Jesus Fasting in the Wilderness Beside a StoneBible World
4:3Matthew 4:3
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
After His baptism as the beloved Son He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to contemplate His mission, where after fasting forty days and nights He was left hungry, faint and emaciated among desolate stones that looked like loaves. There Satan came disguised not as a monster but as an angel of light professing to end the fast, and with the doubting If challenged His sonship and dared Him to prove it by commanding those stones to become bread for His own relief. Though He had power to do so, as later shown in feeding the five thousand, to work a miracle for Himself would have acted independently of the Father, broken His covenant to live as a man among men, and yielded the whole controversy. He refused controversy or display and met the tempter only with It is written, that man lives not by bread alone but by every word of God, obedience being more essential to life than food. As the second Adam in real human flesh He thus stood where the first Adam fell on appetite and won as humanity's representative and example, proving God's law can be kept and opening the way for enfeebled descendants to overcome through divine power.
Wilderness Setting and Suffering
The demand to turn stones into bread is the first of three wilderness temptations, the first great leading temptation on appetite where Adam fell and ruin began, standing with love of the world and love of display leading to presumption as the three branches covering every temptation besetting man. It strikes at the same point where Adam's indulgence lost Eden, where the flood came through indulged appetite, and where Israel was humbled, so that redemption must begin where ruin began. It came after Jesus went from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized by John to fulfil all righteousness, when the heavens opened and the Spirit descended like a dove and the voice declared Him the beloved Son. Led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, He did not invite temptation but went to be alone to contemplate His mission and work and by fasting and prayer to brace Himself for the blood-stained path at the beginning of His public ministry.
It occurred after fasting forty days and forty nights, nearly six weeks, about six weeks, when He was afterward hungry, faint, pale, weak, emaciated, worn with mental agony, struggling to resist with humanity upon Him. He was left to battle after the Father's glory departed, in a desolate wilderness never trodden by man, with wild beasts, without food, without companions, without comfort, bearing marks of distress that remained afterward. The desert stones pointed to had the appearance of loaves and looked exactly like bread, the stone looking exactly like bread. The temptation belonged to direct personal temptation in which He was also carried to the temple pinnacle at Jerusalem and to a high mountain, and after forty days of temptation and long fast He won the victory and returned to the Jordan, soon before presenting Himself in His true character at Nazareth where He had been known as an unpretending mechanic.
All heaven watched with intense interest, with angels on guard ready to act should Satan pass his prescribed limit. After terrible strain and severe conflict that left His humanity as dead and as if dying and fainting on the battlefield, angels encircled Him, came and ministered food and strengthened Him, His Father's blessing rested upon Him, and divine consolation and strength flowed into His soul, filling heaven with joy. The verse begins single-handed a conflict that lasted from the desert to the cross and to Gethsemane, with Satan on His track and all hell leagued against Him rallying all the energies of apostasy from the babe in Bethlehem through ministry to Calvary. Satan himself must personally conduct the warfare rather than entrust it to confederate angels, in every possible way to prevent a perfect childhood, a faultless manhood, a holy ministry and an unblemished sacrifice, to lead Jesus into sin, discourage Him and drive Him from His work, yet every attempt failed, He advanced step by step in humiliation and self-sacrifice singing under assault with angels united, and the more mercilessly Satan's wrath fell the more firmly He clung to His Father's hand, so all efforts only brought out His spotless character in purer light.
Tempter's Disguise and Deceit
The tempter who came with the demand about stones and bread is Satan himself, the Lucifer who had been the covering cherub standing next in majesty and glory to Christ, who through jealousy originated sin and rebellion, who after war in heaven was expelled and became the wisest of the fallen angels, the leader of darkness, the prince of this world claiming the earth, the first great rebel and old serpent. His opening word of doubt about sonship exposes his character as the arch-deceiver, for to act on his suggestion would be to accept distrust of Jesus’ identity and mission. Though clothed as an angel of light his words revealed him as the enemy whose power Christ had come to resist.
He did not come as a hideous monster or disgusting fiend but disguised as a beautiful angel in heavenly robes, as a glorious young man in light, as man’s friend and benefactor. He came as if in answer to prayer, in the guise of an angel from heaven with a claimed commission from God to declare the long fast ended and to relieve suffering hunger. Before his fall he had been next to Christ the highest angel in heaven, and he now used that former beauty and strength to press the temptation with the most enticing words. Christ recognized in the insinuation the enemy and would not accept the challenge nor be moved.
He feigned to be a sanctified pure angel from the throne sent on an errand of mercy to sympathize with Christ in His emaciated and desolate condition and to relieve Him. Hiding his identity and true character under an assumed angelic form, he claimed to be the angel who stayed Abraham’s hand when the knife was raised to slay Isaac and to have come now to save Christ’s life and help bear part of the work for the fallen race. He urged that God did not require Christ to pass through self-denial and anticipated suffering unto starvation and death, but had designed only to prove willingness to endure as Abraham was tested to show perfect obedience, that Christ need only set His feet in the blood-stained path and not travel it. He is the one who had exalted himself above God even in the courts of heaven and by deceptive power had corrupted many angels, and Jesus was not deceived by his pretensions of sanctity.
His method is subtle deceit that presents temptation as concern for welfare and apparent good, making disobedience appear necessary and good to preserve life. With flattering inducements and enchanting sentiments, with an appearance of piety and learning, he mingles truth with falsehood in misleading statements, misquoted Scripture, and bewildering falsehoods to distort judgment, weaken faith, and conceal his purpose to overthrow and shake confidence in the Father. He feigned to doubt sonship because of wretchedness and humiliation after taking human nature, set his own beauty, light and strength in insulting contrast with Christ’s hunger, and taunted that God would not leave His own Son forsaken in such deplorable suffering in a wilderness never trodden by man. He claimed direct authority from heaven to require evidence by miracle, promised that if Christ would turn the stone at His feet to bread he would yield claims to superiority, end the contest forever and leave Him the undisputed right to govern the world, while urging Him to exert miraculous power for His own benefit and take Himself out of the Father’s hands. He remains vigilant and adapts such appealing presentations to people’s circumstances, offering an apparent good to be gained.
He attacks at the time of greatest weakness, when after the long fast strength fails and will power weakens and faith ceases to rest in God, striking the weak point where his assault is fiercest. He came to Christ when He was physically weak and truly suffering intense hunger, thinking by that policy to prevail as he had gained victory over men. He still works in the same way, coming when one is encompassed with clouds, perplexed by circumstances, or afflicted by poverty or distress, pressing weak points of character to shake confidence in God who suffers such conditions to exist. He arrays weakness and infirmities before the soul as he did before Christ in order to discourage and break hold on God and make sure of his prey, tempting to distrust God and question His love. Christ met him without parleying and barricaded by the Scriptures, and the tempted soul who follows that example with no undefended points will bear away the victory.
Challenge to Divine Sonship
The opening word betrays the arch-deceiver, for it carries insinuation of distrust, unbelief and bitter incredulity about Jesus' identity, sonship, divine mission and the heavenly testimony spoken at His baptism. It dares Him to contend while He has joined Himself to human weakness, making His sonship a condition to be proved and seeking to plant doubt that acting on the suggestion would accept. The demand is a presumptuous dare built on if, if, if, pressed after forty days and forty nights in a wilderness seared by darkness rather than in beautiful Eden, to prove Himself by working a miracle in His own behalf.
It uses His humiliating surroundings, hunger, poverty, hardship and forsaken suffering to suggest God had forsaken Him and cannot be trusted in word, love, care and faithfulness. With utter incredulity it questions whether God would treat His own Son so as to leave Him in the desert with wild beasts without food, without companions, without comfort, implying God never meant His Son to be in such a state and that He does not look like the Son of God and Redeemer of the world. Under despondency and extreme hunger the hope is that Christ will lose faith in His Father, for if His confidence in God could be shaken victory in the whole controversy would be gained.
The demand to command that stones be made bread is a challenge to prove divinity, sonship, Messiahship and Christhood by miracle and creative power to relieve pressing hunger. It repeats the artful approach to Eve by casting doubt on God's word, truthfulness, love and compassion, urging Him to show power by relieving Himself rather than waiting for God's time in obedience. While faint with hunger He is urged to use divine power to make food from desert stones having the appearance of loaves, with the suggestion that the fast has gone long enough and the trial need not continue. The taunt adds boastful contrast of Satan's own beauty, light and strength with Christ's wretchedness, emaciation and humiliation, seeking dispute over whether the baptismal voice was really God's and whether He must bear hunger.
The temptation urges Jesus to misuse divine power for His own benefit and relief, to act independently of the Father outside the appointed way and take Himself out of the Father's hands. Contrary to the covenant made in heaven and His promise having taken humanity, He is pressed to work miracles in His own behalf instead of standing as a man among men, holding firmly to the affirmative principle of obedience. He has real power and freedom to command bread if He wills, as later shown in feeding five thousand and at Cana, yet a miracle on His own account to satisfy hunger, supply necessity, save Himself, or satisfy unbelief, pride and demands like those of Herod and Pilate is no part of His mission, which is to save others and bear their burdens. Yielding would have accepted the doubt, broken the plan of salvation, violated the divine plan, broken His promise, and given Satan victory in the whole controversy.
Satan falsely claims God sent him to relieve Christ, that disobedience is necessary and good to preserve life, and that God is cruelly withholding food. Disguised as an angel from heaven with claimed commission and direct authority to declare the fast ended, he argues Christ need not endure the suffering required in the plan of redemption. He promises that if Christ will turn the stone at His feet to bread he will yield claims to superiority, no longer resist His authority, end the contest forever and leave Him the undisputed right to govern the world.
Christ's Refusal and Answer
Jesus knew His adversary at once and did not cherish the suggestion for a moment, but rested in His Father's love and in the voice from heaven at His baptism as enough to sustain Him. His integrity and confidence in God stood unshaken under despondency and extreme hunger, when Satan hoped to make Him doubt God's Word and act apart from His Father. He refused to prove His divinity and Messiahship to Satan, to explain the reason of His humiliation, or to enter into controversy or dispute, though Satan already had sufficient evidence of who He was. To have worked a miracle on His own behalf to relieve Himself would have accepted the doubt, broken His promise to stand as a man among men, and broken the plan of salvation, giving Satan victory in the whole controversy.
He answered in no words of His own but only with It is written, making the Word of God the weapon of His warfare in this and every temptation. Firm reliance on Thus saith the Lord is greater than all miracles and is a sign that cannot be controverted, a greater proof of divinity than working a miracle to escape difficulty. While He held that position the tempter could gain no advantage, but was met, resisted, and sent away defeated with the door closed against him on that point. He listened in silence, not without struggle, and awaited God's time to bring relief, being in the wilderness in obedience to God and refusing to obtain food by following Satan's suggestion.
He gave Satan no word to exploit, and the attacks found no opening or lodgment in Him. He did not argue or reason, did not repeat the tempter's words or the claims made against Him, did not attack theories, and did not use Satan's manner of weapons. He kept ever to the affirmative and to the plain truth of His Father's words, holding firmly to the truth as the best way to meet opposition. To repeat what opponents say strengthens their arguments, while keeping to the affirmative lets the truth reach understanding and even convert the opposer.
His answer declares that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God. Obedience to God's requirements is more essential to life than temporal food, and even the smallest departure from God's purposes and appointed way is worse than hunger or death. It is a less calamity to suffer whatever may befall than to depart in any manner from the will of God, a testimony given in the presence of the witnessing universe. To deviate would have been to take Himself out of the Father's hands and to live without God for self-interest.
In this He practiced the very lesson He Himself had taught Israel more than fourteen hundred years before, when with all means of sustenance failing God humbled them, suffered them to hunger, and fed them with manna from heaven in sufficient and constant supply. That discipline taught that while they trusted in God and walked in His ways He would not forsake them, and by the same word succor would be given to Jesus. God's words spoken at Sinai are the conditions of life, and obedience to them restores access to the tree of life which humanity forfeited through disobedience.
Scripture is the inspired record and the sword of the Spirit against deception, and It is written has more power than the working of miracles. Through the Holy Spirit's working, which is stronger than miracles or anything else, power is obtained from the Word to conquer when Satan comes with great power, signs and wonders, and claims of authority to deceive if possible the very elect. Christ worked no miracle and gave no sign but depended only on God and His Word, showing that temptation is met not by self-reliance or human wisdom or unreliable human help but by humble dependence on God, prayer, and trusting Christ. Its power is proved on hearts where failure comes from disobedience, teaching believers to know, follow, affirm, and refer to it in every circumstance and to overcome appetite and passion rather than indulge them at the expense of health.
Representative Victory and Redemption
Christ endured the test as humanity's representative, substitute and example in real human nature with a body like ours, truly suffering hunger without lessening it by miracle. He was to be treated fairly as man is treated without supernatural advantage, to qualify for the office of Redeemer. His enduring it means there is nothing to endure that He has not endured, enabling Him to sympathize with the hungry and needy, for His work was to relieve suffering and not to use power to provide for Himself. His victory over appetite redeemed failure and was gained on humanity's behalf, raising humanity's moral standing before God.
As the second Adam He stood where the first Adam fell and passed over the same ground where ruin began, to redeem Adam's disgraceful fall. He began the work of redemption where ruin began so that descendants may regain Eden and be restored to fellowship with God. His resistance answered Adam's failure and overcame where human beings often fail.
Unlike Adam, who was assailed in perfect manhood with full vigor of mind and body amid the glories of Eden and daily communion with heavenly beings, Christ met the tempter after four thousand years of decreasing physical strength, mental power and moral worth. He took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity with all its liabilities in a disloyal, curse-seared world and gloomy wilderness. He bore it not only under gnawing hunger but under the pressing guilt and terrible weight of the sins of the world, having been made sin for man though He knew no sin, with real possibility of yielding. He endured and overcame in man's behalf because man could not overcome for himself, treading temptation alone with none to help, comfort or uphold Him while wrestling the powers of darkness.
The wilderness temptation was borne in the sinner's stead on the ground where Adam fell, and was a hundredfold stronger and more severe than any temptation ever brought or ever to be brought upon the race, far greater than Adam's and Eve's. He was tested at every point without yielding or staining purity, holding allegiance to God as a garment on the battlefield and keeping His greatest glory. His human nature was fallen but not corrupted and without angelic powers, fully human and truly capable of yielding, yet He would have become corrupted only by receiving Satan's words in place of God's words.
His will remained submitted to the Father's will without yielding at any moment. His victory was won as a man standing in man's place and as humanity's substitute and surety through obedience and reliance solely on God's word, answering It is written in the same manner in which every tempted soul may resist. Divine power was joined to humanity, and divinity clothed with humanity reached man with a human arm while grasping the Infinite, so that through faith people may share in the divine nature. He vanquished the mighty foe upon every point and came off victor in every contest, refusing to be called away from allegiance though the terrible strain left Him as one dead.
That victory exposes as false Satan's misrepresentations of God's character and his claim from Adam's sin that God's law is unjust and cannot be obeyed. It testifies to fallen humanity and to all unfallen worlds that man can keep the commandments of God through divine power granted from heaven. By humbling Himself, enduring temptation and overcoming on man's behalf to show how to overcome, He bound His interests with humanity by the closest ties, giving positive assurance that none will be tempted above what they are able, for with the temptation a way of escape is made.
The tempter's coming was the opening battle between the Prince of Light and the leader of the kingdom of darkness with mighty issues for the world at stake. After tempting man to sin Satan claimed the earth as his as prince of this world and held dominion through control of men. Christ came as Son of man to stand loyal to God and disprove that claim to complete control, to show deliverance possible so that all who desired freedom would be set free, to recover the dominion Adam had lost through sin, and to dispute Satan's sovereignty to break his hold and remove false impressions of God.
Satan told his angels he could overcome Christ on appetite and hoped to win in His weakness, knowing victory here would give victory in every temptation and secure the rest. He knew everything depended on turning Christ from allegiance, for if Christ bore Adam's test the plan of salvation would be carried out to its fulfilment and Satan's destruction would be certain, so he must conquer or be conquered with his hoped-for dominion and the destiny of the race at stake. The kingdom Christ came to establish would encompass world kingdoms but not through earthly triumph, honor or display, but through appointed suffering and death, bracing Himself by fasting and prayer for the blood-stained path He must travel.
That victory was won on humanity's behalf after four thousand years of Satan resisting humanity and is foundational to the plan of salvation. It leaves vantage ground and moral power within reach so that people even enfeebled by long-indulged appetite can overcome in Christ's name by cooperating with Him and partaking of the divine nature. Satan can distress and tempt without controlling the will or forcing sin without consent, and in every emergency the powers of heaven are ready to help.
Echoes in Other Scriptures
The same demand to prove sonship by using power for self returned at the cross, where Satan and his angels worked through mockers, leaders and mob to urge Jesus to save Himself. The taunt there came from the same tempter who spoke in the wilderness, Lucifer the covering cherub who rebelled and became foremost in religious bigotry and cruelty. He could have come down and escaped, and angels longed to rescue Him but could not because His mission was not yet accomplished. By refusing to save Himself when the work was nearly finished He made pardon and favor with God possible for sinners.
The urging to use divine power to make bread and gain a following was repeated when the multitude fed from five loaves and two fishes would take Him by force to make Him an earthly king. The pressure was a real temptation with real conflict in His mind, joined by the excitement of the disciples and the disappointment and disaffection worked by Satan through Judas. He promptly and decisively refused the honor, constrained His disciples to leave by ship, dismissed the multitude, and went alone into the mountain to pray, which was saying Get thee behind Me, Satan.
The tempter in the wilderness is the same evil spirit who later confronted Him in the demon-possessed man in the synagogue and resisted His power over the afflicted. Having conquered the arch-enemy and prince of darkness there in His own person face to face, He now with calm authority freed the captive. That deliverance was a renewed face-to-face meeting with the foe of the wilderness, so that for Satan to lose ground there was to give Jesus another victory, acknowledged even by the demon's testimony to Him as the Holy One of God. Satan seeks his object by various devices through different forms while remaining the same spirit, and can disguise his purpose with an appearance of piety and learning as he did among those who rejected Jesus.
The encounter fulfils the prophecy of enmity between Christ and Satan in every conflict between good and evil, and there Satan suffered his first manifest defeat with all heaven rejoicing while Christ conquered the powers of darkness on humanity's behalf. He met the temptations at every point and put the tempter to flight, vanquishing the mighty foe in every contest including overcoming appetite through obedience and self-denial, when the destiny of the human race was at stake. That priceless victory left the plan of salvation able to be carried out and redemption secured, yet it will not benefit man unless man also gains the victory on his own account. It gives man advantage over Adam by furnishing Adam's disobedience and fall as a warning to shun and Christ's life as an example to copy, so that if man stumbles and falls he is without excuse, and what Satan failed to accomplish by tempting Christ he now seeks to accomplish through deceitful temptations of people.
After failing in the wilderness Satan turned to strategy and sustained effort from desert to Calvary, working through religious leaders to oppose the ministry and thwart the work, and in council planning to blind the Jews with envy and unbelief so they would not receive Him. The account connects Adam and Eve who lost Eden through intemperance and indulgence, the flood from indulged appetite, Israel humbled in the wilderness, and Abraham whose hand was stayed, showing Christ overcame where many had been overcome and where Israel fell. Christ began the work of redemption where humanity's ruin began, upon appetite, as the first of three enticements — appetite, love of the world, and love of display leading to presumption — the same that overcame Adam and Eve and readily overcome humanity, here pressed in far greater degree with the terrible weight of the sins of the world upon Him. Unlike Adam assailed in perfect manhood with full vigor of mind and body amid the glories of Eden and daily communion with heavenly beings, He met the tempter after four thousand years of decreasing physical strength, mental power and moral worth, taking the infirmities of degenerate humanity with all its liabilities and the real possibility of yielding. His endurance of the fast proves appetite can be brought under control and its power broken for those who accept divine help, so that appetites are not to rule people but people must rule them, human effort joined with Christ's power bringing victory over appetite and passion; for Satan tempts to indulgence because it weakens the body and beclouds the mind so he can more easily deceive and destroy, and descendants who lost Eden through intemperance may regain it through Christ and temperance in all things, leaving nothing for humans to bear that He has not endured and enabling Him to succor all who are tempted.
Call to Temperance Living
The verse teaches temperance and self-denial, for it is the first of three great leading temptations that assail man, the temptation upon appetite, met single-handed in the wilderness and overcome. Appetite must be kept under the control of reason and mastered even when restraint brings suffering, because its indulgence weakens mind and body, can become an idol, make people forget God, and obstruct salvation. Christ denied appetite and endured the fast to break its power, leaving an example of obedience, self-control, and reliance on Scripture, redeeming Adam's failure where human beings often fail.
Through gratification of taste the nervous system becomes excited and brain power is enfeebled, so that calm, rational thought becomes impossible. Perception is dulled so eternal things are not discerned, the mind is unbalanced, and its higher, nobler faculties are perverted to serve animal lust. Sacred, eternal interests are then not regarded, obligations to God and to fellow men cannot be discharged, and duties to God and others are impaired. Those who indulge appetite at the expense of health and intellect, and professed Christians who love gaiety, pleasure and feasting, cannot appreciate this temptation and lose its benefit.
Indulgence becomes an idol, makes people forget God and obstructs salvation, while Christ's self-denial under hunger rebukes gluttony, dissipation and feasting. When appetite is indulged Satan gains ready access to come with his two other leading temptations, presumption and love of the world, and his manifold temptations grow out of these three great leading points. Appetite must therefore be ruled lest it weaken resistance, for Christ overcame where indulgence had overcome millions.
Through appetite Satan controls minds, filling the world with misery and crime, blotting entire cities for debasing crimes and revolting iniquity, and cutting thousands short into premature graves as physical, mental, and moral wrecks who sacrificed good powers to indulgence and laid the reins on the neck of lust. He works to bring people into physical and moral weakness so he can overcome them with temptation and triumph over their ruin, succeeding by tempting them to indulge appetite regardless of result. Such indulgence beclouds reason and benumbs spiritual and perceptive powers so eternal things are not discerned, impairs the faculties God gave, brings the higher faculties into subjection to animal appetites and passions, and leaves the world a vast hospital where vicious habits are increasing. Christ suffered in behalf of humanity the severest test to break this power, meeting the temptation of appetite with self-denial and teaching that the lower nature must be brought into subjection.
Christ's victory gives both example and power so people can overcome appetite and passion through Him by joining human effort to divine strength. As Adam and Eve lost Eden through intemperance, Adam's descendants may regain Eden through Christ and temperance in all things, with advantage over Adam through warning of his fall. In the name of Christ alone can victory over established taste for narcotics and stimulants, tobacco and intoxicating drink, be gained, through determined perseverance as co-worker with Christ, which may lead to becoming an heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ and partaker of His glory. Whether Christ accomplishes for man what He is fully able to do rests with man, for God does not save man against his will, and man must take hold of divine power and work with human power aided by Christ's divine power to resist and conquer at any cost, for Christ alone does not do all the overcoming. His victory was designed not only to set an example to those fallen under appetite but to qualify the Redeemer to reach the depths of human woe, having experienced the strength of temptation, sufferings and infirmities so as to know how to succor those who put forth efforts to help themselves.
People are not beyond recovery from appetite's bondage but can break its power, guard appetite, practice temperance and perfect Christian character through divine power, merits, grace and faith. Christ's long fast proves that appetite can be brought under control and every wrong desire overcome, teaching that appetites are not to rule people but people must rule them. His victory over strong passions and appetites was won by divine strength joined to human effort on humanity's behalf, making it possible to resist temptation and live a Christian life in His strength, and raising humanity's moral standing before God. His suffering to break Satan's power should be set before those tempted to drink beer, wine or stronger drink, calling them to restrain appetite and taste, endure temporary discomfort, and practice self-denial rather than yield to harmful indulgences.
The battle against appetite belongs to each person and must be wholly his own though others can pray, by laying hold of God through Christ, wrestling in supplication, enduring by seeing the Invisible, and cooperating with divine help rather than expecting Christ alone to do all the overcoming, leaving those who fall without excuse. Man must overcome as Christ overcame, doing his part as victor on his own account through the strength and grace Christ gives. Strength is provided in Christ for each person to overcome the same adversary who sought to make Christ surrender His integrity.
Christ's example calls ministers to practice strictest temperance, self-denial, self-sacrifice and active benevolence rather than become slaves to appetite and lust, keeping His life before the people and setting an example worthy of imitation. Fathers who profess to follow Christ should tell their children the story of the forty days and forty nights to break the power of appetite, as laborers together with God to restore the moral image of God in man and to stand free from slavery of perverted appetite and passion. Youth who would win eternal life must not expect to follow their own inclinations but must accept conflict, self-denial, sacrifice, privation, weariness, toil and anxiety, choosing Jesus over the world at a prize that costs everything. All are to deny appetite with plain diet, endure temporary discomfort, and reject church gatherings for pleasure and overindulgence that lead to levity and forgetfulness of God, for engaging in overcoming on appetite secures precious victories while failure fills the cup of iniquity.
Christ's fast had a definite object concerning temperance, standing as example and authority for temperance reform that condemns indulgence such as tobacco and the unrestrained use of intoxicating drink. Unrestrained appetite had led to the free use of intoxicating drink, and His suffering to break the power of appetite prepared Him to provide the guests at Cana with pure, non-intoxicating grape juice.
Strength to Resist Temptation
Believers are to meet temptation as He did by the unerring guide It is written, which sets Satan's limit, Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, standing as true as steel to principle and walking and working in His spirit. After forty days and forty nights of fasting when He was hungered and physically weak, Satan came not as a hideous monster but as a beautiful angel claiming a commission from God to declare the fast at an end, insinuating distrust whether He was the Son of God to move Him to command stones to be made bread, yet Christ recognized the enemy, would not accept the challenge nor be moved, but stood firmly to the affirmative by every word proceeding from the mouth of God and prevailed. Those who take the same position when tempted, refusing to dally with temptation or stop to reason and argue with the enemy but knowing they are right and standing to the affirmative before God, will have the same experience and obtain divine power for life and godliness, for Scripture used as He used it raises a standard against temptation. They are to refuse to leave the unerring guide with no guesswork about its truths for something new and strange that has no It is written for foundation but is only human supposition, accepting no opinion of any man however learned unless in harmony with the words of the great Teacher, and His victories came through power from above in answer to prayer by repeatedly answering It is written. His answer shows how to meet temptation by relying on God's Word rather than yielding, remaining loyal to God and giving Satan no word to exploit so attacks found no opening, a weapon available to all.
Meeting him as Jesus did without parleying escapes many a defeat, while parleying with the enemy gives him an advantage. Christ met the tempter with It is written, barricaded by the support the Scriptures give to the one doing God's will and by Thus saith the Lord, having no weak points in defense and standing securely in protection. Specious temptation is vanquished only as suggestions are instantly rejected without listening, keeping vantage ground with God instead of standing on enemy ground, for Satan seeks advantage through human weakness and strikes at a weak point where he makes his fiercest attack. Those battles were fought in behalf of humanity and those victories make it possible to conquer, for Christ will give strength to all who seek it, and no one can be overcome without his own consent since the tempter has no power to control the will or force the soul to sin, though he may distress and cause agony he cannot contaminate nor defile. Satan still works in the same way, coming when one is encompassed with clouds, perplexed by circumstances, or afflicted by poverty or distress, attacking weak points of character to shake confidence in God who suffers such conditions to exist, tempting to distrust God and question His love, arraying weakness and infirmities before the soul as he did before Christ in order to discourage and break hold on God and make sure of his prey, and his resistance to Satan a hundredfold stronger than ever brought upon the race is the pattern for every tempted soul by referring to the inspired record and answering It is written.
Those tempted must heed the light God has given, humble the heart, denounce Satan, and turn to the Lord in repentance that needeth not to be repented of, receiving the victory the Lord gives, with confession from the lips and repentance from the heart that changes management of affairs and makes the Lord God of heaven supreme. Trust in self in self-sufficiency places a person unbidden on enemy ground and makes him fall an easy prey to Satan's devices ending in suffering, defeat and death, while trusting in a power higher than self and looking to God leaves Satan with no power over him. Victory does not come from confidence in one's own weak and faulty self but through reliance on God, for Christ conquered the arch-enemy on our behalf and is mightier than Satan and can help followers in their conflicts. As the tried and sure foundation stone Christ can bear the burdens and griefs laid upon Him, and those who trust in Him find relief from guilt and perfect security, with His wilderness victory a pledge that believers can overcome through His name.
Jesus' victories came through power from above in answer to prayer, and earnest prayer in His name brings Him as a helper and enables victory when temptation presses. Prayer and fasting draw near to God, and conquest comes through combat, for Christ was tempted as we are and through His strength we can overcome even after receiving a rich blessing. The wilderness temptation came immediately after the heavens opened and the Spirit rested on Him following close communion with God, showing that a great blessing or clear revelation of God's presence may be followed by severe trial. In the temptation to command stones to be made bread Christ worked no miracle and gave no sign, depending only on God and His Word, and the same dependence is required when Satan comes down with great power to work by signs and wonders, bringing down fire from heaven to deceive if possible the very elect, for It is written has more power than working miracles and through the Holy Spirit's working power is obtained from the Word. Christ is the Conqueror who overcame on our behalf, giving the pattern for overcoming through persevering effort, self-denial, watchfulness, humble dependence on God, and ever fuller Bible study.
Severe temptation does not mean a person is abandoned by God, especially for those working to rescue souls from Satan's snares who may face what Jesus faced. By relying wholly on God's Word and resisting until Satan is driven back, followers overcome through His grace, for Jesus overcame Satan for them and endured temptation so He could help those tempted and identifies Himself with them. When Satan is vanquished, angels minister to the faithful as they did to Jesus, and seasons of satanic temptation through forty days of privation and buffeting are followed by grace and strength from God ministered by angels. Those who preach the word can likewise overcome when exhaustion and weakened condition make them vulnerable, driving Satan away and winning the battle by relying on Him while using discretion to preserve health and strength for the work.
Satan still comes with temptations and quoted Scripture as he came clad in angel robes, and the same coming will happen to souls in the most trying times just ahead, so unless life is hid with Christ in God Satan will surely bind the soul in unbelief. He taunted Christ while joined to human weakness and boasted superior strength challenging Him to contest to prove Sonship by turning stones to bread and working miracles, and the same challenge tempts people to display power as proof they are favored by God and have the truth. He presses weak points and bids self-interest, profitable ventures by his methods, love of the world, and living without God, tempting to satisfy appetite and testing trust and obedience while appealing to ambition to draw into seeking worldly power and wealth by yielding integrity or worshiping Satan, yet Christ refused earthly advantage. Even conduct allowed by worldly standards can fail God's law and damage influence to be guarded for God's cause, and without Christ's pure unselfish love followers are in danger of yielding and being deceived and falling under his power.
When tempted to take themselves into their own hands rather than wait submissively for the Lord's time, believers resist by looking unto Jesus as author and finisher of faith and standing on God's Word. Jesus met the tempter only with It is written speaking nothing else, and looking to Jesus means keeping the tongue from uttering any other words when feelings are stirred, uttering not one word even in answer to a provoking question, which keeps vantage ground with God instead of standing on enemy ground to be overcome and keeps confidence of brethren from being hurt. Those who know they are not fully doing God's will must not delay to make peace with Him and must not accept Satan's representations leading in false paths away from God, keeping the heart pure and holy free from selfishness, for without being kept by God's power a person will fall and if Satan gains a foothold he works with all deceptive power. Resisting as He resisted requires studying the Bible more and more fully and meeting its requirements, laying aside story magazines to study the Word with angels around to strengthen understanding, bringing God into families so children are saved and giving in schools an education in things of God that teaches escape from corruption through lust, since Satan changes temptations and Christians should expect new assaults rather than rely on yesterday's strength, with earnest prayer of faith bringing light and strength and daily guidance.
Christ's resistance is the pattern believers are expected to follow, the pattern for maintaining right principles and integrity and for teaching, for He did not act in self-sufficiency nor meet Satan with Satan's own manner of weapons but spoke only words of pure truth and righteousness. When tempted He gave no place to Satan, remaining exact in principle and upright in conduct and wide-awake to discern wiles, and He is the Pattern to copy in walking and working with strict honesty, tenderness, charity, meekness and lowliness of heart. He faced Satan's temptations point by point on behalf of humanity, knows their strength and can raise a defense for those sincerely calling on Him, remaining without sin and coming out a conqueror. Those who accepted offers of high wages failed to follow that pattern and sacrificed principles marking His life, while His resistance of evil gives example of highest education showing through human nature united with the divine people can gain power to follow His teachings, overcome, obey God and share the divine nature.
His dignity questioned, authority disputed, allegiance assailed and purity attacked by taunts of a fallen foe claiming superiority and holding the Commander of heaven apparently in his power, Christ refused to be called away from allegiance to His Father and conquered in human nature, though the terrible strain left Him as one dead. All heaven watched with intense interest and burning love with angels on guard ready to act if Satan passed his prescribed limit, then angels encircled Him, gave food and poured divine consolation into His soul, placing the race on vantage ground so by becoming partaker of divine nature man can resist satanic agencies, keep God's law and become victor over darkness for time and eternity. He met temptations at every point and put the tempter to flight, conquering darkness on humanity's behalf when destiny of the race was at stake. That priceless victory will not benefit man unless man also gains victory on his own account, giving advantage over Adam by furnishing his disobedience as warning to shun and Christ's life as example to copy, so stumbling under temptation leaves man without excuse, and His victory gives strength to resist while yielding can lead others into failure through influence.
The conflict teaches self-sacrifice, patience under affliction, solemn consecration to God and preparation for holy work. Christ's long fast of nearly six weeks with unexampled suffering under fiercest temptations shows God's love in not withholding His Son from humiliation to shame and agony to bring many sons and daughters to glory, teaching it is infinite gain to overcome as Christ overcame and eternal loss to gain the whole world with pleasure and glory yet lose the soul, for heaven is cheap at any cost. His work of redemption began where ruin began because Adam fell through indulgence of appetite, therefore addressing physical habits needing reform, and His victory showed sinfulness of indulgence while divine power joined with humanity won victory on humanity's behalf and raised humanity's moral standing. His followers can also overcome Satan's temptations through self-denial and loyalty to God, and His victory is example as they take part in salvation and practice self-denial and sacrifice.
After His baptism as the beloved Son He was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to contemplate His mission, where after fasting forty days and nights He was left hungry, faint and emaciated among desolate stones that looked like loaves. There Satan came disguised not as a monster but as an angel of light professing to end the fast, and with the doubting If challenged His sonship and dared Him to prove it by commanding those stones to become bread for His own relief. Though He had power to do so, as later shown in feeding the five thousand, to work a miracle for Himself would have acted independently of the Father, broken His covenant to live as a man among men, and yielded the whole controversy. He refused controversy or display and met the tempter only with It is written, that man lives not by bread alone but by every word of God, obedience being more essential to life than food. As the second Adam in real human flesh He thus stood where the first Adam fell on appetite and won as humanity's representative and example, proving God's law can be kept and opening the way for enfeebled descendants to overcome through divine power.
Wilderness Setting and Suffering
The demand to turn stones into bread is the first of three wilderness temptations, the first great leading temptation on appetite where Adam fell and ruin began, standing with love of the world and love of display leading to presumption as the three branches covering every temptation besetting man. It strikes at the same point where Adam's indulgence lost Eden, where the flood came through indulged appetite, and where Israel was humbled, so that redemption must begin where ruin began. It came after Jesus went from Galilee to Jordan to be baptized by John to fulfil all righteousness, when the heavens opened and the Spirit descended like a dove and the voice declared Him the beloved Son. Led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, He did not invite temptation but went to be alone to contemplate His mission and work and by fasting and prayer to brace Himself for the blood-stained path at the beginning of His public ministry.
It occurred after fasting forty days and forty nights, nearly six weeks, about six weeks, when He was afterward hungry, faint, pale, weak, emaciated, worn with mental agony, struggling to resist with humanity upon Him. He was left to battle after the Father's glory departed, in a desolate wilderness never trodden by man, with wild beasts, without food, without companions, without comfort, bearing marks of distress that remained afterward. The desert stones pointed to had the appearance of loaves and looked exactly like bread, the stone looking exactly like bread. The temptation belonged to direct personal temptation in which He was also carried to the temple pinnacle at Jerusalem and to a high mountain, and after forty days of temptation and long fast He won the victory and returned to the Jordan, soon before presenting Himself in His true character at Nazareth where He had been known as an unpretending mechanic.
All heaven watched with intense interest, with angels on guard ready to act should Satan pass his prescribed limit. After terrible strain and severe conflict that left His humanity as dead and as if dying and fainting on the battlefield, angels encircled Him, came and ministered food and strengthened Him, His Father's blessing rested upon Him, and divine consolation and strength flowed into His soul, filling heaven with joy. The verse begins single-handed a conflict that lasted from the desert to the cross and to Gethsemane, with Satan on His track and all hell leagued against Him rallying all the energies of apostasy from the babe in Bethlehem through ministry to Calvary. Satan himself must personally conduct the warfare rather than entrust it to confederate angels, in every possible way to prevent a perfect childhood, a faultless manhood, a holy ministry and an unblemished sacrifice, to lead Jesus into sin, discourage Him and drive Him from His work, yet every attempt failed, He advanced step by step in humiliation and self-sacrifice singing under assault with angels united, and the more mercilessly Satan's wrath fell the more firmly He clung to His Father's hand, so all efforts only brought out His spotless character in purer light.
Tempter's Disguise and Deceit
The tempter who came with the demand about stones and bread is Satan himself, the Lucifer who had been the covering cherub standing next in majesty and glory to Christ, who through jealousy originated sin and rebellion, who after war in heaven was expelled and became the wisest of the fallen angels, the leader of darkness, the prince of this world claiming the earth, the first great rebel and old serpent. His opening word of doubt about sonship exposes his character as the arch-deceiver, for to act on his suggestion would be to accept distrust of Jesus’ identity and mission. Though clothed as an angel of light his words revealed him as the enemy whose power Christ had come to resist.
He did not come as a hideous monster or disgusting fiend but disguised as a beautiful angel in heavenly robes, as a glorious young man in light, as man’s friend and benefactor. He came as if in answer to prayer, in the guise of an angel from heaven with a claimed commission from God to declare the long fast ended and to relieve suffering hunger. Before his fall he had been next to Christ the highest angel in heaven, and he now used that former beauty and strength to press the temptation with the most enticing words. Christ recognized in the insinuation the enemy and would not accept the challenge nor be moved.
He feigned to be a sanctified pure angel from the throne sent on an errand of mercy to sympathize with Christ in His emaciated and desolate condition and to relieve Him. Hiding his identity and true character under an assumed angelic form, he claimed to be the angel who stayed Abraham’s hand when the knife was raised to slay Isaac and to have come now to save Christ’s life and help bear part of the work for the fallen race. He urged that God did not require Christ to pass through self-denial and anticipated suffering unto starvation and death, but had designed only to prove willingness to endure as Abraham was tested to show perfect obedience, that Christ need only set His feet in the blood-stained path and not travel it. He is the one who had exalted himself above God even in the courts of heaven and by deceptive power had corrupted many angels, and Jesus was not deceived by his pretensions of sanctity.
His method is subtle deceit that presents temptation as concern for welfare and apparent good, making disobedience appear necessary and good to preserve life. With flattering inducements and enchanting sentiments, with an appearance of piety and learning, he mingles truth with falsehood in misleading statements, misquoted Scripture, and bewildering falsehoods to distort judgment, weaken faith, and conceal his purpose to overthrow and shake confidence in the Father. He feigned to doubt sonship because of wretchedness and humiliation after taking human nature, set his own beauty, light and strength in insulting contrast with Christ’s hunger, and taunted that God would not leave His own Son forsaken in such deplorable suffering in a wilderness never trodden by man. He claimed direct authority from heaven to require evidence by miracle, promised that if Christ would turn the stone at His feet to bread he would yield claims to superiority, end the contest forever and leave Him the undisputed right to govern the world, while urging Him to exert miraculous power for His own benefit and take Himself out of the Father’s hands. He remains vigilant and adapts such appealing presentations to people’s circumstances, offering an apparent good to be gained.
He attacks at the time of greatest weakness, when after the long fast strength fails and will power weakens and faith ceases to rest in God, striking the weak point where his assault is fiercest. He came to Christ when He was physically weak and truly suffering intense hunger, thinking by that policy to prevail as he had gained victory over men. He still works in the same way, coming when one is encompassed with clouds, perplexed by circumstances, or afflicted by poverty or distress, pressing weak points of character to shake confidence in God who suffers such conditions to exist. He arrays weakness and infirmities before the soul as he did before Christ in order to discourage and break hold on God and make sure of his prey, tempting to distrust God and question His love. Christ met him without parleying and barricaded by the Scriptures, and the tempted soul who follows that example with no undefended points will bear away the victory.
Challenge to Divine Sonship
The opening word betrays the arch-deceiver, for it carries insinuation of distrust, unbelief and bitter incredulity about Jesus' identity, sonship, divine mission and the heavenly testimony spoken at His baptism. It dares Him to contend while He has joined Himself to human weakness, making His sonship a condition to be proved and seeking to plant doubt that acting on the suggestion would accept. The demand is a presumptuous dare built on if, if, if, pressed after forty days and forty nights in a wilderness seared by darkness rather than in beautiful Eden, to prove Himself by working a miracle in His own behalf.
It uses His humiliating surroundings, hunger, poverty, hardship and forsaken suffering to suggest God had forsaken Him and cannot be trusted in word, love, care and faithfulness. With utter incredulity it questions whether God would treat His own Son so as to leave Him in the desert with wild beasts without food, without companions, without comfort, implying God never meant His Son to be in such a state and that He does not look like the Son of God and Redeemer of the world. Under despondency and extreme hunger the hope is that Christ will lose faith in His Father, for if His confidence in God could be shaken victory in the whole controversy would be gained.
The demand to command that stones be made bread is a challenge to prove divinity, sonship, Messiahship and Christhood by miracle and creative power to relieve pressing hunger. It repeats the artful approach to Eve by casting doubt on God's word, truthfulness, love and compassion, urging Him to show power by relieving Himself rather than waiting for God's time in obedience. While faint with hunger He is urged to use divine power to make food from desert stones having the appearance of loaves, with the suggestion that the fast has gone long enough and the trial need not continue. The taunt adds boastful contrast of Satan's own beauty, light and strength with Christ's wretchedness, emaciation and humiliation, seeking dispute over whether the baptismal voice was really God's and whether He must bear hunger.
The temptation urges Jesus to misuse divine power for His own benefit and relief, to act independently of the Father outside the appointed way and take Himself out of the Father's hands. Contrary to the covenant made in heaven and His promise having taken humanity, He is pressed to work miracles in His own behalf instead of standing as a man among men, holding firmly to the affirmative principle of obedience. He has real power and freedom to command bread if He wills, as later shown in feeding five thousand and at Cana, yet a miracle on His own account to satisfy hunger, supply necessity, save Himself, or satisfy unbelief, pride and demands like those of Herod and Pilate is no part of His mission, which is to save others and bear their burdens. Yielding would have accepted the doubt, broken the plan of salvation, violated the divine plan, broken His promise, and given Satan victory in the whole controversy.
Satan falsely claims God sent him to relieve Christ, that disobedience is necessary and good to preserve life, and that God is cruelly withholding food. Disguised as an angel from heaven with claimed commission and direct authority to declare the fast ended, he argues Christ need not endure the suffering required in the plan of redemption. He promises that if Christ will turn the stone at His feet to bread he will yield claims to superiority, no longer resist His authority, end the contest forever and leave Him the undisputed right to govern the world.
Christ's Refusal and Answer
Jesus knew His adversary at once and did not cherish the suggestion for a moment, but rested in His Father's love and in the voice from heaven at His baptism as enough to sustain Him. His integrity and confidence in God stood unshaken under despondency and extreme hunger, when Satan hoped to make Him doubt God's Word and act apart from His Father. He refused to prove His divinity and Messiahship to Satan, to explain the reason of His humiliation, or to enter into controversy or dispute, though Satan already had sufficient evidence of who He was. To have worked a miracle on His own behalf to relieve Himself would have accepted the doubt, broken His promise to stand as a man among men, and broken the plan of salvation, giving Satan victory in the whole controversy.
He answered in no words of His own but only with It is written, making the Word of God the weapon of His warfare in this and every temptation. Firm reliance on Thus saith the Lord is greater than all miracles and is a sign that cannot be controverted, a greater proof of divinity than working a miracle to escape difficulty. While He held that position the tempter could gain no advantage, but was met, resisted, and sent away defeated with the door closed against him on that point. He listened in silence, not without struggle, and awaited God's time to bring relief, being in the wilderness in obedience to God and refusing to obtain food by following Satan's suggestion.
He gave Satan no word to exploit, and the attacks found no opening or lodgment in Him. He did not argue or reason, did not repeat the tempter's words or the claims made against Him, did not attack theories, and did not use Satan's manner of weapons. He kept ever to the affirmative and to the plain truth of His Father's words, holding firmly to the truth as the best way to meet opposition. To repeat what opponents say strengthens their arguments, while keeping to the affirmative lets the truth reach understanding and even convert the opposer.
His answer declares that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word proceeding from the mouth of God. Obedience to God's requirements is more essential to life than temporal food, and even the smallest departure from God's purposes and appointed way is worse than hunger or death. It is a less calamity to suffer whatever may befall than to depart in any manner from the will of God, a testimony given in the presence of the witnessing universe. To deviate would have been to take Himself out of the Father's hands and to live without God for self-interest.
In this He practiced the very lesson He Himself had taught Israel more than fourteen hundred years before, when with all means of sustenance failing God humbled them, suffered them to hunger, and fed them with manna from heaven in sufficient and constant supply. That discipline taught that while they trusted in God and walked in His ways He would not forsake them, and by the same word succor would be given to Jesus. God's words spoken at Sinai are the conditions of life, and obedience to them restores access to the tree of life which humanity forfeited through disobedience.
Scripture is the inspired record and the sword of the Spirit against deception, and It is written has more power than the working of miracles. Through the Holy Spirit's working, which is stronger than miracles or anything else, power is obtained from the Word to conquer when Satan comes with great power, signs and wonders, and claims of authority to deceive if possible the very elect. Christ worked no miracle and gave no sign but depended only on God and His Word, showing that temptation is met not by self-reliance or human wisdom or unreliable human help but by humble dependence on God, prayer, and trusting Christ. Its power is proved on hearts where failure comes from disobedience, teaching believers to know, follow, affirm, and refer to it in every circumstance and to overcome appetite and passion rather than indulge them at the expense of health.
Representative Victory and Redemption
Christ endured the test as humanity's representative, substitute and example in real human nature with a body like ours, truly suffering hunger without lessening it by miracle. He was to be treated fairly as man is treated without supernatural advantage, to qualify for the office of Redeemer. His enduring it means there is nothing to endure that He has not endured, enabling Him to sympathize with the hungry and needy, for His work was to relieve suffering and not to use power to provide for Himself. His victory over appetite redeemed failure and was gained on humanity's behalf, raising humanity's moral standing before God.
As the second Adam He stood where the first Adam fell and passed over the same ground where ruin began, to redeem Adam's disgraceful fall. He began the work of redemption where ruin began so that descendants may regain Eden and be restored to fellowship with God. His resistance answered Adam's failure and overcame where human beings often fail.
Unlike Adam, who was assailed in perfect manhood with full vigor of mind and body amid the glories of Eden and daily communion with heavenly beings, Christ met the tempter after four thousand years of decreasing physical strength, mental power and moral worth. He took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity with all its liabilities in a disloyal, curse-seared world and gloomy wilderness. He bore it not only under gnawing hunger but under the pressing guilt and terrible weight of the sins of the world, having been made sin for man though He knew no sin, with real possibility of yielding. He endured and overcame in man's behalf because man could not overcome for himself, treading temptation alone with none to help, comfort or uphold Him while wrestling the powers of darkness.
The wilderness temptation was borne in the sinner's stead on the ground where Adam fell, and was a hundredfold stronger and more severe than any temptation ever brought or ever to be brought upon the race, far greater than Adam's and Eve's. He was tested at every point without yielding or staining purity, holding allegiance to God as a garment on the battlefield and keeping His greatest glory. His human nature was fallen but not corrupted and without angelic powers, fully human and truly capable of yielding, yet He would have become corrupted only by receiving Satan's words in place of God's words.
His will remained submitted to the Father's will without yielding at any moment. His victory was won as a man standing in man's place and as humanity's substitute and surety through obedience and reliance solely on God's word, answering It is written in the same manner in which every tempted soul may resist. Divine power was joined to humanity, and divinity clothed with humanity reached man with a human arm while grasping the Infinite, so that through faith people may share in the divine nature. He vanquished the mighty foe upon every point and came off victor in every contest, refusing to be called away from allegiance though the terrible strain left Him as one dead.
That victory exposes as false Satan's misrepresentations of God's character and his claim from Adam's sin that God's law is unjust and cannot be obeyed. It testifies to fallen humanity and to all unfallen worlds that man can keep the commandments of God through divine power granted from heaven. By humbling Himself, enduring temptation and overcoming on man's behalf to show how to overcome, He bound His interests with humanity by the closest ties, giving positive assurance that none will be tempted above what they are able, for with the temptation a way of escape is made.
The tempter's coming was the opening battle between the Prince of Light and the leader of the kingdom of darkness with mighty issues for the world at stake. After tempting man to sin Satan claimed the earth as his as prince of this world and held dominion through control of men. Christ came as Son of man to stand loyal to God and disprove that claim to complete control, to show deliverance possible so that all who desired freedom would be set free, to recover the dominion Adam had lost through sin, and to dispute Satan's sovereignty to break his hold and remove false impressions of God.
Satan told his angels he could overcome Christ on appetite and hoped to win in His weakness, knowing victory here would give victory in every temptation and secure the rest. He knew everything depended on turning Christ from allegiance, for if Christ bore Adam's test the plan of salvation would be carried out to its fulfilment and Satan's destruction would be certain, so he must conquer or be conquered with his hoped-for dominion and the destiny of the race at stake. The kingdom Christ came to establish would encompass world kingdoms but not through earthly triumph, honor or display, but through appointed suffering and death, bracing Himself by fasting and prayer for the blood-stained path He must travel.
That victory was won on humanity's behalf after four thousand years of Satan resisting humanity and is foundational to the plan of salvation. It leaves vantage ground and moral power within reach so that people even enfeebled by long-indulged appetite can overcome in Christ's name by cooperating with Him and partaking of the divine nature. Satan can distress and tempt without controlling the will or forcing sin without consent, and in every emergency the powers of heaven are ready to help.
Echoes in Other Scriptures
The same demand to prove sonship by using power for self returned at the cross, where Satan and his angels worked through mockers, leaders and mob to urge Jesus to save Himself. The taunt there came from the same tempter who spoke in the wilderness, Lucifer the covering cherub who rebelled and became foremost in religious bigotry and cruelty. He could have come down and escaped, and angels longed to rescue Him but could not because His mission was not yet accomplished. By refusing to save Himself when the work was nearly finished He made pardon and favor with God possible for sinners.
The urging to use divine power to make bread and gain a following was repeated when the multitude fed from five loaves and two fishes would take Him by force to make Him an earthly king. The pressure was a real temptation with real conflict in His mind, joined by the excitement of the disciples and the disappointment and disaffection worked by Satan through Judas. He promptly and decisively refused the honor, constrained His disciples to leave by ship, dismissed the multitude, and went alone into the mountain to pray, which was saying Get thee behind Me, Satan.
The tempter in the wilderness is the same evil spirit who later confronted Him in the demon-possessed man in the synagogue and resisted His power over the afflicted. Having conquered the arch-enemy and prince of darkness there in His own person face to face, He now with calm authority freed the captive. That deliverance was a renewed face-to-face meeting with the foe of the wilderness, so that for Satan to lose ground there was to give Jesus another victory, acknowledged even by the demon's testimony to Him as the Holy One of God. Satan seeks his object by various devices through different forms while remaining the same spirit, and can disguise his purpose with an appearance of piety and learning as he did among those who rejected Jesus.
The encounter fulfils the prophecy of enmity between Christ and Satan in every conflict between good and evil, and there Satan suffered his first manifest defeat with all heaven rejoicing while Christ conquered the powers of darkness on humanity's behalf. He met the temptations at every point and put the tempter to flight, vanquishing the mighty foe in every contest including overcoming appetite through obedience and self-denial, when the destiny of the human race was at stake. That priceless victory left the plan of salvation able to be carried out and redemption secured, yet it will not benefit man unless man also gains the victory on his own account. It gives man advantage over Adam by furnishing Adam's disobedience and fall as a warning to shun and Christ's life as an example to copy, so that if man stumbles and falls he is without excuse, and what Satan failed to accomplish by tempting Christ he now seeks to accomplish through deceitful temptations of people.
After failing in the wilderness Satan turned to strategy and sustained effort from desert to Calvary, working through religious leaders to oppose the ministry and thwart the work, and in council planning to blind the Jews with envy and unbelief so they would not receive Him. The account connects Adam and Eve who lost Eden through intemperance and indulgence, the flood from indulged appetite, Israel humbled in the wilderness, and Abraham whose hand was stayed, showing Christ overcame where many had been overcome and where Israel fell. Christ began the work of redemption where humanity's ruin began, upon appetite, as the first of three enticements — appetite, love of the world, and love of display leading to presumption — the same that overcame Adam and Eve and readily overcome humanity, here pressed in far greater degree with the terrible weight of the sins of the world upon Him. Unlike Adam assailed in perfect manhood with full vigor of mind and body amid the glories of Eden and daily communion with heavenly beings, He met the tempter after four thousand years of decreasing physical strength, mental power and moral worth, taking the infirmities of degenerate humanity with all its liabilities and the real possibility of yielding. His endurance of the fast proves appetite can be brought under control and its power broken for those who accept divine help, so that appetites are not to rule people but people must rule them, human effort joined with Christ's power bringing victory over appetite and passion; for Satan tempts to indulgence because it weakens the body and beclouds the mind so he can more easily deceive and destroy, and descendants who lost Eden through intemperance may regain it through Christ and temperance in all things, leaving nothing for humans to bear that He has not endured and enabling Him to succor all who are tempted.
Call to Temperance Living
The verse teaches temperance and self-denial, for it is the first of three great leading temptations that assail man, the temptation upon appetite, met single-handed in the wilderness and overcome. Appetite must be kept under the control of reason and mastered even when restraint brings suffering, because its indulgence weakens mind and body, can become an idol, make people forget God, and obstruct salvation. Christ denied appetite and endured the fast to break its power, leaving an example of obedience, self-control, and reliance on Scripture, redeeming Adam's failure where human beings often fail.
Through gratification of taste the nervous system becomes excited and brain power is enfeebled, so that calm, rational thought becomes impossible. Perception is dulled so eternal things are not discerned, the mind is unbalanced, and its higher, nobler faculties are perverted to serve animal lust. Sacred, eternal interests are then not regarded, obligations to God and to fellow men cannot be discharged, and duties to God and others are impaired. Those who indulge appetite at the expense of health and intellect, and professed Christians who love gaiety, pleasure and feasting, cannot appreciate this temptation and lose its benefit.
Indulgence becomes an idol, makes people forget God and obstructs salvation, while Christ's self-denial under hunger rebukes gluttony, dissipation and feasting. When appetite is indulged Satan gains ready access to come with his two other leading temptations, presumption and love of the world, and his manifold temptations grow out of these three great leading points. Appetite must therefore be ruled lest it weaken resistance, for Christ overcame where indulgence had overcome millions.
Through appetite Satan controls minds, filling the world with misery and crime, blotting entire cities for debasing crimes and revolting iniquity, and cutting thousands short into premature graves as physical, mental, and moral wrecks who sacrificed good powers to indulgence and laid the reins on the neck of lust. He works to bring people into physical and moral weakness so he can overcome them with temptation and triumph over their ruin, succeeding by tempting them to indulge appetite regardless of result. Such indulgence beclouds reason and benumbs spiritual and perceptive powers so eternal things are not discerned, impairs the faculties God gave, brings the higher faculties into subjection to animal appetites and passions, and leaves the world a vast hospital where vicious habits are increasing. Christ suffered in behalf of humanity the severest test to break this power, meeting the temptation of appetite with self-denial and teaching that the lower nature must be brought into subjection.
Christ's victory gives both example and power so people can overcome appetite and passion through Him by joining human effort to divine strength. As Adam and Eve lost Eden through intemperance, Adam's descendants may regain Eden through Christ and temperance in all things, with advantage over Adam through warning of his fall. In the name of Christ alone can victory over established taste for narcotics and stimulants, tobacco and intoxicating drink, be gained, through determined perseverance as co-worker with Christ, which may lead to becoming an heir of God and joint-heir with Jesus Christ and partaker of His glory. Whether Christ accomplishes for man what He is fully able to do rests with man, for God does not save man against his will, and man must take hold of divine power and work with human power aided by Christ's divine power to resist and conquer at any cost, for Christ alone does not do all the overcoming. His victory was designed not only to set an example to those fallen under appetite but to qualify the Redeemer to reach the depths of human woe, having experienced the strength of temptation, sufferings and infirmities so as to know how to succor those who put forth efforts to help themselves.
People are not beyond recovery from appetite's bondage but can break its power, guard appetite, practice temperance and perfect Christian character through divine power, merits, grace and faith. Christ's long fast proves that appetite can be brought under control and every wrong desire overcome, teaching that appetites are not to rule people but people must rule them. His victory over strong passions and appetites was won by divine strength joined to human effort on humanity's behalf, making it possible to resist temptation and live a Christian life in His strength, and raising humanity's moral standing before God. His suffering to break Satan's power should be set before those tempted to drink beer, wine or stronger drink, calling them to restrain appetite and taste, endure temporary discomfort, and practice self-denial rather than yield to harmful indulgences.
The battle against appetite belongs to each person and must be wholly his own though others can pray, by laying hold of God through Christ, wrestling in supplication, enduring by seeing the Invisible, and cooperating with divine help rather than expecting Christ alone to do all the overcoming, leaving those who fall without excuse. Man must overcome as Christ overcame, doing his part as victor on his own account through the strength and grace Christ gives. Strength is provided in Christ for each person to overcome the same adversary who sought to make Christ surrender His integrity.
Christ's example calls ministers to practice strictest temperance, self-denial, self-sacrifice and active benevolence rather than become slaves to appetite and lust, keeping His life before the people and setting an example worthy of imitation. Fathers who profess to follow Christ should tell their children the story of the forty days and forty nights to break the power of appetite, as laborers together with God to restore the moral image of God in man and to stand free from slavery of perverted appetite and passion. Youth who would win eternal life must not expect to follow their own inclinations but must accept conflict, self-denial, sacrifice, privation, weariness, toil and anxiety, choosing Jesus over the world at a prize that costs everything. All are to deny appetite with plain diet, endure temporary discomfort, and reject church gatherings for pleasure and overindulgence that lead to levity and forgetfulness of God, for engaging in overcoming on appetite secures precious victories while failure fills the cup of iniquity.
Christ's fast had a definite object concerning temperance, standing as example and authority for temperance reform that condemns indulgence such as tobacco and the unrestrained use of intoxicating drink. Unrestrained appetite had led to the free use of intoxicating drink, and His suffering to break the power of appetite prepared Him to provide the guests at Cana with pure, non-intoxicating grape juice.
Strength to Resist Temptation
Believers are to meet temptation as He did by the unerring guide It is written, which sets Satan's limit, Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, standing as true as steel to principle and walking and working in His spirit. After forty days and forty nights of fasting when He was hungered and physically weak, Satan came not as a hideous monster but as a beautiful angel claiming a commission from God to declare the fast at an end, insinuating distrust whether He was the Son of God to move Him to command stones to be made bread, yet Christ recognized the enemy, would not accept the challenge nor be moved, but stood firmly to the affirmative by every word proceeding from the mouth of God and prevailed. Those who take the same position when tempted, refusing to dally with temptation or stop to reason and argue with the enemy but knowing they are right and standing to the affirmative before God, will have the same experience and obtain divine power for life and godliness, for Scripture used as He used it raises a standard against temptation. They are to refuse to leave the unerring guide with no guesswork about its truths for something new and strange that has no It is written for foundation but is only human supposition, accepting no opinion of any man however learned unless in harmony with the words of the great Teacher, and His victories came through power from above in answer to prayer by repeatedly answering It is written. His answer shows how to meet temptation by relying on God's Word rather than yielding, remaining loyal to God and giving Satan no word to exploit so attacks found no opening, a weapon available to all.
Meeting him as Jesus did without parleying escapes many a defeat, while parleying with the enemy gives him an advantage. Christ met the tempter with It is written, barricaded by the support the Scriptures give to the one doing God's will and by Thus saith the Lord, having no weak points in defense and standing securely in protection. Specious temptation is vanquished only as suggestions are instantly rejected without listening, keeping vantage ground with God instead of standing on enemy ground, for Satan seeks advantage through human weakness and strikes at a weak point where he makes his fiercest attack. Those battles were fought in behalf of humanity and those victories make it possible to conquer, for Christ will give strength to all who seek it, and no one can be overcome without his own consent since the tempter has no power to control the will or force the soul to sin, though he may distress and cause agony he cannot contaminate nor defile. Satan still works in the same way, coming when one is encompassed with clouds, perplexed by circumstances, or afflicted by poverty or distress, attacking weak points of character to shake confidence in God who suffers such conditions to exist, tempting to distrust God and question His love, arraying weakness and infirmities before the soul as he did before Christ in order to discourage and break hold on God and make sure of his prey, and his resistance to Satan a hundredfold stronger than ever brought upon the race is the pattern for every tempted soul by referring to the inspired record and answering It is written.
Those tempted must heed the light God has given, humble the heart, denounce Satan, and turn to the Lord in repentance that needeth not to be repented of, receiving the victory the Lord gives, with confession from the lips and repentance from the heart that changes management of affairs and makes the Lord God of heaven supreme. Trust in self in self-sufficiency places a person unbidden on enemy ground and makes him fall an easy prey to Satan's devices ending in suffering, defeat and death, while trusting in a power higher than self and looking to God leaves Satan with no power over him. Victory does not come from confidence in one's own weak and faulty self but through reliance on God, for Christ conquered the arch-enemy on our behalf and is mightier than Satan and can help followers in their conflicts. As the tried and sure foundation stone Christ can bear the burdens and griefs laid upon Him, and those who trust in Him find relief from guilt and perfect security, with His wilderness victory a pledge that believers can overcome through His name.
Jesus' victories came through power from above in answer to prayer, and earnest prayer in His name brings Him as a helper and enables victory when temptation presses. Prayer and fasting draw near to God, and conquest comes through combat, for Christ was tempted as we are and through His strength we can overcome even after receiving a rich blessing. The wilderness temptation came immediately after the heavens opened and the Spirit rested on Him following close communion with God, showing that a great blessing or clear revelation of God's presence may be followed by severe trial. In the temptation to command stones to be made bread Christ worked no miracle and gave no sign, depending only on God and His Word, and the same dependence is required when Satan comes down with great power to work by signs and wonders, bringing down fire from heaven to deceive if possible the very elect, for It is written has more power than working miracles and through the Holy Spirit's working power is obtained from the Word. Christ is the Conqueror who overcame on our behalf, giving the pattern for overcoming through persevering effort, self-denial, watchfulness, humble dependence on God, and ever fuller Bible study.
Severe temptation does not mean a person is abandoned by God, especially for those working to rescue souls from Satan's snares who may face what Jesus faced. By relying wholly on God's Word and resisting until Satan is driven back, followers overcome through His grace, for Jesus overcame Satan for them and endured temptation so He could help those tempted and identifies Himself with them. When Satan is vanquished, angels minister to the faithful as they did to Jesus, and seasons of satanic temptation through forty days of privation and buffeting are followed by grace and strength from God ministered by angels. Those who preach the word can likewise overcome when exhaustion and weakened condition make them vulnerable, driving Satan away and winning the battle by relying on Him while using discretion to preserve health and strength for the work.
Satan still comes with temptations and quoted Scripture as he came clad in angel robes, and the same coming will happen to souls in the most trying times just ahead, so unless life is hid with Christ in God Satan will surely bind the soul in unbelief. He taunted Christ while joined to human weakness and boasted superior strength challenging Him to contest to prove Sonship by turning stones to bread and working miracles, and the same challenge tempts people to display power as proof they are favored by God and have the truth. He presses weak points and bids self-interest, profitable ventures by his methods, love of the world, and living without God, tempting to satisfy appetite and testing trust and obedience while appealing to ambition to draw into seeking worldly power and wealth by yielding integrity or worshiping Satan, yet Christ refused earthly advantage. Even conduct allowed by worldly standards can fail God's law and damage influence to be guarded for God's cause, and without Christ's pure unselfish love followers are in danger of yielding and being deceived and falling under his power.
When tempted to take themselves into their own hands rather than wait submissively for the Lord's time, believers resist by looking unto Jesus as author and finisher of faith and standing on God's Word. Jesus met the tempter only with It is written speaking nothing else, and looking to Jesus means keeping the tongue from uttering any other words when feelings are stirred, uttering not one word even in answer to a provoking question, which keeps vantage ground with God instead of standing on enemy ground to be overcome and keeps confidence of brethren from being hurt. Those who know they are not fully doing God's will must not delay to make peace with Him and must not accept Satan's representations leading in false paths away from God, keeping the heart pure and holy free from selfishness, for without being kept by God's power a person will fall and if Satan gains a foothold he works with all deceptive power. Resisting as He resisted requires studying the Bible more and more fully and meeting its requirements, laying aside story magazines to study the Word with angels around to strengthen understanding, bringing God into families so children are saved and giving in schools an education in things of God that teaches escape from corruption through lust, since Satan changes temptations and Christians should expect new assaults rather than rely on yesterday's strength, with earnest prayer of faith bringing light and strength and daily guidance.
Christ's resistance is the pattern believers are expected to follow, the pattern for maintaining right principles and integrity and for teaching, for He did not act in self-sufficiency nor meet Satan with Satan's own manner of weapons but spoke only words of pure truth and righteousness. When tempted He gave no place to Satan, remaining exact in principle and upright in conduct and wide-awake to discern wiles, and He is the Pattern to copy in walking and working with strict honesty, tenderness, charity, meekness and lowliness of heart. He faced Satan's temptations point by point on behalf of humanity, knows their strength and can raise a defense for those sincerely calling on Him, remaining without sin and coming out a conqueror. Those who accepted offers of high wages failed to follow that pattern and sacrificed principles marking His life, while His resistance of evil gives example of highest education showing through human nature united with the divine people can gain power to follow His teachings, overcome, obey God and share the divine nature.
His dignity questioned, authority disputed, allegiance assailed and purity attacked by taunts of a fallen foe claiming superiority and holding the Commander of heaven apparently in his power, Christ refused to be called away from allegiance to His Father and conquered in human nature, though the terrible strain left Him as one dead. All heaven watched with intense interest and burning love with angels on guard ready to act if Satan passed his prescribed limit, then angels encircled Him, gave food and poured divine consolation into His soul, placing the race on vantage ground so by becoming partaker of divine nature man can resist satanic agencies, keep God's law and become victor over darkness for time and eternity. He met temptations at every point and put the tempter to flight, conquering darkness on humanity's behalf when destiny of the race was at stake. That priceless victory will not benefit man unless man also gains victory on his own account, giving advantage over Adam by furnishing his disobedience as warning to shun and Christ's life as example to copy, so stumbling under temptation leaves man without excuse, and His victory gives strength to resist while yielding can lead others into failure through influence.
The conflict teaches self-sacrifice, patience under affliction, solemn consecration to God and preparation for holy work. Christ's long fast of nearly six weeks with unexampled suffering under fiercest temptations shows God's love in not withholding His Son from humiliation to shame and agony to bring many sons and daughters to glory, teaching it is infinite gain to overcome as Christ overcame and eternal loss to gain the whole world with pleasure and glory yet lose the soul, for heaven is cheap at any cost. His work of redemption began where ruin began because Adam fell through indulgence of appetite, therefore addressing physical habits needing reform, and His victory showed sinfulness of indulgence while divine power joined with humanity won victory on humanity's behalf and raised humanity's moral standing. His followers can also overcome Satan's temptations through self-denial and loyalty to God, and His victory is example as they take part in salvation and practice self-denial and sacrifice.