Carey's Bible Study Notes
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temptation of jesus
life of christ: matthew 4.11, mark 1.12-13, luke 4.1-13
temptation of jesus
introduction
In order to understand fully this episode, we need to bear in mind what has just previously happened. Before Jesus goes into the wilderness for His encounter with Satan, Jesus goes to the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist. When Jesus comes up out of the water, in addition to the Spirit descending upon Him, God from heaven makes the following pronouncement upon Jesus: "You are My Son, with whom I am well-pleased." This pronouncement links 2 different OT concepts about the Messiah. The first clause from Ps. 2:7 was part of a psalm sung during the coronation of Israel�s kings. By God quoting this psalm, He is identifying Jesus as Israel�s true king. The second clause from Is. 42:1 identifies Jesus as the Servant of the Lord who suffers for the sins of God�s people. By combining these 2 concepts, God is informing us that Jesus will be the kind of king who will establish His kingdom not by warfare but by suffering for God�s people.
After this baptism, Jesus goes to the Judean wilderness where He spends the next 40 days fasting and praying. Jesus probably goes through this ordeal first in order to process the full implications of what the Father has pronounced at His baptism. Jesus does not respond glibly to the Father�s statement but instead removes Himself from the distractions of the public in order to concentrate fully upon God�s mission for His life and ministry. Second, Jesus goes into the wilderness in order to confront Satan. Jesus has come to establish God�s kingdom. Now He is not establishing this kingdom in a vacuum. Another kingdom already exists, the kingdom of Satan. This kingdom is not on friendly terms with God, and as a result, hostility is going to erupt between these 2 kingdoms. Jesus, the king in the kingdom of God, is taking on Satan, the ruler of the kingdom of this world.
Before we look in greater detail at this episode, we need to look at some other factors operating here. It is probably no coincidence that Jesus spends 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying. Other OT figures engaged in just this same activity, Moses and Elijah. The emphasis here though may not be on the fasting and praying but on the words "forty" and "wilderness." Israel herself spent 40 years in the wilderness being tested by the Lord. The link between Jesus� experience and Israel�s experience is even more noticeable in the fact that Jesus will quote verses whose context is the experience of Israel in the wilderness. Why this link? To contrast Jesus with Israel. God not only called Jesus His Son but also called Israel His son (Hosea 11:1). Although both were God�s Sons, their responses to God�s testing them in the wilderness contrasted sharply with each other. Whereas Israel failed miserably in the wilderness, God�s Greater Son emerged victorious from His testing in the wilderness.
Luke probably brings out another allusion to another OT event. Between the stories of Jesus� baptism and temptation, Luke inserts the genealogy of Jesus. Luke�s genealogy of Jesus differs from Matthew�s genealogy in that whereas Matthew�s genealogy goes back only as far as Abraham, Luke�s goes back as far as Adam whom Luke describes as God�s son. By inserting this genealogy at this point, Luke is again contrasting God�s first human son Adam with His Greater Son Jesus. Whereas God�s son Adam failed, God�s Greater Son succeeded! (See 1 Cor. 15:45 where Paul declares Jesus to be the Second Adam, the founder of a new race of mankind.)
Why all the fuss about comparing Jesus with Adam and Israel? Well, just like Adam started a race of mankind, so now Jesus is starting a new race, people transformed by the power of Christ. Whereas Israel was God�s people in the OT, Jesus has created a new people for God, the church. Now whereas Adam and his race fell in the Garden of Eden and whereas Israel failed in the OT, Jesus went on to experience victory. A new page has been turned. The OT is a book of failure; in Jesus, the time for victory has broken upon the scene of human history. All that is required for a person to experience that victory is to link himself with Jesus.
Many Christians ask if Jesus could have ever sinned in the first place. They reason that since Jesus is God, surely He could have never sinned. In response to this, we need to say that the passage assumes that Jesus could have sinned; otherwise, the whole episode is a sham and Jesus could not really help us in our time of temptation. Jesus was God, but He was also man who was subject to real temptation. Fortunately though for us, Jesus never sinned; otherwise, we would be eternally lost in our sins.
the final three temptations (matthew 4.11, mark 1.12-13, luke 4.1-13)
Both Luke and Matthew claim that Jesus being filled with the Holy Spirit after His baptism was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Mark�s description is even more vivid because he says that the Spirit "cast" Jesus into the wilderness). This episode teaches us that God is in control even when we are being tempted. Satan did not come upon Jesus for tempting according to his own timetable. Both Matthew and Luke claim that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for this time of testing. God is in control and, as a result, is not going to allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to handle in His strength and power. The Christian who fails has no one to blame except himself (1 Cor. 10:13).
Luke says that during the 40 days that Jesus fasted and prayed in the wilderness, Satan was tempting Him. The three temptations which Luke and Matthew record probably climax the battery of temptations Jesus experienced. All that had preceded these 3 were just skirmishes in Satan�s attack against Jesus; now he launches a full-frontal assault.
the first temptation: turning stones into bread
It is only natural that after 40 days of fasting that Jesus experiences intense hunger. At this moment, Satan strikes: "If You are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." Although the English translations seem to imply that Satan is casting doubt upon Jesus� Sonship, the Greek reads otherwise. A more accurate translation would be, "Since You are the Son of God." Moreover, in the Greek we see that Satan emphasizes the word "Son." What Satan is trying to do is break up the baptism pronouncement into 2 different parts. He seems to be saying, "Let�s accept the premise You are God�s Son; however, let�s undermine the notion that You must suffer like the Servant of the Lord in order to establish God�s kingdom." Satan appears to be appealing to Jesus� rights. He is God the Son and as a result should be treated accordingly. Starving does not befit God�s Son.
Notice the element of rights involved in this episode. Implicit throughout this entire story is the idea that Jesus had the right to be treated differently from the way the Father was treating Him. Was He not God�s Son and, therefore, should not be starving in the wilderness? Why should He suffer on the cross when all it took was one little act of bowing before Satan to ensure that He would receive all the kingdoms of this world? Our present society emphasizes the rights of individuals to a ludicrous extreme. God many times tests us at this very point. Are we going to insist on our rights, or are we going to submit to His will? For example, I have the right to certain luxuries which I will obtain only by refusing to give God what is rightfully His. I have a right to be treated a certain way by my spouse, and I will leave him/her if s/he does not treat me that way. I have a right to a certain standard of living which I will obtain either by illegal theft or political theft, by legally taking money from those who have worked hard and earned it.
Finally, notice that during the first temptation Satan does not really tempt Jesus to do anything bad. He did not tempt Him to have an illicit sexual relationship with a prostitute; neither did he tempt Him to steal. He just encouraged Him to turn a stone into a loaf of bread. What�s the harm in that? The harm is that God did not want Jesus to do that. Many of us sin not because we do evil but because we are not listening to God and following Him. Sin is ultimately the act of not following Jesus. Following Jesus implies that we must have a relationship with Him based upon obedience and upon time in prayer and Bible study. Unfortunately for many of us, we have reduced our relationship with God to being nothing more than setting our own agenda and then expecting God to bless it. He�s not going to do it. He refuses to follow us.
Jesus counters by quoting Deut. 8:3, "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God." Israel had suffered 40 years in the wilderness and had undergone the degradation of having to wait daily for God to produce manna. God had informed her though that He had put her through this ordeal in order to impress upon her the truth that physical bread was not the essence of true life. True life consists in hearing God speak and responding positively; it consists of being in a wonderful relationship with Him (John 17:3). God had commanded Jesus to fast and had not commanded Him to end the fast. By continuing the fast, Jesus was living by God�s Word and experiencing the true essence of life.
the second temptation: leaping from the pinnacle of the temple
Next, Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the Temple and urges Him to jump off so that the Father can exercise His power and protect Jesus. (Most NT scholars identify the southeast corner of the outer wall surrounding the Temple complex as the pinnacle. The wall itself was high; however, this part of the wall overlooked the Kidron Valley below. Adding the depth of the valley to the height of the wall made for a dizzying experience according to the Jewish historian Josephus. In fact he claimed that it was so high that you could not see the bottom of the ravine at the base of the wall.) Satan claims that the psalmist promised that God would protect those faithful to Him. Well, if God was going to protect others, surely He would protect Jesus who as God�s Son was more faithful to Him than any other. Satan�s argument is that what applies to God�s people applies especially to Jesus. Again, Jesus quotes from Deut. (6:16) and claims that such an act would be nothing less than testing God, something the OT expressly forbids. It is one thing for me to stumble; it is quite another to seek trouble and then expect or even demand God to aid me after I have made trouble for myself. (Note that Satan misuses the Scripture. Simply because a person is well-versed does not mean s/he has understood the verse well. We need to know not only what the Scripture says but what it also means.)
the third temptation: worshipping satan
For the final temptation, Satan takes Jesus to a high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world. Satan claims that he controls all the kingdoms of the world and that he would willingly give them to Jesus if He would worship Him just once. Jesus doesn�t have to serve him the rest of His life; all He�s got to do is worship Him just this once. Satan whispers, "Come on; just once. That�s all it will take. Besides, no one will know�just you and me. Then you won�t have to experience all that suffering�psychological, emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual�on the cross. All it takes is just bending the knee one time to me."
At this point Jesus commands Satan to flee from Him for the Scripture says, "You shall worship the Lord . . . And Him only shall you serve." Satan then departs. According to Luke, this is only a temporary victory because Satan will return to tempt Jesus at a more opportune time, for example, at Caesarea Philippi and also in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Notice the emphasis Jesus places upon Scripture in this passage. Each time Satan tempted Him, He responded with an appropriate scripture based upon a proper understanding of the scripture. I really like what the Bible study leader at the women�s retreat said this past weekend. She encouraged women to continue to study the passage until they understood it. Many of us unwittingly make the same mistake Satan made in misapplying the Scripture because we do not understand what it means. Only when we understand the Scripture are we even going to be able to identify Satan�s temptations and then know how to respond accordingly. I will promise you that a lot of people who have caused trouble in churches and have experienced pain in life, etc. did it out of a sincere conviction they were following God. If they had known His Word though, they would have readily recognized that God had no part at all in what they were doing and promoting. God�s Word is affordable and available to us in our own language; we have access to wonderful teaching. As a result, there is absolutely no excuse for us not to know His Word.
A note before we leave this section. Did Satan have the authority to turn over the kingdoms of the world to Jesus? He most assuredly did. The NT calls Satan the "ruler of the world" (John 14:30). The further truth though is that Satan is lord over the world because of God�s pleasure. God ultimately is in control. Moreover, Satan�s authority over the world is temporary. A day will come when God will dethrone Satan permanently. Satan may have given the kingdoms of the world to Jesus; however, the gain would have only been temporary.
teachings from this episode
able to help us in our time of temptation
This episode in the life of Jesus first instructs us that He can help us whenever we face temptations. The author of Hebrews (2:18) writes that Jesus was tempted in all things as we are tempted yet without ever sinning. This does not mean that Jesus encountered all the temptations we face; however, He faced every major category of temptation and thus is qualified to help us in our times of testing.
Some may claim though that Jesus ultimately is not qualified to aid us because He never sinned. Why would I want help and advice from someone who has failed? It�s like Jesse Jackson giving Bill Clinton advice on how to remain sexually pure. I want help from somebody who has been a raging success. Jesus fits the bill in the realm of temptation.
Unlike us, Jesus faced temptation with all its greatest force. Most of us do not know how hard it is to resist temptation because we unfortunately give in before the temptation has run its course. The temptation has not reached its climax and we�ve already caved in. Not so with Jesus. Because He never caved in, He experienced the full force of temptation and therefore is able to help us resist.
Now the same Holy Spirit who filled Jesus and who enabled Him to withstand the onslaught of the enemy also dwells in us. As a result, we have no excuse for sinning. This does not mean that we won�t sin. Unfortunately we will; however, we have no excuse for sinning. The wonderful thing about this is that the victorious Christ intercedes for us so that God does exactly what the African-American minister at Bush�s inauguration claimed He does, He throws our sins into His sea of forgetfulness.
satan gears the temptation for the person he is tempting
Notice also that Satan gears his temptations for the person he is tempting. Notice that Satan did not tempt Jesus with a beautiful woman. He tempted Jesus where Jesus was the most vulnerable, at the point of His mission. Jesus wanted to fulfill God�s role for Him, the role of Messiah over the kingdom of God; so, that is where Satan struck. Moreover, Satan strikes us where we are most vulnerable. For some it is one kind of sin; for others, it�s another. Because I have troubles in a certain area does not mean that everybody else has troubles in that area. Some people are perplexed because I refuse to watch R-rated movies. I don�t think this makes me better than others; it�s just an area that God convicted me of. Many can watch those kinds of movies and not be bothered by them. Not so with me and not so with the specific areas in your life God wants you to give up (1 Cor. 8:1-13).
being tempted is not the same as yielding to sin
Another lesson we need to learn from this episode is that being tempted is not the same thing as sinning. Many times we confuse temptation with sin and feel bad about ourselves because we have been tempted. A lot of Christians experience shame because they have confused the 2. Well, if it is sinful to be tempted, then Jesus is sinful because He too was tempted while on earth. Since such an idea is ludicrous, we need to apply the same reasoning to ourselves.
god comes through in the end
Finally, notice that when it was all said and done, God supplied everything that Jesus needed. He needed food. At the end of the temptations, angels at God�s commands appeared and ministered to Jesus, giving Him food. Jesus needed protection. Well, Jesus� enemies never destroyed Him until God said it was time for Jesus to die. Although Jesus did die on the cross, God had not completely forsaken Him because 3 days later He rose from the dead never to die again. Now that is ultimate protection. Jesus was destined to rule over all the kingdoms of this world. Because of Jesus� complete obedience to the Father, God exalted Jesus to the status of being Lord over all the universe.