The Baptist Catechism

    A Commentary on the Shorter Catechism (1883), Alexander Whyte

    Question 106

    Lead us not into temptation—The familiar word temptation is used in two very different senses in Holy Scripture. For example, in the twenty-second chapter of the Book of Genesis we read that “God did tempt Abraham;” and again, in the Epistle of James we find it written, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” In both these passages the word temptation is employed in what may be called its good sense. Temptation in this sense has for its end and object the testing and manifestation of spiritual strength and moral integrity, that but for the temptation would neither be exercised nor exhibited. The furnace tests or tempts the true gold. The storm tests or tempts the rooted tree. And “divers temptations” test and strengthen the faithful and patient soul, making it perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

    But the evil sense of temptation is the more familiar sense in the word of God. And this is the sense of the word in the text. Dr. John Owen, in his treatise Of Temptation, thus defines temptation in its evil sense: “Temptation is any thing, state, way, or condition that, upon any account whatever, hath a force or efficacy to seduce or draw the mind and heart of a man from its obedience, which God requires of him, into any sin, in any degree of it whatever.”

    A temptation, then, may be good or evil, may be for salvation or destruction, according to circumstances, according to the intention with which it is sent, and according to the spirit in which it is met. A temptation may lead the unwary soul into the chambers of death, or it may put a man in the way of gaining for himself the crown of eternal life. A tempted man may come out of his temptations a stronger, holier, happier man; in Job’s words, when he is tried he may come forth like gold; or, on the other hand, he may “crumble to dust beneath the tempter’s dart;” he may come forth of the refiner’s fire like reprobate silver. And it is just because weak and corrupt men come, for the most part, so ill out of their temptations, that they are taught to make it their daily prayer, “lead us not into temptation.”

    but deliver us from evil—“The last words are, as it were, exegetical.” There are two exegetical questions that have been debated from the beginning about this clause in the Lord’s Prayer. Is this clause to be taken as a separate and additional petition? Is this a seventh and different petition? or is it only another way of repeating the sixth,—an antithetical way of repeating what has already been said, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”? That is the first question raised about this clause, and the second is this: Ought the original to be translated from evil, or from the Evil One? This question has of late been brought into great prominence by the publication of the Revised Version, and among the learned productions that the late revision of the New Testament has called forth, this proposed reading has been fully dealt with.

    keep us from being tempted to sin, or support and deliver us when we are tempted—Every temptation has its times, and runs its course. There is a season, short or long, when the transgression is still a temptation. There is a time when, if it is not exactly easy to resist the temptation, it is at least possible to do so. For as Thomas à Kempis, a great master in the things of the soul, says, “There first cometh to the mind a bare thought of evil, then a strong imagination thereof, afterwards delight and an evil motion, and then consent.” He, then, who offers this prayer must keep a sleepless watch over his thoughts. He must beware of those times, and places, and states of mind in which evil thoughts intrude themselves. And he will soon learn by experience that a vacant mind and an idle life is a very door of temptation. A busy life, by God’s blessing, is a safe life. Curiosity concerning evil and forbidden things is a cause of many temptations assailing the soul. It is impossible to quench such sinful curiosity in a human heart; and unhappily, once learned, the knowledge of sin is a knowledge that is never forgotten. Times of reaction also, times of isolation and mental depression, are often times when it is most difficult to keep temptation out of the heart. Loneliness, also, supplies a vantage ground to temptation.

    Now it is just at such times as these that our Lord encourages us to look up and offer the prayer, Lead us not into temptation, or, Support and deliver us when we are tempted. And this God sometimes does by means of providential interpositions, of which every gracious heart has many records. Sometimes, again, He suddenly chills the heart against the offered evil, or draws the soul into the secret of His pavilion till the storm of temptation is wholly overpast.

    Uses

    1. “Temptations, when we meet them first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them” (Bunyan’s Preface to Grace Abounding).

    2. “Why comes temptation, but for man to meet
      And master and make crouch beneath his feet,
      And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray
      Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!
      Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold,
      Lead such temptations by the head and hair,
      Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,
      That so he may do battle and have praise!”—Browning.

    3. “What is meant by evil? Some understand it of the devil, but the best meaning is sin, which is the worst of evils, and makes the devil evil, and is the worst of evils the devil can bring upon us, and is usually so understood in Scripture” (Flavel).
    4. “When you have conceived sin, hath God weakened your power for sin, or denied you opportunity, or taken away the object of your lusts, or diverted your thoughts by new providences? Know assuredly that you have received grace thereby. . . . Had not God thus dealt with you, it may be this day you had been a terror to yourselves, a shame to your relations, and under the punishment due to notorious sins” (Owen).

    Questions

    1. Reconcile Gen. xxii. 1 and Num. xiv. 22 with Jas. i. 13.
    2. Give two passages in the New Testament where the title of The Tempter is given to Satan.
    3. Exhibit from the cases of our Lord and two of His disciples the three possible issues of temptation, victorious obedience, repentance, and remorse.
    4. Support from Scripture and explain the saying: Christ was tempted that He might be made like unto us, and we are tempted that we may be made like unto Him.