1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3 Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." Matthew 4:1-3
Today, we transition in our study of Matthew to chapter 4 which begins with the temptation that the Lord Jesus Christ endured at the hands of the devil. As was necessary at the baptism of the Lord Jesus, we will see that humility was much needed as He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness for those forty days and night.
In Proverbs 22:4 we read,
"Humility is the fear of the Lord;
its wages are riches and honor and life."
When we fear the Lord, it doesn't mean that we are scared of Him. Rather, it means that we have remembered that God alone is all-powerful and it is out of that understanding that we acknowledge that only He deserves all glory and all honor. The fear of the Lord reminds us that we should not hold ourselves in the same light or position that God righteously deserves. Amazingly, this is what the Lord Jesus did in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit during His baptism and His temptation.
Matthew's choice of the word "Then" at the beginning of v.1 reveals that this passage is not to be disassociated from the previous passage where the Lord Jesus was baptized by His cousin John the Baptist. He knew that His baptism was to fulfill all righteousness. In the Law of Moses, God put forth precepts to be followed. Those precepts included following the words of God’s prophets who spoke on His behalf. The Lord Jesus came to heed the call of the prophets who spoke on the behalf of the Trinity. In His baptism, the Holy Spirit came upon Him and the voice of the Father acknowledged that the Lord was His Son and that He stood approved by Him. With that, the Lord Jesus began His ministry, steeped in humility.
In v.1 of today's passage we read, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil."
I find it most interesting that the ministry of the Lord Jesus began with a time of testing at the hands of the devil. Matthew informs us that the Lord Jesus was "led up by the Spirit into the wilderness." According to Mark’s gospel the Holy Spirit drove the Lord Jesus into that desolate desert. It is so hard for our fallen human minds to understand but the Lord Jesus was a real human being, which means He grew spiritually by learning to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit. The Lord Jesus demonstrated to us by being led by the Holy Spirit that He needed to be empowered from day one with and by the Holy Spirit. Every major facet of the life of the Lord Jesus was a Spirit event, so much so that we need to see that the more Christlike we become, the more Spirit-led we will be.
The Lord Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the "wilderness" which throughout the Bible is seen as the place of testing. The arena of Judea that the Lord Jesus was led was especially barren, and walking through it, even for a day, is challenging for the mind and the body. The testing the Lord Jesus endured was incredibly intense, and His reliance upon God was absolutely paramount. Humility was a must for the Lord Jesus for as we will see, it was the goal of the evil one to interest Him in pride.
The word "devil" literally means "slanderer." This word is not a name, it is a description of the one who lives to expose us to his posture which is pride. Again, it was of utmost importance that the Lord Jesus embraced humility by being led by the Holy Spirit because the goal of the enemy was to trap Him with pride. The Lord Jesus was daily armed by God through His humility. At His baptism the Lord Jesus humbled Himself before the Father and during His temptation in the wilderness He humbled Himself to the leading of the Holy Spirit. These two events served to determine who would define the Lord Jesus in advance of His ministry.
In v.2 of today's passage we read, "And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry."
The Lord Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert where He was to be tested by the devil. And then, "He fasted." The word translated "fasted" describes a period of self-denial to meet a set of divine purposes, primarily to show believers the utter necessity of dependence upon God. And, it was during His time of fasting that the miraculous nature of the Lord Jesus was placed on prominent display. And, God miraculously sustained Him as He submitted Himself to the Father and the Holy Spirit. This was of utmost importance because through His testings the Lord Jesus fulfilled all of the law and the prophets, being sustained by the power of God through the Holy Spirit.
In v.3 of today's passage we read, "Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, 'If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.'"
The Lord Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights. This obviously made Him hungry. The Lord Jesus was tempted in three ways that practically mirror what happened with Adam in the Garden of Eden, as we will see. The devil began the temptation with, "If You are the Son of God." Since this portion of the sentence was written as a first class conditional sentence, it is best translated, "Since You are the Son of God." The devil fully acknowledged the Lord Jesus to be the Son of God and he approached his work based on that premise. And so, the devil continued with "speak, that these stones become bread."
Here, the tempter tested the humanity of the Lord Jesus, not His deity. This is so very important for us to understand given the fact that Adam had forfeited his rights to the devil while in the Garden of Eden. In Hebrews 4:14-16 we read, "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
When he successfully tempted Adam, the devil gained possession of the authoritative rights of mankind to this earth by causing Adam to sin. After the Lord Jesus, the Man, prevailed over the devil, the rights of mankind were restored. It was of utmost importance that the Lord Jesus overcame these temptings of the devil because by doing so, there was the transferring of the rights that God originally gave to man. If the Lord Jesus, however, had relied on His deity to overcome the works of the devil, there would be no transfer of the rights. Sin is what necessitated the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. His state as a Man was challenged by the enemy during those forty days and nights. It happened this way so that the Lord Jesus, the man, could restore the dignity of man which had been lost so long before.
In Matthew 3:17 we heard the voice of God the Father from the heavens audibly proclaim that the Lord Jesus was the Son of whom He had approved. Looking around at all of the stones in His extreme hunger, it was an enormous temptation for the Lord Jesus to appease Himself by using His divine power to satisfy His human needs. But it would have marred the entire purpose of His incarnation had He given in to the temptation. When He resisted the temptations, the Lord Jesus was well on His way to provide salvation for all willing of heart to embrace the humility that is required for us to be saved. The Lord Jesus earned our right and ability to embrace the humility to be saved.
