Not by Bread Alone
Matthew 4:1-11
We have now come to the Christian season of Lent, which is a forty-day reflection upon one’s life and its relation to Jesus Christ. It is to be observed as a time of fasting and prayer. The 40 days reflects the 40 days that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and serves to call us there to see Him. People often give up something they like at Lent to remember what Jesus gave up when He came to earth as well as the things He suffered. The reading of the Temptation happens the first Sunday in Lent. In this year, this reading comes from the 4th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all record this event, although Mark’s account is very short. This occurs immediately after His baptism by John the Baptist. It reads that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the Judaean wilderness. It is interesting that Mark said that Jesus was forcible thrust into the wilderness using a vivid present tense verb which invites us to see the event in person. There means that Jesus’s going into the wilderness was a must for Him. We must remember that Jesus was tie divine Son of God. But we also hold that Jesus was as fully human as we are. The Judaean wilderness might as well have been the surface of the moon. It was hostile desert in which temperatures would soar in the daytime and plummet at night. Matthew brings this out by saying “40 days and 40 nights” when he simply could have said “forty days” or “forty days and nights.” The repeating of the number 40 gives emphasis of the severity of the temptation. The heat of the day in the dry desert would drive desperation for what little shade could be found. The nights were cold, and it was the time that wild beasts like jackals, lions and bears would hunt. Matthew does not mention these wild beasts, but Mark in his account does.
The text says that Jesus are nothing during the 40 days. This is similar to the 40 days that Moses ate nothing for 40 days on Mt. Sinai. This is at the extreme of human endurance. Many people would have died from hunger in less than 40 days, and those who have gone on hunger strikes and lived have suffered many serious consequences as one’s own organs and muscles for food. Considering that Jesus was in the hostile and dry wilderness, the effects upon his body would have been extreme. It does not say that he drank water, but if He did not have water, it would have been impossible for Him to have survived unless the Father miraculously sustained His human body. When we think of the Temptation, it corresponds to the 40 years that Israel spent in the Sinai wilderness. They would not have been able to survive that experience apart from the intervention of the LORD who provided manna to eat and revealed sources of water. But Jesus did not even have this physical food. After 40 days and 40 nights, he was more than just hungry. He was exhausted and at the point of physical death.
It is at this point of extreme physical weakness and vulnerability that Satan appears to tempt Him. There is a similarity to the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But there are differences. Adam and Eve were well-cared for and were in a garden. Jesus was at the other extreme of existence which made His temptation far more difficult to resist, humanly speaking. Bur Hebrews tells us that Jesus was tempted in every way we were, yet without sin. This does not mean that He suffered every temptation, but rather that He was tempted to the extreme, more than any person has ever been tempted. This is an example of the statement in Hebrews that Jesus, the author of our salvation was made perfect through the things He suffered. How Jesus responded to Satan’s temptation determined the fate of humanity as a whole. The “second Adam” had to undo the damage done by Adam and Eve’s failure in the Garden. Romans 5 seems to indicate that He succeeded in this and more. Because of Jesus’s obedience, our disobedience in Adam is cancelled if we believe in Him. We shall also be in a higher position than Adam had in the Garden. (For more on this, see “The Superabundance of Grace” in this sermon archive.)
Jesus also relives the Exodus experience of Israel. Israel was disobedient to Yahweh on many occasions. As a result, all but Joshua and Caleb died, and only the children could enter earthly Canaan. They were tempted in the wilderness and failed. Christ was tempted and successfully resisted. As a result, his obedience and righteousness becomes our obedience and righteousness when we believe on Jesus. By extension, Jesus also relives our lives, as we too were disobedient and rebellious. This is the basis of our hope. The fancy theological term for this is recapitulation. God sees us in Christ and not we in ourselves. There is an emphatic statement in Jeremiah which talks about the new covenant. It says that as a result of this covenant that our sins will absolutely never be remembered any more by God. This troubles us a bit as we affirm that God is all knowing. How could an all-knowing God ever forget anything? We must affirm that nothing is impossible with God, even that which we intellectually and morally state that God can not or would not do. We read that God cannot change. Yet God becomes flesh. This is indeed a great mystery. We like to say that God acts as if we never sinned even though He still knows we have. But what if God actually forgets our sin? It would be because in Christ they never happened. Christ revises the history of our trespasses and sins. His obedience has cancelled them. They are not just forgiven, but forgotten.
As we have noted, the three temptations represent the entirety of our temptations. The first temptation concerned turning stones into bread. We are human. We are made to eat and drink. So, how would it be wrong for Jesus to turn stones into bread, seeing it was within His power? Unfortunately, the statement rendered “If you are the Son of God…” is mistranslated. “If” is a conditional statement. Taken this way, it indicated that Satan was trying to get Jesus to doubt Himself. But the Greek is better translated “Since you are the Son of God….” The Greek has ei with the indicative rather than ean with the subjunctive. So the real temptation was to rely on self rather than God. This parallels the temptation of Eve. The serpent said that if she would eat the forbidden fruit that she would be like God and able to determine right and wrong for one’s self, apart from God. This is the sin of autonomy. Every one becomes a law to themselves. Everyone can do what is right in one’s own eyes. Not only is this autonomy, but this is autotheos, which means being one’s own God, This is at the root of the first temptation. And our fall enslaves us to the folly that we are able to run the world without God. We see its bitter fruits.
Jesus sets the record straight, quoting the Book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is the last of the five books of Moses, written just before the Children of Israel crossed into the Promised Land. It serves as a reminder to be loyal to the Covenant. If they did they would be blessed. If they did not, they would be vomited out. Deuteronomy reminded Israel that it was the Lord who had provided for them in the wilderness. Their fathers has complained about the manna and wanted meat. God gave them quail by which they were sickened. The Children of Israel had no siege weapons or chariots by which to take th walled cities. The spies saw this and ten of them fainted for fright. They did not trust God’s word that He, not they, would drive them out. They had done nothing to earn the Promised Land. Quite the contrary, they had thoroughly undeserved it. The land was entirely the gift of God’s grace, something we too should remember.
Jesus quotes where it says that man does not live by bread alone. This does not say that bread is not important. God provides our food, for which we render grace. What is more important is that we hold to God’s word, every word, for it proceeds from the mouth of God. God’s word states that He will provide for His people’s needs. When the temptation was over, God the Father sent angels to minister to Jesus, which I assume included food and drink. He sustained His Son through the wilderness and looked to His needs. Jesus remained humbly obedient.
The second temptation in Matthew and the third in Luke was the lust for power. Jesus is shown the kingdoms of the world from a high mountain. Satan told Jesus that he owned them. He would give them all to Jesus is He would bow down and worship him. This temptation also has its roots in the temptation of Adam and Eve. When God had placed them in the garden, he also gave them total authority over the earth. They showed this dominion by naming the animals. All was in perfect subjection to them. But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and chose to obey the voice of Satan rather than God, they thought the words of Satan worth more than God’s. As worship can be rendered “worth-ship,” we can see that Adam and Eve bowed in worship at Satan’s feet. As a result, they in effect signed over the deed of the earth to Satan. Satan claimed dominion over all of men’s kingdom. Here Jesus is being tempted to sign over His true authority to Satan. But is we properly remember that even though God gave man the title deed to earth, that it was God who gave them the deed. Adam and Eve were not God. God still is the rightful owner of the universe as Creator. The earth is still the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. So in this respect, Satan is still subject to having his derived ownership revoked.
Jesus again quotes Deuteronomy which says that Yahweh alone was to be worshiped. It is to Yahweh that all sacred service was to be remembered. Satan tried to deceive Jesus, but Jesus did not fall for it. He had passed the second temptation.
I would like to add here that some Christians think that all of the curse has been removed. We think we have gotten the title to earth back. We need to observe caution here. We have abused the earth, sometimes in the name of Christ and our recovered “authority.” It will do us well to remember that it is only One who has the keys, and that is the Lord Jesus. It is to Him alone that all authority on heaven and earth is given. By faith, what He has by right of person being the Son in the Holy Trinity and means of creation, and what He has also obtained by inheritance through His obedience, even unto death, is only ours so long as we are in Him. What we have is entirely a gift of grace. We do not have the right to act independently of the will of Christ. We only share in what He rightfully possesses. We do not have the right to rule as automatons over the earth. We should instead be good stewards of the earth’s resources.
In the third temptation, Jesus is taken to the pinnacle of the Temple which was over 100 feet overlooking the Kidron Valley to the east. Satan tempts Jesus to jump down, This time, realizing that Jesus lived by the word of Scripture, Satan quotes the 91st Psalm which stated that the angels of God would keep Him from being hurt. Remember that Satan acknowledged that Jesus is the Son of God. The fall would certainly kill a human that tried it. But Jesus as the Son of God had special protection. He certainly would not die. There was also the additional temptation that His gentle descent supported by angels to the eastern gate would also fulfill the Jewish expectation of the coming of the Messiah. Jesus is the Christ, but this is not how He was to act. There was the temptation to led people determine for themselves how they would be saved. Again, this is rooted in the temptation in the Garden. Jesus would soon show just what kind of Messiah He came to be. The divine protection would be laid aside. There was no rescue from the cross. In perfect weakness and in perfect obedience, Jesus laid down His own life for us.
Jesus simply quotes Deuteronomy a third time: “You shall not tempt Yahweh your God.” This ended the temptation. Luke adds the words “for now” pointing to the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane. He had been sorely tempted and had remained obedient. The angels were sent to minister, and then Jesus would go on to His earthly ministry.
We still are tempted to bow down to Satan. Since we have been set free by Jesus, we must worship Him alone. Satan no longer has dominion over us, and we must demonstrate this in our action. We are tempted to be the captain of our own ship. We all have some of Henley in us. We are tempted to become influential and relevant in this world, even to the point we throw away our eternal relevance in Christ. We are tempted to put God to the test and even use out of context Scripture proofs to justify actions which we know are wrong. We need to endeavor to cast our cares upon him because he cares for us. We must also resist Satan who comes as a roaring lion seeking to devour us (1 Peter 5:7). We have such a great hope privoded us freely by Jesus Christ. Let is not blow it.
