Matthew 4:3

THE FIRST TEMPTATION, Matthew 4:3-4.

3. The tempter The being who loves to lead man into sin. Came to him In what form Satan came is not said. He tempted Eve as a serpent; perhaps he tempted our Lord as an angel of light or truth. At any rate, he was at first disguised; for our Saviour did not recognize him to be Satan until the deceiver claimed his worship.

If thou be the Son of God The consciousness of his divine union with God, so far forth as he had yet received it, may now, perhaps, be supposed to be in a measure withheld. He is the pure-minded, guileless, guiltless Jewish youth, alone in the wilderness; worn and weak with the fasting and the excitement with which the fast had been sustained. Was it not a rare chance for Satanic counsels? “How know you that you are the Son of God? True, there are some prodigious narratives about your birth, but they may be fables; there were the dove and the voice dropped from the sky at your baptism; but that may have been an ocular illusion. It is a great thing for a quiet young man to imagine himself Messiah and Son of God.” Command Nothing like experiment. Try to put forth miraculous power, and that will show whether or not you are divine. That these stones be made bread You are hungry. Here is the material, and you have the power. Use your Messianic power to supply your bodily wants. So you will at once prove your divinity and satisfy your hunger.

In this first temptation Satan tempts our Lord, as he did Eve, by the bodily appetite. He appeals to the animal nature first. By this avenue he approaches and conquers the great majority of mankind. Beneath this temptation of bodily appetites all gluttons, drunkards, and debauchees have fallen and become the devil’s prey.