God’s Word Wins The Day
Genesis 3, Matthew 4
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Matthew 4:4, 6, 7 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… In the Old Testament reading for today, we hear the history of the fall into sin of our original parents, Adam and Eve. The Old Testament lesson, in which we see our first parent’s failure to resist the deceptions and temptations of the devil, differs very much from today’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew; for there we see our Lord Jesus being tempted by the devil, and, in a result quite the opposite of Adam and Eve’s result, thoroughly defeating him. Our first parents could have chosen to resist the temptations of that serpent of old, the devil. But they chose, instead, to sin; and God knew they would. And because they did, every single person born since then has a sinful nature which has been inherited from them.
And that sinful nature, that total corruption, leaves us with no other choice but to sin. Like Adam and Eve after the fall, in spiritual matters we are completely unable to choose to obey God’s Law, except through the working of God’s grace and the Holy Spirit in us. Because of the fall of our first parents, our will has been totally corrupted so that we always choose to sin.
The only free will we have left is the free will to choose in matters pertaining to civil righteousness, and to do things subject to reason. We can choose what clothes we wear; we can choose whether we go to work or not; we can choose what to eat or drink; we can choose where we go and when we go there, and the like. And when the devil comes to tempt us, left to our own devices and apart from the help and assistance of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God, we fail to resist the temptation, and we fall into sin, every single time.
But dear fellow redeemed, the Word of God is our help. God’s Word points us to our Mighty Fortress; to Yahweh God Himself. In Him and Him alone we find our ability to do His will. This is why the Word of God must always be on our lips and in our thoughts. The Word of God is the means by which we can resist the devil and his slings and arrows aimed at us to destroy us and lead us into great sin and shame. As Luther taught us to sing, “Though devils all the world should fill all eager to devour us,” – for we are a tasty treat to them – “we tremble not, we fear no ill” when we have the Word of God.
Our Lord Jesus gives us a perfect example of this in the Gospel reading for today. In all of the temptations aimed at Jesus by Satan, our Lord consistently rebukes Him and stands against him with nothing other than the Word of God. This is also what separates our Lord Jesus from Adam and Eve. They ignored the Word of God. They ignored His Law forbidding them to eat of the tree in the middle of the Garden. They decided that they knew better than God, and they chose to disobey Him. Because of that, we have inherited their sin to this day.
Thanks very much to our first parents we are constantly filled with an inner turmoil either to obey God’s Law or to follow the desires of our own heart. We struggle with sin because of our conscience is corrupted.
But this is not true of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He is without sin. This is why we teach what the writer to the Hebrews (4:15) wrote: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Our Lord Jesus did not have this inner struggle that we have. Yes, He was most certainly tempted, but His conscience was perfect. He never once thought about doing the wrong thing. He never once thought about not doing the will of His heavenly Father. His will was perfect. He took on our flesh, but He did not sin.
This is why, when confronted with the temptations of the devil, Jesus so easily defeated him, because His will is perfect. He sees the way out given by God, and that way out is through His holy Word. This is why there was no last temptation of Christ, because He did not have the inner turmoil that we have. His will was always set toward doing what His heavenly Father sent Him to do
Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, our Lord’s will was set to do what the heavenly Father desired Him to do: to go to the cross and suffer and die to atone for the sins of the whole world, so that we poor, miserable sinners, who daily fail to resist temptation, might have a means by which our sins can be forgiven, and a means by which His righteous obeying of the Law and will of God might be credited to us.
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When Jesus took our flesh upon Himself, He did not take upon Himself our sinful nature. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost, not through the actions of man or the will of man, just as St. John declares in the opening chapter of His Gospel. This is why our Lord’s encounter with the devil is different than our first parents’ encounter with the devil. Our first parents chose to ignore God’s Word; they chose their own will over God’s will.
Our Lord Jesus refuted the devil with the Word of God, and choose perfectly to continue to do the will of His heavenly Father. Our first parents lived in a Garden full of all the fruits of the earth. They could have eaten from any tree, and had their fill. But they chose to eat from the one tree of which they were forbidden to eat. They could have satisfied their hunger from any other tree, but they did not, and we bear the consequences of their sin to this day.
Our Lord Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights before the devil came to tempt Him. He was in the wilderness, the very opposite of a garden. There was no food for Him there. In both cases the devil came both to our first parents and our Lord Jesus and tempted them with food. Adam and Eve were tempted with a tree from which they were not supposed to eat. Our Lord Jesus was tempted with stones to make into bread. Our first parents were overcome by that tree. But our Lord Jesus overcame the devil and all His temptations through the Word of God. He stood perfectly against the devil through His perfect keeping of the will and Law of God. And then Jesus thoroughly defeated Satan and his horde on the tree of the holy cross.
This is why the devil cannot harm us anymore. “He’s judged. The deed is done. One little word” from the Word of God can fell him. It is the Name of our Lord Jesus that defeats the devil and all his demons, because He has conquered sin, death, and the devil on the tree of the holy cross. Our Lord Jesus defeated the temptations of the devil through the Word of God. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
We too have our life and salvation bound up in the Word of God. We have God’s promise that He will always provide for us a way out of temptation. St. Paul says as much in I Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Now, some people they think that this means they are going to receive some great warning from Jesus holding up a big sign saying, “Don’t go there.” But this is not the case. The means by which we resist the devil’s temptations is through the Word of God.
All of the means to refute the devil are found in the Word of God. Jesus showed us this today in today’s Gospel reading. In every temptation He drove back the devil with the Word of God: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God… It is written again, You shall not tempt Yahweh your God… It is written, ‘You shall worship Yahweh your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” We also have this weapon – “a trusty shield and weapon” – against the slings and arrows of the devil, the world, and our very own sinful flesh. We are to drive back our enemies with the Word of God.
The problem is that when the tempter comes, like our first parents we choose either to forget about the Word of God, we choose to change the Word of God to fit our own will like Eve did, or we choose to make excuses as to why we are going to continue to sin, regardless of what God’s Word says. In short, we just plain ignore our weapon and shield and we neglect its use, all to satisfy the desires of our sinful heart and stubborn will, just like Adam and Eve did.
Our sin exposes our nakedness. Our sinfulness uncovers us and reveals the corruption within us. It reveals that we are unable to save ourselves from our own corrupt will and desire. We struggle with sin in our conscience daily; it gnaws at us and eats at us. But this is why we need to look outside of ourselves for our salvation.
We need to look to the One Who bears our human flesh, but does not carry our sinfulness with Him. We need to cling in faith to our Lord Jesus; we need to trust in His works on our behalf. We need to cling in faith to His perfect keeping of the Law and will of God. We daily sin much. We daily struggle with sin. But Jesus does not struggle with sin, for His will is perfectly aligned to the will of the heavenly Father, and so He easily defeats the devil in his own territory, and gives that victory to us.
Our Lord Jesus came down from Heaven, because His creation – we humans – fell into sin through the sin of our first parents. On or own we are unable to resist the temptations of the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. But Christ is without sin, and He easily defeats our enemies. Then He even paid for our punishment with His very own life on the tree of the holy cross.
When we are faced with temptation, we have the Word of God has a sword and shield against the devil and his minions. But when we fail – because that is what we do – we have a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. He was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and bears our flesh, but He is without sin, so that His perfect sacrifice on our behalf is accepted by the heavenly Father as a payment for the sins of the whole world including those of us who believe. The rewards that He won by this sacrifice He freely gives to us. We have our life and salvation in Him and in Him alone. In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
