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| Prolegomena to Matt. 4:1-11 | | Date Created: Dec 01, 2004, 10:10 PM |
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." (Matt. 4:1-3)
After Jesus' baptism we have the story of his temptation by Satan in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-4). This story is so well known that no one stops to think about the fact that he was tempted. So here's the summary of the story so far: Jesus is born, grows up in Nazareth, and then is identified as the Messiah at his baptism by John the Baptizer. Why isn't the next thing that happens in the story that Jesus jumps onto a cross and dies? Why not get it over with?
For that matter, we might ask why he was even born? Why did he enter life as a baby? Why did he have to live 33 years before he died on the cross? Why didn't God the Son simply download himself into a full-grown man one day, suffer death, pay the price for sin, and have done with it? Ever wonder about that? What's the answer to this question?
The answer is that there was more to Jesus' mission than simply his death. Sometimes we forget that. This is related to our marginalizing of the resurrection. We don't seem to have much of a place for the resurrection, as we saw earlier this summer. The resurrection was not simply a reall cool miracle, the last one to establish he was truly God. This is the way it is often explained, especially in evangelistic messages. The resurrection is the glorification of Jesus' humanity, the culmination of his life as a man. We don't seem very concerned about his humanity, except as a vehicle for the vicarious suffering and death of Jesus on the cross.
For similar reasons we don't really know quite what to do with most of Jesus' life--besides the obvious fact that Jesus went around teaching us many helpful things. Of course, you know, don't you, that God could have taught us without Jesus coming in the flesh. He could have used a prophet or just bellowed the truth from heavens. But he didn't. It wasn't absolutely necessary that God come in the flesh to teach us. Actually God did communicate quite effectively with humanity before the incarnation. After all, God had been teaching man through various means since Adam and Eve. The problem was, and is not humanity's lack of knowledge of God's will, but something deeper.
There's more to Jesus living, his human life, than just his death and his teaching. Remember, we were surprised to see Jesus on the bank of the Jordan Fiver being baptized by John. The surprise was that this was Yahweh, the God of Israel, in the flesh, humbling himself to be washed with water by the last of the old order's prophets. According to Matthew, this was to fulfill all righteousness, to carry out God's own faithfulness to his covenant promises.
But now we have another surprise. The one who has been ceremoniously revealed as the beloved Son of God and upon whom the Spirit has descended, is now led by that same Spirit into the desert to be tested by the Devil.
Why is this necessary? What's the point? Remember that in addition to the baptism of Jesus being the sign of the promise of the fulfillment of God's righteousness or faithfulness, it was also what the man Christ Jesus needed to do. Jesus was (and is) God and Man. And God the Son will fulfill God's promises in the covenant by living out humanity's proper calling. He is the Son of God and the Son of man, that is the son of Adam. And God's righteousness is fulfilled as Jesus performs man's righteousness. God's faithfulness is revealed as the man Christ Jesus is faithful. That is, in a nutshell the wonder, the grace of the Gospel. God fulfills his part and ours. And he does so by living our life, dying our death, and then in union with our dead humanity, rising again, raising us up with Jesus.
We should meditate on this big picture a bit more. Next week we'll come back and reflect on the details of each of the three tests put before Jesus in the wilderness; but this week we want to reflect on the factthat he is tested at all and what that means for us.
Why is Jesus in the wilderness? Why does the Spirit lead him there? Why is he tested? The short answer is this: For the man Christ Jesus to fulfill our calling, our human vocation, what God had in mind for Adam and his posterity at creation, Jesus must grow and mature to the point where he is willing and able to offer himself on the cross to his Father and for his bride. Before Jesus can offer himself, he must have the maturity to do so. And maturity requires time and testing. The wisdom that accompanies maturity requires experience. This is why Jesus is in the wilderness. He is being tested. He is learning wisdom and gaining maturity.
At this point in the story Jesus is a young man--30 years old (cf. Luke 4:23, “when Jesus began his service, he was about 30 years old"). He has only now reached the age when a young man would begin his service as a priest. He is not yet mature. He has much to learn. He has much to suffer and much wisdom to gain from his trials and suffering.
Now, don't balk at this. I am speaking of Jesus' humanity. Jesus is being tested, tried, refined and through the process he will mature. The man Christ Jesus will succeed where Adam failed, where Israel failed. He will fulfill, not only the righteousness of God, but also the righteousness of man--he will be faithful to man's calling. And that demands maturity and wisdom, something that can only be had through testing, suffering, and obedience.
This is what the Bible teaches. Remember, according to James 1:2-4, testing leads to maturity if it is negotiated properly.Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. This applies to the man, Christ Jesus, too.
Then there's explicit mention of Jesus' maturing in Hebrews 5:7-10:In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made mature, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. And what was the supreme act of obedience for Jesus? His death.Adopt towards one another, in your mutual relations, the same attitude that is yours in Christ Jesus.
Because he was existing in the form of God [as the incarnate Christ],
He did not regard equality with God
something to be seized [as Adam did],
but poured himself out [unto death, Isa. 53:12],
having taken the form of the Servant [Isa. 52:13; 53:11],
having been made in the likeness of men.
And having been discovered to be a man,
he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death
--even death on the cross.
Therefore [Isa. 53:1], God has highly exalted him. . . (Phil. 2:5-8) It is crucial to know that the act of giving oneself over to death required maturity. Jesus had to mature to the point where he was able to offer himself on the cross to the Father for us.
Now, of course, as God, he was the mature Son of his Father before all ages. And as the divine Son his mode of life was self-denial, dying to himself from all eternity. Thus, the eternal Son did not need to learn how to die.
But now that the eternal Son had united with our human nature, the man Christ Jesus had to grow, both physically and in his human consciousness, grow to maturity in order to fulfill humanity's calling.
May I remind you that it is abundantly evident from this story that the Son of God is fully human:v. 2 he fasts and is hungry
v. 5, the devil presents him with the possibility of death,
And in v. 8-9, the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms to rule. . Clearly God the Son created and rules everything, but God the Son united to human nature--Jesus, the Messiah, at this point in the story rules nothing. Jesus is a very young man from Galilee with no authority as of yet. Jesus humanity is in view here, otherwise Satan would be to be an idiot for offering him something he already possessed and Jesus would have simply said, "I already own it all, you fool."
So this wilderness trial for Jesus does at least two things:1) It tests and prepares him for his mission--that of giving himself for us on the cross. Without these trials, these tests, Jesus would not be ready for or able to perform that singular act of obedience, death on the cross. This is God's grace to us men and women, Sons and Daughters of Adam—he does for us what we cannot do.
But also 2) Jesus thereby becomes the model of human maturity and patient trust and obedience under testing And he can expect us to follow his example. This is all over the New Testament. This is how God matures his sons in union with Jesus!
God's calling requires testing and maturity. God tests his sons. The stunning approval and approbation that Jesus receives from the Father, as the Spirit alights on him, is followed immediately by the same Spirit leading him into the wilderness to be tested by the Devil. We see again that the Devil does not act independently of God's plan. Remember Job 1 and think about Genesis 3, too.
Adam was a son of God, to be sure, but he must be tested, tried, refined, purified--not necessarily of sin, but of immaturity. He must grow up. And to grow up one must learn obedience through suffering. Even apart from the fall. He must grow to rule and experience the fullness of the glory God intended for him. He had to learn to die to oneself and so become more like God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is God's training program for man's maturity, that he learn to die to himself. This is God's training program for you and me.
PrayerHeavenly Father, grant us the grace to attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we man no longer be children, tossed to and from by the waves and carried about by every wind of teaching, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, may we grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. |
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