THE Lord Jesus had taken His place among men, the heavens had opened upon Him, He had been sealed and anointed with the Holy Ghost, and the Father had owned Him as His beloved Son. How blessed that He should come down here and take our place at the cross in order that through redemption we might have His place. For heaven is now open to the believer, he is owned as a son of God and the Holy Ghost is given to him. He is loved with the same love with which the Father loves the Son.
But grace provokes the enemy. It is when souls are thus blessed that Satan’s temptations are apt to come.
The Lord must now pass through a time of testing, and so He goes forth from that blessed event at the Jordan into a different scene — the wilderness — to be tried by the one who had caused Adam to fall. Satan would find out whether this Man would succumb to his wiles. How different the circumstances in which Jesus was tested to those in which the tempter first found Adam! The Lord was in the wilderness, among the wild beasts (Mark 1:13), but Adam, when in that state of innocency, was in a wonderful garden where everything was provided for his benefit by his Creator. Ever since then Satan has been tempting mankind and over and over again it has been proved that man cannot withstand his wiles.
But what about the One who came to take man’s place and to answer to God for him? Would He be able to stand? Satan stood ready to challenge Him with all that he had learned in dealing with men over the centuries.
“And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered.” It would appear that the temptation was going on all during those forty days, but after they were passed the tempter comes with the challenge: “If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” This temptation grew out of the Lord’s circumstances but He was a man who had no other will than His Father’s will and so He answers, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Though hungry He would not act upon Satan’s suggestion to satisfy His hunger, which would take Him out of that place of dependence upon God. He would wait upon Him. He hung upon the Word of God. To Him it was everything. He lived by it. Faith knows that God will take care of one who trusts in Him; it is his business to keep God’s word. God will not fail to watch over and protect him.
It is interesting to notice that the three scriptures the Lord uses in silencing Satan, He quotes from the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy contains the instructions and warnings given by Moses to the people just before they crossed the Jordan to enter the land of Canaan. If they were to possess and enjoy the land God gave them, there must be obedience and dependence upon Him. Satan found in the Lord Jesus here only perfect obedience and perfect trust in God. It was this that gave such power to His word. Thus He was preserved from the snare of the fowler and the enemy was utterly beaten. It will be so with us if we seek grace to follow the pattern He has set for us.
ML-02/04/1962