Standing the Test (1:12)
“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.” We must never forget that Jesus warned us against rushing into temptation, not merely in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:13; Luke 11:4) but also in the agony of Gethsemane, when Satan had come upon him with renewed energy in spite of repeated defeats by Jesus since the wilderness temptations (Matt. 26:41; Luke 22:40). Jesus urged the disciples to pray to be spared temptation. No one knew so well as he the power of the evil one. He had wrestled with him to the end and had conquered where others failed. Temptation is not to be courted, not even for the sake of the experience and the possible victory. Too many go down in the struggle for any to rush into it lightly. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
But if temptation is thrust upon one, then he must fight and win as Jesus did. There is always a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13). We must find the way out. Compare Job 5:17: “Behold, happy is the man whom the Lord correcteth.” He only is happy (the same word used in the Beatitudes in Matt. 5:3-11) who endures. That is true patience. It is only “when he hath been approved” after standing the test that “he shall receive the crown of life,” the victor’s crown. The word for approved suggests the furnace that removes the dross and leaves the pure metal. The refiner of silver watches, we are told, till he sees his own image in the metal. Then it is pure. The metal is tested and approved.
“The crown of life” (cf. Rev. 2:10) is probably the wreath of victory in the games (cf. 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 2:5), for Greek games were common in Palestine in the days of Herod the Great and were practiced even in Jerusalem itself (Josephus, Ant. 15, 8, 1 f.). It is a crown of kingly glory, but it is bestowed as reward of merit to those who love the Lord Jesus. We may have a reference to a Logion of Jesus not preserved in which he makes this promise: “Blessed is he who hath his raiment white, for he it is who receiveth the crown of joy upon his head.”[55] In Proverbs 1:9 we read that the instruction of father and mother “shall be a chaplet of grace unto thy head.” In Sirach 15:6 we read of “a crown of gladness,” and in the Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs (Levi iv. 1) we find “crowns of glory.” Love is the way to win this crown—love and the proof of it in enduring temptation and leading “the white life.”
Blaming God (1:13)
Whatever doubt exists in verse 12 about trial or temptation vanishes in verse 13. Here it is clearly temptation to evil. Hort (in loco) suggests “tempted by trial,” and Moffatt puts it “tried by temptation.” Certainly trial becomes a temptation to some men who use it as the excuse for doing wrong. “Though trial in itself is ordered by God for our good, yet the inner solicitation to evil which is aroused by the outer trial is from ourselves” (Mayor). Any trial wrongly used may become a temptation, whereas it was meant for our development and perfection. Temptation is merely one aspect of trial and not a necessary one. But the word is used of the great tempter (1 Thess. 3:5). So Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Mark 1:13). Satan desired to sift the apostles as wheat, to ruin them if possible (Luke 22:31). The Pharisees and the Sadducees sought to tempt Jesus (Matt. 15:1). It is the devil’s business to seek to lure another into wrong.
When a man is tempted and yields to the temptation, he is eager to blame someone else for his sin. If he cannot do otherwise, he will blame God for having made him as he is, with evil possibilities. In particular is this true of sexual sin, which Oesterley (in loco) thinks James has specifically in mind here. Compare Matthew 5:28; 1 Peter 2:11. Adam blamed Eve, and Eve the serpent. And even Adam blamed God, for he said: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me” (Gen. 3:12).
Some dare to say in so many words: “I am tempted of God.” They hold God responsible for their appetites and passions and seek to quiet the conscience thus while they give way to sin. Others hide behind heredity, environment, or evil companions. Even Agamemnon excused himself for his wrong to Achilles by holding Zeus and fate responsible. Sirach (15:11 f.) says: “Say not thou, It is through the Lord that I fell away.” The origin of sin is a dark problem, but it is a lazy philosophy or a blind one that shirks human responsibility, or tries to do it. It matters not whether sin is the remnant of the beast in us (surely some men act at times like the tiger) or the response to evil environment or both, we are merely cowardly when we blame God for our own wrongdoing.
There is no response to evil in God. He is not “man’s giant shadow skyward thrown.” The absolute holiness and ethical purity of God should at least protect him from the charge of leading us into sin. The worst of men, in their darkest moments of loneliness, sometimes come face to face with God. Then they do not flippantly blame God but confess their sins with broken heart. Two things are true about evil and God. One is that God himself tempts no man to sin. He does send trial but not temptation. We may not understand all the ways of God’s providence, but we may rest secure in this: The devil does tempt us. That is his business. And yet James does not refer to Satan by name here, for after all, we ourselves are responsible, as he proceeds to show. It does not help matters with us any more than it did with Eve to lay our sin upon the devil. The other thing that is true is that God cannot be tempted with evil. He cannot be tempted to do evil himself or be led to tempt others with evil. The phrase does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament or in the Septuagint, but it is a paraphrase of a common proverb in the early Christian writings.[56] God does chastise us (Heb. 12:4 f.), but he does not tempt us.
All this is in strong contrast to the Greek and Roman notions of duty, for the heathen gods were credited with all human and even inhuman vices. The gods upon Olympus revel in lust and cruelty, jealousy and hate. They furnish fit ideals for the philosophy of Nietzsche but do not accord with the God of the New Testament, the God of consolation and of peace, of purity and love.