James 1:13

Let no man say when he is tempted,.... Here the apostle uses the word "tempted", in another sense than he did before.

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: When he is tempted - by solicitation to evil. Heretofore the "temptation" was by afflictions.

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, ,7 Deuteronomy 6:16 ; and to tempt, 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, ; by afflicting, as in Job’ s case; by letting loose Satan or other wicked instruments to tempt, ; by withholding his grace and deserting men, ; 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, ,22. But God doth not tempt by commanding, suggesting, soliciting, or persuading to sin.

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.

(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” (Romans 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 God’s creatures, and its continual attraction even for the best, have often driven men to doubt His supremacy. Sadly—how 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 God’s ways in so permitting and overworking evil are beyond man’s 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. Mill’s “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 (Matthew 12:22-37) to think God’s kingdom could be so divided against itself, that He, directly or indirectly, should seduce His subjects into the revolt of sin.

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.

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.

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God - See the remarks on the previous verse.

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.