James Nisbet Commentary - Matthew 4:1 - 4:1

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James Nisbet Commentary - Matthew 4:1 - 4:1


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

THE PURPOSE OF LENT

‘Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.’

Mat_4:1

Our Lord before He entered upon His public ministry was tempted. He faced the great enemy of souls that He might be our example. Lent is for:

I. Self-examination.—Every year we set aside the forty days of Lent that we may examine ourselves and see where our temptations are assailing us. It is not merely our deeds we have to look at, but our thoughts and feelings. Picture St. Paul’s struggles on coming to Christ. It was hard for him to kick against the pricks of conscience.

II. Battling with besetting sin.—We find on self-examination there is much that is inconsistent with Divine command—e.g. great faults of temper, selfishness, faults belonging to our fleshly character. These things must be fought, and as we fight we learn the power of sin and the weakness of human nature, and this should draw us nearer to God.

III. Prayer.—Prayer goes along with the struggle and must never cease. Christians at such a time as this must add somewhat every day to their ordinary prayers—frequent prayer to God to help us in our preparation to come nearer than before to His great and wonderful love.

IV. Self-discipline.—The Church calls upon us to practise self-restraint; to restrain ourselves from anything which makes our self-examination, or our battle, or our prayers, less effective than they would otherwise be. The purpose of the Christian fast is to discipline the body and the mind. It is a time when whatever hampers the body or soul should be given up altogether. The purpose of fasting is to bring us nearer to the Lord. To be like Christ is the consummation of the Christian life.

Archbishop Temple.

Illustration

‘You may say, “But, after all, interesting as this narrative of Christ’s temptation may be in itself, of what practical value is it to me? What lesson does it teach; what encouragement does it give to such as I? Jesus Christ and I stand on a totally different platform—I am mere man, He is the God-man. And as such, He had all the resources of the Deity to fall back upon, and was therefore too strong to be overcome by any temptation. It is not so with me; and I do not understand that I am any better for having the example of His steadfastness before me.” That is the question. The answer is this—the one thing Christ did not do was to draw upon the resources of his Godhead. He was there in the wilderness as a servant, not as the equal of the Father; and the success of His enterprise hung upon His maintaining that position of subordination, of dependence, of submission, to the Divine Will. To induce Him to shift that position and to assert independence was, throughout, the aim of the tempter. The plan had succeeded with the first Adam—it might succeed with the second and last Adam. But it did not. And Christ stood in a circle of safety, which could not possibly be broken into, by simply maintaining a constant attitude of filial dependence upon His heavenly Father. And it is just so with the people of Christ.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE CONFLICT AND THE VICTORY

I. The greatness of the conflict.—The reality of the struggle is the first point which must arrest our attention. It is a single combat upon which everything depends. But into it there enters, in concentrated form, almost every kind of temptation to which we throughout our lives are subjected. Alone does our Divine Master go into the wilderness. It is alone we shall gain our greatest spiritual experiences. It is alone we shall have our severest battles with ourselves. It is when alone we shall best measure our true relation to God, and discover what are the hindrances that keep us back from God and from the fulfilment of His purposes for us. Alone, on our knees, with all worldly considerations and interests excluded must we learn of God how to bring ourselves into true harmony with the will of God: for alone we shall often have to stand for God’s cause and alone shall we stand before his judgment-seat. As the Captain of our salvation, and to indicate how we may share in His virtues, our blessed Lord there stands alone to meet the attacks of the great enemy of souls.

II. The victory.—With a recognition made in subtilty of His Divine status and authority, the devil spreads before Him three grave temptations to win to Himself in some other way the world He had come to redeem and save by His great humility and self-sacrifice.

(a) The first approach is through the body of humanity with which He had clothed Himself. When ‘an hungered’ through His long fast, the devil bids Him exempt Himself from the ordinary suffering of mankind. In the reproof of the temptation by the assertion of an eternal principle which is never, never to be disobeyed, our Lord reveals to us how we may overcome those pressures of our temporal necessities or of our bodily passions, which for the time seem to us so irresistible. Quoting those sacred words which are to be the guide of our lives, Christ replies, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’ Are we never similarly tempted? Are there no times at which we are tempted to follow in a wrong way the inclinations of our bodily appetites? If such times come to us, then let the vision of the Lord in His endurance of temptation rise in our minds.

(b) Not less insidious and enticing is the next temptation to win adherence by wonder working, and the claim for Divine interposition, even when the path taken was not that ordered of Divine purpose. Bidding the Lord cast Himself down from a pinnacle, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God’ is the utterance again of a divine principle, by which the Lord Christ, as much as His humblest followers, must ever be influenced. Never could that principle be departed from by Him. Are we never tempted in our degree in a similar way? Do we never try to get influence over others by unworthy means? Are we never inclined to take some line of action which seems likely to bring us some speedy if specious result, though it be not in the strict and plain way of God’s Commandments? Or again, are we never found to be tempting God by voluntarily placing ourselves within reach of any form of evil which we know to be a dangerous snare to us? And are we not, then, just infringing upon the principle here laid down by Christ and tempting God? The thought of this temptation of our Lord should surely make us endeavour to walk humbly with our God. And (as some one has observed) there is both a warning and an encouragement in the expression ‘Cast thyself down.’ It must be our own doing, therefore beware. It can only be our own doing, therefore never despair.

(c) In the last of the three great temptations the evil one is making his boldest stroke. He is appealing to the great soul of the true King of men.

And His answer here, ‘Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve,’ is the clearest indication to us of the only course we can follow whenever the devil tries to put similar false issues before ourselves.

Bishop G. W. Kennion.

Illustration

‘No sooner is Christ out of the water of baptism, than He is thrust into the fire of temptation. So David, after his anointing, was hunted as a partridge upon the mountains. Israel is no sooner out of Egypt than Pharaoh pursues them. Hezekiah had no sooner left that solemn pass-over than Sennacherib comes up against him. St. Paul is assaulted with vile temptations after the abundance of his revelations; and Christ teaches us, after forgiveness of sins, to look for temptations, and to pray against them. While Jacob would be Laban’s drudge and pack-horse, all was well: but when once he begins to flee, he makes after him with all his might. All the while our Saviour lay in His father’s shop, and meddled only with carpenter’s chips, the devil troubled Him not; but now that He is to enter more publicly upon His office and mediatorship, the tempter pierceth His tender soul with many sorrows by solicitation to sin.’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

‘AS CHRIST OVERCAME’

The temptation in the wilderness! There have been those who have seen in the narrative no more than a striking legend without any real historical basis. The suggestion has a prima facie likelihood, which disappears on further investigation. In the first place, we can hardly doubt the temptations to misuse His powers. In the second place, although the subject-matter was one round which legendary creations would be likely to gather, yet they would be wanting in that depth and dignity which characterise the Gospel record.

Let us glance—no more—at each of the three temptations.

I. Temptation to misuse His powers.—The first was a suggestion to misuse His miraculous endowments—endowments of which He was aware—for the purpose of satisfying His own bodily needs. In other words, He was tempted to a violation of trust. His peculiar powers were not assigned to Him that He might make His own path easy, that He might spare Himself the completeness of Self-denial, that he might avert from Himself some physical suffering. And never, from first to last, were His powers used by Him for His own advantage. Whatever others gained from them He Himself gained nothing. Never does He take the edge from any of His own trials or blunt the sharpness of any Personal anguish. Always does He show the strict Self-control, the rigid Self-limitation which underlay His first reply to the Tempter, ‘It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’

II. Temptation to abuse the consciousness of privilege.—The second temptation was somewhat similar in character. Like the first, it was a temptation to abuse the consciousness of privilege. But it was directed not so much to bring about a misuse of power, as to inflate the assurance of special protection into overweening presumption. Christ stood in imagination on one of the pinnacles of the Temple—perhaps on the point from which the priests used to watch for the first rays of the dawn that they might signal to those below to commence the morning sacrifice. He pictured the sacred courts filled with worshippers. Did He cast Himself headlong down and descend unhurt into the midst of the throng, it would be a proof of His supernatural mission which none would gainsay. He would then be the accepted and trusted leader of His people. What had he to fear from such an enterprise? Was not angelic protection promised to Him? Not by any such means as those suggested to Him was His victory over the hearts and consciences of men to be won. He could indeed command the obedience of an innumerable multitude of angels; but the proposal made to Him was outside the bounds set by true religious sentiment, and was therefore an incentive to provoke the Divine anger. ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’

III. Temptation to apostacy.—The third temptation was perhaps less subtle in its nature; but it was one of immense force. There spread itself before the mind of the Lord a vision of the kingdoms of this world. His thoughts went out not merely to Israel but to the nations which lay beyond. There was Rome with its vast power, but vast infamy. There was Greece with its noble political and philosophical traditions. There were the realms of the great Parthian monarch. There were the inhabitants of the Arabian and Scythian deserts. All these—and more than these—formed themselves into a vast vista which stretched before His eyes. There suggested itself to Him the possibility of an easy victory, of a rapid attainment to widespread dominion, at the price of moral and spiritual apostacy. ‘All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ But our Lord meets the pressure of the temptation, as He had met that of the others, with a few words of Scripture, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve.’ Thus the victory was won. Thus He proved Himself ‘without sin.’ Thus was He led through temptation to the peace of a complete triumph.

IV. Tempted like as we are.—He walked in our path and not in some wholly isolated one. He realised our pitfalls and was not guided by by-paths which spared Him the ordinary perils of mankind. His reliance upon His Father was perfect, yet He was not spared. So is He able to help us in our hours of grievous trial. So can He uplift and uphold us. So can He sympathise with each and all. So can He ever be the perfect human Friend, to Whom none upon earth can possibly compare. So is He the continuous sustenance of our souls in their many and severe struggles. Let us find help and strength in the memory of, and in communion with, the tempted but victorious Redeemer. If we are to be led up into some wilderness we need not be overwhelmed by the perils contained in it. Across the ages come His words of reassurance, ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.’

The Rev. the Hon. W. E. Bowen.

Illustration

‘An incident of the Battle of Creci may be quoted: From the Black Prince’s division, where the fight was raging fierce and doubtful, there came to the English king an urgent request for a reinforcement, Edward, who from a windmill watched the chances of the battle, and the movements of the armies, inquired if his son were killed or wounded. The messenger replied “No.” “Then,” said he, “tell Warwick that he shall have no assistance; let the boy win his spurs. He and those who have him in charge shall earn the whole glory of the day.” The king had led his son into temptation. He had brought him into the battle to try what metal he was of, to give him the chance fairly and honourably to win his spurs. The ordeal was a severe one for the young soldier. He felt himself failing under it. The desire to be relieved at the critical moment was natural enough. The refusal of such a request might well seem hard. But the king looked at things as an old soldier looks at them.… All this is obvious enough. Why, then, is it less obvious that the dealings of the Heavenly Father with His children may oftentimes be even of this sort?’

(FOURTH OUTLINE)

CHRIST’S EXAMPLE

The record of our Lord’s temptation must needs be momentous—first in its import, for the comprehension of the spirit of His ministry; and secondly, in its example to mankind. The narrative would seem to possess the unique character of being autobiographical. There were none but heavenly witnesses of the mysterious experiences of those forty days; by whom, then, could the narrative have been communicated to the evangelists except by our Lord Himself? Our Lord knew, as none else could possibly have done, what were the essential elements in the temptation to which He was subjected.

I. The evil of the suggestion.—The first temptation was addressed to our Lord’s sense of physical necessity and sufferings, combined with His consciousness of the possession of miraculous power by which He might have relieved them. And in what did the evil of the suggestion consist? There were other times in our Lord’s life and ministry in which he did not hesitate to have recourse to His miraculous powers, but our Lord’s answer points to the fact that the use of His miraculous power on this occasion would have been inconsistent with the express will and word of His Father. It is to be explained by the fact that He was ‘driven into the wilderness by the spirit to be tempted of the devil.’ This endurance, for reasons beyond our full comprehension, had been imposed on Him by the Spirit of God. Alike in the simplest wants of human nature and in its intensest trials He exhibited the power of absolutely submitting His human will to His Father’s will and to His own higher will.

II. In what life consists.—It would seem obvious that this is an example of the earliest and simplest, and yet in some respects the most persistent, temptation by which ordinary human beings are beset. Men’s only safety consists in grasping the principle which our Lord here asserted in answer to the tempter, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. A man’s life does not consist in the mere gratification of his bodily craving, or even the natural desires of his mind and heart, or even in his life here. The essential life of his nature consists in his living and acting in harmony with the will of God. So far as it is necessary for him to live here all natural provision that is essential for him will be made by His Father in heaven. It is unnecessary for him to take thought. No man or woman can expect to have our Saviour’s promises fulfilled to themselves in a higher degree than that in which they were fulfilled in Himself.

III. Man destined for eternity.—The life of man is not to be measured by the wants and cravings of his present experience; it has an eternal character and is destined for an everlasting sphere. There, whatever it may have forgone here, in obedience to the word of God and God’s will, will be abundantly made up to it, and it will be seen that man’s true life consists eternally in every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Dean Wace.

Illustration

‘Bishop Ellicott remarks, (1) that the temptation was no vision or trance; (2) that it was an assault from without by the personal agency of the personal prince of darkness; and (3) that it was addressed to the three parts of our nature—to the body, “of satisfying its wants by a display of power which would have abjured its dependence on the Father”; to the soul, of Messianic dominion, “accomplishing in a moment all for which the incense of the One Sacrifice on Golgotha is still rising up on the altar of God”; to the spirit, “of using that power which belonged to Him as God to display by one dazzling miracle the true relation in which Jesus of Nazareth stood to men, and to angels, and to God.” ’

(FIFTH OUTLINE)

BEING TEMPTED

‘Led up of the Spirit to be tempted of the devil.’ It is the history of mankind. It was the challenge of the Spirit of God to the spirit of evil; it was the struggle which was bound to take place for the supremacy of the world. It is vain to speculate upon the form or character of the spirit of evil, for whatever theory we may have as to its origin or form, whether it be a permeating essence or a person, nothing alters the universal result of all experience—that it is a fact. And it is just as vain for man to speculate upon its nature, as to mistake what that nature is. Poverty, obscurity, disappointment, care—these things are often deemed evil by the world, and yet they are not evils in themselves. Many of them have proved the greatest of blessings with which God has endowed the human family; but it is the material which goes into the crucible that shows in the result. If mean spirits go in, it is mean spirits that come out; if nobility goes in, it is nobility refined and purified that comes forth.

I. The struggle.—The Lord Jesus Christ, Who looked into the very eyes of the tempter, never made light of evil, and it is well for us to remember that men who succeed in this great battle, only succeed after a struggle—a struggle with a really terrible enemy. The trouble is that men are so often their own tempters. Bad as he is, the devil is often falsely charged and falsely accused; when men are to be blamed alone they cast on him the sins that are their own. The pitiful thing is that so many of us go through the world, and see its evil, and forget that, sooner or later, evil comes home to them that give it an abiding place within them.

II. Lenten discipline.—It is well that we should withdraw ourselves from the world, that we should gather together, and see the evil within us, that we should face the penalties that go with the evil and cry aloud for penitence and for pardon. Those who have known the struggle will welcome this season as a means of grace, and for those who have been amongst the fallen, there will be the pleasing remembrance that Lent is not only the recruiting ground for the good, but it is a fresh starting-place for those who have done wrong. It may mean to them that God will use it as a means of instruction; that He will help them to reckon rightly, to estimate accurately the blessings and the evils that are around them; and when men do that there is little doubt that, however busy they may be with their work, however engrossed with their pleasures, they will at least find some time in which to remember the petition of the Litany—‘That it may please Thee to give us true repentance, to forgive us all our sins, negligences and ignorances, and to endue us with the grace of Thy Holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to Thy Holy Word.’

III. The victory.—Victory is possible; that goodness after all is not a dream. The threefold temptations of our Lord show us that body, soul, and spirit of man—each the abiding temple of the Holy Ghost—may be assaulted in its turn. So Jesus Christ has given us, as He gave to His disciples, that short pattern prayer on which men have moulded their petition to God from that time to this: ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’

The Rev. James Hughes, LL.D.

Illustration

‘During these forty days let us do something that will bring us some definite, direct result. Let us each one make a new rule of life and keep it through Lent, and let the result of that rule be that we may be a little better at the end than at the beginning; our wills a little more in the direction of God than they were before. Our task is to bring under our body, and to keep it in subjection. How may we do it? We are often told that we must withdraw from the world. May I suggest that that is wrong? We must be alone with God sometimes, but take care when you are alone with God you are not alone with self, because in the end you will fall again and be no better at the end of Lent than at the beginning. Do not shut out the world altogether, because God is there. God has put us into it, and we are to fight against the temptations that the world suggests, calling to our aid in resistance the strength of God. Why was the temptation of Jesus Christ undergone? To show us that there is a greater power than Satan. He is very powerful; but there is a Greater, and when we are very near to the clutches of Satan, that Power will come and resist for us, and put us on our feet again. Jesus Christ went through His temptation to show us how to live; He went through it in order that He might leave us that great example.’

(SIXTH OUTLINE)

CHRIST’S SYMPATHY WITH THE TEMPTED

This must be regarded as one of the most marvellous pages in the Saviour’s history, and to a large portion of the Church of God, not less precious and soothing. Christ was tempted of the Devil. Our temptations from Satan often flow from indirect sources, from sin within or incentives to sin without; our Lord’s were direct from Satan. He had come to destroy the works of the Devil, but He must first confront, bind, and virtually destroy the Devil himself. What were His temptations?

I. Tempted to distrust Providence.—What was Satan’s first assault upon our Lord? It was the temptation to distrust the providence of God. The temptation was timely, plausible, and strong. It had been as easy for Christ to have established the fact—not denied by His adversary—of His Divine Sonship by turning the stones into bread, as subsequently He did by turning the water into wine. But He would not! How Godlike and sublime is His reply! And is there not a page in our experience corresponding to this? How often by the same Adversary we are assailed with the same temptation! Are we in affliction and sorrow?—he tempts us to question God’s goodness and love. Are we prostrate on a sick and suffering couch?—he tempts us to doubt the wisdom and kindness of our Father. Are the providences of our God trying, painful, and mysterious?—he tempts us to carnal reasoning. Are our temporal resources straitened, our wants pressing, our position trying and critical?—he tempts us to unbelief, distrust, and despondency.

II. Tempted to self-destruction.—The second temptation of our Lord was to self-destruction. ‘Cast Thyself down—destroy Thyself! Presume upon the providence and power of God to preserve Thee. Commit the act, and leave Him to shield Thee from its consequences.’ With what holy horror must the Son of God have recoiled from the temptation to this rash, sinful, appalling crime! And yet with what dignity and power He repels and silences it! There are few temptations by which our race is assailed more common, and none more dire, than this.

III. Tempted to idolatry.—The third temptation of our Lord was—idolatry, with the promise of temporal territory, glory, and power. This would seem to have been the climax of horror, the sin of sins, to the holy Son of God. No sin has Jehovah so emphatically forbidden, or has marked with such signal and overwhelming indications of His hatred, displeasure, and wrath. And are the saints of God entirely exempt from temptation akin to this? We believe not. Assailing us through our senses, easy and accessible avenues are open to this arch-foe of Christ and of the Church.

IV. We learn (a) that our great adversary and accuser is—a defeated foe. From this onslaught upon Christ he retired foiled, vanquished, and abashed. The seed of the woman had bruised the serpent’s head. Learn thus the paralysed power of your tempter, that you be not disheartened and dismayed.

(b) That Satan’s suggestions can be met by the ‘sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.’ But he too can quote and apply Scripture, only to misquote and misapply it. The moment, then, that a text of God’s Word is suggested to your thoughts in favour of sin, of distrust of God, of disbelief of Christ, of self-injury, repel it with holy indignation. God’s Word will fortify, strengthen, and succour you in temptation. It is the Book of the tempted.

(c) That prayer is a girding of the soul in the temptations of Satan. Take your temptation, drag the tempter to the throne of grace, and you are safe. The shadow of that spot is too divine, too pure and holy, for a temptation to live a single moment. There the Wicked One will cease to trouble you, there your weary soul will sweetly rest.

The Rev. Octavius Winslow, d.d.

Illustration

‘The texts quoted by our Lord were all from the section of the book of Deuteronomy which was especially taught to all Jewish children, and which, therefore, He had Himself learned as a boy. Stier beautifully says: “The Living Eternal Word vested Himself in the written Word.” Satan obviously quoted Scripture because Jesus evidently held it in such reverence. From this we learn that the Devil can use texts when they suit his purpose; and from the omission of the words “in all thy ways,” that he can cunningly misquote them too. Plumptre observes that the words might well appear likely to lead astray one who had already moved unhurt among the “lion and adder,” the “young lion and the dragon” (see Psalms 91),’