This wisdom is likewise “without variance,” “unambiguous” (Moffatt). The word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament and has puzzled translators a great deal. It is rendered “without wrangling,” “without judging,” “without partiality,” “without distinctions,” “undoubted,” “without feigning,” “without doubtfulness,” “undecided,” “unhesitating,” “unwavering,” “single-minded.” The Vulgate has non judicans.
Something can be said for all these renderings. The context must decide.[82] If one considers the use of the verb in James 1:6 and 2:4, probably the idea of decision is the true one here. It is wholehearted conviction, positiveness in adherence to the truth, single-minded devotion rather than the wavering indecision of false wisdom. It is Principal Forsyth’s idea of “Positive Preaching” for the modern mind.
It is finally “without hypocrisy,”[83] “straightforward” (Moffatt). Here there is no ambiguity as to the import of the word. It is not the hypocritical wisdom of earth, the spurious invitation, but the genuine article. It is sincere, “without show or pretence” (Mayor). The word is used of love (Rom. 12:9; 2 Cor. 6:6), of faith (1 Tim. 1:5), of brotherly love (1 Peter 1:22). The idea here concerns our relations with men as the preceding adjective outlined our attitude toward God (Hort). This wisdom has the ring of pure gold and passes at par value with all men. Surely such wisdom as this will always be in demand by modern men who love reality and hate pretense.
In this verse James gathers up the sum and substance of all that he has had to say so far. He has just spoken of peace and of good fruits. He has been insisting on righteous deeds and not mere words, upon a live faith, not a dead creed. “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for them that make peace.” “And the peacemakers who sow in peace reap righteousness” (Moffatt). The fruit is righteousness (genitive of apposition). The figure of sowing is common enough. It is the slow process of soil, seed, plant, blossom, fruit, harvest.
This is the life of piety (wisdom) that James lays before his readers. The phraseology occurs elsewhere (Psalm 1:3). Thus Proverbs 11:30: “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life.” So in Amos 6:12 we have “fruit of righteousness.” In the New Testament note Philippians 1:11, “filled with the fruits of righteousness,” and Hebrews 12:11, “peaceable fruit.” There is a difficulty here in the fact that the fruit instead of the seed is sown. But such a prolepsis of thought is not unknown, as in Psalm 97:11: “Light is sown for the righteous.” The sower sows in peace, and the harvest of righteousness is gathered in peace. The peacemaker has the rainbow promise of his harvest in due time if he does not faint nor grow weary. “They who make peace show likeness to God, the great maker of peace” (Hort).
Oesterley thinks it inconceivable that 4:1-12 could have been addressed to Jewish churches at an early date, while they were still in the fresh glow of the new faith in Christ. He says, “These verses reveal an appalling state of moral depravity in these Diaspora congregations; strife, self-indulgence, lust, murder, covetousness, adultery, envy, pride and slander are rife; the conception of the nature of prayer seems to have been altogether wrong among these people, and they appear to be given over wholly to a life of pleasure. It must have been terrible for the writer to contemplate such a sink of iniquity.”
Yes, but James does not say that all the Christians were guilty of these sins. It was bad enough without overstating the situation. Besides, we have the state of affairs in the church at Corinth to guide us as to the possibility of sins in a young church, and the state of affairs among the Galatian churches is not much better (cf. “so soon departing”). Covetousness and strife early appear in the church in Jerusalem, as we know from Acts 4 and 5. Reaction comes only too swiftly, as is noted after all great revivals; for instance, the years following the Welsh revival. Within a year or two after Paul left Thessalonica discipline was sorely needed in the church there, as we know from 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
The Gentile world was given over to immorality of all sorts, and Judaism was deadened with formalism. It was no easy task to make real spiritual life grow in such an atmosphere. And yet this is precisely what Christianity undertakes to do. Jesus came that men might have life, spiritual vitality, and might have it abundantly (John 10:10; 20:31). James is chiefly concerned that his readers may share in this new life in Christ and may show the inner reality by the outward expression. He never gets away from this central conception of Christianity. The appearance of sin in hideous forms among the followers of Jesus stirs James to intense indignation. Mayor notes that the severity of tone in this paragraph is accented by the absence of “brothers.”
James makes frequent use of the rhetorical question, as here when he boldly demands the origin of the strife among the churches of the Diaspora: “Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you?” This use of question gives life to style and is the mark of a good teacher. Note also the repetition of “whence,” which gives added piquancy. In the Epistle of Clement of Rome (xlvi) to the church at Corinth (about A.D. 97) he seems to refer to this passage in James, where he asks: “Wherefore are these strifes and wraths, and factions and divisions, and war among you?” Basically, ecclesiastical strife does not differ in origin and spirit from wars between nations. Sometimes there is even more bitterness. Certainly no wars have been fiercer than the so-called “religious” wars of history.
It does seem like irony that the two world wars should have come after so many years of growth of the peace sentiment in the world. But Christianity is on the side of peace, and Christians must keep up the fight for peace. Jesus left a legacy of peace for individuals and for nations who win it: “My peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). There has appeared one evidence of a better public opinion in the fact that in the war each nation sought to justify itself in the eyes of the world as not the aggressor but as being on the defensive. This apology is some concession, at least to enlightened Christian sentiment, which ultimately will banish war from the earth along with slavery, alcohol, the brothel, and other agencies of the devil.
Meanwhile, James occupies the standpoint of the Christian optimist, who fights for the highest and the best. So Simon Peter writes: “Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). We need not press the distinction between wars and fightings, though the first means a state of war and the lasting resentment connected with it, while the second refers to battles or outbursts of passion which occur during a state of war. James does not, of course, here refer to wars between nations but to the factional bickerings in the churches, the personal wrangles that embitter church life. “Among you,” he adds, to drive the question home.
James answers his first question by a second. “Come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?” James sees an intimate connection between strife and laxity of life. The case of the church at Corinth is a point where factional divisions and gross immorality flourished together. Plato (Phaedo 66) says: “Wars and factions, and fightings have no other source than the body and its lusts. For it is for the getting of wealth that all our wars arise, and we are compelled to get wealth because of our body, to whose service we are slaves.”
James and Plato agree therefore in finding the origin of war in the lusts of the body, but they differ in their opinion as to how to treat the body. Plato exhorts neglect and scorn of the body, while James urges the victory of the spirit over the body. “Plato has no idea that the body may be sanctified here and glorified hereafter; he regards it simply as a necessary evil, which may be minimized by watchfulness, but which can in no way be turned into a blessing” (Plummer).
The source of all war (private and public) is “the pleasures that war in your members.” The same word for “war” between the fleshly desires occurs in 1 Peter 2:11, and in Romans 7:23 Paul uses it of the conflict between the two laws of his nature. The word for “pleasure” does not necessarily mean sensual pleasures but that which is sweet and leads to sinful strife (like ambition, love of money or power). In Titus 3:3 Paul combines both words, “lusts and pleasures.”[84] “The potential pleasure seated in each member constitutes a hostile force, a foe lying in ambush against which we have continually to be on our guard” (Mayor).
In the Letter of Aristeas[85] the question is asked: “Why do not the majority of men receive virtue?” The answer is given: “Because all are naturally without self-control and are bent on pleasures.” It must be said that the philosophy of hedonism in this sense of the term has a powerful hold upon the average man. Buddha said trouble came of desire.
It is not an inspiring picture that James here draws, and one would like to believe that he has a wider outlook than the Christian community when he names his bill of particulars. “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war.” Here Westcott and Hort make a full stop in their text, and this is probably correct.
The presence of “kill” before “covet” gives a great deal of trouble to the commentators, who find it an anticlimax. Mayor urges the substitution of “envy” for “kill,” but there is no manuscript authority for it, and the difficulty is not really mended. Hort has the most probable solution by this punctuation: “Ye covet, and have not: ye commit murder. And ye envy, and cannot attain: ye fight and war.” At any rate, the humiliating fact remains that lust, covetousness, envy, fighting, and murder are here charged against some of the readers of the epistle.
It looks as if some of them held to the view that they were entitled to all that they could grasp, that Providence was on the side of the heaviest battalions, that might constituted right. “Lust” is here used in the most general sense, like “covet.” The failure to find satisfaction leads to jealousy, fighting, war, and even murder. Covetousness leads to fights with individuals and nations. Lust in the narrow sense and murder are common partners. The fight is on in every man’s life against all that is low and mean. He can keep a pure life only by living the victorious life. There is also the common oppression of the poor by the greedy and grasping in all the ages. “No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man’s life to pledge” (Deut. 24:6). So Sirach (34:21 f.) says: “He that taketh away his neighbour’s living slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a blood-shedder.” The opposite of all this pitiful business is seen in the nobility of love as portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13.
The latter part of verse 2 is a puzzle to the commentators: “Ye have not, because ye ask not.” Oesterley (following Carr) thinks that we have a string of poetical quotations (stromateis), “not very skilfully strung together.” Mayor takes it as a mere repetition of “ye lust, and have not” and says that it is not a further step. But surely James does not mean to say that the one reason why the impulses to lust, covetousness, envy, fighting, and murder are not gratified is that men do not pray so as to carry their point with God and man! That would make prayer a travesty and God a puppet of man’s evil desires.
I must believe that this sentence belongs to verse 3 in thought and should be so punctuated. We must always bear in mind that the original Greek text had no punctuation and that we are at liberty to punctuate de novo if the context demands it. There is, no doubt, a backward look in “ye have not,” but in reality James here starts a new topic, that of prayer. There is a delicate hint in the use of the middle voice here that they had not put their hearts into their prayers.[86] “Ye ask” with the mere form of words and naturally “receive not,” “because ye ask amiss,” “wrongly,” as in John 18:23.
Their prayers are vitiated by the evil purpose, “that ye may spend it in your pleasures,” “with the wicked intention of spending it on your pleasures” (Moffatt). Even Epictetus (Cod. Vat. 3) says of the gods: “And then shall they give to thee the good things when thou rejoicest not in pleasure, but in virtue.” How often we all miss it in prayer! We ask for what we should not, staking our judgment against that of God. We ask with a spirit of rebellion and not of subjection to the will of God (4:7). We ask, not for the glory of God nor for the blessing of others, but for the gratification of our own selfish pleasures, even when the things asked for are good in themselves.
We may even get to the point where we dare ask God for what is not good in itself. “No asking from God which takes place in a wrong frame of mind towards him or towards the object asked has anything to do with prayer. It is an evil asking” (Hort). God cannot be made a private asset to further our own selfish interests or to serve the wicked world (cf. 1 Tim. 6:4 f.). “If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14). The word in James for “spend” means to consume, to waste, to dissipate. It is used of the prodigal son who “spent all” (Luke 15:14).
Prayer is probably the poorest of all our spiritual exercises. It should be the most constant and the most helpful. It calls for searching of heart and all sincerity. It is right and proper to pray for our daily bread (Matt. 6:11), provided we do our daily tasks so as to earn our daily bread. God does not mean prayer to be a substitute for work. Trust is not anxiety (Matt. 6:31), but it is also not presumption. The use of the name of Jesus does not cause the door of grace to spring open for us unless we first put ourselves under the rule of Jesus.
The words “adulterers and” of the Authorized Version are not genuine, occurring in late documents. The sudden outburst of “ye adulteresses,” “wanton creatures” (Moffatt), leaves one in doubt whether James is singling out one special form of sin so common in the world (Hort) or is using the word in the figurative sense (Mayor) so frequent in the Old Testament for the sin of idolatry (cf. Psalm 73:27; Ezek. 23:27; Hos. 2:2; Isa. 57). Jesus denounced his age in Palestine as “an evil and adulterous generation” (Matt. 12:39). It will make good sense with either interpretation.
Oesterley argues that “the depraved state of morals to which the whole section bears witness must, in part at least, have been due to the wickedness and co-operation of the women, so that there is nothing strange in their being specifically mentioned in connection with that form of sin with which they would be more particularly associated.” Such a sin ought not, to be sure, to be found among Christians, but 1 Corinthians 5 shows how early it appeared in the church in Corinth, a peculiarly licentious city.
The pressure of the easygoing, laissez-faire life of the world on this point is hard upon true Christians in all the ages. It is not merely that a double standard of morals is claimed by men of the world for themselves, though denied to their own wives, but they are aggressive against the virtue of the daughters and wives of other men. This agelong evil is condoned even by women of the world who are clean themselves, in a blind surrender to the fact that men seem to be hopelessly evil.
If the word “adulteresses” is here taken literally, as is probable, James makes a bold appeal to women of pleasure to cease from sin and to let God rule in their lives. It is surely worthwhile to make such an appeal even to those who seem to be hopelessly abandoned to the evil world. But it is pre-eminently worthwhile to seek to warn, and to prevent from ruin, the young men and women of our day. “Know ye not,” says James with heat, “that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” Pastors sometimes find men and women living in adultery and complacently keeping up their church connections. James means to show the utter inconsistency of such a course of conduct.
But if “adulteresses” is taken in the figurative sense, there is still the friendship of the world that is enmity with God. The friendship of the world is preferred to that of God. “World”[87] here is not the earth with all its beauty and charm (God’s world made by him; cf. Psalm 19), nor mankind, for whom Christ died (John 3:16), but that world of selfish pleasure and sin out of which Christ called his disciples and which in turn hated them as it hated Christ (John 15:18 ff.). This world will only love as a familiar friend those who cater to its ideals and standards, who condone its slackness of morals and neglect of God.
This cleavage between the wayward, wicked world and the kingdom of God is a fact of the utmost significance (John 17:15 ff.). The Christian has to learn the secret of living in such a worldly atmosphere without being contaminated by it. One does not wish to be considered a religious crank and queer. He desires to have influence with his friends and business acquaintances. But one cannot be a “hail fellow well met” in sin and every form of worldly indulgence and retain his influence for God. The time comes when a choice must be made between friends, for that sort of life in the world becomes incompatible with friendship with God. One must make his choice. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). One cannot run with the hare and the hounds. The devil makes no objection to such a double life of hypocrisy, but God does. God is gracious and forgiving to sinners who repent but has no mercy for presumptuous sinners who defy his kindness and keep in touch with the devil and his circles of evil.
The word “enmity” is the term for personal hostility. Preference for sin constitutes a personal offense toward God, who can have no rival, any more than a true wife can suffer a rival in the affections of her husband. “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). One must make his choice. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt. 6:24). Plummer argues clearly that James does not condemn the scientist’s love of nature or the sociologist’s enthusiasm, which is not always shared in by preachers as much as is desirable.
Preaching often is so given to denunciation of sin that it fails to exalt the possibilities of the right sort of manhood. It thus repels the very men that it wishes to attract. So far from that, love for man is one of the main proofs of love for God (1 John 4:20). The passion for the souls of men is the true mark of the redeemed. Paul (Titus 2:12) urges that “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live ... godly in this present world” (or “age” more exactly). “Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God,” “whoever, then, chooses to be the world’s friend turns enemy to God” (Moffatt).
A person makes his choice as he is able to do by the exercise of his own will and purpose. But once and finally made, he renders himself ipso facto an enemy to God. There is no help for it so long as God is really the God of purity and righteousness. Josephus calls Poppea, the infamous wife of Nero and proselyte to Judaism, a worshiper of God (Ant. xx. 8. 11), but surely such “worship” was not acceptable to God. James (2:23) has termed Abraham “the friend of God,” but he entered into that relation to God on terms of obedience to God as Lord. On no other terms is friendship with God possible. It is not a question of one’s feelings but of the actual state of affairs. “To be on terms of friendship with the world involves living on terms of enmity with God” (Hort).
The word “friendship” does not itself occur elsewhere in the New Testament, though it is found several times in Proverbs; but the words “friend” and to “love as a friend” are common enough. Gildersleeve (Justin Martyr, p. 135) notes that Xenophon uses the two verbs for love as synonymous. But in the New Testament there is a distinction drawn in John 21:15-17. The one is the “deeper” and richer word, while the other is the “more human.”[88] Certainly one has no right to claim intimate family relationship with God as his friend while at the same time living in adulterous relations with the sinful world that hates God. The “seductions of the world” (Plummer) are very real and very many, but surrender to them is not constant with the fellowship of God. The law of spiritual life is not always understood. Some men wonder why they are not spiritually happy, why they do not enjoy religion. They are living in sin with the world and yet marvel at their lack of communion with God.
“Or think ye?” says James, as the alternative. Either the friendship of the world is enmity with God or you think “that the scripture speaketh in vain.” “What, do you consider this an idle word of Scripture?” (Moffatt). This rhetorical question expects an indignant denial. Therefore, the argument holds that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. But what is the Scripture? Is it only the passage in verse 6 that is referred to? The punctuation of the Revised Version allows that. We have two questions before the one quotation. But it may be that the general sense of Scripture is meant by the first question. Usually “the Scripture” occurs before a direct quotation, as in Romans 4:3.
Some would take the rest of verse 5 after the first question as a quotation, although no such quotation occurs in the Old Testament. The general sense appears in various parts of the Old Testament, as in Exodus 20:5: “I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God.” Compare Isaiah 63:8-16; Zechariah 8:2. Oesterley even sees a direct allusion to Galatians 5:17, 21; Romans 8:6, 8; 1 Corinthians 3:16, and an argument for the late date of the Epistle of James. But this is forcing the matter rather stiffly. The New Testament writers seem to have used chains of quotations (catenae) as, for instance, in Romans 3:10-18. Paul probably makes a free paraphrase of Isaiah 64:4 in 1 Corinthians 2:9, and of Isaiah 60:1-2 in Ephesians 5:14. Either this is what is done here, or James is already referring to verse 6, a quotation from Proverbs 3:34.
It is not necessary to take the second sentence in verse 5 as a question. We may follow the margin: “The spirit which he made to dwell in us he yearneth for even unto jealous envy,” or “with jealousy doth He yearn after the spirit which he causeth to dwell in us” (Hort), or “He yearns jealously for the spirit he set within us” (Moffatt). In one case (the question) we take “the Spirit” as a subject and as the Holy Spirit. In the other case (the affirmation) we take “spirit” as object and as our redeemed spirit planted in us by God (cf. Rom. 8:4-16 for both ideas). In either rendering it is the Spirit of God (cf. Rom. 8:9) who dwells in us and helps us strive against the evil forces of the world in our own hearts.
God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts (Gal. 4:6), who helps us in the fight with the flesh (Gal. 5:16-26). It is the doctrine of the indwelling Spirit of God, a very precious doctrine in the New Testament (John 7:39; 16:7; Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 3:17; 4:30). The Spirit of God has made his home in us. This is our glory and our hope.
The word for “yearn” is a very strong one. It is the verb in Psalm 42:1: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” Peter uses it of the longing of newborn babes after the sincere milk of the word (1 Peter 2:2). So Paul yearns after the Philippians (1:8).
There are many interpretations and many ways of punctuating the words “unto jealous envy” or “with jealousy.” We may not tarry over them. Probably the idea is that the Holy Spirit covets our souls. He does not wish the devil to have us. Usually this word for jealous envy has a bad sense, but the context here makes it clear. God is a jealous God. He can brook no rival in our hearts. God wishes the whole of our heart’s love, not just a part. He claims the rights of a loving husband to all our heart’s devotion. In our hours of doubt and weakness “the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8:26). We may thank God that he is a jealous God for his people Israel. He broods over his children with a mother’s love, longing for their growth and development.
“But he giveth more grace” (literally, “greater grace”), “yet he gives grace more and more” (Moffatt). The words “giveth grace” come from the quotation following (Prov. 3:34). The effect of this jealous affection on God’s part is not to abandon us but to heap more and richer favors upon us. God demands of us wholehearted surrender and service, but he pours out the wealth of his love upon us. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”
This Septuagint quotation (see also 1 Peter 5:5) is a free translation of the idea in the Hebrew text. It is the striking figure of God standing in the way, across the path of the proud man who carries his head so high above others. He will in due time be brought low. Pride goes before a fall, for God is to be met along that road (cf. Acts 18:6; Rom. 13:2). The man of the world feels no need of God and feels secure and serene. But he reckons without his Host. God shows favor to the humble (cf. the contrast in 1:10).
The proud men think themselves the monopolists (Hort) of divine favor, but they find out sooner or later that they are passed by in favor of the man with lowliness of spirit and nobility of life, who makes God, not the world, the Lord of his life. This man God honors with far more grace than the world can offer. He will have trouble (“with persecutions”), no doubt, “but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time,” while “in the world to come eternal life” (Mark 10:29 f.). The prince in God’s kingdom and at his court is not the man who wears the trappings of earthly rank and station but the one who caught the spirit of Jesus and sought to do good to all as he found opportunity. Plummer wonders if James had not heard his mother recite the Magnificat. Certainly he here echoes the same beautiful spirit.
It comes to this, that a man must decide whether or not God is to rule his life. It is self or God, and that is the same thing as the devil or God, for a self without God is ruled by the devil. “Be subject therefore unto God,” since, as James has shown in verse 6, God gives grace to the humble and withstands the proud. “The proud spirit has to be curbed” (Oesterley). Peter has expanded this idea in a great passage (1 Peter 5:6-9). Our only hope is under the leadership of God. The devil is the “prince of the world” (John 14:30), and he has plenty of help in the world rulers of darkness (Eph. 6:11 f.). The proud and self-willed are sure to fall into his condemnation (1 Tim. 3:6).
“But resist the devil.” Take your stand (note the aorist tense) in the face of the devil, the great hinderer and slanderer. The fight is on between the forces of God and Satan, and one must take sides. A man once said that he wished to be impartial in the struggle between God and the devil. That species of liberality is out of the question. He that is not with Christ is against him. There is no middle ground.
James does not stop to parley over the existence of the devil. He assumes the reality of the dread agent of evil, who is bent on the destruction of all that is good in man. The point to see clearly is that there is but one thing to do, and that is to fight the devil, not with fire but with the word of God, with the help of the Spirit of God. “Get thee hence, Satan,” Jesus had to say (Matt. 4:10). “And he will flee from you.” The devil will run if we fight him with the might of God. One way to submit to God is to fight off the devil.
But it is not all negative. The converse is true also. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.” The Hebrew had a technical term for drawing nigh to God for the purpose of worship (Ex. 19:22; Jer. 30:21). It is not true that the devil is irresistible and it is useless to oppose him (Plummer). This is one of the pleas of the devil himself to break down the resisting power of the human will and so to take all fight out of us. The principle that James here announces is true to Scripture, to psychology, and to human experience. If we draw nigh to the devil, he will draw nigh to us. If we resist him, he will flee from us. If we resist God, even God will finally depart from us and leave us to our sins. If we approach God in worship, he opens his heart to us. “Return unto me, and I will return unto you” (Zech. 1:3). “To this end was the Son of man manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). “The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him” (Psalm 145:18, AV). God first draws nigh unto us (John 16:16), and when we respond, lo, he is there before us. The place of safety and of power for the Christian is the throne of grace. There he has a mighty Friend and Helper (Heb. 4:16). We can draw close to God, as a child to his father in the dark, and feel his presence.
Here James speaks like one of the Old Testament prophets. His epistle, while thoroughly Christian, is yet nearer to the standpoint of the Old Testament prophets than any other book in the New Testament. “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners.” The priests washed their hands before they entered the tabernacle to worship (Ex. 30:19-21; Lev. 16:4). It was natural for the language to be applied to moral purity: “I will wash my hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, O Jehovah” (Psalm 26:6). See also Hebrews 10:22. So Pilate sought to emphasize his own freedom from guilt by washing his hands (Matt. 27:24), if by so doing he might also soothe his own conscience. It is now as it has always been: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3 f., AV).
The clean hands signify little in a moral sense—however desirable for sanitary and other reasons—unless the heart is also clean. Indeed, the Pharisees came to make the cleansing of the hands a substitute for moral cleanness (Mark 7:8 ff.). “Purify your hearts, ye doubleminded.” The word for purification here is the common one for ceremonial cleansing (Ex. 19:10), but the idea is figurative, as in 1 Peter 1:22 and 1 John 3:3. James seems to refer to Psalm 73:13. “Wash you, make you clean” (Isa. 1:16). The double-minded (cf. James 1:8) must no longer halt between two opinions. They must forsake the world and give God the whole heart. It is a brave word for reality in religion and against the hollow mockery of mere lip service.
In verse 9 we have a rather unusual exhortation for the New Testament. The word for repentance does not mean sorrow but change of mind and life. The need for a change implies sorrow for the sins of one’s life, to be sure. But one may have sorrow and still not change his heart and life. The thing that counts is the change, not the degree of the sorrow. But, certainly, sorrow for sin is appropriate and natural for the sinner who turns away from it. There is certainly room for the appeal to “be afflicted, and mourn, and weep” (all aorists with a note of urgency in the tense). One is reminded of the “woe” of Jesus in Luke 6:25. We have here a call to the godly sorrow described in 2 Corinthians 7:10. There is a time to laugh and a time to mourn; yes, and a time for laughter to be turned to mourning and even for joy to be turned into heaviness, like the poor publican with downcast eyes in the Temple before God (Luke 18:13). “The words express the contrast between the loud unseemly gaiety of the pleasure-seeker, and the subdued mien and downcast look of the penitent” (Oesterley).
“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord.” This is the only proper attitude for the sinner, whether saved or unsaved. See the same figure in 1 Peter 5:6. The proud Pharisee in Luke 18:11 is the picture of all that worship should not be.
“And he shall exalt you.” This is the law of grace, as is often stated by Jesus: “Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11). But the man that humbles himself before the eye of the Lord must do so because of real apprehension of his own sin and need of forgiveness, not for the purpose of future exaltation to be obtained by momentary self-abnegation. The delicate balance of motives here is preserved. The promise will come true only if the person really turns to the Lord with sincerity of heart. Nothing is more needed today than this prostration before God.
Moffatt places these verses just after 2:13, since this seems to have been its original place. This is the position also given by Oesterley. And yet it is quite possible that James here merely recurs to the subject of the loose tongue, as he had already done once (cf. 1:26; 3:2 ff.). See also 5:12. He has one word more on this burning topic, a sort of postscript on the tongue, an extremely difficult subject to say the last word about. “Speak not one against another, brethren.” The tense of the verb (present durative) implies that some of them had been doing precisely this thing.
It is so easy to “talk down on one,” to act as critic (cf. Matt. 7:1) of one’s brother in Christ. We cannot help forming opinions of each other, but we can avoid captious criticism, sharp and needless censure. The point made by James is that this habit assumes the right to judge the very law of God. It is far easier to play the part of critic of the law than to be a doer of the law. Destructive criticism is always the cheaper exercise and the more useless. Constructive criticism is more creative and much harder.
There is one supreme Lawgiver and Judge, “he who is able to save and destroy.” This power belongs to God, the Creator (Matt. 10:28; Luke 6:9), not to man, the creature. The critic of the law prefers to find flaws in the law rather than to undertake to obey it. He assumes that he can enact a better law, but it is all assumption. James shows his impatience with such criticism by saying, “But who art thou that judgest thy neighbor?” See Romans 14:4. In common law we are to give every man the benefit of the doubt and to assume his innocence till his guilt is proven. But in current speech the sharp tongue follows no such rule of reason but creates suspicion and sows hate and strife at every turn.
The arrogance of the sinful heart is clearly shown in 4:13 to 5:6. Such a heart prefers worldliness to the worship of God (see 4:1-10) and flippantly criticizes one’s neighbors with lighthearted satisfaction with self and a positive love of faultfinding (4:11 f.). This easy arrogance faces the future with unconcern. No look Godward is taken in business ventures. James “opposes the irreligious sense of travelling merchants” (Windisch). These Jews of the Diaspora had come to have a considerable part of the business of the Roman Empire. They professed to be servants of God, but in practice they often denied and ignored the God of their fathers.
One may hope that James alludes to the Jewish merchants, not Jewish Christians. Certainly those Jewish merchants who became Christians continued their business, though not in a godless fashion. The merchant has one of the most useful and most honorable of all callings, but it seems clear that some of the Jewish merchants had already brought disfavor upon the business by their sharp practices. See Sirach 26:29. “A merchant will hardly keep himself from doing wrong; and a huckster will not be declared free from sin.” This piece of moralizing is evidently occasioned by some tricks in trade indulged in by Jewish merchants. One is bound to admit that some modern Jews retain some of the same reputation in certain lines of trade.
But the point that James makes is a peril to Christian merchants also. The keen competition in all kinds of business is a constant temptation to violate the Golden Rule and to ignore God as well as the welfare of one’s customers in order to make money and to meet a rival who is unscrupulous in trade. The Christian businessman today can do business on a high plane. Hustle and enterprise need not condescend to underhand methods. It is a pleasure to note the activity of the Gideons, an organization of Christian men who, besides doing other useful things, have placed copies of the Bible in the rooms of most American hotels. These men have not left God out.
In Palestine the Jews held on to the agricultural life, but in the Diaspora they were merchants and bankers. Philo (In Flaccum VIII) gives a picture of the Jewish merchants and bankers in Alexandria. Josephus (Ant. XII, 2-5) alludes to the Jewish traveling merchant about 175 B.C. One of the wonders of history is how the Jews, scattered over the world, finally without a land of their own, have yet by their wits maintained themselves as a race and a religion and have been leaders in business, in art, in music, in politics, in literature.
“Come now, ye that say” is the impatient challenge of James to those who leave God out of account in their plans for the future. The tone of impatience is due to the conviction that one should be so conscious of his own weakness as not to boast about the future. “To-day or tomorrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain.” And then we shall move on to the next town and work that with our wares, for all the world like a modern “fire sale” or secondhand clothing store with its bankruptcy or fire features. The picture is drawn from life. The use of “this city” is merely typical, as if James were pointing it out on the map (Mayor), and is more vivid than “such and such a city.”
In James 1:11 we read that the rich man shall “fade away in his goings,” an allusion to the travels of the rich merchants. We see the rapid movements of the Jewish Christians illustrated by the travels of Aquila and Priscilla, who came from Rome to Corinth (Acts 18:1 f.), then to Ephesus (18:18), to Rome again (Rom. 16:3), and back to Ephesus (2 Tim. 4:19). The phrase “spend a year there” is literally “do a year there,” and the idiom occurs also in Acts 15:33; 20:3 (cf. Prov. 13:23).
The wide dispersion of the Jews all over the Roman Empire gave them business connections that made it easy to get new business and to hold the old trade. The very word here for “trade” means to travel into a region to get business, just like a modern commercial traveler. Our word “emporium” is just this word. The Jews made the very Temple itself “a house of merchandise.” So then trading implied traveling for business (Matt. 22:5).
In 2 Peter 2:3 a somber light is thrown by this same word: “And in covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.” “And get gain.” This is the climax of the whole, the aim of the journeys and the trading. “The frequent conjunctions separate the different items of the plan, which are rehearsed thus one by one with manifest satisfaction. The speakers gloat over the different steps of the programme which they have arranged for themselves” (Plummer). There is no harm in planning to make money or in travel for that purpose. The harm lies in the complete ignoring of God in all their plans.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow,”[89] “you who know nothing about to-morrow” (Moffatt). James has ample authority in this statement. “Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). The prohibition implies a carelessness about the future that grew out of indifference to God. There is a rabbinical saying (Sanhed. 100b) to this effect: “Care not for the morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth.” James is condemning those who make their plans for the future with God left out, as if all were in their own hands. Jesus spoke the wonderful parable of the rich fool for the benefit of two brothers who were quarreling over the estate: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry” (Luke 12:19).
This was the worldly-wise view of the Cyrenaics and the Epicureans, and it is the standpoint of multitudes of modern men who under the influence of monism (like Haeckel) deny the existence of a personal God or who act as if there were no God (Psalm 14:1). But God replies to the fool, “Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?” Jesus does not contradict this position when he says: “Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34). He is here condemning overanxiety, that is as distrustful of God as reckless unconcern. There is the golden mean of calm trust in God.
We are not to live in a haphazard manner, without plan or purpose. We are to make plans, but we must put God into our preparations. It is cowardly to be superstitious in the anticipation of evil. Some people knock on wood if they happen to boast a bit. Others are superstitious about the number thirteen, about Friday, about the moon, and a hundred other hallucinations. The point with these Jews is not worry or superstition but irreligion. There are multitudes of practical pagans today who fear not God nor regard man. They carry on their business with no fear of consequences for their evil practices. They wreck a bank or a railroad with equal nonchalance and care not for the suffering caused thereby in the homes of the poor.
As a matter of fact, we are ignorant of the morrow. We do not know the weather of the morrow with certainty, in spite of our gauges and forecasts. Many railroad accidents are due to the unknown elements in the problems of travel. A faulty rail, a broken tie, a weakened wheel, a rolling stone, a careless brakeman, a sleeping switchman, a malicious robber—a hundred and one things may happen, any one of which will cause death to helpless victims. “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley.”
The uncertainty of life is one of the things that a wise man must consider and face. A clot of blood on the brain may cause instant and unexpected death. The heart, driven too hard, may suddenly cease to beat. “What is your life?” He does not mean manner of life or the life principle or eternal life. The question concerns all, the good and the wicked alike. The question as to the character of life pertains to its brevity and uncertainty on earth. “For ye are a vapor,” “you are but a mist” (Moffatt). The word is common for smoke, as the “smoke of a furnace” (Gen. 19:28), “vapor of smoke” (Acts 2:19; from Joel 2:30), steam or breath; so our “atmosphere.” Job lamented (7:7): “Oh remember that my life is a breath.” We are “a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 7) uses these two verbs of the appearance and the disappearance of a flock of birds as they sweep across the sky. The usage occurs also of the eclipse of the sun. The transitoriness of human life should lead to full and hearty recognition of God, not to careless slighting of him.
“For that ye ought to say” (more exactly, “instead of your saying”), “If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that.” James does not, of course, mean that one should always say these words. That gets to be cant or mere claptrap. It becomes repellent to hear one use the name of God flippantly and constantly. Besides, it comes to signify little or nothing, as one may count his beads or say his Pater Nosters with no regard to what he is doing. There should be significance in our acts and words of worship.
The Jews made a point not to use the name of God too familiarly. They often used “the Name” for God, and Christians came to refer to Christ in the same way, “for the Name” (Acts 5:41). The late Jews came, perhaps under Mohammedan influence, to use the formula “if the Name wills” when about to start upon a journey (Oesterley). The rabbis (Plummer) have a story of a Jewish father who, at the circumcision of his son, boasts that with seven-year-old wine he would celebrate for a long time the birth of his son. That night Rabbi Simeon meets the Angel of Death and asks him, “Why art thou thus wandering about?” The angel replies: “Because I slay those who say, ‘We will do this or that,’ and think not how soon death may come upon them.”
The thing that matters is for us to have the right attitude of heart toward God, not the chattering of a formula. God does not have to be propitiated by a charm or amulet. God should be the silent partner in all our plans and work, to be consulted, to be followed whenever his will is made known. Paul frequently spoke of his plans, sometimes mentioning God, as in Acts 18:21 (God willing), 1 Corinthians 4:19 (if the Lord will), and 1 Corinthians 16:7 (if the Lord permit); but also with no mention of God in words, as in Acts 19:21; Romans 15:28; 1 Corinthians 16:5. But always Paul felt that his movements were “in the Lord,” as in Philippians 2:24. He never left God out of his life. Indeed, he practiced the presence of God.