and says to him, If thou be Son of God cast thyself down; for it is written, He shall give charge to his angels concerning thee, and on [their] hands shall they bear thee, lest in anywise thou strike thy foot against a stone.
The tempter's second approach comes with a verse. He quotes a promise from Psalm 91 back to the One it was written about. The question is how a real promise from God can become a trap.
The temptation opens with the same words as the first. Both come soon after what the Father said from heaven.
The devil always sows doubts of the Divine Word. Contrast Matthew 3:17 with Matthew 4:3 and 6, and note how strikingly this comes out. No sooner has God said, "This is My beloved Son," than the devil says twice over, "If You are the Son of God." The little word "if" is a great favourite with the devil! Jesus fittingly met him with the Word of God.
The place matters. One writer paints the scene as Satan hoped it would look.
He takes Him to the Holy City, Jerusalem, and up on the pinnacle of the temple, because the second temptation is the temptation of Him as the Messiah. As He stood on that high place, the people below must have seen Him and recognised Him. They could not see Satan. What a test and proof of His Messiahship if He had come down slowly! The laws of gravity would be completely set aside, and He would land unharmed on His feet in front of the astonished crowd. Would they not accept Him at once? Why should He be rejected, if this act might quickly make Him their leader, their King and rescuer from the yoke of the Roman oppressor?
The Lord had answered the first temptation with Scripture. The devil builds his next move on that answer.
The devil then takes Him up into the holy city, sets Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and bases his temptation on the very point of our Lord's answer — the word of God. He says, in effect, Here is a word of God for you... Very true. It was God's word, and clearly spoken of the Messiah. But what was Satan using it for?... Scripture did not say, Cast Yourself down, because God has given His angels charge concerning You. The Lord would not turn aside from Scripture because Satan had misused it. He shows us, in the most instructive way, that we must not give up our stronghold just because someone may turn it against us. Where a person misapplies Scripture again and again, he destroys some basic principle of the word of God. Whatever is false goes against some plain passage of Scripture.
Satan quoted the psalm. He did not quote all of it.
Now notice those words: "For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." Satan did not quote the whole of the verse. He left out those four words "in all your ways." How crafty the enemy is. To the blessed Lord he suggests, as it were: "The Scripture is plain that this promise applies to You. Now is Your opportunity to show that it does apply to You."
Jumping would have looked like great confidence in God. One writer names what it would have been.
The enemy sets Him on a pinnacle of the temple, to get Him to apply to Himself the promises made to the Messiah, without staying in the ways of God. The faithful man may certainly count on the help of God while walking in His ways. The enemy wanted the Son of man to put God to the test, to see if He could be trusted, instead of counting on Him while walking in His ways. That would not have been obedience. It would have been a lack of confidence in God — or pride, presuming on its privileges instead of counting on God in obedience.
People often get the idea of testing God backwards. One writer sets it straight.
To cast Himself down from a pinnacle of the temple was no part of God's ways, for Him or for any man. In those ways He knew God too well to need to test Him to see whether He would be as good as His word... So we also learn what tempting God means. Men say that we tempt Him if we do not do the best we can for ourselves. This is the exact opposite of the truth. We tempt God when we do not trust Him entirely in everything. The dependence of the Lord was as perfect as His obedience.
- "If" — The devil aims his doubt at what God had just said about His Son. His favourite word reopens a settled question.
- Ways — The promise covers God's ways, not ours. Satan quotes the guarding and drops "in all your ways," because the leap was no part of those ways.
- Display — Satan offered a Messiah the crowd would know at once, and a crown without rejection.
- Presumption — Claiming a promise while stepping off God's path is not great faith. It is pride.
- Dependence — We tempt God by not trusting Him, never by trusting Him too much. The answer to a misused verse is not to drop Scripture but to hold it whole.
Jesus said to him, It is again written, Thou shalt not tempt [the] Lord thy God.
Satan has just quoted Psalm 91 to the Lord, urging Him to throw Himself from the temple's height. His reply, drawn from Deuteronomy, raises two questions: what is testing God, and why answer a misused verse with another verse?
(The writers below use the older wording "tempt the Lord your God." The ESV says "put the Lord your God to the test.")
The Lord does not argue about how the devil reads the verse. He stays on the written word and adds a second passage to the first.
If Satan cites Scripture wickedly or falsely, the Lord does not leave Scripture for argument. He answers in a way that is absolutely and at once convincing — "It is written again."
That short phrase sets a rule for reading any passage. A verse standing alone can be bent. A verse read with the rest cannot.
The word of God is one vast, comprehensive, and consistent whole. We must not understand any part of it in a way that sets it against the other parts. Satan could quote an isolated text of Scripture to our Lord. But His reply was, "It is written again." "The Scripture cannot be broken." It must be in harmony with itself.
The words are often read as a warning against trusting God too far. One writer says they mean the opposite.
He takes His place with Israel and uses for His guidance the part of the word that holds God's instruction on this subject: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." That passage is often quoted as if it forbade excess in trusting God. In fact it means not to distrust, and not to try whether He is faithful.
Testing is what you do to someone you doubt.
The true Israelite does not need to put God to the test. Suppose you suspect that a dishonest man works for you. You may test him by marking a coin to see whether he steals it or not. Am I then going to mark something for God, to see whether He will keep His word or not? I know God will do it; I do not need to put Him to the proof.
The sentence Jesus quotes carries a history. It points back to Massah, a place in the wilderness.
In meeting the temptation the Lord Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6:16: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God, as you tempted Him in Massah." The people had murmured in their hunger, and now they murmured in their thirst. Yet it was by saying "Is the Lord among us, or not?" that they tempted Him. How could they raise such a question? Had not the manna fallen around the camp that very morning, and could they not see the pillar of cloud that spoke of His presence?
Satan's quotation had a piece missing.
Satan quotes Psalm 91, hinting to Jesus that all He had to do was throw Himself down from the highest point of the temple. But as usual he tampered with the plain written word, both its letter and its spirit; after "to keep you" he left out "in all your ways."
The promise covers a man walking in God's ways. A leap from the temple was not one of them.
To throw Himself down from that height, even when Scripture seemed to provide for such a situation, would have been nothing but testing God. It would not have been a step in what the psalm Satan quotes calls His ways. Those ways were ways of dependence; this would have been one of presumption. The man of dependence does not tempt God. Such was Jesus, and again the enemy is foiled.
The answer is not only a defence. It shows where strength lies for anyone facing the same pressure.
Satan quotes a promise to Him. But Christ will not abandon the position of obedience. He answers him, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." We have here a principle of the utmost importance. We do have the whole word of God as a means of gaining the victory over Satan. But we find strength in the simplest obedience. If Christ has no word from God, He does nothing.
- The attack — Satan's weapon is Scripture itself. He quotes a real verse, with a phrase left out, to push the Lord into a step God never asked for.
- The answer — "It is written again." Jesus does not trade Scripture for argument. Scripture read as a whole corrects Scripture read in pieces.
- The meaning — testing God is not trusting Him too much. It is distrust, demanding proof of a faithfulness He has already given.
- The memory — Massah is the warning. Israel had the manna and the cloud, and still asked whether the Lord was among them.
- The path — God protects in His own ways, not in ways we invent. Dependence keeps the promise; presumption loses it. Strength comes from simple obedience.