Matt 6:7–15 — The Lord’s Prayer, Part 7: Lead Us Not into Temptation

The sixth and final petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Its theme is protection. We ask the Lord to protect us from our enemies in the wilderness and to sustain our faith through times of trial and temptation so that we persevere as disciples of Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism explains that we are so weak that we cannot stand on our own for a moment, while our sworn enemies—the devil, the world, and our own flesh—never stop attacking us. We therefore ask the Lord to uphold us by the power of his Holy Spirit so that we firmly resist our enemies until the complete victory. We will consider the prayer for steadfast faith, the enemies of steadfast faith, and the captain of steadfast faith.

The Prayer for Steadfast Faith

Lead Us Not into Temptation

We are praying for steadfast faith. Yet the traditional translation, “Lead us not into temptation,” raises a question: Would God lead anyone into temptation? Tempting someone sounds like the devil’s work, not God’s.

James 1:13 clearly teaches that God does not tempt anyone to sin. No one who is tempted should say that God is tempting him, because each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own sinful desires.

The Greek word translated as temptation can also mean a trial or test. Context determines which sense is in view. The same circumstance may be both a trial and a temptation, depending on the perspective from which it is considered.

From the perspective of our enemies, the circumstance is a temptation intended to entice us to sin. From the perspective of our heavenly Father, it is a trial or test. His intention is never to lure us into sin.

However, the Bible clearly teaches that God brings trials and tests into our lives. He tested Abraham by commanding him to offer his son, and he tested Job. God does not test his servants and children to entice them to sin, although a test becomes an occasion in which sin is possible. His intention is not that they should sin.

His intention is that they remain steadfast through the test and emerge with their faith proven genuine. The same chapter in which James says that God does not tempt anyone begins by addressing testing: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2–3).

The word trials in James is the same Greek word translated as temptation in the Lord’s Prayer. There are many parallels between Jesus’ teaching in Matthew and the letter of James. At points James even appears to quote Jesus, as when he forbids swearing oaths in language closely resembling Matthew 5. James can therefore help clarify the meaning of this sixth petition.

“Lead us not into trial” may therefore convey the sense more clearly. The New International Version notes testing as an alternate translation, and many commentators understand the petition in this way.

Nevertheless, “Lead us not into temptation” is the church’s traditional liturgical wording, and it expresses an important truth. Although God does not intend to tempt us, temptation is present when our faith is tested. The first half of the petition concerns testing or trial; the second half clarifies what we ask God to do in it.

Deliver Us from the Evil One

The second half says, “But deliver us from evil.” The word evil is translated as “the evil one” elsewhere in Matthew, and the English Standard Version recognizes that as a possible translation here. I believe that is what Jesus is referring to.

This second half clarifies the first. It is not a seventh, separate petition but the logical extension of “Lead us not into testing.”

We could paraphrase the petition this way: Do not lead us into a test of faith beyond our ability to endure; when trials come, protect us from the evil one and grant us steadfast faith. We do not ask to be free from every trial and temptation in this life. We ask the Lord to strengthen us to endure and to protect us from the evil one, who seeks to use trials to entice us into sin and turn us away from God.

We Cannot Stand on Our Own

We are asking the Lord to strengthen our faith. Although the word faith is not used in the petition, it is implied by this context of testing. The Heidelberg Catechism begins its exposition by drawing out what the prayer assumes about us.

When we ask the Lord to protect us through trials and temptations and preserve us in steadfast faith, we acknowledge our weakness.

We recognize that a severe test could cause us to fall away. The Heidelberg Catechism draws out this implication immediately: “We are so weak that we cannot stand on our own for a moment.” Therefore we must pray, “Lead us not into temptation.”

We pray for the Lord’s strength and protection because we know how vulnerable our faith is in severe testing. The prayer also recognizes that faith is not only God’s gift but something he must sustain within us. We do not possess in ourselves the strength either to believe or to persevere in believing.

Faith is God’s gift. Prayer is therefore an act of trust: we call upon the Lord for help and strength, confessing that we are sinful and frail and that all spiritual power comes from him.

We must never imagine that we could not fall away from the Lord. Apart from God’s preserving grace, we surely could. We have known people who once professed faith in Christ and later turned away. The Lord will sustain his elect, but this promise gives no ground for self-confidence. We must not suppose that we are beyond a test so severe that we might abandon the faith.

Recently I learned that an online acquaintance, formerly an elder in a NAPARC church and well known for defending the faith through apologetics, no longer believes in the Lord. He says he still believes in a deistic creator who controls all things, but no longer sees a need for distinctly Christian doctrines: sin and hell, the need for a Savior, the incarnation, the Trinity, and salvation through Christ’s death and resurrection.

After enduring a painful divorce, he went to counseling and believed that his work on himself had made him a better man. He said, “I have no need of that hypothesis anymore. I just do not feel the need for it. I am doing well.” Confidence in his own goodness displaced his sense of need for the gospel, and he walked away from Christ.

Do not think that this could never happen to you. A severe trial may bring you to the brink, and apart from God’s grace you could fall. We must therefore trust the Lord and cry out, “Lead us not into testing, but deliver us from the evil one.”

The Enemies of Steadfast Faith

This prayer, “Lead us not into testing, but deliver us from the evil one,” shares the wilderness setting assumed by other petitions. We live as pilgrims who have not yet reached the kingdom’s final consummation. Thus we pray, “Your kingdom come,” and “Give us this day our daily bread.”

The reference to daily bread alludes to the manna God provided in the wilderness. He did not give Israel the meat, onions, and leeks they desired from Egypt, but he gave them manna. It appeared plain, and they even asked, “What is it?”—the question from which the word manna comes. Yet God gave them enough to sustain their wilderness journey.

The sixth petition likewise presupposes life in the wilderness, whose chief characteristic is testing. Hebrews summarizes Israel’s forty years there as “the day of testing in the wilderness.” Jesus himself was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Testing belongs to wilderness life.

The wilderness is difficult: it has scorpions, oppressive heat, and no water. We have not yet entered the promised land or the fullness of God’s consummated kingdom. We serve the Lord as pilgrims in this wilderness, and here we face enemies.

The Devil, the World, and Our Flesh

We have enemies that continually attack and seek to undermine our faith. The Heidelberg Catechism identifies them as the devil, the world, and our own flesh. Peter says that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Paul says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil.

The world around us is also an enemy. It is fallen humanity outside Christ, rebelling against God and pursuing pleasure, riches, and the passing things of this age. Its idolatry and fleshly values lure us. It makes us feel that we do not belong and tempts us to envy those who seem at home in it or to fear that we are missing what they pursue.

Finally, our own flesh—our remaining corruption—is an enemy. We have been crucified with Christ, and our flesh has been judged once for all at his cross. Yet sinful deeds and desires still weigh us down and divert us from faith in Christ. We therefore ask the Lord not to lead us into a test that overwhelms our faith, but to deliver us from the devil, the world, and our own flesh. We must recognize that we have enemies.

We are in greatest danger when we fall asleep spiritually. We must therefore be sober-minded and watchful, awake to the spiritual realities around us. If we forget that this world is a wilderness and become too comfortable in the present evil age, we lose our focus, neglect the perspective of eternity, and forget that enemies surround us.

The Captain of Steadfast Faith

Thanks be to the Lord that Christ has stood the test in our place. We can call upon him as the captain of steadfast faith. Because we are susceptible to temptation and spiritual sleep, we do not rest in our own strength but pray for deliverance from the evil one.

The Heidelberg Catechism paraphrases the petition this way: “Lord, uphold us and make us strong by the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we may not be defeated in this spiritual fight, but may firmly resist our enemies until we finally win the complete victory.”

Each passage in Matthew must be read in light of what comes before and after it. The Gospel is a unified narrative of what Christ has done for us. We should therefore consider how Matthew uses the theme of testing and temptation both before and after Matthew 6:13.

We can view Matthew—and indeed all four Gospels—as having two bookends. At the beginning stand Jesus’ baptism and temptation in the wilderness. At the end stands his testing in Gethsemane and at the cross.

At the latter bookend, Gethsemane provides the climactic expression of testing and temptation. Christ passed the test. He stood firm and obeyed the Father despite all the devil’s schemes to turn him from the path of perfect obedience—the path of the cross, of suffering, and of drinking the cup of wrath that God gave him.

Jesus told his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” Taking Peter and the two sons of Zebedee—James and John—he began to be sorrowful and troubled. He told them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”

Going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” The cup was God’s wrath, which Christ had been called to drink for us.

He returned and found the disciples sleeping. He said to Peter, “Could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” The same word appears again: testing or temptation. Jesus continued, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

For a second time he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” Again he found the disciples sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. He left them, prayed a third time, and then said, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.”

“Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” This final statement is remarkable. Jesus does not shrink from the cross or from Judas, who is about to hand him over to the authorities. He is alert and awake, going forward into the battle.

He goes forth in strength to obey his heavenly Father, even to the point of complete sacrifice and death. By contrast, the disciples sleep and fail the test: “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” A few verses later, Peter denies Christ and fails completely.

Yet the captain of Peter’s faith did not fail. He delivered Peter from the evil one and endured the ultimate test in Peter’s place. Christ boldly faced the trial, saying, “Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.”

Christ knowingly went to the cross, setting his face like flint in obedience to his Father. He did so to pay for our failures in every test we should have passed. Before Peter’s denial, Jesus prayed that his faith would not fail. After completing his work and rising from the dead, Jesus restored Peter. He asked, “Peter, do you love me?” Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you,” and Jesus commissioned him to feed his sheep.

Jesus told Peter that after he had passed through this test, he should strengthen his brothers. Although Peter failed, he came to a greater appreciation of what Christ had done for him at the cross. Reassured of God’s love, he could feed Christ’s sheep and strengthen his brothers.

Christ is the captain of steadfast faith. He upholds and strengthens us so that trials do not defeat us. Paul therefore commands in Ephesians 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” The life of Martin Luther offers a vivid example of this dependence upon Christ.

One biography of Luther is titled Man Between God and the Devil. The title is fitting because Luther often spoke about the devil in his preaching and experience. He engaged in spiritual warfare not in his own strength but in the strength of Christ, the captain who goes before him. He once said, “The only way to drive away the devil is through faith in Christ, by saying, ‘I have been baptized; I am a Christian.’” On another occasion he said that when the devil accused him of being a sinner, he replied, “Tell me something new, devil! I already know that perfectly well. I have committed many a solid and real sin. But Christ took all my sins upon him, so that now the sins I have committed are no longer mine but belong to Christ.”

This is how we fight the devil: by faith in Christ, not by our own strength. He is the captain of our salvation. The concluding section of Romans 8 gives us a wonderful declaration of assurance and strength.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” These are severe tests that, apart from God’s grace, could cause us to walk away from the Lord. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors—or, as the NASB says, “we overwhelmingly conquer”—through him who loved us. We conquer through Christ, who loved us, laid down his life for us, and saved us.