HOW JESUS ANSWERED TEMPTATION

For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
1 John 2:16

All temptations fall into at least one of the three categories established by the apostle John. Only after Satan implanted his tempting thoughts into Eve's mind, did she looked differently at the forbidden tree and she "saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise." In other words, the lust of the flesh, made her want to eat the forbidden fruit, the lust of the eyes made it look good and the pride of life, was Eve's final downfall leading to sin; how could she resist the thought of becoming like God, knowing 'good and evil'? As a result, Eve disregarded what God had said, she reached out and took the fruit in total disobedience to God and in believing the devil. Adam fared no better; we read that he was there with Eve and when she handed him the fruit, he ate of it also, without any resistance, even though God directly told him not to do it. Because they chose to rebel against God, they lost the dominion they had over the earth and Satan became the “ruler of this world”, as Jesus called him on three occasions: John 12:31, John 14:30 and John 16:11.

The Devil used the same pattern of temptation with Jesus in the wilderness. After being baptized in water the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11). After fasting for forty days and forty nights, He was exhausted and hungry and the devil was hoping that He could deceive and defeat Him. For these purposes, he used "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life."

In the first temptation the devil addressed the "flesh" of Jesus after he tried in vain to make Jesus to doubt His identity: “... “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread” (v. 3b). Hunger is a powerful factor that can hamper anyone's reasoning, more or less, depending on the individual. By the way Jesus replied to the temptations, He showed us that if we truly have the Word of God in us, it will keep our minds alert and help us recognize the enemy's deceptions even if we are in a weakened condition. Jesus responded to the attack by quoting the Scripture “... It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (v. 4b).

• Matthew 4:5-7 Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”

Another temptation the devil tried to use was the "pride of life." Satan attempted to get Jesus to take pride in demonstrating that He was the Son of God, and would not die even if He would throw Himself down from the temple's pinnacle, because according to the tempter, intentionally misusing God's Word, "God would send His angels to save Him.” Jesus taught us a very important lesson here, demonstrating how vital it is to correctly interpret the Bible, taking verses in context and correlation with one another in order to know the truth as it cannot contradict itself.

• Matthew 4:8-9 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
  

The third temptation the devil tried was "the lust of eyes", hoping to finally defeat Jesus. After the second attempt to cause Jesus to doubt His identity failed, the devil changed tactics.

The apostle Luke related this even better: "... All this authority I will give you, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish" (Luke 4:6). What he was saying was a half true, again. Adam had received from God dominion and authority over the earth, but when he sinned against God and obeyed Satan, he forfeited his dominion and authority to the devil. In fact, Satan tempted Adam and Eve for the purpose of stealing their authority and "spiritually" killing them. Jesus did not contradict it, which confirms that the devil truly had the authority. But the Lord spoke against what was actually a lie. The devil had no intention of giving up his dominion, even if Jesus would have done what Satan had asked Him to do. In fact, it was a contradiction of terms. When someone worships another, he recognizes that he becomes that one's slave and not that he takes his place to become the master. So the result of bowing down and worshiping the devil could not have been that Jesus would become the master of this world. His purpose was to cause Jesus to sin, so He could never defeat the devil and take back the dominion over the earth from him. Jesus replied even more firmly this time knowing He had the authority to resist him, and proclaimed the Word of God again:

• Matthew 4:10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

 

• Luke 4:13 Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time.

The apostle Luke recorded even more details about the end of this episode. In verse 13 we read that the devil left Jesus after he had used all his basic temptations. But even though he realized he had lost, he continued to look for ways to destroy Jesus, and he does the same with us. The enemy is lurking for any moment when we are spiritually and physically exhausted. If we do not feed our spirits, we become spiritually weak and lose the needed strength to fight. This is when the enemy comes with the most unexpected and powerful attacks. If we want to "finish our race well", as Paul said, we must feed daily our "inner man of the heart" because, as Jesus said, “... Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

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Carmen  Pușcaș