….but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
-James 1:14-15, NIV (emphasis mine)
James gives us clear teaching on the origins of sin. And adultery is certainly a sin as it is a violation of the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 20).
Do you see James blaming sin upon the Devil anywhere in these two quoted verses? Does James lay responsibility on “evil forces” external to the sinner for causing one to fall into sin or are the origins internal to the sinner?
They are internal.
The Devil or demons do not make a cheater commit adultery. What makes a cheater commit adultery are the “evil desires” in the cheaters heart. This is what the Bible clearly teaches.
Jesus taught as much when he delivered an explanation about what makes a person unclean. He pointed to the wickedness within a person’s heart as the true origins of what defiles a person (e.g. Mark 7:21-23).
The Devil is not the one defiling the person; rather it is the person themselves choosing to indulge the evil desires already within his or her own heart.
It all boils down to choice and choosing between good and evil. The cheater chose to give into the evil in his or her heart. Thus, they alone are responsible for making that choice and bear full responsibility for making such a morally bankrupt decision.
To cheaters:
The devil didn’t make you do it. Let’s be honest: You chose to do it, because you wanted to do it.
DM, you are quite right. I reminded my cheating ex of this the other day. I told him he chose to commit adultery and the reason he did was because he WANTED to! He was livid with me. Why? Because I spoke the truth! He had a number of other choices available to him, but he chose to sleep with and leave me for a MOW he met on Facebook. That choice blew up in his face! I take the view now that I had and have choices available to me to answer his sin of infidelity. I chose to divorce him and I choose joy over letting him and his MOW consume my thoughts. I choose to move forward and not worry about the poor decisions he made that have ruined his life. There is no shared responsibility about what he did. If I had been consulted about his evil intent prior to the affair then possibly we could have placed some of the blame in my corner, but that was not the case. I was blindsided. So I CHOOSE to let him take responsibility for the mess he created. My responsibility is to let go, let God deal with him and her and go live with joy! And Thank you and Mrs. DM for your service. You have been very helpful on my journey back to sanity from all this chaos.