The next red letters are found in Jesus’ temptation that follows immediately after His baptism. The passage we’ll follow is Matthew 4:1-11. He was led by the Spirit in to the “wilderness” (from eremos, usually used to describe an uninhabited place or desert) to be “tempted” (peirazo, can be used in a good sense or a bad one, here literally, to be tested or tempted to sin) by the devil (verse 1).
Then verse 2 tells us Jesus fasted for forty days and nights, so He was hungry. There are several examples in scripture of other men fasting for the same amount of time (Moses three different times in Deuteronomy 9:9, 18, 25 and Elijah in 1 Kings 19:7-8 for example). These fasts were without both food and water, as Jesus’ fast here is assumed to be. There are some who claim today that a healthy person can go this long without food, but not without water. Yet, if we believe scripture, the references above in Deuteronomy describing Moses’ fasts specifically say he “neither ate food nor drank water”.
This passage then describes three different temptations or tests by the devil and Jesus’ responses. Since Jesus was hungry, the first temptation was food: “If You’re really the Son of God, command these stones to be made loaves of bread.” (Verse 3) I really believe this test involved more than just Jesus’ hunger. As with everything the devil does, there’s a deception, a hidden purpose or an evil intent.
What he was really saying was probably more like, “if You are the Son of God, use Your supernatural powers to satisfy Your personal, human needs, and do it at my command.” The devil is trying to reduce Jesus to the level of an ordinary man needing to satisfy his physical hunger. In other words, “let’s see if your human side is stronger than your spiritual.” But Jesus would have none of it; instead He rejected the temptation. His (red letter) response (in verse 4) was to quote Deuteronomy 8:3, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” And the principle is that man must have spiritual food (the Word of God) to really live, as Israel had learned in the desert as it’s described in this passage in Deuteronomy.
The second test is in verse 5 when the devil takes Jesus into Jerusalem and puts Him on the highest point of the temple and tells Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, He will give His angels charge over You and they will bear You up on their hands, lest you strike Your foot against a stone.” (Verse 6) Here, the devil is trying to be too cute by quoting scripture himself, but he misquotes Psalms 91:11-12 by omitting “to keep you in all your ways” at the end of verse 11.
Again, what’s he really saying? Prove You’re the Son of God by jumping off this place to demonstrate God’s protection over You. Now the devil is appealing to what he hopes is Jesus’ human pride. “Come on, do something really reckless, jump! I dare You! Let’s see if God will protect You! Do you really believe God will protect You? Come on, prove it!” This is what some might call the devil’s “leap of faith”. It is thought that the distance from the highest point of the temple to the valley below was about 700 feet.
This brings us to Jesus’ second response, a quote of Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God.” This is actually sort of humorous. The devil misquotes scripture (he knows scripture well enough to purposely misquote it) and then dares Jesus to (again) do something at his command, still trying to reduce Him to something less than the Son of God. But Jesus tells him point blank, “you can’t tempt Me, I’m the Lord your God.” In other words, “forget it, I don’t have to prove anything to you”.
The third temptation follows in verses 8-9. “Again, the devil took Him up on a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the magnificence of them. And he said to Him, I will give You all of these things, if You will prostrate Yourself before me and worship me.” Here, the devil is still trying to appeal to Jesus’ humanity by offering Him wealth, power and the approval of men – all to satisfy the lusts of the flesh. Here, “prostrate” (“fall down” in the KJV) is from pipto, commonly used to illustrate surrender, submission to authority or adoration (in this context all three would be appropriate).
And it’s important to point out here that as the usurper of man’s dominion, the “prince” of this world (John 12:31) and the “god” of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), the devil, was offering to use his power, influence, control of world systems and wickedness in the spirit realm to give Jesus all He could possibly desire. The only condition was to show His submission to the devil, rather than His obedience to the Father.
And Jesus’ response in verse 10 was to quote Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve.” Before the quote the verse says “Be gone, Satan! For it is written”. By now Jesus has had enough of the devils little game and decides to end it. And the devil evidently recognized the futility of it all and left Him, no doubt frustrated but not defeated - yet (verse 11).
Now we’ll leave Matthew’s gospel and go to John. In John 1:35-51 there are five men that through different circumstances recognize Jesus as the Son of God and become His disciples. There are two mentioned in verse 40. One is identified by name as Andrew. The other is not identified by name and reasonably thought to be John, the writer of this account, who never identifies himself. The third is Simon, Andrew’s brother (verse 42). The fourth is Philip (verse 43-44) and the fifth is Nathanael (verse 45).
There is an interesting exchange between Nathanael and Jesus in John 1:45-51. At first Nathanael had his doubts about Jesus, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (Verse 46) Knowing this, when Jesus saw him coming, He said, “Look, here is an Israelite, indeed, in whom there is no deceit! (Verse 47) Then Nathanael asked, “How can You know anything about me?” To which Jesus answered, “Even before Philip called to you, when you were still sitting under the fig tree, I saw you.” (Verse 48) This convinced Philip and he acknowledged that Jesus was the Son of God, the King of Israel. (Verse 49)
Then in verses 50-51 we see one of the first statements of Jesus foretelling future events. “Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe in Me? You shall see greater things than this. Surely, I’m telling you, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Nathanael would see greater things in the next several years of Jesus’ public ministry. But the key to understanding this statement is Jesus identifying Himself as the Son of Man. This is the term generally used to identify Him as the One Who will eventually redeem mankind, defeat Satan and restore man’s original dominion. This is a reference to the angelic involvement in these future events connected to His second coming (compare Matthew 13:41-43; 24:31; 25:31).
There is one more account I want to look at, the marriage feast in Cana described in John 2:1-11. Jesus and His disciples were invited to this celebration and His mother was also there (verse 1-2), leading us to believe this must have been something that involved either family or friends. In verse 3 when they ran out of wine, Jesus’ mother tells Him, “They have no more wine.” (An obvious problem that would cast a negative cloud over the festive spirit of a wedding banquet.)
This is His response, “Woman, what is that to you or Me? My time has not yet come (to act).” (Verse 4) The term “woman” (gune) shows no disrespect, but is generally a term of endearment (compare John 4:21). What follows is Jesus’ reluctance to get involved, yet shows His willingness to do what His mother wanted. This is obvious because in verse 5 she doesn’t hesitate to tell the servants “Do whatever He tells you to do.”
There were six water pots that could hold three “firkins” apiece (a firkin is equivalent to about nine gallons, or twenty-seven gallons per pot, 162 gallons total). And Jesus told them, “Fill the pots with water.” (Verse 7) And they filled them all to the brim. Then He told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the one presiding over the banquet.” (Verse 8). And when he tasted it, not knowing where it came from, he called to the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone else serves his best wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then he serves that which is no so good; but you have kept the good wine until now!”
My only point in this is that it is early in Jesus’ public ministry. He had not performed miracles or developed a reputation as One who could do the miraculous. Yet, on this occasion His mother did not hesitate to ask Him to perform a miracle in turning water to wine in the presence of family and friends - she both knew He could and He would.