Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. How shall we live? Multitudes of people are asking that question to-day with peculiar earnestness. The text offers an answer. It strikes out, in a sentence, a theory of living. The two theories of living are here squarely confronted. Satan, as the prince of this world, announces his, and tries to win Christ's assent to it. "Man lives by bread and by bread alone." Christ replies, "Man lives not by bread, but by God." Man lives by God's gifts only, as God is behind them: man's real support is not in the gifts but in the Giver. I. WHAT IS COVERED BY THIS WORD "BREAD"? It covers the whole visible economy of life. For what are the mass of men spending their energies? For food and raiment and position — for the abundance and superfluity of these things. Now I am not blind to men's natural and pardonable anxiety about such things. Food and raiment are parts of God's own economy of life in this world; and Christ Himself saith, "Your Heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things." But I am speaking of the false position in which men put these things — of their tendency to separate them from God, and to seek to live by them alone. The gifts are to be sought through the Giver. Men often seek food and raiment without reference to God, and often in ways forbidden by God; whereas Christ says, "Seek God first." II. If our Lord had yielded to the temptation, HE WOULD HAVE COMMITTED HIMSELF TO THE BREAD-THEORY AS THE LAW OF HIS KINGDOM, NO LESS THAN OF HIS OWN LIFE. He would have said, by changing the stones into bread, "As I cannot live without bread, so My kingdom cannot thrive so long as men's worldly needs are unsupplied. My administration must be a turning of stones into bread. It must make men happy by at once miraculously removing all want and suffering from the world, and inaugurating an era of worldly prosperity." We know that this has not been Christ's policy. Social prosperity is based on righteousness. Here, then — III. We have CHRIST'S THEORY OF LIFE, INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL. Man lives by God's gifts, but not by the gifts only. By bread, but not by bread alone. Bread is nothing without God. Bread points away from itself to God. Bread has a part in the Divine economy of society; but it comes in with the Kingdom of God, under its laws, and not as its substitute. The man who lives by bread alone has nothing when bread is gone. The practical working of the two theories is written down in lines which he who runs may read. What is my theory of life? Is it Christ, or Satan? Is it bread alone, or bread with God? (M. R. Vincent, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. |
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