NOTES for Mat 4:1-11

Forty days is not forty years. But just as the people had to pass through the wilderness, just as John went into the wilderness before coming out to preach, so Jesus endured a forty-day fast in the wilderness. All the details of what happened during that time have remained hidden from us, but what the evangelists report about the last days of those forty speaks of their importance both for Jesus Himself and for the history of our salvation.

Whom was the tempter trying to tempt - a human being, or God incarnate? It seems he saw Who was before him, and the attempt to influence the human nature assumed by the Lord, with all its limitations and weakness, became a continuation of Satan's old rebellion against the Creator. But in passing through the hardships of the fast, Jesus strengthened His human nature. Not only by the power of God's omnipotence, but also by those spiritual powers that are now available to people thanks to Him, He both beat back the temptations Himself and showed us that it is possible to stand firm before temptations.

The order in which the temptations come is not accidental; they clearly move upward: from the elementary promise of satiety and deliverance from the need to labor for food, then through incitement to perform a spectacular miracle, and they end with the promise of power over the world. But the one who promises power offers it in exchange for worshiping him, that is, for recognizing his own authority. So the promised might turns out to be fictitious...

It is interesting that the tempter tries to tempt Christ by using a phrase from Scripture. Before us is a vivid but, alas, frequent example not simply of dishonestly tearing a phrase out of context. Here we see that Scripture can be used to cover goals not only far from salvation, but also opposite to it. So let us try not to limit ourselves to memorizing quotations, but to enter into the essence of biblical teaching.

In his Gospel, Luke tells about the temptations in a different order. Evidently this is because he wrote for the Greeks, and they had already tasted imperial power, so it tempted them less. But in all ages, in different combinations, these temptations have risen before people again and again. Therefore the victory won over the tempter in the wilderness is important for all of us today. After all, we can rely on the help of Christ, the victor over temptations.