Bible Commentaries
James 4

Verses 1-20

V

GENERAL ADMONITIONS AND APPLICATIONS

James 4:1-5:20.

We will not examine the seventh general head of the analysis. James 4-5 consist of general admonitions and applications. In chapter 4 we have five of these. First, he speaks concerning the swaying of the passions, and shows that inordinate lusts originate strife and nullify prayer. The letter of James is remarkable for its analysis of human action. In tracing things to their fountain head, just as he traces sin in the abstract, so here he traces strife and faction in the concrete – that when we covet things contrary to God’s law this lust leads us to make war upon all who oppose our selfish ends. The evil of yielding to these inordinate desires is manifested in the fact that a man’s prayers are unanswered. He comes before God with his petitions, but God does not hear him. He is not seeking God’s glory. He is not seeking God’s will, but he is seeking that he may obtain things to be consumed upon his appetites, and on this account his prayers are unanswered.

In the next place James shows that friendship with the world is enmity to God. With all the clearness of our Lord himself, who taught that we cannot love God and mammon, he sets forth the fact that one who seeks the friendship of the world is guilty of spiritual adultery. Spiritual adultery is idolatry. The soul has been espoused to Christ. To seek our greatest pleasure and happiness in the world is to be guilty of marital infidelity.

Just here we come upon two difficulties. In James 4:5 the common version reads, "Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?" The new version reads, "Or think ye that the scripture speaketh in vain? Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?" The first difficulty is in finding the scripture which, according to the old version, James seems to quote. Commentators are unable to find any passage of scripture which reads, "The spirit which dwelleth in us lusteth to envy." Indeed, there is no such scripture. Then to what scripture does James refer? Some have supposed that he referred to a scripture showing that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. This could be obtained from Matthew’s gospel, but that gospel was not yet written. And it is hardly probable that James has a back reference. We must look further on to find the scripture, and we do find it in the restatement at the close of verse James 4:6: "Wherefore the scripture saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble."

Our next difficulty on that verse consists in determining what spirit is meant when it says, "Doth the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?" In other words, does it refer to the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Christian, or does it refer to our own spirit? If we interpret it to mean our own spirit, then this is the idea: Those men whom James is rebuking were justifying their envyings and strife by charging it to God, since the envyings arose from the spirit which he made to dwell in them; that is, they were naturally so constituted that they could not help this envying. Hence, James would meet this statement by asking, "Does the spirit which he made to dwell in us long unto envying?" His form of question indicates a denial. Supported by his next statement, "But he giveth more grace"; that is, "suppose you say your envying comes from your corrupt soul; God did not corrupt your soul, and even though God did corrupt it, the corruption is your fault or Adam’s fault; yet there is no justification for yielding to it, since he has promised grace with which to overcome this envying, and the grace is stronger than the depravity." If, however, we make the spirit that dwelleth in us mean the Holy Spirit, then the meaning, must be this, according to the marginal rendering: That Spirit which he made to dwell in us yearns for us, even unto a jealous envy. This follows the idea that the Lord God is a jealous God; he will brook no rival. And if the soul commits adultery by seeking the friendship of the world, it provokes the jealousy of the Spirit which he made to dwell in us. While the passage is exceedingly difficult, my own impression is that the first meaning given is the better one.

We now come to some of the most important directions in the Word of God (James 4:7-10), which reads as follows: "Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you." This expression gives the means by which we obtain control of our passions, and by which we resist the enticements of the world. This text is twice expounded in the author’s first book of sermons. It constitutes a marvelous theme for a revival meeting. It shows that we must be under one leader or the other – God or the devil. It not only calls upon us to resist the devil, but assures us that we have the power to resist him and turn him to flight. It is an exhortation to contrition, repentance, and faith. The contrition is expressed by the words, "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. Humble yourself in the sight of God." The reformation following repentance is expressed by cleansing of the hands from sin and purifying the heart from double-mindedness; the faith is expressed by submission to God.

It is greatly to be feared that much of the preaching of modern times has lost its depth and power. The plow does not run deep enough. There is no deep conviction of sin. There is no mourning for sin such as we find set forth in Zechariah 13. We find our way to a modern profession of religion, dry-eyed. There is no weeping in it. And hence, feeling ourselves to be but little sinners, we need only a little Saviour.

The next admonition relates to censoriousness – that spirit that continually judges another. Here James follows, as almost throughout the epistle, our Lord’s great Sermon on the Mount where he says, "Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you." The censorious spirit, says James, violates the law of God and usurps the divine prerogative of judgment. There is one Judge and one Law maker.

From the evil of censoriousness he passes to consider the evil of the commercial spirit, a sin of which the Jews of the dispersion were pre-eminently guilty. It is true that their several captivities led to the deportation of many thousands of their people in different ages of the world. But a mightier power than the Assyrians, mightier than Nebuchadnezzar, mightier than Pompey, deported the Jews from their own land, and this was the spirit of trade. Cut off from the great honors of a free national government, all of their energies were turned to money making. Their merchant ships were on every sea; their peddlers in every land. As they were then, so they are now. James does not condemn commerce. They presumed on the uncertainty of the future and ignored God. Without counting on the brevity of human life and their ignorance of what a day might bring forth, without considering the providence of God, the Jew, incited by his love of trade, would say in mapping out his plans, "To-morrow we will go into this city, and spend a year there, and trade and get gain." James said they should have said, "If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that." His teaching harmonizes with the old proverb, "Man proposes, but God disposes." The recklessness evinced by the Jews of the dispersion in yielding to a commercial spirit which took no account of time or the brevity of life or of the government of God in less degree characterizes the traders of the Gentile world today. Men leave God out of their calculations. Men consider not their own frailty or the uncertainties of life.

James 5 also is devoted to five applications of these admonitions. The first is a denunciation of the rich. Of course he means the Godless rich, and what he says is more needed now than when he said it. He sees the miseries of the rich coming upon them. They accumulate more wealth than they can use, and hence become corrupt. In their strenuous desire to become wealthy, they disregarded the rights of their employees. The men whose money made their wealth are treated as machines or as dumb brutes. The cry of the toilers goes up to the Lord of hosts, just as the Israelites in bondage in Egypt cried out and God heard their cry and came down to intervene. They are warned that they are sapping their virility by delicate living, and that in their greed to amass fortunes, they have not hesitated to kill the righteous. The pages of modern magazines and newspapers are ablaze with denunciations of millionaires and syndicates and their measures. Political parties are aligning themselves upon the issues raised between the rich and their employees, or between the rich men and the people who have been robbed by their methods of trade.

The general theme of this letter is patient endurance of affliction. In James 5:12 we have this language: "But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath: but let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay; that you fall not under judgment." James is not talking at all about oaths that one takes in a court room, nor oaths unto God, but he is discussing the question of the outlet of our emotions when we are in great trouble or great joy. He says that if we are in great trouble, we should not swear. Notice how common it is for men who are afflicted to curse. And in the same way some people, when they are very happy, give an outlet to their emotions in swearing. The thought of James is this: In the deep emotions which come to a human being in the vicissitudes of his life, never let swearing be the outlet.

Then he goes on to tell what shall be the outlet. He says, "If any of you are suffering, don’t swear, but pray. Let prayer be the outlet." Again, if filled with great joy; if the heart is bubbling over with happiness, how may one keep from making a mistake in the outlet of these emotions? James says in that case, "Sing psalms."

We will be sure to misinterpret this letter unless we understand what his object is. The object is to show both negatively and positively what outlet shall be given to the emotions when one is greatly stirred up, either from afflictions or joy. Just at the point of great suffering or great joy comes a danger. What are you going to say? Are you going to swear or pray or sing psalms?

James now comes to a case of sickness. "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him."

The first thought in connection with the scripture is the word, "elders." Carefully note these scriptures: Acts 11:30, which precedes in time James’s letter; Acts 14:23; Acts 15:2; Acts 15:4; Acts 15:6; Acts 15:22; Acts 16:4; Acts 21:18. No one can read these passages about the elders without noting that there is a distinction between a layman and an elder – that the latter has an office – that he occupies a representative position. In the pastoral epistles there are many references to elders, and the term elder, (Greek, presbuteros,) is used interchangeably with episkopos, "bishop" or "pastor," showing that an elder was a preacher. The only difference I see between the New Testament churches and the Baptist churches of the present time upon that subject is that at the present time Baptist churches pay no sort of regard to any sort of elder in their church unless he is their pastor. In the New Testament churches the preachers of the church, those who had been set apart as God’s ministers, though only one of them could be pastor of the flock, yet every one of the others was treated as an officer of the church of Jesus Christ and entitled to consideration. In Acts II when Paul and the bishops took that collection to Jerusalem, they turned it over to the elders. If a man is sick let him send for the elders of the church. Good commentators see in that direction that when the elders respond to that invitation they come in a representative capacity. It is as if the church had been assembled to pray for the sick man. The preachers come together and pray in the name of the church.

The next thing is, What do they do? This scripture says, "Let them anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord." We come to this question, Was that oil to be used for medicinal purposes, as Dr. Eaton says in The Recorder, and as Dr. Winkler says in his Commentary on the Book of James I (A part of the "American Commentary," and withal about the best commentary on James that I know.)

I cannot agree with these brethren. I don’t think that oil was used as a medicine. I think if there had been a desire to secure medical help, James would have said, "Send for the doctor." But he says, "Send for the elders of the church and let them anoint him with oil." Another reason why I don’t think oil was put upon the sick man for medicinal purposes is that while oil is a splendid remedy for some sickness, it is no remedy for a good many others. It is a good medicine when a man has a fever. The third reason is that it was not the oil that procured the recovery from sickness. It distinctly says that the prayer of faith and not the oil shall heal the man. It seems clear to my mind, then, that the anointing with oil was not to make doctors out of preachers.

Then it must have been used symbolically. A holy anointing of oil was poured upon the heads of kings, prophets, and priests, and this oil signified the influence of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is the Anointed One. He is not anointed with the symbolic oil, but with what the oil symbolizes. I think, then, that the use of the oil was symbolic of the accompanying power of the Holy Spirit, just as the laying on of the hands in ordination is a symbolic act. It symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit on the man ordained, to qualify him for preaching.

Here is another question: Is James giving a direction for all times? In other words, is that direction binding upon us now? Or was it simply carrying out what is expressed in Mark 6:13? When Jesus sent out the twelve apostles and told them to heal the sick, cast out demons, the record says (Mark 6:10), "They anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them." That is to say, it was in the apostolic days a miraculous, divine attestation of those who employed it. And James is living and writing in the days of the apostles. He is the earliest of the New Testament writers. At that time the apostles were still living and had that commission of our Lord to anoint with oil and heal the sick, and that commission through the apostles comes to the church.

My own judgment is that James speaks of the miraculous attestation of the church, and when the attesting was complete, the sign ended.

I have never felt that an obligation rested upon me as a preacher to go to the sick and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord in the expectation that they should be miraculously healed.

There are some good brethren who believe that this injunction was meant for all time, and so all along through the ages there have been those that held that the right thing to do with the sick was to send for the preachers and let the preachers carry out this injunction. I have never carried out the injunction because I did not believe the injunction rested on me. It is evident that this method of healing, a miraculous method, even in the days of the apostles, was not a constant thing. It was simply a sign occasionally used.

For instance, Paul says, "I left Trophimus at Miletus sick." Why did not he anoint him with oil and raise him up, if this was the standing order? To Timothy, who was in feeble health, he prescribes wine, not oil. Timothy was a teetotaler and did not believe he ought to touch ardent drinks. Paul says in this particular case, "Use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake." Why did not he tell them to anoint Timothy with oil? Paul had a thorn in his own flesh) but he did not send for the elders of the church to come and anoint him with oil.

My point is that these were directions of attestation, a marvelous manifestation of the miraculous power of the Spirit of God for specific purposes, just as tongues were for a sign. But tongues were to cease, and miracles were to cease, and prophecies were to fail just as soon as they accomplished their object. That is what James refers to here.

But one may ask me if at the present time I pray for sick people to get well. I say, "Yes." Prayer is to be kept up; prayer never ceases. The anointing with oil that was a symbol of the miraculous power may cease, but the praying does not cease, and I pray for sick people that if it be God’s will they may get well. In some instances they do get well, but in some instances it is not God’s will that they should get well, so they die. When a man is invited to pray for the recovery of a sick person he ought to do it, and he ought when he prays to submit the disposition of the matter to the will of God, otherwise it would mean that if a little band of praying people got together it would stop death over the world, which was not the purpose of God. We cannot escape death.

The Roman Catholic Church establishes upon this passage of James what they call the sacrament of "extreme unction," one of the seven sacraments. When a Catholic is given up by his physicians, and he is in articulo mortis, they anoint him, and on account of his dying state they call it extreme unction – the last anointing. The trouble about getting that from this passage is that James prescribes a duty for recovery. They appoint a sacrament for the dying. The Romanist also tells us how that oil is to be made – that it is valueless unless the bishop makes it and the priest anoints.

The Roman Catholic was at one time the state religion of England and continued so until the time of Henry VIII, and the Episcopalians retained in their ritual a great many things that had been handed down to them through the Romanists. Here is what their prayer book says must be done when a man is about to die. It is in the first prayer book of Edward VI: "If the sick person desires to be anointed, then shall the priest anoint him upon the forehead or breast only, making the sign of the cross, saying, ’As with this oil I anoint thee, may Almighty God grant of his infinite goodness that thy soul inwardly may be anointed with the Holy Ghost who is the spirit of all strength from relief and sickness, and vouchsafe from his great mercy, if it be his perfect will to restore unto thee bodily health and strength to serve him.’ " There is no harm in the prayer itself. From the particular case James enlarges: "Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed." This extends beyond elders. The confession of sins is a doctrine of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. John the Baptist would not baptize a man who did not confess his sins. He baptized them in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. John says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

A question here arises about the confession, and on that is a great deal of remarkable history in the annals of the so-called churches. They have gotten themselves into a good deal of trouble on it. Some of them used to take the position that a man was under obligation to get up and confess every sin publicly that he had been guilty of since the church met before. Then they fell upon the method that the confession should indeed be made, but it should be made privately and let the preacher advise whether it should be made public. They tried that until one preacher made a public announcement of sin confessed without the consent of the man who confessed to him, and that created such a fury that they stopped it.

What James means is this: If I do wrong to a brother I must confess to him my wrong. If he wrongs me, he confesses that wrong to me. If I have sinned against God, I must confess that sin to God. The confession, then, must be made to the one who has been wronged. Sometimes a man wrongs the church, that is to say, he is guilty of such open, public, outrageous sin, like drunkenness, that a confession is due to the church and he must confess to the church in such a case. But suppose I have only had wrong thoughts in my mind, must I confess to the church? No, I should confess that to God. Go right along and confess that wrong fully to him, but not to the world.

Upon what James has said about confession the Romanists have another doctrine called "auricular confession," or a confession in the ear. Every priest has a certain station in the church building, with a little bit of a window. He is shut up on the inside and puts his ear to that opening, and each member of the congregation is compelled once every year at least to come and whisper into the ear of the priest every sin he has committed. In that way they get possession of the secrets of the world. They know all the skeletons in every family. It becomes a tremendous power in their hands.

They connect this doctrine with penance. When a lady leans over and tells what sins she is guilty of, he prescribes a penance: "You must recite so many Ave Maria’s. You must fast so many days. You must pay so much money." When the penance is performed, then they have their doctrine of absolution. The priest absolves from sin the one who has confessed and done penance. There is not one thing in this passage to warrant auricular confession with its attendant usage. In the time of the Protestant Revolution the Council of Trent passed a decree to this effect: "Let anyone be anathematized who denies that sacramental confession was instituted of divine right, or who denies that it is necessary to salvation, or who says that the manner of confession to the priest alone, which the church has observed from the beginning and doth still observe, is alien from the institution and command of Christ and is a human invention." So they make it essential to salvation.

Many a time have persons come to me and started to tell things. I say, "Stop; hold on, I am no priest. I don’t know what you are going to tell me. It may be something you ought not to tell me. If it is absolutely essential to right advice that I know, you may tell me, but you must carefully think over in your mind before you make that confession." Three times in my life I have had jarring, startling confessions made to me. It would beat a novel if I were to tell what they were, but I will not. I say to the one who is in trouble, if you have sinned against God, go and confess to God. If you have sinned against your neighbor, go and confess to your neighbor; but I am sure that because I am a preacher, I cannot be made the receptacle of every slimy thought that ever crawled through the minds of the people where I live, and of every evil imagination. I would rather be dead than have to listen to such things. But sometimes I have to let them tell me to get them out of the ditch they are in.

James then cites the case of the power of Elijah’s praying, and lest anyone might say that Elijah was a prophet, he goes on to state that Elijah was a man of like passions with us and be prayed that it might not rain and it rained not; and he prayed that it might rain and it did rain. That brings up the question whether it is the proper thing now to pray for rain.

I say, "Yes, pray for anything." There is nothing in the world that man needs either in body or soul that should be excluded from the petition.

I never shall forget a statement made by Dr. Ford when he returned from England, having visited Mr. Muller, called "the man of faith." When he got to the place he was very anxious to see the most remarkable man of faith living in the world, but Mr. Muller had gone away and had not returned. They were all assembled, and it was a time of horrible drought. Dr. Ford himself had been choked with dust in getting to the place where they had called all the people together to pray for rain. About that time Mr. Muller himself walked in, covered with dust. One of the deacons got up and said, ’Mr. Muller, we are distressed about the drought, and we thought we ought to take it to the Lord. Is it right to pray for rain?" And he said, "Yes, let us pray." Then he stood up and prayed just like a little child: "Oh Lord, look at the dumb brutes, lowing for water and perishing. See the travelers choked with the dust on the thoroughfares. See the people’s crops and gardens impoverished; Lord God, send rain to thy people." And before they were dismissed the rain came that flooded all that section of the country. Dr. Ford in telling about it said the most impressive thing he ever witnessed in his life was Mr. Muller’s childlike manner and the faith with which he took hold of the promises of God.

The scientists say that to pray for rain is an attempt to change the laws of nature. Not a bit of it. Why, then, pray for anything else? The scientists say that the way to get wisdom is to study for it. There is not anything that we can pray for at all if we let that argument hold.

We now reach the last thing in the book: "My brethren, if any among you err from the truth." James does not mean if he goes astray in doctrine. James does not discuss doctrine. To err from the truth with James was to go astray in practical religion from God. "And one convert him, let him know that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins." What is the signification of "cover a multitude of sins"? Then, whose sins? The Romanist says it is the sins of the man who does the converting, as if to say, "Now if you want to accumulate a fund of righteousness that will be to your account by which you may be justified on the last great day, convert some one else from the error of his way and thus cover your sins." That is the thought and that is the doctrine involved in it, but that was not the thought of James. It is not the converter’s sin that will be covered, for nothing is said about his sins, but it is the sins of the one to be converted that are to be covered.

Then, what does "cover" mean? There is a proverbial expression that charity covereth a multitude of sins. It is so used in the book of Proverbs. It is so used in the letter of Peter. That is to say, "Love is not censoriousness." It does not look for specks and spots and deficiencies, and when it sees faults, it is more apt to put the mantle of charity over them than to unveil them. Does this mean that kind of covering of sin? I will tell you why I don’t think so. "He who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins." It is his salvation that is accomplished. Here is a sinner who has erred in his life and has gone away from the law of God. He is one whose steps take hold of death and hell, and we are exhorted to try to save him by prayer, by faithful admonitions, by preaching to him the means of salvation, and then encouragement is given us that if we do become the means of his salvation, we have saved a soul from death and covered a multitude of sins. What does that "cover" mean? In Psalms 32:2 David says, "Blessed is the man whose sin is covered. Unto him the Lord imputeth not iniquity." There the covering gets its idea from the mercy seat, that the sin is counted covered which by faith has been placed in Jesus Christ and forgiveness comes. Paul quotes David: "Blessed is the man whose sin is covered," and shows that it means justification, forgiveness of sins.

QUESTIONS

1. Of what do James 4-5 consist?

2. How many in James 4?

3. What is the first one, and its relation to prayer?

4. How does James characterize the friendship of the world?

5. What the two difficulties of James 4:5, and what their solution?

6. What is taught in James 4:7-10?

7. What apprehension about modern preaching?

8. What admonitions on censoriousness, where is found the same teaching of our Lord, and in what does the sin consist?

9. What was the sin of which the Jews of the dispersion were preeminently guilty?

10. How did this sin cause their dispersion, and in what did it consist?

11. What prescription was given by James for those possessed with this spirit?

12. What is James’s attitude toward the problems of "capital and labor"?

13. What is the general theme of this letter?

14. What does James mean, both negatively and positively, by "swear not at all"?

15. What is prescription does he give for the outlet of sorrow or joy?

16. What is the distinction between elder and pastor, and what capacity of the elder here referred to?

17. Was the anointing oil here to be used as medicine? Give three reasons for your answer.

18. What then the use made of the oil?

19. Does James give a direction for all times? If not, then explain and give proof.

20. Is it right to pray for the sick? If so, how?

21. What "sacrament" of the Catholic Church based upon this passage?

22. What the fallacy of this Romanist position?

23. What does James say about confession, what remarkable history connected with it, and what the real meaning of the passage?

24. What institution of the Catholic’s based upon this passage, and what its evils?

25. Is it right to pray for rain? Illustrate.

26. In James 5:19 what is meant by "err from the truth"?

27. In James 5:20 whose sins are referred to?

28. What is meant by "cover a multitude of sins"?