James opens his epistle with a baffling statement: “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing” (1:2-4). Of course every Christian yearns to be made perfect and entire—to be holy like our Lord is holy. But, speaking for myself, I struggle to consider temptation a joy. It feels more like a vexation, an annoying reminder that my sanctification is still underway. With respect to sin and temptation, the scripture presents us with two truths which seem to stand in tension.

The first is that the Christian will experience temptation even after conversion. 1 Cor 10:13 says that God will not let us be tempted above what we are able to resist. But this means that he will let us be tempted. 1 Pet 1:6 says that, in certain seasons of life, Christians will be “in heaviness through manifold temptations.” 2 Pet 2:9 says that the Lord “knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations,” which means that the godly will be tempted. And James 1:13-14 tells us that these temptations come from the sinful lusts of our own heart: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.”

The second is that our sinful nature has been put to death by the conversion Christ has done in us. Gal 5:24 tells us that “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” And Rom 6 says that Christians are “dead to sin” (v. 2), that we are “buried with Christ by baptism into death” (v. 4), and that “our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin” (v. 6-7).

But how is it possible to feel temptation when we are dead to sin? Dead men aren’t tempted by much: I can set a stack of cash, a tray of delicious food, and a beautiful woman in front of a corpse—and John Doe won’t feel a thing. So doesn’t the fact that we feel temptation prove that we are not really dead to sin after all? To make matters worse—I speak for myself, but perhaps others will relate—when I feel tempted, I often feel condemnation along with that temptation. Even if I do not succumb to the temptation, and therefore have not sinned, I still hear the nagging voice of a sanctimonious narrator: “A true Christian wouldn’t even feel tempted to do that. You call yourself a Christian; why would that even cross your mind?”

Just feeling tempted grieves my heart; and the condemnation only makes it worse. I want to offer some thoughts which might encourage those who feel the same way.

Firstly, on a certain level, feelings aren’t real. “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” as the saying goes. When we feel the self-accusation and condemnation which can accompany temptation—when we think to ourselves, “Maybe I’m not so saved after all”—we need to remember that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2, Heb 6:18). Therefore, what God says about us is true. No matter how much like our old selves we occasionally feel, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17). No matter how alive our old man feels, “our old man was crucified” (Rom 6:6).

If we are saved, we have been co-crucified with Christ, have been buried with him in baptism, and through his Spirit have been raised to walk in newness of life (Rom 6:3-4). The believer should remember his baptism as the funeral that it was: God really did put our old self to death, and that person is dead and buried. Our crucified deadness is something that God tells us to “know” (Rom 6:6) and “reckon / consider true” (6:11).

Secondly, we can take comfort in knowledge that sanctification is a process. On the one hand, the processual nature of our sanctification is not an excuse to continue sinning or to feel license to disobey God’s law. Immediately after Paul tells us to “reckon ourselves dead to sin,” he commands us to “not let sin reign in our mortal bodies” (Rom 6:11-12). If we continue to sin after our conversion, we should repent and cry out to God in prayer to sanctify us; we should fast and ask God to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts; and we should resist temptation with all our might, knowing that God has already promised to “make a way of escape” with the temptation “so that we will be able to bear it.”

On the other hand, sanctification really is a process; and God, in his wisdom, has made it so. Some things God really does change in a moment. I know people who have been instantaneously delivered from years of substance addiction. But other things God has ordained to take time. The Bible would not tell us to “add” things to our spiritual development (2 Pet 1:5-9) and to “grow” in grace and knowledge (2 Pet 3:18) if we were totally sanctified in a moment. Even the great apostle Paul said that he “had not attained” but yet “pressed on” (Phil 3:12). As we live our life in fellowship with Christ, the Spirit changes us “from glory to glory” (2 Cor 3:18). Just because we are not yet “perfect and entire” does not mean that we are unsaved or that God is not at work in our lives. We should be able to look back a few months ago or a few years ago at who we used to be and say, with all sincerity, “I am so thankful that I am not that person any more!”

A while back I had a realization which has helped me think about temptation in a new way. Instead of an opportunity for the devil to make us feel condemned, temptation can actually become a tool to help us grow in sanctification. Think of it like this. It is not a sin to be tempted; but, as James says, when I am tempted, I am being drawn away by my own lust—by a part of me that still desires or is attracted to something sinful. Feeling temptation in itself is not a sin; but temptation lets me know that there is a part of me that wants to sin, that would sin if I would let it.

Temptation lets me know that there is a part of me which is not yet fully dead. And so, temptation lets me know where to direct my attention. “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word” (Ps 119:9). If you truly desire to stop sinning and grow in sanctification, pay attention to your daily walk: try to notice what tempts you. And then take recourse to prayer, fasting, and especially the scriptures. Temptation lets us know which parts of ourselves still need to be put to death. “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Rom 8:13); “mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth” (Col 3:5).

Temptation is a golden opportunity to examine our hearts and to bring the yet twisted parts of our nature to the Lord for straightening out. When we are tempted, we should not accuse ourselves or allow ourselves to feel condemned. Rather, we should “count it all joy” and use it as an opportunity to be further sanctified by God’s power.

Temptation is an opportunity for sanctification.