By Peter Amsterdam
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When Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, God’s voice proclaimed that Jesus was His Son (Mark 1:9–11). At that time, Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit for His ministry of preaching the kingdom of God and fulfilling the task that His Father had given him—bringing salvation to humanity.
All three synoptic Gospels tell of a period of testing that Jesus experienced right after His baptism. The Gospel of Matthew tells the story this way:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him (Matthew 4:1–11).
The Holy Spirit, which descended and remained on Jesus at the time of His baptism (John 1:32), led Him into the wilderness for a time of testing. The wilderness was His pre-ministry testing ground, where the Devil tried to deflect Him from doing His Father’s will. Jesus’ fasting for forty days was reminiscent of the fasts of Moses and Elijah, which also lasted forty days (Exodus 34:28; 1 Kings 19:8). The tests Jesus faced were also similar to the tests that the nation of Israel experienced during its forty years in the desert, and Jesus responds to each temptation by quoting from Deuteronomy, linking his experience to Israel’s in the desert.
His first temptation was to turn stones into bread: “And the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’” In the original Greek, the phrase “if you are” can be understood to mean “since you are,” so Satan is most likely acknowledging that as the Son of God, Jesus has the ability to command the stones to become loaves of bread.
Why was this a test, and what would have been wrong with Jesus turning the stones into bread? This had to do with how Jesus would conduct His ministry, what kind of Messiah He would be, and how He would use His power and authority. Would He use His power to serve His personal needs, or would He use it according to His Father’s will and in submission to His Father? Would the One who was going to teach His disciples to trust God to give them their daily bread also trust His Father to do the same when He was famished? Would He trust that God would feed Him as He’d fed Israel for forty years in the wilderness?
At the end of Israel’s time in the wilderness, Moses said to those who were about to enter the Promised Land: “You shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not” (Deuteronomy 8:2–3)
God had cared for and supplied for Israel in the wilderness. Would Jesus, His Son, trust Him, or would He take matters into His own hands? The decision would shape His ministry and determine the kind of Messiah He would be.
Jesus’ response was to quote from Deuteronomy 8 that “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He would do what Israel had not done—He would trust God. He would conduct Himself according to God’s will and direction. He committed Himself to letting the Father reign in His life.
The next temptation, or test, in Matthew’s Gospel was the Devil’s challenge for Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, stating that if He did, God would protect Him. We’re not told how the Devil took Jesus to the temple, only that he did.
Jesus’ reaction to the first temptation was to quote Scripture, and this time the Devil quotes Psalm 91:11–12: “He will command his angels concerning you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”Why did the Devil bring Jesus to the temple, and why the challenge to throw Himself off it? He was challenging Jesus to put God’s protection to the test, to “force” God to do a miracle to protect Him, instead of simply trusting in God’s promises.
Jesus didn’t object to Satan’s use of Scripture, but He quoted another passage which showed that the Devil’s use of it was faulty. That passage is Deuteronomy 6:16, which says: “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.”
The event this verse refers to was when the people of Israel in the desert complained to Moses that there was no water to drink. Moses said, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” God told Moses that He would stand before him at the rock at Horeb, and He instructed Moses to strike the rock and water would come out of it. Moses“called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because … they tested the LORD by saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’ (Exodus 17:2–7).
Testing the Lord in the manner the Devil was suggesting would have been a lack of faith on Jesus’ part, just as it was a lack of faith on the part of Israel. Jesus trusted His Father; He had no need of a miraculous manifestation of God’s love and protection. He had the peace and assurance that His life was in the hands of His loving Father.
For the third test, “the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’” Luke expressed Satan’s temptation this way: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours” (Luke 4:6–7).
Once again Jesus responded with Scripture: “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Matthew 4:10).
This verse comes from Deuteronomy 6, which quotes Moses warning the Israelites against idolatry as they entered the Promised Land. Satan offered power, authority, and the glory of the world if Jesus would worship and serve him. By rejecting this offer, Jesus showed Himself faithful to His Father and His Father’s plan to redeem the world. He wasn’t interested in worldly power, but rather chose to walk the path God placed Him on to give Himself for the salvation of humanity. While the Devil offered Jesus this world and all its glory, by choosing His Father, He later was able to say: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18).
Matthew tells us: “Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him” (Matthew 4:11). Luke’s account ends with: “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). This period of testing was over, Jesus had proven Himself worthy and faithful to the Father, and angels were sent to minister to Him and attend to His needs.
The information about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness could have only come from Jesus Himself, as no one else was present. At some point during His ministry, He must have told His disciples of this encounter. The departure of the Devil doesn’t mean that Jesus was never tempted by the Devil again, but He withstood the tests and defeated Satan’s attempts to derail Him at the beginning of His ministry. Within the Gospels, there are other instances when Jesus referred to encounters with or temptations of Satan (Matthew 16:21–23).
Jesus remained ever faithful to His Father, even unto death on the cross, through which He defeated Satan once and for all and completed His mission to fulfill God’s plan of salvation. As His followers, we have been commissioned to continue His work of “seeking and saving the lost” and proclaiming His message to the world (Luke 19:10; Mark 16:15; John 20:21).
Originally published March 2015. Adapted and republished November 2025. Read by John Laurence.
