Thou Shalt Not Tempt the Lord thy God

In Matthew 4, Satan confronts Jesus while He is at one of his weakest points. He was at the end of a 40-day fast and was "an hungered." As the devil begins to tempt the Jesus here, He continues to quote the Old Testament Scripture to show Satan how wrong those actions would be.

In Matthew 4:5-7, we hear one such of these exchanges,

"Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

I have heard several people call this verse here a rebuke for Satan and telling him to stop tempting him, but I don't see it that way for two reasons. First, it doesn't fit in the context of the chapter. Every other time in this chapter that Jesus quotes scripture he is showing that what the devil wants him to do is wrong, so why do we not expect so this time?

Second, when Jesus tells demons (or even the devil) to do something they do it. He has that power and authority over them. Jesus is able to cast out demons in the maniac at Gadara because they listen to his voice. Yet here in this section of Scriptures, after the Lord says these words, Satan continues to tempt the Lord with power (that you know, Jesus already has). Indeed, in Matthew 4:10-11, Jesus tells Satan to leave, and Satan does.

"Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."

Thus, the interpretation that this is a rebuke of Satan's temptation doesn't hold much water. But that leaves the question, what is the Lord actually saying in this verse. It would be wise to remind ourselves once again of the context of this verse.

The devil has asked Jesus to cast himself down unnecessarily for seemingly no reason at all, except he can because the angels will protect him from injury or harm. Jesus' reply, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord the God" is indicative of a reason why this is flawed, but what is that reason? Why would casting Himself down tempt the Lord?

The easiest way to answer that is to look at the context of the Old Testament verse the Lord is quoting here. After all, Jesus is not going to abuse the verse for a use other than He originally intended it to be used.

The verse is found in Deuteronomy 6:16,

"Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah."

If we are then to know what this verse is telling us, we must look at what the Israelites did in Massah. (I do have a point, I swear!) Massah is what Moses called the place where the Israelites first received water from a rock. From Exodus 17:2-7,

"Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?"

It's still unclear to me what the Israelites did here to tempt the Lord; thus, I have enlisted the help of Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Bible,

"The meaning of this is not, Therefore thou must not tempt me; but, Therefore I must not tempt my Father...If Christ should cast himself down, it would be the tempting of God. As it would be requiring a further confirmation of that which was so well confirmed. Christ was abundantly satisfied that God was already his Father, and took care of him... and therefore to put it upon a new experiment, would be to tempt him... If we expect that because God has promised not to forsake us, therefore he should follow us out of the way of our duty; that because he has promised to supply our wants, therefore he should humour us, and please our fancies; that because he has promised to keep us, we may wilfully thrust ourselves into danger, and may expect the desired end, without using the appointed means; this is presumption, this is tempting God."

The Israelites fell into this trip at Massah. They found themselves tempting the Lord by "requiring a further confirmation." They had seen enough miracles to know that Jesus would supply their need, but their faith still did not hold. They faltered. They tempted the Lord by asking for further confirmation that the Lord was among them.

Similarly, Satan is asking Jesus to prove to Himself and the rest of the world that God is his Father. He questions, "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down." The devil asks Jesus to look for a greater sign of his Lordship.

We must be careful not to fall into this trap ourselves. We cannot fail to trust the Lord and ask for further signs and confirmation of his providence. Yet that is how we fill our lives. Everytime we fail to step out on faith, we are tempting the Lord.

Additionally, Satan asks Jesus to purposefully and unnecessarily put himself in danger because the Lord will protect him. Matthew Henry argues what I always thought, that this is a reckless act of presumption - of temptation of the Lord. Matthew Henry also said,

"The promise is, They shall keep thee; but how? In all thy ways; not otherwise; if we go out of our way, out of the way of our duty, we forfeit the promise, and put ourselves out of God’s protection....If Christ had cast himself down, he had been out of his way, for he had no call so to expose himself. It is good for us upon all occasions to consult the scriptures themselves, and not to take things upon trust,...This promise is firm, and stands good; but the devil made an ill use of it, when he used it as an encouragement to presume upon the divine care. Note, It is no new thing for the grace of God to be turned into wantonness; and for men to take encouragement in sin from the discoveries of God’s good will to sinners. But shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? throw ourselves down, that the angels may bear us up? God forbid."

Thus, we must not rely upon the Lord to protect us in ways that are not needful for the spread of the Gospel.

Here we have two extremes shown in one temptation of Satan, and we must work to avoid both of them. We must not rest too little in the Lord's protection, or too much. That balance is difficult to find, and when I figure out what it is, I will tell you. :)

Doctrines of The Christian Faith 7: Day of Reflection: The Nature of the Image of God

Today is the seventh post of the Christian Doctrines series, and that means it is time to conclude our series by looking at what we have accomplished and rest, just as the Lord did after his 6 days of creation. Although these works can never even be a fourth as good as that which the Lord created, the model will continually be echoed throughout these series for as long as I write them.

So what have we accomplished in this series? Honestly, not as much as I wanted. A lot of the posts were either too simple or made too many points to be coherent. I even left out a few points because I discovered as I wrote the sixth post, I had left too much for it. As such, next week, an "Addendum" will be posted that will detail these few points in detail.

Nevertheless, I was still able to express the most important event in all of history bit-by-bit throughout this series - the story of man's sinfulness, God's holiness and mercy, and the sacrificial atonement for our sins. Today, I will tell this story once more, in a different way than I originally shared it. Today, we discuss the nature of the image of God.

Man Created In God's Image

In Genesis 1:26-27, we learn, 

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

Here we see the first time man is mentioned in the Bible. The Lord says that we should make man in our image. (Remember that the Lord is three persons in the outer "crust," but one all the same.) But what exactly is the "Image of God?"

In Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem defines the image of God as,

"The nature of man such that he is like God and represents God."

Although Grudem correctly identifies that the image of God transcends beyond any one attribute, I would like to highlight in this post the specific part of the image of God that refers to moral purity. Thus, throughout the rest of this post, I will be using the image of God synonymously with perfection or holiness.

Sin had to "enter into the world" through Adam because when Adam was first created he was as God, without sin.

Let us remember that God is so holy he cannot fellowship with those unholy. A substitutionary sacrifice was needed to allow sinful Israelites to commune with the Father. (I say to you today, one is still needed, but I am getting ahead of myself.) As Habakkuk 1:13 states,

"Thou are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." 

This makes man's fall from the image of God all the more troublesome as it also means falling from God's presence.

Man's Fall from God's Image

Prior to the fall, when man was still fully in the image of God, Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, where God walked with them. Here, the Lord talked with Adam and Eve and told them they may eat of every tree of the field, except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 

We all know what happens next. The Serpent comes, and Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit. With sin now in man's nature, he has distorted the initial image of God. He no longer can claim perfection. In fact, no man would ever be able to again. Romans 5:12 explains, 

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"

We are now all corrupt vessels. We now all, as Romans 3:23 proclaims, "Fall short of the glory of God."

But the impact as mentioned above is greater than that. Eating of the fruit makes them unholy, and God's holiness prevents him from fellowshipping with anything unholy. This sin could forever separate Adam from God's presence. But the Lord is merciful. He provided a way for Adam and his descendants to atone for their sin by continually sacrificing perfect lambs without blemish.

The atonement was always temporary though until a different Lamb took the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Jesus' Gift Allows Restoration of the Image

The image of God in shambles! But have no fear, the Lord will establish a permanent way of restoring fellowship with his creation. 

It all happened when the Lord supernaturally was born on this earth to a virgin. There was nothing special about this girl, except that which was in her was of the Holy Ghost. A man, who was "Tempted like as we are, yet without sin." This man was Jesus Christ. 

Jesus was God, and thus had the entire image of God. He was without blemish and was prepared to be the perfect sacrifice for the world. And he did sacrifice; He died on the cross and took away the sins of the world. As I Peter 2:24 tells us, 

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed."

This action is enough to restore the image of God to man, but it doesn't just go to everyone. The lambs of the Old Testament had to be brought in by the person who wished to atone for his sin. It couldn't atone for his neighbour's sin, or his family's sin, but for his alone.

While Jesus' death is sufficient to take away all the sin of the world, one must accept it as payment. One must ask for this sacrifice be applied to their sin and for them to be forgiven. Then the image of God is restored, and we can fellowship with God eternally. As Romans 8:29 states,

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." 

Continue to Doctrines Addendum