Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to James · About this commentary
God Tempts No One
James 1:12-15
12 Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord promised to those who love him. · WEB
One Greek word covers both trial and temptation, and the letter uses the ambiguity to close off an excuse before it can be made.
Verse 12 returns to where the chapter began, with the person who endures under testing, and adds the outcome: having been approved — the metal assayed and passed — he receives the crown of life promised to those who love him. The love is mentioned almost in passing, and it is the only thing the promise is attached to.
Then verse 13 turns on a hinge that exists in Greek and not in English. The same word group covers a trial that comes upon someone and a solicitation to do wrong, and the letter has been using the first sense for eleven verses. Now it takes up the second, and the excuse it is closing off depends on the overlap: if God sends the trial, and the trial is where I failed, then God is implicated.
The answer has two parts and the first is about God's nature: he is untemptable by evil — there is nothing in him for evil to appeal to — and therefore he tempts no one. The letter does not merely deny the charge; it explains why the charge is incoherent.
Verses 14 and 15 relocate the source, and the language is domestic. Each person is drawn away and enticed by his own desire, and then the sequence runs like a pregnancy: desire conceives and bears sin, sin grows up and produces death. Nothing external appears anywhere in the chain.
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