I. Expresses our recognition of God as ordering all circumstances.

There is the general faith that His Providence orders our lot, and the

specific that God orders and brings about temptations.

To tempt is to present inducements to sin, but a secondary significance

is to do so maliciously, and with desire that we should fall. It is in

this secondary sense that James denies that God tempts any man. We tempt

ourselves, or evil tempts us. But God does tempt in so far as He

presents outward circumstances which become occasions of falling or of

standing, as we take them. He sends temptations, He sends trials, and

the two only differ in name, and in what is implied in the word, of the

disposition of the sender. Christ was led into the wilderness by the

Spirit to be tempted. If God does not in malice tempt, still He does in

mercy try. God sends trials; we make them temptations.

Expositions of Holy Scripture Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St. Matthew Chapters I to VIII · 第 229 / 281 题