My time with God this morning only got one verse into Matthew 4: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
One of the things that is exciting about retraveling through familiar territory is the expectation of finding new treasures in old places. This morning was no exception!
When Matthew writes that Jesus was “tempted by the devil”, “tempted” means: “to be tested v. — to be put to the test in order to ascertain the nature of someone, including imperfections, faults, or other qualities.”[1]
So, the primary focus was not that Jesus needed to be tempted to show that he could resist anything the devil could dish out. It is more than that.
Giving the supreme tempter the opportunity to go at Jesus when Jesus was at an incredible point of weakness (40 days of fasting), was to reveal to us what Jesus was made of.
As this began to sink in, I found myself traveling back in time to my early teen years. When I knew for certain I believed in Jesus and needed to confess him as my Lord and Savior in baptism, I also faced a testing. However, what it showed me about myself was nothing to be proud of. There was such an angry backlash against me getting baptized that I caved to the fear-based pressure and didn’t do what I knew was God’s will. I know God was merciful and forgave me, but I live with the regret of knowing I missed whatever God would have done if I had confessed Christ as Lord through baptism four years earlier than I finally did. How many people in the church I was attending would have been blessed to see me experiencing “the obedience of faith” from a young age.[2]
On the other hand, right after Jesus was baptized “to fulfill all righteousness”, the Holy Spirit immediately led him out to the wilderness to show what he was made of. And what he was made of was truth, and holiness, and righteousness, and faithfulness, and purity, and love that Satan could not change no matter what tactics he tried.
In fact, me failing my testing as a young teen (and many others since) makes Jesus’ perfection in his temptations stand out all the more clearly as something of personal concern to me. I needed a Savior who wasn’t… SINFUL!!! And God has been showing believers for centuries that Jesus absolutely passed that test! This meditation on God’s word also took me to what it will be like in the new heavens and the new earth when we will be like Jesus. I was thinking of how horribly easy it is to sin. Even when no one else sees us doing anything at all we can be sinning with resentment, jealousy, envy, coveting, pride, lust, hatred, and the like.
But eternity will be us feeling like Jesus. Feeling pure. Feeling holy and righteous. Feeling good in the most real of ways. We will have no sarky flesh wanting to do what is wrong and disobey what is right. We won’t battle temptation. We will love love, and we will love goodness, and we will love holiness and righteousness. We will so love being like God as originally designed that we will not ever want to be our old selves.
Seeing Jesus today in this new light (how he was shown through his testing to be the Son of God of whom the Father was well pleased, and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world) makes me realize that his temptations by the devil weren’t primarily an example of how to resist temptation by using the word of God. That is there, and it is invaluable to see that.
But Jesus’ testing was meant to show us who he was. He was “the Word who became flesh to dwell among us”. And it was that identity that proved through his temptations that he would never do anything sinful, and that he would never fail to save completely all those who would believe in him.
I have shared in other posts about how I often see God working in the Higher-and-Deeper way I first noticed in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman.[3] As I interact with him in his word, he will show me something Higher and more glorious about himself than I have ever realized before, and something Deeper about myself that needs to know the glorious thing revealed to me about God.
Today’s Higher was seeing how Jesus went from his baptism to be tested and proven to be my Savior. The Deeper was being reminded of how I failed the test at my baptism and denied my Savior’s worthiness to be loved and obeyed no matter how scary the opposition.
And, because of seeing Jesus the way he is, I know without a doubt that my sins and failures are all covered by the new covenant in Jesus’ blood. Not because I never fail him, but because he cannot fail to be himself.
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.[4]
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
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