“Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” (Matthew 4:7, NIV)
The devil was certain he had Jesus.
He had him “alone” in the wilderness and Jesus was hungry—very hungry. All the devil had to do was convince Jesus to trust him instead of God.
With the second of a series of three tests or temptations the devil asks Jesus to jump off the highest point of the temple because angels will catch him. He supports this by quoting Scripture. Specifically he quotes Psalm 91:11-12, which says, “He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” The devil “knows” Scripture and he’s using it with the Word incarnate. It’s really an amazing scene within the story of Jesus’ life.
So, the devil quotes Scripture to Jesus because he believes Scripture is authoritative for Jesus. In this he’s not wrong. He’s twisted and warped in his application of that truth, but he’s not wrong. Jesus trusts what Scripture says because he trusts God—he trusts his Father. He doesn’t think Psalm 91:11-12 is wrong, but he knows what the devil is doing, so he doesn’t jump off the temple and, instead, he confronts the devil’s twisted and warped application.
Do not put the Lord your God to the test.
One of the more interesting things about this story and the confrontation between the devil and Jesus is how Jesus rebuts the devil’s mishandling of Scripture. Jesus confronts the devil’s heretical proof-texting by giving him another text of Scripture. This one from Deuteronomy 6:16. And this one Jesus interprets and applies faithfully.
I love the fact that Jesus corrects an improper use of Scripture, not with an argument of outside authority, but with Scripture itself. Jesus is happy to allow a correct handling of Scripture correct a mishandling.
And so should we.
God has mediated his authority through the Scriptures and he’s given the Scriptures to his people to know him, trust him, love him, and to learn what it means to be a friend of God in his kingdom in the midst of the world. We ought not be ashamed of Scripture and the weight it has. The world would love nothing more than to take the foundation Scripture supplies and replace it with anything else so that we have something less solid to stand on. And it will try to do that in the same way the devil tried with Jesus. It will try to turn Scripture against itself and then to hand Christians the mess and say, “See? What do you say now?”
What do we say now?
We say, “It is also written.”