The Temptations of Jesus

Theme: The Temptations of Jesus

Text: Matthew 4:1-11 (SERIES A) [NAB-RNT]

Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN
Today’s Scripture texts deal with two of the most tremendous battles fought in human history. The first battle is the one that was lost to Satan through the wrong choices of our first parents in the Garden of Eden - that’s recorded in the Genesis lesson. In the reading from Romans, St. Paul sums up the disastrous result of that battle: “… through one transgression condemnation came upon all …” [NAB-RNT]. This battle signalled the Fall of Humanity from the original righteousness in which God had created the human race, a Fall into sin, disobedience, rebellion, and alienation. After this battle, the human race began to live in bondage to sin and Satan, and to harvest the consequences of that terrible slavery: disease, death, guilt, despair, pain, and meaninglessness.
But the Gospel text today deals with a second battle, a conflict that was a prelude to the decisive battle of the Cross. The Enemy even uses the same tactics. But here the tide of battle turns the other way! Satan is totally defeated, because here he confronts not just any frail and fallible man or woman, but the LORD JESUS CHRIST, the divine Son of God and also Son of Man, a true human being as the Almighty Creator had intended humans to be. In this battle between Christ and Satan, alone in the stark Judaean wilderness, we see a foreshadowing of the cosmic battle that would be fought to the death in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross of Golgotha. We get a foretaste of the total victory of EASTER that the Son of God would achieve at the very moment when the Adversary seemed, paradoxically, to be at the height of his power. And in our Second Lesson again, the Apostle Paul sums up the earth-shattering significance of this battle - the battle between Christ and Satan which cancelled the horrible consequences of the Fall of Humanity in the Garden of Eden: “… one Man’s righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all people” [NRSV], and “… through the obedience of One the many were made righteous” [NAB-RNT].
WHAT WE SEE JESUS CHRIST DOING AS HE DEFEATS EVERY TEMPTATION OF THE DEVIL, IS COMPLETELY REVERSING THAT LOST BATTLE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN. HE IS RECLAIMING THE WORLD FOR GOD, AND REDEEMING THE HUMAN RACE FOR THE FATHER, SO THAT WE MIGHT BE GOD’S BELOVED CHILDREN RATHER THAN SLAVES OF THE ENEMY.
The texts today tell us a great deal about the tactics of Satan. There is, in addition, a passage in the First Epistle of John which really clarifies what Satan’s strategy was both in the Garden of Eden and as he tempted Christ in the wilderness. I’ll read from the second chapter, beginning at verse 15:
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust of it; but (the one) who does the will of God abides forever.” (RSV)
Here St. John tells us about three of Satan’s most effective tools in his temptations against God’s people. They are: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. As we look at our readings today, we will see how the Devil employed each of these in both battles.
First, in the Genesis text, notice that God gave to Adam and Eve a very specific command: “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (2:17, RSV). Then for the first time the Enemy appears on the scene, and the very first word the Scripture uses to characterize him is the word “cunning” [NIV] - the RSV translates it as “subtle.”
The first thing Satan does is to come and plant the seed of doubt in the woman’s mind. “Did God really tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?” The Devil purposely distorts the command of God in order to get Eve confused. Moreover, his words imply to her the even more insidious question, “Are you sure you’re not just imagining that? Why would God say something like that, anyway?” By this subtle and cunning tactic, Satan took the woman’s mind off the express command of GOD, and turned her thoughts inward, inside herself. And immediately he had her on his own territory.
The second thing Satan did was to flatly contradict what God had said. “That’s not true; you will not die!” He told Eve exactly the opposite of what God had said!
But how did Satan manage to get Eve to swallow such a bold-faced lie? The answer is: He planted an attitude of suspicion toward God in her heart. The implication was that God was withholding something good from her, that God was stingy, that God didn’t want her to fully realize her potential and her selfhood.
How many of you know that these are still some of Satan’s favorite snares today? He tries to get us to think that God’s commandments, which the Lord has given to protect us from death and spiritual harm, are just horrible restrictions that keep us from fulfilling ourselves or enriching our lives. And Satan, whom Jesus called “the father of lies,” “transforms himself,” like Paul tells us, “into an angel of light,” and appears to be offering to us genuine joy and fulfillment, self-realization and contentment, achievement and success. But all the while, beneath the thin veneer of outward beauty, he is dealing in the filth of sin and the darkness of death. And step number one in his program of subversion is to get us to resent God.
Now let’s examine Eve’s response in the text. Here’s where we’ll see the Apostle John’s insight into the Devil’s dealings. First, the woman saw “how good (the tree’s) fruit would be to eat” - the lust of the flesh. Second, she saw “how beautiful the tree was” (literally, that it was a “delight to the eyes”) - the lust of the eyes. And thirdly, “she thought how wonderful it would be to become wise” - the pride of life.
The LUST OF THE FLESH: the craving for physical and sensual gratification, is a common temptation. It is also the easiest to battle, as we use the Holy Spirit’s power and stand on the Word of God. The LUST OF THE EYES is a little trickier, because it includes the whole realm of desire for possessions and riches - and the Bible is filled with warnings against the sin of greed. Both kinds of lust also include the whole area of sexuality. But the PRIDE OF LIFE is the most subtle and dangerous weapon in all of Satan’s armory. It is the temptation to the highest form of self-assertion: taking over control of one’s own life, apart from the will, the guidance, and even the protection, of God. It is the temptation to the idolatry of self, the attitude that says, “I will make my own rules, I will lead my own life, I will be what I will be and I will do whatever I want to do. I will not be accountable to anyone - not even GOD!” And it was this temptation, ultimately, that led to the downfall of humanity, and the awesome destructive power of sin and Satan over the human race. It is still our most serious and fundamental problem.
Now in the Gospel text we see the temptations of the Garden of Eden recapitulated - replayed, as it were, only this time between Satan and the Son of God. And in every case where Adam and Eve failed, bringing ruin upon the human race, Jesus Christ triumphed, bringing the possibility of a new freedom and integrity for human beings in obedience to a loving God.
This time of fasting for Jesus, alone in the wilderness, must have been a time of intense prayer and preparation for the public ministry He was about to begin. It’s no wonder that Satan thought it was an opportune time to come with all his temptations against Christ. If the Devil were able to succeed here in getting Jesus off the course which the Father had set for Him, he could spoil God’s whole plan for our salvation. At this point (and we need to see this), everything depended upon the faithfulness of Jesus to the Father’s will. That’s why this was such a crucial battle.
Jesus went without food for 40 days and nights. In one of the Bible’s supreme understatements, Matthew notes “He was hungry.” So Satan came with TEMPTATION NUMBER ONE: “If You are the Son of God —- then prove it by turning these stones into bread.” Satisfy the LUST OF THE FLESH. Jesus answered, “IT IS WRITTEN.” The Lord here uses against the wiles of Satan the most common, the most easily accessible, and by far the most powerful WEAPON which God has given to His people: THE WRITTEN WORD OF GOD. How absolutely vital it is to see that! How desperately God’s people need to know the Scriptures! God has provided so much for our protection and benefit in His Word! But Christians walk around carrying their Bibles without knowing what’s in them —- sort of like wearing a holster with no gun in it. JESUS KNEW THE WORD OF GOD; AND BECAUSE HE DID, SATAN COULDN’T GET HIM OFF GUARD. And by using the words of Holy Scripture, the Lord overcame the first temptation, the lust of the flesh: “One does not live on bread alone” - by merely satisfying one’s physical needs and desires; but the real life of a human being, is a far deeper, spiritual reality nourished by “every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
Then Satan leveled TEMPTATION NUMBER TWO: THE PRIDE OF LIFE. “If You are the Son of God, You surely have all sorts of powers, and You can take foolish risks and count on God’s protecting You.” Here Satan even quotes Holy Scripture himself (!) - notice how subtle and cunning the Enemy is! He takes out of context a promise that the Bible makes only to one who is living within the perfect will of God; but the Devil abuses that promise to try to get Jesus to do something spectacular but pointless, something that is obviously not God’s will. And so the promise - as Satan well knows - then would not apply! But Jesus replied to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.’” The Word of God must be taken in its totality, not in isolated bits taken out of context. The commandment to not put God to the test takes precedence over the promise of protection at this point.
SATAN’S STRATEGY WAS TO GET JESUS TO SWERVE FROM FULFILLING THE PERFECT WILL OF HIS FATHER - a plan which led not to shows of wonder and power and jumping off high pinnacles to the amazement of thrilled crowds; but it was a plan which led to the CROSS, where the Blood of Christ would atone for the sins of all people, and break the stranglehold of death and the Devil upon the human race.
Then came the THIRD TEMPTATION: a combination of the LUST OF THE EYES and the PRIDE OF LIFE. “Just look, Jesus, at all this wealth! See the glory, the grandeur, the sheer splendor of this world system! I’ve consolidated this whole empire,” boasted the Devil, “and I’ll give it to You - if You’ll just fall down and worship me. Think of it! Power! Riches! Pleasure! Glory! It can all be Yours, just for one little act of homage to me!”
Here was the grandest temptation of them all. Notice that Christ didn’t dispute Satan’s claims! All these things were his to give. Jesus referred to Satan as “the Prince of this world.” Satan could, and really does, offer enticing things to those who are spiritually blind enough to believe that they are worth having at the cost of their souls, or that these things won’t all eventually turn to dust and ashes.
But let us not dare think that Jesus wasn’t really touched by all the temptations of Satan. CHRIST WAS REALLY TEMPTED. Remember, temptation itself is not sin, only surrender to it is. The writer of Hebrews says, “For we have not a High Priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).
What was the real temptation of Christ? There before our Lord stood two divergent paths: one was easy - pay homage to Satan, and gain power, riches, glory, take over the world in the least painful way possible. The other way was hard, lonely, and painful: it was the way of obscure servanthood, the way of sorrows, the way of the CROSS. Which path should He choose?
The temptation which Satan presented made it look so easy. But to go the easy way, Jesus knew that He would have to do something which went against the will and the Word of His heavenly Father, something which violated the love and the bond of OBEDIENCE that held Father and Son together in the divine plan for the redemption of humanity. Jesus would have had to give to Satan what belonged only and absolutely to GOD: the worship of the heart and spirit, the love that is the deepest attachment of the soul. It would have been a violation of the first and greatest Commandment; and for anyone who loves God, that would be unthinkable. So Jesus said, “Begone, Satan! for it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord, your God, and Him only shall you serve.’”
Defeated, the Devil left our Lord. Satan had tried all his most successful tools against the Son of God. The temptations which had brought about the Fall of Humanity in the Garden of Eden served only to glorify God and intensify the faithfulness of Jesus in the desert. As our Savior, in our place and in our behalf, Christ successfully resisted the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We recall today with gratitude that Jesus Christ perfectly fulfilled the will of God so that we might be saved. And we recall with humility that, through the gift of the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, our gracious and living Lord makes available to us the same resources He used for resisting the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil in our own lives. May we be ever thankful to Christ for His victory in the battle, and may we always call upon Him for grace and power when the warfare rages in our own hearts and minds.
As Luther wrote in l527:
… For still our ancient Foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
the Man of God’s own choosing.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth His name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle! AMEN! AMEN!

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.