Monday, February 11, 2008

The Temptation of our Lord

It was a great joy this past Sunday to preach on Saint Matthew 4. Here we are ever reminded that the Lord, Jesus Christ, undertook temptation as the One who stands in our stead. When you consider the text do not focus so much HOW Jesus does what He does - uses the Word to defeat Satan (law perhaps) -- while that is textually present and theologically and homiletically important - consider more so WHAT He does (Gospel perhaps) - stands for us and defeats the Accuser for us. It is Scriptural to say that Jesus was tempted throughout His life on earth. I imagine one of the most severe must have been the temptation to "come down from the cross and we will believe in YOU!"
Thanks be to God that Jesus did not succumb to that temptation -

If Jesus Christ comes down from the cross we would have NOTHING to believe in -- faith is in Christ crucified.

1 comment:

Peter said...

Yes, it seems as if Jesus was being tempted to be a different kind of Christ than the one God wanted. That is the temptation of the Church: to make Jesus into a different kind of Christ, a Christ that we want rather than the Christ that we need. The Christ we need is the Christ who was crucified for our sins.