NOTES for Mat 4:7

During the temptation in the wilderness, Jesus three times answers the tempter, Satan, with quotations from Scripture, thereby showing us too how one can resist the devil's schemes: simply by not retreating from God's will, from His commandments. But this temptation, the second in the Gospel according to Matthew, is perhaps the most unusual: Satan himself, while tempting Christ, quotes Scripture. And he in fact proposes that Jesus check whether the words from the psalm are true. Does this not remind you of another scene, described in the third chapter of Genesis, when the same tempter asks Eve: "Did God really say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" Of course it does. The same approach: test the truth of God's Word. Satan is not a creative being: if it worked once, try it again. Where is the catch? It is very simple: testing is the opposite of trust. Either I trust God that He is truth, or I put myself in the position of controller over God. I repeat: over God. By yielding to this temptation, humanity fell into slavery to sin. But Jesus does not yield; He breaks through the cunning temptation by His refusal: "I will not! I will never test what God has said. Either test, or trust!"