An audio version of each devotion will be posted on our church podcast “Life Together at CRPC,” which is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
(Ben Chidester)
Matthew 4:1-11 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,
“‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and
“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.
————————————
As we have made our way through the opening chapters of Matthew, we have seen how Matthew is consciously showing us Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the events and prophecies of the Old Testament. In this chapter, we see this again in Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
When a Israelite heard the word “wilderness,” their mind would have immediately gone to that important period in Israel’s history: the wandering of God’s people in the wilderness of Sinai. This event was impressed into their minds; it was a call and a warning to every Israelite to be faithful to God’s Law — unlike that generation that had wandered in the wilderness.
When God saved his people from slavery in Egypt and led them with a mighty arm through the Red Sea, they were meant to then pass into the land He had promised them; the land of Canaan. But God’s people rejected His plan for them. They doubted God and His goodness. They rebelled against the Law that He gave them, that was meant to teach them how to live. And they grumbled, repeatedly. As God led them along their way, they grumbled for lack of food. When he answered by sending manna from heaven, they grumbled again.
Thus, God did not permit His people to immediately enter into the land He had promised them. Instead, they were forced to wander in the wilderness, between Egypt and the promised land. There, they wandered, for 40 years, until they had all passed away and a new generation arose.
The call to the next generation was the same as the one to those who had gone before, and the same as the one to every Israelite afterward: Will you be faithful? Will you obey my Law?
Unfortunately, the answer to that question, for the next generation and every one afterward, was “no.” The next generation was allowed to enter the land — to pass through the Jordan River and land upon that blessed shore on the other side — but they too fell short. And so had every generation since. Until Jesus.
You see, just like that generation of the Old Testament, Jesus went into the wilderness. Like them, he faced the temptation of the devil to grumble against God and his goodness. But unlike them, he proved faithful.
When Jesus was hungry from his fasting, he did not grumble against God. He did not give in to the devil’s suggestions to abandon his reliance upon God and find bread for himself. He was not tempted to worship other gods, as that first generation did with the golden calf.
Note here that all of Jesus’ quotations of Scripture in this trial come from the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy records the giving of the Law by Moses to that second generation that had risen up after the first had passed away in the wilderness (hence the Greek title Deuteronomy, or “second Law”). The challenge to that generation was: Will you be faithful to this Law, where your parents were not? They, like every generation after them, failed to rise to that challenge, but Jesus proved faithful where they failed.
The upshot for us, as God’s people, is that Jesus did not do this simply for himself. He did not defeat the temptations of the devil in the wilderness simply to prove himself. Rather, he did it for us — in our place. Where we, like that second generation of Israelites, and every generation since, have failed to uphold God’s Law — where we have grumbled at God and his providence — He was faithful, for us. And now, by faith in him, that righteous fulfillment of the Law is made our own. There is no longer a righteousness that remains to be obtained — He has obtained it for us. And we can walk in peace with God, knowing that when we fail, we have an advocate, the one Faithful Israelite, to whom we can point, who satisfied every demand of the Law for us.