His defeat of Satan in the desert displayed the power of the sustaining presence of God’s Word in the midst of temptation.
Read: Matthew 4:1-11
The number 40 is used frequently in biblical narratives, especially in the Old Testament. In Genesis 7, the rains fall on the earth for 40 days and nights while Noah and his family wait within the ark. In the book of Jonah, the prophet, fresh from his own deliverance from the belly of the great fish, delivers his message to the Ninevites, declaring that the city will be overthrown in 40 days. Both Moses (Exodus 24:18) and Elijah (I Kings 19:8) fasted 40 days in preparation for a particular mission from the Lord. Perhaps most notably, the Israelites wander in the wilderness outside the promised land for 40 years for their various demonstrations of disobedience.
It is this last use of the number 40 on which we should focus in particular, as it is clear that Jesus is directly responding to it, when, after His baptism, He goes to the wilderness in Judea to fast for 40 days.
The practice of fasting was extremely common in the ancient world, and is still commonplace today as a means of preparation, cleansing, focusing, and penitential prayer. But this is an act practiced by believers who recognize their own sinful nature and their need of mercy and grace. Jesus, however, being sinless, would have no need of penitence. Why then, does He fast?
The Coming Temptation
It seems clear that Jesus is fasting in preparation for His temptation, and through His fasting, He is completing a work which will define the rest of His earthly life and ministry: one wholly in submission to the will of the Father while fully in command of the divinity He owned from eternity past.
There are several parallels to be noticed between the 40 days Jesus spends in the wilderness and the wandering of the Israelites some 1500 years prior to His birth. When the Israelites had no food, God, through Moses, miraculously provided manna for them to eat. But the people still complained, some who directly disobeyed God’s command and demonstrated their lack of faith that God would sustain them just as He always had. Satan tempts Jesus to do the same thing: to miraculously make bread for Himself and satiate His own desperate hunger.
But Jesus responds to Satan on that first temptation, not by doing what He clearly had the power to do, which was to turn those stones into edible food, but by quoting Scripture, demonstrating the faith and trust Jesus had in the Father and His Word. Jesus needed to feed on the Living Bread from God more than He needed physical sustenance in the moment of His temptation.
The temptation and fasting for 40 days were to fulfill what the people of Israel could not do, and likewise, what we cannot do. Jesus’ work puts to rest the idea that any of us can defeat the power of darkness completely alone.
The people of Israel are pictured throughout the Old Testament as the beloved child of God, the son in whom the Father delighted. Yet they were a disappointing son, a son that continuously rebelled; a prodigal, only kept alive by the severe mercy of the Father. But Jesus is the better Israel, the better Son. He is the capital “S” Son of God, who will come through His temptation victorious where the other son of God has failed.
Jesus’ temptation was not merely for Him to prove He could defeat Satan in the cosmic battle of supernatural powers. The greater point being made is that Jesus, being filled by the Spirit and in obedience to the Father, defeats the power of sin by overcoming the curse, or in the case of His death upon the cross, by becoming the curse for us (Galatians 3:13). His defeat of Satan in the desert displayed the power of the sustaining presence of God’s Word in the midst of temptation. It also foreshadowed His ultimate victory over Satan when He arose from the grave on the third day after His death upon the cross, thereby defeating death itself.
Jesus and Identity
Jesus' time of physical fasting would have put His humanity in the weakest possible position. But it was there, in His extreme weakness, that He faced the tempter. But in that moment, instead of physical food, Jesus feeds on God’s Word, the only thing sustaining Him against the prince of darkness.
This is another example of how Jesus truly can identify with us in our weakness. When we pray in Jesus name, especially in times of personal weakness and desperation, we have an intercessor who knows the kind of physical weakness we possess. This is how the author of Hebrews can say, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15).”
Should we choose to fast today, this month, this year, or anytime, we can know that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, who Himself fasted for 40 days and nights, who knows us wholly, truly, and promises to not leave us or forsake us, even in the moments we feel faint. And in our time of fasting and prayer, we can feast upon His Word, allowing the Lord to do His work in us and preparing us to be ministers in His Kingdom. Therefore, let us keep the fast, and may we learn to rely not on our own strength, but to take the time in prayer and supplication to feed on the Word of God.
Micah Lovell is the General Editor of Worthy of the Gospel, a Songtime Publication, and a frequent contributor to the Songtime website. He is also the headmaster of Abington Christian Academy, a Classical Christian School in Pennsylvania.