THESE words of Jesus in St. Matthew's Gospel are his response to Satan's temptations when he had fasted in the desert for forty day. This occurred immeiately after his baptism by John the Baptist.
What does this response of Jesus reveal to us. In the first place it shows us that it was the Scriptures of the Old Testament that was the w eapen Jesus used to defeat Satan's vicious temptations, when Satan tried to get Jesus to commit sin. As Paul indicates concerning the Scriptures, Jesus used the 'Sword of the Spirit.
The next thing we learn from Jesus at this time of temptation is the fact that Jesus showed that the Old Testament is equally the infallible and inerrant word of God, as the New Testament.
The third thing we learn from Jesus using the Old Testament Scripture as a weapen against Satan is that The Scriptures as a whole are the armour of God to protect us from Satan's attacks. The more we have read and underwstood and lay hold of the teaching of the Bible, the more we will find ourselves equipped to stand in the evil day of temptation.
We learn also from the way Jesus used the Old Testament Scripture at the time of his temptations is that we can hold fast to the Bible as the truth of God, because the Son of God makes plain that it is the infallible truth of God. Satan will uses what is called 'the sure findings of science' to discredit the Bible, but God himself, the very establisher of science, declares by Christ's use of the Bible that Satan is lying.
Living Word