Rev. Stephen E. Stults
St. Paul’s Anglican Church
Feb. 14th, 2016
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 may sum up the
Christian life for most. Let us consider these three words: doubt, temptation,
certainty. If we are being honest with ourselves, it is probable that we will
experience all three in this season of Lent.
Similarly,
the Gospel for the day goes to the very heart of what it is to be a
Christian , as it focuses on these three powerful realities. 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
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]
Thus, in our Gospel selection, St. Matthew describes the temptation of Christ. In it, Satan tries to something 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.”
Many
commentators on this passage have wondered why Jesus Christ would submit 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.
We note
with interest that there were three temptations. The first temptation deals
with Christ’s physical well-being, as Satan tempted him to make bread out of
stones. This attack is both insulting and predatory. Satan introduces the assault by saying, “If
thou be the Son of God…” Is Satan, the Great Deceiver, seeking to
cause Jesus to doubt himself in his physical weakness? As ludicrous as it seems, this is the
case. Satan, in arrogance, evidently
thought this attack might work. Of course, 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 the Son Himself
to doubt, what will he try with us?
This leads to the
predatory aspect of Satan’s attack on Christ.
Because he is wicked and a brilliant tactician, the Devil attacks us
when we are weak.
Be it through
physical need, sickness, melancholy, or (God forbid) despair, he seeks a chink
in our spiritual armor. He wants to
insinuate his infernal suggestions, temptations and fears. Yes, there are times
when all of us, being subject to the
weaknesses of the flesh, fall prey to his devices. Yet, by keeping 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 to Jesus’ physical safety, and to the
very image of who He Is. Jesus is taken
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…” Herein is a great lesson concerning 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. We learn here Satan has no direct power over us but is
limited to the power we give him. 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 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 behave in a flagrantly
sinful way, or are self-destructive, God in his mercy often mitigates the ill
effects of our actions. 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 not without one more insidious and
persistent attack; by an appeal to Jesus’ pride. In a twisted, perverted view of Christ’s
Kingship, Satan shows Jesus all the earthly glory. 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.” At last, Christ’s patience is exhausted, 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 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 have been watching this
contest with worshipful admiration, come and minister to Jesus. Satan had done
his best and had failed. Just as Christ
would later defeat Satan completely on the battleground of Calvary, so he is
now vanquished.
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 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 a God of certainty. We worship He who is the same yesterday,
today and tomorrow.
AMEN
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