Chapter 4 – One God Translation

Matthew

   4 Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert to be tempted by the Devil.[80] 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The Tempter came up to him and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, then tell these stones to become bread.” 4 Jesus replied, “It is written,[81] ‘People do not live just by eating bread, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God.’” 5 Then the Devil took him to the holy city, and had him stand on a high point of the Temple. 6 “If you really are the Son of God, then throw yourself off,” he said to Jesus, “because it is written, ‘He will command His angels to take care of you,’ and ‘They will catch you in their hands so that you will not fall down when you trip over a stone.’” 7 Jesus said, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You must not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8 Then the Devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in all their majesty, and said to him, “I will give you all these if you bow down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Go away, Satan! It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him[82] alone.’” 11 Then the Devil departed from him, and angels came up to him [83] and took care of him.
   12 When Jesus learned that John had been arrested, he went back to Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum, which is beside the lake in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. 14 This was to fulfill what Isaiah the prophet had said: 15 “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, on the road to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: 16 The people sitting in the dark saw a great light, and to those sitting in the country of death and shadow, on them a light dawned.” 17 From then on Jesus began to preach the Gospel, saying, “Repent, because the Kingdom of Heaven [84] is near.”
   18 As he was walking by the Sea of Galilee Jesus saw two brothers. Simon, called Peter, and his brother Andrew were casting a net into the sea, because they were fishermen. 19 He said to them, “Come and follow me, and I will make you fishermen to catch people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 Going further on, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother. They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them. 22 And immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.
   23 Jesus was traveling throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the Gospel about the Kingdom, [85] and healing people of every kind of disease and illness. 24 News about him spread all over Syria, and they brought to him everyone who was sick, suffering from various diseases and pains, demon-influenced, epileptic, paralyzed, and he healed them. 25 Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the region beyond the Jordan.

Matthew

[80]

The Devil or the Satan is certainly not just “a satan, an adversary,” much less is he just a name for the sinful tendency in man! “The Satan” is the external, supernatural enemy of God and man, a liar and murderer from the beginning, as Jesus said. The Devil approached, “came up to Jesus” in v. 3, thus proving that he did not originate in the mind of Jesus! The Devil “fell into condemnation” (1 Tim. 3:6) for his rebellion against God. He was not created evil! The demons (Lk. 4:41; James 2:19) are under his control and in the narrative accounts the demons are separate, intelligent personalities, never confused with their human victims, who are called “the demonized,” “demon-influenced” or “demoniacs.” To alter the meaning of “demon” to mean a demoniac is a tragic assault on the integrity and truth of Holy Scripture, and an affront to the meaning of easy words. God’s revelation must never be suppressed to conform to some imagined “scientific” theory. We all know about the dangers of altering the meaning of easy words — like “marriage.” The Trinitarian idea of GOD likewise involved a change in meaning of the biblical words for GOD. God in the Bible in some 11,000 instances (YHVH, Elohim, Adonai, Theos) never once means a triune God.

[81]

Unlike many today, Jesus was a convinced believer in the integrity and authority of holy Scripture. God had spoken to man in Scripture, and it is our wisdom to heed this fundamental fact (see Lk. 24:44; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 3:16).

[82]

This is one of thousands of verses in the Bible proving that God is a single Person, a single Self. The later post-biblical definition of God as Triune is false to Scripture and puts a barrier between us and the pure teaching of Jesus, our rabbi and master. The one and only Lord God is the One God of the central unitarian creed of Israel in Deut. 6:4, fully endorsed as “the most important command of all,” in agreement with a Jewish professional teacher of religion, in Mark 12:28ff. Jesus claimed to be the lord Messiah of Ps. 110:1, where adoni, my lord, refers, as it always does all 195 times, to a superior figure who is not Deity.

[83]

Precisely the same word as is used earlier in v. 3 of the Devil approaching Jesus (from outside, certainly not an internal temptation, certainly not Jesus talking to himself!).

[84]

The Kingdom of Heaven is of course an exact synonym for the Kingdom of God and is based on Dan. 2:44 and 7:14, 18, 22, 27 and the whole vision of the prophets for peace on earth when the Messiah reigns on earth at his future return. The Kingdom of God is the core and center of the Christian Gospel (Acts 20:24-25; 8:12; 19:8; 28:23, 31).

[85]

The central non-negotiable heart and core of the Christian faith as announced by Jesus and the whole NT. Repentance is not just “being forgiven” but it demands a firm, clear understanding of the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is the seed (Lk. 8:11) of immortality. The Devil, knowing this, concentrates his efforts on suppressing, hiding, removing the Gospel about the Kingdom of God. To define the Kingdom we recommend this excellent statement: It is primarily and overwhelmingly the new order and government to be introduced on earth when Jesus comes back and in which Christians are destined, as immortalized, to manage the world with Jesus (Dan. 2:44; 7:14, 18, 22, 27; Lk. 19:11- 27; 21:31; Rev. 2:26-27; 11:15-18, etc).