Why did Jesus fast?

But we are taken back to the arena of the conflict of which no other eye but God's was witness, and learn who He was that proved Himself to be the stronger, and how He overcame. He was "led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." We have to be led of the Spirit to be with God: He, who was ever with God as His normal state, had to be led ("driven," Mark says) of the Spirit to be with Satan. "And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights he was afterward an hungered" — in what utter contrast to the circumstances of the first man who, surrounded by every token of God's providential care, so easily succumbed to the serpent! The tempter came to Him and said, "If thou be the Son of God command that these stones be made bread." What subtlety! for had He not divine power and title as the Son of God to exercise it? But He had become man, and man's place was to obey. He answered and said, "It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He might have said: "I am God," and then no rebel creature would have stood up against Him, but there would have been no example for us. He overcame by keeping the place He had taken as man, and that was to obey. Blessed, perfect obedience! He would not help Himself to bread when in view of it without the word out of God's mouth, by which man was to live, and not by bread alone. So it was written: that was enough for Him. And Satan had to change his ground.

Thus He goes forth into the wilderness, (complete contrast with all the surroundings of the first man,) to fast His forty days; not as a Moses or an Elias to meet God, but that in weakness, and with the hunger of that forty days upon Him, He may meet man's adversary, and be fully tested. Did the Spirit of God ever bring up another to be tempted in most utter need, in all the reality of human weakness, by the devil?

But not so sheltered, not so provided for, is the new Adam, the Son of man. The garden is gone; in its stead is the wilderness; nor is there nurture for Him now from nature's barren breast. For forty days He fasts, and then with the hunger of that forty days upon Him, the tempter comes. It marks the contrast between Him and other men that, whereas a Moses or Elias fasted to meet God, He fasts to meet the devil.

Forty. — Forty days was the Lord in the wilderness, fasting all that time. For forty years Moses was in the desert feeding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. For forty years Israel was in the desert, to prove them, to know what was in their heart, whether they would keep God's commandments, or not (Deut. 8:2). For forty days Goliath challenged Israel to find a man to fight with him (1 Sam. 17:16), but no one, who daily witnessed that sight, was bold enough in reliance on God to enter into the conflict, till David appeared, and conquered. For forty days Elijah went in the desert on the strength of the meat which God graciously provided for His servant, to Horeb, the mount of God (1 Kings 19:8). Forty days were allowed the Ninevites in which to repent, or the threatened judgment would fall on them (Jonah 3:4). Hence it would appear that this number forty has to do with the thought of probation. The Lord in the wilderness forty days without food proved Himself to be faithful, and really dependent on God.

The chapter, and this section of the book, concludes by the record of the giving the two tables of testimony. "And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God." (v. 18.) It is necessary to recall that all the instructions from chapter 24 to this point were given in the mount. Moses had been alone with the Lord. The Lord had been "communing with him" concerning the revelation of His mind for the people. Having ended, He gave him the two tables of stone, containing the terms of the covenant which He had made with His people. Moses has described this elsewhere. He says, "The Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone, written with the finger of God: and on them was written according to all the words which the Lord spake with you in the mount, out of the midst of the fire, in the day of the assembly. And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant." (Deut. 9:10-11) It appears therefore that the contents of the two tables were the ten "words," or commandments, spoken in Exodus 20, but now written by the finger of God — the commandments which Israel undertook to keep as the condition of blessing. They abandoned the ground of grace on which they had been put after they had crossed the Red Sea, and of themselves, and for themselves, on God's proposal, undertook the responsibility of obedience. Moses had been forty days and forty nights in the mount, during which he neither ate nor drank (see Deut. 9:9), being as it were in a state above nature, in order to be able to become the channel of God's communications for His people. The flesh must not intrude, must indeed be set aside, and in some sort nature also, if we would hear the voice of God. The reader will not fail to remember the case of Elijah (1 Kings 19:8), and also that of our blessed Lord — both of whom, like Moses, fasted forty days and forty nights. But as has been remarked by another, "The Lord Jesus must in all things have the pre-eminence. Moses, naturally far off, is separated from his natural state in order to draw near unto God. Christ was naturally near, and more than near; He separated Himself from nature to meet the adversary on behalf of man." This contrast is most significant, and shows plainly that the most devoted of the servants of God can be no more than a shadow of (typifying even by contrast) the excellency of Christ. (Compare also the case of the apostle John in Rev. 1:10.)

In the N.T. we find in John the Baptist the spirit of fasting, a Nazarite spirit of separation. Matt. 3:4. He also taught his disciples to fast. The Lord said of His disciples that when He was taken away, then they would fast; and while He was here He spoke of a certain power over unclean spirits that could only be exercised with prayer and fasting. Matt. 17:21. He Himself when led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil, fasted forty days and forty nights. It is a contrast to Moses and Elijah, they were apart from man's natural condition to be with God; and He who as man was ever with God was so apart to be in conflict with the devil.

The first in order, and this in Matthew too, is the appeal to natural wants. "And in those days he did not eat anything; and when they were finished, he hungered. And the devil said to him, If thou be Son of God, speak to this stone that it become bread."81 The Lord at once takes the lowliest ground, really the most elevated morally, that the sustenance of nature is not the first consideration, but living by the Word of God. He waits for a word from Him Whose will He was come to do. He refuses even in His hunger to take a single step in the way of satisfying His sinless wants without Divine direction. The true and only right place of man is dependence; and He having become a man, would not swerve from the dependence which referred to God instead of following wishes of His own: indeed, His will was to do God's will. "And Jesus answered unto him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, (Deut. 8:3) but by every word of God"†81a (verse 4). Such was the true estate of man, and his right relation to God; and Jesus therein abode, in circumstances of the greatest trial, the bright contrast of the first Adam, who left it where all circumstances were in his favour. Before "hungered," AE, etc., 1, 33, 69, Syrr., etc., put "afterwards, which Edd. omit, with ℵBDL and Old Lat. †"But by every word of God": so AD, etc., and all later uncials with cursives, Goth., most Syrr. Rejected by Edd. following ℵBL, Syrsin, Amiat., Sahid., Memph. (from Matthew).

No lust was found in Him; but He was capable of being hungry, and He suffered hunger. He had been declared by the Father's voice to be the Son of God, and Satan desired that He should leave the place of servant, which He had taken in becoming man, and do His own will: therefore he suggests to Him to make bread of the stones. Here we have a temptation of the enemy; but the Lord abides in His perfection; He would live by the word which proceeded from the mouth of God. God put Him to the proof through suffering, but no lust was found in Him; and when Satan would make use of hunger - which is a human need apart from sin, and was found in Christ as a man - He remained in perfect obedience, and had no other motive for action than His Father's will.

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.

There could be no doubt therefore that He would fulfill this virtual pledge to bear their sins on Calvary. Notice too that the Father approves Him in this unqualified way before His being tested by Satan in the wilderness (Ch.4). Certainly God could not speak in this way to anyone else before the time of his testing; but could do so with absolute fullness of approval to His beloved Son. Therefore, He could not fail. This public anointing by the Spirit would correspond to the anointing of David in 1Samuel 16:13, for David, after his anointing, suffered long before reigning, being in this a lovely type of Christ.Before this King of lowly character begins His public ministry, He is proven, through the cunning opposition of Satan, to be just what God the Father has said of Him, His beloved Son, worthy of His full delight. The Spirit of God "carried" Him into the wilderness for the express purpose of His being tempted by the devil. He was to be in circumstances totally contrary to the pleasant conditions that surrounded Adam when he was tempted. More than this, He fasted forty days and forty nights, therefore being in a physically weakened condition. If there had been in Him any inclination to succumb to temptation, then in such circumstances this would have been manifested. But, as He said later, "The prince of this world cometh, and both nothing in Me" (Jn.14:30).

Satan's first temptation is to urge Him to relieve His hunger by using His divine power as Son of God to turn stones into breed. This in itself would not be an evil thing, for it was an appeal as regards human need. But the Lord was the Man of faith, who received His instructions from God, not from Satan. He answered as the perfectly dependent Man, using Deut.8:3 to express the fact that He lived by the word of God, which is infinitely superior to natural food. If we too, in simplicity of faith, depend honestly upon God's word, He will take care of our material needs (Mt.6:33).