Jesus Tested

The Devil

Then the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil.

Matthew 4 introduces the main antagonist of the story, the devil. He appears a few times in the Old Testament, where he’s called the satan (“adversary”). The adversary opposed Job and the high priest Joshua, challenging their worthiness to serve Yahweh.¹ He lost both cases. Revelation 12:9 reveals he was “the ancient serpent” of Eden who led the world into rebellion.² By the time of Jesus, Satan had become a proper name for the chief of the demons.

The devil is often misconstrued as God’s archenemy, the embodiment of evil as God is the embodiment of good. But God has no rival, no equal but opposite force. Satan is nothing more than a traitorous servant with grandiose delusions of surpassing his Master. He’s the leader of a doomed rebellion, not the personification of evil. Yet when the Master commands, the servant must obey whether he wants to or not.³ Like everything God created, he started out good.

Scripture portrays Satan as the adversary of God’s people, not of God himself. Since he has no power to harm God directly, he works to hurt him through those he loves most. By enticing humanity to sin, the devil can destroy God’s children.⁴ But that pales in comparison to the opportunity that presented itself when Jesus entered the wilderness. Satan saw a chance to entice God’s own beloved Son into joining the rebellion by abandoning his mission of salvation.

Wilderness Testing

Then the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights. Afterward, he was hungry.

Image by Orelian from Pixabay

After his immersion, Jesus left the Jordan and entered the barren hills of the wilderness of Judah. The Spirit, who had settled on Jesus, now led him with a purpose. The Spirit intended for the devil to test Jesus. Despite all the devil’s clever schemes, everything went according to God’s plan. But that didn’t mean the trial would be easy. Knowing this, Jesus prepared himself by fasting for forty days and nights, one day for every year Israel spent in the wilderness.⁵

Continuing Matthew’s focus on Jesus as the prophet like Moses, the testing of Jesus in the wilderness directly parallels the testing of Israel in the wilderness.⁶ Each test reflects Israel’s failure to trust Yahweh, which ultimately cost that generation the promised land. Satan tried to trap Jesus in the same temptations. But Jesus responded each time by quoting Deuteronomy 6–8, where Moses encouraged the next generation to remember their parents’ rebellion and choose obedience instead.

Stones to Bread

Then the tempter came to [Jesus]. “If you’re the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into bread.”

But Jesus replied, “It’s written: ‘People live not on bread alone but on every word proceeding from God’s mouth.’”

Image by Good News Productions Int. from Free Bible Images, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

After fasting for forty days, Jesus was hungry and certainly physically weakened. Satan, here called the tempter (or tester), saw his opening. He challenged Jesus to satisfy his hunger by turning the stones lying around them in the wilderness into small loaves of bread. Satan didn’t challenge Jesus’s status as the Son of God. In the Greek, the condition “if you’re the Son” is assumed true. Rather, Satan wanted Jesus to use his blessings as the Son to fulfill his own desires. Surely the Son of God should not go hungry!

The first test parallels Israel’s hunger in the wilderness, when they accused Moses and Aaron of leading them out from Egypt just to starve them to death.⁷ Jesus would not fall into the same trap. Despite his hunger, he trusted that the Spirit had led him into the wilderness for good, not evil. He quoted Moses in Deuteronomy 8:3, “He humbled you, caused you to hunger, and then fed you manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to teach you that people live not on bread alone but on everything proceeding from Yahweh’s mouth.”

Jesus came to bless the nations, not himself. God had fed the Israelites by providing them with manna, and Jesus would wait on his Father to provide what he needed too. But even the generation that ate the manna died in the wilderness. Only Joshua and Caleb lived to enter the promised land because they nourished themselves on both the manna and the word of God.⁸ Jesus followed their example, trusting that his hunger had a purpose to teach him humility and obedience, just like God used hunger to teach the Israelites.⁹

Jump

Then the devil took [Jesus] to the holy city and placed him on the far wall of the temple complex. “If you’re the Son of God, jump down because it’s written:

“‘He’ll command his angels for you.
They’ll lift you up with their hands
so you won’t strike your foot on a stone.’”

But Jesus replied, “It’s also written: ‘Don’t test the Lord, your God.’”

Image by American Colony Photo Department from Wikimedia Commons

Satan then transported Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem. They stood on the outer wall, probably in the southeast area, which towered above the Kidron Valley.¹⁰ A fall from there would mean certain death. But Jesus had just told the devil that he trusted God and would rely on his word. So Satan challenged him to prove it and quoted from Psalm 91:11–12, which promises God will send angels to protect those who trust him. If Jesus truly trusted God, he could jump down into the valley without fear of harm.

Once again, Jesus saw through the trap. Psalm 91 promises protection from dangers God’s people encounter in daily life or because of persecution. Nowhere does Scripture promise protection for those who endanger themselves. Satan tried to trick Jesus into thinking he needed to prove his faith. But in fact, Jesus would be testing God by dictating the circumstances of God’ provision. So he again rebuked the devil, this time quoting from Deuteronomy 6:16: “Don’t test Yahweh, your God, like you tested him at Massah.”

The second test parallels Israel testing God at Massah and Meribah, where they ran out of water. Despite God’s miraculous provision of manna, they dared question if he was among them!¹¹ They again accused Moses and Aaron of leading them into the wilderness just to kill them. Instead of serving God, the Israelites acted as if God served them. They demanded he prove his presence among them by providing for them on their timeline.¹² Jesus didn’t need God to prove his faithfulness in order to trust him. He would allow God to provide on his own terms and in his own time.

Bowing Down

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the world’s kingdoms and their glory. “I’ll give all these to you if you’ll bow down and worship me.”

But Jesus replied, “Go away, Satan! It’s written: ‘Worship the Lord, your God, and serve only him.’”

Then the devil left him, and angels came to care for him.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Through Satan’s first two tests, Jesus proved he would neither serve himself nor try to coerce God to serve him under the guise of “faith.” His single-minded focus was to fulfill the purpose his Father had sent him to accomplish—the redemption of the nations and inauguration of the kingdom.¹³ This purpose served as the basis of Satan’s final test. He transported Jesus to the top of a high mountain and gave him a vision of all the kingdoms in their full glory. Jesus could have them all if he would simply bow down and worship Satan.

Satan had ruled the nations ever since he convinced humanity to join his rebellion in the garden of Eden¹⁴ Jesus had come to redeem them by fulfilling the curse on the snake of Eden, defeating it with a fatal blow to the head.¹⁵ He would then inherit the glory of the nations as his promised reward.¹⁶ But this would not come without a cost, as God had told the snake, “He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”¹⁷ Through the crucifixion, Satan would have his moment of victory, and Jesus would suffer to achieve his goal.

But why should the Son of God have to suffer? Satan would give him the nations willingly! They were his to give, after all, and Jesus didn’t dispute this. Jesus could have what he truly wanted in exchange for what Satan truly wanted—the praise and glory that belong to God alone. With this, Jesus had enough, and he ordered Satan to leave. He paraphrased Deuteronomy 6:13–14. “Fear Yahweh, your God, and serve him. . . . Don’t follow other gods, not any of the gods of the peoples around you.”

The last test parallels the creation and worship of the golden calf at Mount Sinai, which almost resulted in Israel’s destruction. After the confirmation of the covenant, Moses spent forty days on the mountain receiving further instructions. Fearing he wouldn’t return, the Israelites pressured Aaron to make “gods” to lead them so they could continue their journey.¹⁸ In their impatience, they violated the two highest commandments of the covenant, forbidding worshiping any god but Yahweh and bowing down to idols.¹⁹ Jesus, on the other hand, would bow before no one but his Father, no matter what it cost him. He refused to take the easy way out.

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Matthew 4:12–24 →

Job 1:6–11; 2:1–5; Zechariah 3:1–2.
See The Snake.
Job 1:12; 2:6; Matthew 4:10–11; Mark 1:25–27.
Exodus 32:7–10; Acts 5:3; 1 Timothy 14–15; 1 Peter 5:8.
Deuteronomy 29:5–6.
See Exile to Egypt; The Massacre of the Innocents; All Righteousness.
Exodus 16:2–3.
Numbers 32:10–13.
See Hebrews 5:8.
Carson, “Matthew,” 142; Wilkins, “Matthew,” 28. Many translations place Jesus at the highest point of the temple. But this was above the Holy Place and Most Holy Place, where only Levites could go. Jesus would not have allowed Satan to desecrate the temple by taking him there.
Exodus 17:7.
See Testing Yahweh.
See The Kingdom.
See The Snake.
See The Snake’s Punishment.
Psalm 2:8; Daniel 7:13–14; Revelation 21:23–26.
Genesis 3:15; emphasis added.
Exodus 32:1–14.
See The First Commandment; The Second Commandment.