The Gospel of the Kingdom - Matthew - The Temptations of Christ

 

Text: Matthew 4:1-4 – “ Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted^[a] by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

We have witnessed how Jesus went out to see John in the wilderness near Bethany. Jesus was baptized to identify with us, and we are baptized to identify with Him. In this chapter of the study, Jesus now is about to undergo a challenge to once again identify with us.

Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This is a study in Theology called the Impeccability of Christ. Some say that He was tempted because He could sin. The word used here in the Greek is translated as “tempted” can and often means “tested.” There is a  concept being taught in some Seminaries called “Open Theology.”  They say that God doesn’t know what will happen until it happens. So, they say that Jesus could have sinned – and it was necessary for the temptations to see if He would stand strong. Therefore if He passed, He could be our Savior. However, if we are dealing with a “peccable” Savior – that means He could have failed –  we have no guarantee that He still could fail.

There is a difference between temptation and sin. We ALL face temptations. What we do with them determines if we sin or not.

Mark in his gospel (1: 13) gives some interesting thoughts – “and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.” I want you to think of the contrasts to the account of Adam and Eve:

1. They were in a garden – He was in the wilderness
2. They were with friendly animals – He was with wild animals
3. They were tempted and failed, He was tempted and triumphed.
4. They were kept from the Garden by Angels – the angels came and provided for Him.

The idea here in being “tested” is not to see if He could fail, it is to see that He could not fail. It makes me think of a story that I read –

As the Union Pacific Railroad was being constructed, an elaborate trestle bridge was built across a large canyon in the West. Wanting to test the bridge, the builder loaded a train with enough extra cars and equipment to double its normal payload.

The train was then driven to the middle of the bridge, where it stayed an entire day.

One worker asked, "Are you trying to break this bridge?" "No," the builder replied, "I’m trying to prove that the bridge won’t break."

In the same way, the temptations Jesus faced weren’t designed to see if He would sin, but to prove that He couldn’t.

Let us view the three temptations over the next three days as they are recorded.