What did the previous chapter look like, especially the Baptism of Jesus? Was there not some similarity to the way that we commission missionaries, pastors, and bishops? Or, even more to the swearing in of a new president or the crowning of a new king?
We have seen these events over our lifetime, and in some ways this looks like an inauguration event. There in front of everyone who had come out to see John, appears a person who identifies with the people (that is, he comes to be baptized too), but whom John recognizes as someone special (he is asked to clarify his intent).[1]
The special position of Jesus is confirmed by two signs: The Holy Spirit alights on him; and a voice from heaven says, “This is my Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
One might expect that it will now be onward and upward. However, in Jewish traditional stories,[2] and in many of our own, a special assignment is often followed by a time of testing when the anointed one is given a chance to prove that he or she is worthy of the accolades.[3]
Remember that Abraham was led into the wilderness and told to prepare to sacrifice his son, his only son. God was testing him to see whether he would really be obedient or hold back. When God saw that Abraham had character, he stopped Abraham and redeemed Isaac with a ram that was caught in a thicket nearby (Genesis 22). What will Jesus’ test be like?
4: 1-2. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished.
It is this same anointing Spirit who now leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tested/tempted by the devil. Did you realize that this too is a work of the Spirit? In our case, it is a part of the process of discipleship. We move through the School of the Holy Spirit by learning and by being tested along our way to becoming a mature Christian.
The Greek word for ‘tested’ and ‘tempted’ do not help us much here because it is just one word that can be translated either way. So, when there are choices in Bible translation, then we must look to the context to decide how the translation should be done. Elsewhere in Scripture, it is pretty clear, as Ben Witherington points out, that “God tests (intending to strengthen the believer’s moral character) and the devil tempts (intending to destroy that character), and paradoxically enough the same set of circumstances can be taken either as a test or a temptation depending on how one responds.”[4]
Like Moses and the Israelites, Jesus is in the wilderness, not for 40 years but for 40 days. Fasting implies a life of prayer, because the two go together. Fasting weakens the body, as seen in the comment that he was famished. In this physically weakened, though perhaps spiritually strengthened position, Jesus was confronted by the devil who was trying to make a deal.
The word for devil here is diabolos, ‘the diabolical one’. The next word is peiradzo, ‘to pierce’, which implies ‘to tempt’ or ‘to examine’. So, the devil wants to dissect Jesus in order to entice him to do something that God has not ordained.
4:3-4. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’.”
What is the temptation here? At face value, it is to satisfy one’s legitimate human needs. But, that is not the heart of the temptation. After all, God gave the fruit of the land for human food. It would not be illegitimate to make bread … unless, for that moment in time, God had already revealed a different plan. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert in order to be tested by the devil. Has God now decided that it would be all right to make bread from stones? Later God will provide food, but not now, and not this way. Why not?
We are getting closer to the heart of the matter. The key here is obedience to God. The alternative is to grab power, even God-given power, in order to satisfy oneself. Jesus could have accomplished what the devil suggested; after all, Jesus later turned 2 fish and 5 loaves into enough food to feed the 5000 (Matthew 14: 13-21).
Jesus has the power, but when and how should he use it? This same Jesus refused to call in an air strike of 10,000 angels to save himself from the cross after God made it clear in the Garden of Gethsemane that that was not going to happen (Matthew 26: 39). While Herod, the council, and the high priests were grasping for earthly power, Jesus told Pilate “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above…” (John 19: 11).
What is the devil’s motive? Disobedience, yes. The devil has a long history of that; he is called ‘the tempter’ and ‘the accuser’. But, look closer at the way that devil’s question is framed: “If you are the Son of God….” That is interesting. Who else has been called a ‘son of God’?
“One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan[5] also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Satan answered the LORD, ‘From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it’. Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil’. ‘Does Job fear God for nothing?’, Satan replied. ‘Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face’” (Job 1: 6-11).
The devil is full of envy. That is a sin. The devil is dead set on taking many ‘sons of God’ with him into rebellion. What he perhaps does not fully realize is that now he is up against THE Son of God, not one of the created ‘sons of God’, who are otherwise known as ‘angels’ or ‘demons’.
How does Jesus defend himself? Does he access his magical powers like The Avengers? Look closely. Jesus defends himself against the tempter with the same weapons that are available to us mortal beings. After all, Jesus arrived here incarnated as fully human and fully divine. If he takes up supernatural weapons, he is no longer in our league; we are only human. Instead, Jesus repels the devil with a ‘sword’ that is available to all of us: The Word of God.[6]
This is a good lesson for us to remember. Paul reminds believers that we are not weak before the tempter; instead, we are fully capable of defending ourselves without being superhuman.
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tested, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (I Corinthians 10: 13).[7]
4:5-7. Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying 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 will not dash your foot against a stone’.” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’.”
I have said that the Word of God is a sword in our hands to defend ourselves against the devil, but what if the devil is also able to quote Scripture? We read in Psalms and Proverbs that one of the prize gifts of God that we should pursue is Wisdom, sometimes called Discernment. We are reminded to study Scripture, to the point that it would seem like writing Scripture on our foreheads and directly onto our hearts. It is too late to try to look up a verse that you are having trouble locating when the devil is knocking on the door.
The devil correctly quoted Scripture; but he was wrong about the application. Like so many readers today, the devil takes every verse out of context. The devil pretends that each verse is a promise that will apply in every case. If a person has not read the rest of Scripture and understood all the stories, then they will miss that there is a kind of hierarchy of application.
Jesus himself told us later tells us that the greatest commandment is: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22: 37-40).
That said, can you imagine a secondary verse being interpreted in a way that breaks the greatest commandments? Absolutely not. Calling in angels depends on God’s larger plan, and God’s directions for the moment.
4: 8-11. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him’.”
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Perhaps the “Again,” implies also that these temptations are related. Are they all variations on the same thing? I think so.
Notice the degree of scam here. Probably in a vision, the devil parades all the kingdoms of the world and claims that he will ‘give’ these to Jesus. The devil is bragging; he doesn’t own all the kingdoms. There is no evidence in the Old Testament that that is the case. There may be wayward people and wayward kingdoms, but everything that exists ultimately belongs to God. God may permit them to go their own way, and God may then discipline and correct them, even forgive them (remember Nineveh in the Jonah story). But it is God’s choice to raise up or to tear down. The devil is using the old ‘bait and switch’ trick to promise what he is not able to deliver.
Then, the devil cuts through the smoke screen and gets to the point. The heart of the matter is that the devil is envious of the worship that God receives. The devil wants that worship for himself. What does worship involve? Certainly attention, adoration, and obedience.
Ask yourself, what do people devote their time to each day? Where is their attention focused? What do they adore and dream about? To whom do they give their loyalty and obedience? I’ll let you answer the question about how much time people spend in prayer, in Bible study, and in doing good works for others.
The devil tempts people to use power to achieve what may seem like good goals, but that path slips over into using power in ways that God has not ordained. What follows Jesus’ testing? You will notice that it is the Sermon on the Mount, which begins with the Beatitudes. The temptations to power, the grasping, greedy attempts to control one’s destiny and secure one’s own outcomes, is thoroughly crushed by the Beatitudes. Who is blessed? The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers. Who suffers and who causes suffering? The kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
Pretty clear. It is not the bold and brash who are grasping for power and revenge who are serving God. There is no blessing there. It is those who are obedient to God’s will, who are devoted to God’s righteousness, who are in the middle of God’s will. It is those who love God and their neighbor, and thus care for the widow, the orphan, and the alien in society who belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. Try to take power into one’s own hands, and power poisons the pretender. Try to use earthly power to bring about kingdom values and practices, and it will go badly for you. There is no back door into the Kingdom of Heaven.
[1] We pastors do the same at the beginning of a wedding: “I ask you now, in the presence of God and these your friends and family, to declare your intention to enter into union with each other through the grace of Jesus Christ, who calls you into union with himself.” ‘Will you?’ ‘I will’.
[2] Notice that the story of Job begins with praise, then moves on to a period of testing.
[3] How many movies are based on this premise. For example, The Lord of the Rings (Frodo) or The Matrix (Neo).
[4] Ben Witherington III, Matthew, (2006), page 86.
[5] Satan is a word meaning ‘the adversary’ or ‘the accuser’.
[6] Thanks to Ben Witherington for making this clear. Matthew, page 89-92.
[7] Thanks to Jon and Jodi for reminding me of this verse.