Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Let no one say when he is tempted [or “tested,” as in verse 12], “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But 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.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:12–18)

When you hear the words of verse 12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing],” you are hearing an echo of what it was like to be a Jewish Christian in the churches to whom James was writing. Testing, testing, testing.

Some were poor and wore shabby clothes and lacked daily food (2:16). Some were humiliated when they came to church dressed like that and were told to “stand over there” (2:3). Some were dragged into court by the rich (2:6). There were fights and quarrels (4:1). People spoke evil against them (4:11). Some were defrauded of their wages (5:4). Some were condemned and murdered (5:6). Some were sick (5:15). And all of them were told to be patient in suffering (5:7, 10).

We usually think of the book of James as the book of doing. And it is at least that. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (1:22). Put away anger (1:19). Be done with filthiness and wickedness (1:21). Visit orphans and widows (1:27). Don’t practice any partiality (2:1). Shun adultery and murder (2:11). Give to the needy (2:16). Tame your tongue, and use it for blessing, not cursing (3:8, 10). Forsake jealousy and selfish ambition (3:16). Be peaceable and gentle and open to reason, impartial, full of mercy and good fruits, bearing a harvest of righteousness (3:17–18). Learn how to pray like a wife who loves her husband (God), not like an adulterous wife who uses her husband’s generosity to hire lovers (4:3–4). Love your neighbor as you love yourself (2:8). Yes, it is the book of doing the word. Faith without doing is dead.

But what this text in chapter 1, and I think the whole book, presses on us is that all of James’s exhortations are written to people whose lives are characterized by suffering.

Painful Path to Joy

He begins with it in 1:2: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” He spends almost the whole first chapter on it. And he ends with it in 5:10: “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” And he soberly implies that it will be this way till Jesus comes: “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord” (5:7).

Therefore, if you are a faithful Christian, this is going be your life — a life full of faith-filled good deeds clothed with hardships and suffering, which James calls “tests.”

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials [or tests] of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. (1:2–3)

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing], for when he has stood the test [i.e., when he has been proven and found genuine] he will receive the crown of life. (1:12)

James calls them tests because they are from God. Neither nature nor Satan gives tests. They attack faith; they don’t test faith. They do not put you through fire to prove the gold of your faith is genuine. Satan aims to devour, not refine.

We know this is the way James thinks about suffering because in 4:13–15 he says,

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” . . . Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

If I live to the end of this chapel, it is because the Lord willed it. If I die before the end of this chapel, it is because the Lord willed it — and thus it will be an all-wise test for my wife. And he goes further. If I “do this or that,” it is because the Lord willed it. If I totally blank out while preaching and can’t finish the message, that will be from the Lord, and it will be a test for my faith in the goodness and kindness of the Lord for me.

Or we could make the same point — that God governs our suffering — from James 5:10–11:

As an example of suffering and patience . . . you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord [telos kyriou], how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

All Job’s sufferings were purposeful. And the purpose was God’s (see Job 42:11). And the goal was a compassionate and merciful testing.

So, when we read James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing],” James means for us to understand that the testing is from the Lord, not Satan and not nature. And I am going to argue now that all of verses 12–18 are intended by James (and by God!) to help us see our lives as blessed (with the deepest and longest happiness) because of this testing.

Blessing Through Testing

In other words, James says, I am about to exhort you five dozen times (there are 62 imperatives in the Greek of this letter) to be doers of the word (1:22). And I am fully aware that I am calling upon you to live this unselfish, other-person-oriented, loving, sacrificial way of life in the midst of many God-given miseries called tests. And since I am aware of that, I am devoting most of the first chapter to persuading you that these painful tests are designed by God to make you blessed (makarios) — that is, deeply and lastingly happy. I believe that is the main point of my text (James 1:12–18), and it is the main point of this message. Everything after 1:12a (“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under [testing]”) is argument.

The text is built around four arguments that support this main point — namely, that God’s tests are designed to lead us to deep and lasting happiness (our blessedness), not designed to make us sin and lead us to death.

Argument 1

Blessed [deeply and lastingly happy] is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing], for when he has stood the test [been proven like gold through fire] he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (verse 12)

So, the reason that God-given tests of affliction make you more deeply and lastingly happy is that they provide the circumstances, the occasions, the means by which God fits us to wear the crown of life — to have eternal life. Painful tests and patient endurance and provenness lead to life. If we really believe this is how God is fitting us for eternal life — for eternal joy — would we not say, “I am blessed”? These are reasons for me to be deeply and lastingly happy.

But here’s a key question for your real-life experience of this: What’s being tested by hardship? James mentions only one thing. He doesn’t mention faith (which would be my first thought). He doesn’t mention hope. What he mentions is love — love for God.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (1:12)

Who gets the crown of life? Those who love God. So, those who are tested and endure and are proven as real get the crown, and those who love him get the crown. Surely those two ways of describing how we get the crown of life are not alternatives! Surely James is saying, “When you walk through the fire of testing, will you come out on the other side more deeply loving God, or not? If you do, you get the crown.” What’s being tested and refined and proven is love. Love for God. Valuing God. Enjoying God. Treasuring God. Being satisfied in God.

So, what is that? Do you love God? What are you feeling or willing or doing when you are loving God? Your eternity hangs on this. Here’s a picture of it in James 4:2–4:

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask [God]. You ask [God] and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You [adulteresses]! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

The word really is “adulteresses,” not “adulterous people.” Why? Because the picture is of God as our husband and we as his bride — the church. And James presents us praying — going to our generous husband (God) and asking him if we can have some money to go hire a prostitute because he does not satisfy anymore. That’s the picture: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulteresses!”

To love God means you find God to be so satisfying as your husband, shepherd, Father, King, Savior, treasure that you will not turn him into a cuckold and use his gifts to go get your satisfaction from another. That’s adultery.

“Take heart, suffering Christian. All your hardships are God’s tests.”

And the fires of affliction are designed by God to test and refine and prove the reality of that. Do you love God more than the spouse you just lost? Do you love him more than the health you just lost? Do you love God more than the life the doctor just said you will lose in six months? Suffering tests and refines and proves our love for God — that God is our supreme treasure, the deepest desire of our souls. And those who love God like this, verse 12 says, receive the crown of life.

Therefore, argument 1 that God’s painful tests lead to deep and lasting happiness (blessedness) is that God’s tests are designed to refine and prove our love for God, which in turn is how we inherit the crown of life.

Argument 2

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. But 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. (verses 13–15)

The main point of verses 13–15 is this: Nobody should ever say, “Those God-given tests of verse 12 are really God-given temptations designed to entice and drag us into sin and death.” And the reason we should never say it is because it’s not true. And verses 13–15 are the explanation for why it’s not true. So, the way verses 13–15 argue for the main point (tests are to make us deeply and lastingly happy) is to prove that those tests are not designed to entice us into sin and death.

What makes the connection between verse 12 (God is testing us) and verses 13–15 (God is not tempting us) difficult for the translators is that those two English words, testing and tempting, are the same word in Greek. So, all of us here at Bethlehem College & Seminary who are learning Greek have to decide where James stops talking about testing and starts talking about tempting (if he does), and what that connection means.

Here’s what I propose, and I’m not unique in this. In verse 13, I would translate it, “Let no one say when he is tested, ‘I am being tempted by God.’” And that’s how the two units relate to each other: I am being tested by God. Verse 12 says so. But I am not being tempted by God. And that’s what verses 13 and 15 explain and defend.

To make the argument work, everything hangs on the meaning of tempt. What does James mean by tempt in this text? Not, what do you mean by it? Or what do I mean by it? James has a very precise and limited definition for tempt in verses 13–15.

Verse 13b: “God cannot be tempted [apeirastos] with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” God can be tested (as he was sinfully tested over and over in the Old Testament, as Psalm 78:41 says). And God does test us. That’s the point of verse 12. So, James is drawing a firm line between testing and tempting in this text. God does test, but he does not tempt.

What’s the difference? Verse 14 gives James’s definition of tempt and temptation. “But each person is tempted when he is lured [literally dragged] and enticed by his own desire.” So, James is drawing a line through the progress of desire. On one side of that line, desire is moving toward an object without sin. When Jesus had fasted forty days in the wilderness, Matthew says he was hungry (Matthew 4:2). Hunger is a desire for food. After forty days, it would be a strong one. And as Jesus’s desire moves toward the object of bread, his desire approaches a line. And it doesn’t cross the line. On Jesus’s side of the line, his desire is holy and without sin.

And James is saying that the line is crossed when desire turns into being dragged and enticed by a sinful pleasure. For Jesus, that would have been doing what the devil wanted him to do. “Use your amazing power and satisfy your desire by abandoning the path of suffering and sacrifice” (see Matthew 4:3). None of Jesus’s desires ever crossed the line where they became sinful enticement.

This understanding of temptation (namely, being dragged away with sinful enticement) helps explain verse 13b, where James says, “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” God is never dragged by or enticed by sinful allurements. He is never the victim of his own passions. This is the meaning of the doctrine of God’s impassibility — not that he has no emotions, but rather that they are never governed from outside his own sovereign will and self-sufficient fullness. God (and Jesus!) cannot be tempted in James’s sense because he is perfectly happy and self-sufficient. Nothing from outside him can create a controlling craving in him. He never says, “I’ve got to have that!” because he has everything in himself.

So, James infers from this that God doesn’t tempt anyone. James says in verse 14 that when anyone’s desire crosses the line from good desires to being sinfully enticed and dragged toward sinful acts, all that’s needed to explain this is our own desires.

God does not need to intrude into the dynamic of movement from good desire to sinful enticement. He doesn’t need to add anything from outside for our desires to cross from holy desires to sinful enticement. Our own desires make it happen. And we are responsible for those desires.

If we put this together with the absolute sovereignty of God over all things in James 4:15, what we conclude is this: God governs all things in such a way that he doesn’t need to reach in and drag us across the line from holy to unholy desires. Our desires in this fallen state are perfectly sufficient to bring about our entanglement in what James calls temptation.

And he completes his explanation in verse 15 by saying,

Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

So, we have the picture of conception in the womb, birth out of the womb, and a completed lifespan ending in death. The conception happens in verse 14 with the coming into being of sinful enticement — that’s the unborn baby. So, verse 15 describes desire that, having conceived (namely, back in verse 14 with the awakening of sinful enticement), now gives birth to this active child of sin. And that sinning child grows up, fills up his life with sins, and as a result dies — perishes.

And James’s point in all of verses 13–15 is this: When God tests you with suffering (verse 12), he is not tempting you. He’s not intruding himself into your desires with a design to bring about sin and death. He is aiming to deepen and refine your love and bring you to the crown of life, and so make you deeply and lastingly happy — blessed.

Argument 3

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (verses 16–17)

Do not be deceived about what? I don’t see any reason to think he has changed his focus from what he’s been saying. So, I take this to be the same warning he gave in verse 13: “Let no one say when he is [tested], ‘I am being tempted by God.’” Don’t say that. It’s not true. It’s a deception. So, don’t be deceived into thinking God is the kind of God who is using tests as a way to get you to have sinful desires and then sin your way into death. That was the deception of verse 13.

So, here in verse 16 is the same warning: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.” Yes, he sends many painful tests your way. But in doing that, he is not evil. He is not whimsical and unpredictable, with dark intentions. No. He is the source of every good gift. Every test that comes down on you comes from the Father of lights. Yes, all the lights of heaven — the sun and moon and stars — change continually. Brighter, less bright. Full moon, no moon. Bright sun, clouded sun. And shadows run with constant change all over the ground.

But it is not so with the Father of lights. He is the source of all light. And the source of light is always bright, always unchanging — inexhaustible in goodness and perfection. So, don’t be deceived. Your suffering is not sinister. Your testing is not temptation.

Argument 4

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (verse 18)

The most striking link with the preceding is the word “bring forth,” or “cause to be born.” He caused us to be born by the gospel, the word of truth. The only other place in the New Testament where this word “cause to be born” (apokyeō) occurs is in verse 15: “Sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” — “causes death” to be born.

It is utterly striking. Who talks about giving birth to death? Birth leads to life. But that is exactly what James is contrasting. Temptation — the crossing of the line by our desires into sinful enticement — gives birth to sin, which gives birth to death. But God is not like that. He does not tempt, and he does not send tests to give birth to death. He gives birth to life. And that life is the life of the new creation, which has begun with every new creature in Christ. The “firstfruits of his creatures.”

The Heart Behind Every Test

So, the main point of the text and the message is this: God’s tests are designed to lead us to deep and lasting happiness (our blessedness), not designed to tempt us into sin and lead us to death.

Argument 1 (verse 12): All God’s tests are designed to deepen our love for him, which leads to the crown of life.
Argument 2 (verses 13–15): It is totally wrong to say, “When he tests us, he is tempting us.” He can’t be tempted and tempts nobody with sinful enticements that lead to death.
Argument 3 (verses 16–17): To think otherwise is deception, because God is the source of all good and all light, not the source of sinful enticements that lead to death.
Argument 4 (verse 18): Yes, God causes birth, but it is not the birth of death by sin. It is the birth of life and new creation.

Therefore, take heart, suffering Christian. All your hardships are God’s tests. They do not come from a fickle heart, or a dark heart, or a tempting heart. They come from the Father of lights, the life-giver, the all-sufficient, untemptable one, whose whole design for you is your unshakable love for him and his crowning you with life — with blessedness, with the deepest and longest happiness.

Our generation is disconnected, not merely from one another but from the past. How many of us know our great-grandfathers’ names? Our great-great-grandfathers? We perch ourselves on the highest branch in the family tree and tend to be unconcerned with that below. Our gaze is upwards. Functionally, we are the great-grandsons and granddaughters of no one — physically or spiritually. We wander the world, rootless.

Because of it, we struggle with more sin than we should, have smaller faith than we might, blow in the cultural winds more than we would, and shrink back before opposition more than we ought. We do not keep before us of what people we come, and this hinders our endurance traveling home.

Or so thought the author of Hebrews.

To a church that started off so well but now limped dangerously along, he rides his horse up and down the frontline with a foreign war cry to Western ears: “We are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls” (Hebrews 10:39).

Bloodline as Battle Cry

Instead of writing, “You got this!” Hebrews roots them in a family history of those who, by faith, had already done it. The “Hall of Faith” is not a list of demigods who did what we cannot. They are forefathers and foremothers, painfully human and made strong in God, and their stories are recorded to motivate us toward the same perseverance.

Hebrews asks us if we remember how, by faith, Noah prepared the ark, or Abel offered an acceptable sacrifice to God, or Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going — and implies, You, in reliance upon the same God, can do likewise. Or, do you recall Sarah, who believed God’s word and conceived a child, or Moses, who by faith esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt? This is your lineage — these are your people. You, if you are a Christian, are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who live by unseen realities and preserve their souls.

He concludes the brief tour of theirs and our spiritual family history,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

Because these are our family members, because they surround us as we run, let us lay aside weights and sin and run with endurance looking to Jesus. Do you read the Old Testament this way?

Family of Faithful Witnesses

Such an experience should greet us every time we open our Bibles, whether in front or in back. Sixty-six books, Old and New, introduce us to spiritual fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters who stumbled as we do, but who finally conquered by faith as we hope to. We turn page after page and watch how they finished their race, how they kept the faith, how they overcame temptation, repented their failings, trusted, hoped for, and hungered for God in their trials and sufferings. Their lives captured in Scripture to encourage us — their spiritual descendants — to run, without reserve, as the King’s people to the King himself. In other words, we press on today because of both whom we come from and whom lies before us.

Do we think of the redeemed men and women this way? Job, Moses, Abraham, Sarah, David, Elijah, Rehab, Ruth, Jeremiah, Joshua, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego, Gideon, Hezekiah, Josiah — as family. If you serve the Living God, your God is the God of John, Paul, Andrew, Mary, Barnabas, the thief on the cross, Peter, Lazarus, the man born blind, Apollos, Timothy, Thomas, Pricilla and Aquilla, the formerly demon-possessed girl, the Philippian jailer, Cornelius, Philemon, Jude, James, Elizabeth — and on and on — each with different examples of Christ’s power to keep us by resilient faith.

We join this family of audacious ancestors through union to our brother, Jesus. “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7), and, “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). Even if we suffer the loss of earthly ties because of allegiances to Christ, each of us has inherited a hundredfold — mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers along with eternal life in Christ (Matthew 19:29). For so goes the promise to our father Abraham, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them. . . . So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5).

Not of Those Who Shrink Back

Do not miss that this spiritual family is a holy family; like Father, like sons. Our family believes and lives and acts from belief in God and his promises. And this, the author of Hebrews thinks, is vital for us to consider.

So do you struggle with the glittering things of this world? Reintroduce yourself to your great uncle, Moses, who considered the reproaches of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt (Hebrews 11:26).

Does a Potiphar’s wife tempt you to an adulterous affair? Count yourself a descendant of Joseph who, by faith, fled, exclaiming, “How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9).

Do you feel God calling you to the great unknown? Remember Abraham. Do the promises of God feel inconceivable? Remember the story of Sarah. Do you feel pressure from an ungodly family to forsake Christ? Consider Rehab who, by faith, received the Israelite spies (Hebrews 11:31).

Does your confidence waver concerning whether God can overcome this present darkness? Consider afresh that kingdoms bowed, mouths of lions shut, justice reigned, fires quenched, children resurrected, swords broke, that the weak through faith were made strong, the fainting grew valiant, foreign armies fled, and leave instructions with Joseph that your bones` be buried in a land yet unconquered (Hebrews 11:22, 33–35).

And do you fear persecution might one day overwhelm your faith? Don’t forget your family members “of whom the world was not worthy” (Hebrews 11:38). These wandered the world as outcasts, waded through mocking, whippings, imprisonment, and brutal deaths, by faith, awaiting the resurrection of the dead (Hebrews 11:35–38).

Are you growing tired or neglectful or sluggish of hearing? God does not leave you to yourself as a lone twig to figure it out. He gives you a tree of Lebanon to belong to. Relearn your great grandfathers’ and grandmothers’ names. As you look fully to Christ, remember that “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.”

Jesus said, “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14). In the twenty-first century, does his statement seem true to you? Have you found an easier way?

Abraham may have wandered in tents, Paul may have been hunted like a deer, the disciples may have met brutal ends to their earthly careers, and many in the early church may have been slandered, reviled, plundered, fed to lions, burned to light the streets of Rome — “killed all the day long . . . regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36) — but that was then. We have smartphones now. Modernity seems to have done wonders to smooth the way. The narrow path lying between the City of Destruction and the Celestial City seems paved.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) made a similar observation in his day. Though no friend of the Puritans, his short story “The Celestial Railroad” imitates and engages with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. In it, he critiques the pillow-soft spirituality of his day (including Unitarianism and Transcendentalism), firing a critique that could have been written yesterday to describe the rampant easy-believism of today.

Celestial Railroad

Wandering through the gate of dreams, Mr. Hawthorne arrives at the famous City of Destruction. Having read Mr. Bunyan on the place, he is rather taken aback, and pleasantly surprised, to find that hostilities between this city and the Celestial City have all but vanished. Former foes shake hands. A pact built on “mutual compromise” has made allies from enemies. Enmity between the two lands is water under the bridge — or rather, a shining railroad over it.

The Wicket Gate, that narrow and impossibly awkward entryway, as Bunyan’s readers will recall, has been replaced by the railroad station itself. Mr. Smooth-it-away — a distinguished gentleman in the enterprise who guides Mr. Hawthorne on his journey — ensures us all that this large building is much better suited to include the broadminded travelers of modernity. And the effect cannot be overstated, as Mr. Hawthorne relays:

It would have done Bunyan’s heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man, with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot, while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood, setting forth towards the Celestial City, as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely a summer tour. (199)

The Celestial Railroad now transports would-be travelers — comfortably and safely — to the renowned City of Light. Individuals from Christian’s birthplace saw to it that no good-hearted pilgrim would ever again leave the city in derision or vulnerable to unsavory conditions and smiling foes. Nor would any carry that dreadful burden upon his back for miles on end — no, as Hawthorne gladly reports,

One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage, I must not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our shoulders, as had been the custom of old, were all snugly deposited in the baggage-car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered to their respective owners at the journey’s end. (200)

The travelers are sent off with their backpacks snugly tucked away, “to be delivered to their respective owners at the journey’s end.” Genius. But this, dear reader, is but the start to the innovations of the Celestial Railroad. Let me relay but a few more to you.

Old Sites, New Conveniences

Lengthy scrolls and books are not needed as tiresome maps along this journey; only a ticket is required. Such is very reasonable and expedient.

To begin the journey, the dreadful Slough of Despond — that bog full of past sins and lusts and fears and temptations and doubts, in which Christian sank and at which Pliable flustered, only to return home — has a new sparkling bridge erected overhead. While wholesome teaching could not fill Bunyan’s slough, Hawthorne tells us, books of morality, German rationalism, modern sermons, and extracts of Plato, combined with a few innovative commentaries on Scripture, sufficed to lay the sturdy foundations to erect the bridge upon (198).

Traveling farther, one discovers that the Interpreter’s House, while still receiving the occasional pilgrim of the old method, was no stop of the Celestial Railroad. Regretfully, Mr. Smooth-it-away remarks, that grand Interpreter grew rather sour, prudish, and prejudiced in his old age (a similar theme for the likes of Evangelist and Great-heart, the latter even “perpetually at blows” with his new collaborators). He could not keep with the times and got left behind.

Hurried Cross

Yes, dear reader, I can hear your question: What has become of the cross where the burden fell from Christian’s back? Let me cite the firsthand account:

We were rushing by the place where Christian’s burden fell from his shoulders, [the] sight of the Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. Live-for-the-world, Mr. Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and a knot of gentlemen from the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. (203)

“Crosses must be carried in every age, and the costs must be considered.”

Rushing past the cross, the passengers revel in their good fortune at finding a way to travel to the Celestial City without leaving behind their precious habits and secret delights. It would be a shame, after all, to lose such desirable pastimes if they could help it.

Yet there are still more improvements upon the old way to display. A tunnel now conveniently travels through Hill Difficult — the excavated ground then used to fill in the Valley of Humiliation. That dreary and gloomy Valley of the Shadow of Death now glows with gas lamps. And should you, with Mr. Hawthorne, regret missing the chance to visit Palace Beautiful — where live the young and fair Piety, Prudence, and Charity — ease your disappointed mind by overhearing,

“Young ladies!” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for laughing. “And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old maids, every soul of them — prim, starched, dry, and angular — and not one of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown, since the days of Christian’s pilgrimage.” (203–204)

These fair maidens of yesterday, again, resisted the hard-won improvements, cherishing ancient, rough, and inefficient paths.

Vanity Fair

What can be said of Vanity Fair? Hear it from Mr. Hawthorne: this wonder of a place has the power to make anyone feel at home.

The “great capital of human business and pleasure” stands as the epitome of everything “fascinating beneath the sun.” The people, Hawthorne finds, are most interesting and agreeable. Concerning the hostility that once led to the unfortunate execution of Faithful, Christian’s beloved companion, they’ve come to see the misstep. These noble and charming and wise people now enter into great camaraderie and trade with the passengers of the Celestial Railroad; indeed, many of them have taken to the railway themselves.

But of all the wonders of the metropolis, Hawthorne relates one that might outshine them all:

The Christian reader, if he had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan’s time, will be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. (209)

Indeed, few places could boast so much religiosity. Hawthorne continues,

In justification of this high praise, I need only mention the names of the Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep; the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-Truth; that fine old clerical character, the Rev. Mr. This-to-day, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-to-morrow; together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment; the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit; and, last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. (209)

Filled with fine-dressing, stimulating people, and endless pleasures to buy, sell, and enjoy — mind you, in such a fine Christian place — the only curiosity was that people would just disappear. So common was the occurrence, Hawthorne relates, that the citizens learned to continue on as if nothing had happened.

Today’s Celestial Railroad

Now, Nathaniel Hawthorne was no Christian, and he wrote antagonistically about the Puritans in other stories (in part due to an infamous family history). But here, he casts stones — almost in sympathy with Bunyan — against the modern religiosity he viewed as shallow, smooth, and deceptive.

Any reader of the story sees parallels today. They had Mr. Smooth-it-away; so have we. They had trains leaving every day to what is thought the Celestial City; so have we. They had people tucking their sins under the caboose, deploring the hard way, wanting merely a ticket to heaven; so have we.

They hurried past the cross of Christ; so do many who claim to be his followers today. How many sermons, small groups, Christian ministries escape this description?

There was much pleasant conversation about the news of the day, topics of business, politics, or the lighter matters of amusement while religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the background. Even an infidel would have heard little or nothing to shock his sensibility. (200)

“False paths, sliding downward, are smoothest.”

Teachers and preachers, once found in the Interpreter’s house, wooing pilgrims with golden crowns and warning them against smooth paths, now create them. Done with the cautions and commands, they converse among friends. His name is not Pastor; it is Jake — just Jake. He does not tell you what God has said; he is there to listen, just another broken sheep like everyone else. He gives comforting homilies and entertaining stories, but the utterance “Thus says the Lord” is far from his lips.

And I fear that, just as in the end of Hawthorne’s dream before he awakes, so in our world, Mr. Smooth-it-away leaves many on steam ferryboats traveling to Tophet (hell). False paths, sliding downward, are smoothest. The true path is not easy or broad — even for societies without much physical intimidation. Our Christ, who carried his own cross, leaves his church crosses to be carried in every age, and costs to be considered. This earth will pass away, but Jesus’s word shall not: “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14).