James 1:14
But each man is tried by assault of evil by his own lust, as he feels the pull of its distraction and the enticement of its bait.
Possible Meanings of the Word ‘Desire‘ in the New Testament
This section is basically a discussion of the meaning of the word desire in the New Testament. Desire is not necessarily evil. James B. Adamson illustrates this point by citing Luke 22:15. He explains that is why the adjective, evil, must be added in Colossians 3:5. He also quotes John Baillie:
Animal desire is not in itself evil, it only becomes evil when, in man, it seeks the aid of spirituality–of freedom and reason and the judgment of value–in order to convert its relativity into an absolute and its finitude into infinity.1
The fifteenth-century poem The Cuckoo and the Nightingale illustrates the neutral use of the English word lust:
Worship, ease, and all hertes lust.2
James’s Use of the Terms ‘desire‘ in 1:14 and “you desire‘ in 4:2
However that is not the meaning James intends by ‘desire‘ or ‘you desire’. From the context he means sin. Adamson tells us that the themes of 1:9-21 are renewed in 4:1-12. The most important need here is to relate 4:5 (and 6) to 1:14.
James 4:5
Or do you suppose it is an idle saying in the scriptures that the spirit that has taken its dwelling in us is prone to envious lust?
James 1:14
But each man is tried by assault of evil by his own lust, as he feels the pull of it detraction and the enticement of its bait.
The words ‘his own‘ (lust) in 1:14 have the opposite meaning of ‘the spirit which God implanted in man’ in 4:5. His own lust implies his own desire, not God’s instigation. A man’s own desire often substitutes some private and individual end for the will of God.’3
On the other hand, it would be extreme to think that desire for a good dinner must be evil. And although ‘desire’ is personified in James 1:15, Adamson says that is only literary.
The Influence Toward Evil
When evil does come, it comes from the appetite of man’s body. It’s part of ‘the world of iniquity’ mentioned in James 3:6. Since the Fall, some evil is inherent.
There is No Reference to Satan as the Tempter
There is no reference to Satan as the Tempter in James 1:14. Adamson contrasts 1 Enoch 49:4.; The Clementine Homilies 3:55. For James to refer to Satan would have been substituting one excuse for another.
James Uses A Fishing Metaphor
James’s metaphors of the ‘pull of its distraction and the enticement of its bait’ are probably based on his fishing experience in Galilee…but he was assuredly not the first to use a fishing metaphor. The rabbis wrote: ‘As man throws out a net whereby he catches the fish of the sea, so the sins of man become the means of entangling and catching the sinner.’
The word ‘hooked‘ is also a description of a drug addict. “Each man experiences assault of evil by his own lust, as he feels himself being pulled astray by it and enticed by it as by a bait.” (Adamson p. 71)
The next paragraph, pages 71-72, analyzes the choice of participles in the translation from the Greek words. It’s quite detailed, and will not be helpful to most readers, so I haven’t included it. However, the last paragraph deals with the theological implications of James 1:14.
The Theological Implications
Adamson argues that there is enough of a basis for the theological implications of James 1:14 in the Old Testament and in Judaism that it is not necessary to ‘resort to Qumran’.
We think James’s view of the flesh as inherently but not entirely evil agrees with that of Paul: “it is better to marry than to burn” (1 Corinthians 7:9); “tempts” here introduces a sentence about lust which the mind in the case to be contemplated happens to have a duty to disobey..
If I’m not mistaken, Adamson’s closing remark refers only to this last paragraph of the commentary. He says, “Only the apparent attempts by some theologians to dissociate lust and the body from Satan made some of our remarks necessary.”
- Invitation to Pilgrimage (1944), p. 56. Cf. Menninger, op. cit., pp. 138ff (as cited by Adamson). ↩︎
- Similarly in the papyri; see MM. p. 239 (I think he’s referring to the previous note 86, the Greek word for lust). ↩︎
- F. J. A. Hort, The Epistle of St. James, i. 1-iv. 7 (1909) p. 24. ↩︎