The Exposition of Matthew (Matthew 4:1-2)

Part I

(The Temptation of Christ)

June 9, 2020

Questions to be answered in this study

1. How was the baptism of Jesus different from ours?
2. What did the baptism of Jesus accomplish?
3. Who was the uninvited bystander at the baptism of Jesus?
4. There are three things that are relevant to our study of Matthew chapter 4; what are they?
5. The word temptation has two applications; what are they?
6. What was the purpose for the temptation of Jesus?
7. Why were the temptations of Jesus necessary?
8. What are the three different ways Satan tempted Jesus and what do they mean?
9. What are the three ways Satan temps us today?

Introduction:

We need to take a little time today to review what we studied last week since it is a crucial transition into chapter 4. Last week, we studied Jesus’ baptism and the commencement of His public ministry. Our focus was on the purpose and meaning of Jesus’ baptism compared to ours; What is the difference between the baptism of Jesus and our baptism? Jesus’ baptism was to accomplish some important things while our baptism is a result of our repentance of sins. The specific question was, why did Jesus need to be baptized at all? Since Jesus needed no repentance, like us and others who were coming to receive baptism from John the Baptist, there must have been another reason. As we discussed last week, there were more reasons than one; Jesus’ baptism accomplished several things:

Firstly, as Jesus told John, it was to fulfill all righteousness. Fulfilling all righteousness meant that it fulfilled all God’s requirements for purity, which the law failed to do because no one was ever able to keep the law except Jesus. In other words, Jesus’ baptism was a visual public act of obedience to the Father, symbolizing all necessary for righteousness. Here is the point, since we could not keep the law and measure up to God’s requirements for righteousness, God took on the form of human flesh, in His Son Jesus, kept the law to the letter, then took our sins upon Him and died in our stead to satisfy the penalty for sin. Our sin was imputed to Jesus on the cross, and His righteousness was assigned to us that we might fulfill God’s requirement for holiness. Since only the righteous go to heaven, and since no one is righteous, the only way to heaven is with the imputed righteousness of Jesus, which each receives freely at the point of salvation.

Secondly, the baptism of Jesus was the handoff of John’s ministry to the ministry of Jesus. John’s ministry was to prepare the way for the Messiah. He was to baptize those who would be the first disciples of Jesus. Probably all of the 12 disciples, who would be appointed Apostles, were baptized by John, along with some who would make up the 120 that met in the upper room after the ascension of Jesus into heaven.

Thirdly, Jesus’ baptism was His inauguration into His public ministry, making it possible for the Holy Spirit to equip Him for the miracles and events of His ministry that lay ahead. Jesus did not have His supernatural abilities until the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. There is no record of Him performing any miracles before that time.

Fourthly and finally, it established the pattern of baptism for the disciples of Jesus’ to repeat as they follow in His footsteps. God gave His endorsement of His Son by announcing Jesus was His beloved Son in whom He was well pleased, opening up His mission to the world, the remission, and redemption of the sins of humanity.

As we enter chapter 4 of our study of Mathew, we see another bystander, along with the scribes and Pharisees, who were there on the day of the baptizing of Jesus. Like everyone else, he had to wait and see who God would reveal as the Messiah. The secret of the identity of Jesus had also been kept from him even though he was a powerful creation and foe of God. He knew the Old Testament and knew that it would be John the Baptist who would announce the arrival of the Messiah, so he had been waiting for this moment for a very long time and quickly took advantage of it. His name was Lucifer; we refer to him today as Satan or the Devil.

Satan’s history is crucial for us to understand what’s happening in Matthew 4, so we need to take the time here to understand his nature better. We see him described in Ezekiel 28:12:19 – “Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”

This passage of Scripture describes Satan as the “King of Tyre,” (Tyrus, an evil human symbol of Satan) and reveals him as falling from honor to become the evil creature as we know him today. There are three things we need to consider that are relevant to our study of Matthew chapter 4:

First, notice in v.12 that Satan was created initially as perfect, full of wisdom, and perfectly beautiful. In Satan’s beginning, he was the greatest of God’s creations in wisdom and beauty. At this time, he was also blameless and obedient to God.

Secondly, we see in v.14 that God assigned Satan a high service in heaven as the covering cherub. The cherub was part of the design of the Ark of the Covenant, in the Tabernacle, Ex. 37:7: “He made two cherubim of gold; he made them of hammered work at the two ends of the mercy seat; Ex. 37:8 one cherub at the one end and one cherub at the other end; he made the cherubim of one piece with the mercy seat at the two ends.” The cherub was a symbol of Satan.

Thirdly, in Ezekiel 28:16-18, we see the record of Satan’s fall: “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness:” In verse 19, we see the final judgment on Satan and his end of existence. Having fallen from his place of high esteem, Satan now goes to and fro over the earth to devour whomever he can, defying God, being full of pride, marked with violence in opposition to God and His children.

So, now as we enter chapter 4, we see immediately Satan’s effort to destroy the ministry of Jesus in the very beginning. In our last study, we saw the importance and purpose for God taking the form of a human being, in His Son Jesus, to justify those who would believe in Jesus and his death on the cross. That brings us to our text for today:

Matthew 4:1-2, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.”

The theme at the beginning of chapter 4 is the temptation of Christ. The question is, why did Satan tempt Jesus? Was it real, since Jesus was God and would in no way fall to the enticement of Satan? Yes, the temptation was real, but was it possible for Jesus to fall to his temptation? No, it was not. Why then the temptation? The word temptation has two applications: committing evil, and the second means a test. In the case of Jesus, it was a test. J. Vernon McGee told of a time when he was growing up in his small hometown in Texas, when a railroad trestle, crossing the river, was destroyed by a flood. After some time, the rail company built a new one, and when finished, they pulled two locomotive engines on the trestle and set their whistles to blow. The town’s people came running, all 34, to see what was happening. Someone asked an engineer if it was to see if the trestle would fall. The engineer laughed and replied, no, it was to prove that it wouldn’t. That was the reason for the temptation of Jesus, to prove that he would not fall to Satan’s temptation.

Jesus was tempted in like manner as we. Satan tempts us to do evil, but we are also tempted as Jesus was as a test. God does test us, but never does He tempt us to do evil. The Scripture says this about God: James 1:13 (KJV), “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” Jesus was tempted from His human side, not His God’s side. It was to demonstrate that He, being fully human, passed God’s standard for righteousness and therefore qualified as the Messiah, the savior of the world. Jesus became flesh like us; He became a man and faced the same things we face so that He could take our place in the death on the cross as a propitiation for our sins. We read in Heb. 4:15 (KJV), “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus was human as you, and I, the difference being, did not sympathize with our sinful weakness although he was tempted in all things as we are.

It also proved that He was the Messiah, as we see in Hebrews 2:17-18 (KJV), “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.”

The temptations of Jesus were necessary for Jesus to accomplish His mission on earth. In essence, Jesus was taking Adam’s place as the federal representative of humanity. Adam chose instead to believe the lies of Satan rather than to accept the truth of God. Humanity plunged into sin by one man’s sin. Jesus came to correct the problem and provide a way for man to come back to God, but to do that, Jesus had to become our federal representative before God in place of Adam. The difference between Jesus and Adam was, Jesus made a different choice when tempted by Satan; He chose to be faithful to God, which placed Him beyond the reach of Satan and qualified Him as the Messiah.

That brings us to the opening of Matthew Chapter 4, beginning with Satan’s efforts to disqualify Jesus from being the second and perfect Adam. Let’s reread the beginning of the chapter: Matt. 4:1-2 – “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.”

When my wife and I were in Jericho, back in January of 2020, we could see the wilderness in the distance where Jesus was tempted. It was a lonely place, barren, with only a tree or shrub here and there. Otherwise, it was sand and rocks. It was very rugged and mountainous. It was shortly after His baptism when Jesus was led by the Spirit deeper into this wilderness. Mark in 1:12 puts it this way: “Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness.”

In the upcoming verses, we will see Satan tempting Jesus in three different ways. That will be our subject for the subsequent study. But let’s consider some things about the temptation: Jesus faces the worst odds for being tempted. He is alone, in a lonely place, and without friends. Three times Jesus will be tempted while hungry and in a weakened state. Unlike the pleasant atmosphere when Adam was tempted, Jesus will face the attacks of Satan in the worst of conditions and as a mere man without the Father’s protection or the use of the Spirit’s supernatural power.

Matthew 4:2, “And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.”

In verse 2, we notice that Jesus had fasted for 40 days before the temptation began. Keep in mind that Jesus had a physical body that needed the same things ours need. You may think that a 40 day fast is impossible. Remember, this is a food fast; there is no mention that Jesus did without water. The Bible says He hungered after 40 days. There have been several who have fasted 40 days. However, that would be very dangerous for most.

In the following study, we will look at how Satan used the same tactics on Jesus as he uses on people today: We read in 1 John 2:16 (KJV), “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” Satan, today, temps using the lust of the body, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life those desires which draws us into sin, away from God and to all the vainglory of life, those things which appeal to the satisfaction of life and self-worth apart from God. All the ways Satan tempts us today fit in those same three categories in which he tempted Jesus.