God Does Not Lead Us Into Temptation
"But... but... but... doesn't the Lord's Prayer state - 'And do not lead us into temptation'?" - many people might ask.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
A few years ago, Pope Francis remarked that the Italian and English versions of the Lord's Prayer weren't quite accurate: the article God does not lead us into temptation, Satan does explains: "This is not a good translation," per the pope.
The article continues: "The standard versions of the prayer are translated from the Latin, which was translated from the New Testament in Greek. While he said nothing about ordering a new translation, Francis noted how the French bishops had decided that beginning Dec. 3, the first Sunday of Advent, French Catholics would change the line to the equivalent of 'do not let us enter into temptation.'"
This has been on my mind ever since I heard what the pope said. It is actually rather important: he admits that the original Greek text is more correct than the Latin and many other modern translations. Is this an admission that earlier papal imprimaturs on Roman Catholic Bibles were not infallible? Does it mean that our Bibles are not inerrant? What does the Greek text say?
"And do not lead us into temptation..." in most English translations uses the imperative mood of the verb. But the verb is actually in the subjunctive mood: "May we not be led into temptation" or we could put in in the more everyday, normal declarative mood: "You do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil" that makes more sense and is consistent with the meaning of many other passages of Scripture:
For example, in James 1:13-14 we read - "Let no man say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted by God,' for God can't be tempted by evil, and He Himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed." God tempts no one. The true God is not the "Yin-Yang" of eastern religions, a combination of good and evil - that's pagan fatalism; rather, He is all-good, all-holy, and all-merciful.
And 1 Corinthians 10:13 states - "No temptation has taken you but such as man can bear. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." Instead of God initiating temptation, He provides a way for us to escape temptation. Sin is not inevitable for the Christian.
This brings up an important point: we must never say - "The devil made me do it!" - or - "I can't help it, that's just the way I was made!" This is shifting the blame to the devil, or worse yet, shifting the blame to God who created us. God created mankind and said - "This is very good!" - Genesis 1:31. He didn't create us badly or to do bad, He created us as very good beings.
God also created us with rationality to understand the likely consequences of our actions, and with moral freedom to choose between good and bad actions. We can choose to love and obey Him so that we will live forever, or we can choose to follow our own passions and suffer the consequences of bad actions: spiritual and finally physical death. St. John wrote -
"Don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn't the Father's, but is the world's. The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God's will remains forever" (1 John 2:15-17). Our own Passions, Possessions, and Pride are what lead us into temptation and sin: these were the three temptations of Christ and the three areas in which the devil tempts us also. We must take responsibility and resist the devil as Christ did.
All of this relates to another incorrect translation: in the Latin Vulgate Bible, Romans 5:12 stated - "Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, for in him [masculine, referring to Adam] all sinned." The correct translation is - "...death passed to all men, in that [neuter] all sinned." But by accepting Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation of this verse unquestioningly, Augustine developed his doctrines of mankind's total depravity and God's absolute sovereignty in electing just a small number of people for salvation, damning the rest to the eternal fires of hell: we hapless humans have no choice, no moral freedom to love and obey God, we're all totally depraved, it all depends on God's predestining who is among the elect. Wrong! The correct meaning of Romans 5:12 is that death passed to all men in that all of us have sinned: see Romans 3:23 - "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We are responsible for our own decisions and actions.
To believe in God's absolute sovereignty and our total depravity would make God responsible for evil, for our own bad decisions and actions. But it strips us of our freedom to make moral choices. We can't change the cards we're dealt in life, but we can change how we play those cards. God is not a monster who arbitrarily, willy-nilly, decides to save just a few and damn all the rest. The idea of such a terrible god drives people to unbelief and atheism. We can really and truly say - "You do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Our freedom rests upon our moral responsibility for our actions. Thank the Lord for creating us this way!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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