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The Spirit of Prophecy Volume 2
indicated that instead of being the King of Heaven he was that fallen
angel. He called attention to his own beautiful appearance, clothed
with light and strength, and insultingly contrasted the wretchedness of
Christ with his own glory.
He claimed direct authority from Heaven to demand proof of Christ
that he was the Son of God. He taunted him with being a poor rep-
resentative of the angels, much less their high Commander, the ac-
knowledged King in the royal courts; and insinuated that his present
appearance indicated that he was forsaken of God and man. He de-
clared that if he were the Son of God he was equal with God and
should evidence this by working a miracle to relieve his hunger. He
then urged him to change the stone at his feet to bread, and agreed that
if this were done he would at once yield his claims to superiority, and
the contest between the two should be forever ended.
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Satan thus hoped to shake the confidence of Christ in his Father,
who had permitted him to be brought into this condition of extreme
suffering in the desert, where the feet of man had never trodden. The
arch-enemy hoped that under the force of despondency and extreme
hunger, he could urge Christ to exert his miraculous power in his own
behalf, and thus take himself out of the Father’s hands.
The circumstances and surroundings of Christ were such as to
make temptation upon this point peculiarly aggravating. The long
fast had physically debilitated him, the pangs of hunger consumed his
vitals, his fainting system clamored for food. He could have wrought
a miracle in his own behalf, and satisfied his gnawing hunger; but this
would not have been in accordance with the divine plan. It was no
part of his mission to exercise divine power for his own benefit; this
he never did in his earthly life; his miracles were all for the good of
others.
Suffering humiliation, hunger, and contempt, Jesus repulsed Satan
with the same scripture he had bidden Moses repeat to rebellious Israel:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God.” In this declaration, and also by his example,
Christ showed that wanting temporal food was a much less calamity
than meeting the disapprobation of God.
In becoming man’s substitute, and conquering where man had been
vanquished, Christ was not to manifest his divine power to relieve his
own suffering, for fallen man could work no miracles in order to save