Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of James 1:13
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
13. Let no man say when he is tempted ] The thought of trial as coming from outward circumstances, and forming part of man’s spiritual education, leads to a deeper inquiry as to its nature, and so passes on to the wider notion of temptation, which includes the allurements of desire as well as the trials of adversity, In both cases men found refuge from the reproof of conscience in a kind of fatalism. God had placed them in such and such circumstances; therefore, He was the author of the sin to which those circumstances had led. The excuse is one which presents itself to men’s minds at all times, but here also there is a special point of contact with the Son of Sirach: “Say not thou, it is through the Lord that I fell away” ( Sir 15:11 ). It may be noted that the popular Pharisaism, which taught a doctrine of necessity (Joseph. Ant. xviii. 1. 3; Wars, ii. 8. 14) while speculatively maintaining also the freedom of man’s will, was likely to develope into this kind of practical fatalism.
I am tempted of God ] The order of the Greek words is more emphatic, It is from God that I am tempted.
for God cannot be tempted with evil ] The English “cannot be tempted” answers to a Greek verbal adjective, not used elsewhere in the New Testament or in the LXX. version of the Old, and not found in Classical Greek. Its meaning as used in later Greek writers, is simply “untried,” and so “unversed in,” and it has been maintained that it is so used here, but the context makes it almost certain that St James used it in the sense of “ untempted.” At first it might seem as if this assertion did not meet the thought to which it appears to be answer, but the latent premiss of the reasoning seems to be that no one tempts to evil, who has not been first himself tempted by it. If men shrank from the blasphemy of affirming that of God, they ought to shrink also from the thought that He could ever tempt them to evil. He who was absolutely righteous, could not be the originator of sin. He tries men, but does not tempt them.
neither tempteth he any man ] Better, and He (the pronoun is emphatic) tempteth no one.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God – See the remarks on the previous verse. The apostle here seems to have had his eye on whatever there was in trial of any kind to induce us to commit sin – whether by complaining, by murmuring, by apostacy, or by yielding to sin. So far as that was concerned, he said that no one should charge it on God. He did nothing in any way with a view to induce men to do evil. That was only an incidental thing in the trial, and was no part of the divine purpose or design. The apostle felt evidently that there was great danger, from the general manner in which the word temptation was used, and from the perverse tendency of the heart, that it would be charged on God that he so arranged these trials, and so influenced the mind, as to present inducements to sin. Against this, it was proper that an inspired apostle should bear his solemn testimony; so to guard the whole subject as to show that whatever there was in any form of trial that could be regarded as an inducement or allurement to sin, is not the thing which he contemplated in the arrangement, and does not proceed from him. It has its origin in other causes; and if there was nothing in the corrupt human mind itself leading to sin, there would be nothing in the divine arrangement that would produce it.
For God cannot be tempted with evil – Margin, evils. The sense is the same. The object seems to be to show that, in regard to the whole matter of temptation, it does not pertain to God. Nothing can be presented to his mind as an inducement to do wrong, and as little can he present anything to the mind of man to induce him to sin. Temptation is a subject which does not pertain to him. He stands aloof from it altogether. In regard to the particular statement here, that God cannot be tempted with evil, or to do evil, there can be no doubt of its truth, and it furnishes the highest security for the welfare of the universe. There is nothing in him that has a tendency to wrong; there can be nothing presented from without to induce him to do wrong:
- There is no evil passion to be gratified, as there is in men;
- There is no want of power, so that an allurement could be presented to seek what he has not;
- There is no want of wealth, for he has infinite resources, and all that there is or can be is his Psa 50:10-11;
- There is no want of happiness, that he should seek happiness in sources which are not now in his possession. Nothing, therefore, could be presented to the divine mind as an inducement to do evil.
Neither tempteth he any man – That is, he places nothing before any human being with a view to induce him to do wrong. This is one of the most positive and unambiguous of all the declarations in the Bible, and one of the most important. It may be added, that it is one which stands in opposition to as many feelings of the human heart as perhaps any other one. We are perpetually thinking – the heart suggests it constantly – that God does place before us inducements to evil, with a view to lead us to sin. This is done in many ways:
- People take such views of his decrees as if the doctrine implied that he meant that we should sin, and that it could not be otherwise than that we should sin.
- It is felt that all things are under his control, and that he has made his arrangements with a design that men should do as they actually do.
- It is said that he has created us with just such dispositions as we actually have, and knowing that we would sin.
- It is said that, by the arrangements of his Providence, he actually places inducements before us to sin, knowing that the effect will be that we will fall into sin, when we might easily have prevented it.
- It is said that he suffers some to tempt others, when he might easily prevent it if he chose, and that this is the same as tempting them himself.
Now, in regard to these things, there may be much which we cannot explain, and much which often troubles the heart even of the good; yet the passage before us is explicit on one point, and all these things must be held in consistency with that – that God does not place inducements before us with a view that we should sin, or in order to lead us into sin. None of his decrees, or his arrangements, or his desires, are based on that, but all have some other purpose and end. The real force of temptation is to be traced to some other source – to ourselves, and not to God. See the next verse.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jam 1:13-15
Let no man say, I am tempted of God
The temptation not from God
I.
THE CHARACTER GIVEN OF GOD.
1. God cannot be tempted of evil.
(1) The absolute and infinite self-sufficiency of His blessedness. That blessedness is altogether independent of every other being whatever besides Himself. It is full: incapable of either diminution or increase: springing as it does from the infinite perfection of His own immutable nature. He can never have anything for which to hope; and never anything to fear.
(2) He is placed beyond all such possibility by the absolute perfection of His moral nature. God cannot be tempted with evil. His nature is necessarily and infinitely opposed to everything of the kind; and to such a nature what is sinful or impure never can present aught capable of exerting even the remotest influence.
2. Neither tempteth He any man.
(1) God tempts no man, by presenting to him inducements, motives, persuasives, to sin.
(2) God tempts no man by any direct inward influence; by infusing evil thoughts, inclinations, and desires.
(3) God tempteth not any man by placing him in circumstances in which he is laid under a natural necessity of stoning.
II. Proceed we now to THE ADMONITION FOUNDED ON WHAT IS SAID OF GOD
Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God tempteth no man: or to put it according to the order of thought we have chosen to follow–God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: let no man therefore say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. It is because every such thought of God is impious, that the saying is condemned as impious. The delusion before us is one of the most fearful palliations of sin, and opiates to the conscience, that the deceitful heart of man has ever suggested. But, if conscience is allowed to speak in sincerity, its utterance will be–I am a voluntary sinner. No extraneous force has kept me back from good; no such force has compelled me to evil. I have followed my own inclinations. My heart and my will have been in all the evil I have done. It is all my own.
1. Let the unbelieving sinner beware of imagining that the guilt of his rejecting the gospel lies anywhere else than with himself.
2. There is one view in which you would do well to remember God cannot be tempted with evil. He can never be induced to act, in any step of His procedure, inconsistently with any attribute of His character, or, in a single jot or tittle, to sacrifice the claims of the purest moral rectitude.
III. THE TRUE NATURE OF TEMPTATION. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. In this description temptation is to be understood as relating to the state of the mind between the moment of the first entrance of the sinful thought, and the actual commission of the evil;–the state of the mind while the enticement is working within among the hidden desires and appetencies of the heart, exerting there its seductive influence. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust. This is evidently meant to be emphatic. It refers back to the preceding verse–Let no man say, I am tempted of God: God tempteth not any man. The lust by which he is tempted, is not of God: it is his own lust. And all evil that is in man is his own. Within our own hearts are seated many evil desires. The devil needs not introduce them. There they are. He acts upon them, no doubt, in his own mysterious and insidious way. But the extraneous operations of a tempter are not at all required to stir up their evil exercise. They work of themselves. From all the objects around us, that are fitted to gratify those desires, our senses are so many inlets of temptation to our hearts. Nor are even our senses necessary to the admission of temptation. The imagination can work independently of them, And both in waking and in sleeping hours, many a time is it busy in summoning tempting scenes before them. The principle of the words before us may be applied alike to prosperity and adversity. In adversity, our own lusts may tempt us to charge God foolishly, and that too both in our hearts and with our lips; and thus to give sinful indulgence to ungodly tempers of mind. Then again, in the time of prosperity; our own lust may often tempt us to the abuse of it. We may be led to forget God, at the very time when His accumulated kindnesses give Him the stronger claim on our grateful and devout remembrance. We may give, in our hearts, the place of the Giver to His gifts.
IV. THE FEARFUL CONSEQUENCES OF YIELDING TO TEMPTATION. When lust hath conceived. The obvious meaning of the figurative allusion is, that when the evil desire is admitted into the mind, and, instead of being resisted, prayed against, and driven out, is retained, fostered, indulged, and through dwelling upon the object of it, grows in strength, and at length is fully matured, it will come forth in action; as after the period of gestation and growth, the child in the womb comes to the birth. The lust, having thus conceived, bringeth forth sin; that is, produces practical transgression–sin in the life–actual departure from the way of Gods commandments. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. That Gods righteousness may not only condemn justly, but appear as condemning justly, the sentence is thus connected with the act–with the effect and manifestation of the evil principle. But the very language implies that the sin did not begin with the act: it is finished in the act; and the evil of the act concentrates in it all the previous evil of the thoughts, desires, and motives from which it arose, and by which it was ultimately matured into action. The death–that death which is the wages of sin–follows on the commission of it, as surely as, in nature, the birth follows the conception.
V. THE IMPORTANCE OF FORMING AND CHERISHING RIGHT, AND OF AVOIDING WRONG, CONCEPTIONS ON THIS SUBJECT. Do not err, my beloved brethren. It is as if the apostle had said–Beware of mistakes here. And certainly there are few subjects on which it is of more essential consequence to have correct ideas, or on which misapprehensions are more perilous. The thought that is specially reprobated in the passage which has been under review is one which cannot fail to affect all the principles, and feelings, and practices of the Christian life. It affects our views of God: and these lie at the foundation of all religion. According as they are right or wrong, must our religion be right or wrong, it must equally affect our views of ourselves–of ourselves as sinners; inasmuch as all the penitential humiliation, all the contrite broken-heartedness, on account of our sins, which we ever ought to feel, lose entirely their ground, and are inevitably gone, the moment we say, or think, that we are tempted of God–that in any way our sin and guilt are attributable to Him. It must, in the same way, affect our conceptions of sin itself; of its exceeding sinfulness and unutterable guilt. And thus it will affect our views of our need of a Saviour; and especially of such a Saviour, and such a salvation, as the gospel reveals.
1. Let believers be impressed with the necessity of unceasing vigilance over their own hearts. Their worst enemies are in their own bosoms.
2. Let all consider the necessity of the heart being right with God. It is only in a holy heart, a heart renewed by the Spirit, a heart of which the lusts are laid under arrest, and crucified, that He can dwell.
3. Ponder seriously the certain consequences of unrepented and unforgiven sin: and by immediate recourse to the Cross, and to the blood there shed for the remission of sins, shun the fearful end which otherwise awaits you. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The workings of sin
I. IT REMINDS US OF THE DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE.
II. WE ARE TAUGHT HOW SURELY THE EVIL PRINCIPLE WILL WORK IN THE HEART, IF UNCHECKED AND UNRESTRAINED, TILL IT HAS BROUGHT FORTH FRUIT UNTO DEATH. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. It is the internal desire which gives temptation its power over man. Were there no appetite for the intoxicating liquor, the cup which contains it would be offered in vain. Were there no covetous desire, the prospect of gain would be no temptation to deviate from the path of rectitude. In every case it is the state of the heart which gives to temptation its power to subdue. Its suddenness may surprise into transgression, but when its success is owing entirely to this circumstance, repentance may be expected quickly to arise. The case supposed in the text is not of this nature. The temptation is embraced and followed. The sinner is drawn away of his own lust and enticed to his ruin. The stronger the sinful propensity has become by indulgence, the greater is the power which every corresponding temptation has to overcome him. He is the less disposed, and therefore the less able to resist. Pleasure in some form is the bait that hides the hook by which he is drawn and enticed. The death which is the end of sin will therefore be of as long duration as the life which is the fruit of holiness. It will not be an arbitrary undeserved punishment, but the wages of sin, its proper desert. Such is the death which sic, when it is finished, bringeth forth.
III. WE LEARN HOW EASILY GOD CAN BRING SIN TO LIGHT. Should sin escape detection in this life, we know that nothing can be concealed from the eye of God, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of all hearts. The day shall declare every mans work of what sort it is. Every one must give an account of himself to God, must narrate his own proceedings, and unfold his own character, before an assembled universe.
IV. THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPRESSING THE FIRST RISINGS OF EVIL IN THE HEART, AND GUARDING AGAINST THE FIRST STEP IN A WRONG COURSE.
V. WE LEARN THAT NOTHING CAN BE MORE WRONG THAN FOR ANY MAN TO THROW THE BLAME OF HIS SINS UPON GOD. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. The all-wise, pure, perfect, self-sufficient, almighty Creator and Ruler of the universe can be under no temptation to evil, neither can He place temptation in the way of any one to induce him to sin. This would be to act in direct contrariety to His own nature. A wicked man may say, If God has given me such passions how can I help being led astray by them? God has not given you such passions; you have given them to yourself. The desires He gave you were needful to the great purposes of human existence. Without them the powers of man could not be called into action. You have perverted them, and allowed them to gain the mastery over reason, conscience, and religion. Suppose a friend recommended to you a servant whom he had uniformly found, after a long trial, faithful and obedient, and you had spoiled that servant, after taking him into your service, by every unwarrantable indulgence, till he had tyrannised over you, and wasted your property, would you have any right to complain of your friend for recommending him, would not the blame rest entirely with yourself? Everything becomes a temptation to a depraved heart–prosperity or adversity; wealth or poverty; success or disappointment. On the other hand, All things work together for good to them that love God, and are the called according to His purpose.
VI. Finally, WE LEARN, THAT SUCH BEING THE DEPRAVITY OF MAN, THERE IS NO SECURITY FROM THE RUIN WHICH SIN WILL INEVITABLY BITING UPON THE TRANSGRESSOR, BUT IN THAT COMPLETE RENOVATION OF OUR NATURE WHICH IN SCRIPTURE IS CALLED REGENERATION–A NEW CREATION. That which is born of the flesh is flesh–corrupt in its tendencies. But, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin because he is born of God. (Essex Remembrancer.)
The sinners progress
Archbishop Trench points out that many words, which when first used bad an innocent and even commendable meaning, have come by use to carry a doubtful or malignant sense; and in this degradation of our words he sees a proof and illustration of human depravity. The word temptation, both in Greek and English, is a case in point. According to its derivation and original use, the word simply means test, whatever tends to excite, to draw out and bring to the surface, the hidden contents of the heart, whatever serves to indicate the ruling bent. But in process of time the word has come to have a darker significance. For if there is much that is good in us, there is also much that is evil. And because, in their intercourse with each other, men are too often bent on provoking that which is evil in each other, rather than on eliciting and strengthening that which is good, the word temptation has sunk from its original plane, and has come to signify mainly such testings and trials of character as are designed to draw out the evil that is in us; trials and tests skilfully adapted to our besetting infirmities, and likely to develop the lower and baser qualities of our nature. It is because of this double meaning of the word that we meet in Scripture such apparently contradictory phrases as, Lead us not into temptation, and, Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations. It is in this double meaning of the word, moreover, that we find the key to the apparently contradictory statements that God does tempt men, and that He does not tempt them. He does tempt us all in the sense that He puts us all to the proof, and compels us at times to see what manner of men we are. But if, in this sense, God tempts every man, there is a sense in which He tempts no man. For it is never the design of the trials to which He puts us to bring out and confirm that which is evil in us. It is always His purpose to bring out and confirm that which is good in us; or, if He show us wherein we are weak, it is not that we may remain weak and foolish, but that we may seek and find strength and wisdom in Him. When we have fallen into temptation, in the bad sense of that word–when, that is, we have yielded to an evil influence, and have suffered our baser passions to be excited–we are apt to say, I am tempted of God, to plead: Well, after all, He made me what I am. Am I to blame for my passionate temperament, or for the strength and fierceness of my desires? Or, again, we say: Circumstances were against me. The opportunity was too tempting, my need or my craving was too importunate, to be resisted. And are not our circumstances and condition appointed by Him? Thus we charge God foolishly, knowing and feeling all the while that it is we ourselves who are to blame whenever the lower part of our nature is permitted a supremacy against which the higher part protests. God tempts no man, affirms St. James, and assigns as a reason, for God is unversed in evil, or, God is incapable of evil, or, God is untemptable with evil; for in these three several ways this one word is translated. His implied argument is sufficiently clear, however we may render his words. What he assumes is, Every one who tempts another to do evil must have some evil in his own nature. But there is no shadow or taint of evil in God, and therefore it is impossible that God should tempt any man. But if the evil temptations we have to encounter do not come from God, whence do they come? St. James replies, Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust, and enticed–the mans lust being here conceived of as a harlot who lavishes her blandishments upon him; then the lust, having conceived, bringeth forth sin; and the sin, when it is mature, bringeth forth death. The origin of sin is in mans own breast, in his own hot and extravagant desires for any kind of temporal or sensual good; and the apostle traces the sinners career through the successive steps that lead down to death.
1. First, the man is drawn aside. James conceives of him as occupied with his daily task, busily discharging the duties of his daily calling. While be is thus engaged, a craving for some unlawful or excessive gratification, for a gain that cannot be honestly secured, or an indulgence which cannot be taken soberly and in the fear of God, springs up within his mind. The craving haunts his mind, and takes form in it. He bends his regards on it, and is drawn towards it. At first, perhaps, his will is firm, and he refuses to yield to its attraction. But the craving is very strong; it touches him at his weak point. And when it comes back to him again and again, it swells and grows into what St. James calls a lust. It is his own lust, the passion most native to him, and most potent with such as he–the love of gain, or the love of rule, or the love of distinction, or some affection of a baser strain. For a time tie may resist its fascination; but ere long his work is laid aside, the claims of duty are neglected, the warnings of conscience unheeded. All he means is to get a nearer view of this strange, alluring visitor, to lift its veil, to see what it is like and for what intent it beckons him away. And so he takes his first step: he is drawn aside from the clear and beaten path of duty.
2. Then he is enticed, allured, as the Greek word implies, with pleasant baits. His craving waxes stronger, the object of desire more attractive, as he advances. All specious excuses–all that moralists have allowed or bold transgressors have claimed–are urged upon him, until at last his scruples are overborne, and he yields himself a willing captive to his lust.
3. Then lust conceives. The will consents to the wish the evil desire grows toward an evil deed. He can know no rest till his craving be gratified. The good work in which he was occupied looks tame and wearisome to him. He is fevered by passion, and absorbed in 2:4. Having conceived, lust bringeth forth sin. The bad purpose has become a bad deed, and the bad deed is followed by its natural results. Coming to the light, his evil deeds may be reproved. When the sin is born, the man may recognise his guilt. He may repent, and be forgiven and restored.
5. But if he do not turn and repent, the last step will be taken, and sin, being matured, will bring forth death. Action will grow into habit, the sinful action into a habit of sinning. As sin grows and matures, it will rob him of his energy. He will no longer make a stand against temptation. He will wholly surrender himself to his lust, until all that makes him man dies out of him, and only the fierce, brutal craving remains. Hogarth has left us a familiar series of pictures entitled The Rakes Progress, in which the career of a profligate spendthrift is sketched from its commencement to its close. Were I an artist, I would paint you a similar series on a kindred but wider theme–the Sinners Progress. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Temptations to evil not from God
Now, affliction is an evil of which God Himself is the author, very consistently with the perfect purity of His nature, and with the tenderest compassion for His servants: Whom He loveth, He rebuketh and chasteneth; and the design is worthy of supreme goodness as well as rectitude, for it is to try the virtues of the afflicted in order to strengthen them, that they may be found unto praise, and honour, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1Pe 1:7). But there is another kind of temptation here spoken of, of which God is not the author or cause. The meaning of this, certainly, is a solicitation to sin; when the intention is not to prove the sincerity of feeble virtue in order to confirm and increase it, but to subvert and destroy it; to draw the weak and unwary into wickedness which leadeth to their ruin. This is what the perfectly holy and good God is not capable of.
I. THAT GOD IN ALL HIS WORKS AND WAYS, THE WHOLE OF HIS ADMINISTRATION TOWARDS MANKIND, STANDETH PERFECTLY CLEAR OF TEMPTING THEM TO MORAL EVIL. He is not in the least degree, or by a fair construction, in any part of His conduct, accessary to any one of their offences. But all religion resteth upon this principle, utterly inconsistent with His tempting any man or any creature, that God is only pleased with rational agents doing that which is right, and displeased with their doing what is wrong in a moral sense: if that be denied, piety is entirely subverted, and all practice of virtue on the foundation of piety. A being who is wholly incapable of any moral turpitude, cannot solicit any others to it, nor give them the least countenance in it, which must always necessarily suppose a corrupt affection. Another of the Divine attributes is goodness, equally essential to his character, but if God be good, He cannot tempt any man.
2. Let us proceed to consider the works of God which relate to man, and we shall be convinced that far from having a tendency, or showing a design, to draw him into sin, which is tempting him, on the contrary, they provide against it in the best manner. And, first, if we look into the human constitution, which is the work of God, this sense of right and wrong discovereth itself early; it is not the result of mature reflection, close reasoning, and long study, but it plainly appeareth that the gracious author of our being intended to prevent us with it, that we should not be led astray before our arriving at the full exercise of our understanding. To this sense of good and evil, there is added in our constitution a strong enforcement of the choice, and the practice of the former, in that high pleasure of self-approbation which is naturally and inseparably annexed to it. Must it not be acknowledged, then, that the frame of our nature prompteth to the practice of virtue at its proper end, and that the designing cause of it did not intend to tempt us to evil, but to provide against our being tempted? It is true that liberty is a part of the constitution, which importeth a power of doing evil, and by which it is that we are rendered capable of it. This, as well as the other capacities of our nature, is derived from God; but there is no rational profence for alleging that gift to be a temptation, because liberty is not an inclination to evil, but merely the minds power of determining itself to that, or the contrary, according as the motives to the one or the other should appear strongest; and that the author of the constitution hath cast the balance on the side of virtue, we may see from what hath been already said, since tie hath given us virtuous instincts, with a sense of moral obligations, and added a very powerful sanction to them. Besides, liberty is absolutely necessary to the practice of virtue, as well as to the being of moral evil; nor could we without it have been capable of rational happiness.
3. Again, if we consider the administration of providence, and the Divine conduct towards all men, we shall find that the same design is regularly pursued by methods becoming the wisdom of God, and best suited to our condition; the design, I mean, not of tempting us to sin, but preserving us from it. As God sent men into the world, a species of rational beings, fitted by the excellent faculties wherewith He endued them for rendering Him very important service, and enjoying a great measure of happiness, so He constantly careth for that favourite workmanship of His hands. Of all the nations of men who are made to dwell on the face of the earth, none are without witness of their Makers mercies, for He continually doth them good, sending them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, and filling their hearts with food and gladness. Now if such kindness be the character of the Divine administration, what is the tendency of it? Is it to tempt men, to lead them to sin, which is rebellion against Himself, and against their own reason? But when men had wilfully corrupted their ways, and turned the bounty of God into lasciviousness, Providence hath sometimes interposed in a different manner, that is, by awful judgments suddenly spread over nations or cities.
4. And, lastly, if we consider the revelation of the gospel, and that whole Divine scheme contained in it, which God in love to mankind hath formed for our salvation, we must see that the whole design of it is directly opposite to the design of tempting; it is to turn every one of us from our iniquities. But for the general tenor of the Divine administration towards men, it designedly favoureth their escape from temptations, and directeth them to the paths of virtue (1Co 10:13). Some, indeed, to shun the dangerous mistake of imputing sin and temptation to God as in any respect its cause, have run into the opposite equally absurd extreme of withdrawing moral evil altogether from under Gods government of the world, and deriving it from an original independent evil principle; which scheme, as it destroyeth the true notion of vice representing it not as the voluntary act of imperfect intelligent beings, but as flowing from an independent necessity of nature. The generality of Christians, owning the unity of God, do also acknowledge His perfect purity and goodness, and in words, at least, deny Him to be the author of sin: but I am afraid the opinions received among some of them are not perfectly consistent with these true principles. For instance, to represent the nature of men as so corrupted, without any personal fault of theirs, that they are under a fatal necessity of sinning, and that it is utterly impossible for them to do anything which is good. What thoughts can a man have of this, but that it is the appointed condition of his being, to be resolved ultimately into the will of his Maker, just like the shortness of his understanding, the imperfection of his senses, or even the frailty of his body?
The counsels of God concerning mens sins, and the agency of His providence about them, not in overruling the issue, but in ascertaining and by its influence determining them, as intending events, ought also to be considered with the utmost caution.
1. And, first of all, that God is not tempted with evil, neither tempteth any man, tendeth to preserve in our minds the highest esteem and reverence for Him. It is not possible for us to have a veneration for a tempter.
2. This doctrine tendeth to beget and confirm in us an utter abhorrence of sin, because it is the thing God hateth, and will have nothing to do, no kind of communication with it.
II. The second instruction relating to temptations, now to be considered, amounteth to this, that the true and most useful account of the origin of sin to every particular person, that which really is the spring of prevailing temptation, Is HIS OWN LUST; but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.
1. Wbat is meant by lust. To understand this we must look into the inferior part of the human constitution. Since it pleased God to form man as he is, compounded of flesh and spirit, it was necessary there should be in his nature affections suitable to both. This leadeth us to a true notion of what the apostle calleth lust; it signifieth the whole of those affections and passions which take their rise from the body and the animal part of our nature, and which terminate in the enjoyments and conveniences of our present state, as distinguished from the moral powers and pleasures of the mind, and the perfection of them, which requireth our chief application as being our principal concern and ultimate happiness. That inferior part of our constitution, in itself innocent and necessary for such beings, yet giveth the occasion whereby we, abusing our liberty, are drawn away and enticed to evil by various ways; such as, vehement desires beyond the real value of the objects; an immoderate indulgence in the gratification of those desires, either in instances which are prohibited by reason and the laws of God, or even within the licensed kinds, above the proper limits which the end of such gratification hath fixed; all tending to weaken the devout and virtuous affections which are the glory of our nature and the distinguishing excellence of man. Other affections also tempt us, as sorrow, which often through our weakness exceedeth in proportion the event which is the occasion of it. 2. To consider how men are tempted by lust, being drawn away and enticed. And here what I would principally observe is, that lusts are only the occasions or temptations to moral evil, not necessitating causes. The mind is free, and voluntarily determineth itself upon the suggestions of appetites and passions, not irresistibly governed by them; to say otherwise, is to reproach the constitution and the author of it; and for men to lay upon Him the blame of their own faults, which yet their consciences cannot help taking to themselves. Let us reflect on what passeth in our own heart on such occasions, to which none of us can be strangers; and we shall be convinced that we have the power of controlling the inclinations and tendencies which arise in our mind, or not consenting to them, and a power of suspending our consent till we have farther considered the motives of action, and that this is a power often exerted by us. The most vehement desires of meat and drink are resisted upon an apprehension of danger; the love of money and the love of honour are checked, and their strongest solicitations sometimes utterly denied, through the superior force of contrary passions, or upon motives of conscience.
3. To show, that in the account which the text giveth, we may rest our inquiry, as to all the valuable purposes of it, concerning the origin of sin in ourselves. The true end of such inquiry is our preservation and deliverance from sin, that we may know how to avoid it, or repent of it when committed; excepting so far as they contribute to those ends, speculations about it are curious but unprofitable.
What I have just now hinted directeth us to the proper application of this subject.
1. And, first, upon a review of the whole progress of temptation from the first occasion of it to the last unhappy effect, the finishing of sin, which, I suppose, we are all agreed is the just object of our deepest concern, we may see what judgment is to be made, and where we ought to lay the blame.
2. From this doctrine of the apostle which I have endeavoured to explain, we see where our greatest danger is of being led into sin, and whence the most powerful and prevailing temptations arise, that is, from the lusts of the heart.
3. And therefore, thirdly, if we would maintain our integrity, let us keep the strictest watch over our own appetites and passions, and here place our strongest, for it will be the most effectual defence. (J. Abernethy, D. D.)
The sins of men not chargeable upon God, but upon themselves
Next to the belief of a God, and His providence, there is nothing more fundamentally necessary to the practice of a good life than the belief of these two principles. First, that God is not the author of sin, that He is in no way accessary to our faults, either by tempting or forcing us to the commission of them. For if He were, they would not properly be sins, for sin is a contradiction to the will of God; but supposing men to be either tempted or necessitated thereto, that which we call sin would either be a mere passive obedience to the will of God, or an active compliance with it, but neither way a contradiction to it. Nor could these actions be justly punished; for all punishment supposeth a fault, and a fault supposeth liberty and freedom from force and necessity; so that no man can be justly punished for that which he cannot help, and no man can help that which he is necessitated to. And though there were no force in the case, but only temptation, yet it would be unreasonable for the same person to tempt and punish. Secondly, that every mans fault lies at his own door, and he has reason enough to blame himself for all the evil that he does. And this is that which makes men properly guilty, that when they have done amiss, they are conscious to themselves it was their own act.
I. THAT GOD DOTH NOT TEMPT ANY MAN TO SIN.
1. The proposition which the apostle here rejects, and that is, that God tempts men, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. Now, that we may the more distinctly understand the meaning of the proposition, which the apostle here rejects, it will be very requisite to consider what temptation is, and the several sorts and kinds of it. Temptation does always imply something of danger. And men are thus tempted, either from themselves, or by others; by others, chiefly these two ways. First, By direct and downright persuasion to sin. And to be sure God tempts no man this way. He offers no arguments to man to persuade him to sin; He nowhere proposeth either reward or impunity to sinners; but, on the contrary, gives all imaginable encouragement to obedience, and threatens the transgression of His law with most dreadful punishments. Secondly, men are likewise tempted, by being brought into such circumstances, as will greatly endanger their falling into sin, though none persuade them to it. The allurements of the world are strong temptations; riches, honours, and pleasures are the occasions and incentives to many lusts. And, on the other hand, the evils and calamities of this world, especially if they threaten or fall upon men in any degree of extremity, are strong temptations to human nature. That the providence of God does order, or at least permit, men to be brought into these circumstances which are such dangerous temptations to sin, no man can doubt, that believes His providence to be concerned in the affairs of the world. All the difficulty is, how far the apostle does here intend to exempt God from a hand in these temptations. Now, for the clearer understanding of this it will be requsiite to consider the several ends which those who tempt others may have in tempting them; and all temptation is for one of these three reasons. First, for the exercise and improvement of mens graces and virtues. And this is the end which God always aims at, in bringing good men, or permitting them to be brought, into dangerous temptations. And this certainly is no disparagement to the providence of God, to permit men to be thus tempted, when He permits it for no other end but to make them better men, and thereby to prepare them for a greater reward. And this happy issue of temptations to good men the providence of God secures to them either by proportioning the temptation to their strength; or if it exceed that, by ministering new strength and support to them, by the secret aids of His Holy Spirit. And where God doth secure men against temptations, or support them under them, it is no reflection at all upon the goodness or justice of His providence to permit them to be thus tempted. Secondly, God permits others to be thus tempted, by way of judgement and punishment, for some former great sins and provocations which they have been guilty of (Isa 6:10). So likewise (Rom 1:24) God is said to have given up the idolatrous heathen to uncleanness, to vile and unnatural lusts (Rom 1:28; 2Th 2:11). But it is observable, that, in all these places which I have mentioned, God is said to give men up to the power of temptation, as a punishment of some former great crimes and provocations. And it is not unjust with God thus to deal with men, to leave them to the power of temptation, when they had first wilfully forsaken Him; and in this case God doth not tempt men to sin, but leaves them to themselves, to be tempted by their own hearts lusts; and if they yield and are conquered, it is their own fault. Thirdly, the last end of temptation which I mentioned is to try men, with a direct purpose and intention to seduce men to sin. Thus wicked men tempt others, and thus the devil tempts men. But thus God tempts no man; and in this sense it is that the apostle means that no man when he is tempted, is tempted of God. God hath no design to seduce any man to sin.
2. I now proceed to the second thing which I propounded to consider, viz., the manner in which the apostle rejects this proposition, Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. By which manner of speaking he insinuates two things. First, that men are apt to lay their faults upon God. For when he says, Let no man say so, he intimates that men were apt to say thus. It is not unlikely that men might lay the fault upon Gods providence, which exposed them to these difficult trials, and thereby tempted them to forsake their religion. But however this be, we find it very natural to men to transfer their faults upon others. They think it is a mitigation of their faults, if they did not proceed only from themselves, but from the violence and instigation of others. But, especially, men are very glad to lay their faults upon God, because He is a full and sufficient excuse, nothing being to be blamed that comes from Him. Secondly, this manner of speech, which the apostle here useth, doth insinuate further to us, that it is not only a false, but an impious assertion, to say that God tempts men to sin.
3. Third thing I propounded to consider; namely, The reason or argument which the apostle brings against this impious suggestion; that God cannot be tempted with evil; and therefore no man can imagine that He should tempt any man to it.
First, consider the strength and force of this argument: and–First, we will consider the proposition upon which this argument is built, and that in, that God cannot be tempted by evil. He is out of the reach of any temptation to evil. For, first, He hath no temptation to it from His own inclination. The holy and pure nature of God is at the greatest distance from evil, and at the greatest contrariety to it. He is so far from having any inclination to evil, that it is the only thing in the world to which He hath an irreconcilable antipathy (Psa 5:4; Hab 1:13). Secondly, there is no allurement in the object to stir up any inclination to Him towards it. Thirdly, neither are there external motives and considerations that can be imagined to tempt God to it. All arguments that have any temptation are founded either in the hope of gaining some benefit, or in the fear of falling into some mischief or inconvenience. Now the Divine nature, being perfectly happy, and perfectly secured in its own happiness, is out of the reach of any of these temptations.
2. Consider the consequences that clearly follow from it, that because God cannot be tempted with evil, therefore He cannot tempt any man to it. For why should He desire to draw men into that which He Himself abhors, and which is so contrary to His own nature and disposition? Bad men tempt others to sin, to make them like themselves, and that with one of these two designs; either for the comfort or pleasure of company, or for the countenance of it, that there may be some kind of apology and excuse for them. And when the devil tempts men to sin, it is either out of direct malice to God, or out of envy to men. But the Divine nature is full of goodness, and delights in the happiness of all His creatures. His own incomparable felicity has placed Him as much above any temptation to envying others as above any occasion of being contemned by them. Now, in this method of arguing, the apostle teacheth us one of the surest ways of reasoning in religion; namely, from the natural notions which men have of God. Inferences: First, let us beware of all such doctrines as do any ways tend to make God the author of sin; either by laying a necessity upon men of sinning, or by laying secret design to tempt and seduce men to sin. We find that the holy men in Scripture are very careful to remove all thought and suspicion of this from God. Elihu (Job 36:3), before he would argue about Gods providence with Job, he resolves, in the first place, to attribute nothing to God that is unworthy of Him. I will (says he) ascribe righteousness to my Maker. So likewise St. Paul What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid (Rom 7:7). Is the law sin? that is, hath God given men a law to this end, that He might draw them into sin? Far be it from Him. Is Christ the minister of sin? God forbid (Gal 2:17). Secondly, let not us tempt any man to sin. All piety pretends to be an imitation of God; therefore let us endeavour to be like Him in this. Thirdly, since God tempts no man, let us not tempt Him. There is frequent mention in Scripture of mens tempting God, i.e., trying Him, as it were, whether He will do anything for their sakes that is misbecoming His goodness, and wisdom, and faithfulness, or any other of His perfections. Thus the Israelites are said to have tempted God in the wilderness forty years together, and, in that space, more remarkably ten times. So likewise if we be negligent in our callings, whereby we should provide for our families, if we lavish away that which we should lay up for them, and then depend upon the providence of God to supply them, and take, care of them, we tempt God to that which is unworthy of Him; which is to give approbation to our folly, and countenance our sloth and carelessness.
II. THAT EVERY MAN IS HIS OWN GREATEST TEMPTER. BUut every man is tempted, when he is drawn aside of his own lust, and enticed. In which words the apostle gives us a true account of the prevalency of temptation upon men. It is not because God has any design to ensnare men in sin; but their own vicious inclinations seduce them to that which is evil. To instance in the particular temptations the apostle was speaking of, persecution and suffering for the cause of religion, to avoid which many did then forsake the truth, and apostatise from their Christian profession. They had an inordinate affection for the ease and pleasure of this life, and their unwillingness to part with these was a great temptation to them to quit their religion; by this bait they were caught, when it came to the trial. And thus it is proportionably in all other sorts of temptations. Men are betrayed by themselves. First, that as the apostle doth here acquit God from any hand in tempting men to sin, so he does not ascribe the prevalency and efficacy of temptation to the devil. I shall here consider how far the devil by his temptations is the cause of the sins which men, by compliance with those temptations, are drawn into. First, it is certain that the devil is very active and busy to minister to them the occasion of sin, and temptations to it. Secondly, the devil does not only present to men the temptations and occasions of sin; but when he is permitted to make nearer approaches to them, does excite and stir them up to comply with these temptations, and to yield to them. And there is reason, from what is said in Scripture, to believe that the devil, in some cases, hath a more immediate power and influence upon the minds of men, to excite them to sin, and, where he discovers a very bad inclination or resolution, to help it forward (John Act 5:3). Thirdly, but for all this the devil can force no man to sin; his temptations may move and excite men to sin, but that they were prevalent and effectual proceeds from our own will and consent; it is our own lusts closing with his temptations that produce sin. Fourthly, from what hath been said it appears that though the devil be frequently accessary to the sins of men, yet we ourselves are the authors of them; he tempts us many times to sin, but it is we that commit it. I am far from thinking that the devil tempts men to all the evil that they do. I rather think that the greatest part of the wickedness that is committed in the world springs from the evil motions of mens own minds. Mens own lusts are generally to them the worst devil of the two, and do more strongly incline them to sin than any devil without them can tempt them to it. Others, after he has made them sure, and put them into the way of it, will go on of themselves, and are as mad of sinning, as forward to destroy themselves, as the devil himself could wish; so that he can hardly tempt men to any wickedness which he does not find them inclined to of themselves. So that we may reasonably conclude that there is a great deal of wickedness committed in the world which the devil hath no immediate hand in. Second observation, that he ascribes the efficacy and success of temptation to the lusts and vicious inclinations of men, which seduce them to a consent and compliance with the temptations which are afforded to them. Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lust, and enticed. Lay the blame of mens sins chiefly upon themselves, and that chiefly upon these two accounts: First, the lusts of men are in a great measure voluntary. By the lusts of men I mean their irregular and vicious inclinations. Nay, and after this it is still our own fault if we do not mortify our lusts; for if we would hearken to-the counsel of God, and obey His calls to repentance, and sincerely beg His grace and Holy Spirit to this purpose, we might yet recover ourselves, and by the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh. Secondly, God hath put it in our power to resist these temptations, and overcome them; so that it is our own fault if we yield to them, and be overcome by them. First, it is naturally in our power to resist many sorts of temptations. If we do but make use of our natural reason, and those considerations which are common and obvious to men, we may easily resist the temptations to a great many sins. Secondly, the grace of God puts it into our power, if we do not neglect it, and be not wanting to ourselves, to resist any temptation that may happen to us; and what the grace of God puts into our power, is as truly in our power as what we can do ourselves. Learn: First, not to think to excuse ourselves by laying the blame of our sins upon the temptation of the devil. Secondly, from hence we learn what reason we have to pray to God, that He would not lead us into temptation, i.e., not permit us to fall into it; for, in the phrase of the Scripture, God is many times said to do these things which His providence permits to be done. Thirdly, from hence we may learn the best way to disarm temptations, and to take away the power of them; and that is by mortifying our lusts and subduing our vicious inclinations. (Abp. Tillotson.)
Transferring the blame of sin
1. Man is apt to transfer the guilt of his own miscarriages.
(1):Beware of these vain pretences. Silence and owning of guilt is far more becoming; God is most glorified when the creatures lay aside their shifts.
(2) Learn that all these excuses are vain and frivolous, they will not hold with God.
2. Creatures, rather than not transfer their guilt, will cast it upon God Himself.
(1) Partly because by casting it upon God the soul is most secure. When He that is to punish sin beareth the guilt of it, the soul is relieved from much horror and bondage; therefore, in the way of faith, Gods transacting our sin upon Christ is most satisfying to the spirit (Isa 53:6).
(2) Partly through a wicked desire that is in men to blemish the being of God. Man naturally hateth God; and our spite is shown by profaning His glory, and making it become vile in our thoughts; for since we cannot raze out the sense of the Deity, we would destroy the dread and reverence of it. We charge God with our evils and sins divers ways–
(a) When we blame His providence, the state of things, the times, the persons about us, the circumstances of Providence, as the laying of tempting objects in our way, our condition, &c., as if Gods disposing of our interests were a calling us to sin: thus Adam (Gen 3:12).
(b) By ascribing sin to the defect and faint operation of the Divine grace. Men will say they could do no otherwise; they had no more grace given them by God (Pro 19:3).
(c) When men lay all their miscarriages upon their fate, and the unhappy stars that shone at their birth, these are but blind flings at God Himself veiled under reflections upon the creature.
(d) When men are angry they know not why.
(e) Most grossly, when you think God useth any suggestion to the soul to persuade and incline it to evil.
(f) When you have an ill understanding and conceit of His decrees, as if they did necessitate you to sin. Men will say, Who can help it? God would have it so–as if that were an excuse for all.
3. God is so immutably good and holy that He is above the power of a temptation. Men soon warp and vary, but He cannot be tempted. And generally, we deal with God as if He could be tempted and wrought to a compliance with our corrupt ends, as Solomon speaketh of sacrifice offered with an evil mind (Pro 21:27); that is, to gain the favour of heaven in some evil undertaking and design.
4. The Author of all good cannot be the author of sin. (T. Manton.)
God tempts no man
I. THERE IS A TENDENCY IN THE MIND OF TRANSGRESSORS TO TRACE THEIR ERRORS AND INIQUITIES TO TEMPTATIONS PLACED IN THEIR WAY BY THE MORAL RULER OF THE WORLD.
II. TO EVINCE THE UTTER ABSURDITY AND INCONSISTENCY OF ASCRIBING, IN ANY MANNER OR TO ANY EXTENT, THE MORAL DELINQUENCIES OF MEN TO THE AUTHOR OF THEIR BEING, THE APOSTLE REMINDS US OF THE MORAL RECTITUDE OF THE DIVINE CHARACTER. He cannot be imagined as making any arrangements of the natural, or forming any plans in the moral world, of which the direct and necessary effect would be to lead His creatures into that which He has so solemnly declared that He cannot look upon but with abhorrence. Since He views with unmixed complacence the progress of His rational offspring in holiness and benevolence, can we imagine that He should either endow them with capacities, or place them in circumstances, the direct tendency of which should be to lead them into the paths of malevolence and impurity?
III. Having shown from the holiness of the Divine character that God is not the author of human temptations, he next grounds this assertion on THE DIVINE CONDUCT TO THE HUMAN FAMILY.
1. Examine, O man! the moral constitution of thy nature, and see if thou canst detect there any arrangement for thy departure from the path of holiness and peace. God has so formed the human mind that the perception of virtue awakens a sentiment of pleasure, and the presence or discovery of vice a feeling of disapprobation and disgust.
2. Look next into the history of Divine providence. Why has He been so mindful of man, and so careful of his comfort? Not, surely, to tempt him to ingratitude against his bountiful Benefactor, or to encourage him in rebellion against His authority and law. No! the goodness of God is designed to lead them who are the objects of it unto repentance.
3. Turn, now, to the revelation of the gospel, and see if there be any statements or provisions there that tend to countenance or confirm the strange delusion with which sinners seek to allay the alarms of conscience. Was not the Son of God manifested to destroy the works of the devil? Vegas He not sent to bless us, in turning every one of us from our iniquities? (John Johnston.)
Temptation to sin not from God
I. In support of the first, or negative part of the proposition–THAT GOD IS NOT THE AUTHOR OF SIN OR TEMPTATION., I confine myself entirely to the argument suggested by the text, God cannot be tempted with evil. There must be a certain analogy, or congenial resemblance, between every cause and its effect. We cannot find in the effect any attribute or quality which was not first inherent in the cause by which it was produced. How then can evil, moral evil, flow from the Divine nature, from which it is not only excluded, but to which it is directly opposite and contradictory?
II. In the text, TEMPTATIONS ARE POSITIVELY ASCRIBED TO THE LUSTS OF MEN; and therefore the guilt and misery arising from them must centre entirely in the person of the offender. Reflect upon that fatal hour when temptation assailed, and at last prevailed against you. What did you then feel? Why did you hesitate for a moment about gratifying the favourite passion? Did not another principle within you suggest danger, and hold you in suspense? Was not every concession to the tempting object extorted against the most earnest remonstrances, and the most awful forebodings of conscience? Lessons:
1. The doctrine, now illustrated, affords the strongest consolation and encouragement under the manifold dangers and trials to which we are exposed in the present state of probation and discipline. God tempts no man to sin. Omnipotent power and goodness are ever ready to interpose in the defence of struggling virtue.
2. From the doctrine of the text we may discern not only the weakness and folly, but the arrogance and impiety of those subterfuges and apologies to which sinners have recourse in order to extenuate or cancel their personal guilt.
3. Let us abhor every sentiment and expression tending so much as to insinuate that God is the author of temptation. Some errors may be set on foot while yet no more than the outworks of religion are attacked. But whatever misrepresents the perfections and moral government of God is immediately levelled against the foundation which supports the whole fabric of our faith. (T. Somerville, D. D.)
Man not tempted by God
Even a Christian master is especially careful not to throw temptations in the way, for instance, of his servants. He would not leave sums of money about, because it would be throwing temptation in their way. If he did it through accident, then the honest servant would preserve the money, and put it into the masters hands when he returned. If he purposely did it to try his servant, then he would be guilty if the servant took it; and if the man left it about for the very purpose, we know whose servant that master would be. It was nothing less than devilish to place the helmet and broadsword in sight of the imprisoned Joan of Arc, expecting that the sudden impulse of old and dear associations, the sudden spring of reviving habit, would lead her to put them on, and so break her word and forfeit her life. To think, then, that what a Christian master would not knowingly do, God would do, were blasphemy. (W. W. Champneys.)
Drawn away of his own lust
Sins beginning, progress, and end
I. How SIN BEGINS. NOW here is a point on which a most profane idea is often held, which our text begins with contradicting. Sin, saws an old proverbial saying, is a child that nobody will own. Men are forward to commit it, but they are backward to acknowledge that they gave it birth. But drawn away of his own lust, does the apostle say? Why does he not rather say Drawn away by Satan? Because the Lord is evidently aiming in this place to make men see that sin is their own doing–and that they are inexcusable in doing it. As some men are profane enough even to charge their sins upon the Lord, so many are glad, however, to lay all the blame of their transgressions at the door of Satan. The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. But no, says the doctrine of our text–you are self-tempters. It is your own lust that is to blame. However busy Satan is to ensnare you he has an active fellow-worker in your own ungodly bosom. God made man upright; but man has spoiled the nature which his God bestowed on him.
II. SINS PROGRESS. Lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin. Now this I call sins progress, because the lust itself, that is to say, the desire of what is evil, is a sin as well as the act of sin which it brings forth. The law of God reaches to the heart. It says, Thou shalt not covet. Evil desires, that is, when cherished in the heart, lead on to evil deeds.
III. THE END OF SIN. Many of those who practise it seem to think its end is peace. Lessons:
1. To lay the blame of sin at the right door.
2. To prize unspeakably the tender mercies of a Saviour, and to plead hard for them.
3. That we should keep our hearts with all diligence, for out of them are the issues of life. (A. Roberts, M. A.)
Evil: its origin
Here James traces the whole evil done by man, first, back to its proper source, and then forward to its final issue. He says, in this case the temptation is not from God; the inducement to sin, and the influence by which it is yielded to, are not from Him but from ourselves.
I. THE SOURCE OF SUCH TEMPTATION.
1. It does not originate with God. It is here clearly implied, on the one hand, that some are ready to say this, either with their lips or in their hearts. It has been supposed that the reference is to the fatalism which characterised many of the Jews; but for that there seems to be no good warrant. The error is common one, and has ever been found springing up, under this or that form, in the soil of our depraved nature. It appeared at a very early period, and is indeed coeval with the fall itself (Gen 3:13). In every age men have sought to cast the burden off themselves, and if possible to implicate the great Author of their being in the impurities of their character and conduct. They have done it in various ways. Some have identified sin with God, with His very nature. They have espoused the Pantheistic philosophy, which makes good and evil alike emanate from Him, yea, alike constitute Him, be equally manifestations and features of Him, parts of the universal, all-embracing Deity. Not a few who stop short of that monstrous but fascinating system, yet bring matters to the same issue, so far as the responsibility of their vices and crimes is concerned. They attribute them to Divine suggestion. It has not been uncommon to trace the foulest deeds to ideas and impulses of heavenly origin. Less directly, but not less really, is the same thing done by those who find a shelter in their corrupt dispositions and desires, in those propensities and passions which strongly incite to and issue in evil courses. Genius has boldly, defiantly urged this plea in defence of irregular habits, of gross excesses, and rolled back on the Author of our being the guilt of the darkest misdeeds. Persons of this stamp have appealed to Him, as knowing that He has framed them with passions wild and strong, and have traced their wildest wandering to light from heaven (Burns). And what is perhaps worse, their blind and foolish admirers have endorsed the impious plea, and deemed it sufficient excuse for the foulest immorality and profanity to talk of the poets galloping blood and quick nerves, of the gunpowder in his composition, separating him from tame, cold precisions, and raising him far above the common rules of judgment and action. These parties forget that God made man upright, after His own image, without an evil tendency, without one lust, vanity, or imperfection in his constitution. Everything of the sort is the fruit of the fall, of the change wrought in us by apostasy, of our voluntary, wilful, presumptuous rebellion against the authority of heaven. All that is corrupt is of ourselves. The origin of it is human and Satanic; it is not, in whole or part, Divine. Others say, in effect, that they are tempted of God, because of the position they occupy, the circumstances in which they are placed, and the objects by which they are surrounded. High or low, rich or poor, young or old, learned or ignorant, we have each that in our condition which not only tries, but tempts; and for that is not the great Disposer of affairs, He who has fixed our position and appointed our lot, is not He responsible? He fills and directs that stream which is flowing all around, carrying us down by its constant, swollen, resistless current. How can we bear up against it, and if we are swept away by it, is it at all wonderful? God does it, and He could have ordered things far otherwise, He could have shielded us from all such malign influences. Those who entertain the thought overlook the fact that we have often very much to do with these circumstances ourselves. How common a thing is it to choose our own way, regardless of the will of God, and presumptuously to place ourselves in that situation, and among those objects, on which we afterwards cast the blame of the sins we there commit, of the errors and impurities into which we are there seduced! Further, these persons fail to realise the truth, that circumstances in themselves have comparatively little power over us, that they derive their mastery, not from what is in them, but what is in us–from the dispositions and desires on which they operate. And they forget that these very circumstances which are complained of are meant to furnish a wholesome discipline, to supply that moral and spiritual training which we need, and that in the exercise of reason and conscience–above all, by grace sought and obtained, we are to control, to governthem, to rise superior to them, and, instead of allowing them to be masters, make them our servants. Let no man then say that, in these respects or any others, he is tempted of God; let him guard against the most distant approach to such foul blasphemy. So far from anything of the kind, God sets before us the most powerful inducements to reject evil under every form, to avoid it as we should a serpent in our path. How authoritative the commands, how awful the sanctions of His law! while the operations of His providence, and indeed the very constitution of our being, which is His workmanship, supply us with the most convincing evidence that He hates sin and punishes its commission. James gives a reason for this, he founds it on the Divine nature itself. For God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. He cannot be tempted with evil. He is infinitely far removed from it, raised above it, under all its forms. He is so because of the absolute perfection of His being and blessedness. He has no want to be supplied, no desire to be gratified. He can gain nothing, can receive nothing. His happiness is complete, absolute, admitting neither of diminution nor enlargement. What inducement, then, can evil present to Him, what bribe can it offer to such a being? Neither tempteth He any man. The two statements are closely connected. The one follows from, and is based on, the other. He who cannot be tempted cannot tempt. He whose holiness shuts out all solicitation to evil will not, cannot present such solicitation. His spotless, glorious character is opposed equally to either supposition.
2. It originates with man himself. It springs from elements which have their seat in his own bosom. It rises from, it centres in, lust. This term is not limited here, as it often is in common use among us, to sensual passion, to licentiousness. It is far more general and comprehensive. It denotes strong desire of any kind; and here, as often elsewhere, it means irregular, sinful desire–desire either of what is not lawful, or of what is lawful in an inordinate degree. It may be evil in its very nature, irrespective of extent, or it may be so only by reason of perversion and excess. There is much of this in every bosom. It is the corrupt principle in its various tendencies and motions–its striving, craving for certain objects and indulgences. It is the body of sin in its manifold appetites and members. Here is the primary, prolific source of transgression. The apostle says, his own lust, and this is a significant and emphatic circumstance. Each person has a particular lust, a master-passion, an evil tendency, which has the chief influence in determining his conduct and moulding his character. All of us have sins that do more easily beset us, by reason of the special principles and propensities which bold sway in our bosom. One is governed by the love of pleasure, another by the love of power. Thin man is ambitious, that is covetous. Here it is the filthiness of the flesh, there it is the filthiness of the spirit, which is dominant. But what is brought out by his own, is that the lust by which we are tempted is a thing strictly belonging to ourselves. It excludes the idea of foreign action or influence; it confronts and condemns the imagination that God is at all implicated in the matter. Our own lust is more to be dreaded than all Satans assaults, though these are ever to be watched and feared. But the temptation in question, that which issues in sin, operates, takes effect, has its success in the manner here described. When he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. We take the first step in the direction of real and overt acts of disobedience when we allow ourselves to be drawn away and enticed by it; for it acts in both cases, brings about the latter step as well as the former, in this downward process. We break loose from the restraints of various kinds which have helped to hold us back from evil, and gradually yield to the enticements presented, to the fascinations of vanity or vice, of folly or wickedness. The one step precedes and prepares for the other. (John Adam.)
The depravity of the will the cause of sin
It is natural for men, in the commission of sin, to design to themselves as much of the pleasure and as little of the guilt as possible; and therefore, since the guilt of sin unavoidably remains upon the cause and author of sin, it is their great business to find out some other cause, upon which to charge it, beside themselves.
1. What the apostle here means by being tempted.
2. What is intended by lust,
1. For the first of these: it is as certain that the Scripture affirms some men to have been tempted by God, and particularly Abraham, as that it is positively affirmed in the verse before the text, that God tempts no man. In the sense that it is ascribed to God, it signifies no more than a bare trial; as when, by some notable providence, He designs to draw forth and discover what is latent in the heart of man. In the sense that it is denied of God, it signifies an endeavour, by solicitations and other means, to draw a man to the commission of sin: and this the most holy God can by no means own, for it would be to take the devils work out of his hands. But neither does this sense reach the measure of the word in this place; which imports not only an endeavour to engage a man in a sinful action, but an effectual engaging him with full prevalence, as to the last issue of the commission. And thus a man can be only tempted by his own lust; which is–
2. The second thing to be explained. By lust the apostle here means, not that particular inordination or vice that relates to the uncleanness of the flesh; but the general stock of corruption that possesses the whole soul, through all its respective faculties. But principally is it here to be understood of the prime commanding faculty of all, the will, as it is possessed and principled with sinful habits and depraved inclinations.
I. THE MISTAKEN CAUSES OF SIN; in the number of which we may reckon these that follow
1. The decree of God concerning things to come to pass is not a proper cause for any man to charge his sins upon; though perhaps there is nothing in the world that is more abused by weak and vulgar minds in this particular. It has no casual influence upon sinful actions; no, nor indeed upon any actions else: forasmuch as the bare decree, or purpose of a thing, produces or puts nothing in being at all. A decree, as such, is not operative or effective of the thing decreed. But it will be replied, Does not everything decreed by God necessarily come to pass? And yet I suppose that none will say that Gods foreknowledge of a mans actions does, by any active influence, necessitate that man to do those actions; albeit, that this consequence stands unshakeable, that whatsoever God foreknows a man will do, that shall certainly be done. Otherwise, where is Gods omniscience and His infallibility? God hath shown thee, O man, what is good and what is evil. He has placed life and death before thee. This is the rule by which thou must stand or fall: and no man will find that his fulfilling Gods secret will, will bear him out in the breach of His revealed.
2. The influences of the heavens and of the stars imprint nothing upon men that can impel or engage them to do evil; and yet some are so sottish as to father their villainies upon these; they were born, forsooth, under such a planet, and therefore they cannot choose but be thieves or rebels all their life after. But admitting that the heavens have an influence upon inferior bodies, and that those glorious lights were not made only to be gazed upon, but to control as well as to direct the lesser world; yet still all communication between agent and patient must be in things that hold some proportion and likeness in their natures; so that one thing can pass no impression upon another, of a nature absolutely and in every respect diverse from it, provided it be also superior to it; and such a thing is a spirit in respect of body. Upon which grounds, what intercourse can there be between the stars and a soul?
3. Neither can any man charge his sins upon the constitution and temper of his body, as the proper cause of them. The body was made to serve and not to command. All that it can do is only to be troublesome, but it cannot be imperious. They are not the humours of the body, but the humours of the mind, to which men owe the irregularities of their behaviour. The sensitive appetites having their situation in the body, do indeed follow the peculiar complexion and temper of it; but reason is a thing that is placed so solely and entirely in the soul, and so depends not upon those inferior faculties; but though it is sometimes solicited by them, yet it is in its power, whether or no it will be prevailed upon. And for all the noise and tumult that is often raised amongst them; yet reason, like the uppermost region of the air, is not at all subject to the disturbances that are below. No man is made an adulterer, a drunkard, or an idle person by his body; his body indeed may incline him to be so, but it is his will only that makes him so. And besides, there have been some in the world, who by the conduct of their reason have made their way to virtue, through all the disadvantages of their natural constitution. Philosophy has done it in many, and religion may do it in all.
4. And lastly, to proceed yet higher: no man can justly charge his sins upon the devil, as the cause of them; for God has not put it into the power of our mortal enemy to ruin us without ourselves; which yet he had done, had it been in the devils power to force us to sin. The Spirit of God assures us that he may be resisted, and that upon a vigorous resistance, he will fly. He never conquers any, but those that yield; a spiritual fort is never taken by force, but by surrender. It is confessed, indeed, that the guilt of those sins that the devil tempts us to, will rest upon him; but not so as to discharge us. He that persuades a man to rob a house is guilty of the sin he persuades him to, but not in the same manner that he is who committed the robbery. I shall remark this by way of caution: that though I deny any of these to be the proper causes of sin, yet it is not to be denied but that they are often very great promoters of sin, where they meet with a corrupt heart and a depraved will. And it is not to be questioned but that many thousands now in hell might have gone thither in a calmer and a more cleanly way at least, had they not been hurried on by impetuous temptations, by an ill constitution, and by such circumstances of life as mightily suited their corruption, and so drew it forth to a pitch of acting higher and more outrageous than ordinary. For there is no doubt but an ill mind in an ill-disposed body will carry a man forth to those sins, that otherwise it would not, if lodged in a body of a better and more benign temperament. As a sword, covered with rust, will wound much more dangerously, where it does wound, than it could do if it were bright and clean. All this is very true; and therefore, besides those internal impressions of grace, by which God sanctifies the heart, and effectually changes the will, many are accountable to His mercy for those external and inferior assistances of grace. As, that He restrains the fury of the tempter; that He sends them into the world with a well-tempered and rigthtly disposed body; and lastly, that He casts the course of their life out of most of the snares and occasions of sin: so that they can with much more ease be virtuous than other men. But on the other side, where God denies a man these advantages, and casts him under all the forementioned disadvantages of virtue, it is yet most certain that they lay upon him no necessity of sinning.
II. THE PROPER AND EFFECTUAL CAUSE OF SIN IS THE DEPRAVED WILL OF MAN, expressed here under the name of LUST. The proof of which is not very difficult; for all other causes being removed, it remains that it can be only this. We have the word of Christ Himself that it is from within, from the heart, that envyings, wrath, bitterness, adulteries, fornications, and other such impurities do proceed. I shall endeavour further to evince this by arguments and reasons.
1. The first shall be taken from the office of the will, which is to command and govern all the rest of the faculties; and therefore all disorder must unavoidably begin herb. The economy of the powers and actions of the soul is a real government; and a government cannot be defective without some failure in the governor.
2. The second argument shall be taken from every mans experience of himself and his own actions; upon an impartial survey of which he shall find, that before the doing of anything sinful or suspicious, there passes a certain debate in the soul about it, whether it shall or shall not be done; and after all argumentations for and against, the last issue and result follows the casting voice of the will.
3. A third reason is from this, that the same man, upon the proposal of the same object, and that under the same circumstances, yet makes a different choice at one time from what he does at another; and therefore the moral difference of actions, in respect of the good or evil of them, must of necessity be resolved into some principle within him; and that is his will.
4. The fourth and last reason shall be from this, that even the souls in hell continue to sin, and therefore the productive principle of sin must needs be the will. All the blowing of the fire put under a cauldron could never make it boil over, were there not a fulness of water within it. Some are so stupid as to patronise their sins with a plea that they cannot, they have not power to do otherwise; but where the will is for virtue, it will either find or make power.
III. THE WAY BY WHICH A CORRUPT WILL (here expressed by the name of lust) IS THE CAUSE OF SIN; and that is, by drawing a man aside, and enticing him.
1. It seduces, or draws a man aside; it actually takes himself from the ways of duty: for as in all motion there is the relinquishment of one term before there can be the acquisition of another; so the soul must pass from its adherence to virtue before it can engage in a course of sin. Now the first and leading attempt of lust is to possess the mind with a kind of loathing of virtue, as a thing harsh and insipid, and administering no kind of pleasure and satisfaction. This being done, and the mind clear, it is now ready for any new impression.
2. The other course is by enticing; that is, by using arguments and rhetoric, to set off sin to him with the best advantage, and the fairest gloss. And this it does these two following ways:
(1) By representing the pleasures of sin, stripped of all the troubles and inconveniences of sin. Bit now it is the act of lust to show the quintessence and the refined part of a sinful action, separate from all its dregs and indecencies, so to recommend it to the apprehension of a deluded sinner. Lust never deals impartially with the choice, so as to confront the whole good with the whole evil of an object; but declaims amply and magnificently of one, while it is wholly silent of the other.
(2) Lust entices by representing that pleasure that is in sin greater than indeed it is; it swells the proportions of everything, and shows them, as it were, through a magnifying-glass, greatened and multiplied by desire and expectation; which always exhibit objects to the soul, not as they are, but as they would have them be. Nothing cheats a man so much as expectation: it conceives with the air, and grows big with the wind; and like a dream, it promises high, but performs nothing. They are cursed like the earth, not only with barrenness, but with briars and thorns; there is not only a fallacy, but a sting in them: and consequently they are rendered worse than nothing; a reed that not only deceives, but also pierces the hand that leans upon it.
But the exceeding vanity of every sinful pleasure will appear by considering both the latitude of its extent and the length of its duration.
1. And first, for the latitude or measure of its extent. It seldom gratifies but one sense at a time; and if it should diffuse a universal enjoyment to them all, yet it reaches not the better, the more capacious part of man, his soul: that is so far from communicating with the senses, that in all their revels it is pensive and melancholy, and afflicted with inward remorses from an unsatisfied, if not also an accusing conscience.
2. And then secondly, for its duration or continuance. (R. South, D. D.)
Of the nature of temptations
The word lust signifies in this place every desire or inclination after things unlawful in any kind. The desire of unlawful pleasures, which is the vice of sensuality. The desire of unlawful riches, which is the foundation of unrighteousness, oppression, and fraud. The desire of obtaining honour by corrupt methods, which is the sin of ambition. The desire of being religious without true virtue, without the sincere love of God and of our neighbour, which is the foundation of idolatry, and of all superstitions. When by any of these desires a man is drawn away from what he knows is right, and enticed to do what the reason of his mind condemns, then is he led into sin.
I. In the nature of things EVERY SIN IS A DEVIATION FROM SOME RULE; and such a deviation as the person is sensible of at the time he acts, and knows that he ought not to have so acted. This it is that makes the action blameworthy in its own nature, and justly punishable by a wise and good governor. But, man being endued with rational faculties, and knowing well the difference between good and evil, is still placed in such a situation as to be frequently tempted to depart from reason, and to act contrary to what he knows is right.
II. Second place, to illustrate and confirm this doctrine BY COMPARING IT WITH SOME REMARKABLE EXAMPLES of sinful men and sinful actions, recorded in Scripture for our admonition. Men at all times, and in all places, when they have been seduced by sin, and begun to apprehend the ill consequences of it, have endeavoured to shift off the blame from themselves, and to lay at least part of the fault upon whatever else they could. But the Scripture, in every history there recorded, has always taken care to direct us with sufficient clearness to the true source of the evil. Our first parent, Eve, when she had eaten of the forbidden fruit, immediately her excuse was, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Saul comforted himself under his disobedience to an express command of God, with an imaginary intention of sacrificing the choice of his forbidden spoils unto the Lord his God. But the true motive that drew him away from his duty was a covetous desire of the spoil (1Sa 15:21; 1Sa 15:24). David, in the committing of that great crime, the murder of Uriah, flattered himself with that shameful apology, because Uriah fell by the band of the Ammonites 2Sa 11:25). Ahab was willing to persuade himself that he had a right to Ramoth-Gilead, and that God too, by His prophets, encouraged the undertaking. Yet had not his ambition and his passions drawn him away, and blinded his attention, it was easy for him to have perceived that in this whole matter he was acting contrary to the will of God (1Ki 22:8). (S. Charke, D.D.)
Evil self-originated
1. The cause of evil is in a mans self, in his own lusts, the Eve in our own bosom. God gave a pure soul, only it met with viciously disposed matter.
2. Above all things, a man should look to his desires.
3. The way that lust takes to ensnare the soul is by force and flattery.
(1) By violence.
(a) When your desires will not endure the consideration of reason, but you are carried on by a brutish rage (Jer 5:8).
(b) When they grow more outrageous by opposition, and that little check that you give to them is like the sprinkling of water upon the coals, the fire burns more fiercely.
(c) When they urge and vex the soul till fulfilled, which is often expressed in Scripture by a languor and sickness.
(2) By flattery. This is one of the impediments of conversion–lust promises delight and pleasures (Job 20:12).
(a) Learn to suspect things that are too delightful. That which you should look after in the creatures is their usefulness, not their pleasantness–that is the bait of lust.
(b) Learn what need there is of great care. Noonday devils are most dangerous, and such things do us most mischief as betray us with smiles and kisses. (T. Manton.)
Drawn and dragged
We are tempted, it seems–drawn into sin. Who draws us? Not God. He is perfectly holy, and by a necessity of nature does good and not evil. God is for us; who is against us? There is indeed a tempter. The evil spirit has no power at all over any of us, except what we concede to him. As the prince of the power of the air, he could do a soul no harm: it is when he is welcomed within a mans own heart that he ensnares. So then, in the last resort, every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. From this striking figure we learn some specific features of the sad process. The two terms are literally, drawn out, and hooked. The first expression does not yet mean drawn by the hook; it means rather drawn to the hook. There are two successive drawings, very diverse in character. The first is a drawing towards the hook, and the second is a dragging by the hook. The first is a secret enticement of the will, and the second is an open and outrageous oppression by a superior force, binding the slave and destroying him. The first process, as applied to hunting and fishing, is well known and easily understood. This part of the process is carried on with care and skill and secrecy. No noise is made, and no danger permitted to meet the eye of the victim. By smell or by sight, the fish or the wild animal is drawn from the safe, deep hiding-place in the bush or in the river. The victim, not perceiving the danger, is by its own lust–its own appetite–drawn to its doom. The next part of the process is the act of fixing the barbed hook in the victims jaws. The word is baited; that is, enticed by the bait to swallow the hook–the hook that is in the first instance unsuspected. When the hook is fastened, there is another drawing; but oh, how diverse from the first! The angler does not now hide himself, and tread softly, and speak in a whisper. There is no more any gentleness. He rudely drags his helpless prey to shore, and takes its life. I have often seen the same process, with the same difference between its commencement and its conclusion, in the tempting of human souls. The best, the only real preventive against these baited hooks, is to be satisfied with a sweetness in which there are no sin and no danger. The human soul that is empty–that is not satisfied with the peace of God–is easily drawn into the pleasures of sin. In a certain Highland lake, I have been told, sportsmen at one season of the year expect no sport. There are plenty of fishes, but they will not take the bait. Some vegetable growth on the bottom at that period is abundant and suitable as food. I have observed, in the process of fishing, that on the part of the victim there are two successive struggles, both violent, both short, and both, for the most part, unavailing. When first it feels the hook, it makes a vigorous effort to shake itself free. But that effort soon ceases, and the fish sails gently after the retreating hook, as if it were going towards the shore with its own consent. What is the reason of its apparent docility after the first struggle? Ah, poor victim! it soon discovers that to draw against the hook, when the hook is fastened, is very painful. Then, when it feels the shore, and knows instinctively that its doom has come, there is another desperate struggle, and all is over. I think I have observed these two struggles, one at the beginning and one at the end, with the period of silent resignation between them, in the experience of an immortal man. There is an effort to resist the appetite, after the victim discovers that he is in its grasp. But the effort is painful, and is soon abandoned. I will seek it yet again, is the silent resolution of despair. The struggle, with all the agonies of remorse, may be once more renewed when the waters of life grow shallow, and the soul is grazing the eternal shore. The result? Alas! the darkness covers it; we know it not. After the first drawing, which is soft and unexpected, the way of transgressors is hard. The fish with the hook in its jaws is the chosen glass in which the Scripture invites us to see it. The snare of intemperance is the one in which the victim is tormented, and made a show of openly, in sight of the world. (W. Arnot.)
Drawn away and enticed
Of the two verbs used here to describe the temptational agency of lust, the former was originally a venatorial, the second a piscatorial term. Each has its own significance in the description. Before the wild beast can be captured it must be drawn out of its lair. It must be enticed away from its defences, out into the open, where it can be surrounded on all sides, where the assaults can be conducted with greater freedom, where all retreat will be cut off. So temptation will be most effectual when the soul can be enticed out of its retreat, when it exposes itself to the solicitations of evil, and puts itself at the mercy of its foes. When man has lost his adjustments, when his spiritual centre of gravity is disturbed, he is much more susceptible to the power of assaults made upon his integrity, and much more easily overthrown. This, then, is the first endeavour of the Epithumia to induce a change of locality and of environment, to urge man further away from the source of true security, to lead him to advance so far out into the place of exposure that he will fall an easy prey to his adversaries. The other figure carries us a step further. The angler baits his hook to catch the fish. He lures his unwary victim to its death. He offers in sight what he knows will surely attract, and hides within the barbed point which is to capture and to destroy. So in temptation there is this same combination of allurement and destruction. First comes the lure–pleasure, fame, wealth, honour, power, knowledge–the fatal barbwhich lurks within, so placed that to snatch at it is to swallow death. Man is allured, deceived; yet not unwittingly nor unwillingly. He is baited from his own lust. His morbid appetite seeks out the forbidden fruit, and greedily plucks it. (J. Caldwell, D. D.)
The origin of evil
Thus James gives us the genesis of evil. It is in the individual man. The man is drawn away from good and caught in evil by his own lust. The writer lays special emphasis on this: it is his own; it is not of God–not of the devil–not of the world; it is of the mans self, and in the mans self. It is that in his self without the exhibition of which there would be nothing to which the work of the devil could appeal. It is most important to inculcate in all children that it is a mistake to lay their faults on any one else, even on the devil. That personage has enough to bear without having our sins laid upon him. No sinner can be reformed so long as he makes Satan or any one else responsible for his transgressions. I knew a child of strong character and strong passions who used to have paroxysms of rage. Her parents and others would sometimes tell her to open her mouth and let the bad spirit go under the table. The child was growing into the belief that she was the innocent victim of an unseen being, who was snottier person, and she was learning to shift all the responsibility upon that person, that person not herself. A friend one day taught her the fallacy of this; showed her that she was the only person responsible; that she herself was the bad spirit, and there was nothing to do but have that spirit, namely, herself, totally changed. She went to her closet and prayed–prayed as David prayed (Psa 51:1-19.), when the conviction seized himthat it was against God, and God only, that he had sinned. There was no third party in the transaction, From the hour the child had that conviction she was a changed person. So must we all feel. We can never resist temptation as we should, so long as we hold God or any one else responsible for our sins. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
It bringeth forth sin
Sin
Sin is a reality. It is not a weakness, but a power; a power which gnaws at the very core of life; a power encompassing and swaying the entire range of our being. It is an inward strife, a pain reaching even to the heart. Let us, then, seek first of all to discern the full significance of sin, that in sincere penitence we may turn away from it. It gives sins history. The history naturally divides itself into three parts
Sin.
I. In its origin.
II. In its essence.
III. In its results.
I. EVERY MAN IS TEMPTED, WHEN HE IS DRAWN AWAY OF HIS OWN LUST, AND ENTICED. His own lust–the emphasis lies there. Do not throw the blame on any external power; least of all upon God, the Holy One, who has written His law in your hearts! He condemns and punishes sin. He desires that you should be holy as He is holy. Do not seek for the guilt outside yourself, among the people who surround you. I know, indeed, how great is the power of custom, of education, of companionships, the power of men over men; bow overmastering are the first impressions of youth, made upon the unconscious spirit and the undeveloped will. But, nevertheless, all these external influences only tempt–they cannot compel; there is no inseparable connection between them and the soul. The tempting lust! Ah, how insignificant and harmless does it appear at first! How beautiful, in the brilliant colours of childhood! The lust after outward show, after enjoyment, after the possession of earthly things–selfish-ness, vanity, ambition! At first these seem only a childish playfulness, as it were, a snatching at things; a sweet gratification in the absorbing attractions of the outer world; but soon they become a habit.
II. But now, further, SIN IS BORN OF LUST. It surrounds us everywhere–nay, it is within us–it has taken possession of our senses and our thoughts. And in what does it essentially consist? In the opposition between the flesh and spirit! Selfishness and the desires of the senses–these are the two fundamental forms of all sin. You perhaps ask me if sin is indeed so universally powerful and universally diffused? Be assured, sin has manifold forms–refined and gross; concealed and bare; violent and torpid.
III. And so our text proceeds: AND SIN, WHEN IT IS FINISHED, BRINGETH FORTH DEATH. That is the end–dissolution, ruin, death. And how does the corruption of the spirit show itself? Thus
The conscience becomes dumb; the sense of spiritual realities dull; the nobler feelings of honour vanish; virtue is only an un-comprehended idea; goodness is only policy, or that which is approved by the lax judgment of so-called good society; truth is trampled under the feet of falsehood; and humanity becomes venal, and makes its bargain with the world. And these are the ruinous lineaments of the face of death–indifference, joylessness, hopelessness 1 And these not only take possession of the individual, but proceed further, and, in their moral ruin and destruction, bear violently away everything which comes within the range of the sinful life: they destroy the entire house which is built upon the sand. Not yonder only, in the other world, are the punishment and recompense received; there is a Divine justice even upon this earth. (Dr. Schwarz.)
The natural history of sin
I. THE BEGINNING OF SIN. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. This is the source of all evil. Before the act can be committed the purpose must be formed in the breast, which takes time, design, deliberation. Seduction, theft, perfidy, drunkenness, injustice, murder, the popular vices of the day, require design, arrangement, decision.
II. THE PROGRESS WHICH IT MAKES IN ITS INFLUENCE OVER THE HEART AND CHARACTER OF MAN.
1. The causes brought into operation to produce this. One is the popular reading of the age. Associations with those who have made some advances in vice.
2. Let me show how these principles advance. When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. No man can become suddenly wicked. At first there must be awful violence done to the conscience. But when you have once gone into this moral contamination, when you cast off the fear of man, no one is astonished, because previously to this you have cast off the fear of God.
III. THE END OF SIN.
1. The death of the body. Death has passed upon all men, for all have sinned. But there is a natural tendency in sin to hasten this end. I read in my Bible, Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. The glutton, the intemperate, the lascivious person, the debauchee, all these men shorten their days.
2. The death of the soul. And what is that? I cannot tell.
(1) Allow me to make an appeal to those who are invested with parental authority. Beware lest by connivance and withholding due restraint, you become accessories to the ruin of your children.
(2) Let me warn the young against the danger of yielding to the first temptation. (T. East.)
The vigour of lust
1. Sin encroaches upon the spirit by degrees. Lust begetteth vigorous motions, or pleasing thoughts, which draw the mind to a full and clear consent; and then sin is hatched, and then disclosed, and then strengthened, and then the person is destroyed.
(1) Oh, that we were wise, then, to rise against sin betimes! that we would take the little foxes (Son 2:15), even the first appearances of corruption! A Christians life should be spent in watching lust. Small breaches in the sea-bank occasion the ruin of the whole if not timely repaired.
(2) This reproves them that boldly adventure upon a sin because of the smallness of it. Consider the danger to yourselves. Great faults do not only ruin the soul, but lesser; dallying with temptations is of a sad consequence. Caesar was killed with bodkins.
2. Lust is fully conceived and formed in the soul, when the will is drawn to consent; the decree in the will is the ground of all practice. Well, then, if lust hath insinuated into your thoughts, labour to keep it from a decree and gaining the consent of the will. Sins are the more heinous as they are the more resolved and voluntary.
3. What is conceived in the heart is usually brought forth in the life and conversation. Lust, when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin. That is the reason why the Apostle Peter directeth a Christian to spend the first care about the heart–Abstain from fleshly lusts, and then have your conversations honest (1Pe 2:11-12). As long as there is lust in the heart there will be no cleanness in the conversation; as worms in wood will at length cause the rottenness to appear.
(1) Learn that hypocrites cannot always be hidden; disguises will fall off.
(2) Learn the danger of neglecting lust and thoughts. If these are not suppressed, they will ripen into sins and acts of filthiness.
(3) Learn what a mercy it is to be hindered of our evil intentions, that sinful consequences are stillborn, and when we wanted no lust we should want no occasion. Mere restraints are a blessing. We are not so evil as otherwise we would be.
4. The result and last effect of sin is death (Rom 6:21; Eze 18:4). Draco, the rigid law-giver, being asked why, when sins were equal, he appointed death to all, answered he knew that sins were not all equal, but he knew the least deserved death.
(1) It teacheth us how to stop the violence of lust; this will be death and damnation. OhQ consider it, and set it as a flaming sword in the way of your carnal delights. Observe how wisely God hath ordered it–much of sin is pleasant; aye I but there is death in the pot, and so fear may counterbalance delight. Another part of sin is serious, as worldliness, in which there is no gross act, and so there being nothing foul to work upon shame, there is something dreadful to work upon fear. Well, then, awaken the soul; consider what Wisdom saith (Pro 8:36). Why will you wilfully throw away your own souls? Sins best are soon spent, the worst is always behind.
(2) It showeth what reason we have to mortify sin, lest it mortify us. No sins are mortal but such as are not mortified; either sin must die or the sinner. The life of sin and the life of a sinner are like two buckets in a well–if the one goeth up the other must come down. When sin liveth the sinner must die. There is an evil in sin and an evil after sin. The evil in sin is the violation of Gods law, and the evil after sin is the just punishment of it. (T. Manton.)
Evil: its issue
I. Sin. Lust–that is, impure or inordinate desire, at first harlot-like, for that idea runs through the whole passage–draws away its victims with an art resembling that of a skilful fisher or hunter. Having so far worked on them, got them into its embrace, it conceives–as it were becomes pregnant. This is a decisive stage in the process. It determines all that follows. It leads at once to the bringing forth of sin, and by another step to the bringing forth of death. What, then, is its nature? What are we to understand by this conception? It is produced by the union of lust with the will, the passing of prompting into purpose, desire into determination. It takes place when the two meet and mingle, when inclination, instead of encountering resistance, secures acquiescence. It is consenting, yielding to the workings of corruption, and lending ourselves to the doing of its bidding. When, instead of praying and striving against evil stirring within us and seeking to lead us captive, we tolerate it, dally with it, let it gain strength, and finally obtain the entire mastery, then the impure, criminal union is consummated. The actual transgression straightway ensues. It is sin in the strongest sense of the word–sin actual, obvious, complete in its nature. But are we to infer from this that there is nothing of the kind until it is brought forth? Is all faultless which precedes the birth of the monster? No.
1. There can be no doubt as to the nature and desert of the conception. It is the giving ourselves up to be voluntary slaves of that law which is in the members. We thereby embrace the evil, and it matters little whether action follow or not. He who plans a robbery is a real thief, though in point of fact he may not take away a farthings worth of his neighbours property. He may have been defeated in his design; he may not have found the fitting opportunity; he may have failed in courage when the resolution had to be carried into effect. The intention was there, and that is enough; for while human tribunals can deal only with palpable acts, the Divine law is fettered by no such restrictions. Suppose we are not answerable for the rising up of the foul harlot lust, for the blandishments it practises, we certainly are for not rejecting its offers and escaping from its impure embraces. The will is not overmastered by force, but is seduced from its allegiance, and plays the traitor.
2. It is not otherwise with the lust that conceives. We find sin lurking in its bosom, marking every one of its forms and motions. The effect reveals the nature of the cause by which it is produced. The two necessarily correspond. The fruit is good or bad according as the tree on which it grows is the one or the other. Were the fountain-head pure, the waters which issue from it would not be so poisonous. And the testimonies of Scripture on the subject are explicit. One of the commandments of the moral law is directed against coveting–that is, lusting after what is our neighbours. The works of the flesh enumerated by Paul largely consist of inward dispositions, mental tendencies. Jesus Himself represents evil thoughts as among the things which defile a man. What is often more involuntary, instinctive, than hasty, causeless anger? and yet He makes it a species of murder, and declares that a person chargeable with it is in danger of the judgment. But we are not left to inference, however direct and obvious. We have this concupiscence expressly called sin (Rom 7:7; Rom 7:23; Rom 8:7). Does any one ask, How can I be held responsible for a thing thus belonging to the very constitution of my being that lies beyond the control of the will, at least in its first stages, in those early risings and actings of it we are now considering? Lust is a feature and function of our inner man as fallen, depraved; and that inner man, as such, we may not trace to God, the great Maker and Governor. He created us in His own image, and we lost, defaced its Divine features by our wilful and inexcusable apostasy. And, further, let it be noted how much of our lust is, in a far more direct and personal way still, the workmanship of our own hand, the fruit of our own doings. We produce and foster it, either entirely originating it or immensely strengthening it; in short, we make it what it actually is by association and indulgence, by the scenes we frequent, the companions we choose, the habits we form, the lives we lead.
II. DEATH. This is the ultimate issue. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Sin itself is the offspring of lust; but in turn it becomes a parent. In due time it gives birth to a child, a grizzly terror, a dark, devouring monster. This takes place when sin is finished; and the most important question here is, How are we to understand that expression? James, we apprehend, speaks here of the act of sin which follows the submission of the will to impure or inordinate desire. Whenever lust conceives it brings forth sin; and that child in every instance grows up, and on arriving at maturity, in turn becomes a parent, its issue being death. There is no transgression which is not pregnant with this hideous progeny. The law connects every violation of its precepts with death, as its righteous, inevitable punishment. The execution of the sentence may be long deferred, but nothing is more certain; and indeed it is in part inflicted from the time the sin is committed. The evil deed passes away as soon as done, but the guilt remains, staining and burdening the conscience; and not only so, for a virus proceeds from it, an active, malign influence which continues to operate, and that in an ever-widening, augmenting degree. The natural tendency of it is to darken the mind and harden the heart, to increase the strength of depravity and fasten more firmly its yoke, to lead on to repetitions of the same act, and to others still more heinous in their nature. It has wrapped up in it multiplied evils which develop themselves more and more fully, advancing from bad to worse, unless in so far as they are checked and overcome by counteracting influences. But it is not finished, does not produce its mature and final result, until it issue in inevitable separation from God and the endurance of His wrath to all eternity (Rom 6:16; Rom 6:21; Rom 6:23). How terrible the death which sin, when finished, thus brings forth! That of the body is but the passage to the region where it reigns in all its horrors. Its nature will not be fully manifested, its work will not be fully done, until it brings forth its brood of future terrors, the pains of hell for ever. James adds an equally tender and solemn warning–Do not err, my beloved brethren. These words point both backwardand forward. They respect what goes before, and introduce what comes after, by way of confirmation. They form the transition from the one to the other, and so may be viewed in connection with either. There is here implied exposure to error. We are prone to go astray as to the origin of temptation; for that is the matter in hand, and to which reference is made by the apostle. The language intimates not less the danger of error in this matter. It is not a light thing to fall into such a mistake. On the contrary, it is perilous in the extreme. It perverts our views of the Divine character; it deadens the sense of sin; it renders us blind and insensible to the only effectual remedy; it fosters pride, self-deception, and fatal delusion. It is pregnant with evils of incalculable magnitude and eternal duration. (John Adam.)
The connection between disease and sin
In this passage we have held up before us the genesis of death. Now, the difficulty is to know whether the death spoken of refers to the spirit or the body. In a large number of cases in Scripture the word refers to spiritual death. But there are passages in which the word death seems to refer to that of the body. I am disposed to regard the passage before us in this way, and that for two reasons. First, St. James is a writer who deals chiefly with the outward and visible; and a second reason may be found in the fact that he is here speaking of a form of sin whose results are emphatically, though not exclusively, physical. Lust is the enemy of the body. There are senses, then, in which bodily death is the result of sin. Not in all senses. We must be careful to limit the statement that the death of the body is the result of sin. We are told that the wicked do not live out half their days. If there bad been no wickedness men would have lived out all their days. In the midst of life there would not have been death, but only at the end of life-when its appointed term had been reached. There would have been no death from disease, but only from what we call the decay of nature. I do not speak positively on this matter. The evidence is not sufficient to do so. I only give this as my conception of the subject. It is significant, too, that our Lord, the only sinless one ever seen on our earth), did not, so far as we can judge from the record, suffer from any disease. Nor must we connect too closely bodily disease with personal sin in many a case the life begins with a diseased or feeble frame inherited from others. But none the less it is true that the connection between disease and sin is both real and close. We think of consumption as the most fruitful cause of the premature mortality in our land. It does slay its thousands every year; but if it slays its thousands, sin slays its tens of thousands, whilst no small proportion even of what we call consumption is traceable either directly or indirectly to sin. Men of the world talk glibly of young men sowing their wild oats. They are silent as to the harvest which springs therefrom. Were such sins to cease out of our land a marvellous change would come over the health of the nation. A complete crusade against disease must include spiritual as well as sanitary weapons. Minds as well as bodies diseased must have their ministry. We must fight the lust within which leads to sin and, at last, to death. Now, how is this fruitful source of disease and death to be grappled with and overcome? The first essential is that we should feel that it must be dealt with. That was the first step taken in relation to other causes of disease. There was a time when men regarded epidemics like cholera as visitations of God–punishments for sin; and so long as this was the feeling nothing was done. All that men did was to pray for their removal. And when men realise that the most fruitful and constant cause of disease and mortality is sin, they will see that these can cease only as the sin producing them is overcome. There are those who say, Teach all alike the facts of physiology–let men know all about their bodies, and they will then preserve them from defilement. I have not a particle of faith in such a remedy. Knowledge of the body is no preservation; if it were, the people whose chief business is to understand the body would not need the warning now before us: Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death. Is it thus? Careful inquiry has satisfied me that the students of medicine in our great hospitals are not purer, even if they are as pure, as youths in other walks of life. There are others who say, Trust to education. Increased knowledge will bring about purer ways. As schools and scholars multiply vice will decrease. Doubtless some forms of vice will decrease. In certain realms knowledge will accomplish much. But no one who knows much of life will say that this is one of those realms. It is not knowledge that is needed. It is the impulse which will prompt to the good, the constraint which will hold us from the evil. There is no force mighty enough that I have ever heard of to grapple with sin save the gospel. Christ alone raises a barrier strong enough to resist the onslaughts of this great enemy. And why is it thus?
1. Because the Christian faith makes us realise that there is a Divine Spirit within us which renders holy even the temple of the body in which it dwells.
2. The Christian faith alone holds up an ideal lofty enough to keep us from impurity.
3. By the constraint of His peerless love He constrains us to live not to ourselves, yielding not to our lower impulses and passions, but unto Him who died for us and rose again. (W. G. Herder.)
The progress and end of sin
The word here translated lust might be more aptly rendered concupiscence, that fleshly principle which seems to have been engendered in the hearts of our first parents at the instant of committing the primal sin; and which is the root of all that is sinful and irregular in our thoughts, words, and actions. The seeds of sin are lodged in the bosom of every infant, and naturally grow up to death. And even those in whom the counteracting principle of Divine grace has done its work most thoroughly are yet made painfully sensible, from time to time, that the flesh, or natural corruption, so lusteth against the Spirit, that if they do not yield to its wicked solicitations, they are nevertheless greatly hindered from doing the good they would in the manner they would. Thoughts and wishes that savour of original depravity force their way into our minds, and would fain take possession of our will, before we are almost aware. But observe, it is not the first incursion of such thoughts and wishes that makes us actual sinners, though it proves our sinful nature. Evil desire does not conceive, does not become the mother of sin, until married to the will. The wicked inclination has become a fixed purpose; the fixed purpose has been consummated; and now it only remains for retribution to follow. And that retribution is set forth, by a similar figure to what was used before, as the child of sin. Sin being finished, being ripe and strong and active, and perhaps having signalised itself by many appropriate feats, becomes the parent of death. It fixes a deadly sting in the conscience; is frequently the cause of a premature and violent death among men; and hands over its wretched victim to eternal death by Gods righteous judgment. We go for our first example to Eve, the mother of mankind. Concupiscence has now conceived sin; and sin is not long in coming to the birth. And, oh, how quickly does sin produce death! The dissolution of soul and body indeed is somewhat delayed by Divine compassion. But shame has come; for Adam and his wife see themselves to be naked, and gird fig-leaves about their loins. Fear has come; for they dare not meet the Almighty, as aforetime, but slink away, and try to hide themselves. Disease is come; for the principles of decay are even now at work in them, and they have already set out on their journey to the grave. Go on to Cain, and see how another form of concupiscence proceeds. In his case it is envy. A deadly malice is conceived; and so, when some occasion presents itself–a very small one would suffice–to set the bad passion in a flame, he brings forth the sin that has long been breeding within him, and sheds a brothers blood. Wretched man I that innocent blood is not wholly drunk up by the ground. It has gone up to heaven, and cried for vengeance. It is sprinkled on the murderers conscience; and henceforth Cains life is a living death. Then Ahab, what a striking instance does he present of the effect of covetousness being nourished instead of stifled. I must allude to one other form of natural corruption–I mean, impure desire. Of the sins and calamities that grow out of this headlong appetite, when it is not held in by the strongest moral and religious curbs, David has furnished a mournful example in his own person. Oh, what would he not have given, when the Law poured a stream of fiery wrath into his conscience, and incest and murder became the furies of his house, what would he not then have given to undo what he had done! (J. N. Pearson, M. A.)
Sin in the heart
A large oak-tree was recently felled in the grove adjoining Avondale, near the centre of which was found a small nail, surrounded by twenty-nine cortical circles, the growth of as many years. The sap, in its annual ascents and descents, had carried with it the oxide from the metal, till a space of some three or four feet in length, and four or five inches in diameter, was completely blackened. Is not this a striking illustration of sin as it exists in the hearts of many sincere Christian, s? The nail did not kill the tree; it did not prevent growth; it did not destroy its form and beauty to the eye of the casual observer; but year after year it was silently spreading its influence in the interior of the tree. So, after a believer has been justified by faith in a crucified Saviour, he is made conscious of inherent evil. He may be sensible of pride, envy, ambition, worldly desires, impatience, anger, and unbelief. Should he fail to apply for deliverance to the all-cleansing blood of Jesus, such inherent evils will remain, year after year, corroding and corrupting the seat of his affection and desires. His outward profession may be steady and consistent. His religious life may be continued. There may be growth in religious knowledge, and increased fixedness in religious habits. And yet sin, though hidden, may be percolating through his thoughts and at the end of thirty, forty, or fifty years, he may still be sensible that his nature is not thoroughly renewed. (T. Brackenbury.)
Beginnings of sin
The trees of the forest held a solemn parliament, wherein they consulted of the wrongs the axe had done them. Therefore they enacted that no tree should hereafter lend the axe wood for a handle on pain of being cut down. The axe travels up and down the forest, and begs wood of the cedar, ash, oak, elm, and even the poplar, not one would lend him a chip. At last he desired as much as would serve him to cut down the briars and bushes, alleging that these shrubs did suck away the juice of the ground, hinder the growth and obscure the glory of the fair and goodly trees. Herein they were content to give him so much; but, when he had got the handle, he cut themselves down, too! These be the subtle reaches of sin. Give it but a little advantage, on the fair promise to remove thy troubles, and it will cut down thy soul also. Therefore resist beginnings. (T. Adams.)
Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death
Iniquity finished
Nothing here reaches maturity in a moment. Things begin to be, they grow, they ripen. It is so in nature, in character, and in the moral world. Sin is a growth; it matures, and then its fruit is death. The growth of sin may be slow at first, but it ripens fast as the time of harvest draws nigh.
I. The game of chance finds its maturity in the abandoned gambler.
II. Indulgence in the cup is matured in the sot.
III. Covetousness finds its maturity in the swindler, the thief, the robber.
IV. Lasciviousness has its maturity in the pollutions and obscenities of the brother.
V. Profanity has its maturity in those unrestrained blasphemies which have sometimes been uttered at the very juncture when life was going out.
VI. The growth of infidelity may be traced from its low beginnings to the same destructive maturity.
VII. So we may trace the sin of lying, from the first instance of prevarication on to the fixed habit of dauntless and deliberate perjury. Conclusion:
1. How may we know when sin has approached nigh to maturity?
(1) Maturity in sin stuns the sensibility of conscience.
(2) Maturity in sin progressively excludes shame.
2. The subject addresses itself to parents.
(1) We should be careful not to corrupt our children by example or precept.
(2) If we love our children, we shall be careful and watchful that others do not corrupt or lead them astray.
(3) In view of this subject, be warned not to let any sin ripen in your heart. (Daniel A. Clark.)
The consequences of sin
St. James tells us that, finally, all sin brings forth death! And I believe this to be true in many senses, that death has a Protean form.
1. It is quite certain that every allowed sin–of any kind–kills the power of the perception of truth. I might put it more strongly still. Sin weakens, and tends to destroy, every power we possess. Physical sin weakens physical strength. And both physical and mental sin weaken both mental and spiritual powers. And if the weakening process is allowed to go on, it will weaken till it kills! It will go on till it brings forth death! This is the result of two causes.
(1) In the first place, by natural cause and effect, whatever weakens the moral condition, weakens the whole man. It weakens the action of the brain and of the heart; and so affects the whole being.
(2) But still more, all the perception of spiritual truth depends upon the operation of the Holy Ghost; and each sin, grieving the Holy Ghost, causes Him to withdraw I-Its assisting power; and, in the same degree, in which He withdraws from us, we are left impotent, and incapable of understanding, or even seeing truth. One habitually allowed sin will deaden the grace both of the mind and the heart, till, by more and more withering processes, the grace of both will die! Why are so many young men and young women prone to infidelity? Why have they grown sceptical of old and familiar truths which were dear to their parents, and were once dear to themselves? Look at their lives, their worldliness, their frivolity, their private habits, their secret or their open sins! There is the reason. Infidelity is a deadening thing. And sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth that death.
2. Another consequence of any indulged sin is, that it necessarily involves some concealment, if not further positive sin. It cannot be compatible with a perfectly open character. No sin can go on without some hiding; and that hiding of one thing fosters a reservation, and an uncandidness, and untruthfulness in the whole life. And if once this openness goes, almost everything goes with it! Self-respect is essential to make life worth the living. But who can feel self-respect who is conscious of a hidden sin? The whole world may respect him; but self must bleach and tremble! And sin–any habit or affection which is unsanctioned by God and conscience–is destructive of all pure love. True love is too sacred a thing to stay in a breast with wrong deeds or wicked actions! The wrong love kills the good love. It beings forth death; and the good love dies. And what is love worth which is always carrying about with it a bad conscience? And who, that is tampering with any sin, whatever may be the service of his life, can escape a bad conscience? What–if all be happy and prosperous outside–and that conscience is gnawing within a man? You are praised by agreat many people, and conscience tells you all the while you would not have that praise if they but knew everything! What is all the praise but a very mockery! You are trusted; but you do not deserve that trust! You go on your knees, and say your prayers, but you feel all the while, with that secret sin in the heart, no prayer will avail. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So sin kills prayer. A life–a real life–is to be useful, and do good to others. But if a person is living in any sin, that sin will paralyse, if not the will, certainly the power, to live to any good purpose. The consciousness of sin will always come across his mind, when he is speaking, checking him, incapacitating him. Who am I to speak? I, who am living myself so sinfully! And men are keen judges of each other. They very soon discover what is unreal in all your fine talking! And can God bless any effort that such a man makes? He may speak as an angel; but God has not sent him. This sin will turn his most living words to death!
3. But still more, when that man thinks of his own death, will he not foresee and know how that sin which he is now allowing will come up to his memory! How it will be a thorn in his dying pillow! And what a double dying will that death be–when the present sin brings forth, at the end, its deathly power, to double and increase, a thousand-fold, the pangs of dying! But yet further, and far above all, that sin is wounding his own Saviour; and the more you confess it, and the more you hate it, as a Christian, the more you see how it wounds Him. It brings death on the Son of God! And no less it is grieving that Holy Spirit who has drawn him so often, and strove with him so patiently and so tenderly! And how can his soul live if that Spirit goes? And it wrongs his Father in heaven. And how can he call himself Gods child, or plead the childrens right, or claim a Fathers love, at the hand of a wronged and outraged God? It kills his sonship! So sin–any one indulged sin even now–will be always sapping life, and weakening faith, till faith can believe nothing, and, removing all consciousness, brings forth the death of hope and heaven! And that is not all.
4. Sin is not finished yet. All sin has in it a necessity to increase. Sin makes sin. One barrier broken down, the stream of evil rushes on with a greater force; and another barrier giving way, the current swells, till it scarcely knows a check. But what will sin finished be? What will it be when, stripped of its soft and beautiful colours, it stands out, without a mask, in its true and native form? What a monster will every, least, sin look beside Perfect Holiness. (James Vaughan, M. A.)
The allegory of sin and death
In looking at the allegory as a whole, we note–
1. Its agreement as to the relation of sin and death with the teaching of St. Rom 5:12).
2. Its resemblance to like allegories in the literature of other nations, as in the well-known Choice of Hercules that bears the name of Prodicus, in which Pleasure appears with the garb and allurements of a harlot.
3. Its expansion in the marvellous allegory of Sin and Death in Miltons Paradise Lost, where Satan represents Intellect and Will opposed to God, Sin its offspring, self-generated, and Death the fruit of the union of Mind and Will with Sin. In the incestuous union of Sin and Death that follows, and in its horrid progeny, Milton seems to have sought to shadow forth the shame and foulness and misery in which even the fairest forms of sin finally issue. (Dean Plumptre.)
Death, the result of sin
The working of sin does not end with the angry speech, the lie, the act of dishonesty or sensual indulgence: it hardens, darkens, debases the nature, renders the heart opener than before to all evil influences, and less open to all good; and unless the Divine mercy intervene, will certainly at last yield as its result death, in the most comprehensive and awful sense of that word. From the nature of things, death, in the great Bible use of the term–blight and desolation over the whole man, spirit, soul and body–is the consequence of sin. Sin renders intercourse with God, who is the Fountain of life, impossible. It consists in the exercise of feelings that in their own nature are utterly inconsistent with true happiness; and it increases constantly in strength, in malignity, in power to destroy the peace of the soul. Death follows sin as naturally, and by as constant a law, as the deadly nightshade bears poison berries. Besides, looked at apart from these essential tendencies of sin, the relation which it bears to conscience and to the justice of God renders the connection between it and death–between iniquity and misery–indissoluble. Death is the wages of sin, due to it in justice. Under the righteous administration of the affairs of the universe by God, there is the same obligation in justice that sin should be followed by death, as that a labourer should receive the recompense he has been promised and has worked for. Sin is spiritual death, and every act of sin intensifies the spiritual deadness; to sin, and sin alone, is due that awful and mysterious change which severs soul from body, and which we commonly call death; and when sin is finished–when it is allowed to go on to its legitimate issues–it bringeth forth that intensity of misery, transcending our present powers of conception, which John calls the second death, and which the Lord Himself, the Faithful Witness, describes as outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (R. Johnstone, LL. B.)
Sins consummation
Mr. Spurgeon says that he saw, while on a visit to the gardens of Hampton Court, many trees almost entirely covered, and well-nigh strangled by the huge coils of ivy, which were wound about them like the snakes about the unhappy Laocoon. There is no untwisting the folds; they in their giant grip are fast fixed, and the rootlets of the climbers are constantly sucking the life of the trees. There was a day when the ivy was a tiny aspirant, only asking a little aid in climbing; had it been denied, then the tree need not have become its victim, but by degrees the humble weakling grew in strength and arrogance, and at last it assumed the mastery, and became the destroyer. Just the same with the beginning of sin; the least little act of disobedience, it may be a lie, then another, then something else, and they become alarmingly frequent, and each time a little more wicked until they gain the mastery over us, and overwhelm us, and at last drag our souls down to hell.
Sin will destroy the sinner
Many years ago I saw in a museum around stone, as large as a cannonball and quite round. It had been cut through by tools to see what was inside; and what was found? Right in the centre was a little rusty nail. A card stated that this stone had been found in the stomach of a horse. It had first swallowed that little nail, then petrifying matter had gathered round it little by little, till at length it had reached this size and destroyed the life of the animal. So in the end sin will destroy the sinner. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
Sin is fatal to the soul
The bosom sin in grace exactly resembles a strong current in nature, which is setting full upon dangerous shoals and quicksands. If in your spiritual computation you do not calculate upon your besetting sin, upon its force, its ceaseless operation, and its artfulness, it will sweep you on noiselessly, and with every appearance of calm, but surely and effectually to your ruin. So may we see a gallant ship leave the dock, fairly and bravely rigged, and with all her pennons flying; and the high sea, when she has cleft her way into it, is unwrinkled as the brow of childhood, and seems to laugh with many a twinkling smile, and when night falls the moonbeam dances upon the wave, and the brightness of the day has left a delicious balminess behind it in the air, the ship is anchored negligently and feebly, and all is then still save the gentle drowsy gurgling, which tells that water is the element in which she floats, but in the dead of the night the anchor loses it hold, and then the current, deep and powerful, bears her noiselessly whither it will; and in the morning the wail of desperation rises from her decks, for she has fallen on the shoal, and the disconsolateness of the dreary twilight, as the breeze springs with the daybreak and with rude impact dashes her planks angrily against the rock, contrasts strangely with the comfort and peacefulness of the past evening. Such was the doom of Judas Iscariot. Blessed with the companionship of our Lord Himself, dignified with the apostleship, and adorned with all the high graces which that vocation involved, he was blinded to the undercurrent of his character, which set in the direction of the mammon of unrighteousness, and which eventually ensured for him an irretrievable fall. (Dean Goulburn.)
The bitterness of finished sin
There is more bitterness following upon sins ending than ever there was sweetness flowing from sins acting. You that see nothing but well in its commission will suffer nothing but woe in its conclusion. You that sin for your profits will never profit by your sins.
A tremendous genealogy
What a frightful picture James paints! Desire has successfully solicited the will to an impure embrace. In the unblessed union the child, Sin, is conceived and finally brought forth. It is a little one. It may be as pretty and as playful as a tigers kitten. But it grows. When Sin, which is so vigorous, has attained its growth, it becomes a dreadful parent, and its fearful offspring is Death. Before a man sins let him consider this tremendous genealogy. The sinner is the father of his own sin, and the grandfather of his own death! (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
Sin destructive
When Nicephorus Phocas had built a strong wall about his palace for his own security in the night-time, he heard a voice crying to him, O, emperor! though thou build thy wall as high as the clouds, yet if sin be within, it will overthrow all.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. Let no man say] Lest the former sentiment should be misapplied, as the word temptation has two grand meanings, solicitation to sin, and trial from providential situation or circumstances, James, taking up the word in the former sense, after having used it in the latter, says: Let no man say, when he is tempted, (solicited to sin,) I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he (thus) any man. Thus the author has explained and guarded his meaning.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Let no man say; neither with his mouth, nor so much as in his heart, blasphemously cast the blame of his sins upon God, to clear himself.
When he is tempted; so stirred up to sin as to be drawn to it.
I am tempted of God; either solicited by God to sin, or enforced to it.
For God cannot be tempted with evil; cannot be drawn aside to any thing that is unrighteous, by any motion from within, or impression from without.
Neither tempteth he any man; doth no way seduce or enforce to sin, so as to be justly chargeable as the author of it.
Objection. God is said to be tempted, Exo 17:2,7; Deu 6:16; Psa 78:41; and to tempt, Gen 22:1; Deu 8:2; 13:3.
Answer. Both are to be understood of temptations of exploration, or for the discovery of something that was before hidden. Men tempt God, that they may know what he will do; God tempts men, that they (not he, for he knows it already) may know what themselves will do, which then appears, when the temptation draws it out; but neither is to be understood of the temptation here spoken of, viz. of seduction, or drawing into sin. God tempts by giving hard commands, Gen 22:1; by afflicting, as in Jobs case; by letting loose Satan or other wicked instruments to tempt, 1Ki 22:22; by withholding his grace and deserting men, 1Sa 28:15; by presenting occasions which corruption within improves unto sin, and by ordering and governing the evil wills of men, as that a thief should steal out of this flock rather than that, that Nebuchadnezzar should come against Jerusalem rather than Rabbah, Eze 21:21,22. But God doth not tempt by commanding, suggesting, soliciting, or persuading to sin.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. when . . . temptedtriedby solicitation to evil. Heretofore the “temptation”meant was that of probation by afflictions. Let no one fancythat God lays upon him an inevitable necessity of sinning. God doesnot send trials on you in order to make you worse, but to make youbetter (Jas 1:16; Jas 1:17).Therefore do not sink under the pressure of evils (1Co10:13).
of Godby agencyproceeding from God. The Greek is not “temptedby,” but, “from,” implying indirect agency.
cannot be tempted with evil,c.”Neither do any of our sins tempt God to entice us to worsethings, nor does He tempt any of His own accord“(literally, “of Himself” compare the antithesis, Jas1:18, “Of His own will He begat us” to holiness,so far is He from tempting us of His own will) [BENGEL].God is said in Ge 22:1 to have”tempted Abraham”; but there the tempting meant isthat of trying or proving, not that of seducement.ALFORD translatesaccording to the ordinary sense of the Greek, “God isunversed in evil.” But as this gives a less likely sense,English Version probably gives the true sense; forecclesiastical Greek often uses words in new senses, as theexigencies of the new truths to be taught required.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let no man say when he is tempted,…. Here the apostle uses the word “tempted”, in another sense than he did before. Before he speaks of temptations, as matter of joy and boasting, here of temptations, which are criminal, and issue in shame and death; the temptations he before makes mention of, being patiently endured, denominate men happy, but here such are designed, which are to be deprecated, and watched against; before he treats of temptations, which were the means of trying and exercising grace, and of purging away the dross of sin and corruption, but here of temptations to sin, and which are in themselves sinful; before he discourses of temptations in which God was concerned; but here of temptations which he removes from him, and denies of him, as being unworthy of him: wherefore, when any man is tempted to sin, whether when under adversity, or in prosperity, let him not say,
I am tempted of God; for God is holy, and without iniquity, nor does he delight in sin, but hates and abhors it; nor can he commit it, it being contrary to his nature, and the perfections of it; whereas no one can tempt another to sin, unless he is sinful himself, and delights in sin, and in those that commit it, nor without committing it himself; and yet sinful men are apt to charge God with their sins, and temptations to them, in imitation of their first parent, Adam, when fallen, Ge 3:12 who, to excuse himself, lays the blame upon the woman, and ultimately upon God, who gave her to him; and suggests, that if it had not been for the woman, he should not have ate of the forbidden fruit, nor should he have had any temptation to it, had not God given him the woman to be with him, and therefore it was his fault; and in this sad manner do his sons and daughters reason, who, when, through affliction, they murmur against God, distrust his providence, or forsake his ways, say, if he had not laid his hand upon them, or suffered such afflictions to befall them, they had not been guilty of such sin: he himself is the occasion of them; but let no man talk at this wicked rate,
for God cannot be tempted with evil; or “evils”, He was tempted by the Israelites at Massah and Meribah, from which those places had their names, who by their murmuring, distrust and unbelief, proved and tried his patience and his power; and so he may be, and has been tempted by others in a like way; he may be tempted by evil men, and with evil things, but he cannot be tempted “to evil”, as the Ethiopic version renders it; he is proof against all such temptations: he cannot be tempted by anything in himself, who is pure and holy, or by any creature or thing without him, to do any sinful action:
neither tempteth he any man; that is, to sin; he tempted Abraham, to try his faith, love, and obedience to him; he tempted the Israelites in the wilderness, to try them and humble them, and prove what was in their hearts; and he tempted Job, and tried his faith and patience; and so he tempts and tries all his righteous ones, by afflictions, more or less: but he never tempts or solicits them to sin; temptations to sin come from another quarter, as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Procedure and Results of Sin. | A. D. 61. |
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 16 Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. 18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
I. We are here taught that God is not the author of any man’s sin. Whoever they are who raise persecutions against men, and whatever injustice and sin they may be guilty of in proceeding against them, God is not to be charged with it. And, whatever sins good men may themselves be provoked to by their exercises and afflictions, God is not the cause of them. It seems to be here supposed that some professors might fall in the hour of temptation, that the rod resting upon them might carry some into ill courses, and make them put forth their hands unto iniquity. But though this should be the case, and though such delinquents should attempt to lay their fault on God, yet the blame of their misconduct must lie entirely upon themselves. For, 1. There is nothing in the nature of God that they can lay the blame upon: Let no man say, when he is tempted to take any evil course, or do any evil thing, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil. All moral evil is owing to some disorder in the being that is chargeable with it, to a want of wisdom, or of power, or of decorum and purity in the will. But who can impeach the holy God with the want of these, which are his very essence? No exigence of affairs can ever tempt him to dishonour or deny himself, and therefore he cannot be tempted with evil. 2. There is nothing in the providential dispensations of God that the blame of any man’s sin can be laid upon (v. 13): Neither tempteth he any man. As God cannot be tempted with evil himself, so neither can he be a tempter of others. He cannot be a promoter of what is repugnant to his nature. The carnal mind is willing to charge its own sins on God. There is something hereditary in this. Our first father Adam tells God, The woman thou gavest me tempted me, thereby, in effect, throwing the blame upon God, for giving him the tempter. Let no man speak thus. It is very bad to sin; but is much worse, when we have done amiss, to charge it upon God, and say it was owing to him. Those who lay the blame of their sins either upon their constitution or upon their condition in the world, or who pretend they are under a fatal necessity of sinning, wrong God, as if he were the author of sin. Afflictions, as sent by God, are designed to draw out our graces, but not our corruptions.
II. We are taught where the true cause of evil lies, and where the blame ought to be laid (v. 14): Every man is tempted (in an ill sense) when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. In other scriptures the devil is called the tempter, and other things may sometimes concur to tempt us; but neither the devil nor any other person or thing is to be blamed so as to excuse ourselves; for the true original of evil and temptation is in our own hearts. The combustible matter is in us, though the flame may be blown up by some outward causes. And therefore, if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it, Prov. ix. 12. Observe here, 1. The method of sin in its proceeding. First it draws away, then entices. As holiness consists of two parts–forsaking that which is evil and cleaving to that which is good, so these two things, reversed, are the two parts of sin. The heart is carried from that which is good, and enticed to cleave to that which is evil. It is first by corrupt inclinations, or by lusting after and coveting some sensual or worldly thing, estranged from the life of God, and then by degrees fixed in a course of sin. 2. We may observe hence the power and policy of sin. The word here rendered drawn away signifies a being forcibly haled or compelled. The word translated enticed signifies being wheedled and beguiled by allurements and deceitful representations of things, exelkomenos kai deleazomenos. There is a great deal of violence done to conscience and to the mind by the power of corruption: and there is a great deal of cunning and deceit and flattery in sin to gain us to its interests. The force and power of sin could never prevail, were it not for its cunning and guile. Sinners who perish are wheedled and flattered to their own destruction. And this will justify God for ever in their damnation, that they destroyed themselves. Their sin lies at their own door, and therefore their blood will lie upon their own heads. 3. The success of corruption in the heart (v. 15): Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; that is, sin being allowed to excite desires in us, it will son ripen those desires into consent, and then it is said to have conceived. The sin truly exists, though it be but in embryo. And, when it has grown it its full size in the mind, it is then brought forth in actual execution. Stop the beginnings of sin therefore, or else all the evils it produces must be wholly charged upon us. 4. The final issue of sin, and how it ends: Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. After sin is brought forth in actual commissions, the finishing of it (as Dr. Manton observes) is its being strengthened by frequent acts and settled into a habit. And, when the iniquities of men are thus filled up, death is brought forth. There is a death upon the soul, and death comes upon the body. And, besides death spiritual and temporal, the wages of sin is eternal death too. Let sin therefore be repented of and forsaken, before it be finished. Why will you die, O house of Israel! Ezek. xxxiii. 11. God has no pleasure in your death, as he has no hand in your sin; but both sin and misery are owing to yourselves. Your own hearts’ lusts and corruptions are your tempters; and when by degrees they have carried you off from God, and finished the power and dominion of sin in you, then they will prove your destroyers.
III. We are taught yet further that, while we are the authors and procurers of all sin and misery to ourselves, God is the Father and fountain of all good,Jas 1:16; Jas 1:17. We should take particular care not to err in our conceptions of God: “Do not err, my beloved brethren, me lanasthe—do not wander, that is, from the word of God, and the accounts of him you have there. Do not stray into erroneous opinions, and go off from the standard of truth, the things which you have received from the Lord Jesus and by the direction of his Spirit.” The loose opinions of Sinon, and the Nicolaitans (from whom the Gnostics, a most sensual corrupt set of people, arose afterwards), may perhaps, by the apostle here, be more especially cautioned against. Those who are disposed to look into these may consult the first book of Irenus against heresies. Let corrupt men run into what notions they will, the truth, as it is in Jesus, stands thus: That God is not, cannot be, the author and patronizer of any thing that is evil; but must be acknowledged as the cause and spring of every thing that is good: Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, v. 17. Here observe, 1. God is the Father of lights. The visible light of the sun and the heavenly bodies is from him. He said, Let there be light, and there was light. Thus God is at once represented as the Creator of the sun and in some respects compared to it. “As the sun is the same in its nature and influences, though the earth and clouds, oft interposing, make it seem to us as varying, by its rising and setting, and by its different appearances, or entire withdrawment, when the change is not in it; so God is unchangeable, and our changes and shadows are not from any mutability or shadowy alterations in him, but from ourselves.”–Baxter. The Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. What the sun is in nature, God is in grace, providence, and glory; aye, and infinitely more. For, 2. Every good gift is from him. As the Father of lights, he gives the light of reason. The inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding, Job xxxii. 8. He gives also the light of learning: Solomon’s wisdom in the knowledge of nature, in the arts of government, and in all his improvements, is ascribed to God. The light of divine revelation is more immediately from above. The light of faith, purity, and all manner of consolation is from him. So that we have nothing good but what we receive from God, as there is no evil or sin in us, or done by us, but what is owing to ourselves. We must own God as the author of all the powers and perfections that are in the creature, and the giver of all the benefits which we have in and by those powers and perfections: but none of their darknesses, their imperfections, or their ill actions are to be charged on the Father of lights; from him proceeds every good and perfect gift, both pertaining to this life and that which is to come. 3. As every good gift is from God, so particularly the renovation of our natures, our regeneration, and all the holy happy consequences of it, must be ascribed to him (v. 18): Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. Here let us take notice, (1.) A true Christian is a creature begotten anew. He becomes as different a person from what he was before the renewing influences of divine grace as if he were formed over again, and born afresh. (2.) The original of this good work is here declared: it is of God’s own will; not by our skill or power; not from any good foreseen in us, or done by us, but purely from the good-will and grace of God. (3.) The means whereby this is affected are pointed out: the word of truth, that is, the gospel, as Paul expresses it more plainly, 1 Cor. iv. 15, I have begotten you in Jesus Christ through the gospel. This gospel in indeed a word of truth, or else it could never produce such real, such lasting, such great and noble effects. We may rely upon it, and venture our immortal souls upon it. And we shall find it a means of our sanctification as it is a word of truth, John xvii. 17. (4.) The end and design of God’s giving renewing grace is here laid down: That we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures–that we should be God’s portion and treasure, and a more peculiar property to him, as the first-fruits were; and that we should become holy to the Lord, as the first-fruits were consecrated to him. Christ is the first-fruits of Christians, Christians are the first-fruits of creatures.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Let no one say ( ). Present active imperative, prohibiting such a habit.
When he is tempted (). Present passive participle of , here in evil sense of tempt, not test, as in Mt 4:1. Verses 12-18 give a vivid picture of temptation.
I am tempted of God ( ). The use of shows origin ( with ablative case), not agency (), as in Mr 1:13, of Satan. It is contemptible, but I have heard wicked and weak men blame God for their sins. Cf. Pr 19:3; Sirach 15:11f. Temptation does not spring “from God.”
Cannot be tempted with evil ( ). Verbal compound adjective (alpha privative and ), probably with the ablative case, as is common with alpha privative (Robertson, Grammar, p. 516), though Moulton (Prolegomena, p. 74) treats it as the genitive of definition. The ancient Greek has (from ), but this is the earliest example of (from ) made on the same model. Only here in the N.T. Hort notes as a proverb (Diodorus, Plutarch, Josephus) “free from evils.” That is possible here, but the context calls for “untemptable” rather than “untempted.”
And he himself tempteth no man ( ). Because “untemptable.”
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Of God [ ] . Lit., from God. Not by God, as the direct agent, but by agency proceeding from God. Compare Mt 4:1, where the direct agency, “by the spirit,” ” by the devil, “is expressed by uJpo. Cannot be tempted [ ] . Lit., is incapable of being tempted. But some of the best expositors render is unversed in evil things, as better according both with the usage of the word and with the context, since the question is not of God ‘s being tempting, but of God ‘s tempting. Rev. gives this in margin. ‘Apeirastov only here in New Testament. Neither tempteth he [ ] . The A. V. fails to render aujtov :” He himself tempteth no man. ” So rev.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) James admonishes no one to charge allurements, (Gr. peirazomai) or temptation in the evil sense, to God, for God, the Trinitarian Deity, is not allured of evil things, neither does He Himself allure men to do evil. Temptations, in the evil sense, come from one’s own evil nature and from Satan, not from God. Mat 15:18.
2) Trials and testings are permitted of God – it is these through which men by faith in Him should persevere, nothing doubting. Note: a) Joseph, b) Moses, c) Daniel, d) Peter, and e) Paul.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
13 Let no man, when he is tempted. Here, no doubt, he speaks of another kind of temptation. It is abundantly evident that the external temptations, hitherto mentioned, are sent to us by God. In this way God tempted Abraham, (Gen 22:1,) and daily tempts us, that is, he tries us as to what are we by laying before us an occasion by which our hearts are made known. But to draw out what is hid in our hearts is a far different thing from inwardly alluring our hearts by wicked lusts.
He then treats here of inward temptations which are nothing else than the inordinate desires which entice to sin. He justly denies that God is the author of these, because they flow from the corruption of our nature.
This warning is very necessary, for nothing is more common among men than to transfer to another the blame of the evils they commit; and they then especially seem to free themselves, when they ascribe it to God himself. This kind of evasion we constantly imitate, delivered down to us as it is from the first man. For this reason James calls us to confess our own guilt, and not to implicate God, as though he compelled us to sin.
But the whole doctrine of scripture seems to be inconsistent with this passage; for it teaches us that men are blinded by God, are given up to a reprobate mind, and delivered over to filthy and shameful lusts. To this I answer, that probably James was induced to deny that we are tempted by God by this reason, because the ungodly, in order to form an excuse, armed themselves with testimonies of Scripture. But there are two things to be noticed here: when Scripture ascribes blindness or hardness of heart to God, it does not assign to him the beginning of this blindness, nor does it make him the author of sin, so as to ascribe to him the blame: and on these two things only does James dwell.
Scripture asserts that the reprobate are delivered up to depraved lusts; but is it because the Lord depraves or corrupts their hearts? By no means; for their hearts are subjected to depraved lusts, because they are already corrupt and vicious. But since God blinds or hardens, is he not the author or minister of evil? Nay, but in this manner he punishes sins, and renders a just reward to the ungodly, who have refused to be ruled by his Spirit. (Rom 1:26.) It hence follows that the origin of sin is not in God, and no blame can be imputed to him as though he took pleasure in evils. (Gen 6:6.)
The meaning is, that man in vain evades, who attempts to cast the blame of his vices on God, because every evil proceeds from no other fountain than from the wicked lust of man. And the fact really is, that we are not otherwise led astray, except that every one has his own inclination as his leader and impeller. But that God tempts no one, he proves by this, because he is not tempted with evils (105) For it is the devil who allures us to sin, and for this reason, because he wholly burns with the mad lust of sinning. But God does not desire what is evil: he is not, therefore, the author of doing evil in us.
(105) Literally, “untemptable by evils,” that is, not capable of being tempted or seduced by evils, by things wicked and sinful. He is so pure, that he is not influenced by any evil propensities, that he is not subject to any evil suggestions. It hence follows that he tempts or seduces no man to what is sinful. Being himself unassailable by evils, he cannot seduce others to what is evil. As God cannot be tempted to do what is sinful, he cannot possibly tempt others to sin. The words may thus be rendered, —
13. “Let no one, when seduced, say, ‘By God I am seduced;’ for God is not capable of being seduced by evils, and he himself seduceth no one.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(13) Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God.Far be it from the true Christian either to give way to sin that grace may abound (Rom. 6:1), or to suppose for one moment that God, and therefore power invincible, is drawing him from righteousness. Almost every reflection upon the nature of sin leads up to an inquiry as to its cause; and the enigma will hardly be solved in this life. The very facts of the presence of evil amongst Gods creatures, and its continual attraction even for the best, have often driven men to doubt His supremacy. Sadlyhow can we of charity think otherwise?some have felt the pain, but not the purpose of the world. At times they cannot see in nature the work of a Being at once good and omnipotent, and prefer to doubt the latter quality sooner than the former.[14] But this nineteenth-century conclusion is no advance beyond the dual system of the Persians, or rather, of Manes, who corrupted with his Indian fancies the faith of Zoroaster. The Manichees settled the difficulty better than our Deists by declaring the existence of a good God and a bad one; and appealed to the daily strife between virtue and vice, nay, life and death, in witness of their simple creed. Thanks to the gospel, a nobler theology is our Christian heritage, whereby we are persuaded that good will triumph at the last, and by which we are taught humility withal to own that Gods ways in so permitting and overworking evil are beyond mans comprehension. And a better scepticism remains for us than that of the Theist, or Agnostic either; a disbelief more vehement that here can be the end, since in this life we experience in no sense the rewards of just and unjust to the full.
[14] Specially see J. S. Mills Three Essays on Religion. Nature, p. 38.
For God cannot be tempted with evil.We can see here a good instance of the excellence of the old Geneva Bible, the first on several occasions to seize the exact meaning of a passage which all the preceding versions had missed. Our present rendering follows the Genevan exactly, rejecting those of Wiclif. God is not a tempter of yuell things; Tyndale, God tempteth not vnto evyll; and Cranmer, God cannot tempte vnto euyll.
Neither tempteth he any man.The trial comes of Him, i.e., the Tempter is allowed; but so far, and no further. God Himself is unversed of evils, and no possibility of temptation remains with Him. Into the unseen splendour of His fulness no thought of wrong can enter; no foul thing wing its silent flight. It were blasphemy, perilously near that of the Pharisees (Mat. 12:22-37) to think Gods kingdom could be so divided against itself, that He, directly or indirectly, should seduce His subjects into the revolt of sin. No; if we have one golden clue by which we may feel our erring way out of the labyrinth of this lower world into the belief and trust in God our Father for the life to come, it is this: trials and temptations are permitted to strengthen usif we willfor His mightier service. And, as compulsory homage would be worthless to the loving Lord of all, voluntary must be found instead, and proved and perfected. Herein is the Christian conflict, and the secret of Gods ways with man.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. But while the true endurance of temptation is thus a triumph and a joy, St. James utters no eulogy on temptation itself. It comes not from a divine tempter. This he denies in behalf, not of our responsibility, but of the holy honour of God. God has, indeed, made life a scene of probation. He has made us with susceptibilities to incitement to evil from finite evil agencies. But it is from the finite, and not from the holy Infinite, that the specific temptation as a purposed allurement to evil comes. God means for us a life of successful trial; the tempter means failure and ruin in the trial.
Let no man say Rather, let no tempted one say.
I am tempted of God Quoted in the utterer’s own words, implying that there were errorists who declared outright that we have above us an evil Infinite. Others, as Huther well remarks, disown the responsibility for wickedness, by imputing its causation to God. So in Homer’s Iliad, “But I am not the cause, but Jupiter and Fate.” And in the comic poet, Plautus, “God was the impeller to me.” And Terence, “What if some god willed this?” So the Gnostics, descending from Simon Magus, held all sins to be predestinated, and were strenuously opposed by Justin Martyr and the early Church, as thereby making God responsible for sin. Predestination, as Pressense truly says, was viewed by the early Church as a heresy. To this saying our apostle opposes a true analysis of the inward nature of our temptations and yieldings to sin.
Tempted of evil For he knows its nature, and is in unchanging will opposed to it.
Neither tempteth he Abraham is quoted as a case in which God tempted a man. That is only verbally true. The devil tempts us that he may bring us to evil; God tries, that he may bring us to manifest faith and triumph. It depends upon us whether we shall make it a fatal temptation or a triumphant trial and a joy. Our apostle counsels us to make it all joy, Jas 1:2.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no man.’
There is a play on the meaning of temptation here. James has been speaking about testings and trials, and he may well have heard some blame them on God. And he has indeed made clear that that is partly true, for God allows His people to be tested for their good. But Now he wants to make clear that while God may test men He does not subject them to temptation to sin. Where temptation to sin occurs it is not God Who is doing it.
One reason why that is so is because sin is foreign to God as He is by nature. Thus He cannot be tempted with evil. He is above and beyond it as ‘the Holy One’. Thus temptation to sin would be outside the sphere of His holiness. It is something which He could not conceivably do. But that then brings out another remarkable fact, and that is that in becoming man in Jesus God did subject Himself to temptation. ‘He was tempted in all points as we are, and yet without sin’ (Heb 4:15, compare also Jas 2:18). But that does not apply to God as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe.
‘And He Himself tempts no man.’ James categorically denies that God tempts men. It would be foreign to what He is. Thus we can never seek to blame our sinfulness on God. It is all of man. Jewish tradition concurs with this conclusion, ‘Do not say, “it is through the Lord that I fell away — it is He Who caused me to err” ( Sir 15:11-12 ). For if someone did they would be putting the blame in the wrong place.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
There Is One Kind Of Testing That Is Not To Be Seen As Of God And That Is The Temptation To Sin. That Springs From The Lusts Of The Human Heart And Leads To Death ( Jas 1:13-15 ).
James now moves from the trials of life to the idea of a particular trial, that of temptation to sin. It would seem that some were blaming their temptations to sin, and even their sinfulness, on God, so he assures them that it is not God Who tempts men to sin, but men who are tempted because of what they are. They are led astray by their own sinful desires. And they are to be aware that this kind of testing does not lead to the crown of life, but to the dust of death (Jas 1:15).
Analysis.
A
B But each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed (Jas 1:14).
C Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin (Jas 1:15 a).
D And the sin, when it is fullgrown (‘has come to completeness’), brings forth death (Jas 1:15 b).
Note how this is presented in the form of a sequence. First what is not the cause of temptation (it is not God who causes man to be tempted), then what is the cause of temptation (temptation is caused by man’s own desires and lusts), then the consequence of temptation, (man’s lust ‘conceives’ and like a pregnant woman ‘bears’ sin), then the consequences of that sin (sin comes to completeness and, again like a pregnant woman, ‘brings forth’ death).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jam 1:13. St. James had said so much about the benefit of temptations, or trials, that he thought it necessary to guard his readers against so dangerous a mistake, as that of making God the author of sin, or ascribing temptations to him, as they signify “a seducing men to what is evil:” In that sense they proceed not from God, but from the lusts of men, which, if complied with, end in death, instead of bringing men to a crown of life. Though, therefore, trials may be ascribed to God, yet temptation, in the bad sense of the word, cannot by any means be ascribed to him. Sin and death proceed from the lusts and wickedness of men; but God is not the author of evil; on the contrary, He is, like the sun in the firmament, an universal Benefactor, and the author of all that is good: nay, he infinitely excels the sun, as not being subject to any change or variation.The Jewish converts were by the divine benignity brought first into the Christian church; they therefore had peculiar reason to ascribe goodness unto God, and to obey readily the precepts of the gospel; governing their passions, bridling their tongues, manifesting their meekness and charity, and doing every thing which the Christian religion requires, through Divine grace. Jam 1:13-27.
Let no man sayI am tempted of God See on Gen 22:1. Exo 15:25; Exo 16:4. Deu 8:2. “There are two senses of the word temptation, says Dr. Heylin, according to the different ends proposed; the one for trial, the other for seduction: this last is here intended. As God, by virtue of his boundless knowledge and almighty power, is incapable of being tempted by evils, so likewise he is of such perfect rectitude and benevolence, that he tempteth not any man; that is, draws him not designedly into sin, nor lays him, in any imaginable circumstances, under a moral necessity of committing it.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jas 1:13 . To James opposes ; [63] whilst the former gains , the end to which the latter approaches is (Jas 1:15 ).
First James disclaims a vain justification of the latter, and then describes the process of . The vain justification is introduced with the direct words of the : , and then disclaimed by the expression: . . .
By the direct transition from the preceding to this verse, it is supposed that by the spoken about, in contrast to (Jas 1:12 ), is to be understood the person who does not endure the temptation, and consequently is not proved by it, but who succumbs under it, whilst he suffers himself to be enticed to falling away to sin. Pott: qui tentatione vincitur, ad peccandum vincitur; Theile: agit Jacobus de turpi tentatione per tristem (tentationem); so also Olshausen, Schneckenburger, Kern, and others. This connection is denied by others; thus Calvin says: de alio tentationes genere disserit; and Wiesinger in the strongest manner: “this appears as the design of the apostle: to distinguish as much as possible those and this , to place the latter as totally different from the former.” But the close connection with the preceding constrains us to the opinion that James has considered both in reference to each other, the occasioning the which takes place when is excited by it. [64] It is arbitrary to take the verb in the clause: , in another sense than in the following clause: , as Hottinger asserts: hic verbum bis dicitur sensu diversi; priori loco simpliciter: adversa pati; posteriori: malis sollicitari ad defectionem (similarly Grotius, Semler; also Lange); for, according to this interpretation, the excuse: . . ., would not correspond to the supposition contained in . In justification of this view, Mat 8:30 cannot be appealed to, where the same word ( ) is used, in the same sentence in different meanings, namely, in a proper and figurative meaning, as here the relation is entirely different.
Some expositors (Pott, Schneckenburger, and others), without reason, paraphrase by “cogitet, sibi persuadeat.” Since the words which immediately follow are introduced in the direct form, it is better to retain the usual meaning of , by which it is in itself evident that the external speaking presupposes an internal, on which it is here natural to think.
James makes the thus briefly express the excuse, by which he would justify himself: , by which he transfers the guilt from himself to God. [65] is the form of quotation frequently occurring in the N. T., except with Paul. is emphatically placed first. is not equivalent to ; the former points to the more distant, the latter to the nearest cause, though by later writers with passive verbs is sometimes used as equivalent to . Here, however, the usual signification of is to be retained, for the , introduced as directly speaking, would certainly not stigmatize God as the direct tempter (comp. Mat 4:1 ). See Winer, p. 332 [E. T. 464]. James does not with these words refer to any particular doctrine of religion and philosophy, perhaps to the doctrine of the Pharisees and Essenes on (Bull, Ittig, Schneckenburger, and others), or the doctrine of Simon Magus (Calovius), but only considers generally the peculiar bias of the natural man to charge God somehow with the blame of , recognisable in the answer of Adam to the question of God. [66]
James grounds the rejection of the idea contained in that the , proceeds from God, by a sentence comprising two members: . The word , an . in the N. T., has in classical Greek in which, however, the form ( ) almost always occurs either the passive meaning untempted , that is, what is not tempted or proved, or the active meaning: he who has made no trial, equivalent to inexperienced. Some expositors take the word in the second meaning; thus Schulthess: in Deum nulla malorum experentia; de Wette, Brckner, and others. [67] But, on account of the close connection with , the word has here, as most expositors assume, an ethical meaning. Yet it is incorrect to explain it actively, with Luther (God is not a tempter to evil; Vulgate: intentator), because this clause would then be tautological with the following. It is rather to be taken passively: untempted of evil , by which the idea passes from tentatus to that of tentabilis; Winer, p. 175 [E. T. 242, 243]. By the Church Fathers God is often named simply ; so Ignat. ad Philipp.: ; Photius, contra Manich. iv. p. 225: . By this predicate the holiness of God, which is raised above all temptation to evil, is indicated, and is the motive likewise to the following thought. [68]
is not masculine, but neuter; not misery (Oecumenius), but evil. [69]
] expresses the consequence of the preceding and the pointed contrast to . is placed first for the sake of emphasis. By , which most interpreters pass over, is brought forward not God’s action in contrast to “being tempted” (Theile: ipse quoque non tentat idem ille Deus, qui tentari nequit; Wiesinger: “He, self-active;” so also Lange), but shows that the indeed takes place, but from another cause ( ) than from God. The meaning of the whole verse is as follows: Let no man, when he is tempted (inwardly enticed) to evil, say, From God I am tempted: for God suffers no temptation; but ( ) as to the temptation, He (God) tempteth no man: but every man is tempted, etc. [70] As regards the apparent contradiction of this with other passages of the Holy Scriptures, where the sins of men are referred to God as their reason (Gen 22:1 ; Deu 8:2 , etc.), Calvin correctly remarks: Quum Scriptura excoecationem vel obdurationem cordis tribuit Deo, neque illi initium assignat, neque facit mali auctorem, ut culpam sustinere debeat. In his autem duobus solum Jacobus insistit.
[63] When Lange meets this with the question: “How could any one endure the temptation without having first been tempted?” he only shows that he does not understand the explanation here given.
[64] It is to be observed that James designates the trials, on which he thinks in , ver. 3, as . It may be said that they are not this in themselves, but only in so far as the Christian is yet a sinner, and can thus be enticed by them into sin; when this happens, then the , of which James here speaks, takes place. Stier: “That there is a necessity for our all being tested and approved through, trial, springs from our sin; the tempting element in our trial, the evil in it, springs therefore from that and not from God.”
[65] He might find a justification of this in the fact that actually spring from God. See Meyer on Mat 6:13 , and on 1Co 10:13 . Lange introduces inappropriate matter, maintaining in favour of the concrete relations supposed by him, that the Jews and Judaizing Christians with this word would justify their fanaticism against the Gentiles, particularly their separation from the Gentile Christians, as an affair of God (for His glory)!
[66] Many expressions in Greek authors show how natural this is to man; comp. Il. . 86: , ; Plaut. Aulul. iv. 10. 7: Deus impulsor mihi fuit; Terent. Eunuch. v. 2. 86: Quid, si hoc voluit quispiam Deus? Such an excuse suggested itself to the Jews the more as it appeared justified by the language of the O. T. Comp. Exo 20:16 . On the contrary, Philo ( Quod. deter. pot. 177 D) remarks: , . Still more fully in Schneckenburger.
[67] Buttmann, p. 148 [E. T. 170], contests this meaning, which rather belongs to the word . But passages, as Hom. Il. ad Ven. v. 133: ; Theognis, 772: , show that actually has that meaning.
[68] Lange maintains, in reference to the interpretation given above, that in this commentary . . is explained as equivalent to “God has no experience of evil,” and that it is said that the passive construction: “not tempted,” “not temptable,” is against grammatical usage and the connection! In a very strange manner he thinks it is here designed to strengthen the warning: Let no man say; for this saying , like all fanaticism, was a tempting God, and therefore vain and impious, because God does not suffer Himself to be tempted.
[69] Inapposite uniting of various explanations by Theile and Morus: . . dicitur, partim quoniam nullae miseriae possunt evenire Deo, partim quoniam per eas non potest inclinari ad peccandum, ad cupiditatem aliquam exercendam; Deus igitur est expers miseriae omnis atque etiam peccati vel pravae cupiditatis, et quia est, neque tentatur a malis ipse, neque alium tentat.
[70] The passage in Sir 15:11-12 ; Sir 15:20 , is especially to be compared: , . . See also 1Co 10:13 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
III. FIRST ADMONITION WITH REFERENCE TO THE FIRST FORM OF TEMPTATION: VISIONARINESS
CAUTION AGAINST THE VISIONARINESS WHICH REPRESENTS THE TEMPTATION AS GODS CAUSE. THE HIDEOUS FORM OF THE SELF-TEMPTATION OF THE ERRING AND THEIR END, DEATH.THE OPPOSING IMMUTABILITY OF THE FATHER OF LIGHTS IN HIS BLESSING RULE AND THE EXALTATION OF HIS PRINCELY CHILDREN BORN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH.
Jam 1:13-18
(VJames Jam 1:16-21. Epistle for Fourth Sunday after Easter.)
13Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God:35 for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. 15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 16Do not err, my beloved brethren. 17Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom Isaiah 36 no variableness, neither shadow of turning37 18Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Analysis:The first form of temptationvisionariness. The representation of the tempting thought as of Gods cause and caution against the deceptiveness of this temptation, Jam 1:13.The hideous form of the self-temptation of the erring and their end,death, Jam 1:14-16.The opposing image of the true God in His blessing rule and His fixed immutability, Jam 1:17.The exaltation of His princely children begotten by the word of truth, Jam 1:18.
The first form of the temptationfanaticism, represented as a glorious cause of God, or a Divine admonition.
Jam 1:13. Let no one who is tempted say.Caution against the deceptiveness of the temptation. It is incorrect to affirm that James opposes to , etc.; something like Huther, Pott, Olshausen, Schneck-enburger and al. For how could any one abide the temptation, without having first been tempted? James in this dehortation refers indeed to those who really say that they are tempted from God (which is also indicated by the forcible participial form) but even these he desires to reclaim while warning his better readers against their error. According to Calvin (and Wiesinger) James here treats de alio tentationis genere. But the matter is simply this; James now explains the one great according to the separate and begins with the first form of the temptation.[The force of the Participle should be brought out in the translation.M.].
Shall Say, according to Schneckenburger and al.=cogitet or sibi persuadeat, which is of course implied but not all, as Huther justly observes, [Bengel: corde aut oreM.]. James connects this saying with the uncommonly much-saying of the Judaizing Jewish Christians and Jews, to which he alludes.
I am tempted from God.Grotius, Hottinger and al. have rightly felt that the word tempt bears a somewhat different sense in the two places, while Huther asserts without sufficient reason that the sense in both cases must be identical, viz.: to be inwardly solicited to sin. Let no one say: I am inwardly solicited to sin of God; but with such an exhortation James could not possibly have warned the twelve tribes. Said expositors miss however the correct distinction by saying that in the one instance it denotes: adversa pati, and in the other malis ad defectionem sollicitari. It is a sententious oxymoron conveying the idea: Let no one say that the impulse, which to him is really a temptation, and in the end a devilish one (Jam 3:15), in which he is already entangled (), is a monition of God, a cause of God, an incentive to maintain His honour. For this the Jews at a somewhat later period did really say in their uprising against the Romans, this they said even then in their fanatical utterings against the pagans, and the Judaizing Jewish Christians said in a similar manner: It is the will of God that we maintain His law and therefore separate from the Gentile Christians, as far as they do not receive the whole law or only in part. But James doubtless chose this poignant mode of expression in order to reproach those sayers with their making, though unconsciously, God the Author of evil. But it cannot be absolutely assumed that he is here inveighing against an impertinence generally or variously current among Jewish Christians, which made them charge God with temptations to evil, of which they were conscious, for we have no data to warrant such an assumption. This was not the language of the Sadducees, nor of the Pharisees, or Essenes (as has been thought by Bull, Ittig and Schneckenburger with reference to their doctrine of the ), still less could he aim at Simon Majus (Calov); on the other hand the reference is not simply to the general bias of the natural man to charge God somehow with the , which the Jews might strengthen by misinterpretations of the Old Testament (Huther; see also the Note p. 59; Pro 19:3; Sir 15:11-12); for our Epistle deals throughout not with mere generalities, but with concrete relations. is a much used formula of quotation; , as Huther observes, is not as strong as . [See Winer, p. 382, = through influences proceding from God.M.].
For God is not temptable.The reasons for the foregoing in a twofold assertion respecting God. First, He is . This in the New Testament must not be confounded with the classical (in the sense of inexperienced) as denoting: God has no experience of evil (Schulthess, de Wette, Huther). Equally objectionable is the active construction of the word (Luther following the Vulgate intentator), for its weak grammatical basis, the Genitive , its tautology both with respect to what goes before and to what follows forbid the active construction. The passive-adjective construction, however, not tempted, not temptable, which is generally adopted is not only not against grammatical usage as Huther maintains, (see the adjectival Jam 5:8), nor against the connection, as he thinks also. For James wants to strengthen the dehortation, Let no man say, etc. For this saying, like all fanaticism, was a tempting God, and therefore vain and impious, because God does not suffer Himself to be tempted. Hence we might feel inclined to take in the Masculine and to denote evil men; but this would probably be expressed more definitely. To think of evils (Oecumenius) is somewhat far-fetched, but also the evil in the Singular would be too general; the Plural in the present connection points to concrete and intensively evil things. [But there is an insuperable objection to Langes derivation of the word from ; for =untempted, not temptable: but James argues not concerning God being tempted, but concerning God tempting. I therefore prefer the common usage of the word inexperienced in; so Alford, Winer and (in part at least) Wordsworth, who adds, that James may perhaps refer to the false tenet of some of the heretics of the early Church, who said that it was the duty of men to have experimental knowledge of all evil, in order to the attainment of perfection. See Palm and Rosts Lexicon and Weststein for examples in favour of inexperienced in.M.]. Secondly: But He Himself tempteth no one.[Lange takes no notice of which has here adversative force and makes therefore against his rendering not temptable, while it favours the rendering inexperienced in; and here is=not so, but Alford.M.]. Second negation aimed at the substance of the proposition I am tempted from God(Huther). is construed differently; Huther takes it as antithesis to what follows in the sense: it is not He who tempts, but every man is tempted etc. Theile and Wiesinger take it in contrast with what goes before: He Himself (self-active). And this is probably right; He suffers Himself not to be drawn by God-tempting fanatics into their unholy interests, but He Himself becomes tempter to no man; the solicitation to evil, in the trial which He appoints, is not from Him. Stress must therefore be laid on bothnot He,tempteth not any one. [Lange hardly does justice to Huther whose view is very lucid. Let no one say when he is tempted to evil, from God I am tempted: for God has no part in evil: but as to the temptation, He tempts no man etc.M.].
[Wordsworth here quotes Augustine, Tractat. in Joann. 43 and de consensu Evang. ii. 30, who raises a question on this passage. If God tempts no one, how is it that He is said in Scripture to tempt Abraham (Gen 22:1)? To which he replies that St. James is speaking of temptations arising from evil motives with a view to an evil end. No such temptations are from God. But God is said to have tempted, that is, to have tried Abraham, from a good motive and for a good end. He tried him, in love to him and to all men, in order that he might become the Father of the faithful and be an example of obedience to all ages of the world. See also Tertullian de Orat. c. 8. God forbid that we should imagine that He tempts any one, as if He were ignorant of any mans faith, or desired to make any one fall. No, such ignorance and malice belong not to God, but to the devil. Abraham was commanded to slay his son, not for his temptation but for the manifestation of his faith, as a pattern and proof to all, that no pledges of love, however dear, are to be preferred to God.Christ, when tempted by the devil, showed who it is that is the author of temptation, and who it is that is our Guardian against it.M.].
With reference to the seemingly contradictory passages Gen 22:1; Deu 8:2 and others, it is first of all necessary to distinguish as much between temptation and obduracy as between Abraham and Pharaoh. According to the concrete expression of the Old Testament God tempts Abraham by subjecting him to a trial to which the popular idea, handed down by tradition, clings as an element of temptation. He tempts Pharaoh by subjecting him to a trial in which the judgment of his self-delusion must reach its consummation. God therefore has no part whatsoever in the temptation itself as a solicitation to evil but throughout concurs in it, in the beginning trying or proving, at the end judging, at the intermediate stages chastising and punishing. It is with reference to the punishing feature in temptation that we pray: lead us not into temptation. God, as Calvin remarks, is never the author of evil.
The hideous form of the self-temptation of the erring by evil concupisence and its fruitdeath, Jam 1:14-16.
Jam 1:14. But every one is tempted.Wiesinger wrongly insists upon the necessity of distinguishing the being tempted in this verse from the falling into temptation Jam 5:2, as an intrinsical occurrence. The representation of tempting lust under the figure of an unchaste woman rather shows that James thinks of the lust belonging to the person tempted objectively in some folly which he encounters extrinsically, just as in Pro 7:5, etc. But he is quite right in opposing the above drawn course of good demeanour in temptation to the now drawn course of misdemeanour. But this point we shall touch further on. The objective folly, therefore, encountered by the person tempted, is, according to the Apostles idea, really nothing else than his very own ( emphasized) lust; first, because it springs also, as the temptation of Satan and the world, from the same ungodly , from the alter ego of his own sinfulness, and secondly, because his evil lust which has now become objective can only control him by his subjective evil lust. If, according to a well-founded distinction, we are tempted by the world, the devil and our own flesh and blood, we must further explain this thus: the temptation of the world and the devil also is in its nature uniformly homogeneous worldliness and selfishness and it is only in a mans self-own and subjective evil lust that temptation is able to become to him an ensnaring temptation in a narrower sense. Thus the great temptation of that time was everywhere only one temptation both to the Jews and the Jewish-Christians; all those glittering, variegated visionary expectations which seductively met the individual, had sprung from the matter of the chiliastic, world-lusting, spiritual pride. It is on this property in the dazzling object that James lays principal stress, because every one must overcome the world and Satan in his own strength by overcoming himself. In the first place we have now to inquire why he renders the objective in the figure of the unchaste woman. According to Theile and Wiesinger the words: Every one, etc., should be construed thus: Every one is tempted by his own lust in that he is lured etc. The pure expression of the antithesis: tempted from God, tempted by his own lust, seems to favour it. But this construction wipes out the figure that follows in its very conception. The sense is rather: Every one is tempted, in that he, etc., according to the construing of Luther, de Wette and Huther; viz., his own inward concupiscence meeting him as a soliciting unchaste woman. For this image is immediately indicated by the verbs and . Schneckenburger observes on it: Verba e re venatoria et piscatoria in rem amatoriam et inde in nostrum tropum translata. (in N. T. .) and are not synonymous (Pott: protahere in littus), in fact it has hardly a specific meaning in the res venatoria (Schultess: elicere bestias ex tuto); but in the res amatoria we may distinguish it from allurement proper in that it draws men from their intrinsicality and independence by dazzling interest (to draw off and to allureGerm. ablocken and anlocken); (from =esca exposita ad capienda animalia) occurs also 2Pe 2:14; 2Pe 2:18, and is used also by the classics metaphorically, always in a bad sense. Now we must not overlook the force of the Participles etc., they denote the process of development (becoming) in the course of which temptation becomes entanglement as far as man continues in it. He is first drawn out from his inward self-control and fortress and then attracted (drawn to) by the unchaste womans allurings. [This is the reason why I have retained the Participles in my translation.M.]. But the intrinsical decision proper is further expressed by . however does not denote innocent sensuousness. The word occurs here, as it, always occurs in the N. T. (except where its specific object is indicated, as in Luk 22:15; Php 1:23; 1Th 2:17) also without the addition of , , or some similar adjective, in sensu malo. Huther. is not, indeed, birth-sin per se (as Huther rightly observes), but just as little only an evil lusting for the commission of the deed springing from birth-sin, as he argues against Wiesinger, whose almost equivalent exposition he scruples to admit. It is birth-sin itself in its concrete activity (prava concupiscentia) viewed from its positive side as worldliness and selfishness, assuming in different situations innumerable variations. Maintaining with Pott the figurative description of different personifications, we find that the reference is not to four but to three generations. We have in succession the unchaste mother or the , the unchaste daughter or in the narrower sense of deed-sin and the son and grandson of the voluptuous mothers, the murderer-son death. Man yielding with his will to the allurement of evil lust, his moral relations assume a kind of natural sequence and the rest follows of itself. Lust becomes impregnated and brings forth sin, while sin brings forth (as it were out of itself or pursuant to its essential connection with hastening along with its own maturity the maturing of the hereditary death-germ) death.
Jam 1:15. Then, when lust hath conceived.This denotes mans proper surrendering to his evil lust in a manner which indicates that it was to be expected because he kept standing (continued,) in the allurement (). The evil lust is fecundated i.e. it has obtained the mastery over the will of man.
It bringeth forth sin. ( ).De Wette and al. make denote the intrinsical act of sin and the extrinsical deed-sin. But Wiesinger and Huther are right in saying that the intrinsical act is involved in . On the other hand Calvin, Schneckenburger, Wiesinger and al. take the to denote the whole sinful life. But Huther says that it denotes the equal deed-sin, yet, in its entire development passing through its different stages until it subjects man to itself so that all reaction is at an end. For is neither =perpetrare (Pott), nor=operari (Laurentius), nor= (, Baumgarten), but=to complete; hence =sin advanced to the completeness of its development. Now since sin makes its first appearance as a new-birth the allusion to the now matured unchaste young woman which several commentators have found in the , is not outside the cycle of Jamess thoughts; the expression certainly brings out the idea that she did reach a false which is the opposite of the to which the believing Israelite attains in virtue of his well-demeanour. True Judaism has matured into Christianity, Judaizing into anti christian apostasy. In point of meaning the exposition of Wiesinger coincides pretty much with that of Huther, but the latter has the preference of firmly keeping up the image of sin itself in its process of completion.
Bringeth forth death.The word (found in the N. T. only here and in Jam 1:18) differs from only in that the former indicates more clearly that the is from the outset pregnant with the . Huther.Huther and Wiesinger explain death both of temporal and eternal death, Rom 6:23. But between the two lies the historical, indeterminate (unabsehbar) death (which being indeterminate must therefore be distinguished from absolute death [Untergang]), and as soon as we consider the concrete import of this passage, this feature of death becomes of the utmost importance. And here we have to call attention to the antithesis which Wiesinger has found between Jam 1:3-4 and this passage. The first proposition that the trial of faith by tribulation answers to the incitement of the will by lust we consider to be false; to fall into temptation and to be tempted are identical. But the consciousness of the and the and in connection with the antithesis of operative there and operative here, this is one real antithesis; the second is the there and here. Again the there and the here; lastly the there (connected with the Jam 5:12) and the here. The last two antitheses Wiesinger has taken together. Applying now the whole passage to the circumstances peculiar to the time of James, the completed sin denotes the completed apostasy of the Jewish people and death their historical judgment (see James 5. and Romans 10). This of course does not exclude the more general meaning of our passage which opens the prospect of eternal death as well as the most specific meaning according to which every mortal sin is followed by spiritual death. We have still to notice the different dogma-tropes: sin brings forth death (James), sin is followed by death as its wages or punishment (Paul), sin is death (John).Likewise we must guard our passage against the [Roman] Catholic inference that sin as such must be distinguished from evil concupiscence (lust) with Calvin: Neque enim disputat Jacobus, quando incipiat nasci peccatum, ita ut peccatum sit et reputetur coram deo, sed quando emergat. James, to be sure, and all Holy Scripture prompt us to distinguish intrinsical deed-sin or the evil counsel of the heart from the direct and natural motions of sinful desire. Lastly we must avoid the presumption that James by the use of this frightful image simply wanted to didactically prove that temptation does not come from God; he also wanted his readers to understand it as to its real nature, origin and working. Hence the further admonition: Be ye not deceived. [Alford develops another view of the above image. The harlot , and the man: the guilty union is committed by the will embracing the temptress: the consequence is that she sin, in general, of some kind, of that kind to which the temptation inclines: then that particular sin, when grown up and matureherself , extrudit, as if all along pregnant with it, death, the final result of sin. So that temptation to sin cannot be from God, while trial is from Him.He also recalls the sublime allegory in Miltons Paradise Lost (Book II) where Satan by his own evil lust brings forth sin (out of thy head I sprung), and then by an incestuous union with sin
(Back they recoild afraid
At first and called me sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me; but familiar grown,
I pleased and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing
Becamst enamourd, and such joy thou tookst
With me in secret, that my womb conceived
A growing burden.)
causes her to bring forth Death.M.].
Jam 1:16. Be not ye deceived.Although this sentence refers also to what follows (Theile) and not solely to what goes before (Gebser) the reference to the latter (Wiesinger) is greater than that to the former. The expression, moreover, has the full pregnancy of a warning against objective images and spirits of temptation, according to de Wette, be not ye deceived, and not with Gebser, err not. The warmth of this caution is heightened by the address:
My beloved brethren, although they were to find the means of strengthening and confirming this exhortation in the subsequent instruction concerning the true God of revelation. Huther: The same formula is found in 1Co 6:9; 1Co 15:33; Gal 6:7 (a similar one 1Jn 3:7 [ .M.], in all these passages it follows up a thought peculiar to the Christian consciousness, by which an antecedent statement receives its confirmation. [Wordsworth: The formulas be not thou deceived, and be not ye deceived, are the preambles used in Scripture and by ancient Fathers, in order to introduce cautions against, and refutations of some popular error, as here.M.].
The opposing image of the true God, etc.
Jam 1:17. Every good giving (bestowing).We ask leave to reproduce the Hexameter (see Winer, 68, 5a, p. 663) because nothing but a close consideration of the text has led us to do so. [The German rendering is as follows: Jegliche gute Bescherung und alle vollkommene Gabethe Greek original reads thus: | | | | | , the last syllable in the second foot being lengthened by the arsis.M]. Standing by the side of , can hardly have the same meaning as the former (as Huther maintains); rather denotes primarily the act of giving and secondarily the gift. But alongside of , which denotes gift, donation, present, it becomes at all events the lesser giving, while is the more weighty expression. To this must be added the gradation of the adjectives , . It is certainly unfounded to apply to gifts of nature and to gifts of grace, but this does not involve an identity (so Huther) which is here very tautologically expressed. must be made the starting-point of the exposition. According to the New Testament idea of , corresponds with the and the Christians as , and with the , Jam 5:15. And just as the perfect work can only be understood as the consistent practical exhibition of the theocratical faith in Christianity, and as the describes one who has decided for Christ, while sin completed denotes the sin of Christ-inimical apostasy, so also signifies the gift of God completed in Christianity. Our reminds us of Christ as Rom 5:15; but here the reference is probably to the Christian revelation in the fulness of its gifts. This would make to denote everything which served to prepare this completed gift in the olden time, especially in the old covenant, according to the analogy of Heb 1:1. The readers here and there should know that the one and only God presides over the difference and antithesis between the Old Covenant and the New. It is not to be wondered at that several commentators (Raphelius, Augusti) were tempted to take and in an exclusive sense, for the antithesis lay near: God tempts no man, nothing but good comes from Him. This would be a more distinct statement of the antithesis, but James wanted to present it in a richer form: not only does no evil come from God, nay rather all good comes from Him. It is moreover in uninterrupted permanence, a perpetual rain and sunshine of gifts. The Participle is to be duly considered and we ought really to render: it comes and comes. The word gift for is rather weak and donating would be more weighty than donation. [Bengel renders datio and donum. On the whole =datio=giving, and =donum=gift, is probably the nearest rendering which the Latin and English tongues admit. Bp. Andrews, who has two sermons on this text, vol. iii. p. 36, and vol. v. p. 311 observes p. 313, that , donatio bona or good giving, represents rather the act of giving which bestows things of present use for this life, whether for our souls or bodies, in our journey to our heavenly country; but or perfect gift, designates those unalloyed and enduring treasures, which are laid up for us in eternity. I have retained the Participle in my translation.M.].
From the Father of the lights.Huther and Wiesinger agree with the majority of modern commentators that the lights here signify the heavenly bodies. But we do not believe that a single passage of Holy Writ can be produced in support of such an abnormal mode of expression, Psalms 136. the LXX. say concerning the stars , Jer 4:23 . But Scripture as well as the Nicene Creed uniformly distinguish make from create and beget. Job 38:28 surely does not mean that God is the father of rain. Setting aside the following explanations of the lights: knowledge (Hornejus), joy (Michaelis), wisdom or goodness (Wolf), it is hardly necessary to think of the Urim and Thummim (Heisen) and even the reference to the angels (Kern and Olshausen) cannot be retained. But the reference to the Sermon on the Mount, with which James is so intimately connected, is less remote. In Mat 5:14, the disciples are called and in Jam 5:16, they are actually distinguished from their light as candlesticks or light-bearers. The Messiah is often called a Light in the Old Testament (Isa 9:2; Isa 49:6, etc.) and in the New Testament it is an appellation by which He describes Himself (Joh 8:12; cf. Jam 1:4 and other passages). Also John the Baptist He calls a light Joh 5:35 and Php 2:15 Christians are referred to: . If in favour of the aforesaid exposition it is alleged that God Himself is called 1Jn 1:5 (cf. 1Ti 6:15) it is necessary clearly to distinguish that ethical idea from the physical. The subsequent metaphors: , are claimed in favour of the disputed exposition; but they constitute an antithesis between God, the Light without shadow and the symbolical bodies of light, which are not without casting their shadows. Besides all this, believers as God-begotten children are distinguished in Jam 1:18 as an from the . The Scholion ap. Matth; , , seems accordingly to be right in the last clause in the sense that the whole line of organs of revelation from Abraham to Christ as the representatives of all good spirits is what is meant here, [Bengel: Patris appellatio congruens huic loco; sequitur . Ipse Patris, et matris, loco est. Est Pater luminum etiam spiritualium in regno grati et glori. Ergo multo magis Ipse Lux est, 1Jn 1:5. Lucis mentione statim, ut solet, subjungitur mentio vit, ex regeneratione. Jam 5:18. There is no reason why the two interpretations should not be combined. God is the Father of all lights, the lights of nature and the lights of grace; the Father not only of the light of reason and conscience, the light of knowledge and goodness but also the Father of the children of Light. To enter in this connection upon hair-splitting distinctions between create, make and beget, seems hardly the thing. Whatever is gross and material is of course eliminated from the meaning of any of said three expressions, and if the spiritual conception of the Divine character as Maker, Creator and Father, has once been reached, metaphysical quibbles may well be dispened with.M.].
With whom (as peculiar to whom) there is not existing.We give this construction of the passage on account of , without discussing the question whether is a peculiar form (Buttmann, Winer), or an abbreviation of (Meyer, Huther).
A change or a shadow-casting.In the first place it is to be remembered that these words are . in the New Testament. Then the first word, being the more general, must be explained by the second and more definite one. The Greek commentators limit the figurative to the (Oecumenius, Theophylact and al.): with God there is no mutation or a shadow (i.e. a trace or appearance of a change, or also of a reservation; they are followed among modern expositors by Morus, Rosenmller, Hensler, Theile. The Latin commentators, on the other hand (Justinianus, Estius, a Lapide and al.) apply the expression ad solis vicissitudines et conversiones. Then also Luther (see the Translation), Grotius, Wetstein, Flatt, Schulthess. For a full treatment of the passage see Gebser, who explains it of the shadows cast by the solstice. Wiesinger suggests changes of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses and regards the shadow as the effect of ; similar is the exposition of Huther: the shadow cast on the heavenly body, effected by its changing position. But solar and lunar eclipses are phenomena too rare and transient in order to give a pregnant expression to the idea in question. And although there may not be used here any termini technici of Astronomy (as Huther observes) in their strict sense, the contemplation of the world in every age led probably to a sufficient knowledge of astronomy in order to recognize in the diurnal phenomenal revolution of the sun, the moon and the stars the cause of all nocturnal obscurings of the earth. The sun has not only its annual but its diurnal solstice. In like manner the moon and the stars rise and set and leave us in absolute night. But God is in a very different sense the Light of the world, a Sun that never sets. To this refer Psa 139:9; Psa 139:12; Job 34:22; it was also symbolized by the pillar of fire in the camp of the Israelites. Now if the expression denotes such a phenomenal shadow-casting of the revolving heavenly bodies, we can hardly take in a purely general sense (Huther)=mutation, but as a figurative description of a change of position (standing-place). This alternation is the first thing: the constant progression of the celestial bodies, the turning, follow as the result. Now if the heavenly bodies, as the created symbols of the Divine being of light, possess the property of being not without shadow and night we get the antithesis that God, the Father of the Lights is eternally the same, not only per se, but also in the phenomena of these lights: that is to say, He makes no revolution with the Old Testament which could cast a night-shadow on the New (as the Talmud at a later period attempted to make such a revolution), nor does He suffer the New Testament to cast a night-shadow on the Old (according to the later opinion of the Gnostics and of all rationalists). The Father of the lights remains unchanged even in this antithesis. [God is always in the meridian. Wetstein.Bengels note will be found useful: dicit mutationem in intellectu; (vide LXX. 2 Reg. 9:20), mutationem voluntatis. In utroque vocabulo est metaphora a stellis, huic loco, ubi luminum mentio fit, aptissima. et est in natura (vid. Job 38:33) qu habet quotidianam vicissitudinem diei et noctis, et longiores modo dies modo noctes: in Deo nil tale est. Ipse est Lux mera, et , si qua accidit, penes nos est, non penes Patrem luminum. interdum dicit . Sic enim Hesychius, interpretatur. unde Gregorius Naz. tanquam synonyma ponit: et apud Tullium, Budo observante, adumbratio rei opponitur perfectioni ejus; sed hoc loco opponitur luminibus, adeoque magis proprie sumitur, ut sit jactus umbr primulus, revolutionem habens conjunctam. Idem Hebraismus genitivi mox, abundantiam maliti, ex quo colligere licet, transmutatio opponi datio bona, quemadmodum vicissitudinis obumbratio opponitur donum perfectum. aliquid majus est. Hinc gradatio in oratione negante: ne quidem vicissitudinis adumbratio. Hoc demum efficit perfectionem; illud bonum est. Perfectior est, qui ne quidem vicissitudinis adumbrationem habet.M.].
The exaltation of the children of God begotten by the word of truth.
Jam 1:18. Pursuant to free decree hath He begotten us.The connection of these words with what goes before is differently construed: 1. as cordination: God the Father of lights is also the Author of our regeneration (Theile); 2. as exemplification: generatio spiritualis, quasi exemplum aliquod donorum istorum spiritualium (Laurentius, de Wette); 3. as an inference drawn from the general idea of the former (Huther). But regeneration, as matter of experience, cannot be inferred from a dogma concerning God; 4. as proof or demonstration (Gebser, Kern). Wiesingers remarks are excellent: The greatest (Jam 1:18) which consists in the Divinely effected regeneration of man by the word of truth, is now mentioned by the author in lieu of everything else as the brightest actual proof that nothing evil, but all good comes from God. This act of His holy love is at once the strongest exhortation to a demeanour well-pleasing to Him. (Jam 1:19 etc.). The Apostle shows therefore how the heaven-descended had evidenced itself as such by its effect, viz. the regeneration of believers. Now in thus laying the strongest emphasis on the exalted dignity, the of Christians following from their regeneration, he also emasculates thereby the fallacy of that seductive fanaticism, which would fain mislead them to pursue a false phantom of this exaltation on chiliastic and revolutionary paths. At the same he presents to all Jews this true life-picture of their exaltation. is the emphatic beginning of the sentence. Pursuant to his established (Aorist) free decree. The element of love (Bengel: voluntate amantissima) lies primarily not in the word itself but in its connection. The antithesis is (according to Bede, Calvin and al.) the meritoriousness of good works. It lies however nearer to see the primary reference to the Jewish claims to the kingdom (Romans 9), especially because the at any rate contains the element of voluntary determination. The verb itself, used here, shows plainly that reference is made not to natural birth, but to regeneration, for is the synonyme of etc. (1Jn 3:9; 1Pe 1:23; 2Pe 1:4). So Huther rightly answers Pott, who wants to explain by facere, efficere.
Us, i.e., the Christians. But the objective regeneration of humanity in Christ was primarily also designed for the Jews as the regeneration of the nation and the theocracy, and to this teleological element the sequel constrains us to give a proper share of our consideration. Besides this objective element, subjectively realized by believers, We must also take cognizance of the emphasis: begotten by the Father of lights and thus destined to the enjoyment of the most exalted dignity. [Bengel, as usual, gives us the pith of the whole riches of thought in a nutshell and supplies commentators with mental food. Much of Langes view may be traced back to Bengel, and some of the beautiful reflections of Wordsworth, which we shall produce under Doctrinal and Ethical, seem to flow from the same source. He says: , volens, voluntate amantissima, liberrima, purissima, fcundissima. Hebr. ab voluit; cf. Joh 1:13. Congruit , misericordia, 1Pe 1:3. Antitheton, concupiscentia cum conceperit.. Antitheton, , Jam 1:15 (cf. also what he says on Jam 1:17, Ipse (Deus) Patris et matris loco est.M.].
By the word of truth.The Gospel as the completion of the whole word of revelation. The word of truth regarded not only as opposed to the law as such, or even to the tradition of the law, but especially also as opposed to the lies and frauds of fanaticism which promised to make the readers of the Epistle sons of the kingdom. This also chimes in with the antithesis in time: what the temptation promises you in a phantom, the word of truth has already made us in reality. The word of truth, i.e., the word which is truth (Genit. Appos. [cf. Joh 17:17 : M.)], but also the expression and life of truth (1Pe 1:23; cf. Eph 1:13; Col 1:5=; 2Ti 2:15). The whole Epistle shows that James meant the mediation of this word by Christ, but the idea is more general because by this completion he comprehends into one whole the entire old Testament as Christianity in process of being (or becoming). [These words are also susceptible of a different interpretation. According to it the is personal and denotes the Eternal Word, the Second Person in the Holy Trinity, by Whom we have been born again (cf. 1Pe 1:23), Who for our sakes became Incarnate and by being Incarnate gave to those, who receive Him power to become sons of God, who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God (Joh 1:13), and through whom we cry Abba, Father (Rom 8:15; Gal 3:26), and become partakers of the Divine nature. Wordsworth. The noble array of authorities, in favour of this interpretation, will be found under Doctrinal and Ethical.M.].
That we should be; not that we should become. But the teleological mode of expression is probably chosen in order to indicate that the Jews should become what Christians already are.
A (kind of) first fruit.Calvin: similitudinis est nota; nos quodam modo esse primitias. So Huther, Wiesinger, Gebser and al. But James hardly needed to give prominence to this symbolical mode of speech in an Epistle, symbolical throughout. It was self-evident. But on that account we are hardly prepared to understand the reference in the word with Bengel: qudam habet modestiam, nam primiti proprie et absolute est Christus. Christ is here included as Mediator of the Christian first fruit. But James, using this expression, might well recollect that the angels of God are a different kind of first-fruit of the creation. It has been inferred from this passage that Christians are also superior to the angels; at all events they are cordinated with them as a different type of celestial first-born. The frequent occurrence of this word in a symbolical sense (Lev 23:10; Num 18:12; Deu 26:2) removes all doubt that alludes to the God-consecrated first-fruit in the Old Covenant (Laurentius: allusio est ad ritum legalem in V. T. de consecratione primogenitorum, frugum, jumentorum et hominum). The word therefore involves also the idea that Christians are a people consecrated to the service of God, even as the first-consecrated in relation to the future conversion of the Gentiles and the glorification of the world. (Huther.) But this does not warrant the inference drawn by Huther and Wiesinger that the first-born in point of time settles the idea of first-fruit in point of dignity. Even in the province of nature the idea of the first-born or matured is more or less connected with the idea of the excellent. In the New Testament, however, this idea of the word in a spiritual sense, is repeatedly made prominent (1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:23; 1Co 16:15; Rev 14:4). But there is yet another element of the idea, which has to be decidedly held fast. As the first-fruit was at once the prophecy and surety of the whole subsequent harvest, so Christ as of the resurrection is surety for the subsequent stages of the resurrection, so the Holy Ghost in believers is surety for the subsequent glory (Rom 8:23); so the first believers of Israel in their unity are sureties for the future conversion of the whole nation, Rom 11:6. We see no reason for abandoning any one of these three elements, 1. The God-consecrated first-fruit people, 2. the first dignity of the real children of God involved in it, 3. the living security for future conversions, even for the glorification of the world. Huther ojects to the second element that instead of we ought to have followed by or . But the difficulty with regard to has been settled above, and Huthers exposition, not ours, would require a . Even the taking of in the sense of or some similar word (in Oecumenius) is not against the Apostles idea; it only presents modifications and consequences of .
Of His creatures.This expression which relates generally to the whole creation but particularly to Gods moral institutions in mankind, brings out primarily the second sense of , as in Psalms 8.; Romans 8 :1Co 6:2-3; but also the third sense. Christians as Gods are not only superior to the doings of the moral world and to the propensities of the natural world, but they are also as Gods sureties for the glorification of the world. The , although they are not really the (Olshausen), but the belongs also to them, as a surety that they will ripen into the , just as the first-fruits are an of the ripening fields. The depth of Christian knowledge contained in this passage has been admirably set forth by Wiesinger, p. 88, etc., to which the reader is referred. [We give it below under Doctrinal and Ethical.M.]. Particular note should be taken of the striking accord of this passage in James with the fundamental ideas of the doctrine of Paul, in , election, free grace; in the doctrine of regeneration and the new creature, in the the antithesis of law and symbol, in the not only the relation of Christians to the world, but in particular the relation of the Jewish Christians to the Jews (Romans 10), and in the his doctrine of the glorification of the world by Christ, Romans 8.; Ephesians 1.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
If there is one question, which for centuries has engaged and exhausted the reflection of the most celebrated philosophers, it is this: whence is moral evil? Moral evil, disorder in the dominion of a God of order and justice, a discord in the harmony of creation, an ever-flowing spring of misery by the side of so many and copious fountains of happiness opened for us by a higher Love. Who is the author of its disastrous existence? Does it come from God? If so, how could God be just and holy? And if it does not come from Him, how could it originate, continue and rule from the worlds first dawn until now? There is no thinker who has not stood in silent contemplation of the riddle and there is also no thinker who has been able to resist the temptation of making at least an effort towards its solution. The various schools of Greek philosophy exhibit the most contradictory principles. The most different gnostic systems of the second century we see revolve round this problem as if it were their immutable centre. And even the speculative philosophy of our century, no matter how often its idealism departed from the maxims of experience, found it impossible wholly to overlook this dark back-ground of all human self-consciousness and had to include the investigation of evil in the course of its contemplations, if for no other purpose than that of denying the reality of sin as constituting the guilt of mankind. The most important efforts of human thought to explain the origin of moral evil have been discussed in a masterly manner by Julius Mller in his classical work, Die Christliche Lehre von der Snde (new edition, 1844.)
2. The principal features of the doctrine, which James here presents concerning the origin of sin, may be compressed into one sentence, viz.: Sin is in no event Gods fault but altogether our own. Every explanation of the origin of sin which makes God directly or indirectly the causa efficiens mali, James condemns in toto (as to its inmost ground), as does also Paul, Rom 3:8.
3. Nothing is more common than the endeavour to charge God directly or indirectly with the guilt of our transgressions. Even the heathen sought shelter in the subterfuge that some divinity or irresistible demon had impelled them to evil and the Jews asked Why does he yet find fault? Rom 9:19. The most ancient art of sinful mankind was the sewing of fig-leaves (Gen 3:7), and also the modern rationalism of our century in this respect seems neither to have learnt nor to have forgotten any thing. Sin, in the opinion of modern rationalists, is a relative, yet an altogether unavoidable evil. Is God not the Almighty who creates light and darkness, the Infinite from whom, by whom, and to whom are all things absolutely, the Omniscient, who foresaw the abuse of moral freedom and might easily have prevented it? It is therefore plainly thus: man could not but altogether fall and he falls not only with the high sanction but also according to the will and arrangement of God. Sin is a wholly indispensable part of our earthly plan of education just as a child would never have learned to walk without having previously stumbled. Sin is the inseparable shade-side of the light of perfection, which as it shines is inconceivable without a shadow. Sin is a want of development, an imperfection, grounded nolens volens in the organization of our race, for which we can no more be held accountable than for having feet but no wings. Thus sin, which is free choice and a daring opposition to God, is fundamentally made to be a rule and what might yet be wanting to the fair-seeming theory, appears in still more glaring colours in practice. Even the dullest mind becomes inexhaustible in wit and understanding if it is necessary to excuse the commission of evil. There is nothing more difficult even to infant lips than the admission of personal guilt. Now it is the fault of others or of circumstances in which we find ourselves placed, again it is the fault of our temperament or the natural infirmity of an originally excellent heart. Aye, how many a Christian seeks to lessen his guilt with the pious sigh that God had let go his hand for a moment, that the Lord had hidden His countenance from him so that now he could not evince himself as a child of light; that the flesh had proved too strong for him and it was really not he that kept on sinning, but the invincible principle of flesh within himself. If James were to revisit us, he would not have any occasion to withdraw his exhortation as superfluous: Let no man, being tempted, say, I am tempted from God.
4. It is only necessary to enter somewhat more profoundly into the idea that God in the most absolute sense of the word is in order to perceive the infinite superiority of the Christian conception of God to the ethnical. James, in this respect, occupies not only a lofty religious but also a purely ethical standpoint. Just as the conception of God with many is obscured by sins, so on the other hand, the Christian conception of God corrects many confused or one-sided theories of the origin of sin.
5. In order that we may thoroughly understand the teaching of James respecting the origin of sin, we must in particular not lose sight of the point, that it is not so much his intention to account for the origin of sin among mankind as to describe it in the human individual: in other words that he here treats of the matter rather psychologically than metaphysically. Rationalistic commentators who consequently use Jam 1:14-15 as a weapon against Genesis 3 and Joh 8:44, act most arbitrarily. The matter has two sides only one of which is touched by James, while he does not invalidate the other, no matter how true it may be in itself. Cf. Jam 4:7. What he describes is the history of sin in every individual man, and that in three different periods: in its beginning, its progress and its end.
6. James in declaring that lust, having conceived, brings forth sin, does by no means imply that per se is not altogether sin. The concupiscentia in this case is already prava, but it is here expressly set forth not as the mother of the sinful principle but of the sinful deed. The Protestant Church at every period has rightly opposed to the pelagianizing tendencies of [Roman] Catholicism the assertion that also the of man, which eventually becomes deedsin, is sinful in itself (per se). Paul also denies that the law is sin, not that lust is sin, Rom 7:7. Besides the history of every more signal sin, e.g., that of Adam or Pharaoh, David, Ahab and many others furnishes the most striking proofs of the correctness of the delineation here given. This passage is greatly abused if it is cited as a proof that evil desires are not sin, provided man withhold his consent. For James does not discuss the question when sin begins, when it is sin before God and imputed as sin, but when it breaks forth. Thus he gradually progresses to show that the completion of sin is the cause of eternal death, but that sin is rooted in a mans own lust; whence it follows that men shall reap in eternal ruin the fruit which they themselves have sowed. Chrysostom.
7. The idea of guilt, which is here so emphatically expressed by James, is of the utmost importance to the whole development of scientific theology. Not until sin in its true nature is acknowledged as guilt, are we able to appreciate the depth of the doctrines of the atonement and of redemption. But then it must be equally acknowledged that only a Redeemer, who was really God-man, was able to deliver us from eternal ruin. The right conception of Soteriology and Christology is thoroughly rooted in the deeper insight into Hamartology.
8. It is impossible that God should be at variance with Himself, that His holiness should conflict with His love. The same God whom James describes in Jam 5:17 as he sets forth in Jam 5:17 as the eternal source (German primal source) of light from whom all gifts and only good gifts flow to us. This declaration also reminds us of the Sermon on the Mount, Mat 7:11. God is here called the Father of lights, as elsewhere He is described as the Father of spirits, the God of the spirits of all flesh, Heb 12:9; Num 16:22. James describes the inexhaustible riches of the goodness and the glory of the immutability of God in a form at once poetical and metrical , , in order to show also thereby that the inference that such a God could yet be the cause of sin contains the strongest contradictio in terminis. For it is impossible that the Father of lights should love darkness; He, with whom there is no change, cannot possibly cause to-day the evil which yesterday He did forbid or punish; detestable sin, so often condemned by Him, in no event can belong to His good and perfect gifts. The New Testament positively opposes the repulsive assertion of a self-development of God. Heubner.
9. The greatest proof of the absolute impossibility of God being the cause of sin lies in the opposite experience of believers themselves (Jam 1:18), where the greatest and most glorious of all good gifts (Jam 1:17), although stated in general terms, is yet specifically named. The history of the birth of sin (Jam 1:15) is opposed (Jam 1:18) to the spiritual history of the birth of Christians in order to shed thereby the brightest light on the fact that God who effects regeneration, cannot possibly be the author of its contraryevil. Those who attach but little importance to the Epistle of James in a dogmatical point of view would do well to give their earnest and thoughtful attention to his dictum classicum concerning regeneration, Jam 5:18. We have here in fact the depth and riches of Paul in a brief compendium. See the exegetical notes on the passage. James mode of statement exhibits also a surprising agreement with that of Peter (1Pe 1:23).
[Jam 1:15. The progressive development of temptation is thus stated by Bede: 1. Suggestio. 2. Delectatio. 3. Consensus. Suggestio est hostis, delectatio autem vel consensus est nostr fragilitatis. Si delectationem cordis partus sequitur prav actionis, nobis jam mortis reis victor hostis abscedit. For further illustration see Wordsworth.
Jam 1:16. Bp. Andrewes [Sermons, 3, p. 374): Though of man it be truly said by Job, he never continueth in one stay (Job 14:2); though the lights of heaven have their parallaxes; yea, the angels of heaven, he found not steadfastness in them (Job 4:18); yet for God, He is subject to none of them. He is Ego sum quisum (Exo 3:14); that is, saith Malachi, Ego Deus et non mutor (Mal 3:6). We are not what we were awhile since, what we shall be awhile after, scarce what we are; for every moment makes us vary. With God it is nothing so, He is that He is; He is and changeth not. He changes not his tenor; He says not, before Abraham was, I was; but before Abraham was, I am (Joh 8:58).
Yet are there varyings and changes, it cannot be denied. We see them daily: True, but the point is per quem, on whom to lay them? Not on God. Seems there any recess? It is we forsake Him, not He us (Jer 2:17). It is the ship that moves, though they that be in it think the land goes from them, not they from it. Seems there any variation, as that of the night? It is umbra terr makes it, the light makes it not. Is there anything resembling a shadow? A vapour rises from us, and makes the cloud, which is as a pent-house between, and takes Him from our sight. That vapour is our lust, there is the apud quem. Is any tempted? It is his own lust doth it; that enticeth him to sin; that brings us to the shadow of death. It is not God. No more than He can be tempted, no more can He tempt any. If we find any change, the apud is with us, not Him; we change, He is unchanged. Man walketh in a vain shadow. (Psa 39:6). His ways are the truth. He cannot deny Himself.
Every evil, the more perfectly evil it is, the more it is from below: it either rises from the steam of our nature corrupted; or yet lower, ascends as a gross smoke, from the bottomless pit, from the prince of darkness, as full of varying and turning into all shapes and shadows, as God is far from both, who is uniform and constant in all His courses.The lights may vary, He is invariable; they may change, He is unchangeable, constant always and like Himself. Now our lessons from these are
1. Are they given? Then, quid gloriaris? Let us have no boasting. Are they given, why forget the Giver? Let Him be had in memory, He is worthy so to be had.
2. Are the giving as well as the gift and the good as the perfect, of gift, both? Then acknowledge it in both; take the one as a pledge, make the one as a step to the other.
3. Are they from somewhere else, not from
ourselves? Learn then to say, and to say with feeling, Non nobis, Domine, quia non a nobis (Psa 106:1).
4. Are they from on high? Look not down to the ground, then, as swine to the acorns they find lying there, and never once up to the tree they come from. Look up; the very frame of our body gives that way. It is natures check to us to have our head bear upward and our heart grovel below.
5. Do they descend? Ascribe them then to purpose, not to time or chance. No table to fortune, saith the prophet. Isa 65:11.
6. Are they from the Father of lights? (Jer 10:12) then never go to the children, a signis cli nolite timere: neither fear nor hope for any thing from any light of them at all.
7. Are His gifts without repentance? (Rom 2:29). Varies He not? Whom He loves, doth He love to the end? (Joh 13:1). Let our service be so too, not wavering. O that we changed from Him no more than He from us! Not from the light of grace to the shadow of sin, as we do full often.
But above all, that which is ex tot substanti, that if we find any want of any giving or gift, good or perfect, this text gives us light, whither to look, to whom to repair for them; to the Father of lights. And even so let us do. Ad patrem luminum cum primo lumine: Let the light, every day, so soon as we see it, put us in mind to get us to the Father of Lights. Ascendat oratio, descendat miseratio; let our prayer go up to Him that His grace may come down to us, so to lighten us in our ways and works, that we may in the end come to dwell with Him, in the light which is , light whereof there is no eventide, the sun whereof never sets, nor knows tropicthe only thing we miss, and wish for in our lights here, primum et ante omnia. [A part of the above really belongs to homiletical and practical but I doubt not that the reader will be thankful to me for not having attempted to sever the practical element from the doctrinalM.].
[Jam 1:18. Wordsworth:With reverence be it said, in the work of our Regeneration, God is both our Father and Mother; and this statement well follows the declaration of the Apostle that every good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights. He is a Father, the Father of lights, and He is like a Mother also, and gives birth to us by the Word of truth.
Compare the use of the maternal word , parturio, used by St. Paul in one of his tenderest expressions of affectionate yearning for his spiritual children, Gal 4:19.
By this word , He brought us forth, St. James declares Gods maternal love for our souls. Isa 49:15. Psa 27:12.
The view which makes personal is not in conflict with the common view; it is based on the recognition of the two senses in which St. James and St. Paul use it. Cf. Heb 4:12; Eph 5:26; Tit 1:3; Gal 4:19. The comparison of this verse (Jam 1:18) with Jam 1:21 shows that James passes by a natural transition from the Incarnate Word to the reception of the Inspired Word.
Athanasius (contra Arianos iii. 61, p. 483): Whatsover the Father determines to create, He makes and creates by Him (the Word), as the Apostle says. By His Will he brought us forth by the Word. Therefore the will of the Father, which concerns those who are born again, or which concerns those things that are made by any other way, is in the Word, in whom He makes and regenerates what He thinks fit.
Irenus (Jam 2:25; Jam 2:3):Thou, O man, are not uncreated, nor wert thou always coxistent with God, like His own Word, but thou art gradually learning from the Word the dispensations, of God who made thee.
Tertullian (c. Praxean. c. 7) illustrating the word says: Christus. primogenitus et unigenitus Dei proprie de vulva cordis Ipsius.
Novatian (de Trinit. 31):There is one God, without any origin, from wham the Word, the Son was born. He, born of the Father, dwells ever in the Father.
Theophilus of Antioch ( 10): God, having His Own Word indwelling in His own bowels (), begat Him, having breathed Him forth before all things, and through Him He hath made all things; and He is called the Beginning, because He is the Principle and Lord of all things which were created through Him.
Hippolitus (Philos. p. 334):The One Supreme God generates the Word in His own mind. The word was in the Father, bearing the Will of the Father who begat Him; and when the Father commanded that the world should be created, the Word was executing what was pleasing to the Father,The Word alone is of God, of God Himself; wherefore He is God. The Word of God regulates all things, the First-born of the Father. Christ is God over all, who commanded us to wash away sin from man; regenerating the old man, and having called man His image from the beginning; and if thou hearkenest to His holy commandment and imitatest in goodness Him who is good, thou wilt be like Him, being honoured by Him, for God has a longing for thee, having divinized thee also for his glory.
Bp. Bull (Def. Fid. Nic. III. James 2) says: The Son of God, born from Eternity, is said by the Fathers to have certain other births in time. He was born into the world when He came forth to create the world. He was born again in a wonderful manner, when He descended into the womb of the virgin and united Himself to His creature. He is daily born in the hearts of those who embrace Him by faith and love.
Bp. Pearson (p. 219) says: This use of the term Word was familiar to the Jews, and this was the reason that St. John delivered to them so great a mystery in so few words. Wordsworth adds that the same remark is applicable to the language of St. James.
Bp. Bull (Def. Fid. Nic. I. James 1. 1719, and Harm. Apost. Diss. 2. James 15). In the latter passage he declares the meaning of St. James to be that our Christian graces proceed from the good pleasure of God through Christ, and from the regeneration which the Holy Spirit works in us through the Gospel.
Wordsworth:They whom St. James addressed, being born again by adoption and created anew in Christ Jesus, the Eternal Word (Eph 2:10), might well be said to be designed by God to be a firstfruit of His creatures, for they were new creatures in Christ (Gal 6:15; 2Co 5:17), who is the first begotten of every creature (Col 1:15), the beginning of the creation of God (Rev 3:14), by whom all things were created (Col 1:16). By virtue of His incarnation and of their incorporation and filiation in Him, who is the first-born among many brethren (Rom 8:29), they were made the first-fruits of creation, being advanced to a high preminence and primacy, beyond that which was given to Adam before the fall (Gen 1:28) and even above the angels themselves. Cf. Heb 1:5-13; Heb 2:5; Heb 2:7-16.This higher sense of includes also the lower one, God brought us forth by the Word of truth, preached to the world.M.].
[The Note of Wiesinger, referred to under Exegetical and Critical is as follows: this passage is among those which reveal the depth of Christian knowledge in which the practical and moral exhortations of the writer are grounded: lying as it does expressly ( Jam 5:19) at the basis of them. We will here bring together in a few words the teaching of the passage, for the sake of its important bearing on the rest of the Epistle. It teaches us.
1. As a positive supplement to Jam 1:14-15, that the life of man must be renewed, from its very root and foundation;
2. It designates this renewal as Gods work, moreover as an imparting of the life of God (), as only possible by the working of the Spirit, only on the foundation of the objective fact of our redemption in Christ, which is the contents of the ;
3. It sets forth this regeneration as an act once for all accomplished (, Aor.) and distinguishes it from the gradual penetration and sanctification of the individual life by means of this new principle of life imparted in the regeneration.
4. It declares also expressly that the regeneration is a free act of Gods Love () not induced by any work of man (Eph 2:8-9; Tit 3:5), so that man is placed by God in his right relation to God, antecedently to all works wellpleasing to God: for this the expression involves: cf. , Jam 2:5, and in so far as this necessarily implies the justification of the sinner (the of St. Paul), it is plain also, that St. James cannot, without contradicting himself, make this , in the sense of St. Paul, dependent on the works of faith.
5. is specified as the objective medium of regeneration; and herewith we must have as the appropriating medium on the part of man himself: of the central import of which in St. James we have already seen something (Jam 2:5; Jam 2:14, etc.).
6. Together with this act of regeneration proceeding from God, we have also the high destination of the Christian, which the Apostle gives so significantly and deeply in . . . And that which God has done to him, is now in the following verses made the foundation of that which the Christian on his part has to do: by which what we have said under 3, and 4, receives fresh confirmation. This passage is one to be remembered, when we wish to know what the Apostle understands by the (Jam 1:25; Jam 2:12) and what he means, when (Jam 2:14, etc.) he deduces from the works of faith. As regards the dogmatical use, which we make of this passage, wishing to show that regeneration is brought about by the word, as distinguished from the Sacrament of Baptism (Tit 3:5-7), we may remark, that seeing that designates the Gospel, as a whole, without any respect to such distinction, nothing regarding it can be gathered from this passage. The word of the Lord constitutes, we know, the force of the Sacrament also. Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit Sacramentum. And it is meant to be in ferred that the readers of this Epistle were not baptized.M.].
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
It is impossible to pursue the course of life while we regard God in any way the cause of sin.The attempt of charging God with the guilt of ones transgression: 1, The traces of this perverseness: a, in the Jewish world, b, in the heathen world, c, in the Christian world. 2. The springs of this perverseness; a, in a darkened understanding, b, in a proud heart, c, in a sinful will. 3, The sad consequences of this perverseness; by it a, God is insulted, b, our brother offended, c, and our own sanctification and salvation opposed.God in opposition to moral evil.The ethical excellency of the Christian conception of God, also a proof of its heavenly origin.No excuse for sin, cf. Gen 3:12; Joh 15:22.The history of the development of sin in every individual man: 1, beginning, 2, progress, 3, end.How very different sin appears a posteriori from what it appears a priori.Sin should never be contemplated in the light of speculative understanding only, but always in the light of conscience, the Bible and experience.The erring Christian also should still be addressed as a beloved brother.Error manifold, truth only one.The errors of men in morals are mainly the effect of their not looking up sufficiently to the Father of light.The riches of God: 1, all good lights come from Him; 2, only good gifts come from Him.God cannot be tempted to evil but He is never supplicated in vain for good.The exaltation of the Creator above the most exalted work of His hands.The constant alternation in the natural world contrasted with the immutable order in the moral world.The immutability of the Father of lights viewed 1, on its heart-stirring and consoling side, but also 2, on its solemnly-admonishing and warning side.The miracles of regeneration: 1, God has begotten us, 2, according to His free decree, 3, by the word of truth, 4, that we should be etc.On the whole lesson Jam 5:13-18. Sin not Gods fault but solely our own, a truth, 1, which man is only too prone to forget (Jam 1:13), 2, which confirms the history of the development of sin (Jam 1:14-15), 3, which a glance at the being of God (Jam 1:16-17) and at the work of God (Jam 1:18), removes beyond all doubt.On the conclusion: Do not err, Jam 1:16. Do not err, how James here cautions us against a threefold error: 1, Do not err, ye who expect the highest good from beneath (the earth): all good giving is from above, 2, Do not err, ye who dwelling on the goodness of God, forget His holiness: the Giver of all good is also the Father of lights. 3, Do not err, ye who think that His holiness in your case would cease to be just: with the Father of lights is neither variableness, nor a shadow of turning.
Starke:Man as long as he lives in time is liable to temptations.Every man has a lust and bias peculiar to himself and carries the origin of all his temptations within himself, Joh 12:6.
Quesnel:We ourselves are our own worst enemies by our own lusts, Pro 15:27.Man becomes gradually sinful.Whatever we receive from above should take us back from below upward to God.The rivers of Gods grace flow from on high into the deep valleys; the lower the heart, the more gentle the supply [influx=the flow of Gods grace into the heart.M.].If God is the Father of light, then sin cannot be His child. For what communion has light with darkness? 2Co 6:14.If believers are God-begotten, they are of Divine descent [a Divine raceM.]. O, what high nobility!
Luther:The lying word of the serpent has corrupted us but the true word of God makes us good again, Joh 17:17.
Stier:Nothing good comes from below; not even outward help for outward need (cf. Sirach 38, 8, 9).Good gifts in general are of no avail without the perfect gift, which restores to us light and-life in a regeneration (out of) God.
Heubner:Being tempted refers not only to solicitations to apostasy from Christianity, from religion by adversities, but James manifestly speaks of sin in general.Desire remains barren without the will.All the woe of mankind is the fruit of sin.Deriving evil from the Being of God is much worse than Parseeism with its dualism.
Porubszky:The nature of temptation [i.e. its essenceM.], 1, lies not in the outward assault but rather within ourselves; 2, it should not be combated from without but from within.Of the holy power needed for pious deeds: 1, of the necessity of this power; 2, of its communication.
[Jam 1:13. God permits and overrules the temptation, but is not the Author of it.God is neither temptable by evil things, nor versed in evil things.Lust, the enchantress and temptress, cf. Pro 7:5-27. See also the admirable portrait of the gossamer approaches of sin in Southeys Thalaba, Book 8, 2329.God, the Father of lights is not the Author of evil; contrast Father of lights and Prince of darkness.
Jam 1:14-15. The way to death. 1. Man drawn by his evil inclinations out of the safe asylum of virtue (); 2. entrapped by the fascinations of vice and evil (); 3. into the commission of voluntary sin ( ), and 4. ripening in sin, hurried to ruin ( ).
Jam 1:16. The duty of Christian pastors to caution their flocks against error.
Jam 1:17. God the Author of goodhe cannot therefore be the Author of Evil.God is the perennial fountain, whence gush in perpetual streams good gifts and perfect gifts.Good living denotes not only temporal blessings but also spiritualit comprehends the bestowal of every blessing accorded us by the munificence of our heavenly Father in this our imperfect state of existence; while perfect gifts are those eternal possessions laid up for us in heaven, of which regeneration is the beginning and pledge.God is the Father of the lights, not only of heaven, not only of the lights of reason, wisdom, conscience, truth, inspiration and prophecy, but also the Father of the children of light (Luk 16:8; Joh 12:36; Eph 5:8; cf. also Mat 5:14; Mat 5:16).M.].
[Wordsworth: Jam 5:13.St. James delivers a caution against errors, which afterwards showed themselves in the heresies of Apelles, Hermogenes, Valentinus, Marcion and the Manichans, which represented God as the Author of evil, or as subject to evil, and unable to resist and overcome it.Jam 1:14. Concupiscence is the womb of sin, and the offspring of sin is death. All these are evil and none of these are from God, who is the Author of all good.M.].
[Didymus: Jam 5:16.The ministry of good is directly and indirectly from God; but evil comes only per accidens, indirectly and mediately, for the correction of man, who is chastened by suffering.M.].
[Wordsworth: Jam 5:18.Here is an Apostolic protest against two errors prevalent among the Jews, 1. that men are what they are either by necessity, as the Pharisees held, or else 2, as the Sadducees taught, by the unaided action of their own will, independently of Divine grace. See Maimonides in his Preface to Pirke Aboth, and Josephus Ant. xiii. 5, 9; xviii. 1, 3. Bp. Bull, Harm. Apost. Diss. 2, James 15. Thus they disparaged the dignity of the Divine Will.
[Man in Christ is the wave-sheaf of the harvest. See 1Co 15:20-28M.].
[Rabbinical: Jam 5:13.This is the custom of evil concupiscence; to-day it saith, Do this; tomorrow, worship an idol. The man goes and worships. Again it saith, be angry.Evil concupiscence is, at the beginning, like the thread of a spiders web; afterward it is like a cart-rope.M.].
[Macknight: Jam 5:15.The soul, which the Greek philosophers considered as the seat of the appetites and passions, is called by Philo , the female part of our nature; and the spirit, , the male part. In allusion to this notion, James represents mens lust as a harlot, who entices their understanding and will into its impure embraces and from that conjunction conceives sin. Sin being brought forth, immediately acts, and is nourished by frequent repetition, till at length it gains such strength that in its turn it begets death. This is the true genealogy of sin and death. Lust is the mother of sin and sin the mother of death; and the sinner the parent of both.M.].
[Bp. Sanderson: Jam 5:13.St. James therefore concludes positively, that every mans temptation, if it take effect, is merely from his own lust. It is then our own act and deed, if we are Satans vassals: disclaim it we cannot; and whatsoever misery or mischief ensueth thereupon, we ought not to impute to any other than ourselves alone.M.].
[Abp. Secker: Jam 5:14.Temptation has no power, the great tempter himself has no power, but that of using persuasion. Forced we cannot be, so long as we are true to ourselves, our own consent must be our own giving; and without it the rest is nothing.M.].
[Dr. Jortin: Jam 5:17.The unchangeable nature of God suggests very powerful dissuasions from vice. The Scripture contains no decrees concerning the reprobation and salvation of particular persons, without regard to their moral qualifications. But there is a law which declares that obstinate and impenitent vice shall end in destruction. This law is as eternal and unchangeable, as the nature of good and evil, or the nature and perfections of God. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but this decree shall not pass away: and therefore a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the everliving and immutable God. Yet this unchangeable nature of our Creator, considered in another view, affords no less comfort and peace to the greatest offenders, if they will repent and turn to Him. Their offences cannot be greater than His mercy and goodness, which endures to all eternity, ready to receive those who by an effectual repentance and reformation, through the satisfaction of Christ, make themselves proper objects of His mercy.M.].
[Sermons and Sermon themes:
Jam 1:13. Sharp, Abp.: How far God is concerned in temptations to sin. Works 6, 263.
Jam 1:13-14. Tillotson Abp.: The sins of men not chargeable to God.
Jam 1:13-15. Apology for Providence in sin.
Simeon, Ch. Sin, the offspring of our own hearts. Works 20, 27.
Jam 1:15. Saurin, La manire dtudier la religion. Sermons 4, 1.
Jam 1:16-17. Simeon, Ch. God the only source of all good. Works 20, 32.
Jam 1:17. Blair, H. On the unchangeableness of the Divine Nature. Sermons 2, 85.
Jam 1:18. Charnock, Stephen, The instrument of regeneration. Works 5, 521.
Hall, Robert, The cause, agent and purpose of regeneration. Works 5, 186.
Doddridge. Phil., Address to the regenerate. Works 2, 536.M.].
Footnotes:
[35] Jam 1:13. Only several minuscules sustain the reading . [ is omitted by A. B. C. K. L.M.] Cod. Sin. reads , but in Jam 1:17 erroneously . Lange: No one, who is tempted [stands in temptation] shall say: I am tempted from God, for God is not temptable in respect of evil things, but He Himself tempteth [out of Himself] no one.
[Let no man, being tempted, say that ( recitantis) I am being tempted from God; for God is not experienced in respect of evil things, but He Himself tempteth no man.M.]
Jam 1:14. Lange: tempted in that he is drawn away [rendered an apostate] by his own lust and allured [by his evil inclination.]
[ being drawn away and lured by his own concupiscence.M].
Jam 1:15. Lange: conceived [is impregnated], but sin, when it is completed [has ripened] bringeth forth death.
Jam 1:16. Lange: M. Be not ye deceived, my beloved brethren.
[36]Jam 1:17. [Cod. Sin. for .M.]
[37] Jam 1:17. [Cod. Sin. .M.]
Every good giving and every perfect gift [donation] cometh [and cometh] down from above, from the Father of the lights [beings of light], with whom there is not existing a change, nor a shadow-casting of a turning.
[Every good bestowing and coming down from with whom there is [essentially] not a change or shadow of turning.M.]
Jam 1:18. Lange: Pursuant to free decree hath He begotten us by the word, [of His own Will [because He willed it, Alford; by the act of His own will, Wordsworth.] etc.M.].
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 2357
SIN THE OFFSPRING OF OUR OWN HEARTS
Jam 1:13-15. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
THERE are temptations necessarily connected with the Christian life, and which often, through the weakness of our nature, become the occasions of sin: and there are other temptations which are the direct and immediate cause of sin. The former are external; the latter are within a mans own bosom. The former may be referred to God as their author, and be considered as a ground of joy: the latter must be traced to our own wicked hearts; and are proper grounds of the deepest humiliation. This distinction is made in the passage before us. In the foregoing verses the former are spoken of [Note: ver. 2, 12.]; in the text, the latter.
In the words of our text, we notice the origin, the growth, and the issue of sin. We notice,
I.
Its origin
Many are ready to trace their sin to God himself
[This is done when we say, I could not help it: for then we reflect on our Maker, as not enduing us with strength sufficient for our necessities. It is done also, though not quite so directly, when we ascribe our fall to those who were in some respect accessary to it: for then we blame the providence of God, as before we did his creative power. It was thus that Adam acted, when he imputed his transgression to the influence of his wife, and ultimately to God who gave her to him [Note: Gen 3:12.].]
But God neither is, nor can be, the Author of sin
[He may, and does, try men, in order to exercise their graces, and to shew what he has done for their souls. Thus he tempted Abraham, and Job, and Joseph, and many others. But these very instances prove that he did not necessitate, or in any respect influence, them to sin; for they shone the brighter in proportion as they were tried. But he never did, nor ever will, lead any man into sin. And though he is said to have hardened Pharaohs heart, and to have moved David to number the people, he did not either of these things in any other way than by leaving them to themselves [Note: Exo 4:21 and 2Sa 24:1. with 2Ch 32:31.].]
All sin must be traced to the evil propensities of our own nature
[A clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean; and therefore no descendant of Adam can be free from sin. We have within us a secret bias to sin; which, however good our direction appear to be, operates at last to turn us from God. That bias is called lust, or desire, or concupiscence: and it works in all, though in a great variety of degrees and manner. All sin is fruit proceeding from this root, even from the lust that wars in our members; and in whatever channel our iniquity may run, it must be traced to that as its genuine and proper source.]
This will appear more strongly, while we mark,
II.
Its growth
Its first formation in the soul is often slow and gradual
[Lust, or our inward propensity to sin, presents something to our imagination as likely to gratify us in a high degree. Whether it be profit, or pleasure, or honour, we survey it with a longing eye, and thereby our desire after it is inflamed. Conscience perhaps suggests that it is forbidden fruit which we are coveting; and that, as being prohibited, it will ultimately tend rather to produce misery than happiness. In opposition to this, our sinful principle intimates a doubt whether the gratification be forbidden; or at least whether, in our circumstances, the tasting of it be not very allowable: at all events, it suggests that our fellow-creatures will know nothing respecting it; that we may easily repent of the evil; and that God is very ready to forgive; and that many who have used far greater liberties are yet happy in heaven; and that, consequently, we may enjoy the object of our desire, without suffering any loss or inconvenience. In this manner the affections are kindled, and the will is bribed to give its consent [Note: Isa 44:20. See this whole process illustrated, Gen 3:1-6.]: then the bait is swallowed, the hook is fastened within us; and we are dragged away [Note: These seem to be the precise ideas intended to be conveyed by .] from God, from duty, from happiness; yea, if God do not seasonably interpose, we are drawn to everlasting perdition.]
Its progress to maturity is generally rapid
[The metaphor of a foetus formed in the womb, and brought afterwards to the birth, is frequently used in Scripture in reference to sin [Note: Job 15:35. Psa 7:14. with the text.]. When the will has consented to comply with the suggestions of the evil principle, then the embryo of sin is, if we may so speak, formed within us; and nothing remains but for time and opportunity to bring it forth. This of course must vary with the circumstances under which we are: our wishes may be accomplished, or may prove abortive: but whether our desire be fulfilled or not, sin is imputed to us, because it formally exists within us: or rather it is brought to the birth, though not altogether in the way we hoped and expected.]
We proceed to notice,
III.
Its issue
Sin was never barren; its issue is numerous as the sands upon the sea-shore: but in every instance the name of its first-born has been death. Death is,
1.
Its penalty
[Death temporal, spiritual, and eternal, was threatened as the punishment of transgression while our first parents were yet in paradise. And on many occasions has the threatening been renewed [Note: Eze 18:4. Rom 1:18; Rom 6:21; Rom 6:23. Gal 3:10.] So that sin and death are absolutely inseparable.]
2.
Its desert
[The fixing of death as the consequence of transgression was no arbitrary appointment. The penal evil of death is no more than the moral evil of sin. Consider the extreme malignity of sin: What rebellion against God! What a dethroning of God from our hearts! What a preferring of Satan himself, and his service, to Gods light and easy yoke! View it as it is seen in the agonies and death of Gods only Son: Can that be of small malignity which so oppressed and overwhelmed Jehovahs fellow? Of those who are now suffering the torments of the damned, not one would dare to arraign the justice of God, or to say that his punishment exceeded his offence: whatever we in our present state may think, our mouths will all be shut, when we have juster views, and an experimental sense, of the bitterness of sin [Note: Mat 22:12.].]
3.
Its tendency
[We may see the proper effect of sin in the conduct of Adam, when he fled from God, whom he had been accustomed to meet with familiarity and joy [Note: Gen 3:8.]. He felt a consciousness that his soul was bereft of innocence; and he was unable to endure the sight of Him whom he had so greatly offended. In the same manner sin affects our minds: it indisposes us for communion with God; it unfits us for holy exercises: and, if a person under the guilt and dominion of it were admitted into heaven, he would be unable to participate the blessedness of those around him; and would rather hide himself under rocks and mountains, than dwell in the immediate presence of a holy God. Annihilation would be to him the greatest favour that could be bestowed upon him; so truly does the Apostle say, that the motions of sin do work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death [Note: Rom 7:5.].]
Advice
1.
Do not palliate sin
[Though circumstances doubtless may either lessen or increase the guilt of sin, nothing under heaven can render it light or venial. Our temptations may be great; but nothing can hurt us, if we do not ourselves concur with the tempter. That wicked fiend exercised all his malice against our adorable Lord; but could not prevail, because there was nothing in him to second or assist his efforts. So neither could he overcome us, if we did not voluntarily submit to his influence. All sin therefore must be traced to the evil dispositions of our own hearts; and consequently affords us a just occasion to humble ourselves before God in dust and ashes. If we presume to reflect on God as the author of our sin, we increase our guilt a hundred-fold: it is only in abasing ourselves that we can at all hope for mercy and forgiveness.]
2.
Do not trifle with temptation
[We carry about with us much inflammable matter, if we may so speak; and temptation strikes the spark which produces an explosion. How readily are evil thoughts suggested by what we see or hear; and how strongly do they fix upon the mind! Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth! Let us then stand at a distance from the places, the books, the company, that may engender sin. And let us, in conformity with our Lords advice, watch and pray, that we enter not into temptation.]
3.
Do not for one moment neglect the Saviour
[There is none but Jesus that can stand between sin and death. Indeed even he overcame death only by dying in our stead: and we can escape it only by believing in him. We deserve death: we have deserved it for every sin we have ever committed. Ten thousand deaths are our proper portion. Let us then look to Him who died for us. Let us look to him, not only for the sins committed long ago, but for those of daily incursion. Our best act would condemn us, if he did not bear the iniquity of our holy things. He is our only deliverer from the wrath to come: to Him therefore let us flee continually, and cleave unto him with full purpose of heart.]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
Ver. 13. I am tempted of God ] The inclination of man’s heart to good, is of itself and properly of God, as light is of the sun. His inclination to evil is by accident only of God, like as darkness is of the sunset by accident, being properly not of the sun, but of the earth.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
13 15 .] The truth respecting temptation .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
13 .] Let no one when tempted (in the manner hitherto spoken of through the chapter. There is no warrant for changing in the slightest degree the reference of the word. The ‘tentatio’ is a trying of the man by the solicitation of evil: whether that evil be the terror of external danger, or whatever it be, all by means of it arises not from God, but from ourselves our own . God ordains the temptation, overrules the temptation, but does not tempt, is not the spring of the solicitation to sin) say that ( recitantis) I am tempted from God (by agency proceeding out and coming from God: very different from , which would represent God as the agent: as indeed He is in below. See Winer, 47 b. b note. Thus the man would transfer his own responsibility to God. There does not seem to be any allusion to the fatalism of the Pharisees, as Schnecken-burger, al. seem to think: the fault is one of common life, and is alluded to Sir 15:11 , ): for God is unversed in things evil (the meaning usually given, “ untempted ,” or “ not able to be tempted ,” is against the usage of the word. It occurs in four forms, , , (Ion.), and ; and in all of them seems to have but two meanings: 1. that has not been tried : so , Dem. p. 310; , Luc. Tox. Jas 3:2 . that has not tried : so , Pind. Ol. 10 (11). 18; , id. Nem. 1. 33; (that has never experienced adversity), Plut. , , unversed in free speaking, in love, Lucian, Plut. See Palm and Rost’s Lex., and numerous other examples in Wetstein. And even if we chose here to depart from usage, and suppose that is not a later form of , but a verbal from , to be interpreted by the meaning of that verb in the context, we should get a meaning for entirely foreign from the context: viz. that God is not tempted of evil, whereas there is no question here of God being tempted , but or God tempting . Some have endeavoured to escape this by giving an active sense “God is not one who tempteth to evil.” So Schol. in Cramer’s Catena: , : so the thiopic version: the vulg., “Deus intentator malorum est:” Luther, al. This doubtless it may have : we find , Soph. Ant. 1011: , id. Trach. 446: , Eur. Hec. 1117. But there are two objections: 1. that this sense would be tautological, the succeeding clause only repeating the assertion: 2. that thus the gen. can only mean ‘of evil men:’ ‘God is no tempter of evil men,’ which is out of the question. It seems then that we must take refuge in the ordinary meaning of the word, and render it ‘ unversed in ,’ ‘having no experience of.’ And thus De Wette and Huther. c. takes the words as in the citation from Plutarch above: , : which is decidedly wrong. Taken as above, does not carry a negation of , but forms a paronomasia with it: and the sentiment is just as in the passage of Sir. above quoted, which goes on ), but (the takes up the contrast again from : ‘not so, but.’ I may observe that the is against the ordinary acceptation of , on which it ought to be ) HE tempteth no man (the does not, as commonly supposed, bring out God’s action in distinction to His not being tempted ‘as He is not tempted, so neither does He himself tempt any man’ (see this urged in Wiesinger): but brings out this, that the temptation indeed takes place, but from another cause. Huther gives the sense well: “Let none say when he is tempted to evil, From God am I tempted: for God hath no part in evil: but as to the temptation, He tempteth no man” &c.):
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Jas 1:13 . : In view of the specific doctrine which is being combated in these verses, it is probable that the verb is here used in the restricted sense of temptation to lust, and not in the more general sense ( ) in which is used in Jas 1:2 . This view obtains support from the repeated mention of in Jas 1:14-15 . The tendency to a sin which was so closely connected with the nature, the lower nature, of man ( cf. Rom 7:23 ) would, on this very account, be regarded by many as in the last instance referable to the Creator of man; that this belief was held will be seen from the authorities cited in the Introduction IV., 1. On this view refers to temptation of a special kind, ; cf. Mat 5:28 , ; 1Pe 2:11 , , ; Jas 4:2-3 . : Cf. the parallel use of in Hebrew. : “Untemptable of evil”; see Mayor’s very interesting note on ; the word does not occur elsewhere in N.T., nor in the Septuagint. If the interpretation of this passage given above be correct, the meaning here would seem to be that it is inconceivable that the idea should come into the mind of God to tempt men to lust; the “untemptableness” has perhaps a two-fold application: God cannot be tempted to do evil Himself, nor can He be tempted with the wish to tempt men. The word in its essence is really an insistence upon one of the fundamental beliefs concerning the Jewish doctrine of God, viz. , His attribute of Holiness and ethical purity; the teaching of many centuries is summed up in the third of the “Thirteen Principles” of Maimonides: “I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be His name, is not a body, and that He is free from all the accidents of matter, and that He has not any form whatsoever”. The Peshit rendering of this clause, from which one might have looked for something suggestive, is very disappointing and entirely loses the force of the Greek. , etc., see Introduction IV., 1.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
no man = no one. Greek. medeis.
of = from. App-104.
cannot be, &c. = is incapable of being tempted. Greek. apeirastos. Only here.
evil. App-128.
neither tempteth he any man = and He Himself tempteth no one (Greek. oudeis).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
13-15.] The truth respecting temptation.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Jam 1:13. , no man, who is tempted) Now there follows another section on the subject of temptations. The strength of patience mainly consists in our knowing the source of the evil which tries us.-, say) either in heart, or by word.-, He) The meaning is, Neither do any sins of ours tempt God from without, to entice us to worse things; nor in truth does He tempt any man of His own accord. This very thing is also characteristic of the Divine simplicity, Jam 1:5. The word often gives the idea of something spontaneous; wherefore the word , of His own will, in the opposite part of the antithesis (Jam 1:18), agrees with this.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Jas 1:13-15
TEMPTATION AND SIN
Jas 1:13-15
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God ;-Thus far in his treatment of temptation, James has dealt with it from the viewpoint of outward trial. (Jas 1:2-12.) Here, a significant change occurs. No longer does he use the noun form for temptation; thenceforth, a verbal form is used, (Peirazomenos, present passive participle of peirazo, to solicit to do evil), an example of which may be seen in Satan’s solicitation to evil on the occasion of our Lord’s temptation in the mount. (Mat 4:1 ff.) The shift is a natural one, and to be expected. From the contemplation of those outward trials which inevitably beset men in life, it is an easy transition to the inner conflicts which are no less serious obstacles to faithfulness and piety on the part of the disciples of the Lord. There is, indeed, the disposition on the part of some to hold God responsible for the adversities which assail us, and to accuse him of producing the circumstances which result in hardship and trial. Adam did it in Eden when he sought to shift the blame to God for his evil action by saying, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat” (Gen 3:12), and his posterity has followed this pattern ever since.
Every evil act is by some justified on the ground that God created our bodies and placed in them desires which he should not have done if he is to regard their gratification as sinful! Such reasoning is, of course, done by those who conveniently forget there is a fundamental difference between the proper use and abuse of privilege ; and is grossly fallacious. Opium, for example, medicinally used, is a blessing to humanity; improperly taken into one’s body it becomes a destructive and deadly poison. The effort to pass on to God responsibility for humanity’s difficulties is a comfortable and common one; it is a convenient method by which man absolves himself of all moral responsibility for his actions. It is not surprising that the theory has a theological application and that there are those who advocate the view that God is the author of every act of man and that all such was predestined from eternity. The doctrine of predestination and reprobation, set out in some of the older creeds, is an example of this view. A more modern version of the doctrine, stripped of theological implication, and of a philosophical flavor, affirms that man is a creature of his origin and surroundings (heredity and environment), neither of which he was privileged to choose, and that any evil which may reside in him is the product of forces over which he had no control, and for which he should not be held responsible. This evasion of personal responsibility is a persistent one, and finds expression not only in Theology and Philosophy but also in Literature, Drama and Poetry. For example, Robert Burns, the plowman poet of Scotland, wrote:
“Thou knowest thou has formed me
With passions wild and strong ;
And listening to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.”
This dangerous and deadly view James strikes down in a single affirmation in this section. (Verses 13-15.)
No one may properly say, “I am tempted of God” (apo tou Theou peirazomai); i.e., from God I am tempted. It is interesting and highly significant that the phrase, from God is, in the Greek Testament, apo theou, rather than hupo theou. The use of apo (ablative) indicates origin, not agency; were the phrase to read, hupo tou Theou peirazomai, the meaning would be that God is directly the cause of temptation; as it is, it insinuates that (though he did not directly order our temptation) he is responsible for it in some remote sense. We must, of course, remember that James is affirming neither; instead, he is denying the charge which some made in that day (and continue to make in this) that God is at least remotely responsible for our sins. The meaning is, Let no man say that God tempts its to do evil in any sense, remote or otherwise. Temptation (solicitations to evil) is neither from (apo), nor by (lmpo) the Father.
for God cannot be tempted with evil,-God is beyond the area of temptation, being untemptable. The word thus translated occurs nowhere else in the Scriptures, but a similar one ( apeiratos), is common in ancient Greek writings. A compound term, it is made up of “a” (not) and peirao, one of the meanings of which is “to be familiar with”; “to have experience in.” It would therefore appear that when it is affirmed that God is untemptable, it is meant that having no experience in any evil thing, there can be in him no desire for evil, and thus no ground for temptation. One who is himself wholly removed from evil, could never desire to see it, or to cause it to appear in others. God neither tempts, nor is tempted.
and he himself tempteth no man:-Not only is God himself not susceptible of evil through temptation, he tempts no one. Untemptable himself, because of his inherent goodness and eternal abstinence from every evil thing, he does not thrust into the lives of others that which is wholly foreign to his own. It would be wholly inconsistent with his character, his goodness and his love for man whom he desires to imitate himself to be responsible for creating a condition in his creatures which would alienate them from him. If to this the objection is raised that in the King James Translation of Gen 22:1, it is said that “God tempted Abraham,” it should be recalled that the word tempt means (a) trials; (b) evil suggestions ; (c) solicitations to evil. Verses 2-12, of James 1, involves the first of these meanings; verses 13-15, the second and third. James affirms that God tries men for the purpose of determining the genuineness of their faith, but he denies that he does so for the purpose of seducing them to sin. God tested, tried, proved Abraham; the American Standard Version renders Gen 22:1, “God did prove Abraham …. ” God proves us, i.e., he tests our faith; and this is for our good; but he never leads us to sin. The author of all good cannot be the source of sin in us.
14 but each man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.- Here, the writer states the real source of temptation. One is tempted when (a) be is drawn away (b) by his own lust and (c) enticed. One is “drawn away,” (exelkomenos, from ek, out of, and helkomai, to draw, “by” (hupo, the agent involved) “his own lust” (epithmnia, desire) “and enticed,” (deleazomenos, present passive participle of deleazo, literally, to bait, figuratively, as used here, to trap hy enticing delights.) Desire, seeking satisfaction, prompts to sin; and the individual is caught, trapped, ensnared, or, as we sometimes say, hooked! Forbidden pleasure, however great the desire for it may be, should be rigidly excluded from our lives, lest we be caught in Satan’s snare. The illustration which James uses of enticement is that of the blandishments of a harlot; and the means used, those common to fishermen and hunters. As a fisherman uses the most attractive sort of bait, or the most alluring fly to induce the fish to strike, so Satan tempts us by means of those things which are to us most desirable.
It is good for us, in this connection, to note that desire must first be drawn away, before there is enticement. It is the function of a fisherman’s fly to induce the fish to forsake the safety of the rock or the weeds, and to come within reach of the hidden hook in the enticing lure. We must stay away from those places where we may be easily hooked. Christians should never go to any place where there is the possibility they may be tempted to do wrong. They should abstain from all association with those who are disposed to exercise the wrong influence over them. We should not only avoid those places and practices which we know to be wrong; we should shun all of those which we do not know to be right!
The influence of Satan is universal. No one capable of sinning is removed from the area of his wooing. “Every man,” (hekastos, each one) is tempted ; tempted by being drawn away by evil desire induced by the desirable bait which the devil dangles before the unwary. It is vitally important to observe that the first step to sin consists in being drrnvn away, drawn away from our place of safety. The other steps could not follow but for this. Here, indeed, is the threshold Satan must first invade. He must call us forth from our shelter of safety before he can seduce us to sin. The corruptor of morals does not attempt to accomplish his designs in church, in the company of the good, or where the pure of heart gather. His first aim is to draw us away from our spiritual defenses, induce us to go where we ought not, and where we are helpless to resist his advances.
How sad indeed it is to be drawn away from God, drawn away from all that is good, drawn away from the church, drawn away from the Bible, drawn away from the road to heaven. Bad as it is to be drawn away from that which is good, this is but the first step in Satan’s sinful designs, the prelude to even more serious action. Not content with merely drawing us away from that which is good, he then launches us on a course of positive evil. Few drawn away from that which is good stop there; soon they advance to active evil. This, the writer next affirms.
15 Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin:”Lust,” is evil desire (epithumia). This desire conceives. The figure is a familiar one. The hapless individual, his defenses abandoned by being drawn away from them, and hooked by his evil desires, discovers that from the union of improper desire and his yielding will, a conception has occurred. The will yields to lust and when “it hath conceived,” (sullabousa, second aorist active participle of sullambano, to conceive), the monstrous offspring is born. The lust (evil desire) thus becomes the mother of sin because the will surrendered to the desire, and suffered seduction. It should be observed that James does not affirm that sin sprang into life at the moment desire was experienced. It is, alas, impossible for us to purge our minds of fleeting desires, improper thoughts, and questionable ideas. These appear unwanted, and without prior notice. We must, when such occur, rigidly exclude them, and never harbor and entertain them. It is good to know that their appearance does not of itself constitute sin. The appearance of sin is described by the inspired writer under the figure of a conception and birth. And, as two people are required before a normal conception and birth can take place, so there must be the action and concurrence of two parties operating in the individual before the conception and birth of sin can follow. Desire is one, the influence of Satan over the will is the other. When the will surrenders, through the prompting of evil desire, and Satan moves into the heart, conception takes place. The natural and inevitable fruit thereof is sin.
So long as we are in the flesh it is impossible to avoid all sin. John said, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1Jn 1:8; 1Jn 1:10.) One simply adds sin to sin in denying sin; it is a sin to say that one does not sin! There is (may God be praised for it) a remedy provided: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1Jn 1:9.) These words are, of course, applicable only to those who have obeyed the gospel, and have fallen into sin after having become Christians. Sinners, who have never been children of God, must, in order to be saved from their past, or alien, sins, believe the gospel (Mar 16:15-16) ; repent of their sins (Luk 13:3; Act 2:38) ; confess their faith in the Lord (Rom 10:19), and be buried with him in baptism into the body of Christ (Rom 6:3-4). Then, the remedy sent out in 1Jn 1:7 becomes to them available.
Children of God should ever remember that the devil, “as a roaring lion,” goes about seeking whom he may devour, and thus be ever on guard against his evil devices. ( 1Pe 4:8; 2Co 2:11.) It should grieve the hearts of Christians when they sin, and should prompt them to strenuous efforts in the future to avoid similiar lapses. It has been truly said that, “He who falls into sin is a man, he who grieves at sin is a saint, but he who boasts of sin is a demon.”
We have seen that the offspring of evil desire and the will yielded to Satan is sin. James tells us that lust when it conceives “beareth sin.” Such is its evil progeny. “Beareth,” is from tiktei, present active indicative of tikto, the ordinary word for bringing one into the world in childbirth. Such a birth is the natural result of the conception earlier occurring. And, just as that which is conceived must eventually be born, so it is not possible to hide evil desire long in the heart, it must ultimately spring forth into life, fullborn.
and the sin, when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death. Sin, when thus born, procedes to maturity, becoming “fullgrown.” Far from remaining in a rudimentary state, it goes on to full development. Here, too, James continues the figure of birth to illustrate the beginning, progress, and full maturity of sin. The word translated “fullgrown,” is apotelestheisa, first aorist passive particple of apoteleo, that which is complete, fully developed. There is yet another act in this drama of the conception, birth and growth of sin. When fullgrown, it brings forth death. “Bringeth forth,” in the text, is from apokuei, from apo, from, and kueo, to be pregnant. This is a medical term often used in Greek literature of unusual or monstrous births. Here, at the consummation of birth, the child is dead. The birth necessarily results in death. The “death” here (thanatos) is separation from God and all that is good. The basic meaning of death is separation. Physical death results from the separation of body and spirit (Jas 2:26); a death in sin is separation from that which is good (1Ti 5:6); and a death to sin is separation from the practice of sin (Rom 6:1-4). Sin, when it becomes fully developed produces death in the individual who harbors it.
We have, in this section, one of the most remarkable pictures of sin in the Scriptures. Improper desire has seduced the will and tempted it to submit to impure contact. From this wicked union sin is conceived, and ultimately born. From babyhood it develops into vigorous manhood and slays eternally him who harbored it. This amazing genealogy each one should contemplate before launching out into a life of sin. Far from blaming God with the result of sin, he who sins should recognize the fact that he is the begettor of his own sin, and the ancestor of his own demise!
The steps of sin are as follows : (1) temptation begins when one is drawn away from the course of right and rectitude; (2) that which prompts one to move away from the position of safety and into an area where danger exists is the enticement (bait) which Satan dangles; (3) the lust which influences one conceives in the union between the evil desire and the submission of the will to Satan; (4) sin is born; (5) this sin grows to full stature; (6) its consummation is spiritual death. Thus, evil desire leads to the birth of sin; and sin, in turn, gives birth to death. Such is the remarkable description of sin so impressively outlined by James in this section. Death, as the natural consequence of sin, is often dwelt upon by the sacred writers. “For when ye were servants of sin, ye were freed in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of these things is death.” (Rom 6:20-21.) See, also, Rom 6:22-23; Rom 8:6; Ephesians 2 : lff; Rom 5:12.
From these affirmations of James we learn that we must never dally with temptation nor entertain improper desire. He who dwells upon evil, nourishes it in his heart and suffers it to settle down in permanent abode, will eventually yield to his desires and translate them into action. Sin does not begin with normal desire. It is when this desire gets out of bounds, clamors for satisfaction, and leads its possessor into a course of action the design of which is to secure such satisfaction that the evil progeny of sin is spawned. Eve is an excellent illustration of the truth taught by James. She looked longingly upon the fruit of the tree of death; but, so long as she looked, and did not eat, sin remained in the shadows. Unable to resist the lure which Satan dangled before her eyes, she ate, Adam was induced to do likewise and the race was plunged into unspeakable misery. Achan, in spite of the specific injunction touching the spoils of Jericho, could not resist the desire for the goodly Babylonish mantle, and the wedge of gold. Said he, “When I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonish mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them. ” (Jos 7:21.) See Jos 6:15-21; Gen 3:1-8.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
no man: Jam 1:2, Jam 1:12, Gen 3:12, Isa 63:17, Hab 2:12, Hab 2:13, Rom 9:19, Rom 9:20,
evil: or, evils
Reciprocal: Exo 8:32 – General Deu 29:4 – General 2Sa 24:1 – he 1Ch 21:1 – Satan 2Ch 18:19 – Who shall entice 2Ch 32:31 – to try him Job 34:10 – far Psa 101:3 – set Psa 141:4 – Incline not Pro 12:26 – but Mat 15:19 – evil Joh 13:2 – put Joh 13:27 – That Rom 7:13 – But sin 1Th 3:5 – lest Rev 17:17 – put
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jas 1:13. The Bible does not contradict itself, so when it says for us to consider temptations as cause for Joy (verse 2) then here tells us that God does not tempt any man, we know there is a difference between temptations. The key to the subject is in the word evil which is not the same as trials or adversities. It is from an original word that always means the opposite of good; is always morally bad. Of course God does not use such means to test His creatures in their religious life.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jas 1:13. Let no man say when he is tempted. The connexion is: if, instead of enduring the temptation, we yield to it and are overcome by it, we must not lay the blame of our fall from virtue upon God. Hitherto the word temptation has been used chiefly in the sense of tests of character; here it denotes solicitations to sin; and yet there is hardly any change of meaning, as some think. These two views of temptation involve each other; what is a test of character may also be a solicitation to sin. Temptations may be considered as either external or internal. The trials which occur in the course of life, the afflictions which befall us, the persecutions to which religion may expose us, are external temptations and tests of character. But when these draw out our sinful desires and excite to sinful actions, they become internal, and are solicitations to evil. In themselves, temptations are not sins; when resisted and overcome, they are promoters of virtue; it is in our voluntary yielding to the temptations, in the consent of the will, that sin arises.
I am tempted of God, or rather, from God, denoting not the direct agency in the temptation, but the source from which that agency proceeds. It is improbable that there is any reference here to the doctrine of the Pharisees concerning fate; rather, the reference is to that common perversity in human nature which attempts to throw the blame of our faults upon God: that the temptations to which we were exposed, and in consequence of which we fell, were occasioned by God, being caused either by the circumstances in which His providence has placed us, or by that temperament with which He has created us (cp. Gen 3:12).
for God cannot be tempted with evil. Some render these words: God is unversed in evil thingsinexperienced in them; all evil is completely foreign to His nature.
neither tempteth he any man: that is, to evil, to do what is wrong. God certainly tempts in the sense of tries. But the design of the Divine trying is not to excite to sin, not that sin should arise, but that it should be overcome; He tries our virtues, in order that they may be purified; He designs by these trials our moral improvement. The external tests of character may be from God; but the internal solicitations to evil are from ourselves.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
There are three sorts of temptations spoken of in scripture, temptations of seduction, temptations of suggestion, and temptations of affliction; the last were spoken of, in the former verses, Blessed is the man that enduredth temptation: the second sort are spoken of in this verse, Let no man say when he is tempted to sin, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted by it, neither tempteth he any man to it.
Note here, 1. That God is to the author of sin, nor tempts any man to the commission of it; if he did our evil actions could not be properly sins, nor justly punishable by God; for no man can be justly punishable for that which he cannot help and no man can help that which he is compelled unto: and it is very unreasonable to suppose, that the same person should both tempt and punish. To tempt unto sin, is contrary to the holiness of God: and after that to chastise for complying with the temptation, is contrary to the justice of God; God then is not the author of the sins of men.
Note, 2. That men are very apt to charge their sin upon God, and to lay their faults at his door. Let no man say so; intimating, that men are very ready and apt to say so; and that it is to only a fault, but an impious assertion, to say that God tempts any man to sin. Let no man say: he speaks of it as a thing to be rejected with the utmost detestation, a thing so impious and dishonourable to God.
Note, 3. The reason and argument, which the apostle brings against this impious suggestion, God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth he any man; that is, he cannot be drawn to any thing that is evil himself, and therefore it cannot be imagined he should have any inclination or design to seduce others: he can have not temptation to sin from his own inclination, for he has a perfect antipathy against it; and there is no allurement in sin to stir up any inclination in God toward it, for it is nothing but crookedness and deformity: and how can he be supposed to entice men to that which his own nature does abominate and abhor? For none tempts others to be bad, but those who are first so themselves.
Inference, 1. No doctrine then ought to be asserted, or can be maintained, which is contrary to the natural notions which men have of God, as touching his holiness, justice, and goodness.
Inference, 2. If God tempts not us, let us never tempt him: this we do, when we tempt his providence, expecting its protection in an unwarrantable way: as when we are negligent in our calling, and yet depend upon God’s providence to provide for our families, which is to approve our folly, and to countenance our sloth.
Note, 4. The true account which our apostle gives of the prevalency and efficacy of temptation upon men, it is their own innate corruption, and vicious inclination, which doth seduce them to it. Every man is tempted, when he is drawn aside of his own lust and enticed.
Mark, he does not ascribe it to the devil; he may and does present the object,and by his instruments may and does solicit for our compliance: his temptations have a moving and exciting power, but can have no prevailing efficacy but from our own voluntary consent; it is our own lusts closing with his temptations which produce the sin: for God’s commanding to us to resist the devil, supposes that his temptations are not irresistible.
Learn hence, that man’s worst enemy, and most dangerous tempter, is the corruption of his own heart and nature; because it is the inmost enemy, and because it is an enemy that is least suspected: a man’s lust is himself, and nature teaches us not to mistrust ourselves: what reason have we then perpetually to pray, that God would not lead us into temptation, but keep us by his good providence out of the way of temptation, because we carry about us such lusts and inclinations as will betray us to sin when powerful temptations are presented to us! There is no such way then to disarm tempations, and take away the power of them, as by mortifying our lusts, and subduing our vicious inclinations.
Note, 5. The account which our apostle gives of the pedigree, birth, and growth of sin: when lust, that is, our corrupt inclinations, and vicious desires, have conceived, that is, gained the consent and approbation of the will, it bringeth forth and engageth the soul in sin: and sin when it is finished in the deliberate outward action, and especially when, by customary practice, it becomes habitual, bringeth forth death, the wages of sin; the first approaches of sin are usually modest, but afterwards it makes bolder attempts: our wisdom is to resist the first beginnings of sin for then we have most strength, and sin least; to suppress sin in the thoughts, to mortify lust in the heart, before it breaks forth in the life, and at last issue and terminate in death: for when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Put The Blame On Self
Notice the external trial becomes an internal problem when we are drawn away of our own lust. Adam tried to put the blame for his sin on Eve and Eve tried to blame the devil ( Gen 3:13-16 ). James does not put the blame upon Satan because ultimately it rests with us ( Jas 1:14 ). The devil will receive his punishment, but so will we because we are responsible for our actions. Ezekiel recorded the Lord’s words when he said, “The soul who sins shall die” (18:4).
Similarly, Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” ( 2Co 5:10 ; Gal 6:7-8 ).
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Jas 1:13. Let no man say, when he is tempted To commit sin, in whatever way it may be; I am tempted of God God has laid this temptation in my way; for God cannot be tempted with evil It cannot appear desirable, or otherwise than detestable, in Gods eyes; nor can he be inclined to it in any degree, through any external object, or any internal motion; neither tempteth he any man He does not persuade or incline, much less constrain any one to sin by any means whatever. The word , to tempt, as we have seen, often signifies to try, in order to discover the disposition of a person, or to improve his virtue, Jas 1:12. In this sense God is said to have tempted or tried Abraham and the Israelites. Not that he was ignorant of the dispositions of either of them. In the same sense the Israelites are said to have tempted or proved God. They put his power and goodness to the trial, by entertaining doubts concerning them. Here, to tempt, signifies to solicit one to sin, and actually to seduce him into sin, which is the effect of temptation or solicitation. See Jas 1:14. In this sense the devil tempts men. And because he is continually employed in that malicious work, he is called, by way of eminence, , the tempter. It is in this sense we are to understand the saying in the end of the verse, that God is incapable of being tempted, that is, seduced to sin by evil things, and that he seduces no one to sin. God having nothing either to hope or fear, no evil beings, whether man or angel, can either entice or seduce him. Further, his infinitely perfect nature admitting no evil thought or inclination, he is absolutely () incapable of being tempted. Macknight.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
And I would add that they shouldn’t say that the Devil made me do it either. We will see this a little further into the book.
Years ago I read the following account from St. Augustine’s life: “Soon after St. Augustine’s conversion he was walking down a street in Milan, where he was a student, when a prostitute spoke to him by name. She called, ‘Augustine.’ The young man would not answer; he kept on walking. ‘Augustine,’ she called again, ‘it is I.’ Without slowing down, Augustine replied, ‘yes, but it is no longer I.'”
He knew how to face (or not face, may be the better) temptation. Even if you may not hold him in high respect theologically, we would do well to face our lusts in the same manner.
NO man is to lay their temptation upon God’s shoulders. The ultimate illustration of this is found in Gen 3:12 where Adam blames the fall on Eve and God. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” No, God had nothing to do with this situation except for having been the one that set the limits. Man will try anything won’t he?
There are a couple of truths here of interest. The plain one which we will cover in a moment and one that is kind of funny when you think about it. Let me point out something of note concerning the phrase “for God cannot be tempted with evil.” Let me read a passage for you that makes this very funny – in my mind at least.
Mat 4:3 “And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in [their] hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.”
Get the picture? The tempter, the Devil, that devious denizen of evil knows God, he knows the character of God, and he knows the Word of God, yet he is trying to tempt God – how wasteful of his time is that? God can’t be tempted, so why would the Devil try – must be one frustrated being to stoop to that exercise in futility. Of course to his credit, James hadn’t written this yet, but me thinks he probably knew it wasn’t going to happen, but in his dire need to do something, grasped at this straw.
Let’s look at the principles the text sets forth.
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God”
Everyone is tempted, and everyone is tempted more than once, but never suggest that your temptation is from God. It will not happen, it cannot happen, and in the long run, why would anyone even suggest that their Loving Heavenly Father would do such a thing?
“For God cannot be tempted with evil,”
Statement of fact. God cannot be tempted with evil. In the first place He does not allow evil in His presence, secondly there is no evil in His character and thirdly if there was evil in His presence His character would not be tempted, nor even if it could be, would He succumb to that evil.
“Neither tempteth he any man:”
Another clear statement of fact, He will never tempt a man – never.
“No man” really means no man, none, not, not a one. Never is there a man in all of history that should claim that his temptation is from God. Not that there hasnt been, but there shouldn’t have been even one. Kind of seems that is telling us that to blame God for your temptation is sin. This is a good passage to take a lost person to if they are blaming God – it might bring them up short in their thoughts about God. (Some electronic Bibles list “Let” as Strongs number 3004, but as near as I can tell this is incorrect. Only the word translated “say” is 3004)
This phrase has quite a message to the lost person. It is a clear statement that God does not tempt them, it is a clear statement that He isn’t out to get them – there must be a concern on His part for the lost person. Another verse to share with the lost – He is concerned about their lives, about their coming to Him, indeed He does love the world as John told his readers in chapter three and verse sixteen.
The verb “when he is tempted” is a passive indicating that the tempting is coming from without or from some outside force. He is tempted from outside, but we will soon see that from there he can do it all quite well by himself.
The terms “tempted” in the verse are all the same Greek word except the one relating to God and His inability to be tempted. The term relates to testing, to evaluation, to trying to see the quality of something. It relates to trying to get one to do incorrectly. It is of note that with man’s bent toward sin, the Devil feels it his duty to help us along in our rebellion against God.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
1:13 {11} Let no man say when he is {m} tempted, I am tempted of God: {12} for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
(11) The third part of this epistle, in which he descends from outward temptations, that is, from afflictions by which God tries us: to inward, that is, to those lusts by which we are stirred up to do evil. The sum is this: Every man is the author of these temptations by himself, and not God: for we carry in our bodies that wicked corruption, which seeks opportunity forever, to stir up evil in us, from which eventually proceeds wicked behaviour, and in conclusion follows death, the just reward of them.
(m) When he is provoked to do evil.
(12) Here a reason is shown, why God cannot be the author of evil behaviour in us, since he does not desire evil behaviour.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
2. The source of temptation 1:13-14
James did not want us to conclude that because God permits us to experience trials He is the source of temptation. That deduction might encourage us to give in to sin.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
God is never the source of temptation. He does not try to get us to sin, even though some people blame God for their sins. He Himself is not even subject to temptation because He is totally separate from sin and not susceptible to evil. [Note: Mayor, p. 53. See also his extended discussion of this subject on pp. 195-97.] The only sense in which God is responsible for sin is that He permits other things to tempt us, namely, the world, the flesh, and the devil (cf. Job 1-2). James did not mention this here.
Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Lead us not into temptation" (Mat 6:13; Luk 11:4). Jesus used a figure of speech (i.e., litotes) in which He expressed a positive idea by negating the contrary. Other examples of litotes are "not a few" meaning many, and "no rare occurrence" meaning a frequent occurence. James did not imply that God does lead us into temptation. His point was that He can help us stay away from it. Essentially Jesus meant we should ask God to allow us to experience as little temptation as possible (cf. Mar 14:38). James was not contradicting Jesus’ teaching.
"We all know only too many people who have ceased to walk with God under the pressure of trouble or tragedy . . ." [Note: Motyer, p. 50.]