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Doubt, Temptation, and CertaintyPreached at St. Barnabas Church, Bellville, TX The First Sunday in Lent, 2010 by The Rev. Stephen E. Stults Matthew 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. Three words: doubt, temptation, and certainty. These three words sum up the Lenten experience for some. They also sum up the Christian life for most. As we enter into this most blessed, most spiritually intense yet potentially rewarding season, let us consider these three words. If we are being honest with ourselves, it is our belief that we will experience all three in the Season of Lent. Similarly, the Gospel for the day goes to the very heart of what we believe as Christians, as it focuses on these three powerful realities. It is about as basic as that. In the opening lines of the Gospel passage we read, from Matthew 4:1:”Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.”
Why is this scene important to us? It is simply this. Those who have doubts as to the Trinitarian nature of God need to review this word of Scripture. It clearly references all three Persons of the Holy Trinity. Thus, the early Church Fathers used this important passage as they culled the doctrine of the Holy Trinity from the Scriptures. In our Gospel selection, St. Matthew describes the temptation of Christ. In it, Satan tries to something bold, audacious, and evil. In effect, he attempts to undo God’s Plan by the invocation of one little word, “if.” Christ had just been exalted, and now as Matthew tells us in Mat 4: “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” Oftentimes, honor precedes humbling or trials; as one commentator tells us: “After we have been admitted into the communion of God, we must expect to be set upon by Satan. The enriched soul must double its guard.” If we see Christ, the Lord and Captain of our Faith set upon by Satan after having received great honor, should we expect different treatment? Many commentators on this passage have mused as to why Jesus Christ would need, submit to, or even agree to such a situation. Although there is much discussion of this, we may safely assume three areas of consensus:
Turning to the temptations themselves, note that there three of them. The first temptation deals with Christ’s physical well-being, as we see Him hungry and in the wilderness, tempted by Satan to make bread out of stones. Note that this attack is both insulting and predatory. Satan introduces the assault by saying, “If thou be the Son of God…” Satan the Great Deceiver is seeking to cause Jesus to doubt himself in His physical weakness. As ludicrous as it seems, this is the case. Satan, in his hubris and arrogance, evidently thought this attack might work. Of course, to us committed Christians; the idea of causing the Son of God to doubt Himself is absurd and fanciful. Yet, once again, the point is plain; if Satan tried to get God Himself to doubt, what will he try with us? This leads to the predatory aspect of Satan’s attack on Christ and on us. Being the wicked and brilliant tactician that he is, the Devil attacks us when we are weak. Be it through physical need, be it through sickness, be it through melancholy, be it through (God forbid) despair, he seeks a chink in our spiritual armor. He wants to insinuate his infernal suggestions, temptations, and fears, about which we must be aware and prepared to resist. Of course, there are times when all of us, being mere flesh and subject to the weaknesses of the same, fall prey to his devices. Yet, if we keep our minds and our spiritual eyes on Christ, we will “frustrate” the plans of the devil. In this instance, Christ dismisses Satan’s assault with a word of Scripture. From Deut 8:3, Christ said: “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 know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.” Satan is rebuffed. Having failed in his first attempt, Satan then takes another approach, this time appealing not only to Jesus’ physical safety, but to the very image of who He Is. We see Jesus taken by the devil to a pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem. Again there comes the insult and the word of doubt: “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down…” Here is a great lesson concerning evil, the nature of sin and Our Adversary’s dealing with us. Note that Satan does not throw Christ off the pinnacle himself, thus doing Him direct harm, but rather, suggests that Jesus “cast” himself down. Thus, we see that Satan has no direct power over us but is limited to the power we give him in our lives. Sin always requires an active response from us in some assent of the will. In this case, Satan’s temptation is obvious and flagrant. Once, again, Christ repels him with a word from Scripture, “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” Some commentators have interpreted this as “Don’t presume on God to save you when you engage in some self-destructive or sinful act, in exercise of your free will.” Yet, even when we act stupidly or behave in a flagrantly sinful way, or are self-destructive, God in his mercy often mitigates the ill effects of our actions. Somehow, by common grace, He does not allow to be as bad as we could be. He may also allow us to realize the consequences of our sins to teach us. While God forgives us our sin, the “scar tissue” of our misdeeds remain. Forgiveness abounds from God’s mercy when we truly repent, but the consequences of our sin are a lasting reminder of our rebellion against God. It is not so with Christ. Satan is defeated again with a rebuke from Scripture, but being both insidious and persistent, he makes one more attack by an appeal to Jesus’ pride. In a twisted, perverted view of Christ’s Kingship, Satan shows Jesus all the earthly glory, or at least the satanic version of it. In Mat 4:8, “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.” Here is where Christ’s patience is exhausted at last, for as the Tempter says, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Christ expels him with a command: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” This is the so-called “last straw” for Christ. The idea of the Lord of Heaven and Earth prostrating Himself before this hideous fallen angel is too much. Christ speaks with authority and the Devil leaves, defeated and frustrated. The victory is won, and the angels, who had been watching this whole contest with worshipful admiration, come and minister to Jesus, tending to His needs. Satan had done his best and had failed. Just as Christ would defeat Satan on the battleground of Calvary later in His ministry, so he vanquished him now. At the start of this homily, I mentioned that this passage “goes to the very heart of what we believe and experience as Christians.” It speaks to the twin infernal phenomena of doubt and temptation. Concerning doubt, Satan used the “if” word three times, once for each temptation: “if thou be the Son of God, “if” thou be the Son of God, and “if” thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Each of these is a conditional statement that seeks to provoke doubt or sin. Each time, Satan seeks to cause Jesus to question Himself, and/or he mockingly insinuates that Jesus Christ is not the One, the eternal Son, and the Spotless Lamb of God. If this were true, Christianity would be shattered. If Christ is not who He says He is, the Son of the Almighty God and the Lord and Savior of Mankind, we are confounded and hopeless. If Christ is not the Son of God, we might as well submit to the toothless doctrine of the Enlightenment, where Christ’s dying on the Cross is not substitutionary, but merely a supreme example of what a good man does. Finally, if we worship an “If” God, we Christians are, in the words of St. Paul, the most miserable of all people. Thanks be to God because instead of doubt, we have certainty. St. Paul says, “But, now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept” (I Cor. 15:20). In the eternal sense, now is our Savior Christ victorious over sin, death, hell, and the Devil. We can meet the twin evils of doubt and temptation and emerge victorious. We do not worship an “If” God. No, we worship an “Is” God, a God of certainty. We worship He who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The Great “I AM THAT I AM” does not exist in the past, He does not exist in the future, He simply exists. Thanks be to God for his blessed and complete certainty and our sure and certain salvation! Glory be to God the Father, and to God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, now and forever. AMEN |
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Recall that at the end of the previous chapter of Matthew, chapter
3, Christ has just come from His baptism in the river Jordan at the
hands of John the Baptizer. In that amazing scene, the Spirit of God
had just descended upon Jesus and a voice from heaven had said,
“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Christ
submitted to baptism even though He had no original sin to
wash away, thus giving us the model of Christian Baptism. He also
received glory and recognition from God the Father. As an aside,
note the inference to the Holy Trinity in this passage, as we see
Jesus recognized by a “voice” that says, “This is my beloved Son,
with whom I am well pleased.” Such a statement necessarily implies a
Father. In this amazing scene, the Holy Spirit comes to him in
bodily appearance, “like a dove” and lights upon Him.