Temptation - The Great Reenactment (3)

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

“On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.” (From Matthew Chapter 4, NASB).

In the Garden of Eden, when tempted by the serpent Eve responds, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”

In Genesis 3:1 – 7 the serpent questions God’s Word, Eve gives one response to the serpent, the serpent counters her argument, the woman succumbs to the deception (compare 2 Cor. 11:1 – 3), and the temptation is consummated in sin and death.

In Matthew Chapter 4, after forty days of temptation in the Wilderness, Satan attacks with a temptation and Jesus responds with God’s Word; Satan attacks with another temptation and Jesus responds with God’s Word; Satan attacks with another temptation and Jesus responds with God’s Word. Satan’s sustained attack is met with Jesus’ sustained response with God’s Word.

In each of His responses Jesus speaks from Deuteronomy (Dt. 8:3, 6:16, 6:13).[i] This raises the question, “How can we possibly resist temptation without a living (incarnational) knowledge of the Word of God to which we are living in obedience?”

Also, let us keep in mind that Jesus is driven into the Wilderness after His baptism, at which the Holy Spirit descended upon Him – it was the Holy Spirit who drove Jesus into the Wilderness to be tempted. Jesus resisted temptation by the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the Word of God – we cannot separate the Spirit from the Word or the Word from the Spirit. The Bible must be illuminated by the Holy Spirit for us to understand it and see Christ in it. To withstand temptation and live in obedience to Christ we need the union of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures in our lives. We must call on our Lord Jesus to work His will within us, to live His life within us – for in and of ourselves we are not sufficient to obey God and face temptation.

Should someone say, “What of young Christians who are just learning the Scriptures?” We have the promise that “…God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it” (1 Cor. 10:13). The critical point here is that “God is faithful.” We can trust the character of our Father.

Sadly, there are some today who disregard what we call the Old Testament; the Law and the Prophets and the Writings. Yet, it is from Deuteronomy that Jesus took all three of His responses to the enemy in the Wilderness. It was through the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms that the risen Christ revealed Himself to His disciples (Luke 24:27, 32, 44 – 47). How foolish to reject the revelation of Christ in Genesis through Malachi. How foolish to disregard the foundation and backdrop of the New Testament. I don’t use the word heresy lightly, but this is heresy as old and older than Marcion.

In the Great Reenactment in the Wilderness, Jesus is living by the Word of God; He is living in obedience to the Word of God and not tempting God by attempting to manipulate the Word (note that Satan traduces Psalm 91 in Matthew 4:6, we see this ploy in heretical teachers); He is worshiping and serving God and God alone.

Knowing God’s Word as our sustenance. Living in obedience to God’s Word. Worshiping and serving God and God alone. This is our daily calling. By God’s grace, faithfulness to this calling will see us through the Wilderness of temptation, trial, and testing as we participate with Jesus Christ in the Great Reenactment.

---

[i] I write from a human perspective for I don’t understand the mystery of the Incarnation; certainly the Word of John 1:1 has always been the Word and therefore the Word of Deuteronomy which Jesus “quotes” in Matthew 4 is His own Word which Moses recorded in Deuteronomy. It is difficult, at least for me, to understand in most any measure the union of God and Man in the Incarnation. I “see” it more clearly at some times than at others – but it is ever a mystery.

I Think It’s Beautiful

“You’re weird,” she said to me.

I wasn’t offended. It’s one more reason I love her, she is willing to be my wife even though I’m weird.

Granted, “weird” before marriage may be novel; while weird after marriage may not. I realize she has a limit to how much weirdness she can tolerate in a day or week, but all in all she’s a pretty good gal.

We were sitting in the sunroom. Watching the morning light play with the trees, watching the birds, enjoying the early-morning quiet. My mind wandered from the surrounding beauty and contemplated another beauty; I was visualizing it, meditating on it, swishing it around in my thoughts the way you might enjoy a swish of fine Cabernet. The flavors were having a party in my head. It was like a jeweler with a loop enjoying a radiant gem.

She asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Do you really want to know? You won’t believe it.”

“Tell me.”

“Are you sure? You won’t believe it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay. I was thinking how beautiful a semicolon is.”

“What?”

“I was thinking how beautiful a semicolon is.”

“You’re weird. Why would you think that?”

“When I was doing a blog post this morning, I used a semicolon in a particular place and it struck me as beautiful. I originally had a comma and a conjunction, but then I realized a semicolon would be just right. With a semicolon you don’t have to come to a full stop, a period; you need not use a comma which can move things too fast; it cuts down on conjunctions which can be tedious. The pause which a semicolon provides can be just enough of a pause to ponder; just enough of a rest before you move on – it need not interrupt the music and rhythm of thought, the dance, the point and counterpoint. The semicolon is beautiful.

“You’re weird.”

;

Our North Star and Anchor

In his preface to The Saints Everlasting Rest, Richard Baxter writes:

“What more welcome to men under personal afflictions, tiring duties, disappointments, or sufferings, than rest?” [The “rest” that Baxter writes about is our seeing the face of Christ; a “rest” that I believe the Bible teaches begins now and continually unfolds in Jesus Christ.]

“It is not our comfort only, but our stability. Our liveliness in all duties, our enduring of tribulation, our honoring of God, the vigor of our love, thankfulness, and all our graces; yea, the very being of our religion and Christianity depend on the believing, serious thoughts of our rest.” (italics mine).

While I have heard the saying, “People can be so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good,” I have seldom, if ever, seen a person like this. My experience has been quite the contrary. The people I have known who have a deep and abiding sense of Christ, of things above (Colossians 3:1-2), of the eternals, are those who tend to have more compassion and mercy on those around them; they are those who tend to use their time and resources to help others.

Note that Baxter is looking at life as it really is; we will have afflictions, we will have disappointments, we will have sufferings; Baxter’s Christianity is not “health and wealth” or “name it and claim it” or “maintain the status quo” or one of personal peace and affluence.

Baxter knows that when we are seeking Christ and the “rest” we have in Christ (Hebrews Chapter 4) that Christ becomes our North Star and our Anchor. (Consider that the men and women of faith in Hebrews 11 were “looking for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”) When we look to Jesus Christ we have stability, and when we have stability in Jesus Christ we have one response to suffering, one response to pain, one response to uncertainty, one response to mountains and valleys – Jesus Christ and the rest that we are on pilgrimage to reach, the rest that is already unfolding in our lives – for it is Jesus Himself who is our rest, our heart’s desire, our hope.

The professing-church today, at least in the West, is unstable; it runs here and there looking for a new teaching, a new experience, a new solution that will appeal to church attendees and prospective attendees and will solve our immediate problems – making us feel good. We are like puppies chasing their tails. We sow seed in soil with no depth or nutrients. We grow dis-eased crops. We plant annuals and do not cultivate perennials.

When Baxter writes “our liveliness in all duties” I take that to mean that the rest of Christ, and the life of Christ within us, animates all of life (John 15:1ff). We not only have a North Star and an Anchor, we have a constant source of Life, Divine Life, the very Life of Jesus Christ, the life of the Trinity, living and abiding with us.

What a blessing to enjoy stability in Jesus Christ in an unstable world!