Understanding the Significance of Apeirastos in Greek

ἀπείραστος means “untempted” and appears in a single New Testament sentence that rejects the idea that God is the source of anyone’s temptation. In that setting, the word supports a careful distinction between what happens to people when they are tempted and what can be said about God.

Root and Related Words

ἀπείραστος is connected with the verb peirao (πειράω), “to try.” It is also connected with A (α), “Alpha,” as a deriving element in its formation.

Occurrences

“Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13)

In James 1:13, ἀπείραστος serves James’s argument by describing God in relation to evil: “God can’t be tempted by evil.” The statement is placed after a direct prohibition about speech—“Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God’”—so the word functions as a corrective to a particular accusation. The speaker James warns against is someone experiencing temptation (“when he is tempted”) and then assigning its source to God (“I am tempted by God”). Against that claim, the line about God’s being “untempted” with respect to evil draws a boundary around what may rightly be said about God’s involvement.

The verse is tightly structured as a pair of reasons (“for … and …”). First comes the claim about God’s relation to being tempted: “God can’t be tempted by evil.” Then comes the claim about God’s relation to tempting others: “and he himself tempts no one.” ἀπείραστος belongs to the first claim, and in this sentence it works as an anchor point for the second. If God is characterized as “untempted” by evil, then evil does not present itself to God as a persuasive lure; the wording denies any internal susceptibility that could be exploited. The following clause then turns outward from God’s own susceptibility (or lack of it) to God’s actions toward humans: “he himself tempts no one.” Together, the two clauses refuse both the idea that evil can get traction with God and the idea that God is the agent who presses temptation upon people.

Within the immediate scene, James addresses a common human impulse: when a person is under temptation, the struggle can be framed as something imposed by an external power, and the blame can be shifted toward God. The word ἀπείραστος blocks that move by insisting that God’s relation to evil is not one of being drawn into it. In this verse, “untempted” does not appear as an abstract attribute detached from moral life; it is deployed to stop a particular conclusion—“I am tempted by God”—and to support a different conclusion—God is not the one who tempts.

Sense and Usage

The single occurrence of ἀπείραστος is enough to show its practical force. It is used to protect a line of reasoning about responsibility: the experience of being tempted does not warrant speech that makes God the tempter. In James’s sentence, the word’s sense is shaped by its immediate pairing with “by evil”: “God can’t be tempted by evil.” The definition “untempted” is therefore applied not in a general discussion of God’s greatness but in a focused moral claim about the impossibility of evil presenting temptation to God in a way that could succeed.

Because the word appears inside a prohibition (“Let no man say …”), it carries a polemical edge: it is meant to silence a particular explanation of temptation. James does not merely say that God chooses not to be involved; he frames the matter as something that does not happen—God is “untempted” in the face of evil. The sentence then extends that characterization into a practical ethical boundary for human speech and thought. When temptation arises, the correct frame is not “tempted by God,” and the term ἀπείραστος supplies the foundational claim that makes that frame impossible.

The word also helps hold together two sides of a moral logic that James expresses with “for … and ….” The first side concerns what cannot occur to God (“can’t be tempted by evil”); the second concerns what God does not do toward humans (“tempts no one”). In this particular usage, the point is not only that God is separated from evil as a personal vulnerability, but that this separation has consequences for how temptation is explained. The term “untempted” thus functions as part of an argument about causation: if God is untempted by evil, then God is not the source of temptation.

Finally, the positioning of the term in a verse that repeatedly uses the language of “tempted/tempts” makes it serve as a clarifying contrast. People may be “tempted,” and people may speak wrongly about the source of that temptation. God, by contrast, is described with a term that denies temptation’s reach in relation to evil, and the sentence closes by denying that God’s agency operates as a tempter. In this single attestation, ἀπείραστος is therefore not an isolated descriptor; it is a key hinge in James’s instruction about how to interpret temptation without misattributing it to God.

Imagery

James 1:13 evokes a courtroom-like moment of accusation and rebuttal: a person under temptation voices a charge—“I am tempted by God”—and the response sets a firm boundary around God’s relation to evil. The word ἀπείραστος contributes to that boundary by picturing temptation as something that does not gain an entry point with God, even while human experience of temptation remains real and morally serious within the same sentence.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).