Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
James 4:3

Clarke's Commentary

Verse James 4:3. Ye ask, and receive not — Some think that this refers to their prayers for the conversion of the heathen; and on the pretence that they were not converted thus; they thought it lawful to extirpate them and possess their goods.

Ye ask amiss — κακως αιτεισθε. Ye ask evilly, wickedly. Ye have not the proper dispositions of prayer, and ye have an improper object. Ye ask for worldly prosperity, that ye may employ it in riotous living. This is properly the meaning of the original, ἱνα εν ταις ἡδοναις ὑμων δαπανησητε, That ye may expend it upon your pleasures. The rabbins have many good observations on asking amiss or asking improperly, and give examples of different kinds of this sort of prayer; the phrase is Jewish and would naturally occur to St. James in writing on this subject. Whether the lusting of which St. James speaks were their desire to make proselytes, in order that they might increase their power and influence by means of such, or whether it were a desire to cast off the Roman yoke, and become independent; the motive and the object were the same, and the prayers were such as God could not hear.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Worldliness and its results (4:1-12)

Continuing his teaching on the evil results of worldly attitudes, James explains why fights and quarrels occur. Selfish ambition fights against the more spiritual motives. Some Christians are constantly looking for more power, increased possessions and higher status. Because they want the wrong things, they do not pray. If they pray, they find their prayers refused, and so try to do things their own way (4:1-3). This is worldliness, and it is opposed to the ways of God. God has given believers the Holy Spirit to control their lives and he wants no rivals, such as the spirit of worldliness, to turn them away from him (4-5).
God opposes those who, in their pride, ignore him and act according to their own ambitions. He strengthens those who, in their humility, draw near to him and resist Satan’s temptations to rely on worldly methods (6-8). Those who gain pleasure from ungodly attitudes are rejoicing in their own foolishness. They should rather be sad and repent (9-10).
One matter in which they should immediately begin to change is that of unkind talk about others. This is another example of worldly pride, for the offending person, instead of obeying the law, claims the right to judge others. This right belongs to God alone (11-12).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures.

"God answers prayer, but not all prayer, especially not in giving the ungodly the ingredients for selfish gratification." Ibid. The Bible reveals exactly whose prayers are answered. He hears the cry of the righteous (Psalms 34:15); he hears those who call upon him in truth (Psalms 145:18); and he hears the penitent (Luke 18:14): those who ask "in his name" (John 14:13), those who ask "believing" (Mark 11:24), and those who ask according to God's will (1 John 5:14). As Gibson observed, here again "is an evident allusion to the sermon on the mount (Matthew 7:7)." E. C. S. Gibson, Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 21, James (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), p. 55. See also Matthew 21:22.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Ye ask, and receive not - That is, some of you ask, or you ask on some occasions. Though seeking in general what you desire by strife, and without regard to the rights of others, yet you sometimes pray. It is not uncommon for men who go to war to pray, or to procure the services of a chaplain to pray for them. It sometimes happens that the covetous and the quarrelsome; that those who live to wrong others, and who are fond of litigation, pray. Such men may be professors of religion. They keep up a form of worship in their families. They pray for success in their worldly engagements, though those engagements are all based on covetousness. Instead of seeking property that they may glorify God, and do good; that they may relieve the poor and distressed; that they may be the patrons of learning, philanthropy, and religion, they do it that they may live in splendor, and be able to pamper their lusts. It is not indeed very common that persons with such ends and aims of life pray, but they sometimes do it; for, alas! there are many professors of religion who have no higher aims than these, and not a few such professors feel that consistency demands that they should observe some form of prayer. If such persons do not receive what they ask for, if they are not prospered in their plans, they should not set it down as evidence that God does not hear prayer, but as evidence that their prayers are offered for improper objects, or with improper motives.

Because ye ask amiss - Ye do it with a view to self-indulgence and carnal gratification.

That you may consume it upon your lusts - Margin, “pleasures.” This is the same word which is used in James 4:1, and rendered lusts. The reference is to sensual gratifications, and the word would include all that comes under the name of sensual pleasure, or carnal appetite. It was not that they might have a decent and comfortable living, which would not be improper to desire, but that they might have the means of luxurious dress and living; perhaps the means of gross sensual gratifications. Prayers offered that we may have the means of sensuality and voluptuousness, we have no reason to suppose God will answer, for he has not promised to hear such prayers; and it becomes every one who prays for worldly prosperity, and for success in business, to examine his motives with the closest scrutiny. Nowhere is deception more likely to creep in than into such prayers; nowhere are we more likely to be mistaken in regard to our real motives, than when we go before God and ask for success in our worldly employments.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

3Ye seek and receive not. He goes farther: though they sought, yet they were deservedly denied; because they wished to make God the minister of their own lusts. For they set no bounds to their wishes, as he had commanded; but gave unbridled license to themselves, so as to ask those things of which man, conscious of what is right, ought especially to be ashamed. Pliny somewhere ridicules this impudence, that men so wickedly abuse the ears of God. The less tolerable is such a thing in Christians, who have had the rule of prayer given them by their heavenly Master.

And doubtless there appears to be in us no reverence for God, no fear of him, in short, no regard for him, when we dare to ask of him what even our own conscience does not approve. James meant briefly this, — that our desires ought to be bridled: and the way of bridling them is to subject them to the will of God. And he also teaches us, that what we in moderation wish, we ought to seek from God himself; which if it be done, we shall be preserved from wicked contentions, from fraud and violence, and from doing any injury to others.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 4

This chapter could be entitled how to win friends and influence people. Guard your tongue, bring your tongue under control, use it for good, use it to encourage to build up, don't use it to tear down, to destroy, to cut, to hurt. Your wisdom, let it be Godly wisdom let it be demonstrated in your manner of life, that is your life let it be pure. Let your life be peaceable, merciful. Now this fruit of righteousness that we desire is actually sown in peace and that fruit of righteousness will come. It is sown in peace of them that make peace. So seek to live in peace with each other, and that fruit of righteousness will come forth.

But in contrast to the peace,

Where does the wars come from the fighting's among you, [the strife]? do they not come from your own lust that is warring in your members? You lust, and have not: you kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war, yet you have not ( James 4:1-2 ).

Here James is declaring that most of the problems of man come basically from man's greed, and I would have to concur with this. I think it is the failure of our society. I think it is the failure of our government. Man's greed sooner or later gets in and corrupts. How corrupting is the greed of man, how it corrupts governments, the horrible thing of greed, and it's behind the wars. It is behind the fighting. It's behind the striving. That desire to have what belongs to someone else. The fighting, the wars among us. And yet we have not because he said,

because we ask not ( James 4:2 ).

You know a lot of these things that we desire, if we would just ask the Lord about them, and if it is right, God will give it to us. If it is not right he won't, because you can ask and receive not because you ask amiss, just to consume it on your own lusts. You see, people misunderstand the purpose of prayer. The purpose of prayer is never to get your will done upon the earth. And yet, how often we think of prayer as just that, the agency by which I can get my whims and wishes accomplished. "Now Lord I want you to do this and I want you to do that and I've got this list of things I want you to do before Friday." And we think of prayer as a marvelous agency by which I can get all my wishes and all my desires accomplished.

I thought of prayer in that light for years. I was always trying to make deals with God. Now you do this and I will do this. How can you lose, trying to strike a bargain with the Lord? And I used prayer, or sought to use prayer, as a means by which I could fulfill my desires. I know a lot about this verse,

you ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, to consume it upon your own lusts ( James 4:3 ).

I prayed for some of those beautiful custom cars that use to drive around Santa Ana when I was in High school. Man, how I prayed for some of those cars. Well, they were for sale, but believe me; I was wanting it to consume it on my own lusts. Oh, I tried to strike a deal with God. I told him I would pick up kids and bring them to Sunday school. "You know Lord, I will give you the use of it a couple hours a week, after all." Boy, did my mind have plans for the rest of the week, cruising down Newport Beach.

So many of our prayers have selfish motivation behind them, and many times the selfish motivation is actually hid from us. But if I really begin to probe I find that behind the prayer there is a strong selfish motivation. There's my son; he's going astray a little bit. He is doing things I don't approve of, I wish he wasn't doing these things. I'm becoming concerned. He is coming in too late at night. He is running with bad companions. "Oh, God, turn my son around, bring him to a real commitment with Jesus Christ." In the deep deep of my heart, I'm thinking what if he should get in trouble, be arrested. Boy, what kind of headlines would that make? "Pastor's Son Arrested." I will be a disgrace to the family. We would have to go through the embarrassment of him being in jail. "Oh Lord save him, you know, bring him around," but what am I really thinking.

Here's a husband, not walking with the Lord; "Oh God save my husband. Lord help him make a commitment to Jesus Christ." And in my heart I am thinking, "Boy it would be so nice if he were saved, I think he would treat me nicer, he would probably say grace before the meals and I think it is so wonderful when a family says grace before the meals. He would even go to church with me, and oh I wish he were sitting by me in church. Oh, Lord, save my husband." You see it is not that he is a rebel against God and he is going to be destroyed if he is not changed. It's not really for him, but it is for the conveniences that it might bring to me.

Prayer is not an agency by which my will is to be accomplished upon the earth. The purpose of prayer is to get God's will to be accomplished upon the earth, and so many times we ask and receive not because the motive behind our asking is really that of accomplishing my will rather than God's will. And if my will is in conflict with God's will, God is not going to change His will to accommodate me, for God is not subservient to me, I am subservient to Him. And the purpose of prayer is never to change the mind of God to see things my way. It isn't to persuade a reluctant God to do things my way. The real thrust and purpose of prayer is to get God's will done. That's why many times we ask and receive not because we ask amiss. Our own desires are too much entwined into it.

Now speaking in a spiritual sense he says,

You adulterers and adulteresses ( James 4:4 ),

This is speaking in a spiritual sense not physical in this particular passage. There are other passages that speak about in a physical sense but this happens to be spiritual because it is dealing with the love that is in your heart, the love for the world and the worldly things. You have been joined to Christ as His bride. Your chief love is to be directed towards Him. He is the one to whom you have been joined in marriage and if you begin to love something other than Him, more than Him, than you have committed spiritual adultery in your heart.

As God in the Old Testament was constantly accusing the people of Israel of adultery when they began to worship the other gods, so God speaks here against your love for the world.

Know ye not that the friendship with the world is enmity with God? and whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do you not think that the...do you think that the scriptures speak in vain?" [The question mark should be there. And probably the second should also be a question.] do or does the spirit that dwells in you lust to envy? ( James 4:4-5 ).

Now surely the spirit of God doesn't lead us to envy, it doesn't desire to envy. The scriptures do not speak in vain. The love of the world, the things of the world is spiritual adultery. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For he that hath the love of the world in his heart, hath not the love of the Father. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are of the world and are not of God" ( 1 John 2:15-16 ). Coupled, "know ye not that friendship with world is enmity with God." If you're going to be a friend of the world, if your going to be doing the worldly things, engrossed in worldly things, caught up in worldly things, your heart is in the worldly things. You're putting yourself in the position of being an enemy of God.

But God gives more grace. Wherefore He saith, God resists the proud but He gives grace to the humble. Therefore submit yourselves to God and resist the Devil ( James 4:6-7 ).

Now it is the Devil that seeks to entice us to find fulfillment in the world by lying to us and telling us that we can find all the contentment, and joy and happiness that we desire if we will just turn from God's path and walk after our own desires of the flesh. Satan's appeal is so strong because he appeals to that, which I am interested in, my flesh, the desires of my flesh. And he is basically saying, "Hey, go for it. You'll find that fulfillment, you'll find that excitement, you'll find what you're looking for, just go for it. Go for the flesh." And God is saying, "No, that's death. If you really want life, spiritual life, then seek after the Spirit, and the things that are of the Spirit. Walk after the Spirit."

There is a warfare between your flesh and your spirit. And Satan is there to encourage you to go after the Spirit and the Lord is there to encourage...I mean he is there to encourage you to go after the flesh and the Lord is there to encourage you to go after the Spirit. So submit yourself to God, and resist the Devil,

and he will flee from you ( James 4:7 ).

I like that. I think that many times our problem is just that we really aren't standing up for right. We're not really resisting, as we should, the Devil. I think that there are important keys in life and in this spiritual life and this warfare that we are in. "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against these principalities and powers" ( Ephesians 6:12 ). And I think the first thing is the recognition that they do exist. And I think that we need to recognize the source of the attack against us. Many times we can't deal with it because we don't recognize that is a spiritual battle and I'm really involved a battle against this force of evil, this spirit of evil, Satan himself or one of his emissaries. Once I recognize the source of my problem, than I can begin to deal with it. But so many times we are told to pass it off. "Well I'm just irritable today. I'm just miserable. I'm just ready to chew up anybody that gets in my way. Out of sorts, didn't get enough sleep last night. But you know." But we don't recognize that this is a real spiritual conquest. This whole thing that I feel, this heaviness and all is actually a satanic source, a power that is trying to defeat me.

Now if I failed to recognize it I can just go on in this miserable way all day long. But if I recognize that "hey this isn't of God, this isn't of God's Spirit, this isn't how God would want me to be, this is an attack of Satan against me." Recognizing it, I deal with it by resisting it. Resisting the Devil and he will flee.

And then the third "R" is rejoicing. So recognize, resist and then rejoice in the victory we have in Jesus Christ, over every principality and power that might come against us. I don't have to be irritable. I don't have to be cranky. I can resist the Devil, that mood, that spirit that he is trying to bring me under. And I can rejoice for I have the full victory in Jesus Christ, and it's amazing how it can change the whole atmosphere around you.

Now the second part of this is

draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you ( James 4:8 ).

You see here I am, in the midst of the battle here. Resist the Devil, he'll flee, but on the other hand draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. I love that. All I have to do is just start drawing near to the Lord.

It's so important it's how we program our minds. It's so important what we're feeding into our minds. And God help us in this corrupt age in which we are living. With all of the technology that has brought into our homes such filth. The television has been a purveyor of such evil. It can be good; television itself I mean it's a thing. It's not evil in itself, but it has the capacity to bring evil into your mind into your life, and it also has the capacity to bring good but it's how you control it, where your dial is turned. But I think of the evil that we will program into our minds as we sit there and watch the TV. And it's terrible. No wonder we're having all of these marital problems and immorality just flooding our nation. It's being planted into the minds of people day after day as they watch TV. Murders, thievery, adultery, the whole thing, it's all there. And Paul when he made the list there in Romans of these horrible things that people were doing, he said not only do they do them but they take pleasure in those that do. And how is it that a person takes pleasure in watching someone snuff someone out you know. We see these TV and on movies. People pay to see that kind of filth. Pay to pollute your mind.

And then we get caught up in the law of nature "whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap" ( Galatians 6:7 ). I'm sowing to the flesh and I begin to reap of the flesh, envying, striving, seditions, murder. How well if we would just get good inspiring music and play it in our homes. What a difference it makes. What a difference it creates within the atmosphere you see we're sowing now to the Spirit. If in the morning as your children are getting ready for school they come in for breakfast there's praise music on or maybe one of the kids albums on. You're planting into their minds and into their hearts the things of the Spirit. God knows when they get to school they're going to get all kinds of crud thrown at them. We need to counterbalance it within the home. And rather then allowing them to listen to a lot of this junk music with filthy lyrics. That we would actively encourage them by ourselves playing and listening to inspiring music. Again whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. And if you have that kind of atmosphere, sowing to the Spirit you're going to reap the Spirit.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you double-minded ( James 4:8 ).

You know, that's the problem. David said, "Lord, unite my heart to serve thee" ( Psalms 86:11 ). The divided heart that's the problem of so many people. Yes, I want to serve the Lord. Yes, I want to follow Him. Yes, I want to spend eternity with Him, and yet there is another side of me that wants to go after the flesh and indulge the flesh.

The afflicted and mourned, weep let your laughter be turned to mourning, your joy to heaviness. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another brethren. He that speaks evil of his brethren judges his brother, speaks evil of the Law and judges the Law, but if you are a judge of the Law than you are not a doer of the Law, but a judge. And there is one lawgiver that is able to save and to destroy, and who are you to judge another? ( James 4:9-12 )

So forego that condemnation or judgment on another. You're not a judge of the Law. We're to be the doers of the Law, obedient to the Law.

Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain. Because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is only a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Therefore you ought to say, if the Lord wills, and if we live, we will do this or that ( James 4:13-15 ).

So that exhortation, by James to us, to take into consideration, God's will in all of our planning, to make that a contingency to every plan. It isn't that you should've planned the future, but you should always have the contingency of the Lord's will, if it's the Lord's will. Because I don't know what tomorrow holds. I don't know whether or not I will even be here tomorrow, but if the Lord wills this is what I desire, this is what I plan to do. If the Lord doesn't will it, than I don't want to do it, but that should always be a contingency to every plan I make. I need to realize that my life is short. It's just a vapor that appears for a short moment and then vanishes. I'm here for just a short time, that I need to spend the time that I'm here in something that is worth while, in something that will last eternally. Too much of our life, too much of our effort, too much of our time is spent on things that are not eternal, things that are going to pass away.

Too many people spend their life eating cotton candy. It maybe sweet, but there is no substance. It dissolves it's gone. Those things that you do, things of the flesh, things for the flesh, they are dissolved. They are gone. They're wasted. I have so many times come to the end of the day and thought what a wasted day. Usually it's New Years Day after I've watched all the football games, and you finally get to the Rose Bowl and the Big Ten won, and I think, "oh what a wasted day." You know you use up a lot of emotion and everything else, but all I did was sit around all day long eat and watch the game. And there was a lot of things that needed to be done out in the yard. I could have spent the time more profitably. We waste too much time. We need to spend our time more profitably, in things that profit for eternity.

But you now rejoice [he said] in your boasting, and you now rejoice in that which is evil. Therefore to him who knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him it is sin ( James 4:16-17 ).

In other words, sin isn't just something that I do that I shouldn't, sin is also something that I don't do that I should. Oh, I know I ought to do it, oh, I know I ought to go over there and help him out, but I don't. To him that knows to do good and doesn't do it, that's sin. The sin of omission, the failure to do that which I ought to do. "

Contending for the Faith

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Ye ask, and receive not: The reason for their prayers not being answered in the way they wanted is continued in this verse. "Ye ask" and "receive not" are both in the present tense, signifying "you keep on asking" and "you keep on not receiving." In some way they were praying, but their prayers were not being answered in the way they wanted.

because ye ask amiss: The reason for these unanswered prayers is found in the phrase "because ye ask amiss." "Ye ask" is in the middle voice here, whereas it is in the active voice in its first occurrence in this verse. The middle voice has the idea of "you are asking for yourselves," indicating a selfish prayer. "Amiss" (kakos) is an adverb that means improperly or wrongly (Thayer 321). They were praying with the wrong motives or with an evil intent. They often did not pray to God (verse 2); but on the occasions when they did pray, it was for selfish reasons and not pure ones.

That ye may consume it upon your lusts: This is a purpose clause indicating their reason for praying. They did not pray to improve themselves or other Christians spiritually; rather, they prayed to satisfy their strong desires. "Consume" (dapanesete) means to waste or squander (Thayer 125). This same word is used in Luke 15:14 to describe the prodigal son who "spent all" in wild living.

"Lusts" (hedonais) is the same word as found in verse 1 and again means pleasures. Their prayer is not what is condemned here but, rather, their desire to use God’s help to further their selfish plans. As Hiebert says, "They are not accused of praying for sinful things, but their basic purpose in making their requests is to further their personal pleasures. It is possible to ask for good things for a bad reason" (The Epistle of James 248).

In these two verses, we are given two reasons God does not answer prayers in the way we would like. We sometimes fail to ask, and we sometimes ask with wrong motives. Other reasons given in the scriptures for God’s not answering our prayers according to our wishes include praying without faith (James 1:8)--which means that we do not expect God to help us anyway--and praying for things that are not God’s will (1 John 5:14). God surely would not give the Christian something that would lead him away from Him. Not treating wives with respect is another hindrance in the answer of prayers (1 Peter 3:7). We should learn to pray as did Jesus, "not my will (or desires) but thy will be done."

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

A. Interpersonal and Inner Personal Tensions 4:1-10

"James 4 continues the same topic of strife, and addresses now not only the teachers of James 3:14 but also the rest of the brotherhood who are in similar sin: strife springs from within (James 4:1-3) and is fostered by worldliness; love of the world and love of God cannot coexist (James 4:4-6); Christians must resist the devil and draw near to God (James 4:7-10)." [Note: Adamson, p. 165.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The explanation of the conflict 4:2-3

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

However, we often ask God for things to enable us to satisfy our own selfish desires. For example, we request more time, more money, more energy so we can do things that we desire but that God does not desire for us. What we need to ask Him to give us is more desire for what He promises and commands. We also need less desire for what is contrary to His will for us (cf. Matthew 7:7-11).

"If prayer is no more than a formula (saying the right words, believe hard enough, confess; it will happen), then Christians are back to a type of magic: They can manipulate God or impose their will on God, for he has to answer. In contrast, New Testament prayer grows out of a trusting relationship with a father whose will is supreme." [Note: Davids, pp. 99-100.]

"In the life of a full-time Christian minister, some may devote themselves to the activist pursuits of endless caring for the sick and house-to-house ministry to the unsaved, and skimp sermon preparation. It may be called ’getting our priorities right’, but it may simply be an exercise in self-pleasing. Others lock the study door behind them. When they descend the pulpit steps on one Sunday they are already mentally climbing the same steps next Sunday. They may say that the pulpit is the best place to exercise pastoral care, and that they are putting first things first-but they may in fact just be indulging a passion." [Note: Motyer, p. 144.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 4

MAN'S PLEASURE OR GOD'S WILL? ( James 4:1-3 )

4:1-3 Whence come feuds and whence come fights among you? Is this not their source--do they not arise because of these desires for pleasures which carry on their constant warring campaign within your members? You desire but you do not possess; you murder; you covet but you cannot obtain. You fight and war but you do not possess, because you do not ask. You ask but you do not receive, because you ask wrongly, for your only desire is to spend what you receive on your own pleasures.

James is setting before his people a basic question--whether their aim in life is to submit to the will of God or to gratify their own desires for the pleasures of this world? He warns that, if pleasure is the policy of life, nothing but strife and hatred and division can possibly follow. He says that the result of the over-mastering search for pleasure is polemoi ( G4171) "wars" and machai ( G3163) "battles." He means that the feverish search for pleasure issues in long-drawn-out resentments which are like wars, and sudden explosions of enmity which are like battles. The ancient moralists would have thoroughly agreed with him.

When we look at human society we so often see a seething mass of hatred and strife. Philo writes, "Consider the continual war which prevails among men even in times of peace, and which exists not only between nations and countries and cities, but also between private houses, or, I might rather say, is present with every individual man; observe the unspeakable raging storm in men's souls that is excited by the violent rush of the affairs of life; and you may well wonder whether anyone can enjoy tranquility in such a storm, and maintain calm amidst the surge of this billowing sea."

The root cause of this unceasing and bitter conflict is nothing other than desire. Philo points out that the Ten Commandments culminate in the forbidding of covetousness or desire, for desire is the worst of all the passions of the soul. "Is it not because of this passion that relations are broken, and this natural goodwill changed into desperate enmity? that great and populous countries are desolated by domestic dissensions? and land and sea filled with ever new disasters by naval battles and land campaigns? For the wars famous in tragedy...have all flowed from one source--desire either for money or glory or pleasure. Over these things the human race goes mad." Lucian writes, "All the evils which come upon man--revolutions and wars, stratagems and slaughters--spring from desire. All these things have as their fountain-head the desire for more." Plato writes, "The sole cause of wars and revolutions and battles is nothing other than the body and its desires." Cicero writes, "It is insatiable desires which overturn not only individual men, but whole families, and which even bring down the state. From desires there spring hatred, schisms, discords, seditions and wars." Desire is at the root of all the evils which ruin life and divide men.

The New Testament is clear that this overmastering desire for the pleasures of this world is always a threatening danger to the spiritual life. It is the cares and riches and pleasures of this life which combine to choke the good seed ( Luke 8:14). A man can become a slave to passions and pleasures and when he does malice and envy and hatred enter into life ( Titus 3:3).

The ultimate choice in life lies between pleasing oneself and pleasing God; and a world in which men's first aim is to please themselves is a battleground of savagery and division.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE PLEASURE-DOMINATED LIFE ( James 4:1-3 continued)

This pleasure-dominated life has certain inevitable consequences.

(i) It sets men at each other's throats. Desires, as James sees it, are inherently warring powers. He does not mean that they war within a man--although that is also true--but that they set men warring against each other. The basic desires are for the same things--for money, for power, for prestige, for worldly possessions, for the gratification of bodily lusts. When all men are striving to possess the same things, life inevitably becomes a competitive arena. They trample each other down in the rush to grasp them. They will do anything to eliminate a rival. Obedience to the will of God draws men together, for it is that will that they should love and serve one another; obedience to the craving for pleasure drives men apart, for it drives them to internecine rivalry for the same things.

(ii) The craving for pleasure drives men to shameful deeds. It drives them to envy and to enmity; and even to murder. Before a man can arrive at a deed there must be a certain driving emotion in his heart. He may restrain himself from the things that the desire for pleasure incites him to do; but so tong as that desire is in his heart he is not safe. It may at any time explode into ruinous action.

The steps of the process are simple and terrible. A man allows himself to desire something. That thing begins to dominate his thoughts; he finds himself involuntarily thinking about it in his waking hours and dreaming of it when he sleeps. It begins to be what is aptly called a ruling passion. He begins to form imaginary schemes to obtain it; and these schemes may well involve ways of eliminating those who stand in his way. For long enough all this may go on in his mind. Then one day the imaginings may blaze into action; and he may find himself taking the terrible steps necessary to obtain his desire. Every crime in this world has come from desire which was first only a feeling in the heart but which, being nourished long enough, came in the end to action.

(iii) The craving for pleasure in the end shuts the door of prayer. If a man's prayers are simply for the things which will gratify his desires, they are essentially selfish and, therefore, it is not possible for God to answer them. The true end of prayer is to say to God, "Thy will be done." The prayer of the man who is pleasure-dominated is: "My desires be satisfied." It is one of the grim facts of life that a selfish man can hardly ever pray aright; no one can ever pray aright until he removes self from the centre of his life and puts God there.

In this life we have to choose whether to make our main object our own desires or the will of God. And, if we choose our own desires, we have thereby separated ourselves from our fellow-men and from God.

INFIDELITY TO GOD ( James 4:4-7 )

4:4-7 Renegades to your vows, do you not know that love for this world is enmity to God? Whoever makes it his aim to be the friend of this world thereby becomes the enemy of God. Do you think that the saying of Scripture is only an idle saying: "God jealously yearns for the spirit which he has made to dwell within us"? But God gives the more grace. That is why Scripture says, "God sets himself against the haughty, but gives grace to the humble." So, then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you; draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

The King James Version makes this passage even more difficult than it is. In it the warning is addressed to adulterers and adulteresses. In the correct text the word occurs only in the feminine. Further, the word is not intended to be taken literally; the reference is not to physical but to spiritual adultery. The whole conception is based on the common Old Testament idea of Jahweh as the husband of Israel and Israel as the bride of God. "Your Maker is your husband; the Lord of hosts is his name" ( Isaiah 54:5). "Surely as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so have you been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says the Lord" ( Jeremiah 3:20). This idea of Jahweh as the husband and the nation of Israel as the wife, explains the way in which the Old Testament constantly expresses spiritual infidelity in terms of physical adultery. To make a covenant with the gods of a strange land and to sacrifice to them and to intermarry with their people is "to play the harlot after their gods" ( Exodus 34:15-16). It is God's forewarning to Moses that the day will come when the people "will rise and play the harlot after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be among them," and that they will forsake him ( Deuteronomy 31:16). It is Hosea's complaint that the people have played the harlot and forsaken God ( Hosea 9:1). It is in this spiritual sense that the New Testament speaks of "an adulterous generation" ( Matthew 16:4; Mark 8:38). And the picture came into Christian thought in the conception of the Church as the Bride of Christ ( 2 Corinthians 11:1-2; Ephesians 5:24-28; Revelation 19:7; Revelation 21:9).

This form of expression may offend some delicate modern ears; but the picture of Israel as the bride of God and of God as the husband of Israel has something very precious in it. It means that to disobey God is like breaking the marriage vow. It means that all sin is sin against love. It means that our relationship to God is not like the distant relationship of king and subject or master and slave, but like the intimate relationship of husband and wife. It means that when we sin we break God's heart, as the heart of one partner in a marriage may be broken by the desertion of the other.

FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD AND ENMITY WITH GOD ( James 4:4-7 continued)

In this passage James says that love of the world is enmity with God and that he who is the friend of the world thereby becomes the enemy of God. It is important to understand what he means.

(i) This is not spoken out of contempt for the world. It is not spoken from the point of view which regards earth as a desert drear and which denigrates everything in the natural world. There is a story of a Puritan who was out for a walk in the country with a friend. The friend noticed a very lovely flower at the roadside and said, "That is a lovely flower." The Puritan replied, "I have learned to call nothing lovely in this lost and sinful world." That is not James' point of view; he would have agreed that this world is the creation of God; and like Jesus he would have rejoiced in its beauty.

(ii) We have already seen that the New Testament often uses the word kosmos ( G2889) in the sense of the world apart from God There are two New Testament passages which well illustrate what James means. Paul writes, "The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God;...those who are in the flesh cannot please God" ( Romans 8:7-8). What he means is that those who insist on assessing everything by purely human standards are necessarily at variance with God. The second passage is one of the most poignant epitaphs on the Christian life in all literature: "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me" ( 2 Timothy 4:10). The idea is that of worldliness. If material things are the things to which he dedicates his life, clearly he cannot dedicate his life to God. In that sense the man who has dedicated his life to the world is at enmity with God.

(iii) The best commentary on this saying is that of Jesus: "No one can serve two masters" ( Matthew 6:24). There are two attitudes to the things of this world and the things of time. We may be so dominated by them that the world becomes our master. Or we may so use them as to serve our fellow-men and prepare ourselves for eternity, in which case the world is not our master but our servant. A man may either use the world or be used by it. To use the world as the servant of God and men is to be the friend of God, for that is what God meant the world to be. To use the world as the controller and dictator of life is to be at enmity with God, for that is what God never meant the world to be.

GOD, THE JEALOUS LOVER ( James 4:4-7 continued)

James 4:5 is exceedingly difficult. To begin with, it is cited as a quotation from Scripture, but there is no part of Scripture of which it is, in fact, anything like a recognizable quotation. We may either assume that James is quoting from some book now lost which he regarded as Scripture; or, that he is summing up in one sentence what is the eternal sense of the Old Testament and not meaning to quote any particular passage.

Further, the translation is difficult: There are two alternative renderings which in the end give much the same sense. "He (that is, God) jealously yearns for the devotion of the spirit which he has made to dwell within us," or, "The Spirit which God has made to dwell within us jealously yearns for the full devotion of our hearts."

In either case the meaning is that God is the jealous lover who will brook no rival. The Old Testament was never afraid to apply the word jealous to God. Moses says of God to the people: "They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods" ( Deuteronomy 32:16). He hears God say, "They have stirred me to jealousy with what is no God" ( Deuteronomy 32:21). In insisting on his sole right to worship, God in the Ten Commandments says, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God" ( Exodus 20:5). "You shall worship no other god, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous God" ( Exodus 34:14). Zechariah hears God say, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy" ( Zechariah 8:2). Jealous comes from the Greek zelos ( G2205) which has in it the idea of burning heat. The idea is that God loves men with such a passion that he cannot bear any other love within the hearts of men.

It may be that jealous is a word which nowadays we find it difficult to connect with God, for it has acquired a lower significance; but behind it is the amazing truth that God is the lover of the souls of men. There is a sense in which love must be diffused among all men and over all God's children; but there is also a sense in which love gives and demands an exclusive devotion to one person. It is profoundly true that a man can be in love only with one person at one time; if he thinks otherwise, he does not know the meaning of love.

THE GLORY OF HUMILITY AND THE TRAGEDY OF PRIDE ( James 4:4-7 continued)

James goes on to meet an almost inevitable reaction to this picture of God as the jealous lover. If God is like that, how can any man give to him the devotion he demands? James' answer is that, if God makes a great demand, he gives great grace to fulfil it; and the greater the demand, the greater the grace God gives.

But grace has a constant characteristic--a man cannot receive it until he has realized his need of it, and has come to God humbly pleading for help. Therefore, it must always remain true that God sets himself against the proud and gives lavishly of his grace to the humble. "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." This is a quotation from Proverbs 3:34; and it is made again in 1 Peter 5:5.

What is this destructive pride? The word for proud is huperephanos ( G5244) which literally means one who shows himself above other people. Even the Greeks hated pride. Theophrastus described it as "a certain contempt for all other people." Theophylact, the Christian writer, called it, "the citadel and summit of all evils." Its real terror is that it is a thing of the heart. It means haughtiness; but the man who suffers from it might well appear to be walking in downcast humility, while all the time there is in his heart a vast contempt for all his fellow-men. It shuts itself off from God for three reasons.

(i) It does not know its own need. It so admires itself that it recognizes no need to be supplied. (ii) It cherishes its own independence. It will be beholden to no man and not even to God. (iii) It does not recognize its own sin. It is occupied with thinking of its own goodness and never realizes that it has any sin from which it needs to be saved. A pride like that cannot receive help, because it does not know that it needs help, and, therefore, it cannot ask.

The humility for which James pleads is no cringing thing. It has two great characteristics.

(i) It knows that if a man takes a resolute stand against the devil, he will prove him a coward. "The Devil," as Hermas puts it, "can wrestle against the Christian, but he cannot throw him." This is a truth of which the Christians were fond, for Peter says the same thing ( 1 Peter 5:8-9). The great example and inspiration is Jesus in his own temptations. In them Jesus showed that the devil is not invincible; when he is confronted with the word of God, he can be put to flight. The Christian has the humility which knows that he must fight his battles with the tempter, not in his own power, but in the power of God.

(ii) It knows that it has the greatest privilege of all, access to God. This is a tremendous thing, for the right of approach to God under the old order of things belonged only to the priests ( Exodus 19:22). The office of the priest was to come near to God for sin-stained people ( Ezekiel 44:13). But through the work of Jesus Christ any man can come boldly before the throne of God, certain that he will find mercy and grace to help in time of need ( Hebrews 4:16). There was a time when only the High Priest might enter the Holy of Holies, but we have a new and a living way, a better hope by which we draw near to God ( Hebrews 7:19).

The Christian must have humility, but it is a humility which gives him dauntless courage and knows that the way to God is open to the most fearful saint.

GODLY PURITY ( James 4:8-10 )

4:8-10 Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to sorrow, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before God and then he will exalt you.

In James' thought the ethical demand of Christianity is never far away. He has talked about the grace which God gives to the humble and which enables a man to meet his great demands. But James is sure that there is something needed beyond asking and passive receiving. He is sure that moral effort is a prime necessity.

His appeal is addressed to sinners. The word used for sinner is hamartolos ( G268) , which means the hardened sinner, the man whose sin is obvious and notorious. Suidas defines hamartoloi ( G268) as "those who choose to live in company with disobedience to the law, and who love a corrupt life." From such people James demands a moral reform which will embrace both their outward conduct and their inner desires. He demands both clean hands and a pure heart ( Psalms 24:4).

The phrase cleanse your hands originally denoted nothing more than ceremonial cleansing, the ritual washing with water which made a man ceremonially fit to approach the worship of God. The priests must wash and bathe themselves before they entered on their service ( Exodus 30:19-21; Leviticus 16:4). The orthodox Jew must ceremonially wash his hands before he ate ( Mark 7:3). But men came to see that God required much more than an outward washing; and so the phrase came to stand for moral purity. "I wash my hands in innocence," says the Psalmist ( Psalms 26:6). It is Isaiah's demand that men should "wash yourselves; make yourselves clean," and that is equated with ceasing to do evil ( Isaiah 1:16). In the letter to Timothy men are urged to lift holy hands to God in prayer ( 1 Timothy 2:8). The history of the phrase shows a deepening consciousness of what God demanded. Men began by thinking in terms of an outward washing, a ritual thing; and ended by seeing that the demand of God was moral, not ritual.

Biblical thought demands a fourfold cleansing. It demands a cleansing of the lips ( Isaiah 6:5-6). It demands a cleansing of the hands ( Psalms 24:4). It demands a cleansing of the heart ( Psalms 73:13). It demands a cleansing of the mind ( James 4:8). That is to say, the ethical demand of the Bible is that a man's words and deeds and emotions and thoughts should all be purified. Inwardly and outwardly a man must be clean, for only the pure in heart shall see God ( Matthew 5:8).

THE GODLY SORROW ( James 4:8-10 continued)

In his demand for a godly sorrow James is going back to the fact that Jesus had said, "Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted" ( Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:20-26). We must not read into this passage something James does not mean. He is not denying the joy of the Christian life. He is not demanding that men should live a gloom-encompassed life in a shadowed world. He is doing two things. He is pleading for sobriety in place of frivolousness, and is doing so with all the intensity of one whose natural instincts are puritan; and he is describing, not the end, but the beginning of the Christian life. He demands three things.

(i) He demands what he calls affliction. The verb is talaiporein ( G5003) and it can describe--Thucydides so uses it--the experiences of an army whose food is gone and who have no shelter from the stormy weather. What James is here demanding is a voluntary abstinence from lavish luxury and effeminate comfort. He is talking to people who are in love with the world; and he is pleading with them not to make luxury and comfort the standards by which they judge all life. It is discipline which produces the scholar; it is rigorous training which creates the athlete; and it is a wise abstinence which produces the Christian who knows how to use the world and its gifts aright.

(ii) He demands that they should mourn, that their laughter should be turned to sorrow and their joy to gloom. Here, James is describing the first step of the Christian life which is taken when a man is confronted with God and with his own sin. That is a daunting experience. When Wesley preached to the miners of Kingswood, they were moved to such grief that the tears made runnels as they ran down the grime of their faces. But that is by no means the end of the Christian life. The terrible sorrow of the realization of sin moves on to the thrilling joy of sins forgiven. But to get to the second stage a man must go through the first. James is demanding that these self-satisfied, luxury-loving, unworried hearers of his should be confronted with their sins and should be ashamed, grief-stricken and afraid; for only then can they reach out for grace and go on to a joy far greater than their earthbound pleasures.

(iii) He demands that they should weep. It is perhaps not reading too much into this to say that James may well be thinking of tears of sympathy. Up to this time these luxury-loving people have lived in utter selfishness, quite insensitive to what the poet called "the world's rain of tears." James is insisting that the griefs and the needs of others should pierce the armour of their own pleasure and comfort. A man is not a Christian until he becomes aware of the poignant cry of that humanity for which Christ died.

So, then, in words deliberately chosen to waken the sleeping soul, James demands that his hearers should substitute the way of abstinence for the way of luxury; that they should become aware of their own sins and mourn for them; and that they should become conscious of the world's need and weep for it.

THE GODLY HUMILITY ( James 4:8-10 continued)

James concludes with the demand for a godly humility. All through the Bible there runs the conviction that it is only the humble who can know the blessings of God. God will save the humble person ( Job 22:29). A man's pride will bring him low; but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit ( Proverbs 29:23). God dwells on high, but he is also with him that is of a humble and a contrite spirit ( Isaiah 57:15). They that fear the Lord will humble their souls in his sight, and the greater a man is the more he ought to humble himself, if he is to find favour in the sight of God ( Sir_2:17 ; Sir_3:17 ). Jesus himself repeatedly declared that it was the man who humbled himself who alone would be exalted ( Matthew 23:12; Luke 14:11).

Only when a man realizes his own ignorance will he ask God's guidance. Only when a man realizes his own poverty in the things that matter will he pray for the riches of God's grace. Only when a man realizes his weakness in necessary things will he come to draw upon God's strength. Only when a man realizes his own sin will he realize his need of a Saviour and of God's forgiveness.

In life there is one sin which can be said to be the basis of all others; and that is forgetting that we are creatures and that God is creator. When a man realizes his essential creatureliness, he realizes his essential helplessness and goes to the source from which that helplessness can alone be supplied.

Such a dependence begets the only real independence; for then a man faces life not in his own strength but in God's and is given victory. So long as a man regards himself as independent of God he is on the way to ultimate collapse and to defeat.

THE SIN OF JUDGING OTHERS ( James 4:11-12 )

4:11-12 Stop talking harshly about each other. He who speaks harshly of his brother, or who judges his brother, speaks harshly of the law and judges the law; and, if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. One is law-giver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge your neighbour?

The word James uses for to speak harshly of, or, to slander is katalalein ( G2635) . Usually this verb means to slander someone when he is not there to defend himself. This sin slander (the noun is katalalia, G2636) is condemned all through the Bible. It is the Psalmist's accusation against the wicked man: "You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son" ( Psalms 50:20). The Psalmist hears God saying, "Him who slanders his neighbour secretly I will destroy" ( Psalms 101:5). Paul lists it among the sins which are characteristic of the unredeemed evil of the pagan world ( Romans 1:30); and it is one of the sins which he fears to find in the warring Church of Corinth ( 2 Corinthians 12:20). It is significant to note that in both these passages slander comes in immediate connection with gossip. Katalalia ( G2636) is the sin of those who meet in corners and gather in little groups and pass on confidential tidbits of information which destroy the good name of those who are not there to defend themselves. The same sin is condemned by Peter ( 1 Peter 2:1).

There is great necessity for this warning. People are slow to realize that there are few sins which the Bible so unsparingly condemns as the sin of irresponsible and malicious gossip. There are few activities in which the average person finds more delight than this; to tell and to listen to the slanderous story--especially about some distinguished person--is for most people a fascinating activity. We do well to remember what God thinks of it. James condemns it for two fundamental reasons.

(i) It is a breach of the royal law that we should love our neighbour as ourselves ( James 2:8; Leviticus 19:18). Obviously a man cannot love his neighbour as himself and speak slanderous evil about him. Now, if a man breaks a law knowingly, he sets himself above the law. That is to say, he has made himself a judge of the law. But a man's duty is not to judge the law, but to obey it. So the man who speaks evil of his neighbour has appointed himself a judge of the law and taken to himself the right to break it, and therefore stands condemned.

(ii) It is an infringement of the prerogative of God. To slander our neighbour is, in fact, to pass judgment upon him. And no human being has any right to judge any other human; the right of judgment belongs to God alone.

It is God alone who is able to save and to destroy. This great prerogative runs all through Scripture. "I kill and I make alive," says God ( Deuteronomy 32:39). "The Lord kills and brings to life," says Hannah in her prayer ( 1 Samuel 2:6). "Am I God to kill and to make alive?" is the shocked question of the Israelite king to whom Naaman came with a demand for a cure for his leprosy ( 2 Kings 5:7). Jesus warns that we should not fear men, who at the worst can only kill the body, but should fear him who can destroy both body and soul ( Matthew 10:28). As the Psalmist had it, it is to God alone that the issues of life and of death belong ( Psalms 68:20). To judge another is to take to ourselves a right to do what God alone has the right to do; and he is a reckless man who deliberately infringes the prerogatives of God.

We might think that to speak evil of our neighbour is not a very serious sin. But Scripture would say that it is one of the worst of all because it is a breach of the royal law and an infringement of the rights of God.

THE MISTAKEN CONFIDENCE ( James 4:13-17 )

4:13-17 Come now, you who say, "Today, or tomorrow, we will go into this city, and we will spend a year there, and we will trade and make a profit." People like you do not know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life like? You are like a mist which appears for a little time and then disappears. And yet you talk like that instead of saying, "If the Lord wills, we shall live, and we shall do this or that." As it is, you make your arrogant claims in your braggart ways. All such arrogant claims are evil. So then, if a man knows what is good and does not do it, that to him is sin.

Here again is a contemporary picture which James' readers would recognize, and in which they might well see their own portrait. The Jews were the great traders of the ancient world; and in many ways that world gave them every opportunity to practise their commercial abilities. This was an age of the founding of cities; and often when cities were founded and their founders were looking for citizens to occupy them, citizenship was offered freely to the Jews, for where the Jews came money and trade followed. So the picture is of a man looking at a map. He points at a certain spot on it, and says, "Here is a new city where there are great trade chances. I'll go there; I'll get in on the ground floor; I'll trade for a year or so; I'll make my fortune and come back rich." James' answer is that no man has a right to make confident plans for the future, for he does not know what even a day may bring forth. Man may propose but God disposes.

The essential uncertainty of the future was deeply impressed on the minds of men of all nations. The Hebrew sage wrote, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth" ( Proverbs 27:1). Jesus told his story of the rich but foolish man who made his fortune and built up his plans for the future, and forgot that his soul might be required of him that very night ( Luke 12:16-21). Ben Sirach wrote, "There is that waxeth rich by his wariness and pinching, and this is the portion of his reward: whereas, he saith, 'I have found rest and now will eat continually of my goods'; and yet he knoweth not what time shall come upon him and that death approacheth; and that he must leave these things to others and die" ( Sir_11:18-19 ). Seneca said: "How foolish it is for a man to make plans for his life, when not even tomorrow is in his control." And again: "No man has such rich friends that he can promise himself tomorrow." The Rabbis had a proverb: "Care not for the morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth. Perhaps you may not find tomorrow." Dennis Mackail was the friend of Sir James Barrie. He tells that, as Barrie grew older, he would never make an arrangement for even a social engagement at any distant date. "Short notice now!" he would always say.

James goes on. This uncertainty of life is not a cause either for fear or for inaction. it is a reason for realizing our complete dependence on God. It has always been the mark of a serious-minded man that he makes his plans in such dependence. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills" ( 1 Corinthians 4:19). "I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits" ( 1 Corinthians 16:7). Xenophon writes, "May all these things be, if the gods so will. If anyone wonders that we often find the phrase written, 'if the gods will,' I would have him to know that, once he has experienced the risks of life, he will not wonder nearly so much." Plato relates a conversation between Socrates and Alcibiades. Alcibiades says: "I will do so if you wish, Socrates." Socrates answers, "Alcibiades, that is not the way to talk. And how ought you to speak? You ought to say, 'If God so wishes.'" Minucius Felix writes, "'God grant it'--it comes instinctively to the ordinary man to speak like that." Constantly among the Arabs there is heard the expressions: "Imsh' Allah--if Allah wills." The curious thing is that there seems to have been no corresponding phrase which the Jews used. In this they had to learn.

The true Christian way is not to be terrorized into fear and paralysed into inaction by the uncertainty of the future; but to commit the future and all our plans into the hands of God, always remembering that these plans may not be within God's purpose.

The man who does not remember that, is guilty of arrogant boasting. The word is alazoneia ( G212) . Alazoneia was originally the characteristic of the wandering quack. He offered cures which were no cures and boasted of things that he was not able to do. The future is not within the hands of men and no man can arrogantly claim that he has power to decide it.

James ends with a threat. If a man knows that a thing is wrong and still continues to do it, that to him is sin. James is in effect saying, "You have been warned; the truth has been placed before your eyes." To continue now in the self-confident habit of seeking to dispose of one's own life is sin for the man who has been reminded that the future is not in his hands but in God's.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

James 4:3

4:2–3 “ask” Un-Christlike motives and lack of prayer are two reasons why Christians often experience unfruitful lives. Often we use prayer as an attempt to obtain our will, not God’s. In this attitude the worst thing that God could do for us would be to answer our self-centered prayers! - Utley

you ask wrongly -- Not all prayers are pleasing to God, only those consistent with his will as revealed in Scripture (cf. 1 John 5:14-15). - ESVSB

amiss -- (lit., “evilly” or “amiss,” kakos).

pleasures -- Rather than seeking to honor God and advance his kingdom purposes, such prayers seek only to gratify self-centered passions (Gk. hedone, see note on v. 1) or desires. James is not saying all pleasure is wrong (cf. Genesis 1:31; Psalms 16:11; Psalms 84:1-4, Psalms 84:10-12; 1 Timothy 6:17), only pleasure that does not have the glory of God as the goal (1 Corinthians 10:31). - ESVSB

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Ye ask, and receive not,.... Some there were that did ask of God the blessings of his goodness and providence, and yet these were not bestowed on them; the reason was,

because ye ask amiss; not in the faith of a divine promise; nor with thankfulness for past mercies; nor with submission to the will of God; nor with a right end, to do good to others, and to make use of what might be bestowed, for the honour of God, and the interest of Christ: but

that ye may consume it upon your lusts; indulge to intemperance and luxury; as the man that had much goods laid up for many years did, to the neglect of his own soul, Luke 12:19 or the rich man, who spent all upon his back and his belly, and took no notice of Lazarus at his gate; Luke 16:19.

Light of Israel Bible Commentary

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? James 4:1

This verse is a little puzzling by the immediate usage of two Greek words, polemoi (wars) and machai (fights). Later in the verse he also uses the Greek word strateuomenon (make war, do battle). These are all military terms and it shocks us a little to see them used of the church. In the next verse he even uses the Greek word for "kill" (phoneuete) and that shocks us even further.<footnote>G. Abbot-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), pp. 370, 280, 419 & 472.</footnote> Is it possible that such evil and cruel things could be going on in the body of Christ, especially in the first century?

Obviously, since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden there have been wars and murders in abundance. So there are wars of all kinds raging around us every day. Even as Christians we are in a constant war between our flesh and the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in us (Romans 7:23). So, perhaps it should not be surprising that wars of differing kinds rage even in the church. Paul in his ministry does speak of "conflicts on the outside, fears within" (2 Corinthians 7:5).

Still, the ideas of battle and even killing within the church itself have been too much for some commentators. The early Greek scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536), even felt the verb "murder" (phoneuete) in verse 2 was a textual error and should be replaced by "envy" (Gk. phthoneite). However, modern scholars have discounted this idea since there is no manuscript evidence for such a change. Rather it may be likely that James is thinking once more of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:1 ff.) where the sins of hatred and insult are regarded as the same as murder (cf. 1 John 3:15).<footnote>Stulac, James, comment on vs. 1-4. On this passage Calvin adds, "The language of the whole passage is highly metaphorical. He calls their contentions 'wars and fightings;' for the whole tenor of the passage is opposed to the supposition that he refers to actual wars." (Calvin v. 2)</footnote> The web commentator David Guzik by citing Hiebert in the following verse says, "The word kill [murder] is startling and meant to startle; James sought to force his readers to realize the depth of the evil in their bitter hatred toward others."<footnote>Guzik, Commentary on James, vs. 1-3.</footnote>

We do not have to look far in scripture to see that wrong thoughts and feelings have caused great division and warfare among God's people. We see how Lot caused a quarrel and later a division between himself and Father Abraham (Genesis 13). Absalom by his wrong thoughts caused a great division and war with his father David (2 Samuel Chs. 13-18). The disciples of Jesus caused problems and difficulties when they got into an argument about who would be greatest in the kingdom (Luke 9:46-48). The Corinthian believers came to the point of suing one other in court because of their disagreements (1 Corinthians 6:1-8). Then the Galatian Christians were "biting and devouring" each other (Galatians 5:15). There were even two wonderful women, who were no doubt friends of Paul, but who could not get along with each other in Philippians 4:1-3.<footnote>Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, New Testament, p. 874.</footnote>

Whether the battles are outward or inward, James puts his finger on their cause. They come about because of evil desires (Gk. hedone). Peter later warned the church saying, "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul" (1 Peter 2:11).

We should take note of the Greek word "hedone," from which we get our concept of "hedonism."<footnote>Moo, James, p. 143.</footnote> Today we are living in a hedonistic age where the populace has run headlong to pleasures, self-gratifications, lusts, desires, appetites and passions. Because of such things the US is a nation of bloodshed where an ever-growing portion of our population is being confined to prison. We know that the same hedonism can infiltrate the church to some degree. Perhaps the beautiful words of Psalm 133:1-2 were written to discourage just such a thing, "…How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down on the collar of his robe."

James continues, "You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God" (4:2). The Lord gives us a great secret here that will put an end to quarrels and fights. The secret is prayer. Through proper and persistent prayer the searchlight of God can illuminate the hidden lusts and passions burning in each of our hearts. Through prayer we can also have our real needs met. After this, there will be no more cause to envy others.

Quite simply we do not have because we do not ask. Once more this seems to be a reference to the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened" (Mt. 7:7-8).

James is quick to add a qualifier to his statement about asking. He goes on to say, "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures" (4:3). The Bible is clear that all prayers cannot be answered. Some people are really not praying but "scheming" when they talk to God. As Bob Utley says, "the worst thing God could do for most Christians is to answer their selfish prayers!"<footnote>Utley, James, p. 66.</footnote> "The craving for pleasure in the end shuts the door of prayer. If a man's prayers are simply for the things which will gratify his desires, they are essentially selfish and, therefore, it is not possible for God to answer them."<footnote>Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter, p. 100.</footnote>

We need to spend enough time on our knees so that we begin to understand who God really is and what his plan is for our lives. When we determine what his will is for us and when we then ask according to his will, we can know that he will hear us. We can ask "anything" according to his will and he will hear us. We can be totally assured of his answer (1 John 5.14).

The Bible tells us what kind of prayers God hears. They are the prayers of the righteous (Psalm 34:15); who call on him in truth (Psalm 145:18); the penitent (Luke 18:14); who ask in his name (John 14:13); the believing (Mark 11:24); and as we have said above, those who ask according to his will. "It has well been said that the purpose of prayer is not to get man's will done in heaven, but to get God's will done on earth."<footnote>Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary, New Testament, p. 874.</footnote>

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?   2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.   3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.   4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.   5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?   6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.   7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.   8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.   9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.   10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

      The former chapter speaks of envying one another, as the great spring of strifes and contentions; this chapter speaks of a lust after worldly things, and a setting too great a value upon worldly pleasures and friendships, as that which carried their divisions to a shameful height.

      I. The apostle here reproves the Jewish Christians for their wars, and for their lusts as the cause of them: Whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members,James 4:1; James 4:1. The Jews were a very seditious people, and had therefore frequent wars with the Romans; and they were a very quarrelsome divided people, often fighting among themselves; and many of those corrupt Christians against whose errors and vices this epistle was written seem to have fallen in with the common quarrels. Hereupon, our apostle informs them that the origin of their wars and fightings was not (as they pretended) a true zeal for their country, and for the honour of God, but that their prevailing lusts were the cause of all. Observe hence, What is sheltered and shrouded under a specious pretence of zeal for God and religion often comes from men's pride, malice, covetousness, ambition, and revenge. The Jews had many struggles with the Roman power before they ere entirely destroyed. They often unnecessarily embroiled themselves, and then fell into parties and factions about the different methods of managing their wars with their common enemies; and hence it came to pass that, when their cause might be supposed good, yet their engaging in it and their management of it came from a bad principle. Their worldly and fleshly lusts raised and managed their wars and fightings; but one would think here is enough said to subdue those lusts; for, 1. They make a war within as well as fightings without. Impetuous passions and desires first war in their members, and then raise feuds in their nation. There is war between conscience and corruption, and there is war also between one corruption and another, and from these contentions in themselves arose their quarrels with each other. Apply this to private cases, and may we not then say of fightings and strifes among relations and neighbours they come from those lusts which war in the members? From lust of power and dominion, lust of pleasure, or lust of riches, from some one or more of these lusts arise all the broils and contentions that are in the world; and, since all wars and fightings come from the corruptions of our own hearts, it is therefore the right method for the cure of contention to lay the axe to the root, and mortify those lusts that war in the members. 2. It should kill these lusts to think of their disappointment: "You lust, and have not; you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain,James 4:2; James 4:2. You covet great things for yourselves, and you think to obtain them by your victories over the Romans or by suppressing this and the other party among yourselves. You think you shall secure great pleasures and happiness to yourselves, by overthrowing every thing which thwarts your eager wishes; but, alas! you are losing your labour and your blood, while you kill one another with such views as these." Inordinate desires are either totally disappointed, or they are not to be appeased and satisfied by obtaining the things desired. The words here rendered cannot obtain signify cannot gain the happiness sought after. Note hence, Worldly and fleshly lusts are the distemper which will not allow of contentment or satisfaction in the mind. 3. Sinful desires and affections generally exclude prayer, and the working of our desires towards God: "You fight and war, yet you have not, because you ask not. You fight, and do not succeed, because you do not pray you do not consult God in your undertakings, whether he will allow of them or not; and you do not commit your way to him, and make known your requests to him, but follow your own corrupt views and inclinations: therefore you meet with continual disappointments;" or else. 4. "Your lusts spoil your prayers, and make them an abomination to God, whenever you put them up to him, James 4:3; James 4:3. You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts." As if it had been said, "Though perhaps you may sometimes pray for success against your enemies, yet it is not your aim to improve the advantages you gain, so as to promote true piety and religion either in yourselves or others; but pride, vanity, luxury, and sensuality, are what you would serve by your successes, and by your very prayers. You want to live in great power and plenty, in voluptuousness and a sensual prosperity; and thus you disgrace devotion and dishonour God by such gross and base ends; and therefore your prayers are rejected." Let us learn hence, in the management of all our worldly affairs, and in our prayers to God for success in them, to see that our ends be right. When men follow their worldly business (suppose them tradesmen or husbandmen), and ask of God prosperity, but do not receive what they ask for, it is because they ask with wrong aims and intentions. They ask God to give them success in their callings or undertakings; not that they may glorify their heavenly Father and do good with what they have, but that they may consume it upon their lusts--that they may be enabled to eat better meat, and drink better drink, and wear better clothes, and so gratify their pride, vanity, and voluptuousness. But, if we thus seek the things of this world, it is just in God to deny them; whereas, if we seek any thing that we may serve God with it, we may expect he will either give us what we seek or give us hearts to be content without it, and give opportunities of serving and glorifying him some other way. Let us remember this, that when we speed not in our prayers it is because we ask amiss; either we do not ask for right ends or not in a right manner, not with faith or not with fervency: unbelieving and cold desires beg denials; and this we may be sure of, that, when our prayers are rather the language of our lusts than of our graces, they will return empty.

      II. We have fair warning to avoid all criminal friendships with this world: You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?James 4:4; James 4:4. Worldly people are here called adulterers and adulteresses, because of their perfidiousness of God, while they give their best affections to the world. Covetousness is elsewhere called idolatry, and it is here called adultery; it is a forsaking of him to whom we are devoted and espoused, to cleave to other things; there is this brand put upon worldly-mindedness--that it is enmity to God. A man may have a competent portion of the good things of this life, and yet may keep himself in the love of God; but he who sets his heart upon the world, who places his happiness in it, and will conform himself to it, and do any thing rather than lose its friendship, he is an enemy to God; it is constructive treason and rebellion against God to set the world upon his throne in our hearts. Whosoever therefore is the friend of the world is the enemy of God. He who will act upon this principle, to keep the smiles of the world, and to have its continual friendship, cannot but show himself, in spirit, and in his actions too, an enemy to God. You cannot serve God and mammon,Matthew 6:24. Hence arise wars and fightings, even from this adulterous idolatrous love of the world, and serving of it; for what peace can there be among men, so long as there is enmity towards God? or who can fight against God, and prosper? "Think seriously with yourselves what the spirit of the world is, and you will find that you cannot suit yourselves to it as friends, but it must occasion your being envious, and full of evil inclinations, as the generality of the world are. Do you think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?" James 4:5; James 4:5. The account given in the holy scriptures of the hearts of men by nature is that their imagination is evil, only evil, and that continually,Genesis 6:5. Natural corruption principally shows itself by envying, and there is a continual propensity to this. The spirit which naturally dwells in man is always producing one evil imagination or another, always emulating such as we see and converse with and seeking those things which are possessed and enjoyed by them. Now this way of the world, affecting pomp and pleasure, and falling into strifes and quarrels for the sake of these things, is the certain consequence of being friends to the world; for there is no friendship without a oneness of spirit, and therefore Christians, to avoid contentions, must avoid the friendship of the world, and must show that they are actuated by nobler principles and that a nobler spirit dwells in them; for, if we belong to God, he gives more grace than to live and act as the generality of the world do. The spirit of the world teaches men to be churls; God teaches them to be bountiful. The spirit of the world teaches us to lay up, or lay out, for ourselves, and according to our own fancies; God teaches us to be willing to communicate to the necessities and to the comfort of others, and so as to do good to all about us, according to our ability. The grace of God is contrary to the spirit of the world, and therefore the friendship of the world is to be avoided, if we pretend to be friends of God yea, the grace of God will correct and cure the spirit that naturally dwells in us; where he giveth grace, he giveth another spirit than that of the world.

      III. We are taught to observe the difference God makes between pride and humility. God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble,James 4:6; James 4:6. This is represented as the language of scripture in the Old Testament; for so it is declared in the book of Psalms that God will save the afflicted people (if their spirits be suited to their condition), but will bring down high looks (Psalms 18:27); and in the book of Proverbs it is said, He scorneth the scorners, and giveth grace unto the lowly,Proverbs 3:34. Two things are here to be observed:-- 1. The disgrace cast upon the proud: God resists them; the original word, antitassetai, signifies, God's setting himself as in battle array against them; and can there be a greater disgrace than for God to proclaim a man a rebel, an enemy, a traitor to his crown and dignity, and to proceed against him as such? The proud resists God; in his understanding he resists the truths of God; in his will he resists the truths of God; in his will he resists the laws of God; in his passions he resists the providence of God; and therefore no wonder that God sets himself against the proud. Let proud spirits hear this and tremble--God resists them. Who can describe the wretched state of those who make God their enemy? He will certainly fill with same (sooner or later) the faces of such as have filled their hearts with pride. We should therefore resist pride in our hearts, if we would not have God to resist us. 2. The honour and help God gives to the humble. Grace, as opposed to disgrace, is honour; this God gives to the humble; and, where God gives grace to be humble, there he will give all other graces, and, as in the beginning of this James 4:6, he will give more grace. Wherever God gives true grace, he will give more; for to him that hath, and useth what he hath aright, more shall be given. He will especially give more grace to the humble, because they see their need of it, will pray for it and be thankful for it; and such shall have it. For this reason,

      IV. We are taught to submit ourselves entirely to God: Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,James 4:7; James 4:7. Christians should forsake the friendship of the world, and watch against that envy and pride which they see prevailing in natural men, and should by grace learn to glory in their submissions to God. "Submit yourselves to him as subjects to their prince, in duty, and as one friend to another, in love and interest. Submit your understandings to the truths of God; submit your wills to the will of God, the will of his precept, the will of his providence." We are subjects, and as such must be submissive; not only through fear, but through love; not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. "Submit yourselves to God, as considering how many ways you are bound to this, and as considering what advantage you will gain by it; for God will not hurt you by his dominion over you, but will do you good." Now, as this subjection and submission to God are what the devil most industriously strives to hinder, so we ought with great care and steadiness to resist his suggestions. If he would represent a tame yielding to the will and providence of God as what will bring calamities, and expose to contempt and misery, we must resist these suggestions of fear. If he would represent submission to God as a hindrance to our outward ease, or worldly preferments, we must resist these suggestions of pride and sloth. If he would tempt us to lay any of our miseries, and crosses, and afflictions, to the charge of Providence, so that we might avoid them by following his directions instead of God's, we must resist these provocations to anger, not fretting ourselves in any wise to do evil. "Let not the devil, in these or the like attempts, prevail upon you; but resist him and he will flee from you." If we basely yield to temptations, the devil will continually follow us; but if we put on the whole armour of God, and stand it out against him, he will be gone from us. Resolution shuts and bolts the door against temptation.

      V. We are directed how to act towards God, in our becoming submissive to him, James 4:8-10; James 4:8-10. 1. Draw nigh to God. The heart that has rebelled must be brought to the foot of God; the spirit that was distant and estranged from a life of communion and converse with God must become acquainted with him: "Draw nigh to God, in his worship and institutions, and in every duty he requires of you." 2. Cleanse your hands. He who comes unto God must have clean hands. Paul therefore directs to lift up holy hands without wrath and doubting (1 Timothy 2:8), hands free from blood, and bribes, and every thing that is unjust or cruel, and free from every defilement of sin: he is not subject to God who is a servant of sin. The hands must be cleansed by faith, repentance, and reformation, or it will be in vain for us to draw nigh to God in prayer, or in any of the exercises of devotion. 3. The hearts of the double-minded must be purified. Those who halt between God and the world are here meant by the double-minded. To purify the heart is to be sincere, and to act upon this single aim and principle, rather to please God than to seek after any thing in this world: hypocrisy is heart-impurity; but those who submit themselves to God aright will purify their hearts as well as cleanse their hands. 4. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. "What afflictions God sends take them as he would have you, and by duly sensible of them. Be afflicted when afflictions are sent upon you, and do not despise them; or be afflicted in your sympathies with those who are so, and in laying to heart the calamities of the church of God. Mourn and weep for your own sins and the sins of others; times of contention and division are times to mourn in, and the sins that occasion wars and fightings should be mourned for. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness." This may be taken either as a prediction of sorrow or a prescription of seriousness. Let men think to set grief at defiance, yet God can bring it upon them; none laugh so heartily but he can turn their laughter into mourning; and this the unconcerned Christians James wrote to are threatened should be their case. They are therefore directed, before things come to the worst, to lay aside their vain mirth and their sensual pleasures, that they might indulge godly sorrow and penitential tears. 5. "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. Let the inward acts of the would be suitable to all those outward expressions of grief, affliction, and sorrow, before mentioned." Humility of spirit is here required, as in the sight of him who looks principally at the spirits of men. "Let there be a thorough humiliation in bewailing every thing that is evil; let there be great humility in doing that which is good: Humble yourselves."

      VI. We have great encouragement to act thus towards God: He will draw nigh to those that draw nigh to him (James 4:8; James 4:8), and he will lift up those who humble themselves in his sight, James 4:10; James 4:10. Those that draw nigh to God in a way of duty shall find God drawing nigh to them in a way of mercy. Draw nigh to him in faith, and trust, and obedience, and he will draw nigh to you for your deliverance. If there be not a close communion between God and us, it is our fault, and not his. He shall lift up the humble. Thus much our Lord himself declared, He that shall humble himself shall be exalted,Matthew 23:12. If we be truly penitent and humble under the marks of God's displeasure, we shall in a little time know the advantages of his favour; he will lift us up out of trouble, or he will lift us up in our spirits and comforts under trouble; he will lift us up to honour and safety in the world, or he will lift us up in our way to heaven, so as to raise our hearts and affections above the world. God will revive the spirit of the humble (Isaiah 57:15), He will hear the desire of the humble (Psalms 10:17), and he will at last life them up to glory. Before honour is humility. The highest honour in heaven will be the reward of the greatest humility on earth.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

To the reader who enters on the consideration of the epistle of James from the epistles of Paul, the change is great and sudden, and by no means least of all from the epistle to the Hebrews, which, in the arrangement of the English Bible, immediately precedes James. The main object of that epistle was to consummate the breach of the old relationships of such Christians as were Jews in times past, and to lead them out definitively from all earthly connection into their heavenly association with Christ.

It is not so when we enter from the Acts of the Apostles; as in truth it is so arranged in the great mass of ancient authorities, and some versions which follow them. These "general epistles," as they are called, are placed not after the Pauline but before them. Thus the break is by no means so marked, but on the contrary natural and easily understood; for, in point of fact, James coalesces with the state of things that we find in the churches of Judea, and notably in the church at Jerusalem. They were zealous of the law; they went up to the temple at the hour of prayer, not only Israelites, but even priests, a great company, we hear at one time were obedient to the faith. We have no ground whatever to suppose that these left off either sacrifices or the functions properly sacerdotal. This sounds strange now as men constantly look and judge out of their own present state; but it is impossible to understand the scriptures thus. You must take what the Bible gives, and thus seek to form a just judgment according to God.

It is perfectly plain from the early portion of the Acts of the Apostles, and confirmed too by the latest glimpses which the Holy Ghost gives us of the church in Jerusalem, that there was still a great and decided cleaving to that which was properly Jewish on the part of the early Christians there. They used the faith of Christ rather for conscientious, godly, thorough carrying out of their Jewish thoughts. Whatever people may say or think about it, there is no denying this. Whatever they may know to be their own proper place as Christians who never were in such a position, and, so far from being led into it, guarded from it. Strenuously by the Holy Ghost, there is no question that the facts which scripture presents to us regarding the church in Jerusalem are as I have endeavoured to state them.

Again, the epistle of James was written not merely to the church in Jerusalem, but to the twelve tribes that were scattered abroad. This prepares us for something even larger, not merely for Christian Jews, but for Israelites, for such wherever they may be not merely in the land but out of it "scattered abroad;" as it is said, "the twelve tribes that were scattered abroad." In short it is evident that, among inspired epistles, James's address has a special and an exceptional place. Where this has not been taken into account, there need be no surprise that men have misunderstood the epistle of James. We all know that the great Reformer, Luther, treated this portion of the word of God with the most undeserved distrust and even contempt. But I am persuaded that no man, I will not say despises, but even attempts to dispense with, the epistle of James except to his own exceeding loss. Luther would have been none the worse, but all the stronger, for a real understanding of this writing of James. He needed it in many ways; and so do we. It is, therefore, a miserable cheat where any souls allow their own subjective thoughts to govern them in giving up this or any portion of the word of God; for all have an important place, each for its own object. Is it too much to ask that a document be judged by its express and manifest design? Surely we are not to take Paul's object in order to interpret James by. What can be conceived more contrary, I will not say to reverence for what claims to be inspired, but even to all sense and discrimination, than such a thought? And it is thus that men have stumbled and fallen over this it is little to say precious and profitable, and above all, practically profitable portion of the word of God.

At the same time we must read it as it is, or rather as God wrote it; and God has addressed it, beyond controversy, not merely to Christian Jews, nor even to Jews, but to the twelve tribes that were scattered abroad. Thus it embraces such of them as were Christians; and it gives a very true and just place to those who had the faith of the Lord Jesus. Only it is a mistake to suppose that it contemplates nobody else. People may come to it with the thought that all the epistles were addressed to Christians, but this is simply wrong. If you bring this or any other preconception to the word of God, no wonder His word leaves you outside its divine and holy scope. For He is ever above us and infinitely wise. Our business is to gather what He has to teach us. There is no more fruitful source of error than such a course. No wonder, therefore, when persons approach scripture with preconceived thoughts, hoping to find confirmation there instead of gathering God's mind from what He has revealed, no wonder that they find disappointment. The mischief evidently is in themselves and not in the divine word. Let us prayerfully seek to avoid the snare.

James writes then after this double manner. He says "a servant of God." Clearly there we have a broad ground which even a Jew would respect. On the other hand, to "a servant of God" he adds, "and of the Lord Jesus Christ." Here at once would spring up a divergence of feeling among them. The mass of Israelites would of course altogether repudiate such a service; but James writes of both. Observe he does not speak of himself as the brother of the Lord, although he was, and is so styled "the Lord's brother" in the epistle to the Galatians. It seems needless to explain that the James who wrote this epistle was not the son of Zebedee; for he had fallen under the violence of Herod Agrippa long before this epistle was written at a comparatively early date. I do not doubt that the writer is the one called "James the just," and "the Lord's brother;" but with all propriety, and with a beauty that we should do well to ponder and learn from, he here avoids calling himself the Lord's brother. It was quite right that others should so designate him; but he calls himself "the servant," not merely "of God," but "of the Lord Jesus Christ."

He writes, as seen, to the twelve tribes scattered abroad, and sends them greeting. It is not the salutation that the Epistles of Paul and the other apostles have made so familiar to us, but exactly the form of salutation that was used in the famous epistle of Acts 15:1-41 from the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, who wrote to the Gentile assemblies to guard them from yielding to legalism. And as he was the person who gave the sentence, it is not without interest to see the link between what was written on that day, and what James writes here.

The object of the Spirit of God was to give a final summons by him who held a pre-eminent place in Jerusalem to the entire body of Israelites, wherever they might be. This is evident on the face of it. Nor is this an opinion, but what God says. We are so told expressly. Controversy here is, or ought to be, entirely out of the question. The apostle James it is who lets us know that such was his object in writing. Accordingly the epistle savours of this. No doubt it is peculiar, but not more so in the New Testament than Jonah is in the Old. As a whole, you are aware that the prophets addressed themselves to the people of Israel. Jonah's special mission was to Nineveh, to the most famous Gentile city of that day. Just as the Hebrew scriptures are not without this exception, so in the New Testament you have another exception. What could better convict the narrowness of man's mind, who would like to have it all thoroughly square according to his notions. As a whole, the New Testament addresses itself to the Christian body; but James does not. That is to say, in the Old Testament we have an exceptional address to the Gentiles; in the New Testament we have an exceptional address to the Jews. Is not all this quite right? One sees thoroughly, in the midst of the utmost difference otherwise, how it is the same divine mind a mind above the contractedness of man. Let us hold this fast! We shall find it profitable in everything, as well as in the word that we are now reading.

"My brethren," says he, "count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." (James 1:2-3) Thus it is at once apparent that we are on practical ground the manifestation of godliness toward both man and God, that here the Holy Ghost is pressing this as the very first injunction of the epistle. "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." Temptations, trials (for clearly he refers to outward trials), are in no way the dreadful ogres that unbelief makes them to be. "We are appointed thereunto," says the apostle Paul. The Israelites no doubt found it hard, but the Spirit of God deigns here to instruct them. They were not to reckon trial a grievance. "Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." The reason is that God uses it for moral purposes; He deals with the nature which opposes itself to His will. "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience" (or endurance). "But let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

And how is this then to be effected? Here is brought in another essential point of the epistle. It is not only a question of trials that come upon the believer when he is here below. Clearly he is in this place addressing his brethren in Christ. He does not simply look at the whole twelve tribes, but at the faithful; as we find in the beginning of the next chapter, "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons." So I think it is clearly here men capable of understanding what was spiritual. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God."

These are the two most important points pressed practically throughout the epistle. One is the profit of not enjoying the pleasant only, but the rough and hard that God sends for our good. Blessing now is not in ease and honour, but, contrariwise, counting joy in trial, accepting what is painful from God, certain that He never mistakes, and that all is ordered of Him for the perfect blessing of His own people. But then this leads the way, and makes one feel the need of wisdom from God in order intelligently and happily to profit by the trial; for, as we know, the blessing of all trial is "to them that are exercised thereby." In order to discern we need wisdom. This he brings in: "If any of you lack wisdom." There is thus the need of dependence on God, the spirit of habitual waiting on Him of bowing to Him, and, in short, of obedience. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not." We shall see by and by whence this flows, but we have merely now a general exhortation. "Let him ask in faith," says he, "nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." Thus he shows that faith supposes confidence in God, and that this doubtful mind, this hesitancy about God, is in point of fact nothing but unbelief. Accordingly it is a practical denial of the very attitude you take in asking God. It is blowing hot and blowing cold; it is appearing to ask God, when in point of fact you have no confidence in Him. Let not such a one, therefore, expect anything of the Lord.

In the next place he proceeds to show too how this works practically: "Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich in that he is made low:" such are the ways of God "because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away." All that is founded on a mere temporary set of circumstances is doomed, and in no way belongs to the nature of God as revealed in truth and grace by the Son of God. Hence, therefore, God reverses the judgment of the world in all these matters, "Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted. but the rich, in that he is made low." The reason also is given: "For as the flower of the grass" (which is mere nature) "he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways."

On the other hand, one may and should be "blessed." Here we have the full contrast, and the reason why all this is brought in; for there is a perfect chain of connection between these verses, little as it may appear at first sight. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation," instead of being exposed either to the instability of unbelief which we saw, or to the mere dependence on natural resources which was next proved. The man that endures temptation, that accepts it and counts it joy, blessed is he; "for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."

This leads to another character of trial in inward evil, not in outward. There is a temptation which comes from the devil as truly as there is a temptation that comes from God, and is good for man. That is, there is a trial of faith, and there is a temptation of flesh.

Now it is clear that the trial of faith is as precious as it is profitable; and of this exclusively he has been speaking up to this point. Now he just turns aside to notice the other; and it is the more important to weigh it well because, as far as I know, it is the only place in scripture where it is definitely presented. Temptations elsewhere mean trials, not inward solicitations of evil; they have no bearing upon, nor connection with, the evil nature, but on the contrary are the ways in which the Lord out of His love tries those in whom He has confidence, and works for the greater blessing of those whom He has already blessed. Here, on the other hand, we find the common sense of temptation. Alas! the very fact of its being common proves where people are, how little they have to do with God, how much in common with the world. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God." Now he is touching upon another character; "for God cannot be tempted by evils," you must read it as it is in the margin, "neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed."

Thus it is not only that God is inaccessible to evil Himself, but He also never tempts to evil at any one time whatsoever. There is no such thought that enters the mind of God. He moves supremely above evil: this is the ground of the blessing of every child of God, which he will show presently, when he has finished the subject of evil that comes through man's nature. Evil is from himself; for, as he says, "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." This is not the way in which the apostle Paul handles the matter. It is not that there is the very smallest contradiction between the two. They are perfectly harmonious; but then it is a different way of looking at the matter; and the reason is obvious, because what Paul treats of in Romans 7:1-25, which is the scripture I refer to, is not the conduct but the nature. Now, if you look at nature, it is plain that sin is there first, and in consequence of the sin that dwells in the nature, there are lusts as the effects of it. Here he looks at sin in the conduct, and accordingly there are evil workings within, and then the outward act of sin. Thus we see it is only, to say the least of it, a very great want of perception, and a dulness that certainly is unworthy nay, worthy of any person that sets up to judge the word of God a shameful position for a creature for a man above all for a Christian to take. But it is here, as is the case everywhere, blindness and ignorance in those that set one part of scripture against another.

To this, perhaps, it may be said, "Do you never find a difficulty?" To be sure, but what is the place of any one who finds a difficulty in the word of God? Wait upon God. Do not you try to settle difficulties, but put yourself in the attitude of dependence. Ask wisdom, and ask it all of God, who gives liberally and upbraids not. He will surely clear up whatever is for His own glory. There is not a man of exercised soul in this building, or any other, who has not proved the truth of what I am now saying. There is not a man who has been led in any measure to the understanding of the ways of God that has not proved the very passages, which he once found so difficult when they were not understood, to be the means of exceeding light to his soul when they were. And therefore, haste to solve difficulties is really and practically a finding fault either with God or with His word;-with His word, because it is deeper than we are; with Himself, because He does not give the babe the knowledge that would be proper to the grown man. Now it is evident that this is only foolishness. It is just the haste that hinders blessing and progress. However, nothing can be simpler than that which the apostle here describes and recommends to us, and nothing more certain.

Now we come to the other side. "Do not err, beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." We have had the evil traced to its source, which is the fallen nature of man, no doubt wrought on by Satan, but without here bringing the enemy before us. We shall find this by and by, inJames 4:1-17; James 4:1-17; but here he simply looks on man's nature, and then he raises his eyes to God. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." The first point therefore in the mind of the Holy Ghost here is to vindicate God. at all cost, and this entirely apart from us. As evil comes from us, so all that is good comes from God; and not only is God the spring of every good every good giving and every perfect gift being all from God (the manner of it as well as the thing itself that is given); but, besides, there is no change in God, the creature in its best estate is nothing but change.

Thus there is a most complete vindication of God's moral glory in this verse, contrasted with man in his weakness, and ruin, and evil. But he goes farther, and asserts and asserting, too, in the most admirable manner the truth of the sovereign action of grace. He has claimed this for God already; but now we come to see the application to us. It is not only, therefore, that God is good, but that He is a giver, and this of nothing that is not good, and of all that is good. Stainless in His holiness, and invariable in His light, God is active in His love; and as the fruit of this energetic sovereign love He does not bless merely, sweet as it is from Him. Blessing is altogether short of that which we know now in Christianity-of that which even James treats of, according to his very broad and comprehensive epistle. In the bright day that is coming God will bless the creature. In the dark day that man calls "now," God more than blesses far more than blesses those who believe. We are ourselves born of Him: He communicates His nature to the believer. He does so unsought, and surely undeserved. Undeserved! Why there was nothing but evil: he had shown this immediately before. There was nothing good from man's nature as a fallen creature,-nothing but good from God.

Then, let it be repeated, it is not merely good we see here, but a communication of His own spiritual nature; and this He is doing by the word of truth. Scripture is the medium. The revelation of Himself by which He acts on souls is accordingly here brought before us, no less than His own sovereign will as the source of it. "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." He means to bring in fulness of blessing by and by. This will be, as far as government is concerned, in the millennium; but, being only government, evil will remain to be controlled and kept down to His own glory. This could in no wise satisfy God's nature, and so scripture reveals a time coming when all will be according to God. Then will be in the fullest sense His rest, when all question of His working and of man's responsibility will be over, when He, entering into the result, will grant us to enter into His rest. Then shall we be not merely first-fruits of His creatures, but all in rest and glory according to the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

Meanwhile we who are thus begotten, the firstfruits, have the wondrous blessing here set forth. It is not merely that we are objects of this blessing. Alas! how often a blessing has been given, and as often lost, being turned to His shame and men's corruption. God blessed, as we know, at the very beginning blessed everything that He had made; but there was no stability in a blessing itself. To ensure stability, all must rest on one who is God as well as man, giving us a nature according to God. In those that are fallen there must be the communication of the divine nature; and this there is in Christ, and so there always has been. It may not be always consciously known, and it was not in Old Testament times; but in order that there should be a basis of immutable blessing, and of communion in any measure between God and the creature, there must be the communication of the divine nature. Of this, accordingly, James here speaks. How it links itself with Peter, and John, and Paul, we need not stop now to enquire. We see at once that he who could despise such an epistle as this is a man not to be despised indeed, for God would not have us despise any as He despises none Himself; but certainly to call forth pain and sorrow that such thoughts should ever have been allowed in a soul born of God and withal a servant of Jesus Christ.

Founded, then, on this, the communication of His own nature, with its moral judgment, we. have the practical exhortation: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear." Hearing is exactly the attitude of dependence. Now one who is the servant of God looks up to God, confides in God, and expects from God. This is the place which becomes him that is born of God. "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." Speech is apt to be the expression of our nature of ourselves. Be slow then to speak, swift to hear. Clearly he has God in view, and has His word before him, and that which would make His word understood. Let us, too, be "swift to hear, slow to speak."

But another thing is to be heeded. It is not only that the nature of man expresses itself in the tongue, but in the feelings of the heart; and alas! in the wrath of a fallen creature. Let us be, then, not only slow to speak, but "slow to wrath." You see at once that we have an exhortation founded on, first, the spiritual anatomy, if I may so say, of our nature, and then we are given to know the wondrous character of the new life that we have received by faith of Jesus Christ, and know to be ours, because we are "begotten by the word of truth." Next, he gives the reason; "for," says he, "the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

It need scarcely be remarked that it is no question here of the righteousness of God in a doctrinal sense. James does not deal with such matters; he never takes up the question how a sinner is to be justified. Therefore, certainly, he in no way contradicts Paul, any more than in what is said of faith, or justification; indeed he does not at all treat of the same question that Paul has before him. Where two persons really take up the same matter, and then give us contrary expressions, they of course contradict each other; but if they deal with two totally different points, although they may be ever so closely connected, contradiction there is none: and such precisely is the fact as to Paul and James in the matter before us, without saying a word of the inspiration which makes it impossible. They both employ the words, "faith," "works," and "justify," but they are not settling the same question, but two different ones. We shall find the reason of this by and by, but I the more willingly make this remark in passing, in order to help any souls who find a difficulty; because it often proves a snare, particularly to those who rest over-much on verbal analogies.

Let us look to the grace of the Lord to understand the scripture. It is the habit of many, if they find the same expression, to give it always the same meaning. This is true neither in every-day language nor in God's word. Here, for instance, we have the righteousness of God clearly in a different sense from that so familiar to us in the Pauline epistles. He is speaking of what is not pleasing to, because, inconsistent with, His nature; and clearly the wrath of man is offensive to Him. It works nothing suitable to His moral nature. The passage speaks of practice, not of doctrine.

"Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls." It will be observed how far it is from being an imposed law. Particular pains are taken to guard from this prevalent idea. A Jew would have been likely to have thought of it thus; for he naturally turned to the law as the one and only standard. But, on the other hand, James is far from leaving out the use of the law: we shall find it in this very epistle. Still he is careful in this place to show that the word deals inwardly with the man, that it is this implanted word, as he calls it, and not an external law, that is able to save the soul. The word enters by faith, or, as the apostle has it in Hebrews, is "mixed with faith in them that hear it." "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." It is plain that we find ourselves throughout on the practical side of the manifestation by life. This is the governing thought and aim of the epistle.

"For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass." He may have ever so clear a view of himself; he sees clearly what he is like for a moment; but he as soon forgets all. "He beholdeth himself, and goeth his way." The image is faded and gone. He "straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was." Oh, how true is this, and how admirably drawn to the life! It is that glimpse of conviction by the truth that comes before souls when they are forced to discern what the spring of their thoughts is, what their feelings are when the light of God flashes over and through a man; but how soon it passes away, instead of entering in and abiding within the soul! It is the power of the Spirit of God alone that can grave these things on the heart. But here the apostle is exposing the absence of an internal work where intelligence is severed from conscience, and this he illustrates, as we have seen, by the man that gets a glance in a glass, and then all is gone directly his back is turned. Whereas there is power and permanence with him who fixes his view on "the perfect law of liberty."

And here it seems seasonable to say that, so far from James being legal in the evil sense of the word, he is the inspired man who, at least as much as any other, slays legality by this very expression. For this end there is not a more precious thought nor a mightier word in all the New Testament. In its own province there is nothing better, plainer, or more striking. The reason why people often find legality in James is because they themselves bring it. They are under that influence in their souls, and accordingly they cloud the light of James with that which was meant to veil the guilty in darkness.

What then is the law of liberty? It is the word of God which directs a man begotten by the word of truth, urging and cheering and strengthening him in the very things that the new life delights in. Consequently it has an action exactly the opposite of that exercised by the law of Moses on the Israelite. This is evident from the bare terms: "Thou shalt not do" this, "thou shalt not do" that.* Why? Because they wanted to do what God prohibited. The desire of man as he is being after evil, the law put a veto on the indulgence of the will. It was necessarily negative, not positive, in character. The law forbad the very things to which man's own impulses and desires would have prompted him, and is the solemn means of detecting rebellious fallen nature. But this is not the law of liberty in any wise, but the law of bondage, condemnation, and death.

*If my memory serve me, a celebrated man of the day wrote an essay on liberty, in which he observes that Christians are thrown on the law of Moses in default of positive morality in the New Testament. Can anything be conceived more superficial than such a remark? or a more evident token of the blindness of unbelief in him who made it? But it must really be so where Christ is not known. Is it not also striking as a proof that superstition is at bottom infidel as truly as free-thinking. In this the theologian and the sceptic come to the same conclusion, and from the same source a lack of seeing and appreciating Jesus. Life in Christ is positive; the law was essentially negative. The word of God expresses that life, and the Spirit gives it power; but this needs faith which all have not.

The law of liberty brings in the positive for those who love it not the negation of what the will and lust of man desires, so much as the exercise of the new life in what is according to its own nature. Thus it has been often and very aptly described as a loving parent who tells his child that he must go here or there; that is, the very places which he knows perfectly the child would be most gratified to visit. Such is the law of liberty: as if one said to the child, "Now, my child, you must go and do such or such a thing," all the while knowing that you can confer no greater favour on the child. It has not at all the character of resisting the will of the child, but rather of directing his affections in the will of the object dearest to him. The child is regarded and led according to the love of the parent, who knows what the desire of the child is a desire that has been in virtue of a new nature implanted by God Himself in the child. He has given him a life that loves His ways and word, that hates and revolts from evil, and is pained most of all by falling through unwatchfulness under sin, if it seemed ever so little. The law of liberty therefore consists not so much in a restraint on gratifying the old man, as in guiding and guarding the new; for the heart's delight is in what is good and holy and true; and the word of our God on the one hand exercises us in cleaving to that which is the joy of the Christian's heart, and strengthens us in our detestation of all that we know to be offensive to the Lord.

Such is the law of liberty. Accordingly "whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" (or rather "doing"). There is, however, the need of attending to the other side of the picture: "If any man seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain."

Then the chapter closes with giving us a sample of what pure and undefiled religion is, but chiefly as we observe in a practical way the main object and never lost sight of. There is, first, the "visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction," persons from whom one could gather nothing flattering to the flesh, or in any way calculated to minister to self; there is, on the other hand, the keeping one's self unspotted from the world. How often one hears people in the habit of quoting from this verse for what they call practice, who dwell on the first part to the exclusion of the last. How comes it that the last clause is forgotten? Is it not precisely what those who quote would find the greatest difficulty in honestly proving that they value? Let us then endeavour to profit by the warning, and above all by the precious lesson in the word of our God.

In all that we have had the question naturally arises, Wherein lies the special propriety of such exhortations or why are they addressed to the twelve tribes? Surely we may ask this; for those who value the word of God are not precluded from enquiring what the object is. Rather are we encouraged to ask why it was according to the wisdom of God that such words as these should be presented to Israel, and especially to such of the twelve tribes as had the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. James enters upon this expressly in the next chapter.

James 2:1-26 "My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring." in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou here, or sit here under my footstool; are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised them." Here, it would seem, we begin to learn more definitely the reason. We can see the need, value, and wisdom of what has been said, but we may find here the occasion of it: with Israel there was peculiar danger of taking up the doctrines of Christianity as a system. As a people who had an exceptionally religious standing, they were yet more exposed to this than the Gentiles. The Jewish mind on its own side was just as prone to make a code of Christianity as the Gentiles were to couple it with philosophy. The Greek mind might speculate and theorize about it, but the Jew would make a quasi-Talmud of it in its way. His tendency would be to reduce it merely to a number of thoughts, and thus an outward system.

At this precisely is the epistle levelled, namely, the severing faith from practice. Against this the Holy Ghost launches His solemn and searching words in the rest of the chapter. This brings in the allusion to the law: "If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors." Then follows a grave and searching consideration for those who talk about the law, "for whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law." From this use of these two things, that is, the royal law which thus goes forth towards one's neighbour, and again the law in general, he turns to take up the law of liberty which has been explained before. "For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment."

This introduces then the famous passage which has been the perplexity of so many minds: "What should it profit, my brethren, though a man may say that he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save?" It is evident that it cannot. A faith that is unproductive has no living link with God. What is the good of a faith that consists in mere assent to so many dogmas, and thus proves its human source? The faith that is given us of God saves, not that which is the fruit of man's nature. We have seen this already, and so therefore, the grand principle of the first chapter leads as simply as possible into the application of it in the second. Here all is exemplified in a plain but striking way. "If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?" Evidently nothing. "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble." If there is any difference, the advantage is really on the side of those misleaders of poor ruined men. At least they do feel; and so far there is a greater effect produced than on these reasoning Jews. "But wilt thou know, O vain man?" says he. It is not all that the Corinthian was vain in his speculations, but the Jew not less, who thus spoke and acted. "Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead."

Yet the remarkable feature we have also to weigh here is that when works are thus introduced, attention is directed to what would be perfectly valueless if they were not the result of faith, nay, worse than valueless, positively evil, and entailing the severest punishment. For if we merely look at Abraham, or at Rahab, apart from God, apart from faith, if we regard their ways here cited as a question of human good works who in the world would ever so style that which Abraham or Rahab did? It is perfectly plain that according to man Abraham would have been in danger of losing his liberty, if not his head, for intent to kill Isaac; and unquestionably, judged by her country's law, the conduct of Rahab must have exposed her to the worst punishment of the worst political crime. But this would be judging their actions apart from God, because of whose will they were done, and apart from faith, which alone gave these works their life and character. Otherwise Abraham in man's eye was a father ready to murder his own son: what could be worse than this? In short, if we regard his work apart from faith, it is perhaps the darkest evil conceivable. And what was Rahab's act but treason against her country and her king? Was she not willing, so to speak, to hand over the possession of the city in which she had been born and bred to those who were going to raze it to the foundations?

The moment we bring into view God and His will and His purposes, it is needless to say that these two memorable acts stand out clothed with the light of heaven. The one was the most admirable submission to God with unqualified confidence in Himself, even when one could not see how His sure promise could stand, but sure it would. A man that did look straight up to God, swift to hear and slow to speak, was Abraham; a man in whom the loud voice of nature was utterly silenced, that God's will and word might alone govern his soul. So, if it were his only son that came of Sarah, so much the more bound to his heart because so singularly given in the pure favour of God, yet he would give him up, and be prepared with his own hand to do the dreadful deed. Oh, if ever there was a work of faith since the world began, it was that work for which Abraham was ready yea, did put his hand to. So on Rahab's story I need not dwell, except just to show how remarkably guided of divine wisdom was James's allusion. How truly it bears the very stamp of inspiration, and the more so because we know the apostle Paul refers to Abraham at least for a totally different purpose! But not more certainly was Paul inspired to present Abraham's faith and Abraham's act too in this closing circumstance of his life (we may say, the great and final test of his faith), not more was Paul guided in his application, than James was in that which has been just now before us.

The great point of all seems this: that there were works, but the works that James insists on are works where faith constitutes their special excellence, and indeed alone could be their justification. Is this then in any way allowing the value of works without faith? The very reverse is true. He does call for works, and is not content simply with faith, but the works he produces are works that owe all their value to faith.

Thus, therefore, the indissoluble union between faith and works never was more blessedly maintained than in the very circumstances that James thus brings before us. So far is he from shaking faith that he supposes it, and the works which he commends are stamped with it in the most definite and striking manner.

Then we come to some fresh practical exhortations. As we have found, he particularly warns against the tongue as the expression of the heart's excitement if not of malice. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Here we open with its application in another and, if possible, still more important province; that is, in the matter of speaking to public edification. We have to remember that the danger is not only in what may be breathed in private; but, adds he, James 3:1-18; James 3:1-18 "Be not many masters," that is, in the sense of teachers "knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation." For surely that which a man says publicly will be used to measure himself; and it is well to be prepared for it. If we ought as a rule to be slow to speak, there is no exception in setting up to teach others; for thus we certainly incur severer judgment. It is an exhortation that shows on the one hand the danger and wrong of being over ready to seize an open door through anxiety to display one's self; on the other hand, it supposes the perfect liberty that reigned among believers. Impossible that such an exhortation could apply where there exists the régime of an exclusive ministry.

Thus evidently not only does James's doctrine set forth clearly the blessed truth of a new nature, as already shown, but his exhortation supposes just the same openness among Christians in the exercise of ministerial gift as was found, e.g. in 1 Corinthians 14:1-40, and in practice throughout the church of God. So far from there being any contradiction of others in the epistle of James, although there is not a little which in form is new (for the twelve tribes) both in its breadth and in its speciality, the mind of God is one. The inspiring Spirit, even in the most peculiar production of the New Testament epistles, gives us what harmonizes with every other part, and cements the whole fabric of divine truth.

There is a moral reason added: "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." He does not, I apprehend, restrict himself to public speaking, though opening with it, as we have seen. "Behold we put bits into horses' mouths." He shows that it may seem a little thing to man, but we must not excuse what is wrong because it may appear to have a little source. He proves that the least things are often those which govern other bodies incomparably larger. "Behold also the ships, which though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm." This is applied to the subject in hand. "The tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter" (or wood, as it is given in the margin) "a little fire kindleth! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." In all the Bible we meet no more energetic and truthful picture of the desperate evil to which men are exposed by that little active member. "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind: but the tongue can no man tame." The comfort is that God can deal with it God who gives the believer His own nature, and knows how to bring down the old nature so that there may be scope for the manifestation of what is of Himself.

Nor does James spare the gross inconsistency too often experienced. "Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." This is fortified by various illustrations, and followed up by the picture of the wise man, who is proved to be such, not by famous knowledge, but practically. It is always the every-day application that is in the mind of James. It is ever the right thing, as it was exactly what was most called for then and there. Had he in this epistle launched out into the vast expanse of the truth, he would only have given an impulse to the heaping up of more dogmas. Such a course would only have aggravated the evil instead of uprooting it. Himself a wise man in his ordinary ways, there was divine wisdom given him by the Holy Ghost in thus dealing so directly with the snares of the twelve tribes, and even of that portion which professed the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hence, if a man be wise, the question arises, how is it to be proved? Assuredly not in talking much, which usually tends to talking ill. "Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom." If on the contrary there were bitter envy and strife in their hearts, how could they boast against the truth, or he against it? How cuttingly severe, and this simply from laying bare things as they were! Yet, what an exposure! Think of people glorying in their shame! "And lie not against the truth." It was a practical incongruity and contradiction of the mind of God.

Then we are shown two kinds of wisdom, just as with regard to temptations there were two sorts of them one blessed from God, and a real glory to the man that endures; and the other a shame, because it springs from his own fallen nature. No otherwise is it with wisdom. "This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." Its works prove its nature and its source. There is confusion in every evil way, "but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable." Never reverse this order; it is not only that this wisdom is pure and peaceable, but it is first pure, then peaceable. It first maintains the character and glory of God, and then seeks the fruits of peace among men. But this is not all. It is gentle, and easy to be entreated, or yielding. Instead of ever giving battle for its rights supposed or real, there is clearly the yieldingness of grace about it. It is not the stubbornness of self-assertion or opinionativeness. This, on the contrary, stamps the sensual aspiring wisdom of man; but what comes down from above is gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, uncontentious, and unfeigned. When a man is conscious that his wisdom is of a suspicious kind, one can understand him unwilling to have his mind or will disputed; but the truth is, that there is nothing which so much marks the superiority of grace and truth and wisdom that God gives as patience, and the absence of anxiety to push what one knows is right and true. It is an inherent and sure sign of weakness somewhere, when a man is ever urgent in pressing the value of his own words and way, or cavilling habitually at others. "The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated:" it is also "full of mercy and good fruits, without contention, and without hypocrisy." It is characterised by the self-judgment which delights in and displays the ways of God. "And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace." Thus if there is peace in the way, righteousness is alike the seed and the fruit. The seed, as ever, must produce its own proper fruit. "The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace." What an honour to be sons of peace in a world ever at war with God and those who are His!

Alas! we find in James 4:1-17 the contrary of this wars and fightings, "whence come they?" Not from the new nature of which God is the blessed source, but from the old. "Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" I hope it will not be contended that these were persons born of God. It seems to me that what was stated at the beginning of the present discourse is an important key for interpreting expressions. On the other hand, the effect of forgetting to whom the words are addressed, and of assuming that the epistle contemplates none but such as are born of God, is that you are obliged to explain away the strength of the divine word. Receive its address in simplicity of faith, and every word of God is intelligently found to tell. You do not require to enfeeble a single phrase. James does contemplate Christians, but not Christians only. He is writing as he says himself, to the Israelitish stock, and not merely to those of Israel that believe. Expressly he addresses the whole twelve tribes of Israel. Whether they believe or not, they are all addressed in this epistle. Consequently there is a word for those of them that were clearly not born of God, as well as for those who were.

Under this impression I read, "Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?" Need it be told you that this verse has been a matter of much difficulty to many minds? Although I am not at all prepared to dogmatize about its force, it appears to me a harsh expression to suppose that the spirit here described means no more than man's spirit. I do not know how a man's spirit can with propriety be said to dwell in a man. One can understand "the spirit of a man that is in him;" as the apostle Paul, when describing the human spirit, does put it in1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, but hardly the spirit that dwelleth in a man. But if here it be not the spirit of man, the only spirit elsewhere said to dwell in man ( i.e., the believer) is the Spirit of God. But herein is just what causes the difficulty. How, if it be the Spirit of God, can He be put in such a connection here? Must we translate and punctuate as in the common Greek Testament and English Bible?

Hence many are of opinion (and to this I am rather disposed, though I would not venture to say more) that the verse ought to be thus divided: "Do ye think that the scripture speaketh in vain? Does the Spirit that dwelleth in us lust unto envy?" Clearly both the word condemns and the Holy Spirit leads in a wholly different direction. (Compare Galatians 5:1-26) The natural spirit of man does lust to envy, no doubt; but the Spirit that dwells in us opposes the flesh at all points, as we know scripture does.

And this connects itself, as it seems to me, with what follows: "But he giveth more grace." That is, so far from lusting to envy, God is acting in goodness. It is grace alone that has communicated the nature of God; it is grace alone that strengthens the new nature by the gift of the Holy Ghost who dwells in us; and yet more than this, "He giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." He who realises with God what this world is, and what man's nature is, is humble before Him; as also more grace is given to such. The sense of all around and within leads him out in self-judgment before God.

This, then, I suppose though not venturing to speak with more decision is the practical result. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you." How much is covered by these two exhortations! One is the source of all that is good, and the other the guard against all that is evil. "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners." Will it be contended that sinners means saints? They are utterly different. There prevails among too many evangelical persons a mischievous habit of talking about "saved sinners." To my mind it is not only inexact but misleading and dangerous. Scripture knows no such being as a "saved sinner." We may well rejoice over a "sinner saved" if we know the mercy of it in our souls; but if we license the phrase a "saved sinner," the moral effect is, that, when and though saved, he is still free to sin. Not that any one acquainted with the truth denies that a saved soul has still the flesh in him, and is liable to sin if unwatchful. Still he who is saved has a new life and the Holy Ghost, and to sin is not natural for him: he is bound to walk in the Spirit as he lives in it. Evidently, if he sin, he must go athwart his new nature and position, and the blessed deliverance which God has given him in Christ.

Thus there is often a great deal of importance even in the way in which a truth is stated. The manner of stating a truth, however well-meant, may sometimes stumble souls, through our own want of subjection to the precious truth and the wonderful wisdom of God in His word. Instead of helping on holiness, one may on the contrary, by an unguarded word, give somewhat of a loose rein to the old nature. This no part of scripture does. It is perfectly true that, when God begins to deal with a soul, He certainly begins with him as a sinner; but He never ends there. I am not aware of any part of the word of God in which a believer, save perhaps in a transitional state, is ever referred to as a sinner. No doubt that he who was in the front rank of all the saints and servants of God, when he looked at what he was in himself glorying in the law and nature, could and did characterize himself as a chief of sinners, especially when he thought of the immeasurable riches of God's race of which he was so favoured a communicator to souls. In this we do and must all join in our measure. At the same time it is evident that to be a saint and a sinner at the same time is simply a flat contradiction.

In short, holy scripture does not sanction such a combination, and the sooner we get rid of phrases, which deserve no better name than religious cant, the better for all parties. It would be waste of time to speak of such a thing now, if it were not of practical moment; but I am convinced that it is' and that this and other stereotyped phrases of the religious world gravely need and will not bear an examination in the light of scripture. The traditions of Protestants and Evangelicals are no better than those of Roman Catholics, any more than of Jews who were before them all. Our wisest course is to discard every unscriptural phrase which we find current and influential.

I press, then, that the word "sinners" here clearly to my mind shows that the Spirit of God in this epistle takes in a larger range than most allow. Also it is no mean confirmation of what has been already advanced as to James. "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 yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother" is really speaking evil of God's own law and judging it.

But he presses also the necessity of dependence on God in another form in the end of our chapter. That is, we are warned against forming resolutions, plans of our future doings and the like. This too is a practical subject. We ought all to know how much we need to watch against such an ignoring of God above us, and the coming of the Lord. As he says here, "Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow" not even on the morrow. "For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away, instead of your saying, If the Lord will, and we live, we will also do this, or that. But now ye glory in your boastings: all such glorying is evil." He does not conclude, however, without another appeal to conscience. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." It is the law of liberty, and of infinite purity and power. It is not only that sin consists in doing evil, but in not doing the good that we know. May we never forget what the new nature loves and feels to be true and holy according to Christ.

Then in James 5:1-20 we have a solemn word for rich men, to weep and howl for their miseries that shall come upon them. Will any man argue still that this means the saints of God? Are they the persons called to weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon them? Are they told to weep and howl? "Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver are cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together "not exactly "for the last days." This would be hardly intelligible. What there can be little doubt the Holy Ghost meant us to gather is, "Ye have heaped together riches in the last days." This aggravated the selfishness of their ways and their indifference to others. It is bad enough to heap treasure at any time; but to heap it up in the last days was to add not a little to the evil in the Lord's eyes. "Is it a time," said the indignant prophet, to his covetous and deceitful attendant, "to receive money, and to receive garments, and olive-yards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and men-servants, and maid-servants?" Was it a time, when God was dealing with unwonted power and grace even for Gentiles? Was this the time for an Israelite to lie for profit and get gain by it? And so here; when the last days were proclaimed by God's word in solemn warning, the heaping up of treasure in such days as these was indeed most offensive to Him.

"Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just." What an unexpected moral link! The apostle shows that the spirit of heaping up riches in the last days is the same that in other circumstances slew Jesus Christ the righteous. It is not a connection that we could have anticipated, but it is just such an one as would be discerned by the Holy Ghost ever sensitive to the Lord's glory; and so in fact it is as we may feel on reflection. It was this selfishness that came into direct personal collision with the Lord of glory, "who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich." We can understand that those whose one object was their own importance, glory, and ease in this world, necessarily felt that such an one was a living witness against them, and convicted them of flagrant opposition to the grace of God, who taught by Jesus in word and deed that it is more blessed to give than to receive. For this doctrine and practice the Pharisees were quite unprepared. (See Luke 16:1-31) Accordingly their hatred grew until it resulted in the cross of the Lord; and hence this is one of the elements, though of course not the only one, which calls down the judgment of God; and the Spirit of God so treats it here: "Ye have killed the just." The allusion is to the Lord, not the just in general, but the Just One, even Christ, "and he doth not resist you."

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. "Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."

Then he calls them again so much the more to avoid a murmuring spirit against one and another, because the judge stood at the door. He exhorts them to endurance and to patience. This reappears as a final appeal. We had it at the commencement of the chapter; we have it again here that it should by all means be remembered. "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy."

Then another snare is connected with this for avoidance: "Above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation." What has the apostle in view here? The oath before a magistrate? In no wise does scripture slight that solemn obligation. The Lord Himself respected the adjuration of the high-priest; and in no passage whatever do we see a depreciatory allusion to a judicial oath in the sermon on the mount, or, in what James says here, or in any other part of the Bible, but the contrary, The Lord was addressing Jewish disciples, James writes to the twelve tribes of Israel who are in the dispersion; but what they both set their faces against was the habit of bringing in religious asseverations for the purpose of confirming their word every day, besides the profaning of the Lord's name in matters of this life. This in point of fact weakens instead of establishing what is said; for it is evident that whatever is uncalled for gives no strength to an assertion, but is just a fruit and proof of weakness. Where there is simple truth, nothing is needed but the quiet statement of the fact.

There were no people so prone to ordinary swearing as the Jews. Accordingly, I have not the slightest doubt that what our Lord and His servants reprobated was the introduction of an oath in common conversation; and this, it is plain, does not apply to an oath administered by a magistrate. Indeed, it seems to me in itself sinful for a man to refuse an oath (supposing its form otherwise unobjectionable) if required to do so by proper authority. It would be to me a virtual denial of God's authority in civil government here below. I believe, therefore, that it is the bounden duty of every man to whom an oath is put, to take it in the fear of the Lord. I admit it must be put by competent authority. Therefore we are not to assume that the passage in Matthew 5:1-48, or this portion of James, has the smallest reference to judicial swearing. How could one think that those who indulge in such thoughts show any real intelligence as to the word of God? They certainly exhibit a certain care for conscientiousness. This is not in the least denied. But we have to take care that we are guided of God in this, which is important in the present day when we know that the spirit of the age is endeavouring to blot out God in all that touches man here below. The Lord was silent till adjured by the high-priest: was not His conduct thus perfectly consistent with His own teaching? An oath, therefore, should not be refused when put by a magistrate. I am supposing, of course, that there is nothing in the terms of the oath that would involve false doctrine or countenance a superstition. For instance, in a Roman Catholic country there might be reference to the virgin, or angels, or saints. Such an oath I do not think that a Christian man would he at liberty to take. But I am supposing now that a person is required in the name of God to declare what he believes to be the truth in a matter of which he is a witness, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It appears to me that so far from his being at liberty to refuse this, he is on the contrary guilty, through ignorance, of no small sin in cavilling about the matter.

The rest of the chapter takes up another subject the case of God's discipline. It is governmental. "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms." This does not mean expressly the inspired psalms. Persons are apt to think of the psalms of David whenever there is the introduction of the word. Doubtless old habits and associations lead to this; but there is no ground for it in the Bible. No more is meant here than that, being happy, he is to give vent to his joy in the praise of the Lord. It is nothing more. "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." This we know was an old custom. It was used even by those who were clothed with miraculous power. When the apostles were sent forth of our Lord, they were directed by Him to anoint the sick with oil. (Mark 6:1-56) And so here the elders were to act in the same remarkable style. Nor do I deny that there are answers to prayer of a very striking kind. I do not call these answers miraculous powers, because the true power of this kind is that exercised by a person raised up of the Lord for the purpose, and who knows that he can count upon it in the case where He pleases to show it; whereas in an answer to prayer there is a trial and exercise of faith about it, just as with those who were praying for Peter when he was in prison. There was no miracle in their part of the business, as far as they were concerned. There was a remarkably direct intervention of God, but it was in no way connected with any gift of miracles committed to the people who were praying. "And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." Here it is a question of God's judgment. The person is chastened in sickness for some evil; it is now judged; grace intervenes, and God heals.

Then comes the general spirit of confession. "Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed." It is the true love that interests itself, not only in that which is good, but even in what is, alas! the fruit of unjudged evil. But there is a careful abstinence from urging confession to the elders, I cannot doubt, in the far-seeing wisdom of God, who loves souls and hates superstition. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Elias is cited in support of this. Finally we have, "Brethren. if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." It is doubtless put in a general form. At the same time it only confirms, as it appears to me, what has already been shown to be the comprehensive character of the epistle.

In the next lecture we shall enter, if the Lord will, on what belongs more to the ordinary train of our Christian associations.