40 years and 40 days

I was reading in Luke chapter 4 the other day about Jesus fasting and being tempted in the wilderness for 40 days.

At the first temptation by the Devil of Jesus, Jesus quotes Deut. 8, “Man shall not live by bread alone”. The casual reader of the Bible might miss what the Jewish reader of the day must have seen very clearly. Jesus was referencing the 40 year wandering of the Jewish people in the wilderness. The fuller quotation goes like this…

“…you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these 40 years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

And He humbled you, and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.”

Let’s look at some similarities between what Jesus was doing and what the Israelites had done.

- Jesus was baptized prior to the 40 days in the wilderness.

- Israel was baptized prior to the 40 years wandering in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:2)

- Jesus ate nothing during his 40 day fast (God sustained him).

- Israel ate nothing during their 40 year fast except for the manna which God provided.

- Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit (which he received at his baptism) and was led in the Spirit into the wilderness

- Israel was led into the wilderness by God after Israel was baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea (1 Cor. 10).

The 40 years wandering by Israel in the wilderness was a punishment by God for believing the bad report of the spies they sent into the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy we find that its purpose was not strictly punishment but was also to humble them and test them to see whether they would keep his commandments and to teach them that their priority was not to serve their physical appetites (with bread) but to live by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

So what does this say about Jesus’ purpose in his 40 day fast and temptation?

Let me suggest that his 40 day fast was similar to his baptism…. It was to fulfill all righteousness. He wasn’t baptized because he needed his sins washed away and he didn’t endure the temptation to because it was possible for him to sin

His 40 day fasting and temptation by the devil was to demonstrate his humility, to demonstrate passing the test of temptation and to demonstrate that he didn’t live by bread alone but by following God. When Israel after 40 years humbled themselves and passed their test they could move on into the Promised Land.

The message for Christians today is that we also are undergoing testing and passing that test starts with humbling ourselves and living by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of our Lord. And if we do that we can join Jesus in our promised land.