By BRUCE GREEN
RELIGION —
(This is part two of a two-part look at Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness.)
2. In the wilderness, Jesus was tempted to receive the right thing in the wrong way.
“Just step on over to my side,” Satan told Him, “And you can have all that I have.”
Satan has authority over the kingdoms of the world in the sense that people can choose to follow his way. Because so many do, he is referred to as “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV). It’s not an ultimate authority he possesses — it’s limited and temporary. But he offers it to Jesus if He would bow down to him.
Jesus would later rebuke the two disciples on the road to Emmaus because they didn’t understand the scripture’s teaching that the Messiah had to suffer before receiving glory (Luke 24:26). He understood that God’s plan for Him involved the cross and refused the shortcut Satan was offering. Disciples who want to follow God without any hardship or suffering fall right into the trap Satan was setting for Jesus. Christ would not take the shortcut or bow down to the one who offered it. Unlike Israel — who on several occasions in the wilderness involved themselves with other deities for whatever “benefits” they offered — He would serve and worship only God (Deuteronomy 6:13).
3. In the wilderness, Jesus was tempted to be presumptive. “You want everyone to know your God’s Son? Throw Yourself down from the top of the temple. Everyone will see it — and anyone who doesn’t will hear about it. After all, it says in Psalm 91 that the angels will protect You.”
And there it is — one of the most fascinating pictures in all of scripture — Satan proof texting from the Jewish scriptures to Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. There’s so much irony there it’s hard to know where to start.
Proof texting from scripture is like posting on social media; it can be a wonderful thing when it is done correctly, but too often it is not done that way, so it needs to be done judiciously. The problem with proof texting is we’re isolating a passage from its original context, so it opens up the possibility that either we will use it incorrectly or someone will misunderstand it. It’s like you and me switching phones and reading each other’s texts. We could jump to a lot of erroneous conclusions because we wouldn’t know the context behind the messages. In the same way, quoting a slew of biblical texts without supplying any context is almost always a recipe for misunderstanding and not good basic communication. When Paul was instructing the Corinthian church about spiritual gifts, he rebuked them for their infatuation with tongue-speaking — the miraculous ability to speak in a language unknown to them (1 Corinthians 14:5,13). He said he would rather speak five words that could be clearly understood than 10,000 words in a tongue. We should remember this principle when sharing God’s word.
Jesus certainly did, and that’s what we see in His use of these three passages from Deuteronomy. As we’ve seen, they’re all taken from instruction given to Israel while they were in the wilderness. They were tempted in the wilderness and so was Jesus — therefore His quotes/proof texts from Deuteronomy are in harmony with and especially applicable to His situation.
Grandstanding in the way Satan suggested by throwing Himself off the temple would have been putting God to the test. It would be like us getting out of our vehicle and running through rush-hour traffic and expecting God to protect us. Jesus knew Psalm 91 well enough to know that’s not what it taught! He would not put God to that kind of test (Deuteronomy 6:16).
The next time you’re wondering what value a book like Deuteronomy has for people in the 21st century, just remember when Jesus was up against the wall in the wilderness, it was the book He turned to. That has to be worth something, don’t you think?
You can find more of Green’s writings at his website: a-taste-of-grace-with-bruce-green.com.