Matthew 4

The book of Matthew was written to a Jewish audience and because of that you will see many Old Testament prophecies, parallels, and references. Here in Matthew 4 we have two important parallels that will help us to see the significance of Jesus being tempted and staying obedient to the Father and overcoming temptation.

1.The parallel of Jesus and the Israelites - In verse 1 it says “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.” When you read the book of Exodus what you find is the Israelites being free from Egypt but instead of being grateful, they complain against Moses and ultimately against God. So, the Lord has them wandering off in the wilderness for forty years so the older generation would die off. Through the wandering in the wilderness God would provide for the Israelites food, but even then, they would still complain. That went to show that the Israelites regarded their belly more than a reverent honor and dependency upon God and His word. But Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights and even though he was hungry when Satan came to tempt Him, Jesus relied on the word of God and depended on Him instead of giving into His desires. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” He shows that ultimately neither food, materials, nor water will be able to sustain us forever, but God’s word will sustain us forever. The mere fact that Jesus the Son of God depended on the word should convict us in growing in our dependency of God’s word.

 2. The parallel of Jesus and Adam- Being that we are also in Genesis it will be of value to look at. Last week we saw in Genesis three how the serpent came to Adam and Eve and eventually tempted them to eat from the fruit of the tree. The serpent tempted them to disobey God and because of that it caused this world to spiral into sin and corruption. But when the serpent (Satan) comes to Jesus and tempts him to disobey God, Jesus stands his ground in the word and is able to overcome the temptation from the old crafty serpent. Jesus does not give into the temptation of the beautiful picture Satan paints for Him of what He can have if He disobeys like Adam and Eve did. Jesus knew that his full satisfaction was in the Lord and that his obedience to God in that moment would be the mark of the reversal of the curse that was given in Genesis 3. Both Adam and Jesus were perfect but Adam failed and Jesus didn’t. That is why Jesus is the greater Adam. He came to accomplish what Adam failed to do. Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you and the women, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” In Matthew 4 we already see that battle taking place. Praise God Jesus was obedient and overcame temptation and did not fail like Adam did. Jesus will continuously prove to be the better Adam, and instead of casting the blame on his wife like Adam did, Jesus will instead cover the sin of his bride with His own blood.