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Matthew’s short account of the temptations in the desert after a fast of forty days occupies only eleven verses. However the importance of the story is enormous, for it goes to the root of the significance of God become man.

Satan knew who Jesus was. He had seen first-hand all of the events surrounding the birth in Bethlehem some thirty years earlier, and had watched carefully the growth of this child, culminating in the baptism by John. Satan also knew the voice from heaven which proclaimed –

^{MT 3:17} … "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased."

We can also observe that in the gospels generally the demons recognised Jesus for who He was - see e.g. Mark 1:23-25,34; 3:11; Luke 4:41. Also in 1 Timothy Paul almost in a throwaway remark gives us the insight that the spiritual beings saw and knew Jesus the Incarnate Son.

^{1TI 3:16} And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Beheld by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.

Jesus was ‘revealed in flesh’ and ‘beheld by angels’. It seems inescapable that Satan knew who he was dealing with. He knew that Jesus was ‘God in a human body’; he knew also that Jesus was proclaimed by the Magi as the ‘King of the Jews’ the ‘Christ’ (2:2-4). Satan was also aware of a much older prophecy, recorded in Genesis 3, because he was there when it was given.

^{GE 3:14} And the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly shall you go, And dust shall you eat All the days of your life;

^{GE 3:15} And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."

It would be reasonable to assume that ever since that moment Satan has been on the alert looking for the man who would prove to be his arch opponent. Now Jesus has appeared, and Satan recognised Him as God. But can Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, really be the promised Messiah and bring mankind back to a closeness with God? Satan knew that the Messiah had to be man, without special privileges (see Gen 3:15; Deut. 18:18; 2 Sam. 7:12-16).

So the issue for Satan was serious. If Jesus was simply ‘God inhabiting a human body’, but still acting and behaving as God could not fulfil the Bible’s requirements and promise of the Messiah. Thus it was urgent to discover if Jesus was merely ‘God with a body’ or is He also truly man, and therefore qualified to be the Messiah? This is the background to what we call the story of the temptations especially as given in Matthew’s gospel account (chapter 4:1-11).

The temptations were not to discover who Jesus was. They were to establish whether He could be/become the Messiah. The issue was therefore - how will Jesus behave on earth? Will He act as God, and thereby disqualify Himself from being Messiah, or has He truly become a man with man’s limitations, making Him (from Satan’s standpoint) potentially as vulnerable to attack as was Adam.

The gospel of Matthew has already presented Jesus as the Saviour (1:20-21) and King (2:2). The reader has already learned that Jesus is the one who has come to rescue man from the clutches of Satan. In the story of the temptations we learn what are to be the rules of engagement in that conflict between Jesus and Satan.

The first temptation (Matthew 4:3-4)

^{MT 4:1} Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ² And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. ³ And the tempter came and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." ⁴ But He answered and said, "It is written, `MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.'"

As Jesus had been fasting for forty days and nights the appropriateness of this opening gambit is obvious. Jesus the man could feel hunger, every bit as much as any other human being. But Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the creator (see Colossians 1:16, Hebrews 1:2) had at His disposal powers that ordinary mortals do not. He could create from nothing food to satisfy His hunger. Thus in effect Satan probes - ‘Since you are the Son of God, behave like God, and create bread from these stones’.

Will the Son of God, in flesh, still exercise all the power and authority of God the creator?. The answer from Jesus is dynamite. Quoting from Deuteronomy 8, Jesus declares “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” Although Jesus only recited that part of the passage which referred to bread, the full sense of the statement from Deuteronomy is in view. This reads

^{DT 8:2} "And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. ³ "And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.

The point of Jesus’ reply is that Jesus, although He is God become man, is not on earth going to claim His ‘rights as God’, but has submitted Himself to living only as true man, in both dependence on God and complete obedience to God. He has come as man, and He has come in obedience to God to be the servant of God. In this reply Jesus also emphasises that He has come to be the ‘Servant of God’ as the Messiah is pictured in Isaiah from chapter 40 onwards, and perhaps Satan recognised the Messianic claim inferred in the answer.

The language also reminds us of the voluntary humbling of Jesus as set out in Philippians 2.

^{PHP 2:6} who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant,

Jesus, although in origin and nature God, has truly become man, and in order to legitimately achieve the role of Messiah for man, will not behave as God, that is use, on His own whim, supernatural powers to overcome the problems that living on earth will bring. All that He will do, will be done as the servant of God and by, as a man, allowing the power of God to operate through Him. He has not come to act as God.

The second temptation (verses 5-7)

^{MT 4:5} Then the devil took Him into the holy city; and he had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, ⁶ and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God throw Yourself down; for it is written, `HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU'; and `ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.'"

^{MT 4:7} Jesus said to him, "On the other hand, it is written, `YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

So the first test established that God-in-flesh will behave as man and not claim the powers and prerogatives of Divinity. Yet Satan was not stupid. He knew also that, unlike any other man whom he had ever confronted, this one was sinless, living in unbroken fellowship with the Father. And Satan knew that in Psalm 91 God promised special protection to such a man.

^{PS 91:1} He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. ² I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!" ³ For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper, And from the deadly pestilence. ⁴ He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

^{PS 91:5} You will not be afraid of the terror by night, Or of the arrow that flies by day; ⁶ Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon. ⁷ A thousand may fall at your side, And ten thousand at your right hand; But it shall not approach you. ⁸ You will only look on with your eyes, And see the recompense of the wicked. ⁹ For you have made the LORD, my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place. ¹⁰ No evil will befall you, Nor will any plague come near your tent.

No man had ever before earned this protection, by right. Jesus did. So although Jesus may not act as God on earth, yet He could still be insulated from the troubles that befall other men because He had the firm promise of God to shelter any man who fully complied with the standard of fellowship (in righteousness) with God that is outlined in Psalm 91. Jesus could even as a man claim God’s protection. In a sense therefore whether or not Jesus Himself acts/behaves as God is of little consequence. But this would equally invalidate His credentials as Messiah, because it would not be the Messiah who would defeat Satan, but the man hiding behind the protection of God.

So Satan next sought to probe how real was to be the servanthood of Jesus. Inviting Jesus to cast Himself off the pinnacle of the temple Satan quoted the next lines from Psalm 91 - HE WILL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE CONCERNING YOU'; and `ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, LEST YOU STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE'

‘Go on,’ argues Satan, ‘You say You will not act as God Yourself, but You (and only You) can claim God’s special protection. That is just the same thing.’ In rejecting the deed Jesus affirmed the absolute submission of the Son of Man to the will of the Father. Quoting again from Deuteronomy (6:16) Jesus declared - `YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.'"

God may have promised protection to the righteous man, but it is for God to give, not for man to play with. ‘I have come as the servant, and the servant does what is the will of the master, not the other way around’ is the sense of Jesus’ answer, and submission to the Father’s will means accepting everything that the Father has in store for Him, however unpleasant.

Later in the gospel account Matthew records an amazing example of this principle.

^{MT 26:36} Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane … ⁴⁷ And while He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up, accompanied by a great multitude with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and elders of the people. ⁴⁸ Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying, "Whomever I shall kiss, He is the one; seize Him." ⁴⁹ And immediately he went to Jesus and said, "Hail, Rabbi!" and kissed Him. ⁵⁰ And Jesus said to him, "Friend, do what you have come for." Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. ⁵¹ And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest, and cut off his ear. ⁵² Then Jesus said to him, "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. ⁵³ "Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?"

It was not as God that Jesus declared that He could summon legions of angels to defeat the forces arrayed against Him. As the only man who fulfilled the requirements of Psalm 91, Jesus could have claimed the protection promised in Psalm 91. But Jesus did not claim such protection because He had come to submit to the will of the Father and that meant enduring, without using any easy escape route (or supernatural powers), whatever God had determined. So not only did the Lord Jesus humble Himself to become (and behave as) man, but He further humbled Himself in His refusal to claim any special privileges, but became wholly ‘obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross’ (Philippians 2:8).

The last temptation (verses 8-10)

^{MT 4:8} Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory; ⁹ and he said to Him, "All these things will I give You, if You fall down and worship me." ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to him, "Begone, Satan! For it is written, `YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

To Satan it seemed like the Garden all over again (Gen 3:1-6). There he had met and defeated a man without sin, on the offer of a mere morsel. Now Satan confronts the Messiah, come to reconcile God and man, with no greater power or privileges than any other man. But circumstances have changed from Eden. Ever since Adam’s choice man has been in the grip of Satan, in the domain ruled by him. And through his behaviour man has shown that he is incompatible with God. So now in effect Satan says ‘Worship me, and I will give you the relationship with man which You desire. You must admit that it is only on my terms that you can fellowship with man. Don’t You know that God and man are so far removed that You must choose one or the other. You cannot be truly united with man, and stay close to God’.

Note that Satan offers Jesus everything he possesses. This is not a market dealer beginning a barter. This temptation is therefore unique, the only occasion when Jesus was offered a price to betray God. With nothing more to offer, there can be no second offer. After this Jesus was opposed, obstructed and attacked by Satan throughout His work, but there was never another offer.

In His response Jesus shows that He truly deserves to be the Messiah. Yes, to reconcile man to God seems impossible, but this second Adam is resolute that God can be trusted to perfect His plan. Jesus roundly rejected the offer and rebuked Satan “Begone Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’

Satan knew that a holy God and sinful man don’t mix, but he did not know that God’s plan was to reconcile man to Himself by making Jesus become the bearer of sin, as Paul set out in 2 Corinthians.

^{2CO 5:21} He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

It was only by suffering truly as a man, without any special privileges or ‘magic’ powers, but with complete trust in the Father, and absolute obedience to Him, that Jesus the Son of God ‘became the author of eternal salvation’ to those who obey Him. The full story is worked out in the whole gospel story, but the principles are established for us by Matthew in this short but dramatic incident.