We have mentioned that the gospels give us
little information about the early years of Jesus' life. We hear of His infancy, we see
Him in the temple when He's twelve years old, and then the next time we see Jesus is when
He comes to the Jordan River to be baptized by John, and He's thirty years old. Now the
Bible does tell us that He grew up as the child of Joseph and Mary, and that presumably
He grew up in a carpenter's environment. And that can be a little bit misleading to us.
It's fascinating that when we look at the teaching of Jesus, in the parables that He
teaches, for example, that He constantly draws His material from the normal patterns of life
of His day -- many, many references to agriculture. But the number one reference in Jesus' teaching
to images drawn from the society of His day is from the field of stonemasonry, and that
could be a little bit surprising to us because we don't think of Jesus as being in the construction
business, but rather of His having been a carpenter. But therein is the rub. The carpenter
in these days was not simply a cabinetmaker or one who worked with woodwork, but he was
chiefly a builder, and it was a quite arduous task, where the trees were cut down by the
carpenter, and they were prepared for the blocks of lumber, and big stones were used
for building, and so on. And in those days you didn't have the sophisticated equipment
that are labor-saving devices such as we have today. And so the assumption of the historians
is that Jesus, given this kind of environment in His early manhood, would have been quite
a strong and firm human specimen -- that He would have been probably very muscular as
a result of the trade in which He had been Himself trained. Well, in any case, we've seen part of the
significance of the baptism of Jesus inasmuch as Jesus came, presented Himself to John by
the River Jordan, and John protested against his baptizing Jesus and wanted Jesus to baptize
him. And we recall that Jesus said, "No, suffer it now, John. This is necessary because I
have to fulfill all righteousness." And there is that significance to the baptism that Jesus
is willingly and voluntarily submitting to every dimension of the law of God. But there's
another important element that we have to understand with respect to His baptism because
we are told on the occasion of His baptism that the Holy Spirit descends from heaven
in the form of a dove upon Christ. This is His ordination; this is His divine commissioning
for His messianic vocation. This is when the Spirit of the Lord comes upon Him to make
Him God's anointed or God's "Christos," because the title, "Christ," means "the anointed one."
So Jesus is now anointed for ministry, and He is ordained by God and set apart to begin
the vocation for which He had been sent into the world in the first place. Now the other element in the record of the
baptism that is significant is that we are told that God spoke audibly from heaven on
this occasion. There are three times in the New Testament where we have the record of
God's speaking audibly, and in every one of these occasions, the message is substantively
the same; namely, it is an announcement from heaven declaring Jesus to be His Son. And
so we read in the record that when the dove descends upon Jesus and the voice came from
heaven, the voice announces this: "You are My beloved Son. In You I am well pleased."
And then the Scriptures tell us that immediately after His baptism, the same Spirit that has
anointed Him, the same spirit that has descended upon Him now impels Him or drives Him into
the wilderness to be tempted of Satan for forty days. And what follows in the gospel
record is the story of the temptation of Christ. Now you will recall that we, at the very beginning
of this series of "Dust to Glory," considered the probationary period of Adam and Eve when
they were in the Garden, and how they were assaulted by the serpent. And the serpent
prevailed over them and got them to sin. Now one of the most important motifs of the New
Testament with respect to Jesus is that Jesus, in His messianic office, has to fulfill many
responsibilities, one of which is to fulfill the role of the Second Adam or the New Adam,
the representative of a new humanity, and to achieve victory where the first Adam suffered
defeat. And so in behalf of His people, it is, as it were, Jesus is driven back into
the place of tempting, and He is subjected to this rigorous test. It's like an ordeal
of fire through which He must pass in order to be qualified to go public with His ministry.
So that His first mission is not a public mission, but it's a private mission undertaken
in the desolate arena of the Judean wilderness. And if any of you have ever had the opportunity
to visit the Holy Land, I doubt if you could ever forget your visual impression of the
Judean wilderness, where the only indigenous wildlife includes wild rabbits, snakes, scorpions,
and a handful of birds. That's it; it is one of the most intimidating, desolate pieces
of real estate on this planet. And it was into that environment that the Spirit of God
drove Jesus to be alone. Now I've talked many times about the comparisons
and contrasts that exist between the tempting of Adam and the tempting of Jesus. Remember
the environment in which Adam and Eve were tempted. The place or the setting of the assault
of Sa -- of the serpent against them was in a gorgeous, lush, garden paradise. They were
attacked and assaulted by Satan in the midst of an experience where they were given the
privilege of eating freely from all of the fruit of the trees of the Garden. And yet,
the setting for the temptation of Christ is in this desolate wilderness and in the midst
of a forty-day fast where He's not allowed to eat anything. When Adam was tempted, he
had the support system of a companion, a helpmate that had been designed especially for him,
to encourage him, to support him. Jesus endures the attack of Satan alone. Think of your own
lives and think of how strong is your resistance to sin when you're alone or when you have
people who can support you. And so we see these stark contrasts between the first Adam
and the Second Adam. The situation is completely different. Yet the thing that stands out to me that I
don't want us to forget is the point of comparison, the point of similarity between the temptation
of Adam and the temptation of Jesus. When Adam was -- Adam and Eve were there in their
probation, we recall that the serpent approached Eve with a question, and the question was,
"Has God said you shall not eat of any of the trees of the garden?" Well, of course
God hadn't said that, and initially as we said before, Eve fought for the angels and
rebuked this distortion of the serpent, said, "No, God didn't say that. He said of all the
trees of the garden we can freely eat," and so on. But the point I want you to remember
is that the point of attack of Satan against our primordial parents was the point of raising
questions about the authenticity, the voracity, and the trustworthiness of the Word of God.
That was the point of assault. And when we then move across the centuries
and we see the revisitation of the serpent to the New Adam, we see that the point of
attack is essentially at the exact same place. How does Satan institute the temptation? He
comes to Jesus with a question, a thinly veiled question. We read these words in the fourth
chapter of Luke, "And the devil said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, command this stone
to become bread.'" Now we're normally accustomed to thinking that the force of this temptation
simply deals with Jesus' natural physical hunger and that Satan is getting -- trying
to get Him to break the fast, to eat breakfast -- which is what the word, "breakfast," means
-- that is, to take advantage of His power, to take advantage of His prerogatives as the
Son of God to turn the stones into bread that He may satisfy the pangs of His hunger. But
there's something far more significant going on here. Notice how the temptation is phrased:
"If You are the Son of God." Well, that word could be translated "since," but the translators
I think have rightly grasped the force of the statement by translating it "if," because
Satan is obviously raising the question here, "Are You really the Son of God? And if You
really are the Son of God, well then, turn these stones into bread; You have no problems." What were the last words that we know of that
Jesus heard in His human ears before He went into this place of desolation? Do you remember?
"This is My beloved Son." God had spoken, and by His word, He had declared Jesus to
be His Son. And now the first assault against His integrity and against His mission is an
assault on Jesus' trust and faith and confidence in the Word of God. "Are you sure?" And, I
mean, the suggestion is, "If You're the Word -- if You're the Son of God, what are You
doing in a place like this? Why are You hungry? Why are You alone? Why are You in the midst
of such depravation? Is that any way for God to treat His Son? Surely You aren't the Son
of God." Now it's interesting to me that Jesus understands
the significance of the question, which we can derive from His answer. "Jesus answered
him, saying, 'It is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone."'" Now suppose He just
stopped right there and said, "No, I can't turn these stones into bread because I'm in
the middle of a fast, and though it's perfectly legitimate on normal occasions to have breakfast,
when you're in the midst of this kind of test, that's not allowed, so that's all right with
me. I can -- I can survive in these days without any physical nourishment if that's what God
wants Me to do. After all, Satan, man doesn't live by bread alone." But then He goes on
to finish the statement: "…but by every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of
God." It's as if Jesus is saying, "I am the New Adam. The first Adam did not last very
long living by the Word of God, but My task, My vocation is to fulfill the original destiny
and purpose of the human race, to live on the basis of every single word that comes
from the mouth of God, and what is that compared to bread?" And so Jesus focuses the question
in His response to Satan on obedience to the Word of God. Now we need to understand that because I hope
that we're not having this overview of sacred Scripture, "Dust to Glory," just out of a
casual kind of interest in a historical document. I am convinced that what we're looking at
here is nothing less than the very written Word of God, and we are required and obligated
not only to know it, but to live by it, by every word that comes to us from God. "Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain,
showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him,
'All this authority I will give to You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to
me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be
Yours.' And Jesus answered and said to him, 'Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written,
"You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve."'" It's as if Satan
is saying, "Look, if You're the Son of God, why should You have to suffer in order to
be King? Why should You have to go through humiliation in order to experience exaltation?
I can give it to You without pain, without suffering, without humiliation, and without
Your becoming this suffering servant of God. I'm in charge of all the kingdoms of this
world. I can set You up for coronation immediately, and all it requires -- You don't have to run
around giving slavish obeisance to me all the time -- just a little genuflection here,
just bow a knee for a second, and I'll give it all to You. And then there's no cross,
there's no Via Dolarosa, and You don't have to set Your face as a flint toward Jerusalem." Remember later on at the Caesarea Philippi
confession, after Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do men say that I am?" and Peter gave
his confession, "Thou art the Christ and the Son of the living God," and Jesus said, "And
you're Peter, you're the rock, and on this rock I will build My church." And a few minutes
later, Jesus tells him that He has to go to Jerusalem and suffer, die, and Peter says,
"No way." Jesus turns around and says, "Get behind Me, Satan," because here it comes again,
the offer of the kingdom without suffering. But what is significant in Jesus' answer here
is that He said, "It is written." The first two temptations, both cases, He withstands
the suggestions of Satan by quoting the Word of God, because the phrase, "it is written,"
in the Scriptures is simply a technical term; it's an idiom that every Jew understood meant
the same thing as the words, "the Bible says." It's not just written down on parchment somewhere
in some literary anthology. To say, "It is written," means it is written in Holy Scripture.
And so Satan -- or Jesus is saying to Satan, "Satan, I can't do that. As I just told you,
I have to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and the Word of God
says that we are not to serve anybody or worship anyone but God. You're not God, so I can't
do this." Now Satan's getting frustrated, and we look
at the third temptation: "He brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the
temple, and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. For
it is written, "He shall give his angels charge over You, to keep You, and in their hands
they shall bear You up, lest You dash Your foot against a stone."'" Oh, Satan is more
subtle than any of the beasts of the field. Jesus likes to quote Scripture; Jesus likes
to make His case by appealing to the Bible. Satan knows the Bible; Satan's tired of hearing
Jesus say, "It is written, it is written." Satan says, "Hey, I know what the Bible says:
'It is written.' The Bible says that He will give His angels charge over You lest You dash
Your foot against the stone, so let's see if the Word of God is true. Let's see if what
it says there, 'It is written' really comes to pass. Let me throw You down from the pinnacle
of the temple and let's wait for the angels to catch You. Let's see if the Bible's true."
Now Jesus says, "But Satan, not only do we have to believe in the nature of biblical
authority, but we also have to understand proper hermeneutics, the rules for interpreting
the Bible, and the overarching basic rule of biblical interpretation is that Scripture
interprets Scripture, and you must never set one portion of Scripture against another portion
of Scripture, and what you've given Me is just part of what the Bible says. Yes, the
Bible says that the angels will be given charge, they will take care of Me and all of that,
but the Bible says also, 'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord Thy God; thou shalt not put the Lord
to the test.' And if I jump from this temple, I'm putting God to the test, and I'm not allowed
to do that. Actually Satan, what I'm supposed to do is trust without jumping that God will,
in fact, keep His word." "When the devil had ended every temptation,
he departed from Him for a season." Jesus is victorious, and one of the things that
I find so marvelous about this story is that after Jesus withstands all the temptations
of Satan and Satan leaves, the first thing that happens is that the angels of God appear
and minister unto Him, whereby God shows the proof of His own word. The angels were there
all the time. Jesus didn't have to jump from the temple. And the word of God was fulfilled
when the angels came and ministered to Him.
