TESTED By The WORD

In the temptation in the wilderness, it is clearly indicated to us that in the background of things, it was the Word of God that was governing the Lord. Every temptation was met with the Word of God: "It is written..." Life was contingent upon the Word of God: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:4).

In the Heavenly Man the life question is bound up with the Word of God. If you take the opposite of that, you know that the earthly man dies because he refuses the Word of God; his life depends upon the Word of God and his attitude toward it.

Here the last Adam is taken up on the same basis, and inasmuch as He met the three temptations with the Word of God, it is perfectly clear that His life was bound up with the Word of God. 

It was the Word of God that was governing this whole experience, and its issue. 

The Heavenly Man was being assailed with a view to tearing Him out of His heavenly life, as it were, by getting Him in some way to refuse, or violate, or ignore the Word of God.

He maintained His position as the Heavenly Man in life on the ground of the Word of God.

~T. Austin Sparks~