James is going to address another trial. He is going to bring up temptation, which is the same word in Greek as trial. As he continues to address the issue of trials in the last days and what Christians do about them, James will weigh in on the problem with temptation. James has two essential issues he wishes to dispel with:

• Where does the blame for temptation reside?
• What role does God play in temptation?

James approaches the subject of temptations and explains how Christians are supposed to accurately view temptation. He will give us key points on how we can God involved. He will ruin the excuses we make for sin and temptation by pointing to others. And he will leave us with the reverse picture of a good God who does not lead His beloved children astray. Although many scholars see these two paragraphs (James 1:12-15 and James 1:16-18) as two separate issues, I present them as a coherent response to one problem: God’s role in temptation.

James 1:13. James turns to the issue at hand, temptations in our lives. Every person deals with temptation–even Christians. There are different kinds of temptation with a range of consequences. For example, that piece of pie looks so good, but I know I have eaten too much for the day. But it is so good! I have the choice to eat it and pay for it later or exercise some discipline.

The trial food is on low end of consequences. What about the consequences of being tempted by a handsome man or beautiful woman while you are married? You can allow your desire to overtake you with dire consequences or asked Jesus to help you avoid those consequences by giving you a way out of your temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13).

A trial can wreck your life if you do not succeed at seeing it for what it is, addressing it, and dealing with it with wisdom and faith. James settles for a more philosophical question. Who is to blame for the temptations we go through? The key is how to handle them as a Christian. It is natural to want to blame someone else for them. Especially if we fail to succeed at denying them.

What role does God play? James presents the hypothetical person to blames God. He commands us that no one should do this. He lists two reasons for not blaming God for temptation:

1. God is not tempted by evil Himself.
2. God does not use temptation to tempt us.

First, God cannot be tempted by evil. The word for “cannot be tempted” is a word used once only here in the entire New Testament. This word has not been used before James wrote it here. It appears in literature after the New Testament, suggesting that James coined this term.

Because this is used once, it is harder for us to get the true meaning of the word. It basically means cannot be tempted or is unskilled in temptation. The idea is that God is over and above evil, so He cannot be tempted by it. It is not something that can overtake Him.

He does not have evil as any part of His character. He is holy and complete, so He has nothing to do with evil. James will argue in verses 17-18 that God only deals with good things. Second, God does not operate on a temptation principle. God doesn’t use temptation to get what He wants. He does not initiate temptation.

The word for temptation comes into play here as well. This word can mean “trial, test, or temptation.” Who’s to say that James does not mean “test” instead of “temptation”? James cannot argue that people cannot blame God for testing them. The Israelites were tested by God several times in the wilderness and failed to succeed. They blamed God for their testing. But the word here is better understood as temptation. God does test us, but He does not bring evil into our lives to tempt us to sin.

James has already told us that God uses to strengthen our faith and character. Temptation is different because it brings the factor of waving evil in our face and calling us to indulge in it. God is greater then evil and temptation. He can even use evil purposes by others for our good in the end (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28-30).

James is guarding against a fatal thinking process that blames God for temptation instead of looking at the true sources of temptation. Believing God is our tempter is a direct violation of living by faith. We cannot trust God for good things if we believe He brings bad things into our lives. Unlike Job, who claimed that God gives and takes away and we must take the bad with the good from God, we are aware of the devil and his schemes.

No, we must continue to believe that God is a good God who only brings good things into our lives. This is an absolute essential for our faith. Doubting God’s goodness leads us down a path that cannot sustain our hope and faith in Him.

We ask then, “Who is responsible for temptation?” The rest of Scripture affirms that Satan is the tempter and adversary. He is the one who tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). He is the adversary who challenged Job (Job 1-2). But James does not blame Satan for temptation. Unlike Flip Wilson, he does not say, “The devil made me do it”

James 1:14. Instead of pointing our finger at God or even the devil, he turns it inward and points it at ourselves. The source of our temptation is our own desires. The Bible can refer to desires is a good thing. But here, James points to the desires we had before we met Jesus. We could even call them passions or lusts.

These are the ungodly urges we used to easily and readily gratify. They are part of the flesh, and we must continue to fight battles against the flesh and our old desires. Jesus has placed within each Christian new desires to worship and glorify God through service to Him. The fact that we realize the role desires do not please God is proof that we are new creatures in Christ and have new desires. The old one still cause temptation. As long as we live in this world, we will have to fight temptations.

James uses the vivid imagery first of hunting, and then of the birthing process to explain how temptation works in us to produce sin and death. The words for dragged away and lured are hunting terms that explain how at first, we toy with the temptation, giving it a little ground in our minds and letting the desire lead us only a little.

The word for “dragged away” is only used here in the New Testament. It is a fishing term for when the fish grabs onto the hook and the fisherman begins pulling it. We still have the power to stop temptation where it lies. We could let go of the worm on the hook.

The second word for “lured or enticed” is a hunting term for a trap. Once in the trap, the animal will most likely never get away. If you reach this stage of the temptation, it is almost certain that giving into the temptation will trap you in sin.

You are tempted to think that it won’t hurt anyone. It’s harmless. You are just thinking about it. You wouldn’t even think you would do it. It makes our flesh comfortable and happy. You could stop in at any time. You are in complete control. You can keep a secret and no one else would find out about it unless you wanted them to know. That is how temptation starts. It pulls you toward your desire until it has caught you in its trap. It is like the spider that claims on the venus fly trap suspecting no harm to come to it.

Temptation is not sin. Everyone is tempted but not everyone sins because of the temptation. As you grow in your character and faith, you will be able to refute temptation and put it in its place–behind you. If you allow temptation to get you on the hook, drag you in, and entice you, it will take longer for you to conquer that temptation. It will continue to tempt you until you deny it quarter in your life.

Your best opportunity to succeed against temptation is in the first part, the dragging away. If you do not bite down on the hook, you can still swim away. But if you let it get to the luring and trapping phase, you will sin. There is a precious space between addressing temptation and being trapped by it.

From these hunting terms, James then switches to birthing terms to take us from point A of lured by desire to link us to the final point, which is death, physical and spiritual!

James 1:15. Our old desires logically lead to temptations, which inevitably leads to sin in our lives. We are now caught by the temptation, past the point of saying no at this point in the process. Now all that is left is the logical sequence of events that leads to our demise.

In showing us the process, James is letting us know that the trouble we have gotten into is of our own doing. The lesson is to stop the process before it gets started. When we let desire reign over us, it produces sin, whether thought about, spoken, or acted upon, it is sin.

James switches from hunting and fishing terms to birthing terms. Our ungodly desire conceives, just like when the women conceives a child. Think of desire as a parent conceiving a child. Desire gives birth to sin. James is personifying desire and sin so we can see the unavoidable process if we allow temptation to rule over us. Now that sin is growing in us, it matures, coming to its full conclusion. He uses another word for giving birth when he says that sin gives birth to death.

The whole process looks like this:

Temptation –(drags away and entices/lures)–> Desire –(conceives and gives birth)–> Sin –(matures and gives birth)–> Death

Now we have the whole picture. Desire is the parent whose children is sin and desire’s grandchild is death.

The second word James uses for “gives birth” is a word only he uses in the New Testament. We will see it once again in this section and I will explore it its powerful implications in verse 18. What kind of death does sin bring? It is first spiritual, then physical death.

All sin separates us from God (spiritual death). God is gracious and forgives us of any sin we confess (1 John 1:9). You could look at it as temporary separation for a Christian. We still have the hope and promise that Jesus forgives us of sin. We have not fallen out of relationship with God. But it puts a strain on our relationship with Him and others.

If we keep letting temptation succeed, and do not confess our sins for Jesus’s forgiveness, the sin we keep committing leads to physical death. At that point, our relationship with God for eternity hangs in the balance. This is why it is so important if we sin to recognize it, confess it to Jesus, and accept His forgiveness.

We must maintain a soft heart toward God’s discipline and forgiveness. It keeps us on the path in our relationship with Him. Temptation can deal a fatal blow to a relationship with God it we do not follow these steps.

James’s main point is that God does not cause this process. Think about this: He sent His one and only Son to die the worst death possible for you. All of that was done to bring you as close to Him as you could possibly get! Now why would the same God who did all of that to get close to you be the source of a process that moves you away from Him?

James 1:16. After James has confirmed the source of temptation and sin inwardly as our own desires, he then commands us to not be deceived. He tells us to not fall into the deception that we paint when we blame God for temptation.

We claim things about God that are not true. James softens his rebuke by affirming that he is speaking to beloved and dear brothers and sisters in Christ. He wants us to avoid this fatal to faith error. It is not too late even though we are in dangerous waters.

He has affirmed that God is not the source of our temptation. God doesn’t work like that against us. He is for us at every turn of our lives. This short verse is the hinge between James 1:13-15 and James 1:17-18. If we do not allow ourselves to be deceived by our own thoughts and what the devil and the world say about God, we can see His goodness to us. He doesn’t give us temptation but He can help us to escape it and move forward faithfully.

James 1:17. Not only is God not responsible for causing temptation, but He is a good God who gives us good things. Every good thing in your life and in this world is because of God. God is all-good.

Some Bible versions have “every good and perfect gift” to describe what God gives us. The text actually says, “every good gift and every perfect gift.” The Greek words for “gift” are different words. Some commentators have described it as the gift God gives and the act of giving it. James wants us to know that God gives good gifts and he gives them generously.

Although we can take the next couple of words different ways, I think it is best to describe in us a, “from above is coming down from the Father of the lights.” This is the most natural way of putting together “from above” and “is coming down.” We know for sure that the good gifts we receive our heavenly gifts given to us by our heavenly Father.

James once again uses vivid imagery to explain God’s character. He says that God is the Father of Lights. God is not evil; He is only good. There is no darkness (evil) in Him at all (1 John 1:5)! While this is indeed true about God, James is not using “light” as John does. The light is plural. In the original language, the article is in front of lights, meeting “the lights.” These are specific lights.

James uses three unique words here to describe God the Father. Two of them (variation and shifting) are astronomical terms. These terms were referring to heavenly bodies, most likely the sun, moon, and stars. God is the Creator who placed the first good gifts of creation in space. The third word for shifting is also used only once here in the New Testament. It refers to the shadows created by the shifting and turning of these lights around the earth.

God is not like the shadows, changing where the shadows go. He does not move around like them. He does not change His position or decide something different every time He turns around. He is what theologians call immutable.

It means He is unchangeable. Time, circumstance, and other aspects of creation have no effect on God. He will not stop doing whatever His character is that leads to His actions. He does not give good gifts now but later decide to start giving bad gifts.

James 1:18. James has already mentioned the crowd of life as a gift from God. But now he’s going to go further than that. God actually willed and desired that all of creation was formed and put into place. Life on this earth and all that God has made is a wonderful gift. God said in Genesis that it was all good. But even more of a gift than creation is the regeneration, the re-creation, of us as Christians after the Fall of Man has tainted everything that God had made good and perfect.

That is exactly what James is talking about in verse 18. God made the decision to give us birth. “Give birth” is the same unique word that James only uses in the New Testament. We saw earlier in James 1:15. There, sin gave birth to death.

But by God’s grace and mercy, He gives us birth into eternal life instead of death. James uses this same word to show us the contrast between what our desires give us and what God gives us. One is the way to death and the other is the way to life.

He does this by the power of the word of truth. The word of truth is the gospel, God’s word to us. It is truth because it comes from Him. Truth is what God gives us when our desires, the world, and Satan want to tell us a lie. James has enlightened us to the truth that God does not cause our temptation and He does not give us evil gifts. Instead, He has given us the crown of life, new birth in Him, and His truth to sustain us.

He has made us a kind of firstfruits among His creation. We are not children of God (John 1:12-13). We are new creatures in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Firstfruits were given to God, sacrifice to Him as the very first of Israel’s crops in the harvest. Now, we are the living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2) and we offer ourselves to God. We have been given this opportunity by God and while temptation at our old desires are dangerous foes, we can break free from them and keep drawing closer to God.