“God is untempted by evil,”1 yet “they tempted Yahveh.”2 The solution to the conundrum exists in the recognition of there being two types of temptation: subjective and objective. Hallie wrote,3
...you will see that temptation has two major aspects: let us call them “objective temptation” and “subjective temptation.” Objective temptation is what it is that tempts—the object and the seductive arguments that draw you to turn away from the mitzvah. (Later we shall talk of the subjective temptation, the feeling that one should turn away from the command.)
Footnotes
1 Jam. 1:13
2 Exo. 17:7
3 Hallie, p. 57
Objective temptation consists of the object/person that tempts [someone], as well as the temptation (the act of tempting) by that object/person. Subjective temptation occurs when someone succumbs to, or does not endure, the objective temptation. The reason the person does not endure the objective temptation, that is, the reason he is subjectively tempted, is attributed to “his own lust,”4 which lust is elsewhere said to be caused by indwelling Sin.5
Footnotes
4 Jam. 1:14
5 Rom. 6:12, 7:8, 7:17, 7:20
James 1:12 states, “Blessed is the man who endures temptation...” If the man endured temptation, then he was indeed tempted, for it would be nonsensical to state that a man endured something that he had not experienced. Yet, James says that the man is “blessed.” How can the man be both tempted and blessed? The man was objectively tempted, but he did not succumb to the objective temptation. Because he was not subjectively tempted, he is blessed.
Johann Eduard Huther commented,6
es ist der, der in der Anfechtung, die er zu erdulden hat, nicht erliegt.
He is the [man] who, during the temptation, does not succumb to the [temptations] he has to endure.
Footnotes
6 Huther, p. 61
The Lord Jesus Christ was objectively tempted by Satan.7 However, the Lord Jesus Christ, although “tempted in every way,” was “without sin.”8 He was not subjectively tempted, because he did not yield or succumb to those objective temptations. He endured the objective temptation and was therefore “proven.”9 Likewise, men tempt God, objectively,10 but God does not yield or succumb to any objective temptation. Hence, God is not subjectively tempted; He is “untempted by evil.”11
Footnotes
7 Mark 1:13
8 Heb. 4:15
9 δόκιμος, cf. Jam. 1:12
10 cf. Exo. 17:7
11 ἀπείραστός...κακῶν
On the phrase «ἀπείραστός...κακῶν» in James 1:13, George Benedikt Winer supports the translation “untempted by evil.”12 The Vulgate translated ἀπείραστός by the word intemptator, which translates into English as the active “not a tempter,” rather than the passive “not tempted.” Likewise, Luther13 translated Jam. 1:13 into German as „denn Gott ist nicht eyn versucher zum bosen“, that is, “for, God is not a tempter to evil.”
Footnotes
12 Winer, pp. 242–243, as does Buttmann, §132, p. 170
13 1530 ed. of the Lutherbibel
References
Buttmann, Alexander. A Grammar of the New Testament Greek. Trans. Thayer, Joseph Henry. Andover: Draper, 1873.
Hallie, Philip P. “Satan, Evil, and Good in History.” Reason and Violence: Philosophical Investigations. Ed. Stanage, Sherman Miller. Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1975.
Huther, Johann Eduard. Kritisch exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament, Fünfzehnte Abtheilung, Kritisch exegetisches Handbuch über den Brief des Jacobus. 3rd ed. Vol. 15. Göttingen: Vandenboeck and Ruprecht, 1870.
Winer, George Benedikt. A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek. 3rd ed. Trans. Moulton, William Fiddian. Edinburgh: Clark, 1882.