# James 1.13 **Book:** [James](/codex/james-the-brother-of-jesus/) · NASB95 ## Verse > 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. (James 1:13, NASB95) ## Immediate context (±2 verses) **NASB95** ([NASB95](/codex/nasb95/)) > 11. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. > > 12. Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. > > **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.** > > 14. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. > > 15. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. (James 1:11-15, NASB95) The verse is the doctrinal hinge of a passage on perseverance-under-trial (vv. 2-12) followed by an analysis of temptation's actual source in human desire (vv. 14-15). James pivots from *external trials* (which God permits and uses; vv. 2-4 *"the testing of your faith produces endurance"*) to *internal temptation* (which God neither produces nor sources; vv. 13-15). ## Setting - **Speaker:** James (Jacob), brother of Jesus, leader of the Jerusalem church (Acts 15). - **Audience:** *"the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad"* (Jas 1:1), Jewish Christian communities in the early-church diaspora. - **Location:** Written from Jerusalem (traditional). - **Time period:** c. AD 45-50, possibly the earliest NT epistle, predating most of Paul's letters. Pre-Council-of-Jerusalem (AD 49) by some readings. ## Theological reading The verse is one of the New Testament's clearest single-statement defenses of **God's impassibility-from-evil** and **the human-source of moral temptation**, load-bearing for theodicy and the problem-of-evil apologetic. ### 1. *"God cannot be tempted by evil"*, the *apeirastos* claim The Greek *apeirastos kakōn* (ἀπείραστος κακῶν), *apeirastos* (G0551) is a NT hapax legomenon (used only here) meaning "untemptable, incapable of being tempted." The claim is about God's nature: evil cannot exert pull or attraction on God; God is not vulnerable to moral seduction. This is **divine impassibility-from-evil**, not impassibility in the broader sense (debated in classical theism), but the specific claim that evil-as-evil has no purchase on God's will. God's holiness is not a forced restraint operating against contrary desires; it is the unimpeded expression of His nature. There is nothing in God that could be moved toward evil; evil has no motive force on Him. This forecloses several theological alternatives: - **Process theology** that posits a developing-God who could grow toward or away from evil - **Mormon "god learning by experience"** Christology where the divine nature is acquired - **Open theism's** weakest forms that leave God as tempted-but-resistant rather than untemptable - **Manichean / Zoroastrian dualisms** where good and evil are co-eternal forces and the good-deity opposes evil under some kind of cosmic strain The Christian God is not "good in spite of evil's pull"; He is good in such a way that evil has no pull on Him. This is the load-bearing claim against the "if God is omnipotent and good, why is there evil" objection, God is not the author of moral evil because His nature precludes it. ### 2. *"He Himself does not tempt anyone"*, the source-of-temptation question The corollary: God is not the source of moral temptation in human persons. James locates the actual source in v. 14: *"each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust"* (*hypo tēs idias epithymias*, "by his own desire"). Temptation has TWO ANE-recognized sources in biblical theology: - **Internal**: human disordered desire (*epithymia*, G1939), the post-Fall human heart's persistent disorder (cf. Romans 7's analysis) - **External**: Satan and demonic powers (cf. Matt 4:1-11 Christ's wilderness temptation; 1 Pet 5:8; Eph 6:12) God is the source of *neither*. James 1:13 forecloses the "God put this temptation in my heart" deflection that humans have used since Genesis 3 (Adam: *"the woman whom YOU gave me..."*; Eve: *"the serpent deceived me..."*). The buck stops with the tempted person and the actual tempters (own desire + adversary), not with God. ### Distinction: testing vs tempting A subtlety: the same Greek root *peirazō* (G3985) covers both *testing* (probative, to refine, prove genuine) and *tempting* (seductive, to draw into evil). The English distinction is finer than the Greek; context determines meaning. - **God DOES test**: Genesis 22:1 (*"God tested Abraham"*, *nāsāh*); Deut 8:2; Heb 11:17. Testing produces endurance (Jas 1:2-4) and proves character. - **God does NOT tempt**: James 1:13's *peirazei oudena*, God does not entice anyone into moral evil. The Augustinian and Reformed traditions formalize this: God's testing is *probative-toward-good* (intended to refine and prove); the devil's tempting is *seductive-toward-evil* (intended to corrupt). Same Greek verb, opposite intent. James is distinguishing the two: God may TEST but does not TEMPT. ### Apologetic deployment, the problem-of-evil James 1:13 is one of the load-bearing verses for the **divine-source-of-evil objection**: > *"If God is omnipotent, then He could prevent evil. If He is good, He would prevent evil. Evil exists. Therefore God is either not omnipotent or not good."* The Christian response works through several moves; James 1:13 anchors one critical step: **God is not the author of moral evil**. Whatever the explanation for evil (free-will defense, soul-making theodicy, mystery-of-iniquity, Felix-Culpa), the explanation does NOT involve attributing moral evil to God's will or nature. Moral evil arises from creaturely will (human + demonic) operating in deviation from God's will, not from God's will itself. This connects to: - [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/), the OT companion text where critics allege God claims to create *raʿ* ("evil"); resolved via the calamity-vs-moral-evil distinction (Hebrew *raʿ* covers both, English does not) - [Hardening Pharaohs Heart](/codex/hardening-pharaohs-heart/), the divine-hardening question; resolved via secondary/permissive vs primary/efficient causation framework - [Problem of Evil](/codex/problem-of-evil/), the synthesis ### Patristic and Reformation reception - **James, by virtue of writing this** at AD 45-50, supplies the earliest sub-apostolic articulation of God's untemptable nature. - **Augustine** (*De Libero Arbitrio* 1; *Confessions* 7; *De Civitate Dei* 12.6-9), the locus classicus of free-will-defense theodicy, with James 1:13 as scriptural anchor for "God is not the author of evil." Augustine: *"the cause of an evil will is not an efficient but a deficient cause; it is not a making, but a falling-away from being"* (*De Civ. Dei* 12.7), moral evil is privation, not positive divine creation. - **Aquinas** (*Summa Theologiae* II-II, q. 97 "On Tempting God"; I, q. 49 "On the Cause of Evil"), develops the distinction between testing-permission and tempting-causation. *ST* I, q. 49, a. 2: *"God is in no way the cause of moral evil; He is the cause of physical evil only insofar as physical evil is ordered to a greater good or to the punishment of moral evil."* - **Calvin** (*Institutes* 1.18 "How God So Uses the Works of the Ungodly... Yet Is Free of All Stain"; 3.23 on predestination + evil), wrestling with how divine sovereignty over all events is compatible with God's not-being-author-of-evil; James 1:13 is one of his anchor texts. Calvin's solution: God *permits and superintends* without *authoring*; the secondary causes (human will, satanic agency) are real and morally responsible, while the primary cause (God) is not the moral originator of the evil acts He permits. - **Wesley** (*Sermon 60: "On Predestination"*), heavily Arminian use of James 1:13 against high-Calvinist readings that he believed made God the author of sin ## Key words (Greek) - *cannot be tempted*, *ἀπείραστος* / *apeirastos* (G0551): NT hapax legomenon (only at Jas 1:13). *a-* (alpha-privative) + *peirastos* (verbal adjective from *peirazō*). "Untemptable, incapable of being tempted." The construction is decisive, not "tempted-but-resistant" but "incapable of temptation." - *to tempt / to test*, *πειράζω* / *peirazō* (G3985): wide semantic range covering both probative testing and seductive tempting. Context-dependent. James distinguishes: God tests (Gen 22), God does not tempt (Jas 1:13). - *evil*, *κακός* / *kakos* (G2556, adjective; here in genitive plural *kakōn*): moral evil specifically. Not *poneros* (active wickedness) or *adikia* (injustice) but the broader *kakos* "bad, evil", God cannot be tempted by evil-of-any-kind. - *desire / lust*, *ἐπιθυμία* / *epithymia* (G1939): in v. 14, the source of internal temptation. Strong-connotation desire, often disordered. The same word at Romans 7:7-8 in Paul's analysis of indwelling sin. ## Cross-references - [Genesis 3](/codex/genesis-3/), the Fall; the entry of moral evil into creation through creaturely (not divine) will - Matthew 4.1-11, Christ's wilderness temptation; the Christological pattern of resistance-without-yielding (since Christ shares the divine nature, *apeirastos* applies to Him too, though as incarnate He experienced trial) - [Hebrews 4.15](/codex/hebrews-4-15/), *"tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin"*, the Christological version of divine impassibility-from-evil - Romans 7.7-8, Pauline analysis of *epithymia* / disordered desire as the actual locus of temptation - [1 Corinthians 10.13](/codex/1-corinthians-10-13/), *"no temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able"*, companion temptation-theology - [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/), the OT companion text raising the divine-source-of-evil question - [1 Peter 5.8](/codex/1-peter-5-8/), Satan as adversary-tempter; the external source of temptation James 1:14 implicitly distinguishes from internal *epithymia* ## See also - [Problem of Evil](/codex/problem-of-evil/), the synthesis the verse anchors - [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/), companion divine-source-of-evil text - [Hardening Pharaohs Heart](/codex/hardening-pharaohs-heart/), companion divine-causation-vs-permission text - [Free Will Defense](/codex/free-will-defense/), Plantinga's theodicy this verse supplies a piece of - [Bible Verses](/codex/bible-verses/), master scripture index ## Quoted in **Arguments and defeaters:** - [Evil as Privation of Good](/codex/evil-as-privation-of-good/) - [God Causes Cancer Objection Defeater](/codex/god-causes-cancer-objection-defeater/) - [Problem of Evil, Free Will Defense](/codex/problem-of-evil-free-will-defense/) **Concepts:** - [Divine Sovereignty](/codex/divine-sovereignty/) - [Isaiah 45.7 I Create Evil](/codex/isaiah-45-7-i-create-evil/) - [Lord's Prayer](/codex/lords-prayer/) --- _Scripture quotations taken from the **New American Standard Bible®** (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by **The Lockman Foundation**. Used by permission. All rights reserved. [www.lockman.org](https://www.lockman.org)_