Rev. Deacon
Sunday School Lesson on Matthew 4:1-11
The Temptation of Christ
I. Setting the scene (v.1)
a. Then…
i. This happened after his baptism, setting a pattern for us to observe: “Now we should not be troubled if, after our baptism, we too have to endure great temptations. We should not treat this as if unexpected but continue to endure all things nobly, as though it were happening in the natural course of things.”1
ii. The devil desires victory over the Saints especially: “His temptation indicates how sinister are the devil’s attempts especially against those who have been sanctified, for he eagerly desires victory over the saints.”2
b. …was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness…
WHO WAS IN CHARGE?
i. “Jesus was led by the Spirit, but not as a subordinate on the command of a superior and not as a superior on the encouragement of a subordinate…[but as] one who acquiesces in someone’s reasonable insistence.”3
1. This does not give the Spirit unequal power over Christ, nor does it give Christ unequal power over the Spirit.
2. This same relationship is seen with Christ and the Father in
ii. THE DEVIL’S LEADING OF CHRIST was not so much his own power, but Christ’s patience to allow the work to be done to its full end.
1. “When you hear the words ‘led by the devil,’ do not think of the devil’s power, that he was able to lead Christ. Rather, wonder at the patience of Christ when he allowed himself to be led by the devil. Therefore, in following the Lord did no show weakness, but patience; in leading the devil did not show strength but pride.”4
2. The angels (who later ministered to Christ) were allowed to draw back from him “so that the devil might have room to work against Christ.” This was God’s plan so that all things might be done to the fullest.
iii. The devil goes out to tempt, but Christ went to confront the devil.5
c. …to be tempted of the devil.
i. CHRIST IS TRULY HUMAN. Christ must experience temptation as all men do, or else he is not fully human, which would have dire consequences for our salvation.
ii. CHRIST IS THE SECOND ADAM. Adam’s temptation and Sin was reversed in Christ’s temptation and forbearance.6
II. The First Temptation (vv.2-4)
a. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights…
The significance of the number 40 reveals Christ as the true
i. Noah’s flood lasted 40 days (Gen 7-8)
ii. Moses & 40:
1. His life is divided into 3 periods of 40 years (
2. He spent 40 days and nights on
3. The spies spent 40 days in
iii. 3. The cycles in Judges and Kings are commonly 40 years
iv. 4. Elijah fasted for 40 days (1Kings 19:8)
v. 5.
vi. Christ’s Resurrection appearances happened over a 40 day period
b. …he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him,…
i. The devil used the temptation of the belly to entice the first Adam to sin.
ii. Here the temptation begins with the belly, but subtly tempts Christ at a more significant level…
c. …he said, If thou be the Son of God,…
THE ROOT OF SATAN’S TEMPTATION:
i. Either the devil did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God…“With the voice of a doubter, he interrogates Christ… He had heard that it had been announced to the virgin that she would give birth to the Son of God. He saw the magi… in humble adoration of the Child that was born. He saw, after the baptism, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove. He also heard the Father’s voice from Heaven sating ‘This is my Son.’ He heard John with a loud voice proclaiming, ‘This is he who takes away the sin of the world.’ Disturbed by so much testimony therefore and now troubled by this voice, this what he feared most of all: that after he had filled the world with sins, he heard there would now come someone to take away the sins of the world… In a terrible state of fear he seeks to find out whether these things he had heard were true… And so he asked to be given some sign that this was truly the Son of God.”7
ii. … Or he was insulting Christ as the Son of God or trying to cast doubt.8
1. He had insulted Adam’s relationship to God by saying that God was hiding the truth about the fruit from him.
2. He now insults Christ by insinuating that “in vain God has called you Son and has beguiled you by this gift.”
3. iii. Therefore Christ is asked to produce a sign to validate that he is indeed from God, and the gift of being called God’s Son is not false.
d. …command that these stones be made bread.
i. This temptation really addressed Christ’s dignity as the Son of God, not his hunger: the temptation was not to eat, but to perform a miracle.9
ii. To do such a miracle, self-serving and not revealing his glory to the faithful, would have been a pretentious act, and therefore would be the sin of vainglory.
iii. For the same reason Christ consistently denied the Pharisees a sign.
iv. Christ does not take commands from the devil, nor does he obey the devil’s will, lest he be found subservient to his own creature or to evil. “[The devil] wanted in some way to elicit obedience from the tempted One, hoping to hear an echo of his own glory in a vote of confidence from the Lord of majesty.”10
e. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
i. Manna and the Word of God: Christ quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, which recalls
1. Manna: heavenly food supplied by God to His people for their sustenance while in a barren land.
2. Christ fed
3. Origen equates it to the word of God, though his exegesis of Exo. 16:15-16 may be questionable: “This is the word which the Lord commanded”
4. Jerome connects the Deut passage with this one, and says: “If anyone does not feed upon God’s Word, that one will not live.”11
5. The faithful live no by physical bread, but by the bread of God, namely Christ. See
6. We feed on the Word by reading the Scriptures and by partaking of the Word (e.g. Jn 1) in the Eucharist. Therefore the Service of Holy Communion is divided into two parts: the ante-communion focused on the reading of the Word, and the communion focused on the partaking of the Word
ii. Christ’s response rejects the devil’s temptation without denying the devil’s inquiry into his Sonship:
“The Savior put down the devil’s stratagem with a clever response. He does not do what the devil says, lest he seem to declare the glory of his power at his adversary’s will, nor does he answer that it cannot be done, since he could not deny what he had already done [with Israel in the wilderness (e.g. Deut 8)]. Therefore he neither gives in to the devil’s petition [by sinning] nor rejects his inquiry [regarding Jesus’ relationship to God the Father]. He reserves for himself the manifestation of his power and counters his adversary’s stratagem with eloquence.”12
iii. Christ responded to the temptation with longsuffering to bear through it, not a display of power to end it.13
III. The Second Temptation (vv.5-7)
a. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,…
See I.B.3. above, on the devil’s leading
b. …And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God,…
See II.C. above, on the root of the devil’s temptation
c. …cast thyself down:…
i. The devil does not have the authority or ability to cast down or pull down, but he can entice.14
ii. DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” (1Cor )
d. …for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
i. The devil misinterprets Ps 91:12.15
1. He misinterprets the person in reference: it is not Christ, but the man who trusts in the Lord.
2. He ignores the context, in which it is said that this person will defeat the lion and the serpent, implying his own destruction.
a. “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:” (1Pet 5:8)
b. The devil is a serpent (Gen 3; Rev 12)
3. DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT: All heretics have a Bible verse. Having a proof text is not the measure of the truth of a person’s claims. Rather, the Scriptures are to be interpreted in the Church, and interpretation is to conform to the catholic faith. (cf. 2Pet )
ii. Here again the temptation is aimed at Christ’s dignity as the Son of God, only this time it is direct. It would be vain glory for Christ to frivolously give such a display of power and position.
e. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Here again Christ responds to temptation with Scripture (Deut ), correcting the devil’s bad exegesis of Scripture as only the true Word of God can.
IV. The Third Temptation (vv.8-10)
a. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;…
See above, on the devil’s leading
b. …And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down andworship me.
i. “The possession of [all the power of the world] is offered to the devil’s very Creator” in the hope of corrupting Christ by ambition.16
ii. The gift the devil offered was not his to give.
1. “Consider how every promise of the devil is intrinsically irrational and untrue… how could the devil take everything away from everyone and give it to one person, in order to be despised by all and worshipped by one?”17
2. Christ, as the Creator was already the true king over all the world’s kingdoms, and as the glory of the Father already had greater glory than those kingdoms (Heb. 1). Yet, as all things had not yet been put under his proper authority (Heb. ), the devil offered a shortcut. Just as Christ would not later take a shortcut from
c. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
i. Here again Christ responds to temptation with Scripture (Deut ).
ii. “[The devil’s] crimes were being discovered. He realized that the Lord his God must be adored in the man [Jesus]. By this effective response, the Lord gave us a decisive example… we also should remember that our Lord and God alone must be adored, especially when the devil’s honor has become the common business of every age.”18
V. Victory over The Devil and Temptation (v.11)
a. Then the devil leaveth him,…
i. The devil was defeated by the very flesh in whose death he gloried.19
ii. “The devil cannot tempt God’s people as long as he wishes. He can tempt them only as long as Christ or the Holy Spirit who is in them allows him to.”20
See III.C.2. above, Devotional thought on 1Cor
iii. The Lord overcame Satan with humility, not by power
b. …and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
VI. Review
a. Theological Implications:
i. Christ was truly human, and experienced all things as mankind does
ii. Christ is the True Israel, come to perfect God’s chosen people
iii. Christ is the Second Adam, by whom the first Adam’s Sin was undone
b. Satan’s pattern of temptation
i. The belly (1st temptation)… we live on the bread of God’s word, not physical bread.
ii. Vain glory (2nd temptation)… we seek God’s glory, not our own.
iii. Vain ambition (3rd temptation)… we worship God and none other.
c. Practical & Devotional Thoughts:
i. Scripture can be misused, therefore we must interpret it within the bounds of the Church’s catholic tradition
ii. Satan has no real power to bring us down, but he can entice us
iii. Temptation is dealt with by longsuffering, not by display of miraculous power
I.
1 Chrysostom, The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 13.1
2 Hilary, On Matthew 3.1-2
3 Anonymous, Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 5
4 Anon.
5 Anon.
6 Theodore of Mopsuestia, Fragment 17
7 Chromatius, The Gospel of Matthew, Homily 13.3
8 Chrysostom, 13.3
9 Cyril of
10 Hilary, 3.4
11 Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 1.4.4
12 Maximus of
13 Chrysostom, 13.4
14 Jerome, 1.4.5-7
15 Jerome, 1.4.5-7
16 Hilary, 3.5
17 Anon.
18 Hilary, 3.5
19 Hilary, 3.1-2
20 Anon.
