We come now to the “sayings” of Jesus Christ – about 31-thousand words determined from before the beginning of time, before the foundation of the world. Even though Jesus probably spoke between 16-million and 19-million words during his earthly ministry, the Holy Spirit ensured that the writers of the Gospels and the Book of Revelation would include those words that God wanted the world to read for the last two-thousand years.

First Words

The first recorded words of Jesus are those He spoke to His mother when He was twelve years old. Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of Passover. Jesus went with them when He was twelve. They spent a few days in Jerusalem, then Mary and Joseph returned to Nazareth. However, Jesus remained in Jerusalem. Once Mary and Joseph realized Jesus was not with their group, they returned to Jerusalem to search for Him. After a three-day search they found Jesus in the Temple talking with the religious teachers. Everyone who heard Jesus was astonished at His understanding and answers. Mary asked Jesus, “Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously.” How Did Jesus respond? Keep in mind that these are the first words of Jesus recorded in the New Testament:

Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business? Luke 2:49

Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what He said to them, but Mary remembered what He told them. Jesus returned with Mary and Joseph and was subject to them. He increased in wisdom and stature and “in favor with God and men.”

Jesus was twelve years old when He said those words to His mother. They certainly weren’t His first words to her or others, but they are the first words the Holy Spirit gives us. Why? I think one reason is that it lets us know some important things about Jesus from a young age.

  1. Jesus knew from a young age that His Father was God. Joseph was probably a good step-father, but Jesus knew that He had an eternal connection to God the Father.
  2. Jesus knew that He had a special purpose and mission that was eternal in nature. He was to be about His Father’s business. That would include preaching, teaching, dying, rising, saving and destroying (the works of the devil). Jesus wouldn’t begin that public ministry for another 18 years, but He knew at the age of twelve (and most likely earlier than that) what His Father had sent Him to do.
  3. Jesus was found speaking and answering questions in the Temple. That Temple would have profound meaning to the Lord’s ministry in the coming years. It would be where Jesus spent much time teaching and preaching. It would also be the place where Jesus would speak powerfully to the religious leaders who had misled the people of God. His speaking in the Temple as a child was prophetic of what He would do as part of His Father’s “business”
  4. Jesus, like other Jewish boys of His day, would have gone through the bar mitzvahor (son of the commandment) ceremony at the end of His 12th year. He chose that age to demonstrate His understanding of God’s Word. His relationship to God the Father was unique and His knowledge of the meaning of the commandments of God was far greater than those of the religious men who taught in God’s Temple.
  5. Jesus demonstrated His deep love and devotion for God the Father and His Word. That love and devotion would be Jesus’ guide throughout His ministry.
  6. Jesus demonstrated His total subjection to His Father’s will. He said “I must be about My Father’s business.” As we will see throughout the ministry of Jesus, He was always subject to His Father’s will.
  7. Jesus demonstrated through His words and actions that He would be unlike anyone else who had ever stepped into the Temple. He was both God and Man. He proved that with His words and would with His actions.

What Jesus said to His mother may have also been a gentle reminder to her about His true identity. The angel Gabriel had told her more than twelve years earlier – “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Mary knew that she was a virgin when she conceived. She knew that an angel of God had visited her. She knew, but she may have needed a gentle reminder that the Boy she was raising was the Son of God and that God the Father had sent Him on a special mission to His people. The words of Jesus may have reminded her of what Gabriel had said to her about that mission:

Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end. Luke 1:30-33

Mary’s young Boy was the Son of the Highest and would reign over the house of Israel from the throne of David – and of His kingdom there would be no end.

Jesus and John the Baptist

We know nothing about what Jesus said from the age of twelve until He was about thirty years old. What we do know is that the son of Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, was preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Luke 3:2)

John the Baptist was the last Old Testament prophet. The prophets Isaiah and Malachi had proclaimed the coming of John centuries before:

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert A highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,’ Says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:1

John the Baptist was the fulfillment of those ancient prophecies. John also prophesied about the coming of Jesus:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent Him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me? Matthew 3:11-14

It was then that Jesus spoke the next words we have recorded of Him in the Gospels:

But Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed Him. Matthew 3:15

John baptized Jesus in the Jordan River, which led to one of the few times we hear the voice of God the Father in the New Testament:

When He had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Matthew 3:16-17

We also see in that moment a demonstration of the Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the Triune God unified in purpose and will.

Jesus and Satan

The Spirit of God led Jesus into the wilderness immediately following John’s baptism. The purpose of Jesus going into the wilderness after His baptism and before speaking to people was a demonstration of why Jesus came to earth:

For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8

Jesus wasted no time facing His enemy, the devil, because that was the primary reason He had come to earth from Heaven. Jesus was on a mission to destroy the devil’s works and the devil knew it. Satan didn’t know every aspect of God’s eternal plan, but he knew enough to know that the Son of God had become flesh and was on earth as part of their ongoing spiritual battle.

Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights and was hungry. That’s when “the tempter came to Jesus. Here’s the conversation as we have it recorded for us in Matthew’s Gospel. Notice what words Jesus chose to use in response to Satan’s words:

Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, ‘If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.’ But He answered and said, ‘It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. Matthew 4:3-11

We can think of this as “round two” in the battle between Jesus and Satan, keeping in mind that Jesus was on a mission to “destroy the works of the devil.” Round one was when Satan used King Herod to try to kill Jesus when He was a baby. An angel of God warned Joseph about Satan’s plot:

… behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, ‘Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.’ When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son.’ Matthew 2:13-15

Satan went after Jesus almost thirty years later, in the wilderness. Jesus allowed Himself to become physically weakened through fasting for forty days and nights. Satan, the tempter, jumped at the chance to attack Jesus when He was in that weakened state. However, even though Jesus was physically weak, the Lord was mentally and spiritually strong.

Jesus allowed Satan to attack first, then responded with a powerful counter to each attack:

  • Attack One — “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
  • Counter One — “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
  • Attack Two — “Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’”
  • Counter Two — “Jesus said to him, ‘It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”
  • Attack Three — “Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”
  • Counter Three — “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

Jesus responded to each of Satan’s attacks by quoting Scripture. The first quote addressed the power of God’s Word. The second quote addressed the great sin of tempting “the Lord your God.” The third quote addressed the imperative of worshiping and serving God alone.

It was at the Lord’s last counter that caused Satan to leave Him. However, the battle was far from over. Here’s what we learn from Luke’s Gospel account about the exchange between Satan and Jesus:

Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. Luke 4:13

Satan was not done with Jesus. He would return at “an opportune time.”

Next Time

We will look at what Jesus said to the people of Israel after His encounter with Satan when our special series, And Jesus Said, continues.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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