when it is fully grown brings forth death.” James’ point is not that sin only leads to death when “full grown” or that temptation only leads to sin when it “conceives.” Sin always leads to death.68 And sin, or self-tempting, starts in an individual’s heart not in God’s heart.69 Blomberg argues, “While v. 15 is made up of two parallel independent clauses, they further the thought of v. 14, together describing the end result of temptation when left unchecked. A sequence of actions emerges as lust ‘begets’ sin and sin produces
65 Moo, The Letter of James, 74.
66 Craig L. Blomberg and Mariam J. Kamell, James, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 67.
67 Ralph P. Martin, James, Word Biblical Commentary 48 (Waco, TX: Word Books Publisher, 1988), 36-37. Also see Martin Dibelius, A Commentary on James, ed. Helmut Koester, trans. Michael A.
Williams (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 92-93.
68 Martin, James, 36-37.
69 Dan McCartney, James, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 106.
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death.”70 James argued that individuals, not God, are responsible for sinful lust, thoughts and actions that end in death.71 James 4:1-2 is similar: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” The word “desire” (ἐπιθυμεῖτε) in James 4:2 is similar to the word “desire” (ἐπιθυμίας) in James 1:14.72 Moo notes,
We do not know what the disputes that James refers to were about. The fact that James does not comment directly on the issues involved suggests that his concern was more with the selfish spirit that bitterness of the quarrels than with the rights and wrongs of the various viewpoints.
The source of these quarrels, James now goes on to note, is your desires that battle within you. Desires translates the Greek word hēdonē, which means simply
“pleasure,” but often with the connotation of a sinful, self-indulgent pleasure (we get our word “hedonism” from it). It consistently has this negative meaning in the NT (Luke 8:14; Tit. 3:3; 2 Pet. 2:13).73
Moo correctly argues that James was not concerned with who was right or wrong in James 4:1-2 but was rather concerned with their selfish desires that lead to their violence towards one another. He rebuked their self-indulgent desire for pleasure that battled within them. There was a “war” raging within his hearers, and their sinful desires were their own enemies and the enemies of the rest of the church as well.
Returning to James 1:15, to argue that James implied that sinful desire is not sin, one must also argue that James implied that sin only leads to death when it is “full
70 Blomberg and Kamell, James, 67-68.
71 Moo, The Letter of James, 75. Moo writes, “The most we can say is that James, like other Jewish and Christian authors, wants to place the responsibility for temptation and sin squarely on the shoulders of each human being.”
72 Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 691.
73 Moo, The Letter of James, 181.
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grown” (ἀποτελεσθεῖσα).74 John Mayer, an Anglican priest and biblical exegete in the 1600s,75 argued,
Having spoken hitherto of external temptations, now he speaks of internal, that is, evil thoughts suggested to the mind, whereby a person is enticed and drawn to evil.
These come not from God, but from our spiritual enemies. God indeed is said to tempt Abraham, and likewise to tempt the people of Israel (Gen 22; Deut 12), but it is to be understood that there is a twofold temptation, the one of trial, the other of deceit. By the first God tempts, so that humans may be more purified, as the gold being tried in the fire; but not by the other. The devil tempts thus, so that he may deceive us, the flesh that it may allure us, and the world that it may draw us away. . . . The degrees of temptation are noted: first, there is delight alluring; second, consent conceiving; third, work performing; fourth, custom perfecting. Lust conceives by the devil, who is (as it were) the father, and lust the mother; this conception is by the consent of the will, or by delight. “Brings forth sin,” that is, Psalm 7. It is perfected by custom, and then death comes; that is, it becomes guilty of eternal damnation,
“for the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6). But why is death assigned only to custom?
Does not sin delighted in, or consented to, and acted, bring forth death also?
Answer. Yes, doubtless, but it is most properly said thus of custom in sin, because in such there appear no signs of life, and there is little hope of his return, but in such as sometime fall into sin there are signs of life, through more in the consenter, fewer in the actor of sin.76
Mayer contended that God “tempts. By “tempts,” he did not mean that God did
something evil, as his above quote shows. Rather, he simply acknowledged that the same Greek word in James 1, peirazó (πειράζω),77 is translated in our English translations as either “tests,” “trials,” or “temptations,” depending on the context. Mayer argued that God “tempts” to purify through trials, but the Devil tempts to deceive and destroy.
Also, Mayer pointed out four degrees of temptation in James 1:14-15: (1)
“delight alluring”; (2) “consent conceiving”; (3) “work performing”; and (4) “custom perfecting.” To Mayer, “lures and entices,” “conceives,” “grows” and “dies” all describe
74 Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 686.
75 Esther Chung-Kim and Todd R. Hains, eds., Acts, Reformation Commentary on Scripture, New Testament 6 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 397.
76 John Mayer, A commentarie vopn the New Testament, 3:9-10, quoted in Hebrews, James, Reformation Commentary on Scripture, New Testament 13 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017), 213-14.
77 Aland et. al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece, 686-87.
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four degrees of inner temptation. And not only that, Mayer also asked and answered,
“Does not sin delighted in, or consented to, and acted, bring forth death also? Answer.
Yes, doubtless.” Thus, he likewise said that all degrees of inner temptation are sin as well. Inner temptation, whatever degree, is morally culpable sin.
Furthermore, as Mayer argued, James’ point was that temptation always leads to death if it is not repented from. If one does not repent of sinful desire, he or she is running towards death, for that is where sin always leads; sinful desire (lust) conceives sin, and sin grows into death.78 The picture is that of three persons, for temptation “lures and entices,” it “conceives,” “grows and dies.”79 D. Edmond Hiebert, late Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary in Fresno,
California, noted that there is a story of three generations here—“the grandmother is lust, the mother is sin, and the daughter is death.”80 Sin cannot grow into life and temptation cannot conceive anything but sin and death. Inner temptation conceives what it is morally, namely sin and death. The moral makeup of each of these three—inner
temptation, sin, and death—is the same because none of them come from God, only from sinful man. Richard Turnbull, a post-Reformation Anglican Priest and exegete in the late 1500s,81 noted,
When the apostle here says, “Lust when it has conceived brings forth sin,” our adversaries the papists take an occasion to broach this their opinion concerning concupiscence, that it is not sin. This is their argument. Lust brings forth sin, therefore lust is not sin. One thing cannot be both cause and effect, the effect itself, and the cause of itself. Lust therefore cannot be sin, if it brings forth sin, for then it would be the cause of itself, and bring forth itself, which is most improper speech.
78 Martin, James, 37.
79 Dibelius, A Commentary on James, 92-93.
80 D. Edmond Hiebert, The Epistle of James: Tests of a Living Faith (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), 108-9.
81 Anthony A. Wood, Athenae Oxonienses: An Exact History of all the Writers and Bishops who have had their Education in the University of Oxford, 3rd ed., vol. 1, ed. Philip Bliss (London: St.
John’s College, Oxford, 1813), 752.