THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
(Part 2)
Matt. 4:1-11
Morning Meditation 9/15/16
Verses 1-4 say, “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But 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.”
In our last meditation we commented on verse one down to the words “to be tempted of the devil.” This is a Spirit-led temptation. The tempter is the devil. The words “to be tempted” translate “peirazo” and means “in a bad sense, to test one maliciously, craftily to put to the proof his feelings or judgments; to try or test one's faith, virtue, character, by enticement to sin; to solicit to sin, to tempt.” The verb form is an aorist passive infinitive. The aorist tense refers to this point of time. The passive voice means that our Lord’s temptation did not come from within. Satan attacked Him from without. There was nothing in Jesus (like an old sin nature) to which Satan could appeal. Jesus was sinless in birth, in nature and in practice. He was truly human in His humanity with no inherent fallen nature received from a human father (Rom. 5:12). This qualified Him to be man’s kinsman redeemer. If Satan is going to defeat Him, he must do it now.
What is temptation? It is the seduction to evil or the solicitation to do wrong. This is what Satan had planned for Jesus. Everything Satan asked Jesus to do was something that He could have done. It is never right to respond to Satan to do right. Jesus was under the Lordship of His Father so that miracles were not done indiscriminately. Every miracle was a plan of God to confirm that Jesus was the promised Messiah. John 5:19 says, “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” Jesus states plainly that He does not act independently of His Father. Satan was trying to get Jesus to act independently. This Jesus refused to do.
God does not tempt, He tries for the purpose of proving the character of the one being tried. James says, “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:13-15). So in Satan’s first temptation of Christ, He appealed to a basic need, i.e., hunger. But on the Father’s side of the temptation, He allowed the temptation to prove that Jesus had nothing in Him to which Satan could appeal. He also proved that the commitment of Jesus to the Father could not be disrupted by physical needs.
The words “to be tempted of the devil” identify the source of Jesus’s temptation. Who is the “devil?” The word “Satan” is found only once in this passage and that is in verse 10. Here the “devil” is identified as “Satan.” The word “devil” is the translation of “diabolos” and means “prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely.” The word “Satan” translates “Satanas” and means “adversary (one who opposes another in purpose or act), the name given to the prince of evil spirits, the inveterate adversary of God and Christ. He incites apostasy from God and to sin.” In the temptation of Christ Satan does not send his demons to do this job. He personally comes to attempt to disqualify Jesus from His redemptive purposes and maintain his rulership of this world and retain his slaves in the kingdom of darkness.
In every temptation where we fail, we can thank the God of all grace that Jesus didn’t. Our success in temptation does not determine destiny. Our failure in temptation does not alter our destiny. Jesus is the one who successfully withstood the adversary and by doing it we enter into His success and through Him stand before God having stood the test in Christ. Someone hold my mules!!!! Satan can bring no accusation against us in Christ. John says, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). The words “as He is” mean as He is right now. The words, “That we may have boldness in the day of judgment” means that what we have now equips us with boldness for future judgment. Our position in Christ should never be a license to sin. But we should never forget that what we are now and in the future, so far as our standing before God is concerned, is what we are in Christ. It is Jesus first, last and always.
Then Matthew says, “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights” to give us a proper view of the context of this first temptation. Satan did not come to Him after He had been to Western Sizzling Steak House. There are other forty day fasts mentioned in the Scripture. Moses and Elijah both fasted forty days and forty nights. I’ll never forget a preacher who went on a fast and was in a vehicle in which he had confined himself and for which he was praying for money to pay off so he could use it as an evangelistic tool. It was kind-of-a-truck-affair and had a baptistry built on the back of it so he could “win um’ and baptize um’ on the spot. Everyone knew of the great self denial of this whiz-bam-evangelist. Well, he had fasted several days and everyone was pretty impressed, until it was discovered he had friends slippin’ milkshakes in to him. When asked he said that liquid was allowed on a fast. You know, I believe I could go forty days and nights on milkshakes! Well, I’m not making fun. I’ve done some things about as stupid as that myself. Jesus had no food or water intake for forty days. This is the environment of the temptation of Jesus.
Then our text says, “he was afterward an hungered.” The words “he was afterward” translate “husteron” and means “later, coming after.” The word “hungered” translates “peinao” and means “to be hungry, to want or to be in need.” It is an aorist active indicative verb. The aorist tense refers to the point of time which came after forty days. It seems to suggest that He was not hungry before. Jesus was not tempted forty days and forty nights. He was tempted after forty days and forty nights. Hunger was not the temptation, it was the environment for the temptations. There was no old sin nature in Jesus to which the devil could appeal. However, there was natural hunger. It is not wrong to be hungry. It is a gift of God that a healthy person has to tell him when his body is running low on gas. However, I think my gas gauge has something wrong with it. It tells me I am empty when I have gas sloshing out of the tank!
