God & Jesus
When Jesus is asked about worship: Matthew 4:10
In the wilderness, the devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he will fall down and worship him. Jesus refuses with a single sentence from the Law of Moses. What does that sentence teach about worship, and about Jesus himself?
1The question
What does Jesus say when Satan asks to be worshipped?
2What Christians believe
Christians read the temptation as Jesus standing firm where Israel once failed in the wilderness. Each time he is tempted, he answers with a verse from Deuteronomy, and here he answers with the command to worship God alone.
Christians see no conflict between this answer and their worship of Jesus. They believe the one God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so worshipping the Son is worshipping the one God. In the wilderness, they say, Jesus speaks as a man obeying God perfectly on our behalf.
3What the texts say
The temptation
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
The command Jesus quotes
Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name.
The same answer in Luke
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Worship in spirit and in truth
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
4What scholars say
R. T. France (The Gospel of Matthew, 2007) shows how all three of Jesus’s answers in the temptation come from Deuteronomy 6–8, the chapters about Israel’s testing in the wilderness, so that Jesus appears as the faithful son who passes the test Israel failed.
Matthew’s wording, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”, is close to the Greek translation of Deuteronomy used in his day. The Hebrew of Deuteronomy 6:13, followed by the King James Version, reads “fear” rather than “worship”, and the word “only” makes explicit what the command implies.
Scholars agree that Matthew and Luke share this account, and that in both Jesus answers Satan by naming God alone as the one to be worshipped and served.
5The Islamic perspective
For Muslims this is the heart of Jesus’s message, given at the very start of his ministry: worship and service belong to God alone. It is the same line Muslims recite in every prayer, and the same call the Qur’an gives in Jesus’s own words:
Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help.
And lo! Allah is my Lord and your Lord. So serve Him. That is the right path.
Jesus could have said “worship God and me”. He said “him only”. In John 4 he says the true worshippers will worship “the Father”. Muslims see Jesus here exactly as the Qur’an presents him: a servant of God calling people to serve his Lord and theirs.
6Objections and responses
“Jesus was speaking as a man in the wilderness. As God the Son, he also rightly receives worship.”
Response: The verse sets a boundary: “him only”. When Jesus later speaks about true worship, he names the object of worship as “the Father” (John 4:23), not himself. Nowhere does Jesus widen the command to include himself.
“The point of the story is that Satan wanted worship. It says nothing about whether Jesus may be worshipped.”
Response: The point is the principle Jesus uses to answer him, and that principle has no exceptions. Revelation repeats it when an angel refuses John’s worship with the words “worship God” (Revelation 22:9).
7Conclusion
Both sides agree that in Matthew 4:10 Jesus answers Satan with the command to worship and serve God alone. Christians include Jesus within the one God who is worshipped. Muslims hear a prophet drawing the line that every prophet drew: worship belongs to God, and to no one beside him.
Read Matthew 4:1–11 with Deuteronomy 6:4–15 and notice how closely Jesus follows the Law.
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Sources
- Bible, King James Version:Matthew 4:8Matthew 4:9Matthew 4:10Deuteronomy 6:13Luke 4:8John 4:23John 4:24
- Qur’an, translated by M. Pickthall:Qur’an 1:5Qur’an 19:36
- R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (2007)