Temptation of Christ

The temptation of Christ is the assault Jesus endured at the outset of his ministry, when, after his baptism, "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil" (Matthew 4:1). Having fasted forty days and forty nights, he met the tempter not in a garden of abundance, as Adam had, but in a barren desert at the point of utter human weakness (Matthew 4:2; Mark 1:12–13).

The Gospels record three temptations (Matthew 4:3–11; Luke 4:1–13). First, to turn stones into bread — to use his power to serve himself apart from the Father's provision — which he answered, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Deuteronomy 8:3). Second, urged to cast himself from the temple's pinnacle while Satan himself quoted Scripture, he refused to presume upon God: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" (Deuteronomy 6:16). Third, offered all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship, he drove the tempter off: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve" (Deuteronomy 6:13). At each point the obedient Son answered from the book of Deuteronomy, conquering by the word of God.

The episode is far more than a dramatic duel. Where the first Adam fell amid plenty and Israel, God's "son," failed through forty years in the wilderness, Jesus the true Son and second Adam stood firm through forty days, reversing their disobedience and beginning to undo the fall. His was a genuine temptation — he "in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15) — and because "he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted" (Hebrews 2:18).

The wilderness victory did not end the conflict. The devil departed "until an opportune time" (Luke 4:13), and the temptation pressed on through his ministry to its crisis in Gethsemane and at the cross, where his obedience was perfected. By overcoming, Christ bound "the strong man" (Matthew 12:29) and proved himself the sinless high priest and spotless substitute whose perfect obedience avails for his people.

For the tempted believer the doctrine is at once comfort and summons: we have a Savior who has felt the full force of temptation and never yielded, who sympathizes with our weakness, and who teaches us to meet the enemy as he did — with the written word of God and unwavering loyalty to the Father.