Matthew 4:3

The tempter. The devil always attacks us at our times of greatest weakness, for it is then we are most likely to fall. For this reason it is of vital importance to preserve the physical, mental, and emotional powers at a high level of strength and efficiency. Anything that weakens these powers weakens our defense against the wiles of the tempter. Such things as overwork, lack of exercise, overeating, a faulty diet, lack of sleep, or anything that lessens intellectual alertness and emotional control tends to open the way for the evil one to enter the soul. To entertain thoughts of discouragement, defeat, or resentment will have the same effect. We must set our thoughts and affections on things above (Col. 3:2) and fill our minds with things that are true, honest, pure, and lovely (Phil. 4:8). We must bring the body into subjection to the laws of our physical being, for it is impossible fully to appreciate things of eternal worth if we live in violation of the natural laws that govern our being.

Came to him. It was a personal devil that “came” to Jesus; it was a personal devil that Jesus defeated and routed. There is not the least hint given by any of the Gospel writers that the temptation was a subjective experience that occurred exclusively within the mind of Jesus, as some have contended.

If thou be. Satan had witnessed the baptism of Jesus and had heard the proclamation from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (ch. 3:17; see DA 116, 119). As far as outward appearances were concerned there seemed to be reason to doubt the truth of that proclamation. Pale, worn, emaciated, and famished beyond measure (see DA 137), Jesus hardly gave the appearance of being the Son of God.

Satan’s words, “If thou be,” confronted Jesus with the question, “How do you know that you are the Son of God?” Similarly, in the Garden of Eden it had been the tempter’s purpose to lead Eve to disbelieve the clearly stated words of God in regard to the tree of knowledge. In the same way Satan approaches men and women today, endeavoring to get them to disbelieve the plain truths clearly stated in the revealed Word of God. Only those whose faith, like that of Jesus, rests firmly on what “is written,” on a plain “Thus saith the Lord,” will be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. A temptation always poses a challenge to some clearly known truth. It proposes that circumstances justify departure from principle.

The Son of God. A clear echo of the words of the Father at the Jordan 40 days previously (see on ch. 3:17). With haughty contempt Satan addressed the One against whom he had spoken so bitterly in heaven before he was cast out. In fact, Jesus now looked more like a human being ready to die than like the Son of God (DA 118, 137).

The words of Satan upon this occasion were later echoed by the scornful Jewish leaders as they addressed Christ on the cross (ch. 27:40). See on Matt. 1:23; Luke 1:35; John 1:1-3, 14.

Command. On occasions during His ministry Jesus was requested to authenticate His Messiahship by the display of miraculous power (Matt. 12:38; 16:1; Mark 8:11, 12; John 2:18; 6:30). But He refused to perform miracles when challenged to do so. Rather, each miracle met some specific need of the people to whom He sought to minister. True, the forces of nature and the elements of nature might be expected to obey the command of their Creator (Matt. 8:26; John 2:6-11; etc.). But Jesus did not call upon the power of Heaven to provide for Himself anything not available to us. See p. 209.

These stones. Satan probably pointed to stones lying on the ground at Jesus’ feet some of which may have been roughly in the shape of the disklike Oriental loaf of bread. Satan may even have picked up one of the stones (cf. Luke 4:3) and offered it to Jesus, as he had plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree and placed it in the hands of Eve (PP 55).

Bread. Bread here represents the material requirements of man’s physical nature. It stands for the materialistic philosophy of life, which assumes that a man’s life consists in the abundance of things that come into his possession, and that he lives by bread alone. And appeal to the appetite was thus the basis of Satan’s opening attack on the Son of God, even as it was the basis of his approach to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Many of the temptations that come to men fall in this class. In the first place, Satan knows that temptations to the physical nature of man are more likely of immediate success. In the second place, he directs his temptations to the enfeeblement and degradation of the physical powers of man, knowing full well that through the physical nature, through the senses, he can gain access to the whole being. The physical nature must be constantly under the control of the higher powers of the mind, the will and the reason, in order to avoid sin. The body is the medium through which the mind and soul are developed, through which character is formed (MH 130). It was the fact that, as the Son of God, Jesus did have power to satisfy His hunger by creating food, that made this temptation real.

The temptation consisted in Satan’s suggestion that Christ satisfy His hunger in a wrong way, that is, without regard to what the Father’s will might be. Satan’s proposal covertly insinuated that God must be unkind to leave His Son alone to suffer hunger, particularly when it was entirely unnecessary.

Compare the temptations in the wilderness at the beginning of Christ’s ministry with those in Gethsemane at its close (see on ch. 26:38).