Scriptures That Shaped Their Author
Jesus' ministry is saturated with Scripture and Scriptural themes; we have only scratched the surface of the multitude of Old Testament passages that impacted the life and ministry of our Rabbi. We have not had time to discuss, for example, Isaiah 61:1-2, which Jesus quotes at the beginning of His ministry in Luke 4, or anything from Matthew 5, where Jesus reinterprets many of the laws of the Old Testament.
But our next three weeks will focus on a different set of Old Testament verses. As we consider Scriptures That Shaped Their Author, we will focus on the three passages that Jesus turned to in the midst of one of His greatest trials - the temptation by Satan in the wilderness. We highlight these verses because they are of special significance to our Rabbi; they are close enough to His heart and mind that it is to these texts that Jesus turns when in conflict with the evil one.
Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone
After His baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where he fasts for forty days and forty nights. At the end of this time, He is famished, and Satan comes to Him and says, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread." (Matthew 4:1-4).While Jesus performs many miracles throughout His ministry, this time He chooses to simply quote from Deuteronomy 8:3, stating, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
In each challenge of Satan, Jesus is tempted to use His divine power to spare Himself the difficulties of mortal life. This could lead Jesus to repeat this choice in later aspects of His life, especially at the cross. The temptation to be Messiah without suffering is perhaps the most dangerous and appealing temptation that Satan can offer Jesus. However, the challenge to turn stones to bread holds another, equally dangerous temptation for Christ (and ourselves). It is the temptation to honor and obey God based on what He will do now, instead of what He has done already.
We face this trial constantly in our modern lives. When we see or experience great suffering, we naturally ask and hope that God will miraculously alleviate that pain. This is very biblical. However, it can lead us into a dangerous situation where we are inclined to be angry with God, or even reject Him, when He does not do as we ask. We can quickly develop a "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" theology. But Jesus reminds us, through His use of this quote from Deuteronomy, that true faith resides in what God has already done for us.
In Deuteronomy 8:1-10, Moses reminds the people of God's provision for them during their forty years in the wilderness. In the same verse that Jesus quotes, Moses reminds the people, "[God] humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." When Jesus quotes this verse to Satan, He is not only pointing out the similarities between Himself and the people of Israel; He is also demonstrating the meaning of faith. Jesus does not need to see stones turn into bread, because through Scripture Jesus has already experienced the miracle of manna, the bread from heaven. Likewise, while we hope to see miraculous healings in our lifetime, through the pages of the Bible we have already experienced the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the light of that miracle, we no longer need new signs from God (though we certainly appreciate them when they come). The message is simple; if what God has already done (from the manna to the resurrection) is not sufficient to move us to place our trust in Him, then nothing that He could do today will ever convince us.
Extras
In this passage Jesus teaches us the proper way to read the Bible. Too often we try to cram the stories of the Bible into the larger narrative of our lives. This leads to dangerous theology - "Because Jesus cured the blind man, He will surely cure me," or "Because God punished the Egyptians, He will surely smite our enemies as well." We err when we believe that the extraordinary story of Scripture can be fit into our individual lives.
Instead, we are called to fit our lives into the larger narrative of God's story. This leads to theology like that of Jesus, where we do not need for a miracle to make bread, because we have already experienced the miracle of manna in our reading of Scripture. A proper reading of the Bible leads us to find ourselves in its pages. We were slaves in Egypt, but God saved us with a mighty hand. We were hungry, but God fed us from heaven. We were hungry, and God made a meal for us from five loaves and two fish. We were slaves to death, but God broke death's hold by resurrecting us with Jesus. When you read the Bible as Jesus does, it becomes more than a book of stories and laws; it is your personal history with the Maker of the Universe.