Matthew 4

The great Son of God identified with us in our sin through His death on the cross in order to bring us eternal salvation. In His life of suffering He identified with us in all our troubles and He also fulfilled all righteousness. It was necessary for Him as the second Adam to listen to the voice of His Father above all else. For that reason He faced a horrible challenge at the outset of His public ministry as a necessary step in accomplishing all of His holy purposes. Jesus came to crush the head of the serpent. To accomplish this would eventually mean the bruising of His own heel in His death on the cross. Jesus did not merely wander into the wilderness and happen across evil and danger. He was led there by the Spirit for our salvation.

The environment of temptation for Jesus was very different than that faced by the first Adam. Adam was in a beautiful garden with his wonderful wife and everything necessary for joyful living. Jesus was in a desert land. Adam faced his test before sin entered the world. Jesus was tempted in a world of people already full of sin and misery. Yet Adam sinned, and Jesus successfully resisted temptation.

The victory of our Lord in this first battle after His baptism is displayed to us in three parts, all involving the Scriptures. The tempter begins his address to the eternal Son of God, our Immanuel King, with the word, “if.” Would this fallen angel attempt to sow the seed of doubt and unbelief in the very heart of God? Jesus displays His strength not through anything that looks like a miracle, but through the way that any of His followers could respond to the enticements of the world and the flesh. He quotes from the Scriptures. Israel had faced testing in the wilderness before. When Moses reflected on Israel's failure, he spoke these words recorded in Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus quotes this verse after the simple words, “It is written.” Here is the source of authority for us, and it is spoken by the Word of God Himself.

In the second place, Matthew tells of the devil’s misuse of the Scriptures. Taking our Lord somehow to the hotspot of God’s presence in the Old Testament world, the temple in Jerusalem, our Lord is brought to a place of precarious danger, as His adversary quotes Psalm 91:12. This seems to be an attempt to lure Jesus into proving Himself on Satan’s terms, but it may also be a more subtle temptation to lunge into an untimely fight. The reason for such a suspicion is that the devil has quoted a passage with a very provocative context. The next verse contains these words, “The serpent you will trample underfoot.” The response of our Lord puts the focus back on God in a wonderfully measured response from Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

The third temptation listed by Matthew appears to be an overreach of evil. Is it not a fact that evil men and empires throughout history have often brought about their own early demise by overreaching? Isn’t it also a fact that wicked nations cannot be counted on for honesty in their negotiations with others? Does the devil now offer the world to the One through whom it was made, and through whose divine power it is sustained moment by moment? He is sent off with another word from Deuteronomy 6, “You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.” The serpent of old will soon be kept bound so that he will not be able to utterly deceive the nations during the gospel age. Jesus will have the world, but He will have it heaven’s way, through the gathering of the elect.

It is time now for God’s work. The gospel age has its beginnings in the preaching of the great King of the kingdom. The people who were far-off from God in all the nations of the world will soon begin to see a new light in the Word of the Messiah, preached through the agency of men, as the church that the Lord will establish will go forth to baptize and to teach. The great light of that church will be Jesus Christ, presented with a demand of surrender contained in the word “repent” and with a promise of glory contained in the phrase “the kingdom of heaven.”

The Lord of glory would bring the message of the land of angels to men, not directly through the ministry of angels, but through the agency of simple men called to preach the truth of Christ and the resurrection. They would be fishers of men. Instead of being caught in the net of God’s judgment, they would find themselves to be vessels of His mercy for eternal life.

Jesus Himself began this ministry in the land of Galilee. There He proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and healed every disease and every affliction among the people. He spent three years with men that He called to be with Him for this great purpose. They saw tokens of His resurrection power as He healed the demon-possessed, epileptics, paralytics, and all kinds of other people touched by the sin and misery that came into the world through Adam.

At the end of those three years, the disciples that He called to Himself would be scattered. One would betray Him, another would deny Him, and the crowds would yell for His death. The victory of the kingdom would move forward through the death and resurrection of the King. Then the promise of the Father would be poured out upon the nations, and centuries of suffering love would be offered up by the Lord’s faithful ones, until the Morningstar from on high would appear in all the greatness of His eternal glory. This was the Father’s plan for the Kingdom. It has always been far superior to the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.