Part 150

During these forty days, we may suppose, our LORD felt no hunger: converse with heaven, to him was instead of meat and drink; but “afterwards he was an hungered;” exceedingly so, no doubt. And now, the important fight begins. For, then “the tempter,” emphatically so called, because he first tempted our first parents to sin, and hath ever since been unwearied in tempting their descendants; then the tempter, who in an invisible manner had been attacking our blessed LORD all the whole forty days, when he saw him hungering, and in such distressing circumstances, came to him, as it should seem, in a visible shape, and probably transformed into the appearance of an angel of light. And what does he tempt him to? To nothing less, than to doubt of his being the Son of GOD. “If thou be the Son of GOD.” What! put an _if_ to this, Satan, after the glorious JESUS had been proved to be GOD’s son, and repeatedly too in such a glorious manner? Surely, thou thyself couldst not but see the heavens opened, and the Spirit descending; surely, thou didst hear the voice that came to him from heaven, immediately after his baptism, saying, “This is my beloved Son:” And dost thou now say unto him, “If thou be the Son of GOD.” Yes; but Satan knew, and believed he was full well; but he wanted to make our LORD to doubt of it. And why? Because he was in such a melancholy situation. As though he had said, “If GOD was thy father, he would never suffer thee to starve to death in a howling wilderness, among wild beasts. Surely, the voice thou lately didst hear, was only a delusion. If thou wast the Son of GOD, especially his beloved Son, in whom he was so pleased, thou wouldst be taken more care of by him.” Thus he attacked our first parents, by suggesting to them hard thoughts of their all-bountiful Creator: “Yea, hath GOD said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden?” “Hath he placed you amidst such a variety of delicious fruits, only to teaze and make you miserable?” And how artfully now does he labour to insinuate himself into our LORD’s affections, as he then did to ingratiate himself with our first parents. “If thou be the Son of GOD, says he, come, prove it, by commanding these stones (a heap of which, probably, lay very near) to be made bread: this will demonstrate thy divinity, and relieve thy pressing necessity at the same time.” Thus, as in all his other temptations, Satan would fain appear to be his very kind friend; but the holy JESUS saw through the disguised enmity of his antagonist; and scorning either to distrust his righteous Father on the one hand, or to work a miracle to please and gratify the devil on the other, although he had the Spirit of GOD without measure, and might have made use of a thousand other ways, yet answers him with a text of scripture: “It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of GOD.” This is a quotation from _Deuteronomy_ viii. 3, and contains a reason given by the great GOD, why he chose to feed the _Israelites_ with manna; that they might learn thereby, man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of GOD. This our blessed LORD here applies to himself; and his being in the wilderness, made the application of it still more pertinent. _Israel_ was GOD’s son: out of _Egypt_ was he called to sojourn in the wilderness, where he was miraculously supported. And therefore our LORD, knowing that he was typified by this _Israel_, and that, like them, he was now in a wilderness, quotes this scripture as a reason why he should not, at Satan’s suggestion, either despair of receiving help from his Father in his present circumstances, or distrust the validity of his late manifestations, or make use of any unwarrantable means for his present relief. For as GOD was his father, he would, therefore, either in an ordinary way spread a table for him in the wilderness, or support and sustain him, as he did his _Israel_ of old, in some extraordinary way or other without it: “For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of GOD.”