New Testament Commentary [1] - Duncan Heaster

4. “And the Devil said unto Him, If you are the Son of God...” (Lk. 4:3). It must have been a constanttemptation within the mind of Christ to question whether He really was the Son of God, seeing that everyoneelse thought He was the son of Joseph (Lk. 3:23; Jn. 6:42) or illegitimate (so Jn. 9:29 implies), and that theofficial temple records described him as the son of Joseph (Mt. 1:1,16; Lk. 3:23, where “supposed” means‘reckoned by law’). He was the only human being not to have a human father. Philippians 2:8 implies thatJesus came to appreciate that He really was a man like us, inferring it was tempting for Him to disbelieve Hewas the Son of God, and to misunderstand His own nature.5. The temptations were controlled by God for Christ’s spiritual education. The passages quoted by Jesus tostrengthen Himself against His desires (“Devil”) are all from the same part of Deuteronomy, regarding Israel’sexperience in the wilderness. Jesus clearly saw a parallel between His experiences and theirs (see below):Thus Jesus showed us how to read and study the Word – He thought Himself into the position of Israel in thewilderness, and therefore took the lessons that can be learnt from their experiences to Himself in Hiswilderness trials. The description of the Lord Jesus as being in the wilderness with beasts and Angels (Mk.1:13) is another connection with Israel’s experience in the wilderness – they were plagued there by “wildbeasts” because of their disobedience (Dt. 32:19–24 and context).