Luke 4.12: And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.'” (NASB)
In this third temptation the devil proposed that Jesus should put God to the test by jumping off the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem. By this the devil challenged Jesus to challenge the truth of scripture and thereby challenge God’s power and truthfulness. None of this could ever be appropriate and rightly motivated. No one has the right or opportunity to test God out by means of challenging Him. Such a test would have been putting God on trial. It would have been disrespectful to say the least, and not an act of worship.
Jesus responded to the devil by quoting Deuteronomy 6.16 word for word from the Septuagint. This verse was a warning by Moses to Israel, reminding them of how they tested God at Massah when they were thirsty and without any apparent source of water. Their testing of God in this case was a result of bad attitudes toward God. They did not take into consideration that God had delivered them from the slave masters of Pharaoh. Nor did they consider that God had delivered them safely through the Red Sea and destroyed the Egyptian army behind them. And furthermore, they didn’t take into consideration God’s sweetening of the water at Marah.
And yet when they came to a new point of thirst during the exodus, they did not look forward with a positive attitude anticipating God’s next act of provision. No, they expected the worst from God and complained. In Hebrews 3.9 referring to this time of testing Israel worked against God, the writer of Hebrews uses a word that is typically translated as “testing”. This word can also be understood as meaning “examination”. And that is just what they thought they were doing. Examining God. All with bad attitudes.
It appears that what is essential to understand in Jesus’ response to the devil is that the devil was trying to provoke Jesus to challenge God in a negative way. In Malachi 3.10, as a contrast, God encouraged Israel to bring the whole tithe into the storehouse and God gave them the imperative to, “test Me now on this,” (NASB). This testing was of God’s prompting and was born out of God’s desire for Israel to be restored to Him and for Israel to receive His blessings. This test was about reconciliation and a right relationship with God, rather than putting God Himself on trial by means of examination.