James

A Running Commentary on the Book of James

1:13

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.

God cannot be tempted in an internal sense by an indwelling sinfulness (which is what James is getting at in the next verse: “but each one is tempted . . . by his own lust”), but God can be tempted in an external sense as we see with Jesus in the wilderness by the devil (Matthew 4:1–11; Mark 1:12,13; Luke 4:1–13). So God cannot be tempted, truly tempted, in the deepest sense of the word in that there is potential to sin. Think of it this way: When Jesus was walking among us on this earth, there was nothing stopping someone from planting a naked lady in front of Him in the same way that a naked lady could be planted in front of the average Joe—both are presented with what we would call “temptation”—but only one of them has that internal pull which entices their eyes.