Doubting God’s goodness
The temptations of Jesus help us to understand his life and purpose. He was sent by God the Father to redeem his people. He was filled with the Holy Spirit without measure. He became a man so that he could redeem men. “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” (Hebrews 2:10)
Jesus faced three temptations. In the first temptation, we read, “The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’” (Luke 4:3) To understand why this was such a temptation, we just need to look at verse 3 where we are told that Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days and that he ate nothing the entire time. I don’t know how many meals you’ve missed, but to consider going without food for forty days is hard. There is one other person in the Bible who is said to have done this. It was Moses while he was on Mount Sinai for those forty days.
Jesus is hungry, and he ought to feel free to provide himself with food. Satan’s challenge is that if Jesus is really the Son of God, then he should prove it by providing food for himself by the miraculous transformation of a natural object. The way that the conditional is set up here, Satan is saying, “It’s potentially true that you are the Son of God and so, to prove it, just do this one thing.” Satan is not here directly doubting Jesus’ sonship. The temptation is more subtle than this.
The challenge for him to satisfy his hunger through miraculous means brings into question God’s provision for Jesus and it questions the way God is leading him with regard to self-denial and the service he is called to. Jesus knew his task and he knew his opponent. He had been sent at the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4) with the purpose of saving his people. The fact is that if Jesus is truly the Son of God, the way he will prove it will be to rely on God.
Here we have a connection even to our own lives. We are not Jesus, but we are called to rely upon him for all that we need. In the Lord’s Prayer we say, “give us this day our daily bread.” When we pray this, we are asking “that of God's free gift we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life, and enjoy his blessing with them.” (Westminster Shorter Catechism) We rely on God and we learn contentment with what he has given to us.
This is Jesus’ answer to this temptation when he quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’” This verse has to do with God’s provision for the people of God. God promised that he would provide for his people and had demonstrated this by providing manna for them every day that they were in the wilderness. In Deuteronomy, Moses was reminding the people not to doubt God’s goodness when they entered the land. Abundance can make us easily forget God just as poverty can make us doubt him.
To see the truth about abundance we have only to look at Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They had all they needed, but they wanted what was forbidden. They wanted to take and eat just as Satan is tempting Jesus to do. We are also too often tied to our circumstances when it comes to what we believe and do. We trust God so long as we have enough and doubt him if we do not. Abundance makes us easily forget God. Jesu was faithful. He was perfect and he didn’t fall for the temptation.
Jesus had a promise that he was God’s Son and surely God would provide for him. The temptation was first to doubt of God’s provision. Also, by providing himself with food, Jesus would be operating independently of God. This is something that he could not do, remember his childhood statement, “I must be about my Father’s business.” The verse from Deuteronomy was to call Israel to remain fixed on God’s faithfulness in delivering his promises. Jesus never waivered in trusting his heavenly Father. In rebuking Satan, he reminds us that God cares for our needs too, and that he can be trusted.
Pastor Everett Henes, the pastor of the Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: News
