Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 87:345 (Jan 1930)
Article: The Bible In Its Setting
Author: Melvin Grove Kyle

BSac 87:345 (Jan 1930) p. 62

The Bible In Its Setting

Melvin Grove Kyle

Is There Anything New In Temptation?

Primitive man is now before us in all the simplicity of his environment and manner of life with no one to limit his life by dividing things with him and no heredity to live down. According to this account there was no animal drag upon his character, no beastly tendencies to overcome. There was an absolute break between him and the beasts; he was made in the “Image of God.” Thus not with a downcast, but an uplifted, disposition he came to face the test of character at the beginning of the moral history of the race. Of such people is the account of the temptation which follows. Notwithstanding the simplicity of this narrative and all the puerilities which have been attributed to it, we will yet find it the most profound psychological document on the subject of temptation which the world possesses. It is so simple in statement that the little listeners about the knees of the bedtime story-teller may well understand it; so profound in its delineation of life and experience that the philosophers and the metaphysicians of the world may drop their plummet into its depths and it will swing clear. The study of temptation, and especially of this temptation at the threshold of life, raises and involves a number of questions.

(1) Definitions. Temptation is an incitement of natural desires to go beyond the bounds set. That temptation is an incitement needs no buttressing; it will not be disputed. That it is an incitement of natural desires, God-given desires, is also as immediately patent. These desires being given by the Creator, and being a part of the nature He gave us, cannot in themselves be wrong, when exercised within the proper bounds, made to serve the purpose for which intended and that only. Temptation is an incitement to these desires to go beyond the bounds set, the legitimate realm for their proper gratification, that they may be prostituted to selfish ends and

BSac 87:345 (Jan 1930) p. 63

drawn out into that evil realm of human experience denominated in Scripture “the world.”

(2) The field of temptation is curiously delimited by John (1 Jn. 2:16):”All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” The meaning of this brief description of temptation will become perfectly plain upon considering the simplest forms of temptation. There is in all of us a Desire to Enjoy Things, the appetites and appetences. The gratification of these is a natural pleasure and a God-given one, when exercised within proper bounds. But if one yield to the incitement of this desire to go beyond the bounds set and ...