God first offered Jesus an encomium SOLELY HIS in history: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” He then immediately ordered Jesus, under compulsion from the Holy Spirit, “into the desert to be tempted/tested by the devil” Matthew 3:17, 4:1.
From this we learn the following truths. One what would prove a temptation to others, including Lucifer in time before time, Isaiah 14:12-15, II Peter 2:4, Jude 6, and to Eve in historic time, Genesis 3:4-5, proved only a TEST to Jesus in the wilderness. Two, Jesus had his Divine Sonship verified in his Baptism, and revealed only to John the Baptist John 1:29-34. Three, fully aware of his ROLE as God’s Son, he began his ministry with a perfect obedience to God never surrendered throughout the following 3 ½ years. Which shouldn’t surprise us since he had been perfectly obedient to his Father TO THE DAY baptized at age 30. Four, since God ordered TESTING for Jesus AFTER his tribute to Jesus, we understand that God made “the author of [our] salvation perfect through suffering” Hebrews 2:10. Why, then, would we think, want, desire or expect only BLESSINGS after our baptism? Or as the Sole possession of our Christian experience? When was the last time God said of us, “with you I am well pleased?” When was the first time? Having experienced punishment for seeking a privilege denied all created things, and only known and understood within the Godhead—God’s eternality—Lucifer went to the Hell created by God for him and his angels Matthew 25:41. However, content only when deceiving, harming or disrupting God’s mortals, Satan insinuated God’s fear that Eve would become “like God”, knowing good and evil when eating the forbidden fruit Genesis 3:4-5. An easy-to-pass test for our common parents. Wanting, but never having, equality with God, Satan suggested Eve could become like God by disobeying God. How she could receive a blessing by disobeying God Satan didn’t bother to explain. Nor did Eve bother to ask, SAP that she was by thinking WISDOM came from disobeying God when he clearly said it came through OBEDIENCE to him Genesis 2:15-17. Proverbs 2:6, 9-10 have the correct nexus: for knowledge to be pleasant, useful and productive, we must accept God as it source. To this day, we’ve discovered that educating unconverted minds produces only educated heathens, who mistake their knowledge for God’s wisdom. The very condition pervading American education and culture! End Part I
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