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I. The VISIBILITY of the tempter. The Evangelists seem to imply that the tempter presented himself before the eyes of Christ. It is objected to this view: —

1. That while good angels are permitted to address men under visible forms, evil angels are not recorded to have done so.

2. That Satan by undisguised appearance would have no prospect of success. But he addressed our first parents under a visible form. The second objection assumes that the visible form of Satan is necessarily unsightly.

II. SATAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST. Satan was not certain about Christ's Divine Sonship; hence he sought to find out if Christ could create or change substances.

III. The LIMITS of the temptation.

1. It has been said that Christ's temptation differs from ours in that His were only external, and ours internal also; that Christ had no susceptibility to temptation, but simply heard what Satan had to say without any inward excitement of desire. This takes from it its essence and removes it from us. We would not limit the temptation to an external trial.

2. We would not reduce it to the general idea of suffering, on account of contact with the tempter. We maintain that each temptation appealed to a desire in the heart of Christ, which His will restrained and refused to gratify.The true limits of the mystery: —

1. Christ was absolutely sinless.

2. Christ was conceived by the Holy Ghost, no taint of the Fall was permitted to intermingle with the foundation of His human life. There was a certain impossibility of His sinning; but this must not be so explained as to destroy the faculty of free will, which is a constituent element of human nature. We must not so interpret impossibility to sin as not to permit susceptibility of temptation to co-exist with it. Upon the exercise of free will in Christ depends His merits, the reality of His temptation, the force of His example.

IV. The REALITY of the temptation. If we subject temptation to analysis we find five ingredients.

(1)  Desire;

(2)  Law;

(3)  Opposition between desire and law;

(4)  Suggestion;

(5)  Free will.Desire may be simply natural, the movement of pure nature; or when some morbid quality has been imported into it, which gives it a wrong direction. The former was in Christ; but not the latter. There are two kinds of laws — positive and moral — the natural desires may be restrained by the former, the corrupt desires by the latter. The craving, whatever it be, must come into collision with the law. In the case of a pure creature the clash must be with a positive law; with a corrupt creature it will be also with the moral law. Now in Christ the desire of the body was in opposition to the Divine will; the pure desire of nature was contrary to what He knew to be the Father's will. In this sense His was inward and real temptation. Several truths must be taken into calculation in, comparing Christ's temptation with ours.

1. That the desires which are original and form part of our nature are, in the long run, the more intense.

2. The finer sensibilities of His uncorrupt nature.

(W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)

1. If every good Christian were satisfied at all times with temporal blessings we should appear to serve God for our profit.

2. God does net always give bread to him that is his son, that he may loathe this world and look for reward in heaven.

3. The good man shall fill his bosom with better fruits.

(Hacket.)

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KJV: And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

WEB: The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread."