성경 주석서

Matthew 4:1-11 Christ fasts forty days, is tempted of the devil, and

ministered unto by angels.

Matthew 4:12-16 He dwelleth in Capernaum,

Matthew 4:17 begins to preach,

Matthew 4:18-20 calleth Peter and Andrew,

Matthew 4:21,22 James and John,

Matthew 4:23-25 teacheth in the synagogues, and healeth the diseased.

This is mentioned by two of the other evangelists, . Mark 1:12 Luke 4:1 Luke saith that, being full of the Holy Ghost, he returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit, & c. Mark saith, immediately the Spirit drove him. Great manifestations of Divine love are commonly followed with great temptations. Others observe, that temptations usually follow baptism, the beginnings of spiritual life, and covenants made with God. He

was led up: some think he was taken up; Mark useth the word ekballei, the Spirit thrust him out: we must not understand an act of compulsion, doubtless he went voluntarily.

Of the Spirit; the Holy Spirit, that lighted upon him as a dove.

Into the wilderness. Mark’s saying, Mark 1:13, that he was there with wild beasts, lets us know that it was not such a wilderness as John began to preach in, Matthew 3:1; but a howling wilderness full of wild beasts. The end is expressed in the last words,

to be tempted of the devil: thus his temptations are distinguished from Divine temptations, such as Abraham had, Genesis 22:1; and by tempted here is meant solicited, or moved to sin, in which sense God tempteth no man, Jam 1:13. The general notion of tempting is, making a trial; God makes a trial of his people for the proof and manifestation of their gracious habit. Satan, by moving to sin, makes a trial of corruption, which was the reason that, although Christ was tempted, that he might be able to succour those that are tempted, Hebrews 2:18, and that he might taste all those evils to which we are exposed, and might overcome the devil; yet when the Prince of this world came, he could effect nothing against him, because he found nothing in him to comply with his motions.

He was in the wilderness, a place of solitude, and so fitter for Satan’s purpose, and he was

an hungred, which was another advantage Satan had. But he was not an hungred till he had fasted forty days and forty nights. Here was the Divine power miraculously seen, in upholding the human nature of Christ without any thing to eat: this was a miracle. The like did Moses before the law, Elijah under the law. Christ doth the same in the beginning of the gospel; nor did he fast as the Jews were wont, of whom we sometimes read that they kept fasts several days; they only fasted in the day time, but ate their food at night; or sometimes only forbare pleasant bread, as Daniel did, Daniel 10:2,3, for three full weeks. But Christ fasted from all food, and that not only forty days, but forty nights also; from whence may easily be gathered, how idly, if not impiously, the papists found their fasting forty days in Lent. Here all Christ’s acts (most certainly his miraculous works) are not recorded for our imitation; some of them are only for our adoration; all his miraculous acts are so. There can be nothing more sottish than for us to think that because Christ (supported by the Divine nature) fasted forty days, therefore we are obliged to do it; and because we cannot fast forty days and forty nights, without eating something, therefore we may eat fish, though no flesh (when all know that to some palates there is no more delicate food than fish); or we are obliged to fast in the day time, though not at night. And because Christ once in his lifetime fasted forty days and forty nights, therefore we must do so every year; or that the church hath any power to enjoin any such thing. If papists think Christ’s fast of forty days and forty nights obliges them to imitation, let them keep them as he did, (with such a fasting I mean), and try whether they be able to do it, or whether four days or nights, instead of forty, will not convince them of their folly. Christ fasted forty days and forty nights, and thereby showed he was God man, the Divine nature supported the human; afterward he was hungry, to show that he was truly man, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin, Hebrews 4:15.

And when the tempter, viz. Satan, the devil, as he is called, came unto him, probably in some visible shape, he, forming an audible voice of the air, said,

If thou be the Son of God, ( not that he doubted it, which showed his horrible impudence),

command that these stones, (this stone, saith Luke, Luke 4:3) be made bread. The temptation plainly was to the use of means which God did not allow him, to relieve him in his distress of hunger, to distrust the providence of God in supporting of him. A temptation common to those who are the members of Christ, and enough to instruct us, that we ought to look upon all thoughts and motions to the use of means not allowed by God, in order to a lawful end, as temptations vel a carne, vel hoste, either from our own flesh, for every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed, Jam 1:14, or from our grand adversary the devil. It is not much material for us to know from which, they being both what we ought to resist, though those from Satan are usually more violent and impetuous.

So also Luke 4:4. There is no better answering the tempter than by opposing the precepts of holy writ to his motions to sin. The word is called the sword of the Spirit, Ephesians 6:17. The papists, therefore, denying people the use of the word, disarm them as to the spiritual combat.

It is written Deu 8:3. Though man ordinarily liveth by common bread, such food as men usually eat, yet God’s power is not restrained, he can uphold the life of man when that is wanting, as he supported the Israelites by manna (to which that text relates); nor is God obliged to create any extraordinary means, for his power, which is seen in creating such means, can produce the same effect without such means if it pleaseth him. His power must be seen in creating the means, and in upholding the proper power and faculty of the means, in order to their end; why cannot he by the same power produce the effect without any such means?

By the holy city is meant Jerusalem, once a holy city, Daniel 9:24; now, though a most impure and filthy city upon many accounts, yet, upon other accounts still a holy city, being the only city in the world which had then in it the true worship of the true God, and in which God doubtless, who in Ahab’s time had seven thousand in Israel, had many holy people. How the devil took Christ into the holy city is variously argued and judged; the words used in the Greek are such as would incline us to think he was not carried by force, but followed the tempter willingly, and set upon a place on the top of the temple, higher than the other parts of it. The end of his being set there the next verse tells us.

Before the devil had tempted our Lord to diffidence or distrust in God’s providence, and the use of means not allowed by God to supply himself; here he tempts him to an unwarrantable presumption, and confidence of and concerning the Divine protection. In the former temptation the devil used no Scripture, but having been repelled in that assault by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, Ephesians 6:17, he here takes up the same weapon. The thing to which the tempter solicits our Saviour, was the throwing himself down from a precipice, a temptation, in effect, to destroy himself; which is one of those fiery darts which he commonly throws at the people of God in their hours of melancholy, or under great pressures of affliction; but the usual argument which he useth to them, is deliverance from their terrors, the preventing of want, or avoiding shame. The argument he useth to our Lord is quite of another nature, the special protection of God promised to God’s people, Psalm 91:11,12. Herein he transforms himself into an angel of light, according to 2 Corinthians 11:14, and lets us know that truth may be abused to the patronage of lies; and that there is no hook more dangerous to the members of Christ, than that which is baited with Scripture misinterpreted and misapplied, which holy writ always is when it is so interpreted or so applied as to be made an argument to sin. This portion of holy writ is both:

1. Falsely cited; and,

2. As ill applied.

a) In the quotation the tempter leaves out those words, in all thy ways. This was none of our Savour’s ways, he had no call, no warrant from God to decline the stairs by which he might have gone down, and to throw himself down. God had never promised, nor ever given, any the protection of angels in sinful and forbidden ways.

b) He misapplies this text, using it not to instruct, but to deceive; dividing between man’s duty and God’s providence; making this word a promise to be fulfilled upon Christ’s neglect of his duty; extending the promise of special providence as to dangers into which men voluntarily throw themselves; putting God upon working miracles to declare Christ to be his Son, where there was no need, and of which there was no use, mocking our Saviour’s true use of Scripture, with Scripture abused, and many other ways: but he had to do with one not ignorant of his devices.

This is written Deu 6:16. To make an undue and unwarrantable trial of God, is to tempt God, whether the trial respecteth his power or his goodness; thus the word is used, Numbers 14:22 Psalm 78:18 Isaiah 7:12 Matthew 16:1. By this answer Christ lets the devil know that he abused Scripture in his quotation of it; such as casting of himself down, when he had a plain way to go down by the stairs, would not have been an act of faith, but presumption; not a trusting God upon his word, but a tempting of God, expressly contrary to his command, Deu 6:16.

See Poole on "Matthew 4:9".