Luke 4:3 And the devil said to him, If you be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. Though in form sensuous, it is in essence moral or spiritual. What constituted it a temptation-where lay its evil? Christ had to live His personal life(1) within the limits necessary to man, and(2) in perfect dependence upon God. Had He transgressed either of these conditions, He had ceased to be man's ideal Brother or God's ideal Son. His supernatural power existed not for Himself, but for us. The ideal Son could not act as if He had no Father. He conquered by faith, and His first victory was like His last. The taunts He had to bear on the cross — " He saved others, Himself He cannot save," &c. — were but a repetition of the earlier temptations; and then, as now, though the agony was deeper, and the darkness more dense, He triumphed by giving Himself into the hands of the Father. (A. M. Fairbairn, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.WEB: The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." |
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