It is much easier to understand the devil as being a picture of what is happening in the mind of Jesus. We are told that Jesus was ‘tempted in a/I points like we are’ (Hebrews 4:15), and in James 1:14 we are told that we are tempted by our own evil desires that cause us to sin. Mark 7:21-23 tells us that our evil thoughts come from within, not from outside us. So Jesus was tempted by his own evil desires. If Jesus knew that an evil angel was trying to cause him to sin, and then the evil angel appeared and started suggesting these things, wouldn’t it be much easier for Jesus to reject these suggestions? But if these temptations were coming from the human nature that Jesus had, they would be much harder to fight against because they would be with him all the time. 

Also if we believed that the devil has no respect for Gods word, what would be the point in Jesus quoting scripture at him? But we can understand that Jesus, after not eating for 40 days and nights, would be tempted to misuse God’s word (as we all can do) to fulfil his desires. Psalm 119:9-11 shows what Jesus was doing to fight the temptation — he knew Gods word so well, that whenever the thought of sinning came into his mind he quickly thought of the scripture that stopped him sinning.