How Did Jesus Resist the Devil Firm in His Faith?

David W. Palmer

To receive a clearer picture of this, let’s look at Jesus’s example as he applied the principle of James 4:7 in his life:

(Matthew 4:1–5 ESV) Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (2) And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. (3) And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (4) But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Jesus stepped out of anonymity at his baptism. Then, after John the Baptist immersed him in the river Jordan, three very important things happened:

(Mark 1:9–12 NKJV) It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. (10) And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. (11) Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (12) Immediately the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness.

(1) Heaven was opened.

(2) The Spirit, like a dove, descended on him.

(3) He heard the audible voice of his Father: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

After these three, we see that the Holy Spirit “drove” Jesus into the wilderness. Matthew’s gospel says that the objective of this excursion was to be “tempted” (or tested) “by the devil” (Mat. 4:1 ESV). Yes, after Jesus received the Holy Spirit under an open heaven, and after he had heard Father’s affirming words that he is the Son of God; the Holy Spirit knew what would happen next … the immediate arrival and operations of the thief.

You see, in Mark 4, Jesus explained how these things work:

(Mark 4:14–15 EMTV) “The sower sows the word … Satan comes immediately and takes away the word which was sown in their hearts.”

Right on cue, immediately after Jesus received the living word from heaven, Satan came to try to steal it. The Holy Spirit knew this would happen, so he led Jesus directly into a winning position. But to be the winner, Jesus had to submit to the Holy Spirit’s leading.

Let’s review the word that Jesus received from the “sower," and investigate to see if that’s what Satan came to steal.

And behold, a voice came out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I have found delight” (Mat. 3:17 EMTV). And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mat. 4:3 ESV).

“This is my … Son.” “If you are the Son of God …” This is certainly the pattern revealed in both Genesis 3 and in what Jesus taught in Mark 4. God spoke, then Satan tried to derail human faith in what God said. The same will happen to us every time we hear something from God. (We will have more on this later.)

We also notice as we read both Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of Jesus’s wilderness warfare that the enemy’s attack came in three waves. They are in line with what the Holy Spirit said through the apostle John is “from the world”:

(1 John 2:16 EMTV) “Because everything that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

The lust of the flesh

The lust of the eyes

The pride of life

The devil tempted Jesus along these three lines. However, it was not the first time he used this strategy. At the beginning of the Bible, we see that the devil was successful with this approach; it worked on Adam and Eve. He used the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life to steal their fresh living word from God:

(Genesis 1:28 MKJB) And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth, and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heavens, and all animals that move upon the earth.”

(Genesis 2:16–17 NKJV) And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; (17) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

We see that God spoke to man on two occasions, before the thief came to steal it: “Have dominion over … all the animals.” “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat …” When the serpent came to steal the efficacy of these words, he came with three temptations in line with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—the same three he tried on Jesus:

(Genesis 3:1–6 MKJV) Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which Jehovah God had made. And he said to the woman, “Is it so that God has said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (2) And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden. (3) But of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” (4) And the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die, (5) for God knows that in the day you eat of it, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil.” (6) And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasing to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make wise, she took of its fruit, and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

(1) “The woman saw that the tree was good for food”—the lust of the flesh.

(2) “And that it was pleasing to the eyes”—the lust of the eyes.

(3) “A tree to be desired to make wise”—the pride of life.

Satan, embodied in the serpent, was successful on his first deceptive assault of temptation with this strategy; Eve fell for it. So naturally, he tried it again with Jesus.

(Matthew 4:3–11 DKJV) Then the tempter approached him and said, “If you are the Son of God, speak so that these stones become bread.” … (5) Then the devil took him into the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, (6) and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written (in Psalm 91:11), ‘He will give his angels orders about you’, and ‘in their hands they will lift you up, so that you do not [even] hit your foot on a stone.’” … ( Again, the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, (9) and said to him, “I will give you all these things, if you will fall down and worship me.”

The devil tested Jesus with three temptations. They were based on the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

When God first gave his living word to Adam and Eve, he “blessed them,” and said to them, “Have dominion over … all the animals.” Clearly, God had given them both the blessing and authority over the serpent. However, they didn’t use them to stop his temptation. Instead, Eve entered the temptation when she focused on that wrong fruit and what the devil said about it—meditating on it and intellectualising the devil’s deceptive enticement through compare and contrast. She fell right into Satan’s trap and took his bait—hook, line, and sinker.

Jesus, on the other hand, demonstrated the right way to deal with Satan and his temptations. In each assault, he used his God-given dominion and the blessing; he took dominion over the enemy by simply applying the God-given authority resident in God’s word under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He did this with the blessing by speaking them:

(Matthew 4:5–11 DKJV) But he answered and said, “It is written” … Jesus said to him, “But it is also written” … Then Jesus said to him, “Get away [from me], Satan! For it is written” … Then the devil left him, and, angels came and ministered to him.

Our Lord and Teacher set the pattern for us; he has shown us in this encounter how to overcome the enemy’s temptations. Simply take dominion over him by using the authority of God’s written word as empowered by the Holy Spirit. This is the power of the “blessing” mentioned in the first chapter of the Bible, and this is how God intends us to “subdue” and “have dominion.”

(Genesis 1:27–28 NKJV) So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (28) Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

In Christ, we have the same blessing, authority, and dominion that God originally gave to Adam and Eve. We can and should deal with Satan’s inevitable thieving attacks in the same way Jesus did—not the way Eve did. If we want to walk in all that God has provided for us, it is essential that we remember that the “thief” comes immediately whenever God sows his word into our hearts. Be ready for him; prepare to use your authoritative dominion and the power of the blessing today. He will flee from you.