The Temptation of Jesus

This is quite long so I’m going to have to divide it up.

Heavenly Father, Please soften our hearts, and open our spiritual eyes and ears, so we may hear, understand, obey and apply what You want to teach us today. Give us a great hunger and thirst for Your Word that we can't deny. Teach us all the fear of the Lord.  Please grant each of us an insatiable appetite for sound doctrine & holy living; Grant that we will understand & trust in the inexhaustible sufficiency of Your  perfect Word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

§37. The Temptation of Jesus (Matt 4:1–11; Mark 1:12–13; Luke 4:1–13)

Matthew 4:1–11 (ESV) — 1 * Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. * 2 * And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. * 3 * And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” * 4 * But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” * 5 * Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple * 6 * 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, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” * 7 * Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” * 8 * Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. * 9 * And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” * 10 * Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ” * 11 * Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. *

Mark 1:12–13 (ESV) — 12 * The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. * 13 * And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. *

Luke 4:1–13 (ESV) — 1 * And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness * 2 * for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. * 3 * The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” * 4 * And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’ ” * 5 * And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, * 6 * and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. * 7 * If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” * 8 * And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ” * 9 * And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, * 10 * for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ * 11 * and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ” * 12 * And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” * 13 * And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. *

Exegesis
    (Matt 4:1–11)
     v 1     Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

led up = (or) brought before; i.e., presented (to the devil for temptation).

    v 2   And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.   

afterward = note, the hungering followed the fasting; it did not arise during the fasting, but followed it (see Luke 4:2).

     v 3   And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”   

    came = (or) approached.
     if = since.
     command = (lit.) speak (the devil is too subtle to make anything other than a mild suggestion at the outset); the sense of the Greek is, “Since you are the Son of God, speak the word in order that …” This challenged Jesus to prove that He is the Creator whose word brought everything into being (Genesis 1; John 1:1–3, 10; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2).

    v 5  Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple    

     pinnacle = either ‘highest point’ or ‘parapet.’

     v 6  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, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’    

     charge concerning you = give orders about you.
     bear you up = (or) sweep you away.
     dash = (lit.) stumble.

    v 7  Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’   

 tempt = ‘ekpeirazo’ is an intensive form of the normal verb for ‘tempt’ (only used here, Luke 4:12; 10:25; 1 Cor 10:9); it denotes premeditated testing. Greek makes no distinction between ‘test’ and ‘tempt.’

       v 10  Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’    

     Away with you = Begone! This is a command in Greek.
     serve = not slavish service but rather serve for hire, or serve in worship (both meanings have significance here).

    v 11     Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

     ministered = (distinct word from v. 10) it means ‘attend to the needs of.’

    (Mark 1:12–13)
     v 12   The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

     drove = this is a strong word denoting ‘forced out,’ ‘expelled.’

     v 13   And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.      

     wild beasts = Revelation uses this Greek word extensively (37 times), usually of Satan’s minions; it is only used 7 times in the rest of the NT.

   (Luke 4:1–13)
          v 5   And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,   

showed = revealed.
     of the world = (lit.) of the inhabited (or civilized) earth.
     moment = (or) instant.

     v 6  and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.    

delivered = delivered up (his by conquest in the Garden of Eden).
    

     v 13  And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.   

until an opportune time = (lit.) until (another) time.

Don’t forget to talk to the Lord about what you’re studying!

Purpose
The purpose of this section is to demonstrate that Jesus could not sin, and was therefore qualified to die a substitutionary death for all mankind and to be the God-appointed Savior.

Exposition
Before we start our consideration of the three temptations or tests that Satan used on our Lord, we should note that this section opens by informing us that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. First, this explains why the Holy Spirit became visible at Jesus’ baptism and links this section to its predecessor. Second, this fact is highly significant, for in this use of the Holy Spirit Jesus became a model for all Christians. Philippians 2:7 tells us that Christ Jesus laid aside (emptied Himself of) His divine privileges when He became a man; so Luke 4:1 indicates that He conducted His earthly ministry in the power and enabling of the Holy Spirit. His ministry thus becomes a model that all the regenerate can emulate, for He conducted it as a man, not in His power as God. Moreover, the fact that John the Baptist had already taught that Jesus would baptize in the Holy Spirit establishes that the power of the Holy Spirit is available to all believers, for He baptizes all saints in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:13).

The first question we must address in regard to the temptations themselves is just who was the aggressor, Satan or Jesus Christ? The first point to note is that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness (all three Gospels open their narrative with this fact), so Jesus was sent out to do battle with Satan (going into the wilderness symbolizes invading Satan’s stronghold to attack him). However, it is important to note that Jesus battled with Satan in His human strength, for He used nothing miraculous to defeat Satan but only those means that are available to all men. Jesus, then, as a human being, sought Satan out and forced him to subject Him to every test to demonstrate that He could not sin. Satan had clearly found that he was no match for God when God took his earlier heavenly status from him, so he may well have relished the opportunity to work on God reduced, as Jesus Christ was, to human strength. But despite this self-imposed limitation our Savior emerged the clear victor!

Don’t forget to talk to the Lord about what you’re studying!

Mark reports a circumstance not mentioned in the other Gospels: that Jesus was with wild beasts in the wilderness. Mark’s word for wild beasts (‘therion’) is used extensively in Revelation, but otherwise sparingly in the rest of the New Testament (7 times). In Revelation the word frequently has a sinister nuance, being used for Satan’s minions, so it could hint at demonic forces at play. This is evident in the events that unfolded, for our Lord was supernaturally transported to the temple in Jerusalem, and then spirited to a high mountain where all the kingdoms of the world were paraded before Him in an instant. As this is physically impossible, we must allow that something supernatural happened. We should therefore approach this passage recognizing that an evil supernatural aura prevailed, as is to be expected with Satan unrestrained. Jesus was in a vicious, vile situation such as no other man has ever faced.

So we need to recognize at the outset that this temptation is beyond our full comprehension. God restricts Satan in his testing of us (1 Cor 10:13), yet Jesus bore the full brunt of Satan’s power, something no other man has ever been called upon to do. We cannot conceive of the hunger Jesus faced (unless you have fasted forty days!); nor the temptation to the Messiah and Creator to avoid the incomprehensible humiliation of being rejected by the nation He had chosen from all of His creation; nor the diabolical cunning of the final temptation to a loving Creator to spare His creation the ravages of the Antichrist.

As you read the three passages you will notice that the order of the temptations given in Matthew and Luke vary, being reported thus:

Matthew:
  i)      Bread
  ii)      Temple
  iii)      Kingdoms
Luke:
  i)      Bread
  ii)      Kingdoms
  iii)      Temple

This is not a contradiction, for Matthew reports the events sequentially (v. 5 ‘then,’ v. 8 ‘again’), whereas Luke uses the weaker conjunction ‘and’ and arranges the temptation in a theological pattern. 1 John 2:16 helps us understand this pattern and the scope of His temptations, for it defines all sin as either:
   i)      the lust of the flesh, (stones to bread)
   ii)      the lust of the eyes, (plunge from temple)
   iii)      the boastful pride of life; (kingdoms of the earth)
and Satan tempted our Lord in each of these three categories. So, as Heb 4:15 states, “He was tempted in all things, yet is without sin.”

Don’t forget to talk to the Lord about what you’re studying!

While we are considering temptation in general, consider Satan’s first encounter with man in the Garden of Eden. Eve was tempted to indulge her appetite (lust of the flesh), saw the fruit was good to the eyes (lust of the eyes), and desired to be like God (boastful pride of life). She and the first Adam failed the test; Christ, the second Adam, did not. This explains Luke’s order—it uses the theological order of temptation as given in Genesis and later explained in I John, while Matthew uses the historical order. Satan designed our Lord’s temptations to probe these three areas to the utmost, and, as Jesus demonstrated that He was not susceptible to any of the three classes of temptation, He proved that He cannot sin. This, too, is the basis undergirding Heb 4:15—not that He was tempted with every specie of sin, but that He was tempted in every category of sin (Heb 2:17–18 provides further confirmation of this point). These temptations were both real and exacting in the extreme (Heb 12:3–4).

Now to consider the three temptations. First, let us note that this narrative must have originated by Jesus Himself relating it to His disciples (unless the Holy Spirit revealed the event directly to the Gospel writers), so there must be significant instruction to be gained from this narrative.

Don’t forget to talk to the Lord about what you’re studying!

Mills, M. (1999). The Life of Christ: A Study Guide to the Gospel Record (Mt 4:1–Lk 4:13). Dallas, TX: 3E Ministries.

I’ll post the rest of this tomorrow…either here if the site is still down, or on the board if we’re back up by then. 

Don’t forget to ask the Lord to help you remember to reflect on what we’ve studied as you go throughout the day.  You can use those things I’ve put in dark red as a guide of things to reflect on.  God bless you!