jesus and the devil 1

Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (v. 1). The other Gospel accounts agree with this rendering, though one or two words are different. After the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism, we are told immediately that the Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness. However, the Spirit did not merely lead Him there but drove Him to that place. The Spirit impelled Jesus to go into the wilderness for the specific purpose of being tempted.

The Scriptures tell us clearly, in James’s epistle, that temptations arise from within, from the evil inclinations of our hearts, and we succumb to these temptations as a result of our corrupt spirit (James 1:14–15). James writes, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am temped by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone” (v. 13). For that reason, we know that here in Matthew God is not tempting Jesus. The word Matthew uses can mean “tempt” or “test.” God sent His Son into the wilderness in order that He would be tempted by Satan, and the purpose for the temptation was to test Him.

The Sinlessness of Jesus

In our last lesson we considered that when Jesus submitted to the baptism of John, He did so in part to identify with His people, to demonstrate the corporate solidarity between Jesus and the covenant people of God. Jesus did not need to be baptized as repentance for sin, because He had no sin. Nonbelievers attack the veracity of the virgin birth and the resurrection of Jesus because these two events are so manifestly miraculous. Yet there is something in the Scripture about Jesus that is even more astonishing than His resurrection from the dead, and that is His sinlessness.

The most righteous among us have not made it without sin since we got out of our bed this morning. Not one of us has ever loved the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength. To imagine a human being, no matter how sanctified, living a life of complete righteousness without the smallest moral blemish is almost impossible to conceive. We must remember that one of Jesus’ roles was to serve as the new Adam, the second Adam. He was called to do for us what the first Adam failed to achieve. This parallel contrast between the original Adam and the new Adam is set forth frequently in the New Testament to show that by the first Adam’s disobedience, the world was plunged into ruin, but by the second Adam’s obedience, His followers are redeemed. Both Adams were subjected to a probationary test to see if they would achieve obedience and righteousness. For Christ to redeem us as the second Adam, He had to be put to the test if He was to redeem us. Like the first Adam, He was placed on probation, and He could not fail His test.

The redemption that Christ accomplished for us was not achieved by His death alone. He not only had to take our punishment for sin, but He also had to achieve righteousness on our behalf. Therefore, His perfect obedience is as necessary to our salvation as His death upon the cross. Here, in this experience in the wilderness, that righteousness and obedience are at stake.

The First Test

The location of the first Adam’s test was the garden of Eden, an unspoiled place filled with the luscious fruit that God had given to His creatures, saying to them, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat” (Gen. 2:16–17). The setting for Adam and Eve’s test was a gourmet feast in this pristine garden of Eden. The setting of the test of the second Adam was in the Judean wilderness, which, far from being a lush garden, is one of the most desolate places on earth. Its only inhabitants are spiders, scorpions, and a few varieties of birds. It was a place forbidding and foreboding into which the Spirit drove Jesus to be tempted.

The circumstances of His test were to take place on an empty stomach after a forty-day fast reminiscent of the forty days and nights of the fast of Moses in the Old Testament before God gave him the law. The Serpent came to Adam and Eve when their stomachs were full; he came to the new Adam in the midst of profound hunger. Additionally, Adam and Eve’s test was not given in the midst of solitude or loneliness, but in the midst of companionship. They faced their test with mutual support and encouragement, whereas Christ faced the devil alone. Unlike Adam and Eve, Jesus faced the devil at a time when the world was accustomed to sin. You can see the strong contrast between the two tests.

At the same time, there is a point of similarity that we do not want to miss: the same issue was at stake. In the garden of Eden the Serpent came to Adam and Eve with a question: “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). Of course God had not said that; God had said they could freely eat. There was only one place in the garden that was off-limits. When Eve responded to Satan, saying, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” Satan told her, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (vv. 2–5). So, seeing that the fruit seemed good, they did eat and plunged the world into ruin.

When the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness, Satan also came with a question: “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (v. 3). The last words echoing in Jesus’ ears had come from heaven itself, when God audibly spoke, saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The devil’s point of attack was the same in both cases—the trustworthiness of the word of God. Adam and Eve did not believe God, but Jesus did.

The question of whether Jesus could have sinned comes up in every generation. Many theologians say it is impossible that Jesus could have sinned, and they base that argument on the eternal decrees of God. Did not God decide that Christ would come to this world and be our Redeemer, and if indeed Christ was ordained to redeem us, then surely, in light of that divine foreordination, it would have been impossible for Him to sin. There is some weight to that argument, because if God ordains from all eternity that something is going to happen, it most certainly will happen.

There is a tiny but important theological distinction between the necessity of the consequence and the necessity of the consequent. From the eternal perspective, there is no possibility that Jesus would have sinned, just as it would have been impossible for Adam and Eve or Judas not to sin. However, in terms of the consequent, God’s eternal decrees work in and through the means that He appoints, and the appointed means for the fall of the human race was through the decision of Adam and Eve, which they did without coercion. In like manner, our Lord was obedient through no coercive power of God, and in that sense, considering His human nature, He could have sinned.

Even more important is the Christological issue. Throughout church history theologians have argued that it would have been impossible for Jesus to sin because He is God incarnate, and God cannot sin. However, God incarnate has two natures—a divine nature and a human nature—and though we cannot divide them, we must distinguish between them. During His lifetime Jesus got hungry, He sweated, and He died. Those were manifestations of His human nature, not His divine nature. God does not sweat. Those who think that Jesus’ divine nature so overshadowed His human nature so as to make it impossible for Him to sin have slipped into monophysitism, an old and lethal heresy in which divine attributes are imputed to the human nature. Jesus’ human nature was a real human nature with all of the limitations that go with it. Jesus had the ability to sin, or He would not have been truly human. Moreover, if Jesus had been incapable of sinning, the temptation in the wilderness would have been nothing but a sham.¹

Remarkably, from the heights of baptism blessing Jesus descends into wilderness temptation. It is not accidental—the same Spirit who anointed him in chapter 3 leads him into the wilderness to be tempted. The fasting for forty days and forty nights is another link to the past: Israel, redeemed from Egypt, spent forty years in the wilderness ‘tested’ by the word of God (see Deut. 8:2). Now Jesus, called out of Egypt, also spends his probation in the wilderness.

But there are deeper associations here. After all, sin entered the world by temptation in a garden. Adam failed the probation, and sin passed into all men. Now Jesus is tempted in a wilderness. He will stand where Adam fell, and will bring salvation into human experience. For this reason, says the writer to the Hebrews, it was fitting that Jesus should be tempted: ‘Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted’ (Heb. 2:17–18).

The reality of the temptation is not diminished by the fact that Jesus has no sin and cannot sin. He feels its full force and has to resist until the tempter withdraws from him. Satan takes advantage of Jesus’ location (the isolation of the wilderness) and of Jesus’ condition (he is hungry), but he cannot bring him to yield.

The temptations focus in a particular way on the deity of Christ. The voice at the baptism declared him to be the Son of God; the voice in the wilderness now says, ‘If you are the Son of God …’ In the first assault, the devil wants Jesus to perform a miracle in order to meet his physical need; in the second, he wants him to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple in order to test whether God will keep his promise; in the third, he wants him to obtain what God has promised him (all the kingdoms of the world) by the devil’s way, avoiding the cross altogether.

Jesus’ resource for meeting these assaults is the Word of God. Interestingly, he finds the Book of Deuteronomy particularly appropriate; and that should not surprise us, since it was given to Israel in the Old Testament. Now, for the true Israel, in the wilderness for his people, the ancient Word of God is the only adequate help.

One angel—the devil—recedes, while other angels minister to him.²

THE THREEFOLD TEMPTATION OF JESUS

Let us follow the movement of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus came down to be born among us and so to be identified with us. He grew up as any other child would, except that He was harmless and without sin. Now, in His baptism, He has been identified with us. He has put on our sin. Now He is going to be tested because there are some real questions to be answered. Is the King able to withstand a test, and can He overcome?

The word tempt has a twofold meaning:

1. “Incite or entice to evil; seduce.” There is something in each of us which causes us to yield to evil. This was not true of Jesus. “… the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). He was “… holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners …” (Heb. 7:26). So the temptation for Jesus had to be different from that which would cause me to fall, in that it needed to be a much greater temptation.

2. “Test.” God does not tempt men with evil according to James 1:13. Yet, we are told “… God did tempt Abraham …” (Gen. 22:1). This means that God was testing the faith of Abraham.

Jesus is now to be tested. Could Jesus have fallen? I want to answer that with an emphatic no! He could not have fallen. If Jesus could have fallen, then you and I do not have a sure Savior at all.

Perhaps you are asking, “Well then, if Jesus could not have fallen, was His temptation a legitimate and genuine temptation?” May I say to you that His temptation was much greater than any that you and I have ever had. When a new model Chevrolet or Ford or Dodge is developed, it is thoroughly tested to prove it can stand the test. And every genuine diamond is tested to show that it is not a phony. In a similar way, the Lord Jesus Christ was tested to demonstrate that He was exactly who He claimed to be.

Let me illustrate with this little story. When I was a boy, I lived out in West Texas. It was a sparsely populated area in those days. The Santa Fe railroad came through our little town, but it went on by and stopped in the next little town. But it crossed the left fork of the Brazos River near our town. In the summertime there wasn’t enough water in that river to rust a shingle nail, but in wintertime you could float a battleship on it. One winter we really had a flood, and it washed out the Santa Fe bridge. We were without a train for a long time. Finally, they put in a bridge. They worked a long time on it. Then one day they brought in two engines, stopped them on the bridge, and tied down their whistles. Believe me, that was more whistling than we had ever heard in our little town! All twenty–three of us ran down to see what was happening. As we were standing around, one brave citizen went up to the engineer in charge with our question,“What are you doing?” The engineer answered, “Testing the bridge.” Our man said, “Are you trying to break it down?” The engineer almost sneered, “Of course not! We’re testing it to prove that it can’t be broken down.”

May I say to you, that was the exact reason the Lord Jesus was tested. It was to prove, to demonstrate, that He could not be broken down. His testing, therefore, was greater than ours. There is a limit to what we can bear. You give me enough temptation, you build up the pressure, and finally I’ll succumb to it. That is true of you too. But Christ never gave in although the pressure continued to increase. In other words, a ten–pound fishing line will break when twenty pounds of pressure is put on it, but a hundred–pound line can bear more than twenty–five pounds of pressure. Now, I’m the ten–pound fishing line, and He is the one hundred–pound line.

Another really interesting feature of this temptation is the comparison and contrast with the testing of Eve in the Garden of Eden. To begin with, Christ was tested in a wilderness while Eve was tested in a garden. What a contrast!³

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1 Sproul, R. C. (2013). Matthew (pp. 50–53). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

2 Campbell, I. D. (2008). Opening up Matthew (pp. 35–36). Leominster: Day One Publications.

3 McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Gospels (Matthew 1-13) (electronic ed., Vol. 34, pp. 55–56). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.