Physics 101

In the last Matthew Monday, we looked at Matthew 4 and how Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by Satan.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” 

How does the temptation of Christ in the wilderness equate to “being tempted in all things”? 

It has to do with the trinity of man: body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23)

The first temptation that Satan issues is directed toward Jesus’s body.  Jesus has been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, and Satan walks up and says, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matthew 4:3).

Jesus answers, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

Often times Satan uses our body to tempt us into sinning against God: food, sex, adverting pain and suffering, etc. 

But Jesus says, listen God spoke the world into existence.  His words are not just some kind of sustenance; they are life.  There’s nothing our body needs that God’s spoken word hasn’t provided: plants and animals exist because He spoke them into being, the opposite sex exists because of His word, and pain and suffering exist because we challenged His command in the garden, but with a word from Him they can end just as surely as they began.

The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-4, 14).

This physical world is a product of God’s spoken word.  Jesus is God’s word made manifest in flesh.  Satan doesn’t use physical temptation for the simple act of making us suffer physically; He uses it to get us to deny the very word of God, and this is why Jesus rebuffs the physical temptation with the scripture He does. 

We live and have our being because God speaks.  Understanding this truth is the key to overcoming the temptation of the flesh. 

Next week we'll look at the temptation of the spirit.