Matthew 4:3-4

Satan attacked Jesus when He was vulnerable physically. The form of Satan’s question in the Greek text indicates that Satan was assuming that Jesus was the Son of God (Matthew 3:17) It is a first class conditional clause.

"The temptation, to have force, must be assumed as true. The devil knew it to be true. He accepts that fact as a working hypothesis in the temptation." [Note: Robertson, p. 1009.]

This temptation was not to doubt that Jesus was God’s Son. It was to suggest that as the Son of God Jesus surely had the power and right to satisfy His own needs independent of His Father. Satan urged Jesus to use His Sonship in a way that was inconsistent with His mission (cf. Matthew 26:53-54; Matthew 27:40). God had intended Israel’s hunger in the wilderness to teach her that hearing and obeying God’s Word is the most important thing in life (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). Israel demanded bread in the wilderness but died. Jesus forewent bread in submission to His Father’s will and lived.

"The impact of Satan’s temptation is that Jesus, like Adam first and Israel later, had a justifiable grievance against God and therefore ought to voice His complaint by ’murmuring’ (Exodus 16; Numbers 11) and ought to provide for Himself the basic necessity of life, namely, bread. Satan, in other words, sought to make Jesus groundlessly anxious about His physical needs and thus to provoke Him to demand the food He craved (cf. Psalms 78:18). In short, the devil’s aim was to persuade Jesus to repeat the apostasy of Adam and Israel. Satan wanted to break Jesus’ perfect trust in His Father’s good care and thereby to alter the course of salvation-history." [Note: Garlington, p. 297. Cf. Davies and Allison, 1:362.]

The wilderness of Judea contains many limestone rocks of all sizes and shapes. Many of them look like the loaves and rolls of bread that the Jews prepared and ate daily.

Jesus’ response to Satan’s suggestion (Matthew 4:4) reflected His total commitment to follow God’s will as revealed in His Word. He quoted the Septuagint translation of Deuteronomy 8:3. Its application originally was to Israel, but Jesus applied it to everyone and particularly Himself. By applying this passage to Himself, Jesus put Himself in the category of a true "man" (Gr. anthropos).

Jesus faced Satan as a man, not as God. He did not use His own divine powers to overcome the enemy, which is just what Satan tempted Him to do. Rather He used the spiritual resources that are available to all people, including us, namely, the Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 4:1). It is for this reason that He is an example for us of one who successfully endured temptation, and it is this victory that qualified Him to become our high priest (Hebrews 2:10; Hebrews 3:1-2).

"Matthew here shows that Jesus is not God only, but an unique theanthropic person, personally qualified to be King of Israel." [Note: Toussaint, p. 76.]

Everyone needs to recognize and acknowledge his or her total dependence on God and His Word. Jesus’ real food, what sustained Him above all else, was His commitment to do the will of His Father (John 4:34).

In this first temptation Satan’s aim was to seduce Jesus into using His God-given power and authority independently of His Father’s will. Jesus had subjected Himself to His Father’s will because of His mission (cf. Philippians 2:8). It was uniquely a personal temptation; it tested Jesus’ person.

"Obedience to God’s will takes priority over self-gratification, even over the apparently essential provision of food." [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 131.]