James_1:12-18
Temptation and its history.
We are carried back by the first word to our Lord’s pronouncement of the Beatitudes in the sermon on the mount. And here, as there, we are confronted with paradox. The words of the earlier Beatitudes had doubtless come with a shock of astonishment to many, who listened for statements that should accord with their carnal life. "Blessed are"—the proud, the strong, the conquering? Nay; but "the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the merciful ones." So now. Not," How blessed are they that escape the multiplied ills of life! "but," Blessed is the man that endures." Here, of course, is a return to the strange "greeting" with which the Epistle opened.
I. THE ENDURANCE OF TEMPTATION. The word must be taken in the broad, generic sense of " testing." Of this there are two forms—enticement to sin, and afflictions of righteousness. It enters into the very essence of a moral universe that there should be testing, and certainly into the moral recovery of a fallen world that the processes of the testing should be intensified. For in a world of innocence, if innocence is to develop into an established holiness, there must be such possibilities of a fall into sin as the very fact of freedom implies; and the resistance of" temptation" (as we specifically call it) involves such self denial as makes well-doing difficult; or, in other words, positive "trials" (as we call them) are necessarily bound up with the righteousness which pursues its way in spite of "temptations" to unrighteousness, and both together constitute the test (πειρασμός) of character. And if all this be true of a world of innocence, how much more of a world into which sin has already come! Both the temptations to sin and the trials of righteousness are intensified now, the heart itself being so prone to evil, and the world an evil world. Hence the immense difficulties of salvation from sin. We have an index to this in the intensity of temptation to even a Sinless One in a world of sin, as shown in the conflicts of the Son of man. View the wrestling in the desert, and the agony in the garden! And how much more to us, whose nature is so responsive to the influence of the world! But his conquest is the pledge of ours, if we do but put our trust in him (John:16v33; 1John:5v4). And the beatitude? We cannot write "blessed" over the fierce wrestling in the desert, nor over the agony of blood. But we can over the victorious result. And so with ourselves; not," Blessed is the man that is tossed and troubled;" but, "Blessed is the man that endures." For what is the result of the enduring? Δόκιμος γενόμενος: we can hardly give the force of these words, save by periphrasis, in our tongue. "Having acquired the quality of triedness;" i.e. having been put to the test, having borne the test, and being now certified as true. Like gold in the fire. And the prize? "The crown of life." Figurative expression as regards the word "crown;" so 1Pe_5:4 and 2Ti_4:8. Familiar thought of contention for a reward. But, dropping the figure, let us ask what is the "life" itself that is set forth as the crown of our rejoicing? And, for the answer, compare some words of Christ: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God;" "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;" "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him;" "And my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and. make our abode with him" (Mat:5v8; John:17v3; John:14v21, John:14v23). Such the life; the full fruition of God, which is possible only to a pure soul.
II. TEMPTATION NOT OF GOD. Now as to the source of the temptation, the endurance of which results in blessed life. A right and a left, a good and an evil, are possible alternatives always, and to free creatures that which is possible may become actual. God cannot constrain them to well-doing, or they would cease to be free. In the case, then, of allowing for temptation in the very constitution of a moral world, God may be said to be its source, its author. But how readily men push the responsibility of their actual sin away from themselves to God! They are placed in such and. such circumstances by God, therefore God is the author of the sin to which those circumstances lead. So they argue with their own hearts. But illustrate: a position of trust, with its involved temptations. Does the employer tempt the trusted servant to wrong-doing? Nay, verily. So man is placed in a post of trust by God, and the trust necessarily involves the possibility of a betrayal of trust; but may we therefore say that God tempts us to do wrong? The very thought is blasphemy! Only an evil being can tempt to evil; on the other hand, an essentially holy Being must seek to work out holiness. This is the true genesis of sin: man’s will yielding to his desire, not resisting it. The result is the presence of an actual power of sin; for sin is no longer a mere possibility to us, but a positive entity. And again, when the will weds itself to this positive power of sin, as before to the mere desire, the result is death. Just as the fruition of God is the life of a pure soul, so a godless desolation is the death of the soul that has permanently espoused itself to sin. Such the dark pedigree set forth by James.
III. EVERY GOOD GIFT FROM GOD. The negative has been stated in regard to the goodness of God; now we have the positive. The very sufferance of temptation itself is in love, that the highest good of a created universe may be wrought out. And this love is God’s essential nature. He cannot, then, work harm in any way. God the author of sin? a good God work this unutterable evil? Nay; "God is Light," and a shadow can only be cast by the resisting will. And in this He is unchangeably the same(yesterday, today, forever); there is no parallax in these heavens. And therefore the great pledge and proof of his eternal good will of holy love towards us consists in the fact that he has already begotten us to the new life. He would not lift us from sin to holiness that then he might cast us down to sin again. No; we are "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance" (Eph_1:13, Eph_1:14). And so our new creation is, as it were, the first-fruits of the new creation of all things.
Our danger still is this, that we are tempted to think God is making it hard for us to be good. Our safety is in holding fast to the eternal truth that "God is love;" and that, as the Good One, and Father of all good, he can so control our troublous circumstances and troubled nature, that, if we are only willing to do his will, all things shall work together for our good (see whole of Rom_8:1-39).—T.F.L.
Jas_1:19-27
The law of the new life.
"Ye know this, my beloved brethren;" viz. that ye have been begotten again by God. But now, from this vantage-ground, he presses the necessity of a consistent life. They have espoused, by God’s grace, a new ideal of character and conduct; let their whole life show forth its power. This is the topic of the whole passage, and it divides itself very naturally into the related subjects of—meekness, self-knowledge, and practical religion (see Punchard, in Bishop Ellicott’s ’Commentary’).
I. MEEKNESS. There is evidently a reference, in Jas_1:19-21, to the deportment of the Jews in their religious gatherings, to which we have more direct reference in Jas_1:23 and in Jas_2:1-13. And the words of warning are aimed at one of their most besetting sins; they were clamorous, accusing, wrathful. What examples we have of this spirit, as manifested at their public gatherings for worship, in the accounts of our Lord’s first proclamation of his mission in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luk_4:28, Luk_4:29), and of the first setting-forth of the gospel by Paul in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia (Act_13:45)! So perhaps it was also at the Jewish-Christian gatherings; they would contradict, and accuse. Yes; they were impatient of hearing, eager to speak, wrathful in speech; rebutting what seemed the blow of the truth against themselves, turning that blow against others, perhaps against the speaker. What a Babel of confusion! And all this in the thought that they were doing God service! As opposed to this spirit of censorious anger, James urges a quiet, gentle humility in the hearing of the Word.
1. For what was this Word? It was God’s Word, his message to the heart. Yes, with whatever of human alloy it might sometimes be mixed, through the infirmity of the speaker, there it was, a thing Divine! There should be, then, in its presence, a certain awe of silence: "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." And as this Word was the searching Word of the living God (Heb_4:12), there should be the meekness which hears for one’s self, not for others—Is there any wrong in me? For this Word was "able to save:" with what solemn gladness should they welcome its healing, cleansing power!
2. Oh, how opposed to all the intended influence of the Word of God was the spirit of passionate assertion and accusation! How it defiled the nature, as with filthiness, making it an utterly unfit receptacle for God’s holy truth! And how the "overflowing of wickedness" bore back the living germ of the truth, which being implanted in the heart would save unto the uttermost! Yes, man’s wrath, so far from working God’s righteousness, utterly hindered that working. The truth was "able to save," but only if the conditions of true humility in the hearer were fulfilled.
II. SELF-KNOWLEDGE. But the very hearing may become a snare: we hear the Word, we "feel" its power, and delude ourselves with the notion that therefore the Word is ours.
1. What is this, but a mere transient sentiment? Like the man with the mirror, beholding a while, then going away and forgetting; so we may gaze into the marvelous mirror of the Word, which shows us so wondrously the fair ideal of truth, the beauty of holiness, and, in contrast, the deformity, the unholiness of our real self. But so likewise, being charmed with the ideal beauty, and equally loathing our sin, we yet may go away and forget what manner of men we are.
2. What is required of us is an abiding practice of the perfect law, that can only result from a continued gazing into its excellence of beauty and consequent knowledge of our own distance kern its perfectness. So Psa_1:2, which sets forth the Law of God as the very element of the good man’s life. For it is a Law which is a living power, evermore working its perfection into our imperfect life. A Law, therefore, of liberty, making us free from sin, as being a law of holiness; and free from servile fear, as being a law of perfect love. Well may the man who abides in the doing of such a Law be designated blest! For while merely to hear the Word and feel its power, and then to go away and forget, is to be drugged as with an opiate that makes us insensible to our danger; on the other hand, to hear and to do, and to abide in the doing, is to realize the bounding gladness of the full flow of living health (see also the beatitude of Psa_1:1-6).
III. PRACTICAL RELIGION. There is an easy transition, in verses 26 and 27, kern the hearing of the Word to all the cult of worship. For just as some of these Christian Jews might be satisfied with the mere hearing of the truth as distinct from its practical realization in the daily life, so many of them might rest satisfied at least with the ceremonial cleanness and "service" on which their old training had led them to set such exaggerated value. They were "very religious" because of their multiplied religious observances, their θρησκεία, their ritual of service; and this "religion’ was pure, undefiled, no taint of ceremonial pollution attaching to its performance. And yet the filthy wickedness (verse 21) of the unbridled tongue? Vain, indeed, is the religiousness of such a one! Nay; the cult of Christianity is the religion of the life, and the ceremonial cleanness is cleanness of conduct and heart.
1. The ritual. Doing good. So Rom_12:1; Heb_13:16. A concrete instance is given here, viz. the visiting of the fatherless and widows in their affliction, but only as an instance of the ritual of the law of love. And notice the immense significance of the words," before our God and Father." Such as he is we must be, viz. "pitiful, and of very tender mercy" (see Jas_5:11).
2. The cleanness. "Unspotted from the world." An evil world, the evil of which was so exhibited by these "clean" men in their clamorous evil-speaking. Would they be really clean? There are no works like works of love to hush the anger of the heart. We learn for ourselves, in this age, that no ritual of religion is of any worth as such. Collective "worship" truly is good, as a means to an end, viz. the replenishment of our life-power, and maintenance of loving relationship with the Father. But as for any cult, as such, Christianity knows none, save that of a holy and loving life. Your ritualism, as Christians? Doing good!
In conclusion, the faith that humbly receives God’s saving Word, the faith that abides in the knowledge of that Word day and night., the faith that works itself out in the religiousness of a holy love—this is the sum of the whole matter, this is the very essence of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, evermore give us this faith!—T.F.L.
Temptation and its history.
We are carried back by the first word to our Lord’s pronouncement of the Beatitudes in the sermon on the mount. And here, as there, we are confronted with paradox. The words of the earlier Beatitudes had doubtless come with a shock of astonishment to many, who listened for statements that should accord with their carnal life. "Blessed are"—the proud, the strong, the conquering? Nay; but "the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the merciful ones." So now. Not," How blessed are they that escape the multiplied ills of life! "but," Blessed is the man that endures." Here, of course, is a return to the strange "greeting" with which the Epistle opened.
I. THE ENDURANCE OF TEMPTATION. The word must be taken in the broad, generic sense of " testing." Of this there are two forms—enticement to sin, and afflictions of righteousness. It enters into the very essence of a moral universe that there should be testing, and certainly into the moral recovery of a fallen world that the processes of the testing should be intensified. For in a world of innocence, if innocence is to develop into an established holiness, there must be such possibilities of a fall into sin as the very fact of freedom implies; and the resistance of" temptation" (as we specifically call it) involves such self denial as makes well-doing difficult; or, in other words, positive "trials" (as we call them) are necessarily bound up with the righteousness which pursues its way in spite of "temptations" to unrighteousness, and both together constitute the test (πειρασμός) of character. And if all this be true of a world of innocence, how much more of a world into which sin has already come! Both the temptations to sin and the trials of righteousness are intensified now, the heart itself being so prone to evil, and the world an evil world. Hence the immense difficulties of salvation from sin. We have an index to this in the intensity of temptation to even a Sinless One in a world of sin, as shown in the conflicts of the Son of man. View the wrestling in the desert, and the agony in the garden! And how much more to us, whose nature is so responsive to the influence of the world! But his conquest is the pledge of ours, if we do but put our trust in him (John:16v33; 1John:5v4). And the beatitude? We cannot write "blessed" over the fierce wrestling in the desert, nor over the agony of blood. But we can over the victorious result. And so with ourselves; not," Blessed is the man that is tossed and troubled;" but, "Blessed is the man that endures." For what is the result of the enduring? Δόκιμος γενόμενος: we can hardly give the force of these words, save by periphrasis, in our tongue. "Having acquired the quality of triedness;" i.e. having been put to the test, having borne the test, and being now certified as true. Like gold in the fire. And the prize? "The crown of life." Figurative expression as regards the word "crown;" so 1Pe_5:4 and 2Ti_4:8. Familiar thought of contention for a reward. But, dropping the figure, let us ask what is the "life" itself that is set forth as the crown of our rejoicing? And, for the answer, compare some words of Christ: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God;" "This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;" "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him;" "And my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and. make our abode with him" (Mat:5v8; John:17v3; John:14v21, John:14v23). Such the life; the full fruition of God, which is possible only to a pure soul.
II. TEMPTATION NOT OF GOD. Now as to the source of the temptation, the endurance of which results in blessed life. A right and a left, a good and an evil, are possible alternatives always, and to free creatures that which is possible may become actual. God cannot constrain them to well-doing, or they would cease to be free. In the case, then, of allowing for temptation in the very constitution of a moral world, God may be said to be its source, its author. But how readily men push the responsibility of their actual sin away from themselves to God! They are placed in such and. such circumstances by God, therefore God is the author of the sin to which those circumstances lead. So they argue with their own hearts. But illustrate: a position of trust, with its involved temptations. Does the employer tempt the trusted servant to wrong-doing? Nay, verily. So man is placed in a post of trust by God, and the trust necessarily involves the possibility of a betrayal of trust; but may we therefore say that God tempts us to do wrong? The very thought is blasphemy! Only an evil being can tempt to evil; on the other hand, an essentially holy Being must seek to work out holiness. This is the true genesis of sin: man’s will yielding to his desire, not resisting it. The result is the presence of an actual power of sin; for sin is no longer a mere possibility to us, but a positive entity. And again, when the will weds itself to this positive power of sin, as before to the mere desire, the result is death. Just as the fruition of God is the life of a pure soul, so a godless desolation is the death of the soul that has permanently espoused itself to sin. Such the dark pedigree set forth by James.
III. EVERY GOOD GIFT FROM GOD. The negative has been stated in regard to the goodness of God; now we have the positive. The very sufferance of temptation itself is in love, that the highest good of a created universe may be wrought out. And this love is God’s essential nature. He cannot, then, work harm in any way. God the author of sin? a good God work this unutterable evil? Nay; "God is Light," and a shadow can only be cast by the resisting will. And in this He is unchangeably the same(yesterday, today, forever); there is no parallax in these heavens. And therefore the great pledge and proof of his eternal good will of holy love towards us consists in the fact that he has already begotten us to the new life. He would not lift us from sin to holiness that then he might cast us down to sin again. No; we are "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance" (Eph_1:13, Eph_1:14). And so our new creation is, as it were, the first-fruits of the new creation of all things.
Our danger still is this, that we are tempted to think God is making it hard for us to be good. Our safety is in holding fast to the eternal truth that "God is love;" and that, as the Good One, and Father of all good, he can so control our troublous circumstances and troubled nature, that, if we are only willing to do his will, all things shall work together for our good (see whole of Rom_8:1-39).—T.F.L.
Jas_1:19-27
The law of the new life.
"Ye know this, my beloved brethren;" viz. that ye have been begotten again by God. But now, from this vantage-ground, he presses the necessity of a consistent life. They have espoused, by God’s grace, a new ideal of character and conduct; let their whole life show forth its power. This is the topic of the whole passage, and it divides itself very naturally into the related subjects of—meekness, self-knowledge, and practical religion (see Punchard, in Bishop Ellicott’s ’Commentary’).
I. MEEKNESS. There is evidently a reference, in Jas_1:19-21, to the deportment of the Jews in their religious gatherings, to which we have more direct reference in Jas_1:23 and in Jas_2:1-13. And the words of warning are aimed at one of their most besetting sins; they were clamorous, accusing, wrathful. What examples we have of this spirit, as manifested at their public gatherings for worship, in the accounts of our Lord’s first proclamation of his mission in the synagogue of Nazareth (Luk_4:28, Luk_4:29), and of the first setting-forth of the gospel by Paul in the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia (Act_13:45)! So perhaps it was also at the Jewish-Christian gatherings; they would contradict, and accuse. Yes; they were impatient of hearing, eager to speak, wrathful in speech; rebutting what seemed the blow of the truth against themselves, turning that blow against others, perhaps against the speaker. What a Babel of confusion! And all this in the thought that they were doing God service! As opposed to this spirit of censorious anger, James urges a quiet, gentle humility in the hearing of the Word.
1. For what was this Word? It was God’s Word, his message to the heart. Yes, with whatever of human alloy it might sometimes be mixed, through the infirmity of the speaker, there it was, a thing Divine! There should be, then, in its presence, a certain awe of silence: "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak." And as this Word was the searching Word of the living God (Heb_4:12), there should be the meekness which hears for one’s self, not for others—Is there any wrong in me? For this Word was "able to save:" with what solemn gladness should they welcome its healing, cleansing power!
2. Oh, how opposed to all the intended influence of the Word of God was the spirit of passionate assertion and accusation! How it defiled the nature, as with filthiness, making it an utterly unfit receptacle for God’s holy truth! And how the "overflowing of wickedness" bore back the living germ of the truth, which being implanted in the heart would save unto the uttermost! Yes, man’s wrath, so far from working God’s righteousness, utterly hindered that working. The truth was "able to save," but only if the conditions of true humility in the hearer were fulfilled.
II. SELF-KNOWLEDGE. But the very hearing may become a snare: we hear the Word, we "feel" its power, and delude ourselves with the notion that therefore the Word is ours.
1. What is this, but a mere transient sentiment? Like the man with the mirror, beholding a while, then going away and forgetting; so we may gaze into the marvelous mirror of the Word, which shows us so wondrously the fair ideal of truth, the beauty of holiness, and, in contrast, the deformity, the unholiness of our real self. But so likewise, being charmed with the ideal beauty, and equally loathing our sin, we yet may go away and forget what manner of men we are.
2. What is required of us is an abiding practice of the perfect law, that can only result from a continued gazing into its excellence of beauty and consequent knowledge of our own distance kern its perfectness. So Psa_1:2, which sets forth the Law of God as the very element of the good man’s life. For it is a Law which is a living power, evermore working its perfection into our imperfect life. A Law, therefore, of liberty, making us free from sin, as being a law of holiness; and free from servile fear, as being a law of perfect love. Well may the man who abides in the doing of such a Law be designated blest! For while merely to hear the Word and feel its power, and then to go away and forget, is to be drugged as with an opiate that makes us insensible to our danger; on the other hand, to hear and to do, and to abide in the doing, is to realize the bounding gladness of the full flow of living health (see also the beatitude of Psa_1:1-6).
III. PRACTICAL RELIGION. There is an easy transition, in verses 26 and 27, kern the hearing of the Word to all the cult of worship. For just as some of these Christian Jews might be satisfied with the mere hearing of the truth as distinct from its practical realization in the daily life, so many of them might rest satisfied at least with the ceremonial cleanness and "service" on which their old training had led them to set such exaggerated value. They were "very religious" because of their multiplied religious observances, their θρησκεία, their ritual of service; and this "religion’ was pure, undefiled, no taint of ceremonial pollution attaching to its performance. And yet the filthy wickedness (verse 21) of the unbridled tongue? Vain, indeed, is the religiousness of such a one! Nay; the cult of Christianity is the religion of the life, and the ceremonial cleanness is cleanness of conduct and heart.
1. The ritual. Doing good. So Rom_12:1; Heb_13:16. A concrete instance is given here, viz. the visiting of the fatherless and widows in their affliction, but only as an instance of the ritual of the law of love. And notice the immense significance of the words," before our God and Father." Such as he is we must be, viz. "pitiful, and of very tender mercy" (see Jas_5:11).
2. The cleanness. "Unspotted from the world." An evil world, the evil of which was so exhibited by these "clean" men in their clamorous evil-speaking. Would they be really clean? There are no works like works of love to hush the anger of the heart. We learn for ourselves, in this age, that no ritual of religion is of any worth as such. Collective "worship" truly is good, as a means to an end, viz. the replenishment of our life-power, and maintenance of loving relationship with the Father. But as for any cult, as such, Christianity knows none, save that of a holy and loving life. Your ritualism, as Christians? Doing good!
In conclusion, the faith that humbly receives God’s saving Word, the faith that abides in the knowledge of that Word day and night., the faith that works itself out in the religiousness of a holy love—this is the sum of the whole matter, this is the very essence of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, evermore give us this faith!—T.F.L.
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