Guide The Three Temptations of Christ and Study Guide

Well cast yourself down; after all, he has promised to protect you. The Lord recognized that such provocation of God is sin, and he would not submit his Father to a frivolous test. Therefore, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6: Lastly, the devil promised to give Jesus the kingdoms of the world on one condition. How, in any respect, could this be considered a temptation?

The temptation lay in the tendency for humanity to avoid the hard way, and for Christ the hard way was unbelievable suffering — both the physical torture for which he was marked, and the spiritual agony that he would endure in bearing the wrath of his Father because of our sins. But the Lord would not be discouraged from fulfilling the will of God, even though it put him through suffering unimaginable Matt.

From the temptations of Christ, we realize that the devil is a liar. Temptations can not provide what they offer — choices without consequences. Temptations are tailored to our vulnerabilities. We must, like Christ, rely upon the word of God to teach us. We must dedicate ourselves, beforehand, to be completely subject to the will of God, for he alone has our good in mind.

And praise be to God, that Jesus never sinned — he never succumbed to temptation. For we do, and we need his merit. We need it desperately. Click for details Our favorite Bible-marking pens! What is the most challenging Bible question?

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The Temptations of Christ by Jason Jackson. Scripture References Matthew 4: Cite this article Jackson, Jason. Our favorite Bible-marking pens! The Prophets by Wayne Jackson Click for details. Character Studies in Joshua Demons: Ancient Superstition or Historical Reality? Popular Last Month Soul and Spirit: Search verses, phrases, and topics e. Blue Letter Bible offers several daily devotional readings in order to help you refocus on Christ and the Gospel of His peace and righteousness.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted: After identifying with sinners in His baptism, Jesus then identified with them again in severe temptation.

This was a necessary part of His ministry, so He truly was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. It was a remarkable contrast between the glory following Jesus' baptism and the challenge of this season to be tempted by the devil. Jesus did not need to be tempted to help Him grow. Instead, He endured temptation both so that He could identify with us Hebrews 2: The Holy Spirit cannot tempt us James 1: This is not to prove something to God who knows all things , but to prove something to us and to the spiritual beings watching us.

Tempted by the devil: Temptation is a certainty for everyone. Yet Jesus' temptation was more severe. It was more severe because He was tempted directly by the devil himself, while we contend mainly with lesser demons. It was also more severe because there is a sense in which temptation is "relieved" by giving in, and Jesus never did yield.

Therefore He bore levels of temptation we will never know by experience. Many commentators believe it is improper to refer to this section as the temptation of Jesus, because the word peirazo is more often and more accurately translated testing instead of temptation. It means to test far more than it means to tempt in our sense of the word. He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry: Matthew points out both the barren desert the Judean wilderness was and is exactly that , and Jesus' severe physical condition after such a long fast.

It is said that when hunger pains return after such a fast He was hungry , it indicates the subject is beginning to starve to death. It was supernatural, but not beyond human capacity when enabled by the Spirit of God.

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Forty days and forty nights: This is a familiar period of testing in the Bible, both in the days of Noah and for Israel in the wilderness. Jesus will succeed where Israel as a nation failed. Luke; but these three worst assaults were reserved to the last. This wasn't self-denial just for the sake of self-denial, or worse yet for the sake of building spiritual pride.

This was a period of forced dependence upon God the Father. He learned obedience through the things which He suffered Hebrews 5: Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. When the tempter came: Notice that Matthew writes when the tempter came. In our lives, it is not a question of if the tempter will come, but when he will come.

We will face temptation until we go to glory. God had one Son without sin, but he never had a son without temptation. We should consider the circumstances that preceded the temptation of Jesus:. If You are the Son of God: Command that these stones become bread: This was a temptation to use God's gifts for selfish purposes.

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Satan suggested that Jesus use His miraculous powers to provide food for Himself. This wasn't a temptation to miraculously create great riches or luxuries, only bread. The Bible has many accounts of miraculous provision, some at the hands of Jesus. Yet Jesus would not command that these stones become bread , especially at the instigation of Satan. We might say that Jesus was being tested through His strengths, through His gifts. Would He allow His strengths to become traps?

Jesus didn't silently disagree with Satan, He answered him - and He answered him from the Word of God. When Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8: What Satan suggested made sense - "Why starve yourself to death? It isn't that Jesus refused supernatural help in feeding Himself; He was more than happy to eat what the angels brought Him when the time of testing was over Matthew 4: It wasn't a matter of refusing supernatural help; it was a matter of submitting to His Father's timing and will in all things. By relying on the power and truth of God's Word, Jesus was willing to fight this battle as a man; He could have easily rebuked Satan into another galaxy, but resisted Him in a way that we can imitate and identify with.

Jesus used Scripture to battle Satan's temptation, not some elaborate spiritual power inaccessible to us. Jesus fought this battle as a man in this battle, and He drew on no "special resources" unavailable to us. He could have spoken new revelations, but chose to say, ' It is written. He could have stood against Satan with a display of His own glory; He could have stood against Satan with logic and reason.

Instead, Jesus used the word of God as a weapon against Satan and temptation. We effectively resist temptation in the same way Jesus did: If we are ignorant of God's truth, we are poorly armed in the fight against temptation. Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down: Satan is tempting Jesus to "force" the Father into a supernatural event.

Satan appeals to the desire within every man to sense approval from God and to have that approval publicly demonstrated. Set Him on the pinnacle of the temple: The pinnacle of the temple arose some feet from the floor of the Kidron Valley. A leap from there, and the appearance of the promised angelic protection, would be a remarkable spectacle. Jesus could perform anything he promised. Why should he not do it? Jesus just had this kind of spectacular demonstration at His baptism Matthew 3: But that must have seemed far away after forty days and nights of fasting in the wilderness.

The devil can use this phrase also. He quotes Scripture, and we can trust that the devil has memorized the Bible himself, and is an expert at quoting it out of its context to confuse and defeat those he tempts. This time, the devil quoted Psalm It was not in the nature of the false fiend to quote correctly. He left out the necessary words, 'in all thy ways': Jesus understood from His knowledge of the whole counsel of God Acts Jesus knew how to rightly divide the word of truth 2 Timothy 2: Sadly, many are willing to believe anyone who quotes from the Bible today.

A preacher can pretty much say whatever he wants if he quotes a few proof-texts, and people will assume that he really speaks from the Bible. It is important for each Christian to know the Bible for themselves, and to not be deceived by someone who quotes the Bible but not accurately or with correct application. He knew that attempting to force or manipulating God the Father into such a demonstration would tempt God, which the Scriptures strictly forbid.

This warns us against demanding something spectacular from God to prove His love or concern for us. He has already given the ultimate demonstration of His love for us at the cross Romans 5: As Son of God, he could surely claim with absolute confidence the physical protection which God promises in Psalm Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. Here Jesus, at the outset of His ministry, is confronted by the devil with all his power, and He does not sin.

Biblical writers from the outset have seen the parallel between this temptation and the very first, the temptation of Adam and Eve. As we shall see later in Matthew, with the agony in the Garden, the crown of thorns, the sweat, the nailing to a tree or cross, all the motifs in the record of Genesis 2 and 3 find a corresponding solution at Calvary. And so we can think for a few moments about parallels and contrasts between the two great temptations, the first which plunged the human race into sin, and the second which began the way back with victory over Satan.

You might want to make a list of comparisons and contrasts to think this through further. In Genesis Adam and Eve were in a lush garden with all the food that they could eat; in Matthew Jesus is in a wilderness where he has been fasting for forty days. In Genesis the temptation was to eat; and in the wilderness the temptations of Jesus began with eating. In Genesis the temptation was to be like God by disobeying God; in Matthew the appeal to Jesus was to be the king, but without obeying God. In Genesis Adam and Eve sinned because they did not know precisely what God had said, not as well as Satan did; in Matthew, Jesus was victorious because He knew Scripture better than Satan.

In Genesis, after the pair sinned, angels barred them from the tree of life; in Matthew, after Jesus drove the devil away, angels came and ministered to Him. So with this history in mind, we can look now into this little passage in some detail. This raises an incidental question: The simplest answer is that Jesus told His disciples, and that report found its way to Paul and therefore Luke. The only significant difference is that in Luke the second temptation is concerning the kingdoms of the world, and the third is the temptation to jump from the pinnacle of the temple.

Putting things in a slightly different order is a frequent characteristic of the different gospels, whether parts of an event or a teaching, or major events. The different gospel writers are writing for different audiences and are arranging the materials for their individual purposes. It does not make a major difference in the interpretation of the passage if one of them comes before another. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. For it is written:.

The structure of this narrative is relatively easy to trace: The main focus of the study will, of course, be on each of the three temptations, to determine what the temptation actually was and how Jesus dealt with it. The introduction, the first couple of verses, tells us a couple of very significant things.

Temptation of Christ

First, that He was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is the same Spirit that just descended on Jesus at His baptism. Almost immediately this Spirit forces the temptation. This has to be given some careful thought. The devil was willing to tempt Jesus, to be sure; but it was the Spirit of God leading Jesus to it. The devil could tempt Jesus with every power he had, but he would not succeed.

The second thing for us to consider here is the devil, Satan. This is the first introduction to him in the Gospel. Somewhere along the way you should read up on Satan in a good Bible dictionary. This is that old Serpent Rev. The Gospels do not shy away from affirming that there is a whole spiritual world around the physical world, filled with angelic beings, some of whom rebelled against God with their leader Satan and are therefore evil.

These that are the fallen angels, devils, demons as they are called, do the work of their prince, attacking and inflicting all kinds of disorders on those who want nothing to do with God. But that prince, the devil himself, undertakes the more significant efforts. He was successful in getting Adam and Eve to sin and plunge the world into darkness; but he was not able here to defeat the Son of God. Third, we are told that Jesus had been fasting for forty days and forty nights, and was hungry. Forty days was a good long time to be fasting; and that duration is here underscored with the symbolic meaning that it was forty days, the number of duration and testing.

You could look in some of the resources for the symbolical meaning of numbers to find other passages where this occurs. In the aftermath of the contest we read how the devil left Jesus and angels came and ministered to Him. The enemy left as a defeated challenger; and the angels of God came to Jesus and served Him in ways that we cannot quite imagine. But they must have affirmed to Jesus with comfort and encouragement that He had done everything well and had won the victory over Satan. But the center of this study will be the three temptations themselves, so we should look at them now to determine what they meant, and how they were met.

Turn stones into bread. The first temptation picks up immediately on the fact that Jesus was hungry, that he had not eaten for forty days.

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4. Textual Questions about the Temptations of Christ.

There is a fine point of grammar here that you would probably learn from a good commentary unless along the way you studied Greek. You can still understand the temptation without knowing it, but knowing it helps just that much more. Some are contrary to fact, and some are not contrary to fact. The way it is written in the original indicates the type. That is not what we have in the words of Satan here. Why should you be hungry? Just change some stones to bread.

Now then, we have to ask what was wrong with that. Was there anything wrong with making something to eat?

Theological Questions Regarding the Temptations of Christ

He had the power to do it. He multiplied food later for people who were hungry. So why was this a temptation? The answer, I think, is that Jesus had come out into the wilderness to fast for forty days. That was a spiritual exercise that had a very important place in His life at the moment.

But the devil wanted to ruin the mission of Jesus, and so if he could convince Jesus on this seemingly trivial thing to abandon a spiritual work, then he would have had him. The temptation was to turn His spiritual nature into a means of satisfying His material need without reference to finding the will of God.

In fact, he would be doing the will of the devil. The devil simply chose a little thing for the test; but it would have destroyed the work of Christ.

The perfection of Jesus is displayed in His refusal. Hunger was not wrong, especially in a spiritual time of fasting fasting was designed to focus attention on the spiritual and away from the comforts of life. And Jesus was announcing to Satan, and to all of us who will hear it, that it is better to be hungry than to be fed without any reference or recourse to the will of God. Satan had hit the nail right on the head--Jesus is the Son of God.

But the essence of Sonship is obedience to the will of the Father. He would not, therefore, act independently of the will of the Father. Jesus knew that the Spirit had led Him into a place that necessitated hunger, and so He would fulfill that task. In response Jesus quoted from the Book of Deuteronomy: God tested them in the wilderness so that they would learn that they must obey what comes from the mouth of God. So Jesus saw through the clever little ploy of Satan.

He defeated the temptation by appealing to a clear principle of Scripture. But He was not just quoting a favorite verse; He was drawing in the whole context of the passage to show that if God puts you in a place of deprivation for some spiritual purpose you do not try to change it solely for the purpose of satisfying your physical needs.

Enduring Temptation - Sabbath School Lesson 3, d

The first thing that the person must do is try to discover what God is doing through the deprivation, what spiritual growth is desired and how it should be achieved. This would show that one does not live by bread alone, but by everything that God says and does. Throw yourself down from the temple.