<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">4:3 </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">And the tempter came and said to him- </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Matthew's record speaks of &quot;the tempter&quot;, and the suggestion has been made that this was a technical term used to refer to the Essene priest whose duty it was to test the claims to Messiahship made by people (5). This would confirm the suggestion that the Lord's temptations were at the hands of the Jews. The desert where He was would've been accessible from the Qumran settlement of the Essenes, and the preceding chapter 3 of Matthew has recorded how many of these people appear to have accepted baptism from John the Baptist in the very area where the temptations occurred. Perhaps &quot;the tempter&quot; priest stayed around and entered into dialogue with Jesus. In confirmation of the idea that the &quot;devil&quot; was some form of Jewish priestly figure, we note that Mt. 4:4 records that Jesus told him that &quot;It is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">written</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">...&quot;. To the illiterate, Jesus usually said that they would have </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">heard</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> something </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">said</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> in the Old Testament; but to the literate Jewish religious leadership, He prefaces His quotations or allusions by saying that &quot;It is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">written</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">&quot;. The fact He uses this phrase here would suggest He may have been talking to one of that class. The Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20&nbsp;has a surprising number of similarities to the Lord&rsquo;s life and death amongst the Jews, suggesting that they did indeed subject Him to tests of His Messiahship:</span></p>
<p>&ldquo;Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law an accuses us of playing false...he claims to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a son of the Lord. Before us he stands, a reproof to our way of thinking, the very sight of him weighs our spirits down; His way of life is not like other men&rsquo;s... in His opinion we are counterfeit... and boasts of having God as His father. let us see if what he says is true, let us observe what kind of end he himself will have. If the virtuous man is God&rsquo;s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies<i>. Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of His and put His endurance to the proof. Let us condemn him to a shameful death</i> since he will be looked after- we have his word for it&quot; (Susan Garrett lists several Greek words and phrases found in the Gospel of Mark which are identical to those in this section of the Wisdom of Solomon. It would seem that Mark was aware of this passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, and sought to show how throughout the Lord's ministry, and especially in His death, the Jews were seeking to apply it to Him in the way they treated Him. See Susan Garrett, <i>The Temptations Of Jesus In Mark's Gospel</i> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 68.).</p>
<p>Every other use of the word &quot;tempter&quot; in Matthew is about the temptation / testing of Jesus by the Jewish leadership (Mt. 16:1; 19:3; 22:18,35); and that very group are presented as the 'satan' or adversary to the Lord Jesus and His work. There is nothing sinful of itself about putting someone to the test. The same word is used about Jesus putting the disciples to the test (Jn. 6:6); Paul tested / put to the test [s.w., A.V. &quot;assayed&quot;] the idea of preaching in Bithynia (Acts 16:7); we are to put ourselves to the test (2 Cor. 13:5); God put Abraham to the test (Heb. 11:17), false apostles were to be put to the test by the faithful (Rev. 2:2). It ought to be clear that there is nothing sinister nor sinful about the idea of being 'put to the test' nor of putting another to the test.&nbsp;</p>
<p>If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread - It's perhaps noteworthy that in the wilderness temptation, the Lord responds to the &quot;If you are the Son of&nbsp;<i>God</i>...&quot; by quoting Dt. 8:3 &quot;<i>man</i>&nbsp;shall not live by bread alone&quot;- and the Jonathan Targum has&nbsp;<i>bar nasha</i>&nbsp;[son of man] here for &quot;man&quot;. If we are correct in understanding those wilderness temptations as the Lord's internal struggles, we see Him tempted to wrongly focus upon His being Son of<i> God</i>, forgetting His humanity; and we see Him overcoming this temptation, preferring instead to perceive Himself as Son of&nbsp;<i>man</i>. The&nbsp;<i>if... then</i>&nbsp;structure here (a 'first class conditional') effectively means 'Because...' (See Craig A. Evans,&nbsp;<i>Matthew</i>&nbsp;(Cambridge: C.U.P., 2012) p. 83). In this case, we are clearly being given an insight into the internal thinking of the Lord Jesus. 'Because You are Son of God, why not...'. A truly human Jesus would inevitably have had such thoughts, and the record here makes that clear. Seeing that Mary appears to have become somewhat influenced by the surrounding view of Jesus as her illegitimate son, it's likely the Lord too had moments when He wondered whether this could all be true- whether He really was God's Son.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Command that these stones become bread<span style="font-size: 12pt;">- This would not in itself have been a sin if He had agreed to it. But it would have been choosing a lower level, by breaking His fast. But the next temptations were to actually sin. If He had agreed to the first suggestion, obedience to the next ones would have been harder. It could even be argued that to put the Lord to the test was permissible on a lower level- for passages like Ps. 34:8 and Mal. 3:10 almost encourage it for those with a weak faith. Gideon likewise put the Lord to the test and was answered. But the Lord chose the higher level: and He knew Scripture which could support it. But the fact He chose the highest level first of all, meant that He was better able to take the higher level again, and to finally overcome the third temptation, which was definitely a clear choice between right and wrong. More than this, anything other than a desire to make the highest maximum commitment can lead to failure. &ldquo;The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left&rdquo; (Ecc. 10:2 NIV) has been understood as referring not so much to right and wrong, good and evil, as to the highest good and lesser good (cp. how the left hand can stand for simply lesser blessing rather than outright evil, e.g. Gen. 48:13-20). The fool inclines to lower commitment. The wise will always incline to the maximum, wholehearted level.</span></p>