The Epistle of James

Part 5

Before we get started, I must warn you: The subject of today’s lesson may make your "head hurt"…hopefully, in a good way. Learning new concepts is not always fun or easy, but it’s always worth it! Join me in trusting the Holy Spirit to lead us into the truth.

Now let’s look at our verses for this lesson:

Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. (James 1:13-18 NASB95)

In our last lesson, we discovered that the word trial found in James 1:12 in the NASB95 (New American Standard Bible, 1995 Edition) was the Greek word peirasmos (pi·ras· mos). That word appears 21 times in the Authorized Version (1611 King James Version) and is translated 20 of those times as either temptation or temptations…the other time it is translated try. In the NASB95, the translators used the word trial because they felt it more clearly conveyed the idea James was trying to present…the passing of a test.

Is a trial and a temptation the same thing?

There are several words translated trial in the New Testament:

bulletanakrino (an·ak· ree ·no) means to examine or judge
bulletakatakritos (ak·at· ak ·ree·tos) means uncondemned, punished without being tried
bulletkrino (kree ·no) means to separate, to pick out, select, choose
bulletpeirasmos (pi·ras· mos) an experiment, attempt, trial, proving

All of these words come from the root krino (kree ·no) that means to separate, distinguish, discriminate between good and evil, select, choose out the good. In the NT , it means to judge, to form or give an opinion after separating and considering the particulars of a case.

There are several words translated tempt in the New Testament:

bulletpeira (pi ·rah) a trial, experience, attempt
bulletpeirazo (pi· rad ·zo) to try whether a thing can be done
bulletpeirasmos (pi·ras· mos) an experiment, attempt, trial, proving

All of these words come from the root peran (per ·an) that means to pierce, beyond, on the other side.

Although it’s somewhat enlightening to know that there are several different Greek words used in this instance, the real question here is not "do the words mean the same thing?" but is their source the same: Is a trial from God and a temptation from Satan?

Warren Wiersbe, whose outlines and organization I love, takes some pains to distinguish between a trial and a temptation. Here’s his explanation:

Sometimes the trials are testings on the outside, and sometimes they are temptations on the inside. Trials may be tests sent by God, or they may be temptations sent by Satan and encouraged by our own fallen nature (flesh). It is this second aspect of trials—temptations on the inside—that James dealt with in this section. We may ask, "Why did James connect the two? What is the relationship between testings without and temptations within?" Simply this: if we are not careful, the testings on the outside may become temptations on the inside. When our circumstances are difficult, we may find ourselves complaining against God, questioning His love, and resisting His will. At this point, Satan provides us with an opportunity to escape the difficulty. This opportunity is a temptation.

There are many illustrations of this truth found in the Bible. Abraham arrived in Canaan and discovered a famine there. He was not able to care for his flocks and herds. This trial was an opportunity to prove God; but Abraham turned it into a temptation and went down to Egypt. God had to chasten Abraham to bring him back to the place of obedience and blessing. While Israel was wandering in the wilderness, the nation often turned testings into temptations and tempted the Lord. No sooner had they been delivered from Egypt than their water supply vanished and they had to march for three days without water. When they did find water, it was so bitter they could not drink it. Immediately they began to murmur and blame God. They turned their testing into a temptation, and they failed.

Certainly, God does not want us to yield to temptation, yet neither can He spare us the experience of temptation. We are not God’s sheltered people; we are God’s scattered people. If we are to mature, we must face testings and temptations.

Did you notice Wiersbe’s little "mug-wump" in the last paragraph? "Certainly, God does not want us to yield to temptation, yet neither can He spare us the experience of temptation." (For those of you not familiar with the term "mug-wump", it’s when you are sitting on the fence with your "mug" on one side and your "wump" on the other!)

In my mind, that raises an important question: Does God "permit" adverse and often tragic situations or does He "determine and execute them"?

Let’s look at two interesting passages from the Old Testament:

The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these. (Isaiah 45:7 NASB95)

If a trumpet is blown in a city will not the people tremble? If a calamity occurs in a city has not the Lord done it? (Amos 3:6 NASB95)

The Hebrew word translated calamity is found 663 times in the Authorized Version (King James) and is translated as evil 442 of those times…wickedness 59 times. Other words into which it is translated are wicked, mischief, hurt, bad, trouble and adversity.

In chapter twenty-one of his book Who Am I? (written in 1974) Norman P. Grubb deals with this question. I want to share some of his ideas for your consideration:

First, there is our necessary basis of seeing God in everything and everybody. We won’t go back again over what we sought to show at the beginning (of the book) that the universe is God manifesting Himself, Spirit slowed down to the point of visibility. We either ‘see through’ to that wonderful fact, or we don’t. If we don’t, there is not much point in following through along the lines in which Jesus evidently ‘saw through’ to His Father, the hidden presence in the apparent conditions of material need, disease, or death. But, if we do, then what needs strong confirmation, if we are to be strong in faith under any conditions, is the certainty that God doesn’t sit by and ‘permit’ various adverse or tragic situations; but He actually ‘determines’ them.

There are a series of very plain evidences of this in Bible incidents, and I don’t think they can be bettered, though so well known. The most obvious and complete is that Jesus, when approaching His death, did not look at it as a machination of the devil, except in the sense that the devil was God’s agent. He admitted that this was ‘the prince of this world coming’ to assault Him, but He added ‘he hath nothing in Me’: in other words, Satan could not touch Him in His real inner self on the level of His inner believings, and could only attack His outer body. Then He said later, when they came to arrest Him, ‘The cup which my Father hath prepared for me, shall I not drink it?’ That was final. This was not the devil, but His own Father responsible for this.

…The other famous saying was when, after Joseph had been sold as a slave by his brothers, and imprisoned through Potiphar’s wife, and had fourteen years of bondage and confinement, but was then elevated by Pharaoh to be his chief minister, and was thus able to rescue his brethren from famine, he said, ‘You thought evil unto me, but God meant it for good…God did send me before you to preserve life.’

…This gives me boldness and authority to say what would seem to the outward eye to be clearly contrary to the character of God as love, that whatever befalls me, or whatever apparent horrors are happening in the world, God sent those, God determined that—not just permitted them.

…Why? Because only by opposites can a thing be known in its reality: only by a full experience of the wrong way can we be established in the right.

(Pause for discussion)

Now, let’s get back to our verses for today:

Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. (James 1:13-18 NASB95)

…for God cannot be tempted by evil…

How are we to reconcile this statement by James with these passages from Psalms and Numbers?

How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! Again and again they tempted God, and pained the Holy One of Israel. (Psalm 78:40-41 NASB95)

They quickly forgot His works; They did not wait for His counsel, but craved intensely in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. So He gave them their request, but sent a wasting disease among them. (Psalm 106:13-15 NASB95)

The word here translated tempted is the Hebrew word nacah (naw· saw) that means to test, try, prove, or tempt. It is the same word found in Numbers 14 that is translated test:

Surely all the men who have seen My glory and My signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put Me to the test these ten times and have not listened to My voice, shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned Me see it. (Numbers 14:22-23 NASB95)

In light of these verses, why would James say that God cannot be tempted?

I think that James is trying to say that it is impossible for God to be attracted to evil…evil holds no temptation for God and can not be a test for Him.

According to James, where does human temptation originate?

But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

The word here translated lust is the Greek epithumia (ep·ee·thoo· mee ·ah) that means craving, longing, desire for what is forbidden. A synonym or companion word is pathos (path ·os) that can be described as the passive side of vice while epithumia is the active side. Or stated another way, epithumia is evil desire while pathos is ungovernable desire.

Is it a stretch to conclude that what James describes as lust, Paul would describe as the flesh?

While I believe that temptations certainly do come from our flesh, they also come from Satan. I think it’s critically important for us to "see through", as Grubb suggests, the visible temptation to a loving God who is intent on our coming to a knowledge of the truth by experiencing its opposite.

James seems to indicate a progression from lust, to temptation, to sin, to the accomplishment of sin and then death. How does that compare with the teaching of Jesus?

While James seems to have been impacted by the teaching of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount, he implies here that sin is an action rather than a thought. Jesus made it clear: Sin is in the mind and is sin long before it becomes an action (Matthew 5:27-28).

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

If we are to live the "abundant life" Jesus promised, we must understand that everything, whether it seems "good" to us or not, is a gift from God.

In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

By his own will he brought us into being through the word of truth, so that we should have first place among all his creatures. (James 1:18 GNB/Today’s English Version)

Here, James acknowledges the sovereignty of God…it is by His will that we are made first fruits and have first place among all his creatures…sons and daughters of the Creator. Has he given us a choice? I believe He has, but that choice is not sovereignty and is always limited by God’s sovereignty. I believe that at the end of the age, for the first time in human history, when there are no more deceptions and everything is seen clearly, that God’s promise will be fulfilled: "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. They will say of Me, ‘Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.’" Men will come to Him, and all who were angry at Him will be put to shame. (Isaiah 45:22-24 NASB95)

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