THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

(Part 6)

Matt. 4:1-11

Morning Meditation 9/19/167

Verses 5-7 say, “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And 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 time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”

The words “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down . . .” We have commented on the “if” of the first class condition which is “if” and it is true. Satan has now positioned Jesus on the “pinnacle of the temple” standing high above the people and sacrifices being made below. The priests are busy about their work of daily sacrifices. Satan is asking Jesus to make a dramatic entrance to impress the Jews that He is the Son of God. This is not the way the Father has it planned. However, Satan is saying that this is just another way of accomplishing the same thing. As long as the end result is the same, “What difference does it make how you do it?”

This is like saying, “God has given us the job of world evangelism and as long as we get the job done, it makes Him no difference how we do it. We will do it our way, find a promise that will get Him involved, and force Him to keep His promise.” God’s way of world evangelism is the local Church (Matt. 28:16-20).

Jesus is truly the Son of God and the Messiah. It is God’s will for Him to be accepted. God will work miracles to prove that He is Authentic. “Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me” (John 10:25). If Jesus had responded to Satan, this would have been a miracle done in Satan’s name. There was no miracle that Jesus did independently of His Father. All were done under the direction of God. The Christian life is a life that has returned to the authority of the throne. We have recognized in our repentance that there is no thinking that is independent of God that is right. Repentance is where we take God’s side against ourselves. Beware of those who operate outside of God’s revelation in His Word.

The word “cast”translates “ballo” and means “to throw or let go of a thing without caring where it falls.” It is an aorist active imperative verb. The aorist tense means that Satan is choosing the point of time and the way Jesus is to manifest Himself to Israel. Remember, Jesus has just been introduced by the proper man, i.e., John the Baptist. He is about to enter His public ministry. The temptation comes prior to the first miracle. John 2:11: “This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.” This is the miracle of turning ordinary water into wine. God carefully states that this is the beginning of miracles. Satan is trying to get Jesus to do His first miracle in response to his command. The word “cast” is also active voice and imperative mood. This means that Satan can go no further than reason with Jesus. He must leave the decision to Christ. Satan cannot make us do anything. We are not forced to sin by temptation. This is brought out clearly by Paul: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). Satan was attempting to get Jesus to volitionally act in response to his order. The imperative mood is a command that expresses urgency. Satan has no right to command Jesus. Jesus refuses to fall for Satan’s false authority. Does Satan have authority? Absolutely. He is called the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:3-4). He is dealing havoc within his kingdom. He has people so bound and under his control it is absolutely impossible for them to escape apart from the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the only way out. Paul says, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13). Satan commands Jesus and He refuses to obey. We need to be careful whose commands we listen to. If Satan would presume upon the Son of God, he will presume upon the sons of God.

One more thing about Jesus standing on the pinnacle of the temple, and being ordered by Satan to work a miracle to manifest Himself to Israel independently of God. Mary brought the problem of running out of wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee to Jesus. “Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come” (John 2:4) Jesus did work the miracle but it was God’s will for Him to do it. The word “hour,” as Jesus uses it here, lets us know that Jesus is working according to God’s time schedule. It was not God’s will for Him to obey Satan, even though He had the power, and the ultimate goal was to manifest Himself to Israel with miracles, wonders and signs. It is never right to obey Satan no matter how right Satan seems. If we listen to Satan’s reasoning, he will get us every time. When will we learn that we are no match for him? The Word of God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit protects us from the traps he sets for us.

Then Satan quotes Psalm 91:11 and uses the Bible in an attempt to get Jesus to do a wrong thing. Satan has not changed his methods. Some of Satan’s methods will never work on some people. He has a whole arsenal of tricks, traps and methods. One of his traps in this day of apostasy is to quote Scripture to get us to do a wrong thing. He is leading many away from the right path through the false application of Scripture. Most of the time it will be evident if one will only check his Bible. But we have so many who go to church and never open their Bibles. My pastor made a statement recently. He said, “If you go to a church where you don’t need your Bible, you are in the wrong church.” Amen. Satan knows more Bible than most preachers and knows how to misapply it so we do what seems right to us when all the time he laughs at how easily we were deceived.

Jesus responded to this temptation: “Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” The word “said” translates “phemi” and is not the same word as is translated “said” is verse 4 (epo). This word means “to make known one’s thoughts.” This word is made up of two words “phos” which means “light” and is used of “a heavenly light such as surrounds angels when they appear on earth,” and “phaino” which means “to bring forth into the light, cause to shine, shed light.” It is an imperfect tense which means Jesus continued to give light with His thoughts to Satan. Jesus is the Light of the world. Satan is a false light and is in darkness attempting to imitate the True Light. The word “answered” and “said” in verse four are both aorist tense verbs, i.e., a once for all statement. Why the change here? Because Satan is tempting Jesus to tempt God. He goes beyond tempting Jesus as a man. This took place when he tried to get Jesus to respond to a body need in a wrong way. Here it is a direct attempt to tempt Him in His Deity and drive a wedge between Him and His Father. God said at His baptism, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”As the Light of the world Jesus keeps on saying to Satan, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” This quote from Psalm 91:11 is God’s Word to man not His Word to Satan. So Jesus as the God-man puts Satan on the move by expressing His thoughts which were God’s thoughts. We should ever be mindful of the wrong application of Scripture to accomplish our own ends. Satan is always back of that.

May God bless these words to our hearts.

In Christ

Bro. White