Matthew 4:1

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. -- Matthew 4:1-11.

GOLDEN TEXT. -- He is able to succor them that are tempted. -- Hebrews 2:18. TIME. --A. D. 26, forty days after the baptism of the Lord. PLACE. --Supposed to be west of the Jordan,. mountain region called Quarantania. HELPFUL READINGS. -- Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13; Hebrews 4:13-16. LESSON ANALYSIS. --1. First Temptation; 2. Second Temptation; 3. Third Temptation; 4. Ministering Angels.

INTRODUCTION.

The Baptism was the inauguration of Jesus in his work; the descent of the Spirit upon him was the anointing for his Christly office; the voice of the Father was the formal acknowledgment of him as the Son of God. He now stood forth as the head of. new race,. new manhood,. manhood in which the human would be permeated with the divine, and all the members of which would be the children of God. But for many reasons it was needful that he be tested and proved worthy. The first Adam, created holy, had fallen before the tempter; the second Adam, in whom the Divine had been incorporated with humanity, must also meet the tempter in conflict, and overcome him.

The temptations were intended, not for Jesus in his nature as. man, so much as for Jesus in his official station, as the Messiah. God was putting it to the test, or rather demonstrating that Jesus was fully qualified for his office and mightier than the great enemy before whose assaults the human race had fallen and who had virtually the dominion of the world. No one could be mighty enough to deliver our race unless he could vanquish the tempter. This enemy, in assailing Jesus, was seeking to undermine the very foundations of the Kingdom that was to be established, by leading Christ, in some subtle way, into conduct inconsistent with the office to which he had been called.

I. FIRST TEMPTATION.

1. Then was Jesus led of the Spirit.

Mark says he was driven of the Spirit,. phrase that indicates. sudden and forcible impulsion: carried away by an irresistible impulse, our Lord went at once to the desert.

Into the wilderness.

Tradition has placed the scene of Christ's temptation in that part of the wilderness of Judea (see note on ver. 4) which lies between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, and particularly in the mountain called, in modern geography, Quarantania, from this forty days' fast. Naked and arid like. mountain of malediction, it rises precipitously from. scorched and desert plain, and looking over the sluggish, bituminous waters of the Sodomic Sea, thus offering. sharp contrast to the Mountain of Beatitudes, and the limpid crystal of the Lake of Gennesareth-- Farrar.

To be tempted.

This was the purpose of the Spirit in directing him to this seclusion in the lonely wilderness. He was sent forth for conflict. Christ must be tempted--1. Because it was impossible that one who came to overthrow the kingdom of Satan should not be attacked by the great adversary at the very threshold. 2. It was to test him, whether he was the true Messiah, the real Son of God, qualified for his work of redemption. 3. It was the revealing to him as the Son of man the great work he had come to do. 4. It was to prepare him, by being tempted like as we are, and yet gaining the victory, to "succor them that are tempted." The three great temptations mentioned by Matthew are the three great classes of temptations to which men are now exposed.-- Peloubet.

Of the devil.

Here the existence and personality of Satan are placed before us in the most distinct language. It would be the boldest of all paradoxes to assert that the Scriptures do not teach the existence of an evil power, whom they call the Enemy, the Accuser, the Devil.-- Ellicott. It is no more unreasonable to believe in. personal devil than in great bad leaders on earth. To deny the fact of the Devil is to lay much heavier charges of evil on the nature of man than does the belief in Satan.-- Peloubet. The term devil is derived from the Greek, and means "false accuser;" the term satan is from the Hebrew, and means "adversary." They are different designations of the same evil power.