Mt. 4:1–11
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS
4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 Then the tempter approached him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”,
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand 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 give his angels orders concerning you,
and they will support you with their hands
so that you will not strike
your foot against a stone.”,
7 Jesus told him, “It is also written: Do not test the Lord your God.”,
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 And he said to him, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus told him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”,
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and began to serve him. [1]
Luke 4:1–13
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS
4 Then Jesus left the Jordan, full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 But Jesus answered him, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone.”
5 So he took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 The devil said to him, “I will give you their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want. 7 If you, then, will worship me, all will be yours.”
8 And Jesus answered him, “It is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”
9 So he took him to Jerusalem, had him stand 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 give his angels orders concerning you,
to protect you,, 11 and
they will support you with their hands,
so that you will not strike
your foot against a stone.”,
12 And Jesus answered him, “It is said: Do not test the Lord your God.”,
13 After the devil had finished every temptation, he departed from him for a time.
Comparisons between the tests of Adam and Jesus
In the history of the world two men have been placed on probation to pass a test at the hands of God: Adam and Jesus of Nazareth. Before we consider the actual content of the test facing Jesus, I would like to consider this question: What was the difference between the test that Adam underwent in Paradise and the test Jesus experienced in the wilderness?[2]
Immediately following the experience of his baptism, Jesus was directed to the wilderness, to undergo temptation.
Comparisons between the tests of Adam and Jesus
In the history of the world two men have been placed on probation to pass a test at the hands of God: Adam and Jesus of Nazareth. Before we consider the actual content of the test facing Jesus, I would like to consider this question: What was the difference between the test that Adam underwent in Paradise and the test Jesus experienced in the wilderness? There are several important differences that we can note in comparing and contrasting the two episodes. When Adam was tempted, he was in the midst of a beautiful paradise. Many Christians down through the centuries have found it beneficial to take time out from their daily lives to retreat to a beautiful mountain situation, for example. Contemplating and meditating on the beauty of creation inclines their hearts and thoughts to the things of God. What better place to be spiritually strong than paradise with the grandeur of its surroundings and the nearness of God. Jesus, on the other hand, was led into a lonely place, a wilderness. It was hardly a situation that is conducive to being strong in the Spirit and inclined towards obedience to God. So, it is important that we understand that the site of Adam’s temptation was more pleasant than that of Jesus.
But in addition to that, we also note that when Adam first encountered the temptation, he faced it with the companionship of his wife. When Jesus was tempted, it was in the context of solitude. Think of your own temptation experiences. Is it not easier to compromise your ethics when you are alone, when you are unknown? When Jesus was confronted by Satan, he was far away from recognition; there was no-one present to see what he would do. But not only that, Jesus was in the situation of loneliness. Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher, once said that loneliness is perhaps the most difficult of all human situations to endure for any length of time. It is understood that the supreme form of punishment, greater even than incarceration, is solitary confinement; to be forced to be utterly alone, totally cut off from any kind of human communication and fellowship. When Jesus Christ faced all of the forces of hell in an attempt to undermine his integrity, he was there alone.
A third difference between the two temptation experiences is the different physical states of Adam and Jesus. We know that the paradise situation was a place where God had said to Adam and Eve that they could eat freely of all of the fruits of the trees of the garden. It was a gourmet’s paradise. When Satan came to Adam to test him, he tested him on a full stomach; he wasn’t undermined by physical pain or yearning. But Satan comes to Jesus when he was greatly weakened in his humanness, without food for forty days, without human fellowship for forty days, and it was at that moment of weakness that Satan attacked.
We have looked at the differences between the temptation of Adam and the temptation of Christ, but something that we often miss when we look at these temptations is their similarity. To uncover the similarity, we need to understand the focal point of the temptations. On the surface, we see that Jesus was tempted to eat bread and to a frivolous use of miraculous powers. Virtually every commentator you read on this passage argues that Satan was trying to force Jesus to misuse his powers. Well, that is part of it, but if we examine this text carefully, we see that the issue confronting Jesus was deeper than that, more basic, more foundational. In fact, it is exactly the same temptation that was brought before Adam and Eve. Satan is defined in the early chapters of Genesis as the most subtle of all of the beasts of the field, and we will see the subtlety of the temptation as we examine the tests.
We read in verse 3: And the devil said unto him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.’ Think back to the account of the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. What was at stake there? Remember how the serpent came to Eve with a question. The question was simple: ‘Has God said that you may not eat of any of the trees of the garden?’ Is that what God had said to Adam and Eve? He had made a beautiful paradise, and planted trees loaded with fruit. Did he then say, ‘OK, look but don’t touch’? Of course not, and Satan knew that very well. Eve was quick to reply that the restriction applied only to the tree in the middle of the garden.
Why did Satan ask a question that was so obviously false? Remember the subtlety of the tempter. Jean-Paul Sartre, an important existentialist philosopher, says that unless man is autonomous, he is not really free. Unless we are free to create our own values, our own norms, our own laws, then we are not really free, we are simply slaves to the divine sovereign. This was one of the arguments that Sartre brings forth against the existence of God. But do you see the subtlety there? The suggestion is that unless your freedom is limitless or absolute, then you are not really free at all. It is human nature to think that because there is one restriction that we are never allowed to do what we want.
Well, this was the suggestion Satan made to Eve. But then Satan moved away from that subtlety and made a direct assault on the integrity of the word of God. Eve had said that God had told them that if they ate of that tree they will surely die. Satan said, ‘You will not die! But you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ His words are a direct contradiction of the truth of what God had said. Jesus, in his discussion with the Pharisees, recorded in John, called Satan the father of lies, he was a liar from the beginning. It’s obvious that Jesus is thinking of Satan’s direct lie and contradiction of the truth of God in his statement to Eve. God had said one thing: ‘If you eat you will die.’ Satan comes along and says, ‘If you eat you will not die.’ Who is telling the truth? God, who is of the very essence of truth? Or Satan, the deceiver? Well, we know what happened. Adam and Eve believed Satan rather than God, and they fell, and the fall was dreadful.
What does that have to do with the temptation of Jesus? Remember that Jesus comes on the scene of history as the new Adam, the second representative of mankind. He faces the same kind of test, the same kind of temptation. Only instead of failing that test, he passes it.
Jesus is put to the test (Luke 4:3–13)
Satan begins his questioning of Jesus with the words: ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’ He doesn’t say, ‘Since you are the Son of God …’ but he comes with an implied question: ‘If you are the Son of God.…’ What was the last message that Jesus had heard before the Spirit drove him into the wilderness? The heavens had opened and God had said: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ Then the Spirit that he is anointed with in his baptism, drives him into the wilderness and it would seem that the Father left Jesus in isolation for forty days. There was no further communication; no vision of loveliness; no fellowship with the Father. Jesus was utterly alone for forty days. If it were me in the wilderness, I would be asking myself, ‘Was I hearing things back there by the river Jordan? Is this any way for God the Father to be treating his Son?’ Satan says, ‘If you are the Son of God …’ What is under attack here is not really the identity of Jesus, so much as the trustworthiness of the word of God.
How does Jesus respond? Jesus answered Satan, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live on bread alone.” It is written was a phrase every Jew would recognize. ‘It is written’ does not simply mean that it is written down in the town hall, or in a paperback novel. The phrase has clear reference to the sacred scriptures of the Old Testament. Jesus could just as well have said: ‘The Bible says.’ Matthew gives us an extended version of Jesus’ response: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’ (Matt. 4:4, nasb). He is saying, in effect, ‘Look, Satan, I’m not going to turn these stones into bread, because I don’t need bread as much as I need the word of God. I live by the word of God; I trust the word of God. I may be hungry now, but my Father said I am his Son and I am going to live by that.’
Then we read:
Then the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours’ (4:5–7).
How does Jesus respond? He replied, ‘It is written, “Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.” Again, Jesus replies with ‘It is written …’. God alone is the One we are to serve and worship. To treat anyone else in this way is to violate the written word of God.
The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down from here. For it is written,
“He will command His angels concerning you
to guard you carefully;
they will bear you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Here we see the incredible subtlety of Satan. He says, ‘So, you like to quote the Bible? I’ll quote the Bible too. Doesn’t the Bible say that he will give his angels charge over you? If you are the Messiah, if you are the Son of God, then let’s see if the Bible is true—jump off the temple and see if the angels catch you.’ But Jesus recognized right away that in spite of the fact that Satan was quoting Scripture at him, he was using a defective hermeneutic, that is, he was twisting and distorting the meaning and interpreting Scripture against Scripture itself. And Jesus said, ‘It says: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” In other words, ‘I’m not allowed to put God to the test; instead, God is testing me.’
Now, even though the promise, He shall charge his angels concerning thee, belongs to all the faithful, it applies peculiarly to Christ; because as the head of the church, he has authority over the angels, and they watch over us by his command. Satan was not wrong in using this text to show that the angels were given to Christ as his servants, to protect him and bear him upon their hands. He was wrong in presenting angelic protection as something vague and haphazard; on the contrary, it is promised to the children of God only as they keep to the way which leads to the fulfillment of God’s purpose for them. Whatever the force of the phrase in all thy ways (Ps. 91:11), Satan wickedly corrupts and mutilates the prophet’s words, and both tortures and confuses them when he makes them include any kind of way, however wrong and errant. God commands us to walk in the ways he has set before us, and in this connection declares that his angels shall protect us. When Satan brings up the matter of angelic protection, his intention is to make Christ walk into any danger that comes along; what he says amounts to this: “If you throw yourself at death in defiance of God, his angels will defend your life!”
‘When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time’ (4:13). Here we see the most significant difference between Jesus and Adam: Jesus believed God. Let me say it again. It is not simply that Jesus believed in God, but he believed God. He believed the word of God, and in the midst of this crisis, he trusted the truth of God’s word. What happens when we are put to the test? More often than not we follow the example of Adam rather than the example of Christ. One of the greatest crises in the church today is the crisis of unbelief in the word of God. It is one thing to believe in God, it is another thing to believeGod. Christ triumphed over Satan because he believed God. He trusted God, he put his life in the hands of God, and he was victorious.
The temptation narrative is a very important episode in the life of Jesus, but we would be remiss if we thought that this was the end of temptation for Jesus. At other times throughout Jesus’ life and ministry Satan returns, sometimes speaking through Jesus’ own disciples, as at Caesarea Philippi, suggesting alternate routes to the kingdom to the one that God had laid before him. We are told by Luke here that Satan left him for now. Jesus passed the test for that moment. But Satan departed for a season, to lie in wait, looking for a sign of weakness. But that weakness never came. Christ remained triumphant throughout.
In Matthew’s account we are told that after Satan left, the angels appeared and ministered to Christ. He didn’t have to jump off the temple; he didn’t have to turn the stones into bread. As soon as he was victorious, God vindicated his word and sent help to his Son.
[1] Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Mt 4:1–11.
[2] R. C. Sproul, A Walk with God: An Exposition of Luke (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999), 61.