“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.” We must never forget that
Jesus warned us against rushing into temptation, not merely in the
Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:13; Luke 11:4) but also in the agony of
Gethsemane, when Satan had come upon him with renewed energy in spite of
repeated defeats by Jesus since the wilderness temptations (Matt. 26:41;
Luke 22:40). Jesus urged the disciples to pray to be spared temptation.
No one knew so well as he the power of the evil one. He had wrestled
with him to the end and had conquered where others failed. Temptation is
not to be courted, not even for the sake of the experience and the
possible victory. Too many go down in the struggle for any to rush into
it lightly. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
But if temptation is thrust upon one, then he must fight and win as
Jesus did. There is always a way of escape (1 Cor. 10:13). We must find
the way out. Compare Job 5:17: “Behold, happy is the man whom the Lord
correcteth.” He only is happy (the same word used in the Beatitudes in
Matt. 5:3-11) who endures. That is true patience. It is only “when he
hath been approved” after standing the test that “he shall receive the
crown of life,” the victor’s crown. The word for approved suggests the
furnace that removes the dross and leaves the pure metal. The refiner of
silver watches, we are told, till he sees his own image in the metal.
Then it is pure. The metal is tested and approved.
“The crown of life” (cf. Rev. 2:10) is probably the wreath of victory in
the games (cf. 1 Cor. 9:25; 2 Tim. 2:5), for Greek games were common in
Palestine in the days of Herod the Great and were practiced even in
Jerusalem itself (Josephus, _Ant._ 15, 8, 1 f.). It is a crown of kingly
glory, but it is bestowed as reward of merit to those who love the Lord
Jesus. We may have a reference to a Logion of Jesus not preserved in
which he makes this promise: “Blessed is he who hath his raiment white,
for he it is who receiveth the crown of joy upon his head.”[55] In
Proverbs 1:9 we read that the instruction of father and mother “shall be
a chaplet of grace unto thy head.” In Sirach 15:6 we read of “a crown of
gladness,” and in the _Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs_ (Levi iv. 1)
we find “crowns of glory.” Love is the way to win this crown—love and
the proof of it in enduring temptation and leading “the white life.”