Reading Matthew 4: On the Temptation of Incarnate, Spiritual Beings

Matthew 4:1-11: the temptation of Jesus.  The temptations of Satan and Jesus’s answers:

1) Prove yourself by turning the stones into bread; Answer:  Man shall not live by bread alone.

2) Throw yourself off of a high tower to see if the prophecies are true about you, such that the angels will come and save you because you are the son of God; Answer:  Thou shalt not tempt the Lord your God – ie, demand of God that He prove Himself to you in the way that you think He should.

3) Worship me, and the all the kingdoms of the earth will be yours; Answer:  Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all the heart, might, mind and strength, and Him only – that is, you are not supposed to worship anyone else other than God.

So in the first response, Jesus points out that He doesn’t need to prove Himself over bread – bread is not sufficient for human spirituality and a close relationship to God. And although we are incarnate beings, we are first and foremost spiritual beings. In the second response, Jesus points out that you don’t ‘prove’ God’s power or get angels to come help you when you are involved in something vain glorious and selfish.  God reveals Himself to us and sends His angels to us in His own time and in His own way – it’s not ‘on tap’ for unrighteous reasons.  In the third response, Jesus points out that the first and great commandment is to love God with all your heart, might, mind and strength.  It doesn’t matter what follows from that, because you will have the most important thing, which is your relationship with God, your heart turned towards Him.  So, conversely, it doesn’t matter what benefits you have in your life if you don’t worship God, or decide to worship other things instead.  Everything that truly matters flows from keeping the first great commandment.

The take-away: our spirituality must be prioritized over material goods and political power.  Also our spirituality and access to God’s power can be accessed, but only in certain ways.  So we can’t take on the world’s ways and myriads of demands and expect God to be in our lives. Note that after the temptation, the angels did come and minister to Jesus.  So they came after all.  Satan had nothing to do with it, nor could he have made that happen.