Idea: The Perils of Intellectual Haste 

Intro: With a group from our church, I am leading us through a study of the gospel of Matthew. I have read Mattew’s gospel more than a few times. It is so familiar that it might be tempting to think (wrongly) that I’ve plumbed its depths. But this time, I am going through it much slower and much more deliberately. Why? Because familiarity can also breed presumption, not just contempt, as Chaucer observed in his poetic masterpiece.

Context: After Christ was baptized by John the Baptist in Matthew 3, the next chapter in Matthew’s gospel is the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil. And there are so many things going on here. For example, think of just some of the most obvious questions:

• But God cannot be tempted by evil, right? Isn’t that what James addresses early on in his letter? Here it is: “Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13, ESV). Is there a contradiction here? Is God guilty of schizophrenia? Does He not know his own book? 

• If God cannot be tempted by evil, and Jesus is God, what does Matthew mean by these words: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil”? (Matthew 4:1, ESV)

Principle: Intellectual hastiness is perilous. It’s crucial for us to have a sound Christology (the study of the person and work of Christ). Why? Because Jesus was and is 100% God. And Jesus was in his incarnation 100% man. In Christian theology, it is known as the hypostatic union—Jesus’ two natures in one person. Each nature retains its essence and attributes. In his humanity, Jesus got hungry, grew thirsty, grew tired, experienced disappointment, sorrowed, had friends, grieved over the death of his friend Lazarus, etc. In his divinity, he raised the dead, restored the lame, restored hearing to the deaf, restored sight, and overcame the grave. 

But if we are hasty in our reading, we can jump to all sorts of misguided conclusions. Matthew 4 describes that Jesus was “tempted by the devil” (4:1). It was not some inner sin temptation that Jesus experienced in the Judean wilderness. No, he was tempted by that which was external to him and opposed to him, the evil one (the devil), as a test. Would Jesus be obedient to execute the will of God faithfully? Or would he fail like the first Adam in the Garden failed?  

Why the test? Why was Jesus led into the wilderness by the Spirit of God in order to be tempted by the devil? To demonstrate—over and over again with 100% fidelity—that all of us sinners fall short when it comes to spiritual tests and temptations, but Christ did not. He succeeded. 

Christians “bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49) because Jesus, the last Adam, succeeded. He was faithful unto death, “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). 

One of the crucial reminders with which I encourage myself from the Scriptures comes from the pen of Paul when he wrote to his young friend Timothy, a man he was mentoring to shepherd well after Paul was to die. Paul wrote this of Christ as a reminder to Timothy: 

“If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:11-13, ESV). 

The hims there all refer to Christ. He took it all; he endured it all; he passed the tests from Satan and the powers of hell; he bore the cross and despised the shame; he was smitten; he bore the wrath; he was the substitute. The Christian’s boast is in Christ and in his accomplished work of faithful obedience. It’s the heart of the gospel, you see. 

Encouragement: When we get to passages where we can read quickly and think we’ve found a loophole, we should slow down, and be systematic, and ponder the reality that God is infinitely wise, and his Scriptures are true, and that if there is a flaw in our understanding, the fault is with us and not with God’s Word. Christ was tested and tempted, if you will, by the devil, to trust the serpent rather than the sovereign plan of God. But unlike the first Adam, Jesus (the last Adam) kept God’s word, kept the covenant of obedience, and even invites us sinners to come to him, the one from heaven, riding, as it were, a white horse, and he is called Faithful and True (Revelation 19:11). But we must slow down, read the Word, sit under its authority, and rejoice in knowing that Christ has overcome.