<p>4:3 <i>And the Devil said to him: If you are the Son of God, command these stones that they become bread</i>- The first temptation- to turn stones into bread- 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.</p><p>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;&nbsp;</p>