Audio Transcript

We end our week together talking about trials and temptations. It’s a sobering topic, but one relevant to each of us at some point, maybe with some of you right now. We start with what we know for sure. God tests us. He does. That’s clear in texts like James 1:3–4 and 1 Peter 1:7. But then comes the question: Does God ever tempt us? James 1:13 says no, God never tempts us. But what really is the difference between being tested and being tempted? Here’s a sharp Bible question from a listener named Mike: “Dear Pastor John, in APJ 694 you said that the word for ‘temptation’ and the word for ‘test’ are the same word in the Greek, peirasmos. So how are we to understand the differences in meaning of the two words in passages where it talks about God testing us (James 1:3–4; 1 Peter 1:7), and then in James 1:13, where it says, ‘God does not tempt anyone’? How do we put those together?”

That is an utterly crucial question. We so need to get that clear, for God’s honor and for our own peace of mind. So let me set the stage as best I can so that everybody can get on board with what the problem really is as Mike has presented it here.

Trials, Tests, Temptations

In 1 Peter 1:6–7, it says, “Now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials [and the word there, peirasmos in Greek, could be translated ‘temptations’ or ‘testings’], so that the tested genuineness of your faith — more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire — may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

And then, similarly, in James 1:2–4, it says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet [testings or temptations or] trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” And then in James 1:12, he adds this amazing promise about the outcome of tested faith. He says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [same word], for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.”

Now, all these testings are merciful trials from the hand of God in the way he disciplines and purifies and stabilizes and preserves his children. We know that Jesus tested his disciples (John 6:6). We know that God tested Abraham (Hebrews 11:17). So we set the stage for this problem first by establishing from 1 Peter and James that God does indeed test people. He does. He “tests” people — and the word there, peirasmos or peirazō, is the same as the word for “tempt.” There’s the problem. He puts us through trials.

Double Problem

Now, the second part of setting the stage for the problem is to observe that in James 1:13, James uses the same word for testing, peirazomai, and we translate it “tempt.” He says, “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” It’s the same word as the word for “test.” So, that’s the setting of the stage.

Here’s the double problem:

When James says, “God tempts no one,” the word tempt is the very same word in Greek for test, and we know God does test people.
He says that God cannot be tempted, and yet we know that Jesus was tempted (same word) in the Gospels in the wilderness. In Matthew 4:1, the Holy Spirit drove him out to be tempted. And Jesus is God in the flesh.

So, James expects us to make a distinction in the meaning between the testing that God in fact does bring into our lives righteously, and the tempting that God never does, even though he uses the same word for both of them. He expects us to make that same distinction in order to show that God is never tempted himself and yet Jesus, who was God, was in some sense tempted.

Now that’s the challenge that Mike sees in these verses and is asking about, and he’s right to see them. I’ve seen them for years and wrestled over and over again with how to understand this. James is not tripping up here. He knows exactly what he’s doing, since he puts the two words together back-to-back in two sentences. It’s not like he forgot that ten years ago he used the word one way.

Four Steps of Temptation

I think the key to solving both of these problems is found in the next two verses (James 1:14–15) and the way James carefully defines temptation. It’s probably the nearest thing we have to an analysis of temptation in the Bible. He is talking about our experience of it and how God doesn’t experience it and doesn’t perform it. Here’s what he says in James 1:14–15: “Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” So, there are four steps in this process of what James is calling temptation.

There’s desire, which may at first be innocent. In fact, I think, at first, most of them are innocent.
There’s the desire becoming an enticement and an allurement across a line into sinfulness and sinful craving and sinful desire: like the desire of hunger, which is innocent, crossing the line into gluttony; or the desire of natural sexual appetite, which is innocent, crossing the line into lust; or the desire of your paycheck — it’s not wrong to want to be paid so you can pay your bill — crossing the line into greed. That’s the second step.
Then there’s the act of sinning itself, in which the sinful desire is put into action.
And then finally, when that pattern of sin goes on without repentance, it results in eternal death.

God Is Not Tempted

Now, I think the reason that James says God is not tempted, even though Jesus was tempted, is that the innocent desires like hunger, or the desire for sex, or the desire for our paycheck are the beginnings of being drawn toward what could be a sinful desire of gluttony, lust, or greed. And in that sense, the awakening of that desire is a kind of temptation, but it has not become a full-blown temptation. For example, in the life of Jesus, he hungered (an objective allurement toward bread) when he was fasting, but it didn’t cross the line into an evil desire of rebellion or disobedience or undue craving for what God had told him not to have. In fact, none of Jesus’s desires in his whole life ever crosses the line into evil desire, and therefore never gives birth to sin.

“None of Jesus’s desires in his whole life ever crosses the line into evil desire, and therefore never gives birth to sin.”

So, we can speak of him being tested or tempted in the sense that he’s presented with objective allurements, like bread when he is hungry, so that he experiences hunger or desire, and in that sense, temptation, but it’s never taking him captive by allurements and enticements that cross the line into sinful desires.

God Does Not Tempt

And in the same way, I would say, God does not tempt, because — now this is really delicate, so listen carefully — at that point in the human life where we cross the line from experiencing objective allurements (say, like food: you smell a steak or see an ice cream cone), at that point of a legitimate desire crossing the line into sinful desire (like the second helping, or something the doctor told you shouldn’t have, or something that’s really part of gluttony or lust), at the point of crossing that line, the Bible ordinarily describes God’s action as handing us over or giving us up (Romans 1:24, 26, 28) — giving us up to our lust, giving us up to a debased mind.

In other words, God is not described as the positive, creative, active agent at the point where our desires become sinful. If you’re going to involve God by providence here, which I do, his action is a negative action, in the sense that he hands us over, he lets us go, he gives us up to our sinning at that point.

Crucial Distinction

So I don’t think James is contradicting himself. I think he expects us to make a distinction between temptation understood, on the one hand, as objective allurement that need not involve sin, and temptation understood, on the other hand, as the movement of that allurement across a line so that the desire becomes sinful. And the line between desire as a thankful, God-dependent desire and desire as an assertive, self-indulgent desire is crossed when the temptation happens, which he is saying God never experiences and God never performs.

“Our faith in God and our love for God are being tested with every temptation.”

And if we step back and ask the question of why the New Testament would use the same word for testing and temptation, perhaps part of the answer is that every test really is a kind of temptation. And every temptation really is a kind of test. Our faith in God and our love for God are being tested with every temptation. And every test, if we do not act in faith, can result in our falling into temptation. So when James says, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life” (James 1:12), that same promise applies to resisting every temptation as well.

At the beginning of Romans 9–11, Paul tells us he is sad. Really sad. “I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit — I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart . . . for the sake of my people . . . Israel” (Romans 9:1–4 NIV). Paul is so sad that he doesn’t finish his thought and tell us what’s wrong with Israel. For that, we have to wait an entire chapter.

We come to find out that many within Israel had rejected Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah, and as a result weren’t “saved” (Romans 10:1). This reality not only made Paul sad; it also raised difficult questions about God. Did Israel’s unbelief mean that God had rejected his people — or worse, failed to keep his promises (Romans 9:6; 11:1)? And if God could reject his people and default on his promises, wasn’t this awful news for everybody, not just Israel but Gentiles too?

His Secret

To answer these questions, Paul reveals a secret hidden in the Bible and revealed only once God sent Jesus. God would save Israel and keep his word, but he would do so in a surprising way.

First, he would begin by reducing believing Israel to a tiny remnant. True, believing Israel and all Israel had never completely overlapped, even from the start (Romans 9:6–13). But it was only later, during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles near the end of the Old Testament, that God reduced believing Israel to a mere remnant (Romans 9:27–29). And, surprisingly, believing Israel’s remnant status did not change even when the Messiah, Israel’s Savior, came (Romans 9:30–33; 11:7–10). As the apostle John put it: the Messiah “came to . . . his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11 NIV).

Second, God would use Israel’s unbelief to make space for Gentile salvation (Romans 11:28, 30). Surprising space. Everybody expected Gentiles to one day join with Israel, but nobody anticipated they would become Israel. Paul tells us, however, that Gentile salvation would fulfill Old Testament promises about the salvation of Gentiles (Romans 10:19–20; see also 4:17; 15:9–12) and the salvation of Israel (Romans 9:25–26). Paul never explicitly calls Gentiles Israel, and he preserves a place for “natural” or ethnic Israel (Romans 11:17–24). But when he applies Israel’s promises to Gentiles, he shows us that the line between the “wild” and “natural” branches in the church is harder to see than anyone would have guessed.

Third, God would use Gentile salvation to get Israel’s attention. The surprising salvation of Gentiles would provoke Israel to envy and then salvation (Romans 11:11–12, 15). This was one of the reasons Paul shared Jesus so tirelessly with Gentiles. He hoped his success as “apostle to the Gentiles” might lead to Israel’s salvation. Granted, Paul knew he couldn’t provoke all Israel, but he hoped and prayed that he could provoke some (Romans 11:13–14).

Finally, God would provoke all Israel to salvation only when Jesus returned (or “in connection with” Jesus’s return). This might just be the most surprising part of Paul’s secret. Careful readers of God’s promises in the Old Testament were right: Israel would be saved when the Messiah came. But nobody could have guessed that Israel’s salvation would be at the Messiah’s second coming. Two comings! Nobody saw that coming. Paul tells us that Israel would be saved when Jesus returned from heavenly Zion, a place Jesus opened with his death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 11:26–27). In this way, Israel’s conversion would mirror Paul’s own — transformed by a heavenly vision of the risen Lord.

Paul tells us this secret then bursts into praise (Romans 11:33–36). Only an infinitely wise author could craft a plot where (nearly) every expectation created is fulfilled in an unexpected way. Surprising faithfulness. As paradoxical as that sounds, there’s really no other way to describe it. And there’s no other story like it.

His Grief

While Paul’s secret wonderfully dispels any doubts we might have about God’s faithfulness, I don’t think it diminished Paul’s grief. We may be surprised by what Paul writes in Romans 9–11, but Paul wasn’t. He wrote Romans 9:2 knowing full well what he would write in Romans 11:25–27. He wrote these chapters with a tear-stained face despite the secret he reveals.

After all, Israel wouldn’t be saved until Jesus returned, and Jesus wouldn’t return, Paul tells us, until God completed his work among the Gentiles (Romans 11:25). For Paul, this at least meant that Israel wouldn’t be saved until somebody pushed beyond Rome and evangelized the Gentiles on the edge of the map. So, Paul tells us how eager he is to get to Spain (Romans 15:14–33). Still, Paul knew that every delay, every setback, every change of plans, every pocket of unreached Gentiles meant more time would pass without Jesus’s return and, therefore, more death and judgment for so many — too many — within Israel.

Paul also knew that the timing of Israel’s salvation would mean that many within Israel would miss out on experiences he writes about in his letters and preached about everywhere he went. The Israel that would be saved at Jesus’s return would be an Israel that would miss out on life in the church during this present age. They would miss the goodness of working out their salvation (Philippians 2:12–13), struggling to walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), and renewing their minds (Romans 12:2). Israel would miss out on the goodness of waiting for Jesus’s return and all the ways this experience prepares us for and enriches our experience in the world to come (see Matthew 25:21, 23).

His Example

Paul’s secret dispels our doubts about God’s character, but it doesn’t — it shouldn’t — diminish our grief. Not if we’re going to follow Paul’s example, which is precisely what the Bible calls us to do (1 Corinthians 11:1).

Paul’s example teaches us to celebrate every part of God’s story. In fact, it’s a sign of immaturity — or worse — if we can’t. Paul’s heart swells when he tells God’s story. That’s why he ends these chapters with a soaring doxology, reveling in God’s wisdom and knowledge. Our hearts fail to align with Paul’s if we’re unable to feel what he feels in Romans 11:33–36. We fail to follow Paul’s example if we can tell God’s story without wonder and praise.

At the same time, Paul teaches us that doxology can and should be accompanied by lament, by anguish. Paul’s heart breaks when he tells God’s story. That’s why he begins these chapters like he does and why he speaks of his tears elsewhere (Philippians 3:18). It is a sign of immaturity — or worse — if we can’t feel what Paul feels in Romans 9:2. In fact, here, as elsewhere, Paul was simply following the example of his Lord, who shed tears for precisely the same reason as Paul (Luke 19:41–44). Jesus’s tears, moreover, point us to an unfathomable mystery: God’s own “response” to his story (2 Peter 3:9).

Friends, rejoice in God’s story. Let it cause you to hallow his name. But in your rejoicing, don’t fail to weep. Don’t fail to cultivate a heart that is eager for others to share the good you have received from God and a heart that is grieved — even unceasingly grieved (Romans 9:2) — when they don’t. To the paradox of God’s surprising yet faithful story, let us add the paradox of our response to it: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). In this way, we learn to follow Paul as he followed and waited for Christ.

I don’t believe anyone thought we took the name for our daughter, Agnes, from the then-recently released Despicable Me, but it often produced conversation. Among midwesterners, she inevitably hears, “Oh, I had a grandmother” — or great-grandmother — “named Agnes.” But few realize that the name has a distinctive Christian heritage, beginning with the early martyr Agnes of Rome.

In naming our daughter after a martyr, we were seeking to shape our (and her) imagination about the ideal Christian life. Agnes of Rome’s story, brief as it is, reminds us that gladly confessing Jesus as Lord and acknowledging our identity in Christ are the most important things about us. The martyr moment brings the good things of this earth into eternal perspective. Agnes shows the power of Jesus’s promise to the church in Smyrna — “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10) — and asks if we really believe it.

Pure Lamb

Early authors often remarked that Agnes’s life matched her name. Agnes conveys a double meaning related to the Greek word for “pure” (hagne) and the Latin word for “lamb” (agnus). In Christian art, she is always depicted with a lamb, which makes her easy to spot in an old church or an art museum. She exemplifies a young unmarried woman who died for her Christian faith.

As with many martyr stories, Agnes’s death likely occurred during the “Great Persecution” around AD 304. The Roman emperor Diocletian feared the rising Christian population and sought to unify the empire after a series of insurrections and rebellions. He closed churches, arrested church leaders, and tested the loyalty of prominent Romans by making them offer a sacrifice to the gods or else face deadly consequences.

Among those brought to trial in Rome during the persecution was a twelve-year-old girl (or possibly thirteen) named Agnes. She came from a Christian family and was probably denounced because she refused to marry the son of a Roman official.

‘New Kind of Martyrdom’

We know Agnes from two texts in the late fourth century. The first is an inscription, which still exists, in a church honoring Agnes in Rome. Damasus, bishop of Rome (AD 366–384), comments on her courage amid the degrading humiliation of being exposed before the crowd: “Though of so little strength she checked her extreme fear, and covered her naked members with her abundant hair lest mortal eye might see the temple of the Lord.” Damasus emphasizes both her vulnerability and her steadfast conviction, indeed willingness, to die for Jesus.

The second witness is Ambrose (c. AD 339–397), bishop of Milan and mentor to Augustine. He delivered an address on January 21, 377, which he notes is Agnes’s “birthday” (her martyrdom day). If she died in AD 304, Ambrose was retelling the story 73 years after the fact, approximately our distance from the Second World War. He could have known people who had witnessed the event, so his story has substantial credibility.

“A young person is never too young to testify to Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure.”

According to Ambrose, after refusing an offer of marriage, Agnes said, “He who chose me first for Himself shall receive me. Why are you delaying, executioner? Let this body perish” (“Concerning Virgins,” 1.2.9). Ambrose praises her in the high classical style of preaching in that day: “She was fearless under the cruel hands of the executioners, she was unmoved by the heavy weight of the creaking chains, offering her whole body to the sword of the raging soldier, as yet ignorant of death, but ready for it” (1.2.7).

He marvels that one so young would die:

A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory . . . she filled the office of teaching valor while having the disadvantage of youth. . . . All wept, she alone was without a tear. (1.2.8)

In devotion beyond her age, in virtue above nature, she seems to me to have borne not so much a human name, as a token of martyrdom, whereby she showed what she was to be. (1.2.5)

That is, the double meaning of her name showed her to be a lamblike sacrifice and a pure virgin. She understood herself to be espoused to Jesus and so denied the claim of a human suitor.

Hagiography

One challenge in appropriating Agnes for today is that medieval Roman Catholic writers added substantial details to her story. For instance, The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine (1275) records that the Roman prefect sent her to a brothel to be abused since she refused to recant and be married. God protected her so that when the prefect’s son approached her, he was struck dead. But Agnes prayed for the young man, and he immediately recovered. When she was sentenced to death in the fire, the flames parted so that she was unhurt. After failing to kill her in this way, the officials executed her with a sword.

This is hagiography, an expanded account of martyrdom that combines a historical core with additional (often invented) details to highlight the martyr’s heroism. We can see where the medieval authors creatively embellished Agnes’s story. While the motive may be commendable, we need to be content with the simpler accounts by Ambrose and Damasus, even if the details are not so vivid.

But what about the emphasis in all these sources on virginity? Agnes’s commitment to Christ was tested because of the advances of a non-Christian man seeking a wife. We do not know whether she refused marriage in principle or only refused to be married to an unbeliever. Either way, while we today may be hesitant to affirm the principled denial of marriage, it is important to see that the early church rejoiced in the newfound freedom of a sacred singleness exemplified by Jesus and Paul. To early church authors such as Ambrose, the refusal of marriage in this world pointed strongly to one’s belonging to Jesus Christ.

Regardless of Agnes’s exact motivation, we can agree with Ambrose that she refused the earthly good of marriage and accepted death (the end of all possibilities for good things on this earth) because she belonged to Jesus Christ. Despite the legendary facets added to this story, the main event continues to draw our attention: a twelve-year-old girl stood before a Roman official and confessed her faith in Jesus.

Not Too Young to Testify

Ambrose and others marveled at Agnes’s youth. Her story presses home that a young person is never too young to testify to Jesus Christ as Lord, Savior, and Treasure. And when they do so, especially in the face of opposition, they participate in the victory of Jesus over sin, death, and hell. When teenagers today confess that their decisions and actions are motivated by faith in Jesus, they demonstrate the courage and faith that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4–5). A confession of Jesus has more significance than any accomplishment — whether in school, sports, or society.

Note how Ambrose and Damasus remind us of Agnes’s physical vulnerability as a child and a woman but then show her indomitable trust in Jesus. When Augustine reflects on Agnes, he compares her to Hercules. He overcame the lion and Cerberus the three-headed dog, but “Agnes, a thirteen-year-old girl, overcame the devil” (Sermon 273.6).

C.S. Lewis knew that simple faith possesses great power against Christ’s enemies. The demon Screwtape seethes just thinking about a godly young woman like Agnes:

[She is not] only a Christian but such a Christian. . . . The little brute. She makes me vomit. She stinks and scalds through the very pages of the dossier. It drives me mad, the way the world has worsened. We’d have had her to the arena in the old days. That’s what her sort is made for. Not that she’d do much good there, either. A two-faced little cheat (I know the sort) who looks as if she’d faint at the sight of blood and then dies with a smile. . . . Looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and yet has a satirical wit. The sort of creature who’d find ME funny! (The Screwtape Letters, 117–18)

We do not know if Agnes died with a smile or laughing at the impotence of the demons, but she did die confessing her Lord. And the demons shuddered.

Raising Our Children for What?

Lewis’s imaginative description brings Agnes home to us. Are we raising children whose highest aim is to testify faithfully to their Savior, the risen and exalted Jesus Christ? Would our daughters die with a smile, use satirical wit against a demon, and even look into the face of our greatest enemy and laugh because they are so secure in their faith?

Here is where martyr stories are so helpful. The picture that comes into our minds of a successful Christian life determines to a considerable extent what our own Christian life will look like — and the kind of Christian life we will hold before our children. Agnes provides such a picture.

There is fresh talk today about generational influence and stable households. By all means, it is a blessing to provide your grandchildren with a tradition of hard work and respect for family continuity. But this desire can so easily become a temptation to aim primarily at wealth, influence, and property. The martyrs, on the other hand, remind us that, whatever we build on earth, we must be ready to say goodbye to everything and give up control over our earthly future in a moment of witness. Christian parents will do no better than to pray that they and their children display the faithful confession of Agnes and the other martyrs.

Jesus’s promise in Revelation 2:10 — “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” — does not apply only to those who face imminent execution for confessing Jesus as Lord. The language of martyrdom provides a peg, a hook, on which to hang the rest of our Christian life and the culture of Christian life we are creating as a family and church. The brief account of Agnes does not tell us everything about the Christian life, but it does illustrate the extreme situation that should anchor our expectations of life in this world.

Augustine concludes with encouragement: “Pray that you may be able to follow in the footsteps of the martyrs. It isn’t, after all, the case that you are human beings and they weren’t; not, after all, the case that you were born, and they were born quite differently” (Sermon 273.9). Indeed, Agnes’s story reminds us that all of God’s people can find the courage to confess Christ publicly based on a settled conviction that we belong to Jesus.