Physical pressure is similar to the pressure of temptation in some respects. One example is the atomic submarines built strongly enough to batter through ice at the North Pole but have a maximum crush depth limit beyond which they may not go in safety. The submarine Thresher exceeded that depth years ago. As the pressure increased, the seawater crushed the sub’s heavy steel bulkheads as if they were made of cheap plastic. Searchers found only little pieces of that huge submarine.
Yet there are fish that live at the same depth in which the Thresher was crushed. How can these fish survive? The answer is that they have equal pressure within themselves. This is the way it should be for all Christians. In ourselves we are doomed, but in Christ, there is no temptation beyond our ability to resist.[i]
Life is filled with trouble and the key is expressed earlier in the book of James, that we can choose our attitude and learn the value that trials bring into our lives as a source of spiritual growth and development. One of those values is perseverance. James even expresses a beatitude, or a blessing, to those who endure.
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord promised to those who love him.[ii]
What this text is saying is that those who persevere are those who are the genuine followers of Jesus and inherit the life that Jesus gives for all eternity. Yet, in this life we are fighting an incredible battle waged at destroying our soul. The difference between trials and temptation is simply what is happening not just to us, but within us. While trials are the difficult circumstances of life that we find ourselves in for a season, temptation is the test of how we will respond, which comes from the internal condition of our soul. George Stulac explains the challenge during a trial. How are we handling it? Does testing lead us to surrender in temptation to sin?
The Bible says that the trial itself is not the most seriously life-threatening factor. The greatest danger to me is not the wrong being done to me, but the wrong that may be done by me. The real threat is that when wrong is done to me, I may be tempted to fall into sin myself.[iii]
Rather than forgive, we seek revenge; rather than bless, we curse; rather than refrain, we embrace sinful desires; rather than pray for a blessing, we withdraw and avoid the one who has offended us.
Dan McCartney relates how subtle the difference is between our English words, test and temptation.
English translations of James 1:12-13 compound the difficulty because English uses different word roots for external pressure to evil (testing) and internal pressure to evil (temptation), whereas the Greek uses only one (peirazo; its noun form is peirasmos). In 1:13 we see a shift from the external “push” to sin to the internal “pull,” and this requires a shift of words in English (“when being tested…’I am being tempted’”), which obscures the wordplay in Greek. Temptation is, of course, a form of testing…”[iv]
The issue of temptation is something we either battle against or give into. C. S. Lewis, in his book ‘Mere Christianity,’ explains:
No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. …We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try and fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man wo never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist.[v]
Lewis points out the eternal significance of this daily battle.
People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules, I’ll reward you, and if you don’t, I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowing turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.[vi]
So, what is at stake? Earlier in the book, Lewis relates:
Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live forever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live forever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse—so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolutely hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.[vii]
In other words, given an unlimited amount of time, we are becoming one thing or another. We either are becoming fashioned into the image in which, as humans, we were created to be, which is in God’s image; or we remain in our rebellion and move further away from God’s image in our lives and become more of what controls us, namely our sin.
Dan McCartney raises the issue that James sets before us.
If testing is used by God for the perfecting of his people, does that mean that God is at the root of our temptations and sin? James answers this is in two ways: negatively, by showing that for God to tempt someone to sin would be contrary to his very character, and positively, by showing where sin really comes from, the heart of the sinner. Thus, although testing has a positive effect when endured faithfully, there is an unfaithful response to testing that turns it from an opportunity for endurance to an occasion for sin.[viii]
How do we deal with temptations, those inner battles of the soul? James reminds us of a number of things we need to understand to overcome temptation in our lives.
THE FIRST THING WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND REGARDING TEMPTATION IS THAT GOD DOES NOT TEMPT US
God is not the source of our inner struggles and pressures that test us. Considering God’s sovereignty, we can easily blame God for all that happens to us, including the fact that we struggle with issues in our lives. We see that Adam blamed God for his sin by pointing out to God that the reason he failed to obey was the woman whom God gave to him. In essence, Adam was blaming God for his sin. Adam was unwilling to take personal responsibility for his actions.
The man said, ‘The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.’[ix]
James reminds us that God does not tempt us with what is evil.
When tempted, no one should say God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone,[x]
God is not the author of evil and stands opposed to evil as it is the very opposite of His own character. Evil then is the absence of good, and God is good. Douglas Moo, however, relates the idea that God does test us.
The Old Testament makes clear that God does test his people, in the sense that he brings them into situations where their willingness to obey him is tested. God tested Abraham when he ordered him to sacrifice his son Isaac, he tested Israel by leaving them surrounded by pagan nations,[xi]
James does not claim that God never allows temptation into our lives, nor does he imply that God never tests his people. He is not denying that God does indeed subject men to testing, but he does deny the claim that God tests men with an evil intent, to lead them into sin.[xii]
If we don’t have choices to either obey or disobey, then it is evident that we are not moral agents with an opportunity to express our love and obedience to God, which is a demonstration of our faith. But God is not enticing us to sin; rather through tests, God provides an opportunity to strengthen our moral resolve and do what is right by choosing to obey Him. So, what is at the heart of our failure when it comes to temptation? Or, what is being exposed when we surrender to temptation and experience its bitter fruit?
A. We are tempted by our own sinful nature.
What we need to understand is that when we yield to temptation it is because we are embracing that sin, and once sin is established it now has dominion in our lives.
but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.[xiii]
Let me remind us that as believers we also have another nature at work within us: God’s very nature. Peter explains that we can overcome the temptations that come our way through God’s nature living within us.
Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.[xiv]
We have God’s power and presence at work within us not only to resist temptation but to embrace a desire for the things above. James reminds us that what fuels sin is the old sinful nature, which when obeyed brings about alienation in our relationships with God and others.
Dan McCartney explains how the culture excuses sinful or evil behavior caused by evil supernatural forces.
In the environment of James’s audience this focus on individual responsibility (each one enticed by one’s own desires) was not universally acknowledged. People of pagan background often regarded themselves as pawns in the hands of supernatural forces. Further, the moral focus and unit of responsibility frequently was the family, tribe, the nation, the community.[xv]
While in our recent past we have placed the responsibility for things upon individuals, today there is a growing focus upon society, which now points the blame, once again upon the family, the nation, the community. Though these things may have shaped us, we are still responsible before God for our own choices and the sins that we commit as individuals. The problem with blaming others is that we perceive ourselves as victims and will never be free from sin’s dominion in our lives. It is only as we acknowledge that we have sinned and confess our need for God’s forgiveness that we will be forgiven and freed from sin’s dominion and power in our lives.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death.[xvi]
We need to understand that death here is speaking of a barrier in our relationship with God and others that can only be addressed through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We must cross over from death to life through Jesus.
B. The root and nature of sin.
Here we have a progression describing how sin originates and is developed within our lives. It begins with the evil desire, which when acted upon gives birth to sin. The metaphor described here is that of the reproduction process.
James leaves unspecified what the seed is. In 1:18 the seed that produces God’s offspring is “the word of truth.” Although it is risky to press analogies in James, it is reasonable to see that the fertilizing agent for sin is falsehood. Snares and bait are always false.[xvii]
We can certainly see that in the garden scene where the tempter is speaking a lie that ensnared Eve, then Adam. The only person we can blame for temptation and sin is ourselves. James is basically using a fishing analogy for being lured and once we take the bait we are dragged away. Though James does not mention Satan’s activities as the tempter, he is helping us see that we are responsible for our actions.
Desire, in itself, is not sin. It is only when a person, by an act of the will, assents to its enticement that sin results.[xviii]
THE SECOND THING WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND REGARDING TEMPTATION IS THE NEED TO LOVE THE TRUTH
What I mean by loving the truth is that truth is found in a person which we will follow obediently. Jesus in preparing the disciples just prior to his betrayal and crucifixion expressed the means of knowing the truth and following the way everlasting.
Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.[xix]
James now challenges us not to be seduced by sin’s deceptive nature. Everything that is good comes from God; therefore sin is evil and does not come from God.
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.[xx]
We are not to be led astray or to wander away from the truth by temptation. Here we see the call to not be deceived, or not to believe lies. Later in the chapter, James will talk about the greatest deception that we fall into which is self-deception. The truth is that God only gives us what is good and perfect. God is unchanging, and it is God who gives us a spiritual life through the word of God which is truth. As we continue through the chapter we are warned against being self-deceived.
Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.[xxi]
We must act in obedience upon God’s word. It is not simply gathering information that helps us in the Christian life. Rather, it is the application of God’s word that brings about transformation in our lives. We must be doers of God’s word, or expressed differently, we must obey God as revealing Himself to us through his words. James then gives us a specific example of how we deceive ourselves.
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.[xxii]
Here in James 1 the author introduces three sources of self-deception that he will return to later in the letter: (1) questioning the goodness of God, (2) hearing the word of God without acting on it, and (3) having no control over one’s speech.[xxiii]
What is one thing that we so often hear from people? “If God is so good, why does He allow evil in our world?” The answer is that we are the ones who bring evil into our world through our sinfulness. God does not make us sin. God is constantly calling us to forsake our sin and turn to Him for forgiveness and deliverance from sin.
How many people attend church, hear God’s word, quote it, but they do not act upon it? This is really a state of self-deception. We are called to be doers of it, obedient to it. Rebellion from God is what hardens our hearts. The book of Hebrews warns believers of the awful example of the Israelites after being delivered from slavery, now wandering in the wilderness, which was a time of testing, and revealed the condition of their hearts.
So, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, “Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.” So I declared on oath in my anger, “They shall never enter my rest.”’ See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.[xxiv]
It all begins with not acting in obedience upon what God’s Spirit is saying to you today from His holy Word. When we rebel by neglect, apathy, or blame we disobey, and our hearts become callous and indifferent. It leads us to go astray by turning away from the Lord. Endurance or perseverance is evidence of sharing in Christ, experience His life within us.
E. Stanley Jones in ‘Victorious Living”, speaks of how to redirect the life-giving energies of life that Satan tempts us to corrupt for selfish purposes.
The instincts are the driving life-forces. The stream of life energy flowing through us breaks into three instinctive channels: self, sexuality and the group. …There are several possibilities for these instincts: straightforward expression, perversion, repression, suppression (or self-control), and redirection. The Christian way of life dismisses perversion and repression. It makes use of the other three.[xxv]
Jones then explains how these powerful drives given as gifts from God can be redirected for good rather than being abused and become sinful expressions.
Paul denied a family life was not unhappy, because he redirected his sexual instinct by being procreative in the higher reaches of life, the mind and the spirit. Wherever he went, he saw the new birth take place. He was a spiritual parent.[xxvi]
So how will we deal with the sense of futility, or of being overwhelmed by the trials and temptations that come our way? How will we resist the urge to flee like a dove, to run from the place where God seems to have entrapped us? It begins by being honest with God, to lament, to share our hurt, confusion, disappointments, and a sense of possible injustice or being hurt by others or feelings of betrayal by God. But to live in a place of sorrow and self-pity will not empower us to live a victorious life. We must learn to rely on God and God’s praying people. We must develop a right attitude and win the battle in our minds, by realizing that the thing we think is robbing us of joy is a tool, to cause us to find contentment and joy in our relationship with Christ.
One of the most important things in overcoming temptation is reflected in the hymn, ‘What a Friend we have in Jesus.’ Listen to verse 2. “Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged, Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful? Who will all our sorrow share? Jesus knows our every weakness, Take it to the Lord in prayer.”
There is an eternal reward to those who persevere under trial.
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord promised to those who love him.[xxvii]
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[i] Michael Green, Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989) 372.
[ii] James 1:12, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[iii] George Stulac, James, The IVP New Testament Commentary Series, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993).
[iv] Dan McCartney, James, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 104.
[v] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers, 2003), 142.
[vi] Ibid, 92.
[vii] Ibid, 74.
[viii] Dan McCartney, James, 103.
[ix] Genesis 3:12.
[x] James 1:13.
[xi] Douglas Moo, James, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, (Grand Rapids, Mi: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985), 71.
[xii] James Hiebert, The Epistle on James, 103 as quoted by Craig Blomberg and Mariam Kamell, James, Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids: MI: Zondervan Academic, 2008), 71.
[xiii] James 1:14.
[xiv] 2 Peter 1:2-4.
[xv] Dan McCartney, James, 107.
[xvi] James 1:15.
[xvii] Dan McCartney, James, 104.
[xviii] Douglas Moo, James, 71.
[xix] John 14:6.
[xx] James 1:16-18.
[xxi] James 1:22.
[xxii] James 1:26.
[xxiii] Dan McCartney, James, 108.
[xxiv] Hebrews 3:7-14.
[xxv] E. Stanley Jones, Victorious Living, Edited by Dean Merrill, (Minneapolis, Mn: Summerside Press, 2010), 135.
[xxvi] Ibid, 138.
[xxvii] James 1:12.
