Lead us not into temptation
Which isn’t a sin, anyway
A voiceover of this essay is available as a sermon by clicking above.
There’s a strange line in the Lord’s Prayer. See if you can guess which one I mean:
Our Father, which art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name,
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil,
For Thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory
For ever and ever.
Amen.
Aside from differences between whiches and whoes, those/them, there are versions that say debts or debtors instead of trespasses, but what they all mean is breach of rights, causing harm. And some versions stop short and jump from temptation to Amen, which means so let it be; it’s a reaffirmation of the foregoing. Like adding a you bet!
The first oddity is the name: the Lord’s Prayer: it isn’t a prayer by God, it’s a prayer to God, and in fact all prayers are to God (or, with some people, to the Devil …), so that is a bit strange (I don’t know any Devil’s prayers myself), but what’s meant is that it’s the prayer that Jesus taught us to say, according to biblical scriptures.
There is a kind of strangeness to the line hallowed be thy name, which is old-fashioned for I pray that your name should be revered (more or less). By whom? The reverence or otherwise in which God’s name is held is a matter for the individual. We can exhort others to be reverent, but this is not a prayer to God to ensure that we hold His name in reverence, but that His name be held in reverence. And, that’s a bit strange, because it sounds a bit like political manipulation: like the Church of England telling everyone to swear an oath to King Charles: Dear King Charles, we petition you that your majesty’s name may be held in reverence. King Charles can do a lot to make his name be held in reverence, but, unlike God, he cannot, unfortunately, will it (much as he might want to).
The strange line I allude to is this one: lead us not into temptation.
To do what, precisely?
Well, the one thing that temptation is not, is, oddly enough, a sin; not according to the Ten Commandments. It is forbidden in terms of number eight to steal. And number ten forbids you from coveting, or desiring, wanting things that belong to others. And those are two separate sins: theft and desire.
You can steal something you don’t desire (such as a contract robbery, like espionage). Spies don’t desire the secret documents they take; they just intend to take them out of desire for something else—their remuneration. (God is a tricky lawyer.) But temptation is not mentioned in the Ten Commandments. And, indeed, it is hard to see how it falls foul of the injunction love as you would be loved.
Let’s suppose I want you to help me murder my grannie. Your job is to drive the getaway car, whilst I will bludgeon her with a hammer. You will not kill my grannie, but you will be art and part involved in the crime. I tempt you with her pearl necklace. Which of us is evil: me, you or both of us?
In law, we’re both evil: it’s called criminal association. But under God’s law, only I am a sinner for wanting to kill my grannie. Whether or not I do it makes no difference: I sin by wanting her death. In either case (killing her or not killing her), I can show remorse and ask God to forgive me, and He will, if I am truly sorry for my thoughts and acts. That will not persuade the Court of Assizes, however, and I will go to prison if I kill her, and remain free if I do not, regardless of what I might have thought.
Let’s look closer at God’s law, under which only I am a sinner for wanting to kill my grannie: my accomplice is also a sinner but only if he yields to my temptation. It is not a sin for him to say No, I will have no part in it. Nor is it a sin if he doesn’t disclose my plans, say, to my grannie or to the police, unless he is moved to refrain from doing so out of some desire for malice. Then he will be guilty of covetousness: he wants something that it is not for him to want; even if he just wants an act committed by a third party. But that consequence (guilt under God’s law) is not dependent on a judgment under man’s law; it is dependent on his judgment of his own act or thought.
People view God through the fundamentally wrong prism: they see Him as a power or authority; He isn’t: He is us and we are Him. Our true task is to realise that (come to a realisation of that) as a concept; and then to realise that (make it real) in body and mind. If my friend judges his decision to be reprehensible, he must decide whether he regrets that or not. If he doesn’t, he will, in theory, go to Hell; and if he does, he will, in theory, go to Heaven.1
I can give you a personal example. When I was five, I made a suggestion to a friend that we rob a post office (in pretty much the same vein as I suggest murdering my grannie, above). My sense of irony was seemingly quite advanced, for I have no recollection of ever having formulated concrete plans to rob the post office. In fact, the mere idea is as repugnant to me now as I’m sure it was when I was five. But the boy to whom I made this suggestion was obviously convinced I was serious and reported the fact to his mother. His mother forbade any further contact between us, and that was a shame, if parentally responsible.
Well, you can imagine that, with no accomplice to drive the getaway tricycle, the plan went no further. I never asked God for forgiveness for that breach of commandment number ten; and He never forgave me, as a result. Because there never was a breach of commandment number ten. God delivered the boy in question from all notion of any evil and my tempting him—if tempt him I did—was not a sin anyway; God let me go on my way because I never intended evil. The trial lasted about five milliseconds.
Many people view considerations such as these as hogwash, and dismiss them with a phrase such as What do I care whether the guy goes to Hell or Heaven? And they’re right—it doesn’t concern them one iota. But what often doesn’t proceed from that is the phrase What do I care whether I go to Hell or Heaven? Because, until they get to either, the consideration of what the hell they care whether they go to Hell tends to occupy a low-priority ranking in their minds. Until they’re there, that is.
So, temptation itself is not a sin. The sin is constituted by yielding to temptation, and so afeared are Christians of yielding to temptation that they pray to God Himself not to lead them into temptation and it strikes me that Christians believe that God would do such a thing, i.e. lead them into temptation.
Please, God, don’t make me hijack the aeroplane I’m about to step into and crash it into a mountain.
Please, God, don’t make me buy more Christmas presents than my bonus will allow.
Please, God, don’t make me walk by Asprey’s and get a sudden desire to acquire a diamond tiara I can’t afford and then throw a brick against the window. And if I do, and get caught, it’s all Your fault. For leading me into temptation.
The line would better be: And give me the faith to resist all temptation that the Devil places before me.
Think that as you say the line, and everything will be okay. God will send you down Regent Street, instead of Bond Street.
There is a hard in-between case. My friend does not report my criminal intention to the police not because he doesn’t believe any harm will come from it or because he is unaware of any harm that could come (reduced responsibility, for instance), but because he fears that if he shops me to the police, I will kill him. He is then in a moral bind. If he hides the info, he is nevertheless guilty at law. But is he guilty in God’s eyes?
I have no answer other than that I think an Anabaptist would report the matter to the police and accept the consequences of his own death for having done so. For the Anabaptist, there is no moral bind: they must act to prevent the impending harm to my grannie. But it is a hard situation. Anabaptists are frequently viewed as lacking backbone. They do, in terms of violent force; but not in terms of morals.