Temptation is a crisis in human experience. A complex of factors, such as one's state of mind, emotions, and natural instincts, other people with their influence, and various other conditions in the person's environment, all converge to demand a decision in his life. The results that follow operate to change the person's life, alter his relations with other people, realign his life with respect to external things and conditions, and above all, affect his relation with God.
What is the source of temptation, which has such an impact upon one's life? Is it sent by God to test the individual's personal strength and loyalty to Him? The verse preceding our text (Jas. 1:13) denies this explanation most emphatically and even forbids a person to entertain such a suggestion. We are shown throughout the Bible that God's intention and effort is always to enable us to avoid temptation when possible and defeat it when avoidance is impossible. If temptation is not God's work, then is it an activity of Satan to snatch souls out of the hand of God to make them his own servants? When a person yields to temptation and commits sin, it is a fact that he becomes a servant of sin, which is tantamount to being a servant of Satan, (Rom. 6:16). Although there can be no doubt that it is Satan's desire for people to sin, serve him, and seal their fate in his own destiny, our text does not credit the devil with being the real source of our temptation. If it is neither God nor Satan who bring temptation upon us, then what is the source? The only thing left is man himself, or more specifically human desire. To live is to desire something, and Jas. 1:14 posits desire as being the fertile ground in which the seeds of temptation can be planted and take root, grow lushly to maturity, and then flower forth as sin in full and deadly bloom.
Temptation therefore begins with a person's will to possess something, do something, or experience something that presently is not within his grasp. The object of the desire does not have to be something evil per se; in fact, it is very often something good, proper, and constructive. However, the object of much human desire is indeed evil and forbidden from its beginning. It must be admitted that desire is unavoidable, for it is inseparably a part of the human constitution. But it can be controlled by nurturing desires that have good objects and extinguishing those with forbidden objects by substituting better things in their place. Desire as such is neither evil nor forbidden unless it is directed toward something evil, as, e.g., hurting someone, (Mt. 5:22), committing adultery, (Mt. 5:28), defrauding someone, (Mt. 15:3-8), or taking vengeance into one's own hands, (Rom. 12:17-21).
Temptation springs forth in the presence of desire to offer a way to fulfill it. And by its very nature, the way it offers is contrary to the way God would have us follow. For every legitimate human desire there is a way to satsify it with God's approval. This is "the way of escape" which I Cor. 10:13 assures us that "God is faithful" to provide. This is where the decision must be made in the temptation crisis. Within the heart is a desire with a goal which (we shall say) is legitimate. On the one hand, God offers a means of fulfillment that is good and constructive. On the other hand, Satan "entices" the person, i.e., he strongly encourages him to achieve the desire in a way that offends God, usually via the carnal senses without regard for the spiritual. Yielding to Satan is sin, but having the wisdom to turn into the course marked out by God is an act of righteousness. The best place to defeat sin, therefore, is at the point of desire before temptation begins. Diminshing and then extinguishing forbidden desires remove one huge area of temptation and the sin that follows. And being prepared to look for and grasp God's "way of escape" completes the victory, leaving the devil with his bag of enticements standing empty-handed in failure.
