James would remember the Lord's teaching that it is not God's desire to tempt a person to live in any way displeasing to him, and that temptation should be resisted (Mt 6:13; 26:41). The flow of James's thought now is to assert facts of God's nature and God's will and then to answer questions these facts raise about the dynamics of temptation.

1. God's nature and will. God's nature is that he cannot be tempted by evil. This is a reminder of the holiness of God, whose moral purity is absolute, unassailable, undefiled. He is high and exalted, the Holy One of Israel, whose holiness is so pure that it is described in terms of its wondrous beauty, splendor and utter awesomeness (Ps 27:4; 29:2; 99:3). There is not the smallest trace of evil in God's nature (1 Jn 1:5), and evil cannot have any closeness to God. That is why God's holiness put despair into Isaiah's heart: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty. . . . `Woe to me!' I cried. `I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips . . . and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty' " (Is 6:3-5). This sense of God's awesome purity is so strong in both Old and New Testaments that it would have to be the background for James when he assures us that God will not be tempted by evil.

This particular character of God leads to a particular will of God—nor does he tempt anyone. Not only is he holy; he requires holiness of us. His will for us is always toward holiness, never toward evil. If this is so, it raises the question about human experience that James wants to address. We all experience the temptation to do evil. What then is the origin of temptations, and how do they operate?

2. The dynamics of temptation. First, the origin of the temptation is emphatically the person's own evil desire. James's term is epithymia, a "desire" or "longing" especially with evil meaning. This is a call for us to take responsibility for our own lives and to deal with our sinful motives. Have you ever blamed your parents or other people for what you have become? Have you ever blamed circumstances for what you have done? Of course people and circumstances do affect us. However, one of the most significant ways we resist the work of God for our growth toward becoming "mature and complete" is that we blame factors outside of ourselves for our sin.

I recall a young man I was counseling who was beginning to deal very productively with certain relational problems and an addiction. He said, "I've been angry at my parents for years for my problems, but I see that has been a way for me to be irresponsible about my own behavior." I rejoiced when he said that, for it was a very large and courageous step of faith toward healing. James is doing us a great good by forthrightly confronting this issue—that we are tempted to sin by our own evil desires.

Second, the action of the temptation is to drag away and to entice. This is a hunting and fishing metaphor (dragged away as by a predator; enticed as by a lure). With both terms James is warning his readers concerning who is really in danger in the temptation. When they are tempted, they are thinking about taking some pleasure—such as the pleasure of revenge on their persecutors. But who is really being captured? Who is really in danger? The Christians themselves are the prey!

Third, the effect of the temptation is sin leading to death. Here James adopts a childbearing image. The person's desire does the conceiving (syllambano) and the giving birth (tikto) to sin; then sin's full growth culminates naturally in its own act of producing (apokyeo); what it ultimately produces is death. It is vivid imagery, emphasizing how natural the progression is. This attention-getting imagery is designed to stop sinners in their tracks, seeing that death is the natural and terrible end of a life of sin, not just an occasional result for some sinners. Paul stated the same truth with an image of compensation: "the wages of sin is death" (Rom 6:23). God gave Adam the same assurance about the forbidden fruit: "when you eat of it you will surely die" (Gen 2:17). James is warning Christians to see the danger, and so to abhor sin, and therefore to deny the evil desire from which sin comes.

Seeing this impact, we can conclude that we would be applying the verse in a way not intended by James if we derived a doctrinal statement that Christians can lose their salvation. James's concern is not for such a point of doctrine but for a life of genuine faith. He is not telling genuine Christians that they may lose their salvation; he is warning that genuine salvation comes by repentance and faith. The extremity of the warning simply shows how seriously James takes the lordship of Christ. He expects that true believers will not go on giving themselves to sin. To accept Christ as Savior is to accept him as Savior from sin and so to turn from sin and follow him as Lord. James's intention is that we should take the holiness of God seriously, realize the extremity of danger in a life of sin and turn from sin to follow Christ.

This is why the greatest danger to James's persecuted readers is not the wrong being done to them but the wrong they may do. Now James is ready to explain the basis for the alternative pattern: a trial becomes the good gift of a testing to develop perseverance leading to maturity and completeness.