What is the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4)?

This matter of "every Word of God" is an important one. In 1 John 2 we have the expression with regard to the young men that they have the Word of God abiding in them and because of that they've overcome the wicked one. Now where it says the 'Word' of God, the word used is logos which signifies the whole revelation of God. Here "Man shall not live by bread along, but by every Word of God", it is not logos but rhema the specific word for the situation. The Lord had been forty days tempted of Satan, but following that were these three temptations. He used the Word the Word to meet the moment. He met the attack by the particular word for each situation. If I haven't the Word of God abiding in me then I won't be able to pick out the Scripture to use when it is needed. For example in Ephesians 6:17, "The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God", it is rhema not the whole Word of God but the particular Scripture to meet the situation.

This is of unspeakable moment for us, beloved reader. It is as though our Lord Christ had said to the adversary, "Whether I am the Son of God or not, is not now the question, but how man is to live, and the answer to this question is only to be found in holy scripture; and it is to be found there as clear as a sunbeam, quite irrespective of all questions respecting me. Whoever I am, the scripture is the same, "Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord."

And we should further give special attention to the expression, "Out of the mouth of the Lord." This is unspeakably precious. It brings the Lord so very near to us, and gives us such a sense of the reality of feeding upon His every word, yea, of hanging upon it as something absolutely essential and indispensable. It sets forth the blessed fact that our souls can no more exist without the word than our bodies could without food. In a word, we are taught by this passage that man's true position, his proper attitude, his only place of strength, safety, rest and blessing is to be found in habitual dependence upon the word of God.

Here, in the face of Satan, our Lord finds His strength; not in doing miracles, or in any provision that He might have made for Himself, but in the word of God. Hunger might have legitimate wants, but here He was, tried by Satan, and He will not step out of the trial till it is over; He will not shift His circumstances or lift one finger for Himself: He waits upon God. "Man shall not live by bread alone," He answers, "but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." God's word had led Him there, for the Holy Ghost acts by the word, and He would not leave the wilderness till God's word led Him out. This completely set aside Satan's temptations. But more: it brought out the real secret of living in dependence upon God day by day, for the food of the new life is the word of God. Of what immense importance this shows the written word to be, and having it as our household bread day by day; not merely reading it as a task or formal duty, but, as it is indeed, the divinely-suitable provision for the child of God! It is good for every one to study it, because it is in every way for the good of the soul day by day to read it intelligently, heartily, as those that receive it from God Himself. And God does not give that which the heart of man cannot take in, but what is adapted to our daily wants, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Here we have the only true, the only safe, the only happy attitude for man, namely, hanging in earnest dependence upon "every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord." Blessed attitude! we may well say; there is nothing like it in all this world. It brings the soul into direct, living, personal contact with the Lord Himself, by means of His word. It makes the word so absolutely essential to us, in everything; we cannot do without it. As the natural life is sustained by bread, so the spiritual life is sustained by the word of God. It is not merely going to the Bible to find doctrines there, or to have our opinions or views confirmed; it is very much more than this; it is going to the Bible for the staple commodity of life — the life of the new man; it is going there for food, for light, for guidance, for comfort, for authority, for strength, for all, in short, that the soul can possibly need, from first to last.

And let us specially note the force and value of the expression, "every word." How fully it shows that we cannot afford to dispense with a single word that has proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord. We want it all. We cannot tell the moment in which some exigency may present itself for which scripture has already provided. We may not; perhaps, have specially noticed the scripture before, but when the difficulty arises, if we are in a right condition of soul, the true posture of heart, the Spirit of God will furnish us with the needed scripture; and we shall see a force, beauty, depth and moral adaptation in the passage which we had never seen before. Scripture is a divine, and therefore exhaustless treasury in which God has made ample provision for all the need of His people, and for each believer in particular, right on to the end. Hence we should study it all, ponder it, dig deeply into it, and have it treasured up in our hearts, ready for use when the demand arises.

The devil always sows doubts of the Divine Word. Contrast Matt. 3:17 with Matt. 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 Thou be the Son of God." The little word "if" is a great favourite with the devil! Jesus appropriately met him with the Word of God. That Word is indispensable to Man's spiritual life just as bread is to his natural life. And man needs every word that God has spoken, and not just a few special passages only.

88 And, in these days of slighting the word, it is good for the heart to remark how He answers. A single text of the word, of the scripture, suffices for the fidelity and the almightiness of the Lord, for the wisdom of the Son of God; a single text suffices to reduce to silence the devil who wished to lead Him astray. The Son of God remains in His position of man, the servant; and the word of God directs, is the opening of, His ways. "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." What a beautiful and perfect example! Not a movement of His heart toward any other thing than the authority of His God, of whom He had made Himself servant. The word of God issues from the mouth of God - the words issued from His mouth, blessed be His name, direct to man. Christ maintains Himself in the place of man. Man shall not live by bread alone. The word is the source of His conduct; He lives by it. It is His directory doubtless; but it is also what puts His will in movement: without it He does nothing. He is come to do the will of God. The words which proceed out of His mouth declare this will and put in movement the soul of man the servant. Such is the obedience of Christ. The devil can do nothing there; he is silent.

It has been noticed by all, ― it could hardly escape notice, ― that the Lord answers ever by the word of God. This is the sword of the Spirit, the only weapon we have with which to encounter the adversary; but it is striking, and speaks powerfully to us, to find the Lord who could surely have answered from His own mind, using always, and with distinct reference to it as such, the written Word. We see that He takes absolutely the same ground as ourselves, answers as man; is subject, as we are, to the authority of God. And this the passage which He quotes fully proves, ― going, indeed, beyond it: "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

This is from Deuteronomy (Deut. 8:3), the book that sums up the lessons of the wilderness, for those who had been through the wilderness. And the passage shows that the dealings of God with His people had been directly designed to teach them this: "And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that He might make thee to know that man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." How important, ― how supremely important, therefore, is this principle!

But what circumstances for the Son of God to be found in in this world! "Having fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards He hungered. And the tempter coming up to him said, If thou art Son of God, speak, that these stones may become loaves of bread." But simple as it would have been for Him, with all divine resources ever at command to help Himself to bread, He would not put forth power to take Himself out of any consequence of the place He had come into as man. He had not become man to command; man's place was to obey, and the enemy is foiled by His keeping that place perfectly. "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He waits therefore — will only act, if it be but in the matter of taking necessary food, when there is a word from God for it. But more than that, He lived by it, for this was God's will for man according to the passage that He quotes, if now for the first time it was realized in man — not merely a path outwardly directed by the word, but an inward life formed by it, of every movement of which the word was the motive and source.

Alone with the enemy, who was allowed to lead Him from place to place as he would, the Lord Jesus met every assault by the word of God, surely in this teaching us that, if God leads into temptation, He can, and will if we are subject, furnish us with the word wherewith to meet and to resist the tempter (Eph. 6:17). It was the Son of God who was in the wilderness, and He was hungry. Why not put forth His power, and relieve His own want? Nothing would seem to a fallen creature more natural. If He had the power, why not use it? Was the devil mistaken as to who He was? He was the Son of God in the highest sense, but He was man as well. So He kept the place of a man, and answered the enemy each time from the Word. "It is written." "If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread," were the words of the tempter — pointing, doubtless, to one lying at their feet. "It is written," was the reply, "that man shall not live by bread alone." He turned the tempter to Deut. 8:3 as the sufficient and conclusive answer to his suggestion. For having received no word from God to do that, He would not in that way supply His need. Man was to live by the word of God, as well as by bread, as Moses told Israel, that Jehovah had been teaching them all through the wilderness. To it the second man submitted. But who would have supposed when and by whom these words would be quoted as applicable to His own case? Who would have presupposed that the Son of the Father would have found Himself alone and hungry in the wilderness? The sequel showed that He was right in what He did for the angels subsequently came and ministered to Him. He was not forgotten, though for a time left without food.