Sermon outline

INTRODUCTION
Satan is the adversary, a strong enemy. But Jesus is the stronger man. Satan is never triumphant in Matthew's gospel. In the power of the Spirit, Jesus is always Christus Victor.

THE TEXT
"Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, 'If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread' . . . ." (Matthew 4:1-11).

JESUS AS ADAM AND ISRAEL
In the previous chapter, Matthew recorded John’s ministry, climaxing with Jesus' baptism. Once Jesus has passed through the waters, the Spirit He received at the baptism leads Him to the wilderness, as Israel was led through the Red Sea by the Spirit-pillar. For forty days and nights, He is tempted as Israel was, and resists. He is the true Israel, and He is also the true Adam, who refuses to eat forbidden fruit and refuses to seize authority that has not been given to Him. Jesus is the first of a new kind of Israel, and the first of a new sort of human, one that does not bow before Satan but rebukes him. Unlike the first Adam and the first Israel, Jesus keeps the fast.

FROM DESERT TO MOUNTAIN
Satan's three temptations form a progression. He moves from a temptation about physical hunger, to a temptation to test God instead of humbly obeying Him, to a temptation to receive the kingdoms of the earth. The temptations also progress spatially. Jesus moves from the desert to the pinnacle of the temple to a mountain from which he can view the kingdoms of the earth. The climactic scene on the mountain in chapter 4 anticipates the mountain in chapter 28, where Jesus declares Himself to have received all authority, not by bowing to Satan but by obeying His Father to the death.

RESIST THE DEVIL
Jesus is our champion, defeating Satan without our help. He is also our example, showing us how to defeat Satan. It is often remarked, accurately, that Jesus responds to Satan with the Word of God, a spiritual weapon powerful for tearing down the fortresses of the world.

But we should also notice what the quotations from Scripture say. We defeat Satan by living on the Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, feeding on it with hunger that surpasses our hunger for bread. We defeat Satan by trusting God, not by testing Him. We defeat Satan by worshiping and serving God alone. When we do those things, Satan slinks away and angels gather to minister to us.

BEGONE SATAN
In the end, Jesus rebukes Satan and Satan flees. But this rebuke – "begone Satan!" – reminds us of Jesus' rebuke of Peter (Matthew 16). Like Satan, Peter tried to convince Jesus to take the easy way to glory. Satanic temptation can come from the devil and his demons; but we become tempters to one another whenever we urge any pathway to glory but the pathway of the cross.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 10:53 PM

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