The Devil Distorts, the Word Discerns
Rev. Sang Ho Bae's 8th expository work on the gospel of Matthew is a continuation of the previous article about the temptation of Jesus. This time, Rev. Bae covered all three temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness.
Jesus came to this earth as the Messiah in order to accomplish the work of atonement, to destroy the works of the devil, and to establish the kingdom of God. Scripture states:
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).
After receiving baptism from John in the Jordan River, the Lord immediately went into the wilderness and fasted for forty days. The devil could not leave Jesus—who had come to destroy his works—alone, and sought to deprive Him of His qualification as the Messiah by tempting Him and leading Him into sin. If Jesus had fallen into temptation like Adam, the salvation of humanity would have collapsed, and God’s redemptive plan would have been frustrated.
Satan attempted many times to eliminate the Messiah. He tried to kill the infant Jesus through Herod, tempted Him when His body was weakest from fasting, and finally stirred up the people to crucify Him. Yet the Lord turned Satan’s temptations into an opportunity to personally experience the tests and temptations people face. This was to understand and help those who are tempted.
For we do not have a high priest… who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin… therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14–16).
A person must become an orphan to know the circumstances of an orphan, and must fail an exam to understand the heart of one who has failed. The Lord became a human being to understand humans and personally tasted suffering and temptation. Therefore, every act of the Lord is directly connected to our benefit. The devil intended to make Jesus fall, but the Lord, through that temptation, came to understand us and also showed us the way to overcome the devil. The devil tested Jesus in three ways to make Him fall.
In the first temptation, he exploited the weakness of Jesus, who was hungry after forty days of fasting, and tempted Him by saying, “Make these stones become bread.” This was a proposal to resolve, by human means, the hunger that God had appointed as a necessary process for the Messiah to undergo. But Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 8:3, declaring, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God,” and firmly rejected the devil’s proposal that contradicted God’s will. This resembles the attitude of David, who refused to kill Saul because it was not God’s will.
In the second temptation, the devil took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and, quoting Psalm 91, told Him to throw Himself down, saying that “the angels will bear You up.” He distorted God’s promise to protect His children into a basis for testing God. The devil always twists the truth. The way heretics quote Scripture according to their own desires is the very same pattern. Jesus said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test,” making clear that the transcendent God can never be the object of testing.
In the third temptation, the devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and proposed to give them all to Him if He would bow down to him. In response, Jesus declared, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only,” clearly stating that the only proper object of worship is God alone.
The three temptations Jesus experienced are the archetypes of all temptations. The devil’s temptations continue even today for us. Scripture summarizes the temptations in the world as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). Jesus overcame every temptation with the Word. Scripture is the weapon of spiritual warfare called “the sword of the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17). The Word is sharper than any double-edged sword and is the most powerful weapon that destroys Satan. The devil’s temptation toward Jesus can be summarized in one sentence: to do something contrary to God’s will in order to satisfy human desires. The devil distorts God’s Word for that purpose. He did the same when he tempted Eve in Eden. God said that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would surely bring death, but the devil altered it, saying that she would not die. The devil distorted the Word when tempting Jesus, and he tempts us today in the same way.
We must know the Word and know it correctly to discern the devil’s temptations. Jesus was able to pierce through and defeat the devil’s temptations because He knew the Word precisely. When the truth is known correctly, falsehood naturally becomes exposed. In the United States, when studying to detect counterfeit bills, one does not study various counterfeits but thoroughly learns the genuine bill alone. In the same way, when we know Scripture correctly, all false teachings are naturally distinguished. People fall into heresy because they do not know Scripture correctly. If we, like Jesus, know the Word correctly, Satan will never be able to make us fall.