“Doubt,
Temptation, and Certainty”
1st
Sunday in Lent 2013
Rev. Stephen E. Stults
St. Barnabas Anglican Church
Mat 4:3
“And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that
these stones be made bread.”
Three
words: doubt, temptation, and certainty. These three words sum up the Lenten
experience for some. It also sums up the
Christian life for most. As we enter into this most blessed, most spiritually
intense, yet potentially rewarding season, let us consider these three words.
If we are being honest with ourselves, it is our belief that we will experience
all three in the Season of Lent.
Similarly,
the Gospel for the day goes to the very heart of what we believe as
Christians , as it focuses on these three powerful realities. It is about as basic as that. In the opening lines of the Gospel passage we
read, from Mat. 4:1:”Then was Jesus led
up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”
Recall
that at the end of the previous chapter of Matthew, Chapter 3, Christ has just
come from His baptism in the river Jordan
Why is
this scene important to us? It is simply this. Those who have doubts as to the
Trinitarian nature of God need to review this word of Scripture. It clearly
references all three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Thus, the early church
Fathers used this important passage as they culled the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity from the Scriptures.
In our Gospel selection, St. Matthew describes the
temptation of Christ. In it, Satan tries
to do something bold, audacious and evil. In effect, he attempts to undo God’s Plan
by the invocation of one little word, “if.” Christ had just been exalted, and
now as Matthew tells us in Mat 4: “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to
be tempted of the devil.” Oftentimes,
honor precedes humbling or trials; as one commentator tells us: “After
we have been admitted into the communion of God, we must expect to be set upon
by Satan. The enriched soul must double its guard.”[1] If we see Christ, the Lord
and Captain of our Faith set upon by Satan after having received great honor,
should we expect different treatment? We
think not.
Many
commentators on this passage have mused as to why Jesus Christ would need,
submit to, or even agree to such a situation.
Although there is much discussion of this, we may safely assume three
areas of consensus:
1.
Christ suffered temptation that he might fully identify with all
aspects of our human condition, yet
without sin.
2.
Christ battled with Satan and overcame him, not in evidence of
divine power, but in the absence of
any outward manifestations of power.
3.
Christ, in his human nature, exhibited complete reliance upon His
Father and his Holy Word, thus giving us the perfect model.
Turning
to the temptations themselves, note that there three of them.
The
first temptation deals with Christ’s physical well-being, as we see Him hungry
and in the wilderness, tempted by Satan to make bread out of stones.
Note
that this attack is both insulting and predatory. Satan introduces the assault by saying, “If
thou be the Son of God…” Satan the Great Deceiver is seeking to
cause Jesus to doubt himself in his physical weakness. As ludicrous as it seems, this is the
case. Satan, in his hubris and
arrogance, evidently thought this attack might work. Of course, to we committed
Christians; the idea of causing the Son of God to doubt himself is absurd and
fanciful. Yet, once again, the point is
plain; if Satan tried to get God Himself to doubt, what will he try with us?
This leads to the
predatory aspect of Satan’s attack on Christ and on us. Being the wicked and brilliant tactician that
he is, the Devil attacks us when we are weak. Be it through physical need, be
it through sickness, be it through melancholy, be it through (God forbid)
despair, he seeks a chink in our spiritual armor. He wants to insinuate his infernal
suggestions, temptations and fears, about which we must be aware and prepared
to resist. Of course, there are times when all of us, being mere flesh and
subject to the weaknesses of the same, fall prey to his devices. Yet, if we keep our minds and our spiritual
eyes on Christ, we will “frustrate” the plans of the devil. In this instance, Christ dismisses Satan’s
assault with a word of Scripture. From Deut 8:3, Christ said: “And he humbled thee, and suffered
thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did
thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by
bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth
man live.” Satan is rebuffed.
Having failed in his first attempt, Satan then takes
another approach, this time appealing not only to Jesus’ physical safety, but
to the very image of who He Is. We see Jesus taken by the devil to a pinnacle
of the Temple in Jerusalem. Again there comes
the insult and the word of doubt: “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself
down…” Here is a great lesson concerning
evil, the nature of sin and Our Adversary’s dealing with us. Note that Satan does not throw Christ
off the pinnacle himself, thus doing Him direct harm, but rather, suggests that
Jesus “cast” himself down. Thus,
we see that Satan has no direct power over us but is limited to the power we
give him in our lives. Sin always
requires an active response from us in some assent of the will.
In this case, Satan’s temptation is obvious and flagrant. Once, again, Christ repels him with a word
from Scripture, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Some
commentators have interpreted this as “Don’t presume on God to save you when
you engage in some self-destructive or sinful act, in exercise of your free
will.”[2] Yet, even when we act stupidly or behave in a
flagrantly sinful way, or are self-destructive, God in his mercy often
mitigates the ill effects of our actions. Somehow, by common grace, He does not
allow to be as bad as we could be. He may also allow us to realize the
consequences of our sins to teach us. While God forgives us our sin, the “scar
tissue” of our misdeeds remain.
Forgiveness abounds from God’s mercy when we truly repent, but the consequences
of our sin are a lasting reminder of our rebellion against God.
It is
not so with Christ. Satan is defeated
again with a rebuke from Scripture, but being both insidious and persistent, he
makes one more attack by an appeal to Jesus’ pride. In a twisted, perverted view of Christ’s
Kingship, Satan shows Jesus all the earthly glory, or at least the satanic
version of it. In Mat 4:8 “Again, the
devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.” Here is where Christ’s patience
is exhausted at last, for as the Tempter says, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and
worship me.” Christ expels him a command: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
This is the
so-called “last straw” for Christ. The idea of the Lord of Heaven and Earth
prostrating Himself before this hideous fallen angel is too much. Christ speaks with authority and the Devil
leaves, defeated and frustrated. The victory is won and the angels, who
had been watching this whole contest with worshipful admiration, come and
minister to Jesus, tending to His needs. Satan had done his best and had
failed. Just as Christ would defeat
Satan on the battleground of Calvary later in
His ministry, so he vanquished him now.
At the start of
this homily, I mentioned that this passage “goes to
the very heart of what we believe and experience as Christians.” It
speaks to the twin infernal phenomena of doubt and temptation. Concerning
doubt, Satan used the “if” word three times, once for each temptation: “if thou
be the Son of God, “if” thou be the Son of God, and “if” thou
wilt fall down and worship me.” Each of
these is a conditional statement that seeks to provoke doubt or sin. Each time,
Satan seeks to cause Jesus to question Himself, and/or he mockingly insinuates
that Jesus Christ is not the One, the eternal Son, and the Spotless Lamb of God.
If this
were true, Christianity would be shattered.
If Christ is not who He says He is, the Son of the Almighty God and the
Lord and Savior of Mankind, we are confounded and hopeless. If Christ is not the Son of God, we might as
well submit to the toothless doctrine of the Enlightenment, where Christ’s
dying on the Cross is not substitutionary, but merely a supreme example of what
a good man does. Finally, if we worship
an “If” God, we Christians are, in the words of St. Paul
Thanks
be to God because instead of doubt, we have certainty. St. Paul says, “But, now
is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that
slept.” [i] In the eternal sense, now is our
Savior Christ victorious over sin, death, hell, and the Devil. We can meet the twin evils of doubt and
temptation and emerge victorious. We do not worship an “If” God. No, we
worship an “Is” God, a God of certainty. We worship He who is the
same yesterday, today and tomorrow. The
Great “I AM THAT I AM” does not exist in the past, He does not exist in the
future, He simply exists. Thanks be to
God for his blessed and complete certainty and our sure and certain salvation!
Glory be to God the Father, and to God
the Son and God the Holy Ghost, now and forever. AMEN
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