“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” –Matthew 4:1 Original solitude Adam gave names to all the cattle and to every bird, to all the animals and to every living creature. But for Adam, there was no companion. It is not good for a man to be alone. Solitude is described as “not good.” God, ultimately wanting to solve the problem of solitude by uniting man with himself, creates an excellent solution for the solitude of man that reflects God’s eternal love: Marriage. But marriage was never meant to be the final solution to solve our loneliness. Instead, marriage foreshadows a greater relationship we will have someday with Christ. And marriage isn’t enough to fulfill the desires of humanity. Even as good as it is, and even though their marriage satisfied much of their loneliness, it wasn’t enough to completely satisfy their solitude, or, for that matter, all of their desires. Origen would subscribe (maybe?)… Ancient Christian answers for our culture’s most profound questions. Subscribe for a new article in your inbox semi-regularly. Why else would Satan tempt Eve, “If you eat of this fruit, you shall become like gods”? Every man is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desire and enticed. And when that wrong desire has conceived, it brings forth sin. And when sin has run its course, it brings death. Adam and Eve had it all backwards. What did the serpent say? “Eat this fruit, and you shall become like God!” A lie, of course. They could not do anything themselves to become any more like God. God had made them wonderfully complete in his image. No, they were not to become more like God by their own doing. Instead, God would become like them. And in becoming man, God would make man even more like God because when God becomes man, the nature of man is elevated. It was always God’s plan to become man. The incarnation, God becoming man, Jesus in the manger with a fleshly body, was never merely a result of the fall, some plan B. Marriage was the picture of something better to come, an ultimate end to our loneliness. That end where Christ, in the flesh, is standing before us, his bride, full of pleasure at the sight of us. The end, when we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. When the dwelling place of God is with man, when God shall be with us, and he shall be our God, the Lamb as was slain for us. But until then, we struggle with the same loneliness that Adam did. Single or married, we are all at times lonely in our own thoughts. Sometimes we are even lonely together. And our sin further exasperates this solitude. And we cry. We mourn. We struggle. We ask God, “Why?” Why is life so lonely? Life is lonely, so we might desire God. So that we might long for the union of our souls with his, as a bride longs for her wedding. Life is lonely because God made us to be with him, and when we are not, we are broken. We can only be whole when we are with God. As St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God!” In this way, our restlessness points us to seek an ultimate end to our loneliness: God himself. The temptation of Christ Look at Christ. The God-man who put on the veil of our flesh and stepped into our brokenness. Not only does he experience the everyday struggles we face, but he also meets us in our loneliness. Christ, the one who will ultimately fulfill our longing hearts, also becomes lonely for our sakes. Notice here, then, that when you are lonely, you do not sin. No, but because our Christ was lonely, we can have confidence that our loneliness does not affect our purity. In fact, it was the Spirit of God who drew Christ into the lonely wilderness: “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.” –Matthew 4:1-2 The Holy Spirit led Christ into loneliness. The Holy Spirit brought him into hunger. The Holy Spirit guided Christ to the place where Satan would tempt him. Christ, recently baptized, accepting the honor of the Father, “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,” is immediately brought by the Holy Spirit, the very dove who lighted upon him, into the desert to be hungry, alone, and tempted. And here is a crucial point for you to consider. The burdens, the temptations of Christ, the hunger, and the pain were not signs of the Father’s dissatisfaction with the Son, but of his approval. Therefore, we cannot assume that when we are hungry, broken, alone, and facing Satan, God is distant from us. Rather, it is in those moments when God is often nearest, when he is stoking our desire to be near him as well. To long for him, to desire him, to seek him with all our being that he may be found and that we may evermore be pleased with him above any happiness we have ever felt or longed for. Longing for us to draw near him in faith and love. To say with the woman looking for her beloved when she finally found him, “I held him and would not let go. My beloved is mine, and I am his.” –Song of Solomon 2:16; 3:4 Like the psalmist who cries out to God, “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God?” –Psalm 42:1–2 The temptation of Christ, like all true temptation, is all about one thing: love. You will desire what you love. You may love many things, but that which you love the most will overrule all lesser desires. So that when we sin and confess our sins, we are confessing primarily that we have not loved God in the way we ought. What does King David say in his wonderful Psalm of confession? “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.” –Psalm 51:3–4 But this is a prayer that Christ will never pray, because the love Christ has for his Father is perfect. The love that Christ has for you, his neighbor, is perfect. See how Christ responds to temptation. Observe his love. His ultimate desire is revealed in his loneliness, revealed in the absence of the object of his desire, all while Satan tempts Jesus the first time, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” –Matthew 4:3 By bread alone? No. As in the Garden of Eden, when Satan tempted Eve with the fruit, Satan began with one of our most basic bodily desires: hunger. Adam and Eve, who had had their fill of the Edenic harvest, were tempted with a fruit. Christ, who had fasted for forty days and nights, now hungered, and Satan tempted him with bread. Yet, unknown to Satan, Christ, though he had fasted for forty days from earthly food, had feasted for forty days on the banquet of heaven. He had dined on angelic food. Yes, the love of God is the bread that angels eat. And though he hungered in the body, he responded, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” –Matthew 4:4 Like Job, Christ cried, “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food!” –Job 23:12 But our culture tests us too. And we often allow our fleshly lusts, our bodily desires, to obscure the love we have for God. We choose the measly bread of this world over the face of God. Our culture tries to fulfill our bodily desires in many ways. One bite too many at the restaurant. One lustful look in the middle of the night. Another puff. Another drink. Another toy. A bigger house. A better retirement. Many of these desires are not wrong. Indeed, God gave us bodies with legitimate desires. But how often we twist our bodily desires and elevate them above God’s ordered plan! Look to Christ! Look to him who sacrificed it all. Who counted his bodily desires as nothing in the face of God’s pleasure. He, who through his deepest of loves for God, was given the first of the resurrected bodies—that body which will never suffer with death or pain, which is utterly satisfied with God himself. Do you hear his desire for the word of God? A loaf of bread may fill our hunger for an hour, but the Word of God fills our souls forever. A glass of water may quench our thirst for an hour, but if you drink of the living water, you will never thirst again. Apart from God, bread or any other fleshly fulfillment will never satisfy. God has put eternity in our hearts. Our appetite is ever-hungry, and only an infinite God can fill the bottomless pit of our hearts. All our other desires point to God, who is the only one who can bring any ultimate fulfillment. He is our heavenly bread. He is our living water. Taking advantage of God Satan comes to Christ a second time. He transports Christ to the pinnacle of the temple, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels to bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.” –Matthew 4:6 Ah, Jesus, if you are the Son of God, prove it to your people. Show them God will protect you. Show them your command over the angels. Bring yourself fame and recognition! Isn’t that what you want, glory? “It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.” –Matthew 4:7 If Jesus cast himself off the temple, he would be taking advantage of God’s power, or tempting God with his own premature death so that God would be obliged to save him. But if we truly love someone, we don’t reduce them to a tool to use in a scheme to make ourselves great. No, if we love someone, we sacrifice ourselves for their good. And yet, again, that is precisely what the world and our flesh would tempt us to do. To use people for our own fame. Or even worse, to use God for our own comfort, for our own glory. Politicians invoke the name of God to further their careers. False teachers fleece the flock of all
