Is none of the synoptic gospels has the temptation a weightier place than here. Matthew confronts the Messiah with the great enemy of God's people; and, giving the three closing acts just as they took place, reports them as they illustrate dispensation, and the great impending change, which is emphatically his theme. Mark notes the fact in its due time, and the devotedness of the blessed Servant of God thus tempted of the devil in the wilderness, with none but the wild beasts near, till at its close, as we know also from Matthew, angels came and ministered to Him. John characteristically omits the circumstance altogether; for it clearly attached to His being found in fashion as a man (when He emptied Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men), and not to His being God. To Luke it was of capital moment; and the Spirit, as we shall see, saw fit to arrange the order of its parts so as the better to carry out the design by our evangelist.
Here is noted the transition from Jordan of Jesus, “full of the Holy Ghost.” (Ver. 1) It might not at first sight appear to be a likely path; but the more one reflects, the more one may see its wisdom and suitability. He was just baptized, sealed of the Spirit, and, above all, owned by the Father as His beloved Son, forthwith led in the Spirit into the wilderness; and there He was forty days tempted of the devil. The principle is true of us too. Sons of God by the faith of Jesus, and consciously so by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, we too know what it is to be tempted by the devil. Temptation is hardly the way in which the devil deals with his children; but when we are delivered, such conflicts begin.
The first in order, and this in Matthew too, is the appeal to natural wants. “And in those days be did eat nothing; and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.” The Lord at once takes the lowliest ground, really the most elevated morally, that the sustenance of nature is not the first consideration, but living by the word of God. He waits for a word from Him whose will He was come to do. He refuses even in His hunger to take a single step in the way of satisfying His sinless wants without divine direction. The true and only right place of man is dependence; and He, having become a man, would not swerve from the dependence which referred to God instead of following wishes of His own: indeed, His will was to do God's will. “And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Ver. 4.) Such was the true estate of man, and his right relation to God; and Jesus therein abode, in circumstances of the greatest trial, the bright contrast of the first Adam who left it where all circumstances were in his favor.
Historically Israel were so tried and failed totally, spite of that constant lesson in the daily manna of their dependence on God and of His unfailing care of them. They hardened their hearts, not hearing His voice; so that forty years long Jehovah was grieved with that generation and said, “It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” But the heart of Jesus was toward His Father and He with the full power of the Spirit refused to supply even the most legitimate wants of the body, save as obedience. “My meat,” as He said later, “is to do the will of him that sent me.”
The next here (the third in Matthew, and as I believe in the order of occurrence) is the worldly appeal. “And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (Ver. 5-8.) But here I must observe that the best authenticated text leaves out of the Lord's answer to the devil “Get thee behind me, Satan; for.” And a little reflection shows that, as the external authority demands this omission, so it seems necessarily to follow from the change of order in which Luke was, I doubt not, guided of God. For the vulgarly received text would give the strange appearance that the Lord told the adversary to get behind or go away, while Satan is represented as staying where he was and tempting the Lord after a new sort. Omit these words, and all flows on in exact connection with the context. Internal evidence is thus in harmony with the external.
In Matthew where the words occur in the third place, as in fact it was so, the command to get hence is followed by the devil leaving Him. Thus all is as it should be. In Luke where the transposition occurs, the necessity for omitting the clause is evident; and so it was.
The Lord rebuts the worldly temptations by insisting according to the written word on worshipping the Lord God and serving only Him. Homage to Satan is incompatible with the service of God.
Lastly comes the religious trial. “And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Ver. 9-12.) Here the devil would separate the way from the end, omitting this part of the Psalm which he cites. The Lord replies with the saying in scripture, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” To trust Him and count on His gracious ways is not to tempt. The Israelites tempted Jehovah by questioning whether He was in their midst or not; they ought to have reckoned on His presence, and succor, and rare. Jesus did not need to prove the faithfulness of God to His own word; He was sure of it and counted on it. He knew that Jehovah would give His angels charge over Him, and this not outside, but to keep Him in, all His ways. Thus foiled in His misuse of scripture, as everywhere else, the enemy could do no more then. And when the devil had completed every temptation, he departed from Him for a season. (Ver. 13.) Jesus, the Son of God, was victorious, and this in obedience, by the right use of the written word of God.