CHAPTER 3
THE VICTORY OF JESUS
For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him
from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
2 PETER 1:17
Now that we’ve learned from Adam and Eve’s mistakes, we can turn to the Lord Jesus and His experience in the wilderness to see how and why He was victorious over temptation. I reiterate the point that the two incidents are so strikingly similar, that we cannot help learning from them.
First, let us re-affirm the humanity of Jesus, in that not only is He fully God, but He is also fully man. The Bible speaks of His humanity in numerous places, but I will cite three verses of scripture that support this truth.
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. [Hebrews 2:9]
Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. [Hebrews 4:14-15]
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. [Philippians 2:5-8]
It is so very important for us to understand that Jesus was found to be a man. Although being the eternal God, He became a man so that He could redeem mankind by His own sacrifice. While His body was sinless, it was flesh like ours, and consequently, He was still subject to the natural things we all experience (hunger, sleep, temptation, etc.).
Similar to us, Jesus had to grow in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52). When Jesus was born, His physical mind did not know all things. He had to be taught how to walk, talk, eat, and so on. Furthermore, Jesus had to learn through revelation that He was the Son of God, and accept this truth by faith. Most people have failed to comprehend this truth—that Jesus the man, had to walk by faith in who He was—just as we have to walk by faith in the knowledge of who we are in Christ. I cannot stress this enough. Jesus had to walk by faith. We have been blinded from this truth because the majority of our visual perceptions of Jesus depict Him with a halo around His head, or some other supernatural effect that represents His divinity, but at the same time prevents us from truly identifying with His humanity.
Therein lies the problem—that although God, through Jesus, is able to identify and relate to our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:14-15) we have failed to completely identify ourselves with the humanity of Jesus—that He came to be our example in faith, love, life, and power. And I know many people may criticize this, thinking I’m trying to bring God down to our human level. Rather, I’m trying to bring light of what the word of God teaches—that He wants us to look higher and realize our place in Christ as it is written, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ (by grace you are saved) and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. [Ephesians 2:4-6]
Through an understanding of the humanity of Jesus, and how He had to walk by faith in who He was, we can apply His victory over temptation to our own lives.
And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up immediately out of the water, and lo, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him. And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Then Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward hungry.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning you. And in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.
Jesus said to him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.
Again, the devil took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to him, All these things I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me.
Then Jesus said to him, Get from here, Satan. For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. [Matthew 3:16-4:11]
Honor and Glory From the Father
After being baptized, Jesus came out of the water and received honor and glory from the Father when a voice came from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. The glory and honor Jesus had received was by knowing who He was—the Son of God—not because of His own revelation, but because God had said it. Let’s recall the verse from 2 Peter 1:17-18: For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount.
We compare this event to Creation and God’s word that said Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. Adam and Eve had received the same glory and honor from God when He blessed them and gave them dominion over everything in the earth. Let me repeat this: Jesus received glory and honor from the Father when He said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
We will see later on in this book that not only does God call us sons of God (John 1:12; 1 John 3:2) and that we are accepted (or highly favored) in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6; 2 Corinthians 5:9) but that we are to His praise, honor and glory (Romans 2:7, 10; Ephesians 1:12). According to Hebrews 2:7 and Psalm 8:5, we have been crowned with glory and honor.
I want to mention one point about us being pleasing to God. God said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The phrase in whom is vital because when we consider someone being pleasing to us, we always phrase it this way, “I am pleased with you—not pleased in you.” And while I’m certain that God was well pleased with Jesus, but this passage says that God was pleased in Him, which refers to whosoever is in Christ. That’s us, my brothers and sisters, which correlates perfectly with Romans 8:8-9 that says So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Additionally, this fits perfectly with Hebrews 11:6 that says, But without faith it is impossible to please him…
Therefore, we see that God’s pleasure with us is based entirely upon your position in Christ, whom you received by faith; and as long as you remain in faith, you will abide in Christ and will be well pleasing to God. The revelation of this one truth set me free from trying to perform for God in order to be pleasing to Him. My prayer is that it will set you free as well.
Satan’s First Attack
Then Jesus was led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward hungry.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
As you should see, the devil’s strategy hasn’t changed since the garden. The first words out of the devil’s mouth, having heard what the Father had said to Jesus, (This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased) the devil tried to get Jesus to doubt God’s word by attacking who God said Jesus was. The devil said, IF you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. While the serpent appealed to Eve’s desires for food first, and then attacked her identity, he attacked the identity of Jesus before appealing to His desire for food.
You know, we give the devil way too much credit for being so cunning. Granted, he is a master liar, but his strategy hasn’t changed one bit since the garden. Why? Because this strategy has worked on man so often and with such ease, that the devil hasn’t been forced to try anything different.
Because the devil is so subtle and so that you may not miss this point, by saying, “If you are the Son of God” he was casting doubt in God’s word concerning who Jesus was. The devil didn’t say, “Because you are the Son of God…” As with Eve, Jesus’ first response was with God’s word, quoting from Deuteronomy 8:3: It is written, (or God has said) Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
Here, Jesus went a step further than Eve by re-affirming that God’s word is sole and final authority in terms of both our needs and identity. However, Satan didn’t stop there.
Satan’s Second Attack
Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, If you are the Son of God, cast yourself down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning you. And in their hands they shall bear you up, lest at any time you dash your foot against a stone.
Jesus said to him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.
Again, the devil tried to cast doubt in the mind of Jesus concerning who He was (If you are the Son of God), but this time, the devil also attacked Him with pride. Similar to his strategy with Eve, the devil tried to use the word of God against Jesus by quoting (or rather mis-quoting) from Psalm 91:11-12: For he shall give his angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. The devil also added the phrase “at any time” giving place to the notion that God’s power was available to Jesus, even if He were outside of God’s will.
This point is so very important for you to understand. The devil will use the word of God against you—to bring condemnation, guilt, shame, hopelessness, pride, unbelief, and even (as in the case of Adam and Eve) attempt to lead you into sin. This is why I must say that the devil has inspired the doctrine that claims that we are still sinners after receiving the gift of righteousness that is given by God through Jesus Christ. I don’t care what your pastor says; I don’t care what some prominent evangelists or theologians say; I am concerned only by what God has said through His word. This reminds me of a very profound statement by the Lord Jesus: How can you believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only? [John 5:44]
Once again, the Lord responded with the sword of the Spirit—the word of God—by saying, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. While Eve remained silent after the second attack, the Lord Jesus continued wielding the sword. Also notice that Jesus did not correct the devil’s mis-statement of God’s word—rather, He used the word correctly to counter this perversion.
Satan’s Third Attack
Again, the devil took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to him, All these things I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me.
Then Jesus said to him, Get from here, Satan. For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.
Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him.
The results of the second attack on Jesus left the devil in somewhat of a dilemma. He couldn’t get Jesus to doubt who He was, to doubt God’s word and be trapped by the misuse of God’s word. Consequently, the devil was forced to take a chance that Jesus could be defeated by the lure of riches and power at the expense of forsaking His Father. He was wrong and Jesus slashed the sword once again, For it is written, You shall worship the Lord God, and him only shall you serve.
A key verse in this account is Then the devil left him, and behold angels came and ministered to him. The lesson learned here is this: that the devil will be persistent, but if you stand strongly on the word of God and are not moved from what God has said, and who God has said you are, the devil will eventually depart from you for a time.
In addition to the direct attacks on His identity by Satan, the devil used people to continue these attacks throughout the Lord’s ministry. As I said before, Jesus had to walk by faith in who He was in order to fulfill His calling.
Most Christians are familiar with Matthew 16 when the Lord had asked the disciples who people had said Jesus was. Peter stood and proclaimed, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. [Matthew 16:16]
Immediately after this revelation from God, the devil used Peter to attack the Lord’s identity and calling. Many Christians haven’t considered Peter’s rebuke of Jesus, Be it far from you, Lord. This shall not be unto you [Matthew 16:22] as an attempt by the devil to thwart the Lord’s faith. We must remember that Jesus could have easily succumbed to this temptation, as like us, He certainly didn’t want to die on the cross. However, by not dying on the cross, Jesus, while continuing to live on earth, would not have fulfilled His calling by God.
The Pharisees also constantly questioned who Jesus was, and questioned by what authority did He have in doing the things He did. These were all attempts by the devil to try to get Jesus to doubt who He was.
While Jesus was dying on the cross, the devil continued his attacks, trying to the very end to tempt Jesus into doing something outside the will of God. Onlookers railed Him saying, If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. [Matthew 27:40-42]
Satan’s Strategy
As you have seen through the temptations of Adam and Eve, and also with Jesus, the devil’s primary strategy consists of questioning God’s word, especially in regard to who you are in God’s eyes. I cannot stress this enough. Scripture tells us plainly of these truths, yet much of the body of Christ is continuing to believe the devil’s lies and refer to themselves as “sinners”, “worms”, etc. Look at the temptations again. The devil was trying to cast doubt as to who Jesus was. He said, “If you are the Son of God,” not “Because you are the Son of God.”
The devil’s strategy hasn’t changed, nor will it because his only weapons are deception and temptation. When you refer to yourself as nothing but “an old sinner saved by grace” you are surrendering the fight before it even begins. This is why I make such a bold claim that Satan is behind the predominant thinking of many Christians when they see themselves as sinners.
It’s funny, that before we received Christ, many of us would have never claimed to be a “sinner”. But now that we have been made righteous by the sacrifice of Jesus, we take this brand and wear it proudly. We have allowed the devil to blind us before Christ, and once our eyes have been opened, we allow him to blind us to the truth of what happened when we were born again. This may sound brutal, but I’ve never won any awards for subtlety. If you have been born again and still see and refer to yourself as a sinner, then you are blind and deceived. In the section of this book entitled “The True Mirror” I will confirm this truth.
Three Tools of Temptation
The devil uses three tools of temptation and deception against people. All three of these were used both in the garden with Eve and against the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. All these are used after the devil attempts to cast doubt in God’s word. The Bible supports this in the following verse of scripture: For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. [1 John 1:16] The devil’s strategy is to:
Entice you with desires of the flesh
Entice you with things that are pleasing to the eyes
Entice you by appealing to the pride of life
You can see that the following passage contains three temptations that, after doubting God’s word, led Adam and Eve into sin. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), and that it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes), and a tree to be desired to make one wise (the pride of life), she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat.
In the temptation of Jesus, the devil presented these things in a slightly different package, but nonetheless, they were present: Command that these stones be made bread (lust of the flesh). Cast yourself down… (pride of life) and showed him the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them… (lust of the eyes).
Now that you have an understanding of the importance of knowing who you are in Christ, let us explore what the Bible says concerning who we really are in Christ.
Chapter 3--The Victory of Jesus
