Matthew 4:1-11
“It is written…It is written…It is written..”
Jesus responded to the devil’s temptations, attacks, and lies with the Word of God and with the Word of God only (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10). According to the Biblical record the only words Jesus spoke to the evil one were direct quotes from the Old Testament (which was the Bible at the time – no New Testament yet).
Jesus upheld the Old Testament as the powerful, devil beating, triumphant Word of God. And although we only have these three quotes from Deuteronomy, we can responsibly conclude that He would have and could have quoted from any O.T. passage necessary to counter Satan’s lies.
Here’s the point: if Jesus’ strategy against Satan was to quote from the Old Testament to battle against evil ideas then by the very nature of His responses He upheld not only the specific passages He quoted from but the entirety of the books that held them. He wouldn’t have quoted from these verses if He hadn’t have believed that the very books that held them were of the same authority and power.
Some people today claim that Jesus’ teachings can only be found in the Gospels of the New Testament. When they make these false claims they forget that Jesus believed, upheld, and practiced spiritual warfare with the Old Testament Word of God. By His actions towards the devil in Matthew 4 He not only thwarted the devil’s schemes but showed us today that the Old Testament is a power tool for defeating evil. In Jesus’ perfect view and practice the Old Testament was the Sword of the Spirit (Hebrews 4:12). And by declaring His approval of these verses He gave His endorsement for the rest of the books that contained them.
P.S. If anyone wants to argue this point by bringing up some difficult passages from the Old Testament and then asking “Did Jesus approved of this, or that?” with the view that He didn’t, it would be this writer’s opinion that by using this kind of argument that person would be displaying their general lack of understanding of the complete Word of God and why God said what He said when He said it (Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11).
