Every Word: A Meditation on Matthew 4, for the first Sunday in Lent

And when the tempter came to him, he said,

If thou be the Son of God, 

command that these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, 

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, 

but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

It's no accident that the Church begins her Lenten walk toward Easter by meditating on the temptation of Jesus.  While it's easy to tie one's self up in theological knots regarding how exactly the Son of God incarnate could be tempted by a creature whom He had made in the beginning by His own breath (hint:  it has to do with His full humanity and full divinity inseparably united in His one Person) the more significant consideration might be how Jesus faced such temptation.  First, the Holy Spirit led Him out into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted by no less than the chief of all demons, Satan himself.  In preparation for that encounter with the devil, Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights, submitting His fleshly human nature fully to His divine will.  Though Jesus was already conceived without sin by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the blessed Virgin Mary, He showed us a pattern of denying our fleshly passions and hungers, so that the spirit might reign over the flesh.  When the devil approached Jesus, he would find no disordered fleshly lust or passion to leverage over His relationship with His Father.

Of course, that didn't stop the devil from trying.  Focusing on Jesus' hunger after fasting, he tempted Jesus to wield His divine power selfishly and capriciously for the satisfaction of His desires and escape from His pain.  In response, Jesus set the terms upon which all His answers would rest:  every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  There was no philosophical debate, no equivocation of the circumstances, nor appeal to rights and entitlements; rather, Jesus presented Himself in His humanity as perfectly bound to the Word of God, which is in fact the distinctive of His own divine nature.  Jesus as the eternally begotten Son of God is also the Word of God made flesh, and He showed everyone who would enter temptation after Him that true life is to be bound to Him.  No one lives forever on earthly bread or the satisfaction of any fleshly desire, but everyone who is bound to Jesus as the entire Word which proceeds from the mouth of God the Father, and the entire Word to whom the Spirit eternally bears witness, will in fact live forever in Him.  Jesus the Word of God is also the only way, truth, and life-- the only One through whom a person may be united to the Father and the Spirit.  As we enter temptation, Jesus reminds us that to be united to Him and His Word is the means by which we live-- not surrender to the passions, weakness, desires, pride, and lusts of our fallen flesh.

Jesus' answer to the following temptations are explicitly taken from that same Word of God; specifically, not putting God to the test, and not worshipping anyone other than Him.  The foundation Jesus laid for engaging the devil's snares was submission of His human nature to the Eternal Word of God (a discipline exercised through fasting and self denial), faith in and proclamation of God's Word as the only true basis of eternal life, then confession and presentation of that Word against every twisted temptation of the devil.  Whatever the pain and suffering of Jesus' righteous soul at the lying lips of the prince of darkness, He gave to His disciples a pattern of victory over our evil foe.

Lent is a good time for reflection on how we meet temptation, particularly in light of how Jesus did so.  It is an unfortunate reality that as fallen sinners, we have a terrible track record of failing to submit the desires of our flesh to the Word and Spirit of God.  Rather, fallen humanity is usually marked by the infinite variety of lusts which dominate our minds, giving the devil numerous leverage points upon which to draw us ever so willingly away from God, and away from life.  Our own flesh and fallen nature working against God's Word, our faith often waivers as does our trust in that Word as our only source of life.  Our sinful nature undisciplined and running amok, our faith and trust in the Word of God weak and frail, we have little success in proclaiming that Word in confident confession against all the attacks of the devil, and he slays us time after time after time.  We might wonder why we continue to fall into sin over and over again, but the same root cause infects us all:  our fallen human nature doesn't really believe and trust in the Word of Christ, and the devil uses that weakness against us to chillingly predictable ends.  Every good pattern Jesus sets forward for us, we fail to live up to.

Thanks be to God that Jesus doesn't just come to show us how to defeat sin, death, hell, and the power of the devil, but He actually accomplishes that victory for us in our stead.  He alone as the Word Made Flesh took our sins upon Himself, suffered and died in our place, that He might give to us by His grace the victory we could not win on our own.  Where our fasting is weak, He is our fasting; where our faith is weak, He is our faith; where our confession and proclamation is weak, He is our confession and proclamation.  Where we earn only death, He is our life.

Raised up in this good news of Jesus' Gospel victory over every demon and every temptation, He also gives us His Holy Spirit to do the works we are unable to accomplish.  By grace through faith in Jesus, His Spirit will lead us to repent and submit our fleshly passions to the holiness of His saving Word.  By grace through faith in Jesus, His Spirit will give us strength to trust in His Word as the only true source of our eternal life.  By grace through faith in Jesus, His Spirit will lead us to proclaim the good confession of His Word against every lie of the evil one.  By grace through faith in Jesus, His Spirit will give us victory over the devil and every temptation he brings our way.

By grace through faith in Jesus, we have life, forever bound to Him who is the Author of Life.  Hear Him call to you today.  Repent, believe, and live.  Amen.