Does God Ever Tempt Us to Sin?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | We end our week together talking about
00:00:06.520 | trials and temptations.
00:00:08.720 | It's a sobering topic, but one very relevant to each of us
00:00:12.880 | at some point, maybe to some of you right now.
00:00:15.480 | And we start with what we know for sure,
00:00:18.440 | God tests us, he does.
00:00:20.520 | That's clear in texts like James 1, verses 3 to 4
00:00:23.320 | and 1 Peter 1, 7.
00:00:25.160 | But then comes the question, does God ever tempt us?
00:00:29.680 | James 1, 13 says no, God never tempts us.
00:00:34.520 | But what really is the difference between being tested
00:00:37.200 | and being tempted?
00:00:38.480 | The sharp Bible question from a listener named Mike.
00:00:41.080 | Dear Pastor John, in APJ 694, you said that the word
00:00:44.600 | for temptation and the word for test
00:00:47.440 | are the same word in the Greek, parosmos.
00:00:50.800 | So how are we to understand the differences in meaning
00:00:53.440 | of the two words in passages where it talks about
00:00:55.900 | God testing us, James 1, 3 to 4 and 1 Peter 1, 7.
00:01:00.280 | And then in James 1, 13 where it says that God
00:01:02.760 | does not tempt anyone.
00:01:05.600 | So how do we put those texts together?
00:01:07.920 | - Yeah, that is a utterly crucial question.
00:01:10.960 | We so need to get that clear for God's honor
00:01:15.840 | our own peace of mind.
00:01:17.800 | So let me set the stage as best I can
00:01:21.040 | so that everybody really can get on board
00:01:23.040 | with what the problem really is as Mike
00:01:27.540 | has presented it here.
00:01:29.060 | So in 1 Peter 1, verse six, it says,
00:01:32.380 | now for a little while, if necessary,
00:01:35.580 | you have been grieved by various trials.
00:01:39.660 | And the word there parosmos in Greek could be translated
00:01:44.660 | temptations or testings so that the tested genuineness
00:01:49.780 | of your faith more precious than gold
00:01:52.340 | that perishes though it is tested by fire
00:01:54.260 | may redound to praise and glory and honor
00:01:56.880 | at the revelation of Jesus.
00:01:58.900 | And then similarly in James 1, verse two,
00:02:02.860 | it says counted all joy brothers when you meet various
00:02:06.580 | testings or trials or temptations of various kinds
00:02:11.420 | for you know that the testing of your faith
00:02:14.140 | produces steadfastness and let the steadfastness
00:02:17.440 | have its full effect that you may be perfect
00:02:20.000 | and complete lacking in nothing.
00:02:21.600 | And then in verse 12 of that same chapter,
00:02:24.580 | James 1, he adds this amazing promise
00:02:28.980 | about the outcome of tested faith.
00:02:31.220 | He says, blessed is the man who remains steadfast
00:02:34.400 | under trial, same word, for when he has stood the test,
00:02:39.400 | he will receive the crown of life,
00:02:42.460 | which God has promised to those who love him.
00:02:45.700 | Now, all these testings are merciful trials
00:02:51.640 | from the hand of God in the way he disciplines
00:02:55.200 | and purifies and stabilizes and preserves his children.
00:03:00.200 | We know that Jesus tested his disciples, John 5, 6.
00:03:05.200 | We know that God tested Abraham, Hebrews 11, 17.
00:03:10.920 | So we set the stage for this problem first
00:03:17.520 | by establishing from first Peter and James
00:03:20.360 | that God does indeed test people.
00:03:24.320 | He does, he tests people and the word there,
00:03:27.740 | perosmos or perazzo is the same as the word for tempt.
00:03:31.840 | There's the problem.
00:03:33.160 | He puts us through trials.
00:03:36.060 | Now, the second part of setting the stage
00:03:38.980 | for the problem is to observe in the very next verse
00:03:43.200 | of James 1 and verse 13, James uses the same word
00:03:48.500 | for testing, perazzo mai, and translates it,
00:03:51.840 | tempt and says, let no one say he is,
00:03:56.840 | when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God.
00:04:01.960 | For God cannot be tempted with evil
00:04:04.800 | and he himself tempts no one.
00:04:08.020 | Same word as the word for test.
00:04:11.860 | So that's the setting of the stage.
00:04:15.360 | So here's the double problem.
00:04:16.780 | First, when James says God tempts no one,
00:04:21.780 | the word tempt is the very same word in Greek for test
00:04:26.080 | and we know God does test people.
00:04:28.760 | And second, second part of the problem,
00:04:31.540 | he says that God cannot be tempted
00:04:34.840 | and yet we know that Jesus was tempted,
00:04:37.960 | same word in the gospels in the wilderness,
00:04:41.560 | Matthew 4, 1, the Holy Spirit drove him out to be tempted
00:04:45.840 | and Jesus is God in the flesh.
00:04:49.380 | So James expects us to make a distinction
00:04:54.380 | in the meaning between the testing that God in fact
00:04:59.340 | does bring into our lives righteously
00:05:02.540 | and the tempting that God never does,
00:05:07.580 | even though he uses the same word for both of them.
00:05:11.460 | He expects us to make that same distinction
00:05:14.780 | in order to show that God is never tempted himself
00:05:19.060 | and yet Jesus, who was God, was in some sense tempted.
00:05:24.060 | Now that's the challenge that Mike sees in these verses
00:05:29.120 | and he's asking about and he's right to see them.
00:05:32.760 | I've seen them for years and wrestled over and over again
00:05:36.140 | with how to understand this
00:05:38.020 | 'cause James is not tripping up here
00:05:41.680 | because he knows exactly what he's doing
00:05:43.980 | since he puts the two words together
00:05:46.500 | back to back in two sentences.
00:05:47.980 | It's not like he forgot 10 years ago
00:05:50.180 | he used the word one way.
00:05:51.480 | And I think the key to solving both of these problems
00:05:57.440 | is found in the next two verses, James 1, 14 and 15
00:06:02.740 | and the way James carefully defines temptation.
00:06:09.100 | It's probably the nearest thing we have
00:06:12.180 | to an analysis of the temptation in the Bible
00:06:15.980 | where he is talking about our experience of it
00:06:20.980 | and how God doesn't experience it
00:06:25.320 | and he doesn't perform it.
00:06:27.760 | So here's what he says in verse 14.
00:06:30.160 | "Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed
00:06:39.220 | "by his own desire, then desire, when it has conceived,
00:06:44.220 | "gives birth to sin and sin, when it is fully grown,
00:06:52.580 | "brings forth death."
00:06:56.620 | So there are four steps in this process
00:06:59.540 | of what James is calling temptation.
00:07:02.660 | First, there's desire, which may at first be innocent.
00:07:08.180 | In fact, I think first, most of them are innocent.
00:07:11.940 | Second, there is the desire becoming an enticement
00:07:16.940 | and an allurement across a line into sinfulness
00:07:22.540 | and sinful craving and sinful desire,
00:07:26.940 | like the desire of hunger, which is innocent,
00:07:30.540 | crossing the line into gluttony
00:07:33.140 | or the desire of natural sexual appetite,
00:07:36.500 | which is innocent, crossing the line into lust
00:07:40.100 | or the desire of your paycheck,
00:07:42.100 | like it's not wrong to want to be paged,
00:07:44.100 | you can pay your bills, crossing the line into greed.
00:07:48.580 | That's the second step.
00:07:50.100 | Then third, there's the act of sinning itself
00:07:55.100 | in which the sinful desire is put into action.
00:08:00.140 | And then finally, step four,
00:08:02.340 | when that pattern of sin goes on without repentance,
00:08:06.260 | it results in eternal death.
00:08:08.940 | Now, I think the reason that James says God is not tempted,
00:08:13.920 | even though Jesus was tempted,
00:08:16.900 | is that the innocent desires, like hunger
00:08:21.900 | or desire for sex or desire for our paycheck,
00:08:28.340 | all those innocent desires are the beginnings
00:08:33.580 | of being drawn toward what could be a sinful desire
00:08:38.580 | of gluttony, lust, greed.
00:08:41.880 | And in that sense, the awakening of that desire
00:08:45.940 | is a kind of temptation,
00:08:48.360 | but it has not become a full-blown temptation,
00:08:53.840 | for example, in the life of Jesus, because his hunger,
00:08:57.580 | which was an objective allurement toward bread
00:09:02.700 | when he was fasting, but it didn't cross the line
00:09:06.980 | into an evil desire of rebellion or disobedience
00:09:11.500 | or undue craving for what God had told him not to have.
00:09:16.500 | In fact, none of Jesus' desires in his whole life
00:09:22.660 | ever crosses the line into evil desire
00:09:26.780 | and therefore never gives birth to sin.
00:09:30.660 | So we can speak of him being tested or tempted
00:09:35.660 | in the sense that he's presented with objective allurements,
00:09:41.460 | like bread, when he's hungry,
00:09:45.440 | so that he experiences hunger or the desire,
00:09:50.300 | and in that sense, the temptation,
00:09:53.140 | but it's never taking him captive by allurements
00:09:58.620 | and enticements that cross the line into sinful desires.
00:10:03.620 | And in the same way, I would say God does not tempt
00:10:09.820 | because at that point, this is really delicate here,
00:10:15.560 | so listen carefully, at that point in the human life
00:10:20.560 | where we cross the line
00:10:23.500 | from experiencing objective allurements,
00:10:26.940 | they like food, you smell a steak
00:10:29.060 | or see an ice cream cone,
00:10:30.820 | that point of feeling a legitimate desire,
00:10:35.820 | when we're lured across the line into sinful desire,
00:10:41.380 | like the second helping or something
00:10:43.780 | the doctor told you you shouldn't have
00:10:45.860 | or something that's really part of gluttony or lust,
00:10:48.940 | at that point of crossing that line,
00:10:53.180 | the Bible ordinarily describes God's action
00:10:58.180 | as handing us over or giving us up,
00:11:03.420 | Romans 1:24, verse 26, 28,
00:11:08.020 | giving us up to our lusts, giving us up to a debased mind.
00:11:12.060 | In other words, God is not described
00:11:14.800 | as the positive, creative, active agent
00:11:19.180 | at the point where our desires become sinful.
00:11:22.460 | His action is a, as it were,
00:11:24.820 | if you're gonna involve God by providence here, which I do,
00:11:28.580 | his action is a negative action
00:11:30.620 | in the sense that he hands us over, he lets us go,
00:11:33.620 | he gives us up to our sinning at that point.
00:11:37.980 | So I don't think James is contradicting himself.
00:11:41.700 | I think he expects us to make a distinction
00:11:44.820 | between temptation understood as, on the one hand,
00:11:48.500 | as objective allurement, which need not involve sin,
00:11:53.180 | and temptation understood, on the other hand,
00:11:55.620 | as the movement of that allurement across a line
00:12:00.620 | so that the desire becomes sinful,
00:12:04.060 | and the line between desire
00:12:06.780 | as a thankful, God-dependent desire
00:12:10.260 | and a desire as an assertive, self-indulgent desire
00:12:16.060 | is crossed when the temptation happens,
00:12:19.940 | which he is saying God never experiences
00:12:22.420 | and God never performs.
00:12:25.020 | And if we step back and ask the question,
00:12:29.260 | why the New Testament would use the same word
00:12:34.260 | for testing and temptation,
00:12:38.340 | perhaps part of the answer is that
00:12:43.060 | every test really is a kind of temptation,
00:12:48.060 | and every temptation really is a kind of test.
00:12:53.060 | Our faith in God and our love for God
00:12:56.900 | are being tested with every temptation,
00:13:00.120 | and every test, if we do not act in faith,
00:13:05.500 | can result in our falling into temptation.
00:13:09.780 | So when James says, "Blessed is the man
00:13:13.540 | "who remains steadfast under trial,
00:13:17.620 | "for when he has stood the test,
00:13:19.160 | "he will receive the crown of life,"
00:13:20.740 | that same promise applies
00:13:23.620 | to resisting every temptation as well.
00:13:27.060 | - Yeah, thank you, Pastor John.
00:13:28.220 | Yeah, it's a great Bible question.
00:13:29.620 | Mike, thank you for sending that in,
00:13:30.860 | and thank you for joining us today.
00:13:32.260 | You can ask a Bible question of your own,
00:13:33.820 | search our growing archive,
00:13:34.860 | or subscribe to the podcast,
00:13:36.060 | all at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:13:40.500 | Well, next week, we have a question
00:13:43.660 | from a listener named Elizabeth.
00:13:45.180 | She asks, "Why Christ had to suffer in public to redeem us?
00:13:50.180 | "Couldn't he have lived a perfect,
00:13:52.580 | "law-abiding life in total isolation?"
00:13:56.980 | That is a fascinating question,
00:13:59.140 | and it's up next time.
00:14:00.120 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:14:01.100 | We'll see you back here on Monday for that.
00:14:03.440 | (upbeat music)
00:14:06.020 | (upbeat music)
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