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"Lead us not into temptation" [Mt 6:13]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. Would you give me the translation of the Lord's Prayer? I'm puzzled about the last two verses of it: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
HC: All right. Your question is, what does God mean when He says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." That is the phrase you're troubled by?
CALLER: Yes.
HC: I'll be glad to speak to that, if you'd like to hang up.
Actually, the word that's used for temptation here is the word that is ordinarily translated either temptation or testing, or trial. Now the trial that all mankind must come into is to stand before the tribunal of God on the last day and answer for their sins. When we are saved, then we have been taken out of that possibility. We will not be delivered to trial, because God Himself, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, has already stood for trial for our sins. And so we have been delivered from evil, that is, from the wrath of God, and from the sin that has beset us, because God has paid for our sins. I really believe that this is the essential meaning of this phrase, that it's really talking about the fact that we have become saved.