Saturday, May 5, 2012

temptation

Today we look at the temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4:1-11
The Temptation of Jesus
    1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written,
   “‘Man shall not live by bread alone,
   but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
   5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
   “‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
   and
   “‘On their hands they will bear you up,
   lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”
   7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,
   “‘You shall worship the Lord your God
   and him only shall you serve.’”
   11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

First regarding this temptation,  Jesus could not have sinned since he is God and one of his attributes is he cannot sin,  so what was the point.  I think the point is he stood under temptation in our place just like he took our punishment. also, this is not the only time Jesus is tempted and we know because the author of Hebrews says he was tempted in all ways as we are, which means temptation is not sin.

If you look close at these temptation you see that in all of them Jesus is being offered a road to glory without a cross.  I say that because there was one other time Jesus said be gone Satan and that is when peter tried to dissuade from going to the cross

Also note how Jesus fights this temptation with these 3 words "it is written". He draws the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.  Note also that when Jesus comes in the book of Revelation there is also a sword coming out of his mouth