WEAPONS OF A MASTERFUL MAN

WEAPONS OF A MASTERFUL MAN

Turning to THE REJECTION OF THE ENEMY attempt, notice first, the WEAPON which the Master used. His first words reveal it. “It is written." These words He addressed to Satan in answer to the suggestion. He was not, however, by any means entering into an argument with the devil. There is nothing of the nature of argument through the whole process. It is rather that Jesus defined, in the hearing of the enemy, His own position. By the very first words He declared His submission to law. As against the enemy's sug­gestion that He should use the privileges of Sonship, He declared the binding nature of its responsibilities. "It is written," is a declaration of the fact that He stood within the circle of the will of God, and what that will permitted, He willed to do; and what that will made no provision for, He willed to do without.

That which was written was part of the law of God as given to Moses, and recognizing the Divinity of this law, He at once revealed that He lived by words proceeding out of the mouth of God. Thus the opening words reveal THE WEAPON OF HIS DEFENSE, and DEFINE THE POSITION OF HIS SAFETY.

His citation of the Mosaic Law serves to refute the argu­ment made use of by the enemy. That argument had been suggested by the words, “If Thou be the Son of God." Let it be particularly noted that in the first word of the quotation Christ made answer to the false suggestion of that argument. That first word was the word "man," "man shall not live by bread alone." The devil said, "If Thou be the Son of God." Jesus said, "man." Thus to put the emphasis on the first word is to discover the phi­losophy of Christ's answer to this particular temptation, a declaration of position rather than an argument, and yet in the declaration a great argument is involved. It is as though Jesus had said to the enemy, I am here as Man, and as Man I meet thy temptation. That temptation had been to over-emphasize the privileges of a Son, and to minimize the responsibilities of humanity. Christ's answer restored the true balance, and with magnificent courage inferentially declared that His presence in the wilderness was a challenge to the devil on the part of a representative Man. In all probability in the temptation of the devil (devil being tempted by Christ to do right and the devil failed miserably) there had also been a recognition of the larger thought of the Divine pro­nouncement, namely, a recognition of the Deity of Christ as indicated in the title "Son of God," and therefore the craft of the attack was even yet more marked, in that he may have suggested that the weakness of humanity should be strengthened by the exercise of Deity. If that was in­deed so, then all the more forceful and remarkable was Christ's answer. He declined to use the prerogatives or powers of Deity in any other way than was possible to every other man. He did not face temptation nor overcome it in the realm of His Deity, but in the magnificence of His pure, strong Manhood, Manhood tested for thirty years in ordinary private life, and for forty days in the loneliness of the wilderness. "Man" is the first word and the forceful word. Jesus has been in the wilderness as man's represent­ative, and that He declared when, repulsing the attack of the enemy, He did so by defining thus clearly HIS POSITION.

And yet consider still more closely. "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." (Matt 4:4) Weak from the hunger follow­ing upon forty days of fasting, the devil suggested that He should strengthen Himself with bread. His reply, "It is written," is a revelation of the true sources of strength. The strength of manhood does not lie in the assertion of rights, but in submission to the will of God. Mark well how that answer of the perfect One drags into light the false philosophy which the fallen race has uni­versally accepted, The most applauded position that man takes is that in which he declares, I prove my manhood by the assertion of my rights; but this perfect Man declares that the strength of manhood lies in the absolute abandon­ment of His will to the will of God, that being the only right He possesses.

In the last analysis the argument of the devil had been a presupposition that all man needed for his sustenance was food for his physical life. That unwarrantable assumption Christ answered by declaring that no man's whole life can be fed by bread that perishes. He needs more, that his spirit shall be fed, and its strength sustained by feeding upon the word proceeding from the mouth of God, and its safety ensured by abiding within the will of God.

This answer was given out of the midst of hunger, and consequently the force of the argument is increased by the attitude, that attitude plainly declaring not only that man cannot live by bread alone, but that the life sustained by bread is not of first importance. If there must be a choice between the sustenance of the spiritual and the feeding of the physical, the latter must make room for the former.

Thus the citadel is held against the first attack,—and how magnificently! Reverently declaring the thought of Jesus by paraphrasing His actual words, it is as though He had said: I am hungry, but as that, lies within the will of God for Me, I choose the hunger in that will rather than to find any satisfaction outside it. What a glorious vindi­cation of the essential greatness of THE SPIRITUAL MAN! Even though hunger should be so long continued that the physical, that which is sustained by bread alone, should cease to exist, even then man, fed to all fullness by the Word of God, would live. In every man in this probationary life there coexist the physical and the spiritual, and in all the ordinary dealings of God, both of these will be fed where the whole man is abandoned to His will. Where, how­ever, for some purpose homed in His perfect love, the physical must suffer hunger, by the suffering of that hun­ger, because it is the will of God, the spiritual is strength­ened and sustained. In that philosophy of life the perfect Man Jesus won His victory in the wilderness, continued through three years, and at last emphasized and vindicated it by passing with kingly majesty to the death of the Cross. If, on the other hand, man seeks to satisfy his physical need by disregarding the Word of God, which is the food of the spiritual, then the spiritual destroyed, the physical, also, at last shall perish, and the whole man be lost. Jesus, living ever and only according to the Divine plan, at last laid down His life and took it again, and lives forever as the deathless One, at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Thus in the first temptation it is a startling revelation of THE PURPOSE AND THE METHOD OF SATAN, and of THE TRUE SOURCES OF MAN'S STRENGTH. As to the purpose and method of Satan, first his purpose is to lure man into some position outside the will of God. His method is that of appealing to something perfectly lawful in itself, but suggesting that it should be satisfied by an unlawful method. As to the sources of man's strength, the Lord's answer and attitude reveal that man is not merely a fed animal. He is essentially spirit, and spirit depends for its sustenance upon its true corre­spondence to God. This correspondence can only be se­cured by the knowledge of God, and submission to the will of God, as revealed in the Word of God. He abode in the will of God, with which He was familiar in the Word of God, and choosing the hunger that resulted from dwelling in that will, rather than the passing satisfaction obtainable at the cost of disobedience, He repulsed the foe. As Rep­resentative Man, He hurled back the attack which was directed towards the spoiling of the beauty and perfection of the life which had so often been tried in the thirty years and forty days preceding, and yet had always conquered.

Thus the first attack of the foe is seen as being directed against God's Man, and the first victory of Jesus is seen as been gained by Man, as He quietly remained within the sphere of Divine government. The Man of Nazareth, the second Man, the last Adam, stands erect at the close of the first attack, because He has resolutely refused to be enticed by any argument from His simple and unquestion­ing allegiance to His God. MAN WITH GOD IS EQUAL TO ALL STRAIN, AND SUPERIOR TO ALL TEMPTATION.