Matthew 4:1-11: Recognizing Jesus

Introduction

The Lord’s baptism was his reveal party. It officially let the world know that the Messiah was here, and His ministry was about to begin. And that’s exactly what happens. After His baptism Jesus is going to begin showing himself to the world and gathering his disciples.

But before that happens Jesus has to make a house call to one person: the devil. This passage is known as the temptation of Christ, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s a warning to the enemy himself. The true King is here, and war is coming. The “ruler of this world” is about to meet his Creator and he’s going to learn that his time has come. It’s as Jesus says later, the strongman is about to be bound up, and his house pillaged.

Matthew 4:1-3: Taking the fight to them

Matthew tells us that after the Holy Spirit had descended on Jesus, He led Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

In order for Christ to totally redeem us, He had to be like us, fully human in every way. As we saw, that’s why He got baptized in the first place - since every human needs to be baptized. And now he must face temptation, just like we do. But unlike us, Christ is going to overcome all temptation of the flesh, thereby redeeming it.

This isn’t the only time we’ll see Christ tempted throughout the Gospels - indeed He was tempted throughout his whole life. However, the Gospel writers find this particular time to be important.

That’s because these temptations embody the “big” temptations that every human encounters. Trust, pride, and idolatry.

The Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness. Just as the Spirit led Jesus, so the Spirit also leads us (if we are willing to let Him). Will the Spirit lead us to the devil to be tempted in order to test our faith, as He did with Jesus? Perhaps.

According to James, God does not tempt anyone. But as we see with Job, He does allow the devil to test us.

Like Job (and humanity in general), we don’t typically have to go find the devil. He finds us. He went to Adam and Eve in the garden and deceived them.

Jesus, led by the Spirit, went to the devil. Christ was going to defeat the devil on Christ’s terms, but in the devil’s house. But to “prepare”, Jesus first fasted for 40 days and nights.

Matthew draws attention to this number because he’s showing how the events in Jesus’ life parallel that of Israel and its previous leaders. Scrolling through the OT you find several instances of “40”.

Moses fasted for 40 days and nights in Deuteronomy 9:9 “When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.”

Elijah also survived for 40 days and nights after eating in 1 Kings 19:8 “And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.”

Probably the most obvious connection here is that the Israelites themselves lived in the wilderness for 40 years living on the heavenly bread and manna.

Jesus himself will make this connection when he quotes to the devil Deuteronomy 8:3 “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

I think another connection to remember is the story of Noah and the flood. Remember how it rained for 40 days and nights? What was the purpose for the rains and flood? To destroy evil and wickedness. In a similar way, through this 40 day period and the temptation after, Jesus effectively destroyed evil by resisting the evil one.

The Gospel writers tell us that after 40 days of fasting Jesus “was hungry”.

On the surface this might seem like an understatement!

But I think on one hand it shows us another element of Christ’s humanity: he got hungry, just like us!

But I also think it shows that He was willing to let His body become as weak as possible before overcoming the devil. Nobody could ever say, “Well of course he resisted the devil - that’s easy to do when you’re not hungry.”

Matthew 4:4-11

I mentioned that the Spirit led Jesus to the devil to be tempted. This wasn’t just to take the battle to the devil, but also because I think the devil would not have been able to find Jesus if he tried!

Notice that in all of these temptations, the devil starts with, “If you are the Son of God...”

I don’t know where the devil was when Jesus was baptized, but I’d imagine that when God said, “This is my Son, whom I love.” it reverberated through the heavens, and the devil had to have heard it - and maybe started to sweat.

And now the devil is face to face with this man, this so called “Son of God”, and I think he was a little bit puzzled. This ordinary Nazarene? This is the one whom it was prophesied would crush the serpent’s head in Genesis 3?

The devil is smart, and I think it could be argued that he knows humans quite well. He is arrogant and thinks he knows everything. But suddenly he finds himself running into a brick wall. This man, Jesus, is a total mystery to him.

In the ancient world they believed that demons were “spirits of the air”. St. Augustine took how Paul describes knowledge as “puffing up (full of hot air)” (1 Corinthians 8:1) as being related to this - the devil and his demonic spirits of the air are quite literally “puffed up” with knowledge.....and yet with all of that knowledge they couldn’t recognize Jesus (at first).

I think it’s interesting that this isn’t the only place we find this happen. The religious leaders had the same problem. They often found themselves asking Jesus about his identity and authority. “Show us a sign.” “Prove it.”

Jesus called them sons of their father - the devil. If the devil can’t recognize Jesus, neither can his children. And this is still true today.

It’s no surprise that Paul’s antidote to “knowledge that puffs up” is “love that builds up”. But to do that, you must have love.

And this is the ultimate reason that I think the devil (and his children) can’t recognize Jesus is because they don’t have love. And if you don’t have love, you can’t recognize love. John hammers this point home in his first letter:

1 John 3:10 “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

1 John 4:7–9 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

1 John 4:20 “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

1 John 3:1 “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

All of these passages explain why the devil and his children cannot see God (Jesus) and His children (us): they don’t have love.

Even though the devil can’t seem to recognize Jesus, it doesn’t stop him from trying to test Jesus to figure out who he really is.

I think there is some trickery in these questions. Jesus would technically be proving his identity by performing the devil’s requests - but at the same time he would also be sinning by giving in. This is a paradox that mere men would fall for. But Jesus was no mere man. He saw the tricks of the devil and overcomes them.

Trust (Hunger)

The first temptation that the devil poses to Jesus has to do with the hunger he’s experiencing. And it ultimately tests whether or not Jesus trusts His Father.

Fasting in general is sign that we are trusting God to provide for our sustenance. Our stomachs, though they cry out to us, are not our god, nor do they control us - unless we let them. Fasting is saying, “I’m in control of body’s urges, and I trust that God will provide what I need.”

The devil is basically asking, “If God truly is your Father, do you trust Him?” If Jesus turned the stones into bread (which he easily could have), he was basically be saying, “I don’t trust, or I don’t need my Father to provide for me. I can just do it myself.”

What are some situations you’ve faced where the devil had encouraged you just to “do it yourself” and make you think that you don’t need, or to doubt, the Lord’s provision?

Christ’s response isn’t to turn the stones into bread. His heavenly Father had sustained him for 40 days now, and Jesus wasn’t about to doubt that God would sustain Him further.

Just like the Israelite’s did for 40 years, Jesus is trusting the Lord. Which is why he quotes a verse from that passage: Deuteronomy 8:3 “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Jesus kept this up through his entire ministry, and He saw His mission of doing the work of the Father as His real “food” in shown in John 4:31–34 “Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”

This all goes hand in hand with what Jesus told us in his Sermon the Mount: when we keep our eyes on the Kingdom (doing God’s will), He will provide everything we need - food, clothing, ect. Jesus really did practice what He preached.

Pride (The High Place)

Jesus quoted Scripture back to the devil in resistance to the first temptation. The devil’s knowledge of who this Man is starts to become clearer, and in his next temptation the devil himself begins to quote Scripture as well.

Here we learn that the devil knows Scripture just as well as anyone - probably better than most. And he’s more than capable of twisting it. Since the garden, he’s always been good at making us wonder, “Did God really say?”

In the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis captures this moment powerfully when the evil witch quotes a prophecy to Aslan. This elicits a terrifying roar from the Lion as he says, “Don’t quote the ancient words to me witch. I was there when they were written.”

The devil brings him to the “holy city” apparently Jerusalem, and to a high point on the temple. The devil’s temptation is simple: toss yourself down and if Jesus really is who “the voice” claimed Him to be, then all of heaven’s angels will surely protect Him.

The reason I see this as a temptation of pride is because it is absolutely true that Jesus has every angel at his command (he says this when getting arrested). Assuming that people were in the temple, not only would a man throwing himself off of it have caught their attention - but the spectacular event of angels rescuing him would have elicited quite the response - and worship!

I think it would have been the ultimate, “Look at me!” moment. Of course Christ draws all men to Him, but not in an arrogant and spectacular fashion as this. And certainly not at the whim of the devil.

This would have been an offense of God even more so because Jesus didn’t really need God’s intervention at the time - he really would have been doing this for show.

Jesus again responds to this temptation with Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:16 ““You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.”

I think there’s clearly a double meaning here: Jesus isn’t going to test His Father (the Lord) - but Jesus is also giving the devil his first hint of Christ’s identity. “Don’t test ME.”

I’ll be honest, when the devil quoted Psalm 91:12, “lest you strike your foot against a stone”, I wish Jesus had said, “The only thing my foot is about to strike is your head, you old snake.”

Power (Bowing Down)

The final test that the devil gives Jesus is a temptation of power. The devil knows that no man can resist that much power.

This feels like a last ditch effort for the devil. I think reality was starting to set in. He doesn’t even ask, “If you are the Son of God...” He knows that the only way Jesus is NOT the Son of God is if he bows down right then and there.

Jesus’ response: get out of here. He quotes Deuteronomy 6:13 “It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.”

The irony of this temptation of course was that all of the kingdoms of the world already belonged to Jesus - and they were given to Him by His Father. Why would He worship anyone else? (Matthew 28:18 “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” )

Conclusion

Luke’s account of these events actually reverses the last two temptations, putting the temple scene last. I don’t think it matters what order they occurred in because Christ’s responses are the same: there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Jesus IS the Son of God and if the devil didn’t know it before, he knew it now. If anyone was going to be bowing down - it was going to be the devil. And if the devil was smart he’d have listened and not tried to put Jesus to the test anymore.

But as smart as the devil may be, he’s still pretty dumb. Matthew tells us that the devil left Jesus, but Luke adds that he went to seek a “more opportune time”. This won’t be the last time we see the devil trying to destroy Jesus. But it will be the last time we see any mystery of Christ’s identity among the demons. From this point forward they will almost always address Jesus as the “Son of God”.

My three big takeaways from this passage:

Christ redeemed us by undergoing the same temptations we do, and overcoming them. Amen!

When we are faced with temptations of all kind, it would be wise to do as our Lord did: remember the Scriptures. This means knowing them well and applying them to our lives.

Christ’s identity as the Son of God is fully revealed to the devil and his demonic forces that rule this world. Christ took the fight to them, and to this day the Church is continuing the fight and winning. We are all soldiers in this fight, and so I want to leave you with the words of Paul in Ephesians 6:10–12 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”