.A.
The perversion of holy things.—The holiest things may be perverted to become the most vile temptation.
1. A stay in the holy city.
2. The prospect from the pinnacle of the temple.
3. The promise contained in an inspired psalm.—J. P. Lange, D.D.
Mat_4:8-9. The third temptation.—
I. The root of the third temptation lay in the thought that the kingdoms of the world were the devil’s kingdoms, and that it was he who could dispose of them.—If our Lord had believed this, if He had acknowledged this claim, He would have been falling down and worshipping the evil spirit, He would have been confessing him to be the Lord. But for all that He beheld the horrible vision of human misery and human crime; for all that He found men actually doing homage to the spirit of evil, actually serving him with their thoughts and words and deeds; in spite of all this, He believed and knew that these kingdoms were not the devil’s kingdoms, but God’s kingdoms. He knew that men’s sins began in this, consisted in this, that they thought and believed the devil to be their king, when God was their King.
II. It is hard to believe this, when there are so many things that seem to contradict it.—But believe it we must if we would be honest men. Holy men have been betrayed into sins which make one weep and blush when one reads the history of Christ’s church, because they have thought that falsehood and evil were the lords of the world, and that if they were to overcome the world they must do it by entering into some bargain or compromise with these masters of it. The devil was saying to them, “These are mine, and I give them to whomsoever I will.” They believed him. He asked this token of homage from them, and they paid it. The mischiefs that have followed from every such faithless act have been more than I can tell you, and though they are no warrant to us in condemning others, they are most terrible warnings to ourselves.—F. D. Maurice, M.A.
Mat_4:11. Christ’s victory.—Let us endeavour to gather up the general instruction to be gained from the history of the temptation.
I. Christ has, by His example under temptation, taught us how to resist it.
II. His example shows us the proper use of God’s word.
III. The greatest lesson for the disciple of Jesus to learn from the temptation of his Master is one of encouragement.—When One is set before us as our ever-present Helper, who Himself has passed through the struggle; when we know that we are not alone in the bitterness of our spirits, and that in the darkest place in our course we shall find His footsteps; what a different matter does each Christian’s appointed conflict become—how full of sympathy, how full of promise, how full of Christ!—H. Alford, D.D.
Mat_4:1-11. Temptation and sin.—If Satan be the father of our sins, our will is the mother, and sin is the cursed issue of both.—Bishop Hall.
Temptation and sin.—You can’t prevent the devil from shooting arrows of evil thoughts into your heart; but take care that you do not let such arrows stick fast and grow there. Do as an old man of past times has said: “I can’t prevent a bird from flying over my head, but I can prevent him from making a nest in my hair.”—Martin Luther.
Commonness of temptation.—The story of the temptation is peculiar, but it is not wholly unique. It is not without its parallel in human experience, not without its analogue in literature and history. The great heroes whom the world reveres have passed through similar experiences of test and trial. Thus, in the legends of the East, there is brought to us the story of the temptation of Buddha on that night when all the powers of evil gathered around about him to assail him by violence or to entice him by wiles.
Nor knoweth one,
Not even the wisest, how those fiends of hell
Battled that night to keep the truth from Buddh:
Sometimes with terrors of the tempest, blasts
Of demon-armies clouding all the wind
With thunder, and with blinding lightning flung
In jagged javelins of purple wrath
From splitting skies; sometimes with wiles and words
Fair-sounding, ’mid hushed leaves and softened airs
From shapes of witching beauty; wanton songs,
Whispers of love; sometimes with royal allures
Of proffered rule; sometimes with mocking doubts,
Making truth vain.
So, in the mythology of Greece, we have the story of the temptation of Hercules. Pleasure comes to him in wanton but bewitching form, and bids him follow her, and promises him the cup of pleasure and that he shall drink of it. She will strew his path with flowers all the way, and accompany him with song and dancing. Wisdom comes to him with sterner voice—with beauty, indeed, but with solemn and almost forbidding beauty—and calls him to combat and to battle that he may win manhood. So, in the later history of the church, is the strange, mystical—superstitious, if you will—story of the temptation of St. Anthony, with its wiles and its enticements, with its demons inviting to sin by smiles, and its demons tormenting with red-hot pincers. In human history we find the same or like record. We have like temptations in the lives of John Wesley, of Luther, of Xavier, of Loyola. Open the page of history where you will, and you can hardly find the story of any great, noble, prophetic soul that has not had its hour of battle with the powers of darkness, sometimes not turning out so well as with Buddha, or with Hercules, or with Jesus of Nazareth.—L. Abbott, D.D.
Temptation sometimes subtle.—A favourite amusement of the German students is duelling. The arrangements for a duel are made very secretly, lest they should come to the knowledge of the police. One morning I rose at five, went twelve miles by train, and then walked some distance to an old castle, to witness one of these duels. All the approaches to the place were watched. The fight took place in the old dining-hall of the ruin. The students who were to fight were two of the most famous duellists in Germany. They began, and fought about a dozen rounds. I observed that one of the two had only a single form of stroke—downwards upon the head; the other tried many different forms. The spectators wondered what the first could mean, as he had never been known to fight in that way before. Suddenly, at the thirteenth round, his eye flashed; and with a rapid movement he changed his stroke, and brought his sword upwards, cleaving the chin of his opponent, who fell senseless to the ground, with a wound that he would bear all his life. How did it happen? It was the sudden change of direction. Temptation veers about as suddenly and unexpectedly; and unless we watch we shall be taken off our guard.—Professor H. Drummond.
Mat_4:9. Satan, a liar.—O, thou lying devil, how thou dost lie still! Thou that didst lie art the father of lies. Thou didst say to Napoleon the Great, “If thou wilt bow down before me and worship me, I will give thee the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof,” and thou didst give him St. Helena. And to Napoleon III., “Bow down to me and worship me, and I will give thee the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof,” and thou didst give him Chiselhurst. And to Aaron Burr, “Bow down to me, and I will give thee the Presidency and political power,” and thou didst give him exile and shame and disgrace.—L. Abbott, D.D.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Mat 4:1-11; Mar 1:12-13; Luk 4:1-13. Matthew says that…
THE TEMPTATION
Mat 4:1-11; Mar 1:12-13; Luk 4:1-13. Matthew says that “He was led by the Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil.” Mark says: “The Spirit immediately impels Him away into the desert. And He was there in the desert forty days, being tempted by the devil; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels continued to minister unto Him.” Luke says: “Jesus, full of the Holy Ghost, went away from the Jordan; and was led by the Spirit into the desert, being tempted by the devil forty days. And He ate nothing during those days; and they being completed, He was afterward hungry.” I have gazed much upon the Mount of Temptation, lifting his bleak, rugged summit immediately west of Old Jericho, whose walls fell down responsive to the shouts of Israel, and about twenty miles from the ford of the Jordan where Jesus was baptized. It is a bleak, desolate, rugged, dreary region, inhabited only by wild beasts and robbers, unless the Bedoum, in his wanderings, here pitches his tent. The fact that Matthew and Luke positively state that He became hungry after the forty days, and Mark certifies that the angels were ministering unto Him throughout these forty days, involves the conclusion that He was supernaturally kept, in a state of spiritual rhapsody, like Moses and Elijah, during the forty days, so that He did not realize the sensation of hunger until after their expiration; and the ministering angels retiring, the natural, physical condition returns, and with it an intense sensation of hunger, as He had been forty days entirely without physical nutriment. Mark and Luke both state that the temptation was going on during the forty days, while Matthew states that after the forty days, the tempter coming to Him, said, “If Thou art the Son of God, say that these stones Mark, and Luke, we conclude that during the forty days He was undergoing a temptation by the combined minions of perdition, and the powers of darkness turned loose against Him; meanwhile, the angels are present with Him, and through their sympathetic and consolatory ministrations, He enjoys a heavenly prelibation to such an extent as to fill His spirit with an unearthly rapture, the indwelling Holy Spirit, whom He had received when He descended on Him at the Jordan, so thrilling Him with heavenly ecstasy as to supersede and hold in suspense the physical appetites, so as to suspend the sensation of hunger during the forty days of angelic ministration. During this period, while evidently the powers of darkness are turned loose against Him, and doubtless the monsters of the pit swarm around Him, their hideous howling commingling with the growl and the roar of the wild beasts, yet, amid all, He enjoys a glorious victory, so that His spiritual rapture enables Him so to triumph over the physical destitution and depletion as to utterly suspend the sensation of hunger. At the expiration of forty days, the angels having retreated away, and the roar of the hell-hounds, the hissing of reptiles, and the ferocity of the wild beasts all combine to augment the dismal solitude and the awful peril of the situation, suddenly King Diabolus, having vacated his ebony throne in the Pandemonium, and assuming the form of a great and mighty man, like Napoleon Bonaparte or Alexander the Great, dressed in all the pompous costume of royal majesty, approaches Him, and enters upon a personal interview. The ministering angels have retreated away; His spiritual rhapsody no longer holding in suspense the physical functions, a fearful collapse of exhausted nature now supervenes, the intensity of His hunger, after a fast of forty days, being utterly inconceivable. Here we see Jesus at the greatest possible disadvantage.
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(a) He is in the enemy’s territory, surrounded by desolation and horror; the ferocious wild beasts ready to devour Him, and more ferocious demons and hellish monsters on all sides, every angel having retreated away, and the bright glory of heaven mantled in dark eclipse, with the awful intensity of hunger, super induced by a forty days’ fast.
(b) In addition to all this, the prince of the Pandemonium, with the cultured intelligence of an archangel, now meets Him, with a personal order to satisfy His poor body with bread.
We must remember that, as Jesus was free from infirmity and from all physical ailment, which so frequently, in our case, suspends the appetite for food, His hunger subsequently to the expiration of the forty days and the angelic ministry was unutterably intense. While the Divinity of Christ could not be tempted, His humanity was tempted, in all the three great departments constituent to our being; i.e., the physical, spiritual, and intellectual.
(c) You observe from the inspired narrative that Satan made his first assault against the physical nature of Jesus, availing himself of the most superlative case of intensified hunger in order to induce Him to satisfy it by resorting to a miracle, which would be out of harmony with the Divine economy, because in probationary life we must be true to providence as well as grace, the former appertaining to the body, and the latter the soul; hence it was pertinent that Jesus, like every other man, should await the providence of God to satisfy His hunger.
In the case of Adam the First, Satan began with the physical, as now in the temptation of Jesus, it so turned out that he economized two thirds of his ammunition, achieving a complete victory in his first assault; i.e., slaying Adam on the first round. If he had failed in the temptation of his body with the fruit, he would then have proceeded to carry the war with all possible expedition into the dominion of spirit and intellect. Not so in the case of Adam the Second; there, Satan used all of his ammunition and lost it all.
(d) You see here the simple method by which Jesus defeated the devil:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth through the mouth of God.” He is our Infallible Example, who alone has a right to teach the Christian soldier how to fight. If we will follow His example, we are certain to always have victory. You may fight the devil with your creed, and he will run over you rough-shod. Fight him with the plain, simple Word of God, and, like the Salvation Army song,
“If you want to see the devil run, Always shoot him with a gospel gun.”
(e) “Then the devil taketh Him into the holy city, and places Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and says to Him, if Thou art the Son of God, cast Thyself down; for it has been written, He gives His angels charge over Thee, to hear Thee up, lest Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.” (Psa 91:2)
Satan is a great Scriptorian, always ready to quote it; but never giving it correctly. So you find Satan’s preachers, always twisting and turning the Word of the Lord to suit their creed. In this quotation, Diabolus very adroitly omits the clause, “In all Thy ways.” We can perfectly rely upon the keeping power of God, so long as we are in the Divine order; but when we get out, then the devil drops a lasso round our necks. In this assault — i.e., Satan’s second campaign against Jesus — he directs his ammunition against the citadel of His human spirit, the receptacle of Divine grace and keeping-power through faith. Consequently the enemy makes a gattling- gun attack on His faith, using all of his chicanery to vitiate it, by turning it into presumption, which is the devil’s counterfeit for faith. O how Satan manipulates to supply the pulpits and the pews with this counterfeit at which is but a trap-door to let them fall into hell! The people believe their creed and support their Church, and presume that they are Christians, while experimentally ignorant of that faith which alone can move the mountains of sin out of their hearts. Again, Jesus uses the Sword of the Spirit, responding to Satan, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Deu 6:16.) This consummates the second victory which Jesus won in that memorable wilderness battle. The holy city here, as revealed by Luke, was Jerusalem, whose magnificent temple, so splendidly and artistically built and repaired by Herod the Great, had several lofty towers, to the highest of which Satan now leads Jesus, and having Him now in position and plight to leap away and take chances on the stone pavement several hundred feet below, he makes the bold challenge. It is about twenty-five miles away from the Mount of Temptation in Judea to Jerusalem. I trow, Satan, in gaudy sacerdotal robes, or perhaps royal regalia, in human incarnation, actually became the concomitant of Jesus for a period of time not here specified, but beginning at the end of the forty days. shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of the same, and says to Him, All these will I give unto Thee if, falling down, You may worship before me.” Luke states, “Because it has been given unto me, and I give it to whom I wish.”
Here we see that Satan resorts to a positive and unequivocal falsehood; though he has a false claim on the world, and a dominion over it which he has usurped, and for the time being — for reasons not well known to us, but doubtless lying deep in the probationary economy — he is permitted, in a sense, to reign over the world during the present evil age. (2Co 4:4.) Where E.V. represents God as calling the devil the “god of this world,” the true reading is the “god of this age,” as the world is to be gloriously redeemed after the Satanic age has come to an end. This is peculiar to Satan’s method of lying, especially to the people of God. While it is a substantial falsehood, it exhibits a phase of truth, in the simple fact of his usurped and temporarily permitted dominion over this world, which, even in the most plausible aspect, is subordinated to the sovereign, discriminating providence of God. We have no specification here as to what mountain this was. Mt. Olivet, east of Jerusalem, is the highest in all Southern Palestine. Mt. Pisgah, in full view, in the Land of Moab, east of the Dead Sea, is the highest in all that region. Mt. Hermon, two hundred miles north, ten thousand feet high, is actually the highest in all the Land of Canaan. As Luke says Satan “showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time”, he must have resorted to a panorama, in which he exhibited before the eye of Jesus all the time-honored kingdoms and mighty empires possessing and ruling the world at that time. This temptation was an assault against the powerful, unfallen intellect of Jesus. The greatest minds the ages have ever known, have all been embargoed, darkened, and paralyzed by the fall. As an Intellectualist, the Man Jesus stands alone in the world. Do you not see in His life how all the genius and the learning of the world and the fallen Church were laid under contribution to confuse, tangle up, and perplex Him? In all the histories of the ages, no other absolutely imperturbable man has ever been found. All the sophistry of priests, theologians, and politicians combined, signally failed in any case to embarrass or confuse Him. This final assault of the enemy, on the line of human ambition, appeals to His wonderful intellect. Nebuchadnezzar, order to conquer and possess it. These were all powerful intellectualists. The greater the intellect, the more incorrigible the ambition. The Greek proskuneses not only means worship, in the sense of adoration offered to a god, hut it means that homage and civility which we extend to persons of royal rank and dignity.
(g) You must remember that Satan before his fall was a great archangel, one of the brightest that ever shone around the effulgent Throne.
The Son of God is uncreated and co-eternal with the Father. Doubtless, during this interview, which was probably more prolix than we generally think, Satan adverted to their old friendship in the regions of fadeless bliss, and perhaps appealed to His sympathies; as amid those terrible troubles which had already resulted in his ejectment from heaven, he had resorted to an effort to enlarge his dominions by the accession of this world to the contracted regions of woe; and now, “O Son of God, that You have come to dispute my claim to the planet Earth, I propose to compromise the whole matter by surrendering up to You the sole and exclusive dominion of this controverted territory, with the understanding that You shall have it and reign over it forever, while I will reign in the dominion of Hades; meanwhile, I shall enjoin but one condition on Your part, and that is, that You and I shall be friends again, as in bygone ages in celestial worlds.” Of course, any complicity with Satan would have abducted the humanity from the Divinity, which, in that case, would have returned back to heaven, the plan of salvation collapsing forever. “Then Jesus says to him, Get behind Me, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord God; Him only shalt thou serve.” (Deu 6:13.) “Then Satan leaves Him,” as Luke says, “for a season.”
“Behold, the angels came and continued to minister unto Him.” Here you see that a single stroke with the Sword of the Spirit repels Satan, and consummates the victory. There is now good reason for his final and utter withdrawal from the battle-field. Every army retreats the moment their ammunition is all expended. As Satan had no possible access to the Divinity, he could only work on the humanity, which, pursuant to the Divine similitude in which man was created, has but three entities — i.e., the physical, spiritual, and intellectual. When Satan had turned all the battering rams of hell against these three towers of Mansoul, and in every case suffered signal defeat, he could do nothing more than retreat from the field, crestfallen and hopelessly defeated. What a decisive contrast with his first battle against humanity in Eden, where he saved two thirds of his ammunition, Adam falling on the first assault! But now, in his campaign against Adam the Second, you see he used all of his ammunition, and lost it all. Glorious victory for you and me, and all who, through evangelical repentance and humble faith, will receive it!
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. When the first Adam fell, by temptation, from…
Mat 4:1
I. When the first Adam fell, by temptation, from a garden to a wilderness, from abundance to want, from empire to slavery, from heaven to hell; and when by the same steps as he descended, our Lord ascended,—the first and second Adam were not individuals; each was a representative man; each was the head of a body; each represented multitudes; each drew with him a vast membership. And as in the one many sank, so in the other many rose. We see, then, a beautiful imagery, or reason, why Christ’s temptation should be just what it was, and that it should lie at the commencement of His work on earth. It was to teach us that, as a victorious tempter closed the gates of Paradise, so that tempter, conquered, should be the very reason for those gates unclosing.
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II. We must always remember that our Saviour’s temptation took place immediately after His baptism. So it lay at the foundation of His ministry. First the outpouring of the good Spirit, and then the assaultings of the evil one. First an unction of grace, and then an unction of discipline. And both essential preparations for after-work.
III. They know little who think that they can avoid temptation by flying into solitudes. Expect Satan when you are alone. Stand in your fullest armour when you are alone. But be assured of this—temptations make the Christian. They are the trainings on earth for works of usefulness; and they are the trainings for service in heaven. They humble the man. They prove the grace that is in him, by proving his strength. And they are the best schools for after-sympathy. Therefore no believer has cause to regret his temptations. Rather, it is beautiful to see how, in God’s discipline, they mellow the character, and draw out the latent forces. If the very name of wilderness associates itself with Satan, it is associated with Satan’s downfall. If he is there, so is his Conqueror.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th scries, p. 61.
The baptism of Christ was the culminating point of the spiritual development of His inner life. It was a moment of ecstatic joy, of the highest consciousness of inspiration. We make a mistake, when we think that those forty days in the wilderness were all days of temptation and sorrow. They must have been, on the contrary, days, at first, of peaceful rest, of intense joy.
I. But now we meet the question: How did this become test—temptation? To understand this we must recall the two great ideas in His mind; the first that He was at one with the Father—that gave Him His perfect joy; the second that He was the destined Redeemer of the race, the Messiah long desired by men. (1) But—and here is the point at which suffering and test entered—these two voices directly contradicted one another. As soon as Christ turned to the world, with the greeting of His love, He heard coming from the world an answering greeting of welcome, but the ideas which lay beneath it were in radical opposition to His own. The vision of an omnipotent king, and an external kingdom, was presented to His spirit as the ideal of the Jewish people. It came rudely into contact with the vision in His own heart of a king made perfect by suffering, of a kingdom hidden at first, in the hearts of men. It is no difficulty to see the depth and manifoldness of the tests which arose from the clashing of these too opposed conceptions. (2) Christ’s humanity was plunged into the deepest sorrow, engaged in the pain of a tremendous struggle against the evil conception formed by men of His mission and His work.
II. The temptation of Christ in the wilderness represents the great law of the history of man’s nature—that every one of us must, in order to realize our true work and moral position in this world, meet and contend with the powers of evil. Christ is the King by victory of all the warrior-host of God. No truths can be dearer to a human heart than these two—the sympathy of the Son of man in temptation; the victory of humanity in the Son of man over evil.
S. A. Brooke, Sermons, p. 251.
I. It was necessary that our Saviour should undergo this conflict, as a part of our redemption. But there can be no doubt that the temptation of our Lord occurred as it did, and has been related as it stands in Scripture, to serve as a model for us, who are still struggling with our subtle foe. And it is of the highest value to us, to trace His conduct under these solicitations, that we may make it our own also, to mark how He handles the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, that we may learn and practise its use for ourselves.
II. Consider the possibility of the temptation. Granted, we may suppose it said, that such a conflict with, and victory over, the tempter was necessary for our Lord; yet how could it in Him assume the form of temptation to sin? Was He not sinless? In answering this question, we must bear in mind, first, how entirely, in our Lord’s case, all these solicitations were from without. No motions towards sin can spring up in a person who is sinless. The possibility of the temptation lay in this, that the tempter found in Jesus the same physical tendencies and the same desires which had in our case furnished the inlets to sin. On these he wrought. The enfeebled bodily frame of our Redeemer—the challenge to prove His Divine Sonship—the subtle use made of the fact that He came into the world to be a King—all these seemed to promise success, but all these were tried in vain; for the enemy had nothing in Him.
III. Consider the nature of the temptations. Though they are threefold, yet one ruling idea pervades them all, and it is this, the accomplishing the lawful ends of His mission by unlawful means. The whole was a subtly contrived and consistent endeavour to divert our Saviour from the spiritual course of becoming the Lord of the dead and living, into another and a carnal course; from that path which, steep as it was and unpromising, was the one chosen by Divine wisdom for the salvation of the world, into that which, however it might surely issue in discomfiture and the enemy’s triumph, was yet for the present level and alluring. It was a bold and crafty attempt to set aside the true Messiahship of Jesus, and to substitute for it another false messiahship, which might be received by the Jews, and enjoy a short-lived popularity and a rapid access to fame.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 137.
No sooner had Jesus been baptized, while He was yet full of the Holy Ghost, than temptation came. Was that a fall? No, temptation is no fall: it is simply the mark of a true humanity; it is the test which brings out what is highest in human nature; it is the measure and gauge of its noble qualities; you may call it the very mark in man of his diviner being.
I. Observe that temptation assailed Christ first on that very spiritual ground on which He stood. "If thou be the Son of God." Two snares beset Him on that ground; two subtle temptations, addressed, the one to the active, the other to the passive, side of His Divine relationship; the one to that sense of power which He derived from His entire union with and trust in God; the other to that very trust from which it sprang. The first was to put forth the miraculous power He possessed as the perfect Son of God, but so as to assert His independence of God, not His trust in Him. "Command that these stones be made bread."
II. We can understand that our Lord was left by the failure of the first assault upon Him in a very high state of blessedness and exaltation, more than conscious of God’s favour and more than ever devoted to His will. Now, that very exaltation of spirit is to be turned into a snare. He had planted himself firmly upon the principle of self-renunciation and dependence upon God. Nothing was ever likely to shake Him from that ground. But might not His trust be corrupted into presumption, and His spirit of filial self-surrender into a fanatical throwing of Himself away? This I conceive to be the meaning of the second temptation. In Christ’s view it was not all sacrifice that would be pleasing in God’s sight, not every form of trust that would prove a childlike spirit, and give Him the title to be called the Son of God. Life was too holy, and God’s providence was too holy, to be trifled with, even to produce a great impression.
III. In passing to the third temptation of Christ we are struck at once by the change of ground on which it rests, as compared with the two which preceded it. In both of these it was seen that there were spiritual grounds for the course suggested. The third temptation was a temptation to substitute the material for the spiritual world, to take this, and not the other, for the field of His ambition and the object of His work; to banish from His thoughts, as a mere day-dream, the idea of a God to work for in the world, a God who claimed men for His own, and whom it was His special mission to declare to them. And the bribe held out was worldly power. When the temptation comes to us, as it is sure to come, in one form or other, may we have grace to act upon the instinctive horror which the first notion of it stirs, for the instinct is true that it is devil-worship; may we stand as Christ stood, and say, "Get thee behind me, Satan."
A. Young, Cambridge Review, March 4th, 1885.
The temptations of the devil were all skilfully directed to try the question whether Jesus was so thoroughly one with the Father as He professed to be, and as it was necessary that He should be; whether His Father’s business really was the one interest of His heart and the great business of His life; whether His delight in doing God’s will was so strong that it could not be overcome by any intense feeling; whether, under high pressure, some discord might not be revealed between Him and the Father.
I. Can He be tempted to use His power for any unwarrantable act of self-indulgence? He is faint and hungry through long fasting, and the craving for food is intense. Though He has no food in His hands, He has ample power of producing it. He has power to turn the very stones into bread. Why should He not use that power? In some way or other this thought is instilled by the devil into Jesus’ mind. But Jesus intuitively apprehends that this course is not in accordance with the Father’s will. The miraculous power which He has received is a for sign to the world, not a mere convenience to Himself; His miracles are to be symbols of men’s deliverance from the thraldom of evil, not mere sources of ease or comfort to the worker. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
II. Baffled here, the tempter tries another device. He cannot tempt Jesus to any act of self-indulgence, but may He not tempt Him to an act of self-display? What if the crowd of worshippers were to see Him descending unhurt from the pinnacle of the Temple? Would not that give them a new sense of the honour in which they should hold Him, and gain for Him an attention not to be otherwise secured? It was a subtle temptation to put self in the centre. Such a course could not but be regarded by Jesus as showing a discord with the Father, as decided, though not as flagrant, as if He had directly disobeyed His will. It was a proposal He never could entertain. Never of His own accord would He plunge into danger to let the world see how God protected Him. He would do His work quietly and steadily, avoiding all display, neither seeking nor desiring the applause of men.
III. But even yet the tempter has not exhausted his wiles. He knows the greatness and the difficulty of the work which Jesus has undertaken; He knows that He has got the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Inch by inch the Messiah must push His conquests, encountering in each case the natural opposition of the heart, and from time to time the confederate forces of all His foes. Might not the desired result be reached in a shorter way? Satan offers to make over to Jesus his whole power and interest in the world on one small condition. Jesus must do obeisance to him as a sovereign transferring his rights; He must fall down and worship him. "Get thee behind Me, Satan." The immediate possession of the whole world is not for a moment to be dreamed of at the cost of even one act of disloyalty to God. Jesus would encounter ten thousand battles, would spend centuries in pain and disappointment, rather than so much as breathe a thought out of keeping with the claims of the great Lord of all.
W. G. Blaikie, Glimpses of the Inner Life of our Lord, p. 74.
The Missionary Trials of the Church.
All who are earnestly striving for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom on earth are exposed from the very earnestness of their seeking and striving to one great temptation, the one which really underlies all the three temptations of our Lord, and to which He was exposed all His life long—the temptation to promote His Kingdom by means which are not in agreement with that one fundamental law according to which alone it can truly develop itself. That law is the law of conquest by self-sacrifice.
I. First, there is the trial of the wilderness. The first temptation is a proposal to preserve the human life of Jesus by means of His Divine power; that is, to preserve it by violation of that law of His Kingdom which forbade Him thus to save Himself. Had He clone thus He would have refused the Cross.
"Man doth not live by bread alone." This is the martyr spirit of the Church. In this spirit the early Church conquered the world. Thus beneath this banner of the Cross her warriors went forth to victory, and it was not until the wilderness trial had ended that her missionary zeal abated, her first love grew cold, and she left the heathen half won, the uttermost parts of the earth unclaimed for her Lord.
II. Let us follow our Lord from the wilderness to the temple, from lowliness to prominence, from weakness to power, from fear to security. As in the wilderness—the region of the natural—the temptation was mainly to the flesh, here in the region of the spiritual the temptation is altogether to the spirit: "Cast Thyself down, for angels shall bear Thee up."
The history of the second temptation is written at large in the history of the visible Church. The pinnacles of success, the high places of spiritual triumph, are giddy and slippery places. Ever as our Churches grow will grow their difficulties from these sources. False doctrines, heresies, schisms have yet to be encountered. The struggle of the earlier Church is for existence; as she grows, her trial is to order her life aright.
III. The tempter’s offer in the third temptation was nothing less than the surrender to Christ of all the power he had possessed and all the glory he had usurped—the power to rule men, the glory of the empire over the beings whom God had made in His own image. It was this empire—not merely material but moral—over the kingdoms of men, that the tempter offered the Son of man.
And ever from that hour the tempter tries, by the same temptation, the souls of Christ’s disciples. Truly it is possible for any of us to have some larger portion of the world if we will only pay the devil’s price for it. And it would seem as if the temptation to compromise with the devil for the possession of God’s world is the great temptation of Christian Churches and Christian nations in these latter days.
Bishop Magee, The Gospel and the Age, p. 57.
The life of Jesus is the example of His people. What He did, we must do; what He suffered, we must suffer. As Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness of Judæa, to be tempted of the devil, so are we led by the same Spirit through the wilderness of this world, and all our life here is a tempted life.
I. It was after He had partaken of two great means of grace, Baptism and Fasting, that Jesus was tempted. Great spiritual blessings are often followed by very severe temptations.
II. The three kinds of temptation which were offered to our Lord correspond very closely with the enemies with whom we all have to fight; the flesh, the world, and the devil.
III. Try to encounter the devil’s attack with the weapon of Holy Writ. There is written down what a Christian’s duty is; hold fast to that.
IV. Do not willingly put yourselves in the way of temptation. As says an old writer, "Do not shout in the ear of a sleeping temptation." When it is the Holy Spirit who leads us, however severe our trial may be, God will, with the temptation, provide a means for our escape.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty, vol. i., p. 140.
I. All good men who had ever been in the world had believed that they were in some way or other united to One whom they could not see. They were good and right and true, so far as they trusted in Him, and guided their steps by the light He gave them. But every man knew that there was something in him which hindered him from exercising this trust, something which said, "Thou canst live without it." Each man was fighting with himself, fighting with his own evil inclinations; it seemed as if he had nothing to do with his neighbours; it seemed as if the desire to resist was one that no one else could possibly share in. Every one was alone in this war, and yet it was the common war, the war of all mankind.
II. What fight could our Lord have to fight, seeing that the very thing which all other men had been contending with in themselves was not in Him? Do you not see that He would be able to feel fully what each one had felt imperfectly, that He was fighting the common enemy—fighting an enemy who was entirely separate from Him, who was the most entirely unlike Him, and who, therefore, was assaulting Him more directly than he had ever assaulted any other being? He that was perfectly separate from sin would see down to the root of each particular sin, and would know that it was this which was seeking to destroy Him, and which He was come to destroy. His conflict, therefore, would be with the very spirit of selfishness, and division, and disobedience. This is the awful battle which you hear of in the Gospel of today.
III. Our Lord’s fast was not to gain anything for Himself, but to maintain a glory which belonged to Him; to fit Him for engaging with His enemy; to fit Him for going about doing good. Even so must it be with His disciples. When they fast it must not be to obtain a privilege, but to realize one which God has freely bestowed on them; not to save themselves from temptation, but to prepare themselves for it; not to separate themselves from others, but to fit themselves better for helping others.
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p. 142.
References: Mat 4:1—W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of the Temptation, p. 1; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. i., p. 146; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 51; E. M. Goulburn, Thoughts on Personal Religion, p. 200; C. A. Fowler, Parochial Sermons, p. 61; J. M. McCulloch, Sermons, p. 95; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 344; H. Wonnacott, Ibid., vol. xiv., p. 59; vol. xvi., p. 72; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 91; J. C. Jones, Studies in St. Matthew, p. 70; E. G. Charlesworth, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 46; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 20; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 1. Mat 4:1, Mat 4:2.—E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, p. 391; H. Bushnell, Christ and His Salvation, p. 77.
Mat 4:1-4
The record of our Lord’s temptation, which is specially commended to our consideration in Lent, must needs be momentous,—first, in its import for the comprehension of the spirit of His ministry, and secondly in its example to ourselves.
I. Consider especially the first temptation, to turn the stones into loaves of bread. This, as we are expressly told, was addressed to our Lord’s sense of physical necessity and suffering, combined with His consciousness of the possession of miraculous power by which He might have relieved them. And in what did the evil of the suggestion consist? There were, it has been observed, other times in our Lord’s life and ministry when He did not hesitate to have recourse to His miraculous powers, even for His own preservation, as when He passed through the hostile crowd at Nazareth; and there seems obviously nothing essentially wrong in the exercise of such powers. But our Lord’s answer, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," points to the fact that the use of His miraculous power on this occasion would have been inconsistent with the express will and words of His Father. His endurance, for reasons beyond our full comprehension, had been imposed upon Him by the Spirit of God, and He would, therefore, have been acting in disobedience to an express direction of His Father if He had used the power with which He was endued to escape from the trial.
II. Now it would seem obvious that this is an example of the earliest and simplest—and yet, in some respects, the most persistent—temptation by which ordinary human beings are beset. The commonest temptations of life are aroused by physical cravings, together with the opportunity of gratifying those cravings in some manner which is contrary to the declared will and ordinance of God. Man’s only safety lies in grasping the principle which our Lord here asserted in answer to the tempter, that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." So far as it is necessary for him to live here, all natural provision that is essential for him will be made by his Father in Heaven. Let us seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto us.
H. Wace, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 145.
Reference: Mat 4:1-4.—C. Morris, Preacher’s Lantern, vol. iii., pp. 109, 177.
Mat 4:1-11
I. One cannot help thinking and wondering why this temptation should take place, and though all the reasons cannot be known, some of them we think we can see. We know there is a devil. Perhaps the most clever of all Satanic schemes is that in which he persuades men that he does not exist. What would suit a general better than to persuade the troops he is seeking to destroy that he is a mere creature of the imagination, that all the stories told about his being seen are mere inventions, and that, therefore, there is no need to take any precautions?
II. If Christ had not been tempted, we should have heard the old mocking laugh of Satan, as when God spoke of Job, "Thou hast set an hedge about him." If Satan had not been worsted in the struggle how cleverly would he have insinuated that the Saviour was not perfect. Satan cannot now say that Christ is untried.
III. Then, it has been proved that a man can resist sin in its strongest forms, for it was not as God that Jesus was tempted, but as the Son of man. It was the human nature that was tempted. Where would be the force of reasoning in Heb 4:13 if we are to believe that it was the Divine and not the human which fought and won the battle?
IV. As we read the story of the temptation, we cannot but be struck with the ignorance of Satan concerning Jesus. He did not understand Him. Let us not lose sight of the fact that the arch-enemy is not omniscient. He learns quickly, but there are many things he has yet to learn. Besides, he, like bad men, is ready to think that every one is as bad as himself. The fact is, Satan cannot appreciate goodness, and makes as many mistakes as ever.
V. Jesus has taught us the use of the Bible in self-defence. The Captain of our salvation girded Himself with the sword of the Spirit. It is useless to expect to conquer without the heavenly brand. You will be mortally wounded if you are not able to parry the strokes of the enemy. Search out the meaning of God’s word, and what you know, use. There was great vehemence in the words of Jesus. He was not content to parry the stroke; He cut with the edge of His blade. And the wounds He made have not healed to this day.
T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold, p. 55.
References: Mat 4:1-11.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 57; vol. ii., p. 419; vol. viii., p. 68; T. Collins, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 248; R. C. Trench, Studies in the Gospels, p. 1; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 96; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., pp. 44, 161; A. Macleod, Talking to the Children, p. 21; Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. i., pp. 99, 109; A. M. Fairbairn, Expositor, 1st series, vol. iii., p. 321; J. J. Murphy, Ibid., 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 312; G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 126. Mat 4:2.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 44; W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of the Temptation, p. 32.
Mat 4:2-4
Observe:—
I. the depth of the intention of Satan’s question. It opens at once a dilemma. Canst Thou be thus without bread, and yet be the Son of God? Nay, the thing is contradictory. "Give up the thought of Thy Sonship." Satan’s great aim is to cut off the sense of sonship, for he knows well how the peace and the holiness of every man depend upon the feeling himself the child of God. Therefore, he does everything in the world to check that confidence in a man’s soul.
II. What would have been the result if Christ had followed Satan’s advice? It would have been (1) to do what Christ never did, to work a miracle for Himself, and exert His omnipotence only for His own gratification; (2) it would have been distrustful of the Divine providence, to go out of His way to obtain by the supernatural that which God could and did supply by natural means; and (3) it would have placed the material above the spiritual, the well-being of the body above the welfare of the soul.
III. Our Lord’s answer takes us at once to this high thought, not only that God will provide—as He did by the manna—what is necessary for the body, but that He is the food for the soul; the food of truth—truth in Scripture, truth in Christ; a food far more important than material bread; as much more important as spirit is more important, and if you fell, there was a point where you did precipitate yourself.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, pp. 77, 85.
References: Mat 4:2-4.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 150; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 13.
Mat 4:3
I. The first recorded trial of our Saviour connects itself no doubt with His recent fast or extreme abstemiousness of forty days. He was afterwards an hungred. "If Thou be the Son of God," said the tempter, "command that these stones be made bread." "Devote," in other words, "the first exercise of those Divine gifts and miraculous powers, with which Thou art endowed, to the supply of the bodily and material necessities." Before expending this miraculous faculty in the most direct, and normal, and habitual service of the Heavenly Father, why not inaugurate its exercise by employing it for the first time in creating a treasure, easily convertible into bodily supplies, that can at all times be conveniently resorted to, and which shall place Himself and His indigent followers in a position independent of the sordid cares of life, and keep the Divine work from being checked or choked by the miserable anxieties of material existence?
II. And yet, if we may without irreverence for a moment imagine the Saviour to have listened to that suggestion, He would have deranged thereby the whole economy of the Kingdom of God. The power with which He was gifted, or which rather He brought with Him from the throne of God, was sufficient, and no more, for the purpose of effecting His sublime mission upon earth. In visiting this earth the Redeemer laid aside not only His Divine glory, but His Divine power also, except so much of it as was needed for effecting works of mercy upon other people. For Himself He never permitted the smallest employment of that mysterious faculty, for the supply of one fragment of bread, nor of one cup of water, nor for the assuagement of one throb of pain. To have placed Himself in a position of superhuman security against the wants and infirmities of human nature; to have reserved for His own personal behoof a fund from which every want could be easily supplied, would have been to place Himself outside the circle of humanity. It would have been to defeat, to neutralize, to cancel that profound and that sublime self-sacrifice which constitutes the essence and heart of Christianity.
W. H. Brookfield, Sermons, p. 252.
Spiritual Temptations.
I. The danger of spiritual temptations is that they do not look like temptations. They do not look ugly, absurd, wrong. They look pleasant, reasonable, right. The devil, says the Apostle, transforms himself into an angel of light. If so, then he is certainly far more dangerous than if he came as an angel of darkness and horror. Our worst temptations sometimes look so exactly like what is good, and noble, and useful, and religious, that we mistake the evil for the good, and play with it till it stings us, and we find out too late that the wages of sin is death.
II. How shall we get to know these temptations? The root of them all is pride and self-conceit. Whatsoever thoughts or feelings tempt us to pride and self-conceit are of the devil, not of God. The spirit of pride cannot understand the beauty of humility, and the spirit of self-will cannot understand the beauty of obedience; and, therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that the devil could not understand our Lord. The temptations were clearly meant to tempt our Lord to pride. Whenever we, in like manner, are tempted to do or say anything rash, or vain, or mean, because we are the children of God; whenever we are inclined to be puffed up with spiritual pride, to fancy that we may take liberties which other men must not take, because we are the children of God, let us remember the words of the text, and answer the tempter, when he says, "If Thou be the son of God, do this and that," as our Lord answered him. If I be the child of God I must behave as if God were my Father. I must trust my God utterly, and I must obey Him utterly. I must do no rash or vain thing to tempt God, even though it looks as if I should have a great success and do much good thereby. I must worship my Father in heaven, and Him only must I serve. My business is to do the little, simple, every-day duties which lie nearest me; and then, if Christ will, He may make me ruler over many things, and I shall enter into the joy of my Lord, which is the joy of doing good to my fellowmen.
C. Kingsley, All Saints’ Day and Other Sermons, p. 65.
I. Where was the evil of the thoughts which the tempter placed before Jesus? And why would our Lord (if He had given heed to them) have yielded to that spirit which He came to conquer? (1) "If Thou be the Son of God." It is not, then, certain that He is the Son of God. That voice from heaven, the seal of His baptism, the descent of the Spirit, were not sufficient to prove Him so. He must get some other evidence of it than this. You see here is distrust. But what is the life of the Son of God? It is the life of faith, the life of trust. In the act of proving Himself to be the Son of God He would have renounced the name. (2) "If Thou be the Son of God command." He was to use His power, and He was to show Himself a son, by showing what He was able to do. But the life of the Son of God was the life of obedience. (3) "Command that these stones be made bread." Here was an exhortation to do something for Himself, to use the power wherewith He had created the world for the satisfaction of His own wants. But the power of God, the power which goes forth from the Father and the Son, the power which breathed life into all things, is the power of love, the power of diffusing blessedness. If our Lord had used His creating power for Himself, He would have been giving up this life of love which He had as the Son of God.
II. The answer. Our Lord would not separate Himself from the creatures which He had formed, He would speak as if He were one of them. His answer was as much as saying, "My glory, as the Son of God, shall consist not in the power that I use over these stones to make them bread, but in the power that I have received to go through whatever my people have gone through in all past time, so that men of every age shall own in Me one who has perfectly entered into their feelings and undergone their trials, and has cheerfully endured whatever My Father has been pleased to lay upon them."
III. If by this answer our Lord made Himself one with us in our humiliation, and claimed for us the privilege of being one with Him in His blessedness, He also teaches that we are partakers in His temptation.
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p. 154.
References: Mat 4:3.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 9; M. H. Hutchings, Mystery of the Temptation, p. 69. Mat 4:3, Mat 4:4.—Ibid., p. 104.
Mat 4:4
I. God has appointed, under all ordinary circumstances, that we should sustain life by the secondary means of earthly food; but where He has placed man under special bonds of duty, and pointed out before him a course of action higher and nobler than the mere sustaining of the body, He can and will nourish him in this course of duty; or even if it should in its fulfilment wear out and bring to dissolution this physical frame, He can and will provide for that man’s true life in a better and more exalted sense. His real life, his real sustenance, is not to be found in bread alone, but in God’s appointment, God’s service, that which cometh out of the mouth of God. What a noble example have we of such a spirit in our blessed Lord! He came into the world to serve the Father, with a definite path of duty marked out before Him. Though He was the Son of God, He submitted Himself to hunger and pain, to tears and sorrow, to insult and rejection, rather than for one instant transgress the limits which He had marked out for Himself. He lacked the bread of the world, but it was that He might feed the world with the bread of life. He was deprived of the comforts of this world, but it was that He might be the Everlasting Comforter of this world’s mourners. By His rejection of all unworthy and secondary means of attaining His end, and following simply His Father’s will, He showed us that man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
II. The tempter comes to each of us, and tries to make us swerve from our true work into selfish and worldly courses. We have not, it is true, supernatural power to abuse, but we have each of us talents, faculties, worldly means, to be laid out on this our work. And the temptation comes to us in this form: Take thy talents, take thy faculties, take thy worldly means, lay them out for thyself. These are our temptations, and it is for us to remember that "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 152.
I. Since man has a complex nature, his life must inevitably be a failure in so far as he neglects to bring that nature in its entirety to the greatest possible perfection. For this it is necessary that the lower principles be guided and controlled by the higher. Neither the narrow desires of sense, nor the wider and more comprehensive desires, such as love of wealth and power, are to be eradicated; but their original character of independence is to be changed. Complete self-development requires that we regard our nature as a whole—estimating at their proper value all its various elements, and using them according to their respective characters of subordination and supremacy.
II. But further, complete self-development requires that we remember the next life as well as the present. It is imperative on us all to remember that the "grave is not our goal," and that our life on earth is but an elementary stage in our existence. Though there is not required from us any irrational rejection of pleasure, there is required from us the reasoning and reasonable rejection of it where it would be incompatible with our complete all-round development. Though there is not required from us any hypocritical profession of contempt for the world in which we live, there is required from us serious reflection upon the fact that we carry latent within us "the power of an endless life." Though we should not ignore, nor attempt to destroy, the lower elements of our nature, we should—and, if we would be perfect, we must—subdue them, and press them into the service of the Spirit.
A. W. Momerie, The Origin of Evil, p. 135.
This text offers an answer to the question, How shall we live? It strikes out in a sentence a theory of living. Satan, as the prince of this world, announces his theory, and tries to win Christ’s assent to it: "Man lives by bread and by bread alone." Christ replies, "Man lives not by bread, but by God. Man lives by God’s gifts, only as God is behind them. Man’s real support is not in the gifts, but in the Giver."
I. What is covered by this word "bread"? It covers the, whole visible economy of life, all that range of supplies, helps and supports upon which men usually depend to keep themselves alive and to make life comfortable and enjoyable. The world’s commonly accepted theory is, "By these things we live. We cannot get on without them." Now I am not blind to men’s natural and pardonable anxiety about such things. Food and garment and home are parts of God’s own economy of life in this world; and Christ Himself says, "Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." The Kingdom of God includes bread; and hence, in the Lord’s Prayer, immediately after the petition, "Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done," comes the prayer for daily bread.
II. If our Lord had yielded to this first temptation, He would have committed Himself to the bread theory as the law of His Kingdom, no less than of His own life. He would have said, by changing the stones into bread, "As I cannot live without bread, so My Kingdom cannot thrive so long as men’s worldly needs are unsupplied. My administration must be a turning of stones into bread. We know that this has not been Christ’s policy. He abjured it in this answer to Satan. This is what Christ asserts, that society no less than man as an individual truly lives only as it lives by dependence on God. Social prosperity is based on righteousness. Man lives by God’s gifts, but not by the gifts only—by bread, but not by bread alone. Bread is nothing without God. Bread gets all its power to feed from God. Bread points away from itself to God. Bread has a part in the Divine economy of society, but it comes in with the Kingdom of God, under its law and not as its substitute.
M. R. Vincent, God and Bread, p. 3.
The Food of Man.
I. Consider what it is for which consciousness and the best experience of our race unite in saying that the immediate advantage and pleasure of the senses must be surrendered. Jesus described it to His tempter as "the word of God." And the word of God includes two notions—one of revelation and one of commandment. Whenever God speaks by any of His voices it is first to tell us some truth which we did not know before, and second to bid us do something which we have not been doing. Every word of God includes these two. Truth and duty are always wedded. There is no truth which has not its corresponding duty. And there is no duty which has not its corresponding truth. He, then, who lives by the word of God is a man who is continually seeing new truth and accepting the duties that arise out of it. And it is for this, the pleasure of seeing truth and doing its attendant duty, that he is willing to give up the pleasures of sense, and even, if need be, to give up the bodily life to which the pleasures of sense belong.
II. In consciousness and in experience man finds the witness of his higher nature. But consciousness and experience both of them are weak in all of us. Here is where the revelation of Christ comes in. Christ is both the Revealer of a man’s life to himself and the Revealer of the world’s life to all of us. It is when Christ is in you that the highest motives become practically powerful upon your life. We think of Christ as the Liberator. But we do need to know what the character of the liberation which He brings us is. He wants to awaken your dead conscience, and to quicken into life and aspiration the apparently dead and depressing experience around you, so that you shall feel in yourself the response to higher motives, and recognize in all history the loftier and more spiritual possibility of man. That is true liberty. It does not cast the lower things away. Man shall live by bread, but not by bread alone. The things that supplied the lower wants are not thrown away, but they are used no longer to enslave and bind, but simply to sustain and steady, the life which moves now under spiritual impulse.
Phillips Brooks, Sermons, p. 265.
References: Mat 4:4.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xx., No. 1208; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 259; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 27; C. Short, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 261.
Mat 4:5-6
I. Our Lord was carried from the wilderness to the holy city. Understand by this how all our circumstances in the world may be changed, and yet the tempter be with us still. Hundreds of men have gone out into the desert thinking that in that way they should escape temptation, but it has found them out. The spirit of evil has shown them that they do not escape from him by escaping from men. Then they have run back into the holy city; they have thought that they were exposed to danger because they were away from the ordinances of God. But there, too, they have found there was no security; it has only been a change from "Command these stones to be made bread," into "Cast thyself down from hence."
II. Consider what was the particular temptation of our Lord when He was brought into the holy city. I have no doubt that when our Lord was reflecting on the iniquities of the holy city, the devil suggested to Him the thought, "What avails it to be a Jew, to be a citizen of God’s city, a member of the holy nation, when holiness and purity and unity have utterly deserted it? If Thou be the Son of God set an example of throwing away these vain privileges." Precisely this temptation is presented to all of us this day.
III. Understand next from this history of our Lord’s second temptation that we are not to plead love to our brethren as any excuse for going out of God’s way or doing work which He has not set us to do. Our Lord was urged to cast Himself down from the Temple, that He might convince the Jews of their unbelief. He who urged Him to it wished Him in that very thing to commit an act of unbelief. Thousands of such acts have been committed by men who thought that they were honouring God and helping their brethren. They were doing neither: To be working together with God is our highest honour. When we are not doing this we cannot be working any good to ourselves or to any other man.
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p. 171.
Mat 4:5-7
I. It was a master-piece of Satan to take Christ to the Temple. There was the spot which God loved best in the whole earth, that He had fenced around with most special and jealous care. It had been the scene of the most glorious manifestation of Jehovah. And because of all this Satan bore our Saviour thither. What spot so proud, of earth, on which to rear his trophy?
II. The object of the second temptation was a proud and ambitious display of supernatural power. It was an act of self-aggrandisement, done in a false confidence, for an apparent good; and the word which would sum up the whole would be presumption. Presumption is the expectation of an end without the means, an ungrounded hope of a Divine interposition, an abuse of a privilege, a departure from a general law for a selfish end.
III. In quoting a verse from Psalm xci. Satan does as he is ever wont—he destroys the force of the promise by making it vague. And where there is no accuracy there never is power. He omitted the four words "in all thy ways." The promise is only to thy way.
IV. It is evident that the tempter had no power to cast Christ down from the Temple, or to force Him to take the flight; but he plies his argument, and then he says, "Cast Thyself down." There is no sin which is not voluntary. Those points—where the power to do, or the power to forbear, still lives—are sometimes very small. But they are the crises of every man’s moral history.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 69.
References: Mat 4:5-7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 689; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 377; F. W. Farrar, Church Sermons, vol. ii., p. 296; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 151; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 25; W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of the Temptation, p. 141. Mat 4:6.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 361; T. Birkett Dover, Lent Manual, p. 31.
Mat 4:7
I. In this temptation, as in the last, our Lord’s situation is ours. Placed here to do God’s work, we are assured, while in that work, of His gracious protection. No danger can assail the servant of God of which he need be afraid. His bodily frame is in the gracious charge of His Heavenly Father, and much more his spirit—that for which and by which his flesh lives, and from which it derives its aim and its dignity. Let the servant of God be found in His ways, and his ultimate safety is assured.
II. But as in our Master’s case, so in ours, it is even on this safety that the tempter founds his attack. His aim ever is, to turn the Christian’s security into a carnal security; to deprive it of its right character—a holding on by faith to the everlasting strength of God—and turn it into presumption, into a dependence upon God’s protection without His warrant, to persuade us to cast ourselves into danger, relying on that help which, out of God’s course, we have no reason to expect.
III. Do Christians never thrust themselves into spiritual danger, presuming on the Divine help? What are, for example, all their very near approaches to sin, as they suppose with a safe conscience? What is it but tempting God—to be bound under a vow to renounce the world and the flesh, and then to lead a life of entire dedication to the world and indulgence of the flesh? What is it but tempting Him to be going carelessly on as if life were nothing but a spending of so much time, as if hours and days and years were not speeding away to their account, with all their mercies and opportunities and judgments recorded against us, if not for us? He who walks not circumspectly is tempting God, casting himself on the ocean of life without chart or compass, and looking to Him who has provided both for his use, to bring him safe to heaven without them.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 168.
The Inductive Study of the Scriptures.
I. In prosecuting a systematic and inductive examination of the Scriptures, there are three things in reference to which we must always be on our guard. (1) We must see that all the passages brought together for the purpose have a real bearing on the subject in hand. (2) We must see to it that we give to each passage its own legitimate weight—no more, no less. (3) We must see to it that our induction of passages is complete.
II. Look at a few subjects in the consideration of which the importance of the application of these principles will be seen. (1) The doctrine of the Trinity. While there are many passages in both the Old Testament and the New which give the strongest emphasis to the unity of God, "It is written again," and frequently, that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; while in such formulæ as that of baptism and that of the apostolic benediction, each is so named as to indicate that there is in each something that is unique and distinctive; I dare not reject either side of the apparent inconsistency without failing to take note of some of the Bible statements on the subject; and if I do that I am guilty of setting myself above revelation, and making my reason, not Scripture, the infallible standard of my faith. (2) The same principles may be applied as regards the doctrine of the Person of Christ, of the Atonement, of the difficult questions which cluster about the sovereignty of God and the free agency of man and of prayer.
III. Note three important inferences. (1) Every heresy has in it a certain modicum of truth. (2) The truth thus mixed up with error is very generally something that has been too much overlooked. That which has been neglected revenges itself at length by claiming more than its due share of importance. (3) Error is to be most effectually met by recognizing the portion of truth which it contains. Bring that back to its proper importance, then supplement it by putting it along with those other sides of the truth which are needed to give it full-balanced completeness. Let it be acknowledged fully and frankly "it is written;" but then let it be added, "it is written again."
W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds and Other Sermons, p. 260.
Mat 4:8-9
I. The root of the third temptation lay in the thought that the kingdoms of the world were the devil’s kingdoms, and that it was he who could dispose of them. If our Lord had believed this, if He had acknowledged this claim, He would have been falling down and worshipping the evil spirit, He would have been confessing him to be the Lord. But for all that He beheld the horrible vision of human misery and human crime; for all that He found men actually doing homage to the spirit of evil, actually serving him with their thoughts, and words, and deeds; in spite of all this, He believed and knew that these kingdoms were not the devil’s kingdoms, but God’s kingdoms. He knew that men’s sins began in this, consisted in this, that they thought and believed the devil to be their king, when God was their King.
II. It is a hard thing to believe this, when there are so many things that seem to contradict it, but believe it we must, if we would be honest men. Holy men have been betrayed into sins which make one weep and blush when one reads the history of Christ’s Church, because they have thought that falsehood and evil were the lords of the world, and that if they were to overcome the world they must do it by entering into some bargain or compromise with these masters of it. The devil was saying to them, "These are mine, and I give them to whomsoever I will." They believed him. He asked this token of homage from them, and they paid it. The mischiefs that have followed from every such faithless act have been more than I can tell you, and though they are no warrant to us in condemning others, they are most terrible warnings to ourselves. Such temptations can only be resisted, as the enemies of saints and martyrs were resisted, by the might of Him who said, "Get thee behind Me, Satan."
F. D. Maurice, Christmas Day and Other Sermons, p. 185.
True and False Ascensions.
It would have been an ascension if our Lord, on that exceeding high mountain, had taken, at Satan’s hand, all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. For to take the same kingdom and the same glory Christ did actually ascend from the Mount of Olives. The difference was not very great in the fact of the refused and the accepted ascension. Consider in what consists the difference between the two.
I. Wherein would have lain the sinfulness of the act, if Christ had complied with Satan’s desire? (1) In the first place, He would have made that His own act which was not to be His own act, but the Father’s through the Son. (2) He would have accepted good at the hands of the enemy of good. (3) He would have done for His own sake, without further reference, what He was to do for the Church’s sake. (4) It would have been premature, a beginning which ought to be an ending. (5) He would have assumed an end without going through the means. (6) He would have been elevated by a guilty compact; there would have been the sacrifice of a principle, a present evil committed to arrive at an ultimate good. (7) The honour would have gone in the wrong direction; it would have been to His own glory and Satan’s glory, but not to the glory of the Father.
II. To ascend, that is, to get higher and higher, to possess more, to be capable of more, to have more honour and greater power, is an impulse of our nature; Every Christian, like his Master, is born to an ascension. Therefore, because it is right, it is certain that it may be a matter of great temptation to do it in a wrong way, or at a wrong time, or with a wrong motive, or by wrong means. Look well to it how you go up any height, what road, at what time, by whose bidding, for whose glory. It will be a sad thing if the bad, early fiction rob you of the grand reality of the close. There is a grand ascension coming, but now our path lies with our Master, through the plains of Galilee, the valleys of Hinnom, to the garden of Gethsemane. We have to work, and we have to bear. We must go through the last penalty of sin, and glorify God in our dying. For that road down to those "lowest parts of the earth" is the path, the only path, that leads up to the everlasting hills.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 6th series, p. 227.
References: Mat 4:8, Mat 4:9.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 153; Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. iii., p. 294.
Mat 4:8-10
I. There is no falsehood on the face of the earth so dangerous as truth—when that truth comes distorted, placed in wrong order, or laid in false proportions. This was exactly the character of the last temptation. All the kingdoms of the would, and all the glory of them, were Christ’s; and He was even at that moment at the commencement of the path by which He was going to take possession of them. But to that kingdom there was an appointed time, a prescribed way, and covenanted conditions. And could the time, or the way, or the conditions be violated, even by a shade, the character and the very existence of that kingdom would have been nullified and destroyed.
II. In the journey to heaven, beware of taking the line which seems often the shortest. Whatever bright things are before you, and however near they look, depend upon it you have to go lower before you can go higher. A heaven we could go to at once would not be half as pleasant as the heaven we wait, and strive, and suffer for. And a heaven which we could purchase by our own good works would be as nothing compared to the heaven which we shall owe all to the blood of Jesus Christ.
III. Observe our Lord’s mode of dealing with the suggestion which would do an evil that a good might come. He lays down one great fixed principle: "God, only God, must be worshipped." Whatever trespasses on His solitary majesty, whatever detracts in one iota from Him—that must never be. Therefore, you are to take this general law: There is something better than the kingdom, and higher than happiness; higher than the highest—it is the glory of God. Admit of no possession, no joy, no privilege, no honour, temporal or spiritual, which does not, in some way or other, glorify God. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 100.
References: Mat 4:8-10.—W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of the Temptation, p. 182; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 392. Mat 4:8-11.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 152. Mat 4:8-22.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. v., p. 152. Mat 4:8-22.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 507. Mat 4:9.—J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 135; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 249; F. W. Aveling, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 20; G. Calthrop, Ibid., vol. xix., p. 177.
Mat 4:10
It was by this time evident that our blessed Lord was not to be tempted to either distrust or presumption. But what if He were once more tried, with a temptation which should coincide with the direction of that path itself? How if He could be induced, in the fulfilment of His mission on earth, to take a shorter and less toilsome way than that on which He appeared to be entering?
I. Desperation made the tempter bold. He dares to aim at winning the Prince of the Kingdom of Light to be a vassal of the kingdom of darkness. Strange as are the promise and the assertion, still stranger is the condition annexed, "All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." Here spoke the true character of him who fell through pride, and through exalting himself against the Most High. Satan stands forth impiously exulting in his name as God’s adversary, and vaunting his rebellion against Him. No longer, therefore, does Jesus condescend to answer the fool according to his folly, or condescend to deal with his offer or his assertions, but meets him with, "Get thee hence, Satan." Yet not relinquishing even now the sword of the Spirit, He adds for our profit and to complete His testimony to His own position as the Son of man, placed under obedience to the Father, "For it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
II. There are many blessings, many advantages even of a temporal kind, within our reach and forming legitimate objects of our desire. But such things are often offered us from objectionable quarters and on objectionable conditions. In such cases the Christian’s duty is plain. First, he must never be so carried away with the pursuit of the world’s advantages as that his better reason should be overcome; but he must be watchful and temperate in all his desires, knowing that this is not his rest, but that he looks for another country, even a heavenly. This being secured, he must, in the temperate and lawful pursuit of worldly advantage, take heed that he receive nothing on conditions which touch his allegiance to his heavenly Father.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 184.
Culture and Temptation.
I. Education—meaning by that the putting into the hands of any being, or class, a power, a knowledge, before unattained—can have no force to abolish temptation or to diminish its strength. All it can do is to remove the recipient from one stratum of temptation to another. Temptation is inducement to sin; and sin is not vice. Sin is the failure to do our duty, whatever that duty be, to God. Cultivation creates new responsibilities; and, therefore, while it lessens the hold of certain temptations, continually brings us into the presence of new ones. Culture brings its own temptations; shows new paths by which to "crawl away from heaven," as well as new avenues to that kingdom. Education is worthless as a moral discipline, till it has developed in the ripening intellect the conviction that in the worship of God—that is not the lip-service of religious ceremonial, but the devotion to His glory and kingdom—is its reasonable service, its privilege not less than its bounden duty, the only true fulfilment of its God-given purpose. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."
II. As our Lord’s life is the pattern of every life, so is His temptation the type of every temptation presented to every man born into this world. He (I use the phrase with all reverence, deliberately) was a man of culture. "And it came to pass, that after three days they found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing and asking them questions; and all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers." Such a being was He on whom the tempter had to exercise His influence. "Fall down and worship me," he said, "and everything shall be yours." The reply which the Saviour made is still the only safe, the only complete and all-embracing, reply. The kingdoms of the earth are good, but for a soul, which came from God and returns to Him there is but one living, lasting satisfaction, and that is the kingdom of heaven. The end of all education, the end of all religion, is the bringing of a soul into harmony with perfect righteousness.
A. Ainger, Sermons in the Temple Church, p. 225.
Mat 4:11
The final repulse of the tempter was accompanied by a command, "Get thee hence, Satan." And we may well conceive that this command was to the enemy a word of power, which he might not disobey. He who henceforth cast out the evil spirits with a word here proved His authority on their chief. And now His present conflict is over. He stands victorious, while the tempter has fallen. He, the Second Adam, has brought in and secured righteousness for us. Let us endeavour to gather up the general instruction to be gained from the history of the temptation.
I. He has, by His example under temptation, taught us how to resist it. Our weakness is, when any unlawful course is proposed to us, to be ever on the search for separate excuses to shield us in each case. He shrunk from applying general principles which may cover every attack. We are ashamed too often to stand at once in God’s ways and refer to His will. Here we have an eminent example in our blessed Lord. He did not enter into the separate circumstances of each form of temptation, but applied to them all, as His means of resistance, His position as the servant of God, subject to His law, and from it taking the maxims of His conduct.
II. His example shows us the proper use of God’s word. Let our Lord’s example keep us from rash or random application of Scripture texts. With what precision is each brought forward by Him. We must study the Bible, and we must study it devotionally, not as a mere intellectual exercise, but to ascertain the mind of the Spirit of God—a search which requires spiritual discernment, the fruit of a communion with Him in singleness of heart and a holy life.
III. But unquestionably the greatest lesson for the disciple of Jesus to learn, from the temptation of his Master, is one of encouragement, tending to draw him closer to Christ, and to make Him more precious. When One is set before us as our ever-present Helper, who Himself has passed through the struggle; when we know that we are not alone in the bitterness of our spirits, and that in the darkest place in our course we shall find His footsteps; what a different matter does each Christian’s appointed conflict become—how full of sympathy, how full of promise, how full of Christ!
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 201.
References: Mat 4:11.—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 49; W. H. Hutchings, Mystery of the Temptation, p. 230. Mat 4:12.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 310. Mat 4:12-17.—Ibid., Inner Life of Christ, vol. i., p. 129. Mat 4:14.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 28. Mat 4:15, Mat 4:16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvii., No. 1010. Mat 4:16.—D. Davies, Christian World Pulpit, vol. 27:114.
Mat 4:17
The text invites us to look at two things:—
I. The Preacher. "Jesus began to preach." Jesus was the Son of man and the Son of God. Who, then, can equal Him in sympathy and in wisdom? It should be understood that very much depends upon the preacher as well as upon the doctrine preached. (1) There was more human nature in Jesus Christ than was ever in any other man. He needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. He was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin—without that one defilement which impairs and ruins the finest qualities of human nature. Preachers must be intensely human if they would reach with good effect the hearts of men. (2) There was more intellectual ability and spiritual insight in Jesus Christ than ever distinguished any other preacher. Look at the answers which He gave to cavillers. Look at the keenness of His discrimination as to moral differences—hypocrisy, falseness, half-heartedness. Look at His love of truth—simple, pure, eternal truth.
II. The Subject of His Preaching. That subject was repentance. Hear this marvellous Preacher—Repent! That is one of the most solemnly suggestive words in all human language. (1) Repent—then men are in a wrong moral condition. But for this Jesus would never have come. (2) Repent—then there is a work which men must do themselves. One man cannot repent for another. See the power and the weakness of human nature in this particular. One man can suffer for another; can pay for another; can work for another; can even die for another, but never can one man repent for another. (3) Repent, then, until this special work is done; everything else that is seemingly good is worthless. If Jesus preached repentance, then (a) all true preachers will do the same; (b) it is certain that repentance is vitally necessary for all mankind; (c) if repentance is the first act needed, it is vicious and absurd to attempt to make religious progress without it.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 116.
The Privilege of Repentance.
I. There are two different words used in the New Testament, both of which are translated into the English word Repentance; one of them conveys especially the notion of being sorry for having done wrong; the other conveys specially the notion of changing one’s mind as to things,—seeing things in a different light, and then shaping one’s conduct accordingly,—trying to mend one’s life. It is this second word which Christ used; which you can see is the fuller and larger word, including substantially the meaning of the first word too; taking in the being sorry for the wrongdoing and ashamed of it; coming to right views, beginning afresh, and trying to do better.
II. The religion Christ taught was the first which offered forgiveness without suffering, on the part of the penitent, or inflicted by the penitent. All the suffering was borne, long ago, and once for all, that brought our salvation. And now, "if we confess our sins"—that is all—God "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Christ’s preaching starts from a fact; the fact that there is something wrong; the fact that men are sinners. Now repentance is just the right and healthy feeling of the awakened soul that sees its own sin. Once a man is made to see he is a sinner, then, if his mind be in any way healthy and true, the state of feeling which arises in it is what we call Repentance.
III. Is it not strange that repentance should be so commonly thought a painful duty? It is a grand and inexpressible privilege. There is nothing degrading in it; the degradation is all in the state it takes us out of. It is degrading to stay in sin, not to get out of it. And there is no humiliation, beyond the fact that it is a humble thing to be a human being, in confessing that we have been wrong. That Christ’s Gospel invites us to repentance just means that man is not tied down to go on in his wrong and misery. It means that he has not got into that miserable lane in which there is no turning.
A. K. H. B., From a Quiet Place, p. 32.
References: Mat 4:17.—J. Martineau, Endeavours after the Christian Life, p. 87; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 329; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 209. Mat 4:18.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 276. Mat 4:18, Mat 4:19.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 702. Mat 4:18-20.—H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit, p. 469.
Mat 4:18-22
Jesus and the Fishermen.
Observe here—
I. Jesus called the Galilean fishermen. There was nothing novel in the calling of men from a lowly condition to the performance of a high and holy task. The men who were to stand at the head of this great movement were men of the people, men who had not enjoyed any special privileges. It ought to be enough to establish the certainty of the heavenliness of Christ’s Kingdom, that He used no artificial means in laying its foundations so firmly in the consciousness of the world, and that this was done through the instrumentality of fishermen, and that He appealed to them as He does to all, to the willing mind and the responsive conscience, and did this through furnishing them with a new and holy ideal of human life.
II. He called them for a specific purpose. "I will make you fishers of men." Thus He spake to them in familiar words; but familiar words when used by Him were charged with unfamiliar meaning; they contained the revelation of God’s heart and of man’s destiny. He who knew as no man knew enlisted the ordinary in the service of the extraordinary, and without injury to His theme translated the spiritual into the terms of the material. Christ promised that His disciples should catch. "I will make you fishers of men." They would have to vary their manner of using the net He furnished them with; they would not catch as many as they desired, but would at length succeed, because the net was the right kind of net, and they themselves would be prepared for its use.
III. How they were to be fitted for this work: "Follow Me." They were to wait on Him, to go in and out with Him from the beginning, to apprehend the meaning of His words and the spirit in which they were conceived. They must know Him; this was their first, their great, business in life. He taught His doctrine in the practice of it, and the practice of it in the patience and heroism of His own life. They were to know all they needed to know, be all they ought to be, and do all required of them to be done, by following Him.
J. O. Davies, Sunrise on the Soul, p. 3.
References: Mat 4:18-22.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 17; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 283; H. W. Beecher, Sermons (1870), p. 311. Mat 4:18-25.—Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. i., p. 139.
Mat 4:19
Christ’s Training of the Ministers of the Word.
I. Who are they that are chosen by our Lord to receive the signal benefit of training in His school? Not one of the twelve is a priest or a priest’s son. There is not a man with Pharisaic relationship among them. They were all "provincials" of a very decided type, plainly as strange to the springs of metropolitan power and habit as though they had never been to the chief city of the people. In the possession of faith and hope and love they were all alike—and in nothing else. Christ did not, never does, call duplicates, but men, individuals, having an absolutely original "make," bent, bias, or personal force in them.
II. Note the means adopted by our Lord in equipping the Apostles for His service: (1) A constant and habitual companionship with Himself; (2) the Gospel accounts fully demonstrate that unselfish and helpful work for men formed a most essential factor in the education of the first disciples for the duties of the apostolate; (3) a third potent agent in the upbuilding of the character of these first Gospel fishermen is disclosed in the sharp sorrows, sudden shocks, and painful and repeated sufferings they encountered in the way of their useful and helping work for men; (4) these men were fitted for their work by their deepening experience of the power and riches of the life of Christ.
III. And for what is all this prolonged and varied discipline? What is the Teacher’s aim? Clearly, concisely, and comprehensively is it stated in this guiding word of the Preacher. It is to catch men. The aim is directly at men. Man fills the whole vision; the steadfast gaze is on him, the anxious work is for him, the lengthened discipline is for him. As Jesus came to save men, so His servants are sent out on precisely the same errand. He lives for men. We have to do the same. It is each man for Christ, and the whole of each man for Christ. That is the aim of every minister who knows what He has to do, as it is the well-defined purpose of Christ in calling him and training him for the ministry.
J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 257.
Christ’s call to us is essentially that which He addressed to these first disciples.
I. What was His call to them? It was this—they were to leave their work that they might engage in a higher work. The secular was to be exchanged for the spiritual. They were fishers. Henceforth, they were to be something more than fishers. They were to become fishers of men. And that, I say, is the call He addresses to us.
II. "How is that so?" you may ask. "Are we all to abandon the work which we are doing? Is the child at school to leave his books, and the clerk his desk, and the workman his tools, and the painter his brushes and easel? and are we all to become preachers or missionaries?" Of course that would be impossible. We should not be too quick to conclude that because we do not like the drudgery of our secular work, or meet with indifferent success in it, we are therefore designed for something higher and more sacred. Other things being equal, it is more likely that Christ will call to His side those who have prospered in their worldly undertakings, than those who have not prospered. Do not suppose that it was because Peter’s heart was not in his work, or because he was clumsy with his net, that he was called to be one of the twelve. In the Kingdom there is need for the capable men, as well as room for the feeble and the incompetent. The summons to all men is not to forsake altogether their secular work. In what sense, then, is their work to be given up and exchanged for a higher work? In this sense, that it is no longer to be the end of their life, the final object of ambition and endeavour. What was an end becomes, in the case of those who hear the call of Christ, no more an end, but a means.
III. "Fishers of men"—that is what we must be if our Master’s ends are to be ours. For this is what He was—a Fisher of men. And His disciples are to follow Him, and they are to follow Him not merely that they may be safe under His protection, or that they may be happy in His companionship and sympathy, but that they may share in His work, that they may make His holy mission their own. And how shall we hope to be successful in it? Note these two conditions—which, really, are one: (1) We must follow Christ, and (2) we must submit to His teaching and influence.
Arnold Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 8.
References: Mat 4:19.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1906; Ibid., My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 12; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 240; vol. vii., p. 279; H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 17; D. B. Hooke, Ibid., vol. xxiv., p. 261; J. de Kewer Williams, Ibid., p. 132; J. H. Shakespeare, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 278; H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2,673.
Mat 4:19-20
The Attractive Force of Jesus.
I. The Lord had but one method with all classes. He could only bless the rich by making them feel that a man’s heart was beating, and a man’s needs were crying to God, under their purple. And He had no other means of blessing the poor. It was the common humanity that He touched and drew after Him by the magnet of His attraction, and, as He drew it, the class vestments and badges were dropped and left behind in the way.
II. In lower human forms this magnetic attraction of man on man is not unknown. It is the orator’s power. It constitutes, in a still higher form, the great captain’s power. This power, which under the highest conditions man exercises within limits over his fellows, the Lord exercises absolutely and royally over mankind. For He is the King of men—their natural, heaven-born King. Deep down in every man’s nature there is that which has an eye and an ear for His Kingship; a sense of His Royal authority and right with which, when it is once awakened, nothing in this wide universe can compete. A glance, a word, as the Lord passed by, a. transient gleam from that fountain of attractive force, and merchants left their gains, workmen left their tools, fishers left their nets, scholars left their lore, leaders left their thrones, and cast no longing, lingering look behind them, as they pressed on in the footsteps of the poor, weary, helpless, excommunicated Christ. "Lord, we have left all, and followed Thee," was the word of every one of them.
III. Nor has the spell lost its power. "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." Our Lord in these words reveals the power which lies at the root of all the grandest movements in the history of the world. Behind all that can be accounted for, all that can be weighed and measured by the act of the understanding in the spread of Christ’s Gospel, there lies that which cannot be accounted for, which cannot be measured, the attraction of Christ Jesus. It is the spell which the Lord the King cast upon His subjects, in right of His ancient, universal royalty, and by the might of His newly revealed and transcendent love.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon, p. 97.
Reference: Mat 4:20.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xix., p. 278.
Mat 4:21-22
I. St. James may be regarded as affording an example and encouragement to those who follow Christ, in two sorts of trials, more particularly those which arise from a thriving condition in the world, and those which attend, sometimes, on a quiet and comfortable home. To obey our Lord’s call, he left both "the ship and his father:" both the business to which he had been brought up, and on which he might depend, if not for wealth, at least for a comfortable maintenance; and the consolation of being with his parents, and living peaceably at home with them.
II. It might seem almost presumption for such as we are to take to ourselves, as if intended for our pattern, the example of so great and holy a saint, one brought so very near the person of our Divine Saviour Himself. But we know that it is not presumptuous, since even Christ’s own example, and that of the Eternal Father, are set before us for our study and imitation. Does any man ask how he can imitate St. James, he, a private Christian, not called to be an apostle, not summoned by the providence of God to any one great sacrifice, which might gather, as it were, into one the self-denials of a whole life? Let such a one think this within himself, that there may be, there probably are, occasions in which his worldly business, whatever it be, is apt to interfere, more or less, with his duty to our Saviour. The memory and fancy of his shop, his plough, his garden, or his loom mingles unseasonably with his prayers and holy readings, and tries to hinder him from attending to his Saviour’s voice, inwardly whispering, "Follow Me." Well, on all such occasions, let us manfully put aside the intruding thought, saying as Felix did, but with a better meaning, "Go thy way now, and come again when I shall have a convenient season."
III. Persons who, in sincerity and truth, make sacrifices of this kind, who really prefer not their own fancy, but Christ’s will, even to family comfort, may find great encouragement in the favour which our Lord showed to His holy Apostle St. James. Their prayers for light and strength, they have every reason to hope, will be bountifully answered. "Christ will make Himself present to them, in all His works, both of mercy, of wonder, and of judgment." Whether He raise the dead, or show Himself in agony or in glory, or come to judge Jerusalem, those who have made great sacrifices for Him will be favoured and honoured witnesses.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vi., p. 142.
References: Mat 4:21, Mat 4:22.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 24; J. Keble, Sermons for Saints’ Days, p. 305.
Mat 4:23
I. Christ was dispensing, then, the gift of healing, marvellously, for an example to all who should believe on Him thereafter, for ever, as long as the world should stand. Healer of the diseases of the body, as he was Healer of the diseases of the soul, Jesus Christ, anointed Saviour, this was His mission—to heal, to save. He was Himself the Good Samaritan, who went out of His way to help the wounded traveller who lay half dead by the wayside, and who provided everything that was needful for him—lodging, attendance, provision—until he should be quite recovered. What was this but to teach us that the poor and needy in anywise are committed to the care and charge of every one who sees their hard case and has power to relieve it? Given the opportunity, the duty follows; cannot be neglected without sin—the sin, at least, of leaving undone what we ought to have done.
II. The duty of giving is one of the simplest duties of all life, and because it is so simple the Apostle has fenced it with the warning, "Be not deceived in this thing; God is not mocked." Our own day of sickness and trial is not far off. To have considered the poor and needy, to have been, as it were, eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, strength to the weak in body, will be a thought of comfort when we shall feel in our own bodies the need of every consolation which God vouchsafes to His servants in the day of their calamity.
Bishop Claughton, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 738.
References: Mat 4:23, Mat 4:24.—H. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 75; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 164. Mat 4:23-25.— Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 333. Mat 4:24.—J. Oswald Dykes, Manifesto of the King, p. 3. Matt 4—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 219.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Temptation
The Temptation
1-11. The temptation (Mar_1:12; Luk_4:1). The narrative, which can only have come from our Lord's own lips, describes an actual historical fact, the great temptation which He underwent at the very beginning of His ministry. He was tempted at other times (Luk_4:13), perhaps at all times (Heb_2:18), during His earthly life, but the two great seasons of trial were now, and immediately before the Passion: Luk_22:42; Mat_26:39. Our Lord records His experience in symbolical language partly because the inward operations of the mind could hardly be represented to men of that age except as visible transactions, but more particularly because the story of Adam's temptation in Gen_3:1 is also told symbolically. Jesus here appears as the second Adam, victorious in the conflict in which the first Adam failed. He wins the victory as man, not as God, so that here the human race in the person of its Head begins to retrieve its defeat and to bruise the Serpent's head, receiving thereby an assurance of final victory. The temptation of the first Adam took place in a garden, i.e. in a universe as yet unspoilt by sin. The temptation of the second Adam took place in a wilderness, i.e. in a world rendered desolate by Adam's fall, and the ultimate effect of His victory will be to make it a garden again. In this connexion should be taken St. Mark's statement that 'He was with the wild beasts.' The wild beasts did not hurt Jesus, because He regained for man the empire over the beasts which Adam lost: 'The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid... They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain' (Isa_11:6).
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The details of three temptations are recorded: (a) The first (Mat_4:3-4) was a temptation to abuse His miraculous powers. If, as seems probable, Jesus first received authority to work miracles at His Baptism, the very freshness and greatness of the gift would suggest to the devil the most appropriate form of attack. Jesus was hungry, he also had an unlimited power of working miracles. Why should He remain hungry, when He had the power of making bread? 'Why,' suggested the devil, 'is it right to feed others, and wrong to feed thyself? If thou be the Son of God, conunand that these stones be made bread.' So the tempter suggested, but Jesus replied, 'Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word' (i.e. conunand) 'that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' These words, taken from Deu_8:3, refer to Israel in the wilderness. There they, like Jesus, had no bread, yet they were fed by the word of God's mouth, for God commanded manna to fall from heaven. In effect Jesus said to the tempter, 'It is true that I have no bread, but, since I am here by God's command, He will keep me alive without bread. He has but to utter a word, and I shall be providentially fed, as the Israelites were of old.' If it be asked why it was wrong for Jesus to make bread for His own use, the answer is that in God's working in the world there is in general a strict economy of miraculous power. In the life of Jesus there is not a single example of a miracle worked for His own advantage. In every case His miraculous power was used for the good of others, to remove the ravages of disease and sin, and to advance the kingdom of God, and for these purposes alone was it entrusted to Him. The devil's suggestion was, therefore, a temptation to disobedience, like that of our first parents. Satan would have had our Lord act independently, setting up His will against God's, instead of conforming it to His in filial obedience.
(b) The next temptation (Mat_4:5-7) was more subtle. The devil took Him in spirit to the lofty platform (not pinnacle) overlooking the courts of the Temple, from which a great multitude could be conveniently addressed. It was from this platform or pulpit that James the Lord's brother delivered the public address which was the immediate occasion of His martyrdom (Euseb. 2. 23). Satan suggested that our Lord should address the assembled multitudes of Israel from this giddy height, and then prove His Messianic claims beyond all question by flying through the air, and descending to the ground unharmed. Stripped of its symbolical form, this was a temptation to take a short and easy road to recognition as the Messiah by giving 'a sign from heaven' which even the most incredulous and unspiritual would be compelled to accept. This short and easy method Jesus decisively rejected. He determined to appeal to the spiritual apprehension of mankind, that they might believe on Him, not because they were astounded by His miracles, and could not resist their evidence, but because they were attracted by the holiness and graciousness of His character, by the loftiness of His teaching, and by the love of God to man which was manifested in all His words and actions. He intended His miracles to be secondary, an aid to the faith of those who on other grounds were inclined to believe, but not portents to extort the adhesion of those who had no sympathy with Himself or His aims.
(c) Then the devil made his last effort (Mat_4:8-10). He offered Jesus all that he had, 'all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them,' if He would but worship him, i.e. acknowledge his usurped authority, and do evil that good might come. The statement of the devil that all the kingdoms of the earth are at his disposal is a difficult one, but it is in harmony with the NT. view that wealth and power are dangerous snares, which are better avoided, and that religious safety lies in poverty and obscurity. It also harmonises with the familiar experience that the devil often tempts men most severely by making them rich and great. Yet the statement is an exaggeration. The devil's power to dispose of the honour and glory of the world is subject to the permission and overruling providence of God, who continually brings good out of evil. Moreover, since the Ascension of our Blessed Lord, the devil's power over the kingdoms of the earth has, at least in Christian lands, been greatly reduced.
1. Of the spirit] i.e. of the Holy Spirit. God Himself ordained that Jesus should be tempted or tried, because only through temptation can human nature attain to perfection. Even the angels had to pass through a similar trial. Into the wilderness] Since Jesus was 'returning' towards Galilee (Lk), the traditional scene of the temptation, Mount Quarantania, near Jericho, is a suitable one. The devil] The word literally means 'slanderer' or 'accuser.' See special note below.
2. Fasted forty days] It was God's will that before beginning His work Jesus should retire from the world and give Himself entirely to fasting and prayer, with meditation upon His future plan of action. We may suppose that He was so absorbed in contemplation of His Messianic work, that He was not conscious of physical need. For parallels see Exo_34:28; 1Ki_19:8; Luk_1:80; Gal_1:17.
3. If tnou be] Probably Satan expressed doubt in order to tempt Jesus to prove Himself the Son of God by a miracle.
4. See prefatory remarks.
5. The holy city] This phrase, peculiar to this Gospel, marks a thoroughly Jewish affection for Jerusalem: see Mat_27:53, and cp. Mat_5:35. A (RV 'the') pinnacle] see prefatory remarks.
6. The devil is a good theologian, and can quote Scripture to his purpose. Here he quotes Psa_91:11-12, omitting one line. The general nature of this temptation is indicated in prefatory remarks. It was, besides, an incitement to tempt God presumptuously by deliberately incurring unnecessary danger.
7. See Deu_6:16. Deuteronomy was one of Jesus' favourite books.
8. See prefatory remarks.
10. See Deu_6:13, and Deu_10:20.
11. Ministered unto him] i.e. perhaps with spiritual refreshment. Cp. Luk_22:43.
Note. (1) St. Matthew and St. Luke for the Temptation have access to some other authority than St. Mark, who is here very brief. The order of St. Matthew seems superior to that of St. Luke. (2) If the Temptation of Jesus was a reality (and we can scarcely doubt that it was), the Tempter must have been met and conquered by Him in the strength of His human nature, assisted by divine grace. As God, He could not be tempted at all.
12-17. Beginning of the Galilean ministry (Mar_1:14-15, Luk_4:14-15, Luk_4:31). It might be thought from the synoptic account that Jesus began His Galilean ministry immediately after His Baptism and Temptation. But from the Fourth Gospel it is clear that this was not so. Jesus was baptised late in 26 a.d. He then remained for a time in the neighbourhood of the Baptist, five of whose followers, Andrew, John, Philip, Peter, and Bartholomew, attached themselves to Him, and followed Him back to Galilee. Then in April 27 a.d. He went up to Jerusalem to keep the Passover (the first passover of the ministry) and cleansed the Temple for the first time. He then baptised in the country districts of Judæa with great success (John 2, 3). The length of this Judæan ministry is disputed. Prof. Sanday thinks that it lasted only 3 or 4 weeks, but most authorities assign to it 8 months: see on Joh_4:35. The Galilean ministry begins, therefore, either in May, 27 a.d., or more probably in December of the same year: see Joh_1:19 to Joh_4:45.
12. Departed into Galilee] i.e. from Judæa, where He was baptising (Joh_3:23). He took the route through Samaria (Joh_4:4), staying at Sychar two days to preach to the Samaritans. Jesus had probably intended to make Jerusalem and Judæa the chief scene of His ministry, but changed His policy owing to the hostility of the Pharisees (Joh_4:1). In many respects Galilee was better suited to His purpose than Judæa. The Galileans were more tolerant, less conservative, and less under the power of the priests and Pharisees than the Judæans. There was a large Gentile population in Galilee, and much of the trade between Egypt and Damascus passed through the country. The people were more industrious, prosperous, and enterprising than the Judæans, who were jealous of them, and affected to despise them.
13. And leaving Nazareth] He went, as was natural, first to Nazareth, but on account of His unfavourable reception there (Luk_4:16), migrated to Capernaum, which is on the NW. coast of the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum is generally identified with the modern Tell Hum. It is in the tribe of Naphtali, but the borders of Zebulun are near. Capernaum was a busy place. Two caravan routes passed through the town. It had a custom-house, and a Roman garrison.
14. The quotation (from Isa_9:1) is, in view of Christ's ministry in Galilee, a singularly apt one, even according to modern ideas. Isaiah prophesies that the northern parts of Israel which have suffered most from the incursions of the Syrians and the Assyrians (2Ki_15:29) will be the first to be restored to prosperity by the Messiah, who will win a great victory in these regions over the enemies of Israel, and establish an eternal kingdom. The quotation is made from memory, and reproduces the original somewhat freely.
15. By the way of the sea] RV 'towards the sea,' i.e. the Sea of Galilee. Beyond Jordan] must be taken to mean 'also the district beyond Jordan.' The other side of the lake was easily reached by boat, and was more than once visited by Jesus (Mat_8:23; Mat_14:13). The district S. of this, E. of the Jordan, was called Peræa, and was the scene of the last stages of our Lord's ministry (Joh_10:40). Galilee of the Gentiles] In Isaiah the expression means 'district of the Gentiles,' and refers not to the whole of Galilee, but to its northern borders, which were largely inhabited by Gentiles.
16. The darkness means in Isaiah the despair caused by the ravages of the Assyrians; in St. Matthew the spiritual darkness which Jesus came to dispel.
17. The kingdom of heaven] see on Mat_3:2.
18-22. Call of Simon, Andrew, James, and John (Mar_1:16 cp. Luk_5:1). Simon, Andrew, and John had already been disciples for some time, and so probably had James: see Joh_1:35. The call was therefore not so sudden and unexpected as it appears to be in the synoptic narrative. In Luk_5:1 a very similar call is recorded in connexion with a miraculous draught of fishes, and many suppose the two incidents to be the same. If they are distinct, and this seems the preferable view (see on Luk_5:1), the order of events is as follows. Immediately after His migration to Capernaum Jesus called the four fishermen, who were already disciples, to be apostles. They did not, however, while Jesus remained in Capernaum, entirely leave their trade, but waited for a final summons. This soon came. When about to leave Capernaum for a tour through Galilee, Jesus appeared to them again, and after working a symbolical miracle (Luk_5:1), called them finally to accompany Him. He called them while actually at their work, as He called Matthew (Mat_9:9), in order to show that no idle or useless person can be a Christian.
19. Fishers of men] 'The fisherman Peter did not lay aside his nets but changed them' (Aug.).
21. According to Lk the four fishermen were partners.
22. St. Mark mentions that there were hired servants in Zebedee's boat, which indicates that the family was not poor. St. John was known to the high priest, and probably had a house in Jerusalem (Joh_18:16; Joh_19:27) St. Matthew was rich. It cannot be shown that any of the apostles were specially poor or of a mean social position. 'Unlearned and ignorant men' (Act_4:13), simply means that they had not been trained in the schools of the rabbis. Manual labour was honourable among the Jews, and even the sons of the wealthy were taught trades.
23-25. Journeys of Jesus through Galilee: preaching and healing the sick. St. Matthew interrupts his narrative of what took place at Capernaum to give a general sketch of the early period of the Galilean ministry. After the sermon on the mount he returns to what happened at Capernaum (Mat_8:1).
23. All Galilee] A preaching expedition of so comprehensive a character must have lasted several months.
In their synagogues] Synagogues had their origin during the captivity, and rapidly became a general institution after the return. In the time of Christ there was a synagogue not only in every town, but in every village large enough to afford a congregation of ten adult men. The synagogue was primarily a place of worship, but it was also a centre of government, its members forming a local self-governing body. The governing body of a synagogue were called 'elders.' At their head was a 'ruler of the synagogue,' who maintained order during public worship (Luk_13:14), and decided who was to conduct the service (Act_13:15). The ruler was not a scribe, but ranked immediately after the scribes. Each synagogue had an attendant (Hazzan) (Luk_4:20). He was a scribe, but ranked lowest in the scribal body. He had charge of the building, gave the rolls to the readers, called upon the priests to pronounce the benediction at the proper time, and also on week-days acted as schoolmaster. It was he who carried out the judicial sentences of the elders. Many synagogues had an interpreter (methurgeman), who, after the Scripture had been read in Hebrew, gave the Targum, i.e. translated it into Aramaic, which was the vulgar tongue.
The elders of the synagogue were the rulers of the local community both in civil and religious matters. They had power to excommunicate (Luk_6:22), and to scourge (Mat_10:17) with forty stripes save one (Deu_25:3; 2Co_11:24). Unlike the Temple-worship the worship of the synagogue was under the control of the laity. A priest as such had no privilege but to give the blessing. The four chief parts of synagogue worship were, (1) the reading of the Law, (2) of the prophets, (3) the sermon, (4) the prayers. The prayers and lessons were read and the sermon delivered by members of the congregation selected by the ruler. This will explain how it was that Jesus, and afterwards St. Paul, were able to use the synagogues as centres for diffusing Christian truth: cp. Luk_4:16; Act_13:15. On week-days the synagogues were used as schools for children.
24. All Syria] i.e. the Roman province of Syria. Possessed with devils] See special note below. Lunatick] (lit. 'moonstruck') RV 'epileptic.' Such sufferers were supposed to be influenced by changes of the moon.
He healed them] Great prominence is given in the Gospels to miracles of healing, and our Lord plainly regarded practical work of this kind as an integral part of His work of salvation. Briefly expressed, the teaching of the miracles of healing is as follows: (1) That the preservation of life and health by all the means in our power is a Christian duty. The Christian will seek 'a sound mind in a sound body' for himself and for others. In practice this leads to the establishment of hospitals, efficient sanitation, and factory legislation calculated to protect life and limb and health. (2) That the soul can often be reached through the body. Christ touched the souls of those whom He healed, and the early Church made as many converts by its works of mercy as by its preaching. Missionary societies are well aware of this, and send out many medical missionaries. (3) That pain, disease, and death are no part of God's will for man. Like sin they came into the world against His will, and they are part of those 'works of the devil,' which the Son of God was manifested to destroy. God permits disease, as He permits moral evil, He even overrules it for good, so that sickness may become a visitation from God full of spiritual blessings; nevertheless, disease is no part of His original plan of creation, it is not natural but against nature, and it can have no part in the perfected kingdom of God.
25. Decapolis] i.e. 'ten towns,' a region beyond Jordan, containing originally ten allied or federated cities, among which were Gadara, Pella, Gerasa, and Damascus. It was part of Peræa, and its inhabitants were mainly Greeks.
Note on Diabolical Possession
In the NT. disease, except when it is a special visitation from God (Heb_12:6), is regarded as the work of Satan (Mat_9:32; Mat_12:22; Luk_11:14; Luk_13:16; Act_10:38, etc.). In particular, nervous diseases and insanity are represented as due to diabolical possession. This was the universal belief of the time, and our Lord, in using language which implies it, need not be regarded as teaching dogmatically that there is such a thing as possession. There were strong reasons why He should seek to 'accommodate' His language to the popular theory. (1) The insane persons whom He wished to heal, were firmly convinced that they were possessed by devils. This was the form assumed by the insane delusion, and to argue against it was useless. The only wise course was to assume that the unclean spirit was there, and to command it to come forth. (2) It was our Lord's method not rashly or unnecessarily to interfere with the settled beliefs of His time, or to anticipate the discoveries of modern science. The belief in demonic possession, though probably erroneous, was so near the truth, that for most purposes of practical religion it might be regarded as true. He, therefore, did not think fit to disturb it. Believing, as He did, that most of the evil in the universe, including disease, though permitted by God, is the work of Satan, He tolerated a belief which had the merit of emphasising this fundamental truth, and left it to the advance of knowledge in future ages to correct the extravagances connected with it. See also on Mat_8:28-34, Mar_1:21-28.
Note on Satan
Although from the earliest times the Hebrews believed in various kinds of evil spirits, it was not till the time of the captivity that the idea of a supreme evil spirit, exercising lordship over all orders of demons, emerged into prominence. In the OT. Satan appears only in the prologue to Job (Matthew 1, 2), where he ranks with the angels or 'sons of God'; in Zec_3:1, where he is the adversary of Joshua the high priest; and in 1Ch_21:1, where he tempts David to number Israel. All these passages are subsequent to the captivity. In the NT. Satan is a much more prominent character. His influence is represented as allpervading. He disposes of earthly kingdoms as he wills. He has an organised kingdom of darkness which cannot be overthrown even by the Christ without a fearful struggle, in which the conqueror tastes the bitterness of death. Physical evil is mainly due to him, for he and his ministers are the direct authors of pain, sorrow, disease, and death. The NT. writers indeed recognise that pain and disease are sometimes inflicted by God Himself for disciplinary purposes, but, upon the whole, they ascribe the universal prevalence of physical evil to the malignant activity of Satan. The moral evil of the world is also ascribed in the main to him. He goes about the world like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, and never ceases from his insidious attempts to detach mankind from their allegiance to their Creator.
That our Lord many times expressed belief in Satan as a personal being, is admitted on all hands. The only question is whether He may not in this matter have accommodated his language to the beliefs of His contemporaries, or perhaps have personified evil in order to express more vividly its pervasive activity. Both suppositions are, on the whole, improbable. The allusions to Satan and his angels as persons are too frequent and emphatic, to make it easy to suppose that our Lord did not believe in their personality; and, moreover, belief in an impersonal, de vil presents greater difficulties to faith than belief in a personal one. That evil should exist at all in a world created and governed by a good and all-powerful Being, is a serious moral and intellectual difficulty. But that difficulty is reduced to a minimum if we suppose that it is due to the activity of a hostile personality. Opposition to God's will on the part of a personal selfdetermining agent, though mysterious, is conceivable. Opposition to it on the part of any impersonal evil influence or physical force is (to most modern minds) inconceivable.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v1 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XIX. Jesus Tempted].
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XIX. Jesus Tempted].
XIX. JESUS TEMPTED IN THE WILDERNESS. aMATT. IV. 1-11; bMARK I. 12, 13; cLUKE IV. 1-13.
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c1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, b12 And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth cand a1 Then [Just after his baptism, with the glow of the descended Spirit still upon him, and the commending voice of the Father still ringing in his ears, Jesus is rushed into the suffering of temptation. Thus abrupt and violent are the changes of life. The spiritually exalted may expect these sharp contrasts. After being in the third heaven, Paul had a messenger of Satan to buffet him-- 2Co_12:7] was Jesus led up [The two expressions "driveth" and "led up" show that Jesus was drawn to the wilderness by an irresistible impulse, and did not go hither of his own volition ( Eze_40:2). He was brought into temptation, but did not seek it. He was led of God into temptation, but was not tempted of God. God [87] may bring us into temptation ( Mat_6:13, Mat_26:41, Job_1:12, Job_2:6), and may make temptation a blessing unto us, tempering it to our strength, and making us stronger by the victory over it ( 1Co_10:13, Jam_1:2, Jam_1:12), but God himself never tempts us-- Jam_1:13] of the Spirit into the wilderness [The wilderness sets in back of Jericho and extends thence along the whole western shore of the Dead Sea. The northern end of this region is in full view from the Jordan as one looks westward, and a more desolate and forbidding landscape it would be hard to find. It is vain to locate the temptation in any particular part of it. Jesus may have wandered about over nearly all of it] to be tempted of the devil [As a second David, Jesus went forth to meet that Goliath who had so long vaunted himself against all who sought to serve God, and had as yet found none to vanquish him. The account of the temptation must have been given to the disciples by Jesus himself, and as it pleased him to give it to us as an actual history of real facts, it behooves us to accept it without being presumptuously inquisitive. Of course, it has supernatural features, but the supernatural confronts us all through the life of Jesus, so there is nothing strange about it here. Jesus had taken upon him our flesh, and hence he could be tempted, with a possibility of falling. But his divinity insured his victory over temptation. He became like us in ability to fall, that he might make us like unto himself in power to resist. It behooved him to be tempted, and thus sharing our nature with its weakness and temptation he might bring us to share his nature with its strength and sinlessness ( Heb_2:17, Heb_2:18, Heb_4:15, Heb_4:16). Sinlessness does not preclude temptation, else Adam could not have been tempted, nor could Satan himself have fallen. Moreover, temptation is in so sense sin. It is the yielding of the will to temptation which constitutes sin. The spiritual history of humanity revolves around two persons; namely, the first and the second Adam. The temptation of Christ was as real as that of Adam. He had taken upon himself our temptable nature ( Phi_2:7, Phi_2:8), and he was tempted not as a private soldier, but as the second Adam, the Captain of [88] our salvation ( Heb_2:10-18). The failure of the first Adam brought sorrow, darkness and death; the success of the second Adam brought joy, light and immortality. One of the tenets of modern infidelity is the denial of the personality of the devil. It is asserted that the idea of a devil was not known to the early Hebrews, but was borrow from Persian dualism. The Persians held that there were two contending deities--a good one and a bad one; and the Hebrews, according to these critics, learned this doctrine from the Persians during the days of their Babylonian captivity, and modified it so that the god of evil became the devil. But such a theory is based upon the absurd notion that all the books of the Old Testament were written after the return of the Jews from Babylon. Their theory requires this notion, for the books of Genesis and Job, which were written centuries before the captivity, both show a knowledge of this being, and the first connects him and his work with the very beginning of human history. Those who believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures must also believe in the personality of the devil, for they plainly teach it. The devil is a fallen angel ( Jud_1:6, 2Pe_2:4). This doctrine need startle no one, for as there are good and bad spirits in the body, so there are good and bad spirits out of the body. Since God permits sinful spirits in the body, why should he not also permit them out of the body? If there can be a Herod, a Nero, a Judas, among men, why may there not be a Satan among evil spirits? Being but an angel, Satan is neither omnipresent, omniscient nor omnipotent. He is only a tolerated rebel, as we are tolerated rebels. He was the first sinner ( 1Jo_3:8), and was the originator of sin ( Joh_8:44). He is the perpetual tempter of mankind ( Rev_20:2, Rev_20:8), but he shall be conquered by the Redeemer ( Joh_12:31, Rev_12:9), and may be conquered by us also through the grace of Christ ( 1Pe_5:8, 1Pe_5:9, Jam_4:7); but is, nevertheless, dangerous ( Rev_2:10, Rev_3:9). Jesus, therefore, teaches us to pray for deliverance from him ( Mat_6:13, R.V.). Jesus will destroy the works of Satan ( 1Jo_3:8), and Satan himself shall suffer eternal punishment [89] ( Rev_20:10). There is but one devil in the spirit world. The word which our King James Version translates "devils" should be translated "demons." The word "devil" means false accuser or slanderer, and the word in the plural is twice applied, metaphorically, to men and women ( 2Ti_3:3, 1Ti_3:11). The devil is called slanderer because he speaks against men ( Rev_12:10-12) and against God ( Gen_3:1-5). The word "devil" is Greek. The word "Satan" is Hebrew, and means adversary ( Job_2:1). Satan is referred to under many other terms, such as Beelzebub ( Mat_12:24); serpent ( Rev_12:9); prince of the powers of the air ( Eph_2:2); Abaddon (Hebrew) and Apollyon (Greek), meaning destroyer ( Rev_9:11); Belial, meaning good for nothing ( 2Co_6:15); murderer and liar ( Joh_8:44); prince of this world ( Joh_12:31); god of this world ( 2Co_4:4); and the dragon ( Rev_12:7). These terms are always used in the Bible to designate an actual person; they are never used merely to personify evil. The devil may have appeared to Jesus in bodily form, or he may have come insensibly as he does to us. Our Lord's temptation makes the personality of the tempter essential, else Christ's own heart must have suggested evil to him, which is incompatible with his perfect holiness.] b13 And he was cled in the Spirit [that is, under the power of the Spirit] in the wilderness [Isolation from humanity is no security from temptation. In fact, our present passage of Scripture shows that it is highly favorable to temptation. The experience of all hermits shows that loneliness is the mother of a multitude of evil desires] 2 during forty days [Matthew speaks of the temptation as coming "after" forty days. Evidently Mark and Luke regard the long fast as part of the process of temptation, seeing that without it the first temptation would have been without force. There is no evidence of any other specific temptations before the three], being tempted of bSatan; cthe devil, band he was with the wild beasts [A graphic touch, showing the dreariness and desolation of the wilderness, and indicating its peril. Lions, [90] wolves, leopards and serpents have been found in the Judæan wilderness]; cAnd he did eat nothing [It used to be thought that a forty days' absolute fast was a practical impossibility, and Luke's words were therefore modified to mean that he ate very little. But as a forty days' fast has been safely accomplished in modern times, and as it was Jesus who fasted, we see no reason why we should not take Luke's statement literally, as indicating an absolute fast] in those days: and when they were completed. a2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights [A forty days' fast was accomplished by Moses ( Exo_34:28, Deu_9:18), and by Elijah ( 1Ki_19:8), and it is a significant fact in this connection that these two men appeared with Christ at his transfiguration ( Mat_17:3). Those who share Christ's sufferings shall also share his glorification ( Rom_8:17, 2Ti_2:11, 2Ti_2:12). The forty days' fast became a basis for the temptation. We are told that temptation results from the excitement of desire ( Jam_1:14), and, as a rule, the greater the desire the greater the temptation. Viewed from this standpoint the temptation of the second Adam greatly exceeded in strength that of the first, for Adam abstained as to a particular fruit, but Christ fasted as to all things edible], he afterward hungered. [Here, for the first time, our Lord is shown as sharing our physical needs. We should note for our comfort that one may lack bread and suffer want, and still be infinitely beloved in heaven.] 3 And the tempter came [Satan is pre-eminently the tempter, for other tempters are his agents. He may possibly have appeared as an angel of light ( 2Co_11:14), but the purpose of his coming is more important than the manner of it. He came to produce sin in Jesus, for sin would render him forever incapable of becoming our Saviour--a sacrifice for the sins of others] c3 And the devil said unto him, If thou art the Son of God, command this stone that it acommand that these stones become bread. [The devil's "if" strikes at the faith of Christ, and faith is the bond of union and accord between man and God. The main sin of this temptation was therefore distrust, though [91] it had other sinful phases. The Father's voice had just declared the Sonship of Jesus, and Satan here boldly questions the truth of God's words, just as he did in the beginning ( Gen_3:3-5). The temptation smacks of curiosity, and curiosity is the mother of many sins. Though Satan so glibly questioned the divinity of Christ, his kingdom soon began to feel the power of that divinity ( Luk_4:34-41), and shall continue to feel it until his kingdom is destroyed ( Heb_2:14, 1Jo_3:8). This temptation appealed to the present appetite, the impulse of the moment, as many of our temptations do. It has been quaintly said of the tempter that "he had sped so successfully to his own mind by a temptation about a matter of eating with the first Adam, that he practiced the old manner of trading with the second." This first temptation is still Satan's favorite with the poor. He suggests to them that if they were really the beloved objects of God's care, their condition would be otherwise. We should note that Jesus wrought no selfish miracle. Such an act would have been contrary to all Scripture precedent. Paul did not heal himself ( 1Co_12:7-9, Gal_4:13, Col_4:14), nor Epaphroditus, ( Phi_2:25-27), nor Trophimus ( 2Ti_4:20). Denying himself the right to make bread in the wilderness, Christ freely used his miraculous power to feed others in the desert ( Mat_14:15-21), and merited as just praise those words which were meant as a bitter taunt-- Mat_27:42.] 4 But he { c4 And Jesus aanswered and said, cunto him, It is written [Jesus quotes Deu_8:3. It is a saying relative to the times when Israel was sustained by manna in the wilderness. The case of Jesus was now similar to that of Israel. He was in a foodless wilderness, but he trusted that as God had provided for Israel in its helplessness, so would he now provide for him. Israel sinned by doubt and murmuring, and proposing to obtain bread in its own way--that is, by returning to Egypt ( Exo_16:1-9). Jesus avoided a like sin. We should note the use which our Lord made of Scripture: in his hour of trial he did not look to visions and voices and special revelation for guidance, but used the written Word as the lamp [92] for his feet ( Psa_119:105); in the conflict of temptation he did not defend himself by his own divine wisdom, but used that wisdom which God had revealed to all Israel through his prophets. Jesus fought as a man ( Phi_2:6, Phi_2:7), and used that weapon which, as God, he had given to man ( Eph_6:17). Jesus used the Scripture as of final, argument-ending authority. Eve also started with "God hath said" ( Gen_3:3); but she was not constant in her adherence to God's word. Jesus permitted Satan neither to question nor pervert the Scripture], Man [In using the word "man" Jesus takes his stand with us as a human being] shall not live by bread alone [Called out of Egypt as God's Son ( Mat_2:15), Jesus could well expect that he would be fed with manna after his forty days' fast. He trusted that God could furnish a table in the wilderness ( Psa_78:19). We, too, have abundant reason for a like trust. God gave us our lives, and gave his Son to redeem them from sin. He may let us suffer, but we can not perish is we trust him. Let us live by his word rather than by bread. It is better to die for righteousness than to live by sin. God fed Israel with supernatural bread, to show the people that they lived thus, and not by what they were pleased to call natural means. The stomach is a useful agent, but it is not the source of life, nor even the life sustainer. Those who think that the securing of bread is the first essential to the sustaining of life, will fail to seek any diviner food, and so will eventually starve with hunger--soul hunger.] abut by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God [To satisfy our sense of duty is often more pleasant than to appease the pangs of hunger ( Joh_4:32-34, Job_23:12, Jer_15:16). The trust of Jesus that God would speak in his behalf and save him, was like that of Job ( Job_13:15). God can sustain our lives without food if he chooses. We shall live if God wills it, bread or no bread; and we shall likewise die at his word ( Mat_6:25, Joh_6:47-58, Act_17:28). God can support our lives independent of our body-- Mat_10:28.] 5 Then the devil taketh him [Matthew emphasizes the [93] compulsory companionship of Satan. Jesus was in the hands of Satan as was Job ( Job_2:5, Job_2:6); but in Jesus' case Satan had the power of life and death, and he eventually took Jesus to the cross and slew him there] into the holy city [A common name for Jerusalem. The inscription on Jewish coins was "Jerusalem the Holy." Arabs to-day call it "el Kuds," "the Holy." The Holy City did not exclude the tempter nor temptations. The church may be the scene of man's sorest trial to resist wrong. But in the Holy City which is to come there will be no temptation]; c9 And he led him to Jerusalem, aand set him [The two verbs "taketh" and "setting" imply that Satan exercised a control over the bodily person of our Lord] on the pinnacle of the temple [It is not known exactly what spot is indicated by the word "pinnacle." Hence three places have been contended for the proper locality: 1. The apex of the temple structure itself. 2. The top of Solomon's porch. 3. The top of Herod's royal portico. As to the temple itself, Josephus tells us that its roof was covered with spikes of gold, to prevent even birds from alighting upon it, and, if so, men could not stand upon it. Solomon's porch, or the eastern portico, faced the Mount of Olives, and has been fixed upon by tradition as the place from which James, the Lord's brother, was hurled. The royal portico of Herod was at the southeast corner of the temple enclosure, and overlooked the valley of Kidron. Here was then, and is yet, the greatest height about the temple, and it was, therefore, the most suitable place for Satan's proposal], 6 and saith { csaid aunto him, If [Godly life rests on faith. The life the devil would have us lead rests on ifs and uncertainties, on doubt and skepticism. We should note that foolish men doubt the divinity of Jesus, but the temptations of our Lord show how positively Satan was convinced of it. The opening scenes of Christ's ministry are redolent with his divinity. The Baptist asserted his purity and might, the Spirit visibly acknowledged his worthiness, the Father audibly testified to his Sonship, and the devil twice assaulted him as the divine champion] thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down [94] [The first temptation was to under-confidence; the second to over-trust and presumption--two very dangerous conditions of the soul. Men begin by disparagingly doubting that Jesus can save them from their sins, and end by recklessly presuming that he will save them in their sins. Comparing this with Eve's temptation, we find that she was vainly curious to see if she might be like God ( Gen_3:5), but Christ resisted such curiously. It is urged by some as to this temptation that there is no hint of vainglory or display, because nothing is said about casting himself down in the presence of the people, and that Jesus was merely taken to the temple because the sacred locality would tend to heighten his trust in the protecting promise which Satan quoted. But this ground is not well taken, for 1. The temple presumes a crowd. 2. We have a right to presume that this temptation would be like others to which Jesus was subjected. He was frequently invited to work miracles to satisfy curiosity, and he invariably refused to do so]: cfrom hence: 10 for it is written [This quotation is taken from Psa_91:11, Psa_91:12, and applies to man generally. Note 1. The devil's head is full of Scripture, but to no profit, for his heart is empty of it. 2. By quoting it he shows a sense of its power which modern rationalism would do well to consider. 3. Satan's abuse of Scripture did not discourage Christ's use of it], He shall give his angels charge concerning thee [Regarding Satan's words as a quotation, we are struck with the fact that his knowledge of this particular passage was based upon his personal experience. He had been confronted by the presence of the guardian angels and had fretted at it ( Job_1:10, 2Ki_6:8, 2Ki_6:17, Psa_34:7, Jud_1:9). As a temptation, Satan's words appeal to Jesus to be more religious; to put more trust and reliance upon the promises of the Father; and he puts him in the place--the temple--where he might argue that God could least afford to let his promise fail], to guard thee: 11 and, On their hands they shall bear thee up [All who love pomp, display of artistic taste, gaieties of fashion, intoxication of fame, etc., fall by this temptation. Those who truly rest on God's promises, stand on a sure [95] foundation, but those who rise on bubbles must come down when they burst], Lest haply thou dash thy foot against a stone. 12 And Jesus answering, said unto him, aagain it is written csaid, ["Written," "said"; the writings of Scripture are in general the sayings of God. But the Bible is not made up of isolated texts. To get a right understanding we must compare Scripture with Scripture. We could have no higher indorsement of the Old Testament than this use of it by Christ. It was sufficient for him in his temptations, and with the addition of the New Testament, it is sufficient for us in all things-- 2Ti_3:16, 2Ti_3:17, Col_3:3-16], aThou shalt not make trial [Make experiment upon God, set traps for him, put one's self in dangerous situations, hoping thereby to draw forth some show of loving deliverance. Had Jesus cast himself down, he would have demanded of the Father a needless miracle to prove his Sonship, and would thereby have put the love of God to an unnecessary trial. All who jeopardize themselves without any command of God or call of duty, make trial of his love] of the Lord thy God. 8 Again, the devil taketh him [whether naturally or supernaturally, "whether in the body or out of the body" ( 2Co_12:2-4), we can not tell. But it was a real, practical trial and temptation] unto an exceeding high mountain [it is immaterial which mountain this was; for from no mountain could one see the whole earth with the natural eye], c5 And he led him up, aAnd showeth cshowed ahim [It is not said by either evangelist that Jesus saw the kingdoms from the mountain-top, but that Satan showed them to him. From any high Judæan mountain it would be easy for him to locate Rome, Greece, Egypt, Persia and Assyria, and as he pointed out their locality a few brief words of description would picture them to the imagination of Jesus, and cause their glories to move before his eyes. But it is very likely that to this description some sort of supernatural vision was added. It tempted the eye of Jesus as the luscious fruit did the eye of Eve-- Gen_3:6] all the kingdoms of the world [It tempted Jesus to realize the dreams [96] which the Jewish nation entertained. It was an appeal to him to reveal himself in the fullness of his power and authority as above generals, princes, kings, and all beings of all ages. An appeal to obtain by physical rather than by spiritual power; by the short-cut path of policy rather than by the long road of suffering and martyrdom. Jesus came to obtain the kingdoms of the world. He was born King of the Jews, and confessed himself to be a King before Pilate. All authority is now given to him, and he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet, and until all the kingdoms of the world become his kingdom. Satan's way to obtain this kingdom differed from God's way. He might obtain it by doing Satan's will and becoming his worshiper, or by worshiping God and doing his will. Satan would give the speedier possession, but God the more lasting. We also strive for a kingdom; but let us obtain ours as Christ did his], and the glory of them [That is, all their resources as well as their magnificence. Their cities, lands and people, their armies, treasures and temples, etc. Many parents, in encouraging their children to seek earthly glory and distinction, unconsciously assist Satan in urging this temptation]; cin a moment of time [These words strongly indicate that the prospect must have been supernaturally presented. The suddenness of the vision added greatly to the power of the temptation]; a9 and he cthe devil said unto him, To thee will I give all this authority aAll these things will I give thee, [From the standpoint of Christ's humanity, how overwhelming the temptation! It was the world's honors to one who had for thirty years led the life of a village carpenter; it was the world's riches to him who had not where to lay his head. From the standpoint of Jesus' divinity the temptation was repulsive. It was a large offer in the sight of Satan, but a small one in the sight of him who made all the worlds. Such offers are large to the children of the world, but small to those who are by faith joint-heirs with Christ ( Rom_8:17, Phi_3:7, Phi_3:8). But the temptation was, nevertheless, very specious and plausible. The power of Jesus linked with that of Satan, and [97] operating through Jewish fanaticism and pagan expectation would, in a few months, have brought the whole earth into one temporal kingdom, with Jesus as its head. But the kingdom of Christ rested upon a surer promise ( Psa_2:8) than that here given by the "father of lies." God had promised, and, despite the pretensions of Satan, God had not yet retired from the government of the world. It was true that Satan and his emissaries had, by usurpation, gained an apparent possession of the world, but Jesus had right to it as the heir of God ( Mat_21:33-43). Being stronger than Satan, he had come to regain his kingdom, not by treaty, but by conquest ( Luk_11:19-22). Moreover, he would obtain it as a spiritual and not as a carnal kingdom. Servants of Christ should remember this. Every attempt to establish Messiah's kingdom as an outward, worldly dominion is an effort to convert the kingdom of heaven into the kingdom of the devil. God's kingdom can not be secularized. It should be noted also that Satan omits the words "if thou art the Son of God" in this instance, for their presence would have marred the force of the temptation. Note also that this was the only temptation wherein Satan evinced any show of generosity. He is slow to give anything, and most of us sell out to him for nothing-- Isa_52:3], and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me [Satan does not claim an absolute but a derivative right, and his claim is not wholly unfounded ( Joh_12:31, Joh_14:30, Joh_16:11). But the kingdom has been delivered unto him by men rather than by God ( Eph_2:2). How much more quickly Jesus would have obtained power, had he received it from men by consenting to co-operate with them in their sinful practices as does Satan]; and to whomsoever I will [Not so Jesus. His giving is according to the Father's will-- Mat_9:23] I give it [The Emperor Tiberius then held it in the fullest sense ambition ever realized. Yet he was the most miserable and degraded of men. Satan knows how to take full toll for all that he gives.] 7 If [In the temptations Satan uses three "ifs." The first "if" is one of despairing doubt; the second, one of vainglorious speculation; the third, one of moral and [98] spiritual compromise] thou therefore wilt afall down and worship cbefore me [Satan and God each seek the worship of man, but from very different motives. God is holiness and goodness, and we are invited to worship him that we may thereby be induced to grow like him. But Satan seeks worship for vanity's sake. How vast the vanity which would give so great a reward for one act of worship! Verily the devil is fond of it. He gives nothing unless he obtains it, and all his generosity is selfishness. Worshiping before Satan is the bending of the soul rather than of the body. He holds before each of us some crown of success, and says: "Bend just a little; slightly compromise your conscience. Accept the help of Pharisee and Sadducee, and keep silent as to their sins. Mix a little diplomacy with your righteousness. Stoop just a little. If you do, I will aid you and insure your success. If you do not, I will defeat you and laugh at your failures." It is Satan's sin to make such suggestions, but it is not our sin until we comply with them. We may more quickly obtain by his wrong way, but more surely by God's right way. Let no Christian be humiliated or discouraged by gross temptation, since even the Son of God was tempted to worship the devil. What Jesus would not do, the Beast has done, and has received the kingdoms for a season ( Rev_13:1-9). Note, too, that it is all one whether we worship Satan, or mammon, the gift which he offers-- Mat_6:24], it shall all be thine. 8 And a10 Then cJesus answered and said asaith cunto him, aGet thee hence [The passionate utterance of an aroused soul. Indignation is as divine as patience ( Eph_4:26). Satan's sweetest temptation was most disgusting to Christ, for its sin was so grossly apparent. It ran counter to the very first of the ten commandments. Jesus would give it no room in his thoughts; he spurned it, as being as heinous as the law describes it ( Deu_5:6-11). Temptation must be peremptorily rejected. Jesus did not stop to weigh the worthiness of Satan; it was sufficient that God only is to be worshiped. As God, Jesus was himself an object of worship; but as man he worshiped the Father privately and publicly. Satan [99] sought to command Jesus, but was commanded of him. Step by step Satan has obeyed this command, and foot after foot, earth's spiritual world has been yielded by his departing presence], Satan [The first and second temptations were so subtle and covert, and their sin so skillfully disguised, as to suggest that Satan himself was disguised. If so, his pride and vanity, revealed in this last temptation, betrayed him so that Jesus tore off his mask and called him by his right name. When he tempted him in a somewhat similar matter, Jesus called Simon Peter by this name ( Mat_16:23), but he laid a different command upon each of them. To Satan he spoke as an enemy, saying, "Get thee hence." He ordered Satan from his presence, for he had no proper place there. To Peter he spoke as to a presumptuous disciple, saying, "Get thee behind me." The disciple is a follower of his master, and his proper place is in the rear]: for it is written [Jesus gives a free translation of Deu_6:13. He substitutes the word "worship" for the word "fears." Fear prohibits false and induces true worship, and loving worship is the source of all acceptable service. The three Scripture quotations used by Jesus are all from the book of Deuteronomy. He struck Satan with that very part of the Spirit's sword which modern critical infidelity, in the name of religion, and often aided by so-called religious organizations, seeks to persuade us to cast away], Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. [By serving God, Jesus obtained all the earthly authority which the devil offered him, and heavenly authority in addition thereto ( Mat_28:18). So much better are the rewards of God than Satan's.] c13 And when the devil had completed every temptation. a11 Then the devil leaveth che departeth from him for a season. [See Jam_4:7. But Satan left to return many times. Here was the first being endowed with human nature who had defeated Satan under all circumstances for thirty years. This was Satan's first defeat under Christ's ministry. His last is yet to come, and it shall come by this same Christ. Temptations are battles. They leave the victor stronger and the [100] vanquished weaker. Hence Satan when resisted is represented as fleeing. But he only flees for a season. He never despairs of the conflict so long as man is on the earth. Christ was constantly tempted by the returning devil ( Luk_22:28). As Jesus hung upon the cross, all these three temptations with their accompanying "ifs" were spread out before him-- Mat_27:39-43] aand behold, angels came [They had probably witnessed the contest. Compare 1Co_4:9, 1Ti_3:16. Angels do not appear again visibly ministering unto Jesus until we find him in Gethsemane ( Luk_22:43). When Satan finally departs from us, we, too, shall find ourselves in the presence of angels-- Luk_16:22] and ministered unto him. [Jesus was probably fed by the angels, as was Elijah by one of them ( 1Ki_19:4-7). Satan and suffering first, then angels, refreshment and rest. God had indeed given his angels charge, and they came to him who refused to put the father to the test. But they did not succor Jesus during his temptation, for that was to be resisted by himself alone-- Isa_63:3.]
[FFG 87-101]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 8 Then was Jesus
Then was Jesus
The temptation of Christ, the "last Adam" 1Co 15:45 is best understood when contrasted with that of the "first man Adam." Adam was tempted in his place of lord of creation, a lordship with but one reservation, the knowledge of good and evil; Gen 1:26; Gen 2:16; Gen 2:17. Through the woman he was tempted to add that also to his dominion. Falling, he lost all. But Christ had taken the place of a lowly Servant, acting only from and in obedience to the Father.; Php 2:5-8; Joh 5:19; Joh 6:57; Joh 8:28; Joh 8:54 (See Scofield "Isa 41:8") that He might redeem a fallen race and a creation under the curse; Gen 3:17-19; Rom 8:19-23. Satan’s one object in the threefold temptation was to induce Christ to act from Himself, in independency of His Father. The first two temptations were a challenge to Christ from the god of this world to prove Himself indeed the Son of God (Mat 4:3; Mat 4:6). The third was the offer of the usurping prince of this world to divest himself of that which rightfully belonged to Christ as Son of man and Son of David, on the condition that He accept the sceptre on Satan’s world-principles (cf. Joh 18:36). See Scofield "Rev 13:8". Christ defeated Satan by a means open to His humblest follower, the intelligent use of the word of God (Mat 4:4; Mat 4:7). In his second temptation Satan also used Scripture, but a promise available only to one in the path of obedience. The scene give emphasis to the vital importance of "rightly dividing the word of truth" 2Ti 2:15.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 4. The Testing of the King and His Testimony.
4. The Testing of the King and His Testimony.
1. The Testing by the Devil. (Mat 4:1-11.)
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2. His Testimony and His Disciples. (Mat 4:12-22.)
3. The Powers of the Kingdom. (Mat 4:23-25.)
CHAPTER 4
The first part of this chapter gives us the history of the temptation of the King. This is a most important topic, many-sided in its applications; large volumes have been written on it without exhausting it. We will therefore have to confine ourselves to the bringing out of some of the most important teachings, without attempting to go into many of the precious details and applications to the believer.
The baptism marked, as we saw in the last chapter, our Lord’s entrance upon His official work. He is declared as the Son of God by His Father, and anointed with the Holy Spirit; and the third act is that He, who is declared the Son of God, anointed with the Spirit, come to do the eternal will of God, to suffer and to die, is to be tempted by the devil. “Then was Jesus carried up into the wilderness by the Spirit” (Mat 4:1). It came immediately after he had come out of the waters. There was no interval between. This is seen from the Gospel of Mark. “And immediately the Spirit drives Him out into the wilderness” (Mar 1:12). It was the first thing to be done in fulfilling the Scriptures. He was carried into the wilderness, and in Mark it is stronger still: driven there. Some have said, as if our Lord was anxious to meet the enemy, desirous of coming face to face with that old serpent, the devil, who has the power of death, and whom to annul He had come. But that cannot be. If it had been our Lord Himself who hastens impatiently to meet the adversary, He would have been the tempter of the Evil one. Not His Spirit drove Him, but the Spirit carried Him into the wilderness. It was the Holy Spirit who took Him to meet the enemy. The Spirit, who had come upon Him and rested on Him -- He impels Him. The Christ, the second man and last Adam, meets the devil in another place, far different from the garden where Adam and Eve had their abode. What a contrast! Even the earth, though good and perfect it was, did not seem to be a good enough place for Adam and Eve. So the Lord planted a garden eastward in Eden , and there He put the man He had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food (Gen 2:8-9). What a beautiful spot that garden must have been! Surrounded by all this, with all wants supplied, the enemy came to tempt, and with it came the failure. But here is the second Man, and He is not brought into a garden, but He is driven into the wilderness -- “the great and terrible wilderness wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where was no water” (Deu 8:15). He was there in the wilderness with the wild beasts (Mar 1:13). In that terrible wilderness, surrounded by serpents, scorpions, adders and the wild beasts, the Messiah, the King, stands to meet the foe. And having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He hungered; His blessed body, a body of flesh and blood, felt hunger and thirst. How reduced in His outward appearing He must have been, the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief!
We would call attention to the fact, that the tempter did not come to Him for forty days, as it is often said in misquoting scripture, but afterward, when, having fasted, he came to Him.
And the tempter came to Him. It is the adversary, the accuser of the brethren, that old serpent, the devil. He is as truly a person as God and our Lord is a person. How terrible it is that in the very midst of Christendom the personality of the devil is denied. If there is no personal devil there is no need of a personal Saviour. The “new” theology, whose father the devil is himself, has no use for a belief in the personal devil. That person is simply put down as an invention of the dark middle ages, and spoken of as an old relic, which still survives in the minds of some old fogies. It is no longer a person with most of these modern theologians, but an evil principle. The Lord’s temptations, according to this new interpretation, were only imaginations, they were the workings of the mind, a kind of weakness which was produced by the prolonged fastings. If we ask these men who got rid of the personal devil, how they can explain the belief of the Jews in a personal devil and in the demons, as well as the demoniacal possessions in the days of our Lord? they answer us and say, The Jews brought this superstition from the Babylonian captivity. But if we ask these “critics” Why, then did the Lord and His apostles not correct so grave an error? they give us an answer which dishonors our Lord. The denial of the existence of a personal devil, as it is becoming almost universal in Christendom, is surely the masterpiece of all the dreadful work Satan has done, and we can well imagine what fiendish joy he must have in seeing his existence denied, and by and by he will have the world in security ensnared by his delusions. Then, when he himself and with him his demons are cast out of heaven into the earth, the earth will know that there is a personal devil, for he comes on the earth and brings with it that which is his work, the great tribulation. His wrath will be great for a short time (Rev 12:1-17). What a terrible awakening that will be for all those who denied the existence of that Evil one! The dreadful chain in denying the personality of the devil is: No devil, no sin, no judgment, no wrath, no atonement, no Saviour, and at last no God.
We do not know in what form of a person the devil appeared to our Lord. There is a scripture which tells us of a form he took that is in Genesis the third chapter. The serpent must have been perhaps the most attractive of all the creatures and not as the serpent is now, creeping upon its belly, having become this by the curse. In the New Testament we read that he goes about as a roaring lion and that Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. Perhaps in that subtle form he came to meet Him, whom he knew to be the eternal Word made flesh.
There is but one more word to be considered before we turn to the temptations themselves and take them up in their order. It is the word tempt. It is here where much misunderstanding comes in. The word tempt has different meanings. One of them is inciting or enticing to evil, to seduce. This always presupposes evil present in some form, the possibility that the person can be enticed and incited to evil, that in the person there is something which responds or may respond to the evil placed before the soul. This could never be the case with our Lord. There was no sin, no evil in Him. He is absolutely holy. Therefore the word tempt in this form can never apply to Him. But the word tempt means also, put to test. To test means to bring to trial and examination; compare with a standard; in this sense only it can refer to our Lord. He was tempted means, He was tested as to His ability to do that for which He had come. The test or tempting is to bring out that He is the pure gold, the Holy One, the spotless One, the One who alone can do the work for which He appeared, to put away sin by sacrificing Himself. Therefore the Spirit led Him up into the wilderness. The word tempting or testing has also a special significance in connection with Israel . The Lord, as Messiah and King, is closely identified with His people. He goes through their history, so to speak, and fulfills all, and at last He died for that nation. Israel was tested or proved, and failed. “There He made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them.” The Septuagint translates the Hebrew “Nissohu” with a Greek word which is used in the fourth chapter of Matthew. The Hebrew means testing, to find out if it is really so by a test. The same word is used in Deuteronomy the eighth chapter. “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God has led thee these forty years in the wilderness that He might humble thee, to prove (test) thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no” (Deu 8:2). The Lord, the true Israel then is tested and He does not fail. And now we come to the temptations themselves. The devil begins to address Him, who has come to crush his head. It would be very interesting to make a careful study of the words of Satan we have in the Word of God. They are contained in Genesis the third chapter, the first chapter of Job, and here in the Gospel. The words he speaks in these passages establish him in his true character, the liar and murderer from beginning, the accuser. He places before our Lord three temptations, the test is threefold.
I. “And the tempter coming up to Him said, If thou be Son of God, speak that these stones may become bread.”
The answer from the Lord: “But He answering said, It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through Gods mouth” (Deu 8:3)
II. “Then the devil takes Him to the holy city and sets Him upon the edge of the temple, and says to Him, If Thou be Son of God cast Thyself down; for it is written, He shall give charge to His angels concerning Thee, and on their hands shall they bear Thee, lest in any wise Thou strike Thy foot against a stone” (Psa 91:1-16).
The answer: “Jesus said to him, It is again written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Deu 6:16).
III. “Again the devil takes Him to a very high mountain, and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and says to Him, All these things will I give Thee, if, falling down, thou wilt do me homage. Then Jesus says to him, Get thee away, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and Him alone shalt thou serve” (Deu 6:13).
First, a few general remarks. Twice Satan takes the name Son of God in his mouth. He knew that the Person before him is the Son of God, but he hates Him as such. Later this hatred is fully seen in those of whom the Lord said, “Ye are of the devil, as your father, and ye desire to do the lusts of your father” (Joh 8:44). The Pharisees and elders of the people, who are seen in the Gospel of Matthew, knew Him as Son and Heir, and with this knowledge they rejected Him and delivered Him into the hands of the Gentiles. This was surely Satanic. Each of these temptations leads higher. In the first it seems but a small matter to turn a stone into bread. He knew this Lord had spoken in creation, and the heavens were blazing with millions of worlds, now but speak and change a stone into bread. The second demands more, but the third is the climax, when he asks Him, who is the Heir of all things, and in whose name every knee must bow, to fall down and do him homage. All the forces at Satan’s command were unquestionably brought to bear in this last temptation. With one stroke of His hand He could produce before Him, who is the King of kings, all the kingdoms of the world.
Only once the tempter says, It is written. He knows what is written and he knows more of the written Word, which is forever settled in the heavens, than all the higher critical professors in the world. Higher criticism of the Word is but his child, his production. But whenever he quotes scripture it is always in the wrong way. It was so in the Garden of Eden and it is so here. He quotes from the ninety-first Psalm, but leaves out the words, “In all thy ways.” Another interesting fact is that the tempter knew that this psalm was spoken prophetically of the second man, the Lord from heaven. What sneering remarks have been made on the Book of Psalms by the critics. What they deny is a denial of the truth, which the devil knows, believes and trembles. Our Lord speaks three times, It is written. What a testimony to the Word of God! He knows no other weapon than the written Word. In quoting the scriptures to the enemy He does it from but one book, that is the book of Deuteronomy. More than any other book in the Old Testament this one has been denied an ancient date. Higher criticism has declared and declares today, that Moses never wrote that book, but that it is the work of some priest living centuries later. The late J.H. Brookes wrote very pointedly on this, saying, “Our Lord took refuge, so to speak, behind the written Word of God, quoting each time from the book of Deuteronomy, as if foreseeing the contempt with which this precious book is treated by modern higher criticism, and defending it against the attacks of the enemy. It is perilously near blasphemy to assert that He quoted from a book which this insolent criticism declares to be a forgery. For if He did not know the date of its composition He is not divine. And if He did not know but chose to humor a popular error, He connived a falsehood. Genesis tells us of election; Exodus of redemption; Leviticus of worship; Numbers of warfare in the wilderness; Deuteronomy of obedience; and hence the appropriateness of quoting from this book, which the Lord knew as divinely inspired. It is written, was enough for Him in the conflict with the devil, and It is written enough for us amid all the temptations we may encounter on our way to meet Him in the air.”
We will leave it, then, as we suggest above, to the reader to make a careful comparison between the opening verses of the third chapter in Genesis and the temptations of our Lord. The Satan there is the same, that old serpent, the devil. He came to Eve with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, and the same he brings to bear upon the Lord. He said to Eve, “Is it so that God said?” and to Christ he said, “If thou art the Son of God.” It is doubt, unbelief with which he always advances. He misquoted the Word of God to Eve. God had said, “Thou shalt surely die,” and he said, “Lest ye die.” He does the same in the temptations of Christ. These hints will be sufficient to help in the comparison.
The first temptation is of course the principal one. Defeated in this one he is defeated in all. He is detected at once as the enemy and with the first victory the whole victory is won. It is the most subtle of all; it appears extremely plausible and one might think it hardly a temptation at all, while in the third it is the most blunt attempt; we might almost say a desperate, despairing attack. But what was the first temptation and what does it teach us? “If thou be Son of God, speak that these stones may become bread.” That the Christ is the Son of God as He stands before the tempter was well known to the evil one. He knew it before and attempted to take the life of the child through Herod, and the demons cried out before Him in terror, “What have we to do with the Son of God -- hast Thou come here before the time to torment us?” But it can hardly be said that the temptation is to make Jesus doubt that He is the Son of God, because He is suffering hunger. The first temptation is one in which He is assailed as the Son of man. He was truly man, and this is seen here in the wilderness. He fasted and He hungered. Is there anything wrong in being hungry? Certainly not. It is in this that the subtlety of the tempter shows itself. The enemy comes with a natural want and appeals to our Lord’s power to relieve Himself from that want. He is still the same evil, cunning deceiver, who begins with the most subtle temptations. Here one might ask, What wrong is there in satisfying hunger? The Lord could easily have done this, turning stones into bread. He, who spoke in the hour of creation, “Let there be light,” “let the earth bring forth,” He by whom and for whom are all things could have at once changed all the stones into bread. Later He fed thousands in a miraculous manner. He could have done so now for Himself, but if He had done it He would have been proven at once unfit to be our Saviour, who could die for us. He came to do the will of God. Thus it is written, “Sacrifice and offering Thou willedst not, Thou hast prepared me a body. ... Lo I come, O God, to do Thy will” (Heb 10:5-8). He had not esteemed it robbery to be on an equality with God; but had emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, taking His place in the likeness of men. Now the path for Him has begun. He is here as true Man, God manifested in the flesh, but the path is to do the will of God, that eternal will of salvation. The path leads downward in humiliation, suffering, it is to end in the cross, suffering death and tasting death for everything. Hunger is a part of His humanity. Was there or is there in the Word of God one word which could have told Him to change stones into bread? On the cross in deep agony He remembered but a little Scripture concerning Himself, which had to be fulfilled, and so it was by His own request so that even not one of the smallest prophecies about His sufferings might be unfulfilled (Joh 19:28). But had God given anywhere one word to Him, who had come to do His will that He was to end His suffering as man, His hunger by a miracle? Nowhere is to be found such a direction. If He had entered upon the suggestion of Satan He would have acted according to His own will and that would have been the will of the enemy. He would have taken His case in His own hands. All the elements of disobedience and distrust to God are in it involved. Now having failed in this one thing, having satisfied His hunger and saved Himself by using powers which were not according to the will of God, He would have been unfit to endure the cross and to despise the shame. When it came to Gethsemane He might have shrunk from drinking the cup, He might have called upon legions of angels at His command to deliver Him, and when the billows of wrath and judgment were coming He could not have stood them. Thus the changing of stones into bread would have shown that He who did it was not fit to die for us, for He had chosen His own will by the suggestion of Satan and not done the Father’s will, which is that He should suffer.
This is clearly seen from His answer. He detects the old serpent at once. There is no parleying from His side as it was with Eve. He resists the devil at once. The perfect, sinless and spotless One has His “It is written” to hand and this Word, bringing out the Father’s will which He is here to do, ends this first temptation. “It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God’s mouth” (Deu 8:3). The meaning of the word He uses here is that man lives truly not by bread alone, but by the Word of God, that is, in obedience to this Word. And there is an application for us as believers. One has said on this, (Numerical Bible, New Testament, page 62), “We realize the wondrous privilege that is ours, the solemn responsibility that lies upon us. For we are sanctified into the obedience of Christ, and He has left us an example that we should follow in His steps” (1Pe 1:2; 1Pe 2:21). This principle of His life must then be the principle of our lives. If with Him the governing motive was to do the will of God, how simple is it that for us also the will of God must be our motive for action. By every word that goes out of the mouth of God doth man live. What a sustenance of the true life within us to be thus, day by day, receiving the messages of His will guided by that wondrous voice, learning more continually the tenderness of His love for us: “He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear as the learner” (Isa 1:4). This is the utterance of the Lord Himself. How blessed to be able to make it our own, and to have the fulfillment of those words: “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eyes.”
For the next test the tempter took the Lord to the Holy City and sets Him upon the edge (the pinnacle) of the temple, and said to Him, “If Thou be Son of God cast Thyself down; for it is written, He shall give charge to His angels concerning Thee, and on their hands they shall bear Thee, lest in any wise Thou strike Thy foot against a stone.”
The Psalm which Satan quotes (Psa 91:1-16.) is a Messianic Psalm. He takes Him to the Holy City , Jerusalem , and upon the pinnacle of the temple, because the second temptation is the temptation of Him as the Messiah. Standing upon that high place the people below must have seen Him and recognized Him; Satan was hid from their view. What a test and proof of His Messiahship if slowly He had descended, the laws of gravitation completely set aside, landing unharmed on His feet before the astonished multitude. Would they not at once accept Him? Why should He be rejected if by doing this He might become in the shortest order their leader, their King and redeemer from the yoke of the Roman oppressor? Now Satan defeated had heard the Word upon which the Lord stood. He was defeated by the Word. He comes now with the Word himself, quoting scripture and that from a Psalm which speaks of the Messiah, the second man. However, he misquotes the Word and leaves out the seven words, “and keep Thee in all Thy ways.” It is as subtle as the first temptation. Here he presents the Word and tries to make our Lord act in obedience to the Word by testing God’s Word and by doing so to prove that He is the Messiah and the Son of God at the same time. But why did he leave out those seven words? Because the ways in which He, the Messiah, will be kept are the ways of God. “Thy ways” are indeed His ways. It was not the way of faith in impatience to test the truth of the Word and casting Himself down and to prove thereby that He is Messiah and Son of God. It was impossible that He could have even given this temptation a moment’s thought. The answer is at once ready as soon as the tempter has uttered his lie. Jesus said, “It is again written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” It would have been testing, proving God and as such again distrust and disobedience. We see how closely the two temptations are connected. It is tempting Him to choose His own will and not the Will of God, to act in His own behalf and to escape the suffering before Him.
It is very suggestive that Satan should demand of Him to cast Himself down from the edge of the temple, and to prove by this act His Messianity and Divinity as well. Our Lord is gone into the presence of the Father with a glorified body of flesh and bones. In a future day He who ascended upon high, will descend. The heavens will be covered with His glory, and He who is the leader and completer of faith, the great Exemplar of faith, in whom patience had its complete, perfect work, will come again in glory and majesty, seen by all eyes, the Messiah-King of Israel, the Son and Heir. Then at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to God the Father’s glory. The adorable One knew the Father’s will; He knew the suffering and the patience, the only road that leads to glory. He begun to go the path, and His face is set like a flint. He could not fail in what He had come to do. Again the old serpent is conquered.
Let us, like our Lord, be patient and go the way which is for us now in humilitation, never murmuring or tempting God. “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into various temptations (trials), knowing that the proving of your faith works patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (Jas 1:2-4).
And now they stand upon a high mountain. What a picture is presented to our view! The liar and murderer from the beginning, and alongside of him stands He who is Jehovah, the eternal Word made flesh. What must have been His outward appearance with the fasting of forty days, with perhaps the tattered robes which hung upon His body rent by the thorns of the wilderness. The tempter’s eyes must have beholden such a weak and frail Person -- a man of sorrows, One who knew not where to lay His head. But the scene changes. The serpent hisses, and by his immense power still at his command the darkness of the night and the gloominess of the mountain top are dispersed. Marvelous visions of beauty! Right here is Egypt with its pyramids and wonderful buildings, treasures of art and precious things. It disappears, and in its place ancient Greece , Athens and Corinth come up in all their splendor. Once more the scene shifts, and now Rome , the mistress of the world, that great city, is revealed. Satan shows Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. Yes, all the kingdoms of the world, and they are in the tempter’s grasp still, are passing by, one startling vision after the other. And when the glory has passed, or perhaps while still in view, driven to the very last, Satan speaks, but now no longer mentioning the Lord as Son of God, but treating Him as mere man. He says to Him, “All these things will I give Thee if falling down Thou wilt do me homage.” The very words speak of despair. All things are His -- all the kingdoms of the world and their glory shall yet be the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the prince of this world, whose eternal abode with all his demons is the lake of fire, could dare and stand by Him who is the King, the second Man, and offer all the world to Him. Perhaps the very appearance of our Lord may have brought the tempter to this despondent act. But when all the kingdoms of the world and their glory pass along and the eyes of Jesus rest upon them, what thoughts must have been His? What did He behold in all the grand and glorious scenes? Surely we can venture to say that He must have thought of this poor, benighted world under sin, death and judgment, in the grasp of this dark and dreadful being standing there at His side. And He had come to be the Lamb of God and to take away the sin of the World. He had come to annul him, who has the might of death, that is, the devil (Heb 2:14). That He is the future heir of all things Satan must have felt, and now he offers Him all at once to turn over all the kingdoms of the world and their glory to Him if He will but do him homage -- again if He but turn aside from the will of God. It is now clear that Satan feared Him going that path of faith as the second man -- going it to the very end where He would crush the serpent’s head. Through death, through His death on the cross, the might of death in the devil’s hand, and eventually the control over this world, were to be wrested from Satan’s hands. All three temptations bring this out, “The tempter would keep Him back from doing the will of God.” But our Lord has gone that way. He was obedient unto death, even unto the death of the cross. God has exalted Him, the eternal victor, by whom we are forever separated from sin and death. He has put all things in subjection under His feet; He has left nothing unsubject to Him. He has been welcomed in heaven by the Father and taken His place at His right hand, waiting till the time comes when heaven and earth shall be shaken, when He, the First-born, is brought into the habitable world, and with Him in glory the many sons, and when at last the glorious shout shall ascend, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and forever.”
With threatening, defying words the Lord might have hurled the tempter down the mountainside, but it is a majestic “Get thee away, Satan” (He calls him now by name), “for it is written, Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and Him alone shalt thou serve.” The devil leaves Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. What a ministry that must have been!
Satan could not conquer Him. He has met Him whom he could not harm, and the temptations were the tests and show that our Lord is He, the only One who is able to do the work He came to do. But the tempter has gone on with the same temptations, and how astonishingly he has succeeded in that monstrosity which calls itself Christendom ! He has brought about a perfect blindness. Christendom attempts to rule, to control the world, to be on the throne; world-conquest, influence and power are its watchwords. Christendom has bowed the knee before Satan. It would not go the way the Lord went, doing the will of God, in obedience, patience and suffering, and then the glory. Hence Christendom has become the enemy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The remainder of the fourth chapter describes the entrance of our Lord upon His public ministry. The ministry which the Holy Spirit describes in Matthew is the Galilean. The events which show Him and make Him known as the true Messiah, the Jehovah-Jesus, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, are vividly described. As Jehovah in the earth, He does miracles, announces the kingdom of heaven to be at hand, but soon is in want, despised and rejected by the leaders of the nation and by the nation itself. The events of His Judean ministry in Jerusalem are passed over in Matthew. The fourth Gospel describes these events in detail, in which He is manifested as the only-begotten of the Father. There has been and is still a great deal of wrestling, so to speak, with these events as they are recorded in the different Gospels, to arrange them in a perfect chronological order, or, as it is said, to harmonize the Gospel records. The infidels of all ages have made the most of it to prove contradictions, and the rationalistic preachers and professors in the camp of Christendom have generally founded their accusations of numerous contradictions in the New Testament upon these apparent discrepancies, which they think exist in the different statements concerning the public ministry of our Lord. The Holy Spirit could have written a perfect account of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus Christ and arrange a biography of Him accounting for every detail, but He has not done this. To charge the writers of the Gospel with ignorance of certain facts is charging the Holy Spirit with it. In each Gospel the Holy Spirit makes prominent the events which are calculated to impress the specific teachings of the respective Gospels, and He has always arranged the events in such an order to suit Himself. Every Gospel is therefore to be studied and read separately from the others. They are in their contents not the mechanical reporting of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, but the spiritual unfolding of the blessed person and work of our Lord and Saviour as King of the Jews, servant in obedience, Son of man and the Only-Begotten of the Father. In Matthew we have before us the King and His rejection; therefore in the matter of His public ministry all is brought together by the Holy Spirit to show Him as King and to bring out as in no other Gospel that He is rejected of men.
We divide the account of the beginning of His public ministry, as given in the fourth chapter, into three parts. The first from the 12th to the 17th verse. Our Lord was in Jerusalem . The report reaches Him there that the forerunner, John, was delivered up, cast into prison and his ministry is ended. This foretold His rejection, and on account of the imprisonment of John, He departed into Galilee . Here we see Him first in His own city, in Nazareth . But we have here only the bare mention that He was in Nazareth and that He left Nazareth to dwell in Capernaum (Mat 4:12). What happened in Nazareth we have recorded in the Gospel of Luke. In the fourth chapter of that Gospel we read that our Lord, after the temptations, returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee . The whole surrounding country was stirred up on account of Him, and He entered their synagogues, being glorified of all. In the synagogue of Nazareth the scroll of Isaiah was handed to Him, from which He read the opening verse of the 61st chapter, stopping in the middle of a sentence, and began to say to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.” And there in the city where He was brought up they said, “Is not this the son of Joseph?” (In a little pamphlet. “The Messiah and His People,” we have described the event in Nazareth in connection with the chapter from Isaiah.) But the starting point of the Galilean ministry and its career is not Nazareth , but the place called Capernaum , that is, “village of comfort,” and there He did some of His mighty works. But leaving Nazareth and dwelling in Capernaum was done by Him in the literal fulfillment of a prophecy, standing in a very significant part of Isaiah. We find the words here quoted in the ninth chapter of Isaiah. It is in the midst of prophecies which are all Messianic that we read in the beginning of the 9th chapter that the great light (the Messiah) was to be seen in the Galilee of the nations. The most oppressed, the darkest and the most corrupt province was to receive the light first. Here we see this word fulfilled. We notice a twofold description of Galilee, namely, as the land of Zebulon and Nephtali and as the Galilee of the nations. Read Gen 49:13, “Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the sea, and he shall be for an haven of ships and his border shall be upon Zidon.” Jacob’s prophecy outlines the history of the sons of Jacob, that is, the whole nation, and Zebulon signifies the time of their rejection, when they become merchantmen. Here in Matthew we see Zebulon dwelling by the sea. So that we have the fulfillment of two prophecies before us -- the prophecy in the forty-ninth chapter in Genesis and the one in Isaiah. The same is true of Nephtali. This means struggler. “Nephtali is a hind let loose” (Gen 49:21). In Jacob’s prophecy Nephtali stands for the coming struggling and victorious Jewish remnant. Here, then, in the land of Zebulon and Nephtali the great light shines first. Grace comes down to the most miserable, the struggling ones. But here we see likewise something which has a connection with His second coming. The great light will shine once more. The glory of the Lord will cover the heavens, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings, and when this great event comes, the light will shine indeed upon a remnant of Israel sitting in darkness and the shadow of death.
The term Galilee of the nations has another significance. The province was called by this name, because the most ignorant class of Jews lived there and they had become mixed up with the Gentiles, who were very numerous in that borderland. The aristocratic classes of Judea, the learned in the law, the refined and ecclesiastical leaders, yes, all the different sects in Jerusalem , despised Galilee . An inhabitant of Galilee was looked upon as an Am-Hoaretz (an ignorant countryman). What good thing can come from Nazareth ? -- But here, where the people had sunk the lowest, the Lord appears first. That this is again an indication that the Gentiles, the outcasts and despised, were to come first, as we saw in the second chapter, need hardly be mentioned.
From the lips of the King Himself comes now the proclamation, “Repent, for the Kingdom of the heavens has drawn nigh” (Mat 4:17). He announces that the Kingdom has drawn nigh in that He, the King, is standing in their midst to establish that Kingdom. He never said nor taught of a Kingdom within them. All spiritualizing on these lines of a Kingdom within, which our Lord is made to teach here in Matthew, is wrong. It is the Kingdom John had announced which He now preaches. He prolongs the message of the forerunner for a short time and soon His lips were closed, too. We preach not the Gospel of the Kingdom, but the Glad Tidings of Grace. A day is coming when heralds will announce once more the Kingdom to be at hand, and when it will come in the person of the Son of Man coming from heaven with angels of His power in flaming fire (2Th 1:1-12).
The second part of the portion here before us extends from Mat 4:18-22. It describes the call of four disciples, Peter and Andrew and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. They were not from the class of wise men, learned in the written and oral law, but they were fishers. He calls them away from their nets to be fishers of men. This illustrates what the Holy Spirit later declared through the Apostle of the Gentiles: “For consider your calling, brethren, that there are not many wise according to flesh, not many powerful, not many high-born. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world, that He may put to shame the strong things, so that no flesh should boast before God” (1Co 1:26). To be a fisher of men, to preach the Gospel, does not demand a classical education, nor the ordination parchments of man. It is the Lord who calls to service. It is not the first acquaintance these four men had with the Lord. They knew Him before. Here it is the definite call which comes to them to be fishers of men. If we want to learn how these men came to the Lord Jesus Christ we must read the first chapter in the Gospel of John. The events there transpired before the Lord departed into Galilee . We see in the first of John that the forerunner was still witnessing; he was not yet in prison. The “Follow Me” here does not mean, as often erroneously put, the call of the Gospel. Gospel preaching never asks to follow the Lord, but to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.” It is the “Follow Me” for service. And how simple and refreshing the whole scene is! Their obedience is prompt. There is no excuse and no delay, for the King’s business requires haste. They had come to Him, to Whom John had pointed as the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world, and trusted Him for salvation, eternal life, and now they put themselves, their time, their all completely into His hands. The first call in John came to them, as the call from Him as Saviour, and here it is the call of Him as Lord, and they were to be His servants. “And they, having left their trawl nets, immediately followed Him” (Mat 4:20). How many questions might have been asked by them? “What about our nets?” “What about our support?” “What about food and raiment?” “And here is our old father. Does not our law say, Honor thy father and thy mother? Is it right to leave our father to toil alone by the sea?” -- They left it all immediately and trusted Him for all. And so the true servant of the Lord is obedient to His call and looks to Him, who has called him to service and who has promised from the glory through His Spirit to supply all need. How sad we are made when we look away from this refreshing picture to the modern evils of Christendom. Surely a salaried Gospel ministry is unscriptural. And then to think of all the evil, dishonor to the Lord and reproach upon His Name which is sometimes associated with it.
In the third section we see our Lord making the whole round of Galilee , teaching in their synagogues, preaching the glad tidings of the Kingdom and healing every disease and every bodily weakness among the people. The work done was threefold -- teaching, which was exclusively done in their synagogues, and that was expounding the scriptures, the law and the prophets. The meeting in the synagogue in Nazareth referred to above was repeated in many other synagogues. Preaching the glad tidings of the Kingdom, which may have been done mostly to the large crowds of people who flocked around Him in public places, in the streets and at the side of the mountains. Closely connected with the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom was the healing of every disease not spiritual, but every bodily disease and weakness. The healing of disease is always connected with the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The healings were signs that the King is the Jehovah and that the Kingdom had drawn nigh. These signs of healing every disease are the powers of the world to come. Later in our exegesis of the eighth chapter we hope to consider the question of healing more fully in all its far-reaching importance. Here we point out simply the fact, that it is not the Gospel of Grace which is preached, but that of the Kingdom. The Gospel of Grace needs no sign outwardly by healing of disease to demonstrate that it is God-given. Nowhere in the Epistles have we the promise that Gospel preaching is to be connected with healing of every bodily weakness and disease. However, it is very significant that the question of healing of every disease by supernatural power is made so prominent in our days. It is but an indication of the nearness of the coming dispensation, when the earth shall be delivered with its groaning creation.
His fame then went forth into the whole of Syria . And now they flock to Him. What a multitude it must have been! Satan had his mighty power resting upon that land. He knew that Christ had come to make an end of his power, hence he troubled his poor slaves with terrible diseases and by his demons took possession of his victims. There were various pains and diseases, those possessed by demons, and lunatics, and paralytics; and He healed them. Once more the prince of this world will attempt to have the world in his control. An evil day is coming for this world. Even now there is an increase of crimes and forms of insanity which indicate demoniacal possession. China and other countries are full of it. In our own land there are unquestionably those who have familiar spirits, known under the name of spiritualistic mediums. But He will come again. He comes when Satan with his demons are in the earth, and in his great but short wrath, torments the inhabiters of the earth during the tribulation. Christ’s coming means an end of that awful enemy. Then the Sun of Righteousness will bring healing, and what we see at the end of the fourth of Matthew is but a faint outline of what will be when the Kingdom will have come in the person of the returning King. May that day be hastened!
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 The Temptation in the Wilderness.
The Temptation in the Wilderness.
Jesus, by His baptism and the accompanying supernatural manifestations, had been formally and publicly inaugurated into His ministry. But He was not to begin His preaching at once.
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v. 1. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
"Then," immediately after His baptism, as soon as He had received the extraordinary communication of the Spirit. This same Spirit now filled His humanity and directed His actions, leading Him up, first of all, into the wilderness, causing Him to make the journey into the solitude of the desert the haunt of wild beasts rather than the abode of men, Mar 1:13. It was a voluntary trip on the part of Jesus, His single concern being to fulfill, in all things, the will of His heavenly Father, Psa 40:7-8; Heb 10:7-9, though the weakness of His human nature may have required some urging, Mar 1:12. For the object of this retirement was not merely to afford an opportunity for blessed rest and joy, nor to offer a chance for weighty contemplation as to the methods of revealing Himself to His people after the manner of a Buddha or a Mohammed, but to be tempted of the devil. The entire period of solitary living was occupied with this temptation. Mar 1:13; Luk 4:2. This combating of the devil was a part of the office and work for which He was sent by God and anointed with the Spirit. As the arch-enemy of mankind had tempted and overcome the first Adam, thus plunging the entire human race into condemnation, so he now proposed to vanquish the second Adam by hindering or frustrating the work of redemption. "Led up of the Spirit": "tempted of the devil"—a powerful contrast!
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 5, 7, 10 General Information:
General Information:
Here Matthew begins a new part of the story in which Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness, where Satan tempts him. In verse 4, Jesus rebukes Satan with a quotation from Deuteronomy.
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Jesus was led up by the Spirit
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the Spirit led Jesus" (See: Active or Passive)
to be tempted by the devil
This can be stated in active form. AT: "so the devil could tempt Jesus" (See: Active or Passive)
the devil ... The tempter
These refer to the same being. You may have to use the same word to translate both.
he had fasted ... he was hungry
These refer to Jesus.
forty days and forty nights
"40 days and 40 nights." This refers to 24-hour periods. AT: "40 days" (See: Numbers)
If you are the Son of God, command
It is best to assume that Satan knew that Jesus is the Son of God. Possible meanings are 1) this is a temptation to do miracles for Jesus' own benefit. AT: "You are the Son of God, so you can command" or 2) this is a challenge or accusation. AT: "Prove that you are the Son of God by commanding"
the Son of God
This is an important title for Jesus that describes his relationship to God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
command these stones to become bread.
You could translate this with a direct quotation. AT: "say to these stones, 'Become bread.'" (See: Direct and Indirect Quotations)
bread
Here "bread" refers to food in general. AT: "food" (See: Synecdoche)
It is written
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Moses wrote this in the scriptures long ago" (See: Active or Passive)
Man shall not live on bread alone
This implies that there is something more important to life than food.
but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God
Here "word" and "mouth" refer to what God says. AT: "but by listening to everything that God says" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
Jesus
Holy Spirit
desert
tempt
Satan
fast
Son of God
bread
written
God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 4:1-11 Parallels between Adam and Jesus are obvious in…
4:1-11 Parallels between Adam and Jesus are obvious in this account of Jesus’ temptation. Jesus is the second Adam (see Rom 5:12-19) and the second Israel (Matt 2:15). In contrast to the ancient Israelites, he fulfilled Israel’s history by successfully wandering through the desert without sinning. He proved himself the obedient Son of God by defeating Satan in spiritual combat. And because he underwent temptation himself as a human, Jesus is able to sympathize with the temptations we face (see Heb 2:14-18; 4:15) and help us overcome them as he did (1 Cor 10:13).
4:1 Jesus was led by the Spirit: The temptation was providentially arranged by God as a test of the Messiah’s character (see Deut 8:2). • to be tempted there by the devil: This test of character, initiated by God (who tempts no one; see Jas 1:13-14), was accomplished through the devil’s own desire to lure Jesus into sin.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.