The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 137

rnise up children to Abraham. But he will not command stones to become bread for him- self; this, doubtless, the reason, that he will let faith, and patience, and bodily endurance, and the highest style of trust., have each its perfect work. Not to do so is to him, clearly and distinctly, sin. 3. When Satan now tempts Jesus through the appetite of the body, natural and innoceut as the appetite was, there was something yet more natural to him, viz. to wait-to wait with trust; to wait, with perfect trust and perfect filial love, the great Father's time. He well knew him who fed Elijah by the raven; who fed also ravens and sparrows at all times; and for hi.s feeding would ho wait. Had Jesus on this occasion fallen back on his power for the behoof of himself, he might as well have done so again, aud then again and again. No longer would he have been suffering Man for and amongst us suffering men I No longer patient Man amongst us impatient; pattern Man amongst us who so needed such a Pattern I No longer would he have been One learning sympathy by fellow-experience and the sharing of our lot and our weakness I No ; all the contrary; not a day but would have distanced him further from us, and increased most decisively our sense of isolation from his majestic self. We should have felt overpoweringly how absolute our inability to be "like him." Painfully a-hungered, then, as Jesus was, the temptation was power- less, rebounding as the arrow from the rock; his strong fortitude builded partly at least on this foundation, "Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God." (B) Notice in the answer of Christ to this, the first of the three temptations- I. ITs ABSOLUTE PROMPTNESS. II. THE SOURCE OB SECRET OF THIS DECISIVE PROMPTNESS. It was one simple and very imitable thing. It was the living, speaking Word of God tha.t was in Christ. He knew that Word by memory, and in all the faith and love of his heart. A.nd he knew it, not as a dead letter, but as a working, useful, trusty force, III. THE METHOD OF THE ANSWER. 1. By the barest statement, and that in quot.ation, of the fallacy that the question of bread was a supreme question in man's life, he scouts that fallacy at once off the ground. It becomes ludicrously dwarfed to its just proportions, and it takes not a moment to do it. "Man lives not by bread alone." 2. By one suggestion of the right direction in which to look, he lays bare the very basis of the truth in that matter. Not only so, a whole vista of truth and thought seems to stand revealed. The creative, paternal Word seems to be heard proclaiming itself in its manifold, myriad tones of thoughtful, providing, loving care. And tlie omens of its future utterances seem to be caught. Whatever we may think of our lives, and however little; however we may estimate, miscstimate, use, misuse, or fail to use them ; we live subject to " every word of God." The breathing of God is on our life. How will that Word some day reverberate in all our inner ear, and in all its new-born power to hear, which now finds in but our outer ear echoes often so hollow I Let us now open our most listening ear to it. Its burden is hope, promise, mercy, and eternal life,-B; Vers. 5-7.-The second ordool--temptation. It is very naturally and universally supposed. that the three temptations recorded. here, as making their assault on Jesus, are typical of those to which human nature is exposed. All are exposed to temptations that come through the body, wide as is their range of variety. And therefore, probably, it was that this kind is exampled. in the most generic instance and the simplest.--one of hunger. According to this very suppo~able theory, we must expect to find the second temptation ad.dressed to the nature of Jesus one that moves in a hi~hcr sphere, and not less generic in its type. It evidently is so. It speaks not to the need of a body, but to the ambition of life, and of a higher sort of life-that, in one word, of power. Inadequate as this word is as an exhaustive description, yet perhaps it contains the essence of the matter in hand. Thought, active thought, and the very sense of energy, beg some exhibition of themselves. And as their first wonder of exercise is over matter, so the,y postulate some typical instance her~f. No greater discipline, no severer chastisem~nt, occurs in this world to life than 1ta conlinednese within the conditions of matter in general, and of the body in particular. And what may be ea.lied the mind's ambit10n is never more proudly gratified than in some lead- ing instance of victory, or apparen victory, over the usual conditions of matter or of the human body itself. Notice, then- OIL iv.1-25.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 127