First Temptation of Christ
247
It was not any part of the mission of Christ to exercise His divine
power for His own benefit, to relieve Himself from suffering. This He
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had volunteered to take upon Himself. He had condescended to take
man’s nature, and He was to suffer the inconveniences, and ills, and
afflictions of the human family. He was not to perform miracles on His
own account. He came to save others. The object of His mission was
to bring blessings, and hope, and life, to the afflicted and oppressed.
He was to bear the burdens and griefs of suffering humanity.
Although Christ was suffering the keenest pangs of hunger, He
withstood the temptations. He repulsed Satan with scripture, the same
He had given Moses in the wilderness to repeat to rebellious Israel
when their diet was restricted, and they were clamoring for flesh meats,
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God” (
Matthew 4:4
). In this declaration, and also
by His example, Christ would show man that hunger for temporal food
was not the greatest calamity that could befall him. Satan flattered our
first parents that eating of the fruit of the tree of life [
The tree here
referred to is obviously the tree of knowledge and not the tree of life.
The phrase “of life” is patently a printer’s error. It is not found in
the first appearance of this article, in
The Signs of the Times, July 9,
1874
, nor in the reprint in pamphlet form, titled
Redemption; or the
Temptation of Christ in The Wilderness, 42
.—Compilers.] of which
God had forbidden them would bring to them great good, and would
ensure them against death, the very opposite of the truth which God
had declared to them. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die” (
Genesis 2:17
). If Adam had been obedient, he would
never have known want, sorrow, or death.
If the people who lived before the Flood had been obedient to
the word of God, they would have been preserved, and would not
have perished by the waters of the Flood. If the Israelites had been
obedient to the words of God, He would have bestowed upon them
special blessings. But they fell in consequence of the indulgence of
appetite and passion. They would not be obedient to the words of
God. Indulgence of perverted appetite led them into numerous and
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grievous sins. If they had made the requirements of God their first
consideration, and their physical wants secondary, in submission to
God’s choice of proper food for them, not one of them would have