Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. God is not tied to the second ordinary causes, but He can do that without them which He can do with them. This will appear in these particulars: 1. God sometimes works without the means at all, as in the first creation of the chaos, and in Christ's healing of many diseases. 2. God some. times works by ordinary, but those weak and insufficient, means in the order of nature. As when the bunch of figs healed Hezekiah's sore (2 Kings 20.); as when Jacob's rods laid before the sheep of one colour, and made them conceive, and bring forth parti-coloured ones (Genesis 30.); when the wind brought the Israelites quails in such abundance (Exodus 16.); when Gideon's three hundred soldiers got the victory (Judges 7.); and Jonathan and his armour-bearer alone chased away and slew so many of the Philistines (1 Samuel 14:6). 3. God otherwhiles works altogether by unusual and unwonted means: such as was manna in the desert. 4. God sometimes works not only by means diverse from, but quite contrary unto, the ordinary. As the blind man's eyes are restored with clay and spittle (John 9.); and Jonah is saved by being in the whale's belly. (D. Dyke.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. |
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