A better word than “IF”

“And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil” (Luke 4). The devil tempted him three times.  This is the third:

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    to guard you,’

and

“‘On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.’”

And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”  And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. (Luke 4:9-13)

I was reading the memoirs of the Rev. David Watson as he died from liver cancer, Fear No Evil. His final sermon was on Psalm 91, quoted by Satan above.  He took such comfort that the Lord was his shelter, his refuge, his deliverer from every evil.  He sunk into the arms of Christ as he died, finding rest in God’s promise.  He wanted to be healed.  He had a vibrant evangelistic arts ministry.  Yet, his dying led more people out of fear and into faith in God’s promise than ever imagined.  In Fear No Evil, he asserts: the Lord is your deliverer.  Psalm 91 is a balm to any suffering Christian.  It is a promise that blazes through the darkness of death with resurrection.

How could this same Psalm that comforted David Watson be used by Satan to tempt Jesus? Satan has stripped it of its promise.  It is no longer an assertion given by God who cannot lie.  It is an “if.”

“If you are the Son of God, prove it,” says Satan to Jesus in the wilderness.  Then he asked Jesus to hurt himself in order to test God’s love for him, promised in Psalm 91.  If you really are who you say you are then God will “command his angels concerning you, on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”  These comforting words are now cloaked in threat, in doubt of who Jesus is.  Violence has infected this promise.  It is no longer a promise; it is a conditional statement.  It’s up to Jesus to prove himself.  Jesus does not take the bait.

I have taken the bait ever since I can remember.  And if I haven’t, it’s been because of a supernatural intervention by the Spirit of God. I know and hate that “if.”  I hear it every time someone doesn’t “get” me.  Prove yourself, Kate.  It’s not coming from love and security; it can’t.  It’s coming from fear.  Of rejection, of abandonment, of failure.  You want respect?  Earn it.  You think you can do this or that?  Prove it.  It takes nothing to hear it.  Satan is right there, exploiting my doubt, fear, hurt. 

Note the violence in Satan’s demand. There’s a cashier at my grocery store who cuts himself. One of his scars is in the shape of a cross. I notice his black-painted fingernails as I check out my grapes and yogurt. Hurt yourself in order to feel alive in order to not feel that other, worse pain. Satan twists us up in knots.

Our medications betray us. Stressed out about proving yourself?  Didn’t get what you needed growing up? Now you feel empty, anxious, depressed? There’s a pill for that.  So you can keep going. So you can prove yourself. (I am not against medication, by the way. Hopefully it leads the way for inner healing, which only happens in community with help from outside ourselves.)

We are tempted by Satan’s “if” all the time. However, we live under the shadow of a bigger IF than his.  God’s “If” is worse than Satan’s.  “If you obey my commands, you will live,” says God through Moses.  “Choose this day whom you will serve,” Moses says in Deuteronomy 30: 15-20.   Why do you think Satan uses “if” so much?  It’s half true.  Half.  

Moses had just led the Israelites through the wilderness for 40 years.  Moses was now standing at the border of the promised land.  He would not be allowed to go in.  In his dying breath, he reminds the Israelites of God’s law.  IF you obey these things, you will live.  God will bless you.  If you do not, God will curse you.  The 40 hot, dry, restless years in the wilderness brought out the worst in the Israelites, in Moses at times too.  Stress revealed they were not holy; they were sinners.  God’s “IF” exposed their sin.  That’s what his first word of law - of “if” - does.  But that’s only God’s first word.  It’s all Satan knows.  Satan will condemn you for your failures.  God drives you to his grace. 

Jesus is driven by the Spirit of God into the wilderness, into our shrapnel of shattered thoughts, words and deeds under the shadow of God’s IF.  Satan is dying to get him to prove himself just one tiny bit.  My InterVarsity leaders used to teach that Jesus was doing his quiet time in Deuteronomy 6 and 8 thus he was able to resist temptation.  However, knowing Scripture is not enough.  Satan knows it too.  You must have the Spirit of God gripping your heart with the blood of Christ saying, “You are mine!  You are a child of the promise.”  No need to prove yourself to Jesus.  He knows you, and your sin, and loves you.

Luke commentator, Michael Wilcock, notes that Jesus puts himself under God’s law, under the “IF.”  He rebukes Satan’s first two temptations using the summary of the Law in Deuteronomy.  It’s more than just his quiet time. He is fulfilling the Law, God’s “if.” He is the only one who could do all that Moses warned about.  He alone can refute any accusation from the Law or from Satan.  Jesus took our place in the wilderness.

Jesus rebukes Satan’s third temptation of self-harm by saying, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”  Then Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16, where he references the time when both Moses and the Israelites failed the “if” test (Exodus 17:6-8).  They said God is not among us!  He led us out of Egypt to kill us!  We are dying of thirst in the wilderness.  We are alone.  God is against us.  They had forgotten God’s promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:-13): I will be with you.  I will be your shelter, your refuge, your deliverer from every evil.  They believed a lie.  I wonder who told it to them?  Satan wants you in that place of fear and doubt.  He only wants you to hear God’s first word and hide.  But God speaks a second word: the Gospel. Jesus is God’s Word made flesh—he seeks and saves those lost in the wilderness. 

Jesus asserts that God is among us.  He is Immanuel: God with us (Matthew 1:23).  He provides every breath you breathe, every day that dawns, every rain that waters the earth.  More than that, he has entered into your worst night—your 40 years of worst nights—and faced every IF in your place.  He was there when Moses and the Israelites freaked out.  He provided and forgave then.  He is here now—with you and me.  When God looks upon his children, he sees Jesus.  He sees the Bright Morning Star who shines in the dark.  Jesus stared Satan in the face and dismissed him.  There is a stronger, better word than, “IF.”  Jesus didn’t try to prove himself to Satan.  He knew who he was.  And He declares who you are too.  YOU ARE my child, a child of the promise, not of the IF. 

Paul describes God’s first word to us, the Law—the IF—as a guardian, a prison guard keeping us until Christ.  But when Jesus came, he released us with a word: “I forgive you.”  His word about us matters.  No one else’s.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he explains how sinners become sons and daughters of God in Christ. God binds their sin with his law.  Then he forgives us through Jesus.

“Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.  But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.  So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.   But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”  - Galatians 3:21-26

 God’s “IF” was given to expose our sin, to drive us to Jesus.  We do not need to be afraid when his law exposes our sin; the God who loves us, gives us godly grief in order to heal. He is showing us a more excellent way.  He begins and ends with: You Are Mine.  Forgiven.  Loved.  Chosen.  Delivered.  Safe.

When Jesus died on the cross his last words were, “It is finished.” He had taken God’s full judgement against sin upon himself in our place. The “If test” cannot condemn us anymore. We live in his forgiveness.

Satan will always begin and end with an if: prove yourself.  Jesus begins and ends with a promise: God is with you.  God has made you his own through me, my blood, my sacrifice.  You don’t prove yourself to me.  “If” cannot separate you from me because I fulfilled it and finished it.  I keep you safe because I love you.  I love you!  Satan knows nothing of the love between me and the Father, between me and you.  Jesus takes the promise of Psalm 91 and makes it real to you and me.

“When he calls to me, I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble;

I will rescue him and honor him.

With long life I will satisfy him

And show him my salvation.”  Psalm 91: 15, 16.

When you are facing death, and wilderness before and behind, he will bear you up on angels’ wings.  He promised.