James 4

CHAPTER IV

Friend of the World, Enemy of God, v. 1–10

James 4:1

1 The readers have followed the earthly, un-spiritual, devilish wisdom. James tells them plainly what kind of people they have become and calls on them in strong terms to repent. We see what impelled James to write this epistle. These Christians in the Diaspora were degenerating frightfully, were descending to the level of the Jews among whom they lived; somebody had to apply a stern hand in order to bring them to their senses, somebody to whom they would listen. James undertakes that task.

Whence wars and whence fightings among you? (Are they) not hence, (even) out of your pleasures that keep campaigning in your members?

Πόθεν … ἐντεῦθεν correspond. What is the source of all these wars, what the source of all these fights in your midst? James uncovers the source of these deplorable actions. “Wars” refer to wider dissensions; μάχαι to single and smaller conflicts. The connection with 3:17, 18, with what is there so emphatically said about peace and “those making peace” is obvious. These Christians are not devotees of Christian peace, they are chronic fighters. James does not pretend to prove it, for the matter is all too obvious. In order to bring these people to their Christian senses James points out to them the vicious spring (3:11) from which such bitter waters flow, the kind of a tree from which such fruits develop.

He lets the readers themselves say what that source is: their own pleasures that keep campaigning in their members. The ἡδοναί are “pleasures” in the sense of feelings that please themselves, selfish desires (ἐριθεία, “selfishness,” in 3:14) that are pleased when they obtain what they want; see the word in Titus 3:3, “enslaved by lusts and manifold pleasures.” James keeps the figure of war when he characterizes these pleasures as constantly “campaigning” in the members of his readers. They go on the warpath, keep up fights.

“In your members” does not mean that some of the bodily members of an individual Christian keep up a campaign against his other bodily members, but that the battling between the Christians is connected with their bodily members. This does not mean that hands, feet, tongue, etc., are merely used in these fights as soldiers use weapons, but that the fighting has its seat—its quarters and camp as one has put it—in the sensuous part of man.

Paul also speaks about the vicious law that still operates “in my members” (Rom. 7:23). Like James, he views the body and its members as territory in which the power of sin, after being ousted from its throne in the spirit, still maintains itself. Thus Paul often speaks about bringing the bodily members into proper subjection. But while Paul describes them as warring against the spirit, James deals with no inner conflict but with the wars that result between Christians, between individuals or between factions. There is no necessity for making James speak of the war between the members and the spirit by supplying something after the participle such as “campaigning against the soul” or “against the mind.”

The idea that in the section about the tongue (3:1–12) and then also in the next one about the two kinds of wisdom and so also now in this one about the fights James is speaking only of religious teachers, of their jealousies, controversies, violences, etc., is without foundation. Homilies on the odium theologicorum and the virulent way of conducting theological controversies are not in the mind of James. The supposition that James is writing to Jews in the whole Diaspora generally, and that he is speaking of their wars with each other, wars between Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Essenes, Zealots, Samaritans, is untenable. He is dealing with the personal animosities, quarrels, factions, etc., that disgrace the Jewish Christian membership itself. The possibility that this condition may have been inherited from their former Jewish passions may be admitted. Yet to this day and in our own experience, when passions are given free rein in Christian congregations, we see the members tearing each other in all manner of fights, each person or each faction seeking only its own ἡδοναί.

James 4:2

2 You lust and do not have; you murder and use zeal and do not obtain—you fight and you war.

This is the dreadful situation obtaining among you! Despite all your sinful desiring you do not obtain what you are after. This is repeated for the sake of greater emphasis by the use of stronger terms: “you murder and put forth zeal and (for all that) you do not obtain.” We cannot assume that murders were literally committed. For such murders the criminals would have been executed by the secular government. The commentators note James’s agreement with the Sermon on the Mount; here Matt. 5:22 is to the point; we also have 1 John 3:15 which speaks to the same effect. From ἐπιθυμεῖτε, the evil desire or lust in the heart, James proceeds to its manifestations: φονεύετεκαὶζηλοῦτε, to actual efforts to obtain what is sinfully desired. “You murder” is to be understood in the ethical sense; “wars,” “fights,” “campaigning,” and “you fight and you war” are to be similarly understood.

The terms used by James are purposely made strong in order that they may penetrate into the hearts of the readers. To say that “you murder and use zeal” is an intolerable anticlimax involves the far more intolerable supposition that James is addressing people, many of whom had committed and were committing physical murder. The two verbs are not arranged so as to form an anticlimax. The two verbs lie on the same plane, the second is only more comprehensive: hate and its manifestations are one form of sinful zeal to obtain a desire, and zeal includes all other manifestations of this kind and for this purpose.

The present tenses in this and in the next verse are not “gnomic”; these are iterative and descriptive presents. The idea is not conditional: “If you lust you do not have; if you murder,” etc.; it is concessive: “although,” etc., and it is thus much stronger than the use of concessive participles could have made it. In order to avoid the anticlimax it is proposed to punctuate: “you lust and do not have, (and being disappointed) you kill; you are jealous and do not obtain, (and being disappointed) you fight and war.” Moreover, it is thought that this construction gives proper balance to all parts of the sentence besides removing the anticlimax. But it does not balance the verbs, for mere lust does not rise to murder, nor does jealousy advance to fights and wars.

James says that lusting does not get you what you want; acting vicious and with the zeal of heat is not able to make you attain your end. He then adds μάχεσθεκαὶπολεμεῖτε, “you fight and war,” and repeats “wars” and “fights” from v. 1. James intends to say: “In this way wars and fights continue among you. When these wars arise, evil passions are their source; and since these passions remain unsatisfied, the fighting and the warring go on and on.”

James 4:3

3 More must be said. Because they are in such a condition the readers either do not pray or pray in a base way. You do not have for the reason that you do not ask for yourselves; and you ask and do not receive because you ask for yourselves in a base way, in order that you may waste (it) in your pleasures.

People who lust only for what gives them pleasure will fight and keep on fighting for satisfaction although they fail to get what they want. If they were to turn to God and to pray they would have to ask for something that presupposes a far different desire. So they do not ask for themselves at all and do not have the high and blessed things which God would gladly give them.

Again they do ask, but they receive nothing. God turns from them “because they ask in a base way, (only) in order to waste (what they would like to receive) in their (sinful) pleasures.” No wonder God’s ears are deaf to all such asking. Κακῶς is not as mild as “amiss” (our versions); it means “basely” or in a mean way. The purpose clause states what baseness is involved. Δαπανάω means “to spend” and then “to waste” or to squander.

James mentions no objects throughout these verses; he does not need to. He does not say for what they war and fight, for what they lust, for what they kill and use zeal, and what they fail to have and to obtain. So he also does not mention what they fail to ask, or what they do ask when they ask in their base way. James points only to “the pleasures” that cry for satisfaction and to what these cravings impel the readers to do. That is enough. Such craving, we need not be told, burns to get only base things.

Anyone who comes to God in true prayer will come with motives of a far different kind, and what these will ask we again need not be told. Some supply the objects which James leaves out. With “you lust and do not have” they supply riches, money, etc.; with “you kill and use zeal,” etc., they supply the thought that it is zeal for position, honor, and the like. But such efforts are unnecessary. The ἵνα clause intimates that what the readers want is only what they may consume in their pleasures and significantly repeats ἡδοναί from verse 1.

To read into these words the thought that Christians ought to pray for the satisfaction of their lusts, and that, if they did so in the right way, God would give them what they want, is imputing to James a sentiment that he never intended to express, and the matter is not made better by telling us that James is using “poetical form” in these verses; or that throughout the section v. 1–10 he may be putting together “not very skilfully” a number of quotations “taken from a variety of authorities in order to make this protest against a disgraceful state of affairs more emphatic and authoritative.” We do not consider such comment seriously.

This is the passage in which the active and the middle are used side by side: αἰτεῖν and αἰτεῖσθαι. Is there a difference between them? In G. K. we are told: “A difference worth mentioning does not exist … yet the middle seems to be preferred in business relations or in official connections.” Moulton, Einleitung, 251, etc., has already answered this as far as James is concerned. Business and official relations are, of course, not in place here so that the middle and the active would have equal force, and Blass would be right when he says that the change which James makes is “arbitrary.” Moulton says rightly: “It is not easy to see that an author like James should have come to such a purposeless crotchet (Schrulle).” There is a difference, and it is one that is intended by James and is noted by his readers, yet it is not that thought of by Mayor and by R. 851 who say that the active implies asking without the spirit of prayer; the middle would then mean asking with this spirit. How can James then write κακῶςαἰτεῖσθε?

Can one ask “basely” with the spirit of true prayer? The active = “you ask”; the middle = “you ask for your own selves.” Moreover, the middle appears in the διά and the διότι clauses where asking for your own selves is the point; while the active “you ask and do not receive,” αἰτεῖτεκαὶοὐλαμβάνετε, plainly alludes to the αἰτεῖτε found in Matt. 7:7 where the active alone is in place.

James 4:4

4 In v. 1–3 James states what is wrong and where the root of it lies, namely in the ἡδοναί, the pleasure-cravings of his readers. He now adds rebuke, admonition, correction. Adulteresses! do you not know that the friendship for the world is enmity against God? Whoever, then, has come to intend to be a friend of the world establishes himself as an enemy of God.

“Adulteresses” is to be understood in the same ethical sense as “you murder” is in v. 2. The latter is a reference to the Fifth Commandment and points out what the readers do to men, the former refers to the Sixth Commandment and points to what they do to God. The variant that is translated in the A. V., “adulterers and adulteresses,” is an attempt to improve on the feminine by referring to the two sexes of the readers, which is entirely out of place. The epithet is taken from the Old Testament where Israel is represented as the wife or the betrothed bride of God, and where her unfaithfulness is pictured as adultery: “They go a whoring from thee,” Ps. 73:27. Jesus uses the same expression in Matt. 12:39; 16:4, “an adulterous generation”; it is also used in Rev. 2:22. In the New Testament the church is pictured as the wife and the bride.

“Adulteresses” is the stern but true verdict of James on his guilty readers and their shameful conduct. This one scathing word is enough. It should produce deep contrition and prompt, full amendment. The question justifies this address and the verdict it contains. If it is asked how James can call these people “my brethren” (1:2, etc.), “my brethren beloved” (1:19), the answer is that they are not yet apostates, that “brethren” appeals to the faith and the love that are still left in them, while “adulteresses” scores the sins into which they have fallen, which James would eradicate by God’s grace and this letter.

“Do you not know?” expresses surprise and shock. They act as if they did not even know; οἶδα is the proper word. The implication is that they must certainly at least know. This question intends to revive this knowledge and thereby to make it effective in them. They are letting this knowledge lie dormant. James first states this as a question in order to shame these sinners and then as a strong assertion which admits of no evasion. They must certainly know “that the friendship for the world is enmity against God.” Both genitives are objective, which means that both φιλία and ἔχθρα are active. This is also the case in the next clause. There is no reason for making the first genitive objective and the second subjective: “your friendship for the world—God’s enmity against you.”

“Friendship” and “enmity” are abstract and general. James keeps the general idea in ὅςἄν but thereby makes it individual and thus personal: “Whoever, then, has come to intend to be a friend of the world is established as an enemy of God.” This is true of any and of every such case which may occur at any time; hence we have the present tense καθίσταται. This verb means more than werden (B.-P. 608); “is” an enemy (A. V.) is too weak. The form is either passive (B.-P.) or middle (Thayer, C.-K. 534); it is probably the latter: “he takes his stand,” is established in a position or establishes himself (R. V. “maketh himself”). “As an enemy of God” is a predicate nominative.

We should note the aorist βουληθῇ which means whoever “has come to intend,” has reached the fixed intention, actually reached it once for all. By this very fact that man is established as an enemy of God. βούλομαι often means “I intend.” It has this meaning in 1 Tim. 2:8; 5:14; Titus 3:8.

Οὖν shows what is contained in the ὅτι clause. We see what adultery signifies. When people of God, who should be true to God as a wife should be to her husband, love the world they commit spiritual adultery, they are like a married woman who gives herself to other men. When James calls this “enmity against God” he shows fully that this adultery means turning from God to the world. One cannot embrace both God and the world. To embrace the one is to be an enemy of the other.

James does not say that his readers have definitely broken with God but that they are in danger of doing so. Only in this indefinite clause does he use the aorist “whoever definitely intends to be a friend of the world.” To each reader it suggests the question: “Is this really my fixed intention?” James confidently expects the answer “no.”

In the expressions “the friendship of the world” and “to be a friend of the world” James uses “the world” as he did in 1:27 and much as John does in 1 John 2:15–17. Worldly men constitute “the world” which is at enmity with God, but 1 John 2:16 states what makes them “the world,” and what attracts foolish and blind Christians: “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life.” The world promises satisfaction to the ἡδοναί (v. 1, 3), the pleasure-cravings that are still left in the Christians. They foolishly imagine that they may obtain these while they remain friends of God.

James 4:5

5 “Do you not know, etc.?” means that the readers do know, and that this fact admits of only one alternative: Or do you think that the Scripture speaks in an empty way? κενῶς, in a hollow way, its words mean nothing. What James says about friendship for the world being enmity against God the readers know from “the Scripture,” and James interprets this for them and says that it means no less than that every friend of the world establishes himself, sets himself down, as the enemy of God. Is it the opinion of the readers that this is only empty talk?

Far from it. Jealously yearns the Spirit whom he made to dwell in us; moreover, he gives greater grace and tells us so himself, v. 6. God made his Spirit to dwell in us so that this Spirit may make and keep us true friends of his. That Spirit yearns jealously and is grieved when we become friends of the world and thus begin to be enemies of God. By this positive statement James shows that what God declares in the Scriptures is far from being empty. Paul, too, urges us not to grieve the Holy Spirit with whom God has sealed us. Πρὸςφθόνον is adverbial (R. 626) and = φθονερῶς (B.-P. 1140); it is like other πρός phrases with such nouns; in the New Testament ἐπιποθέω and its derivatives are always used in a good sense, “to yearn lovingly.”

James 4:6

6 Δέ = “moreover.” This, too, the readers are to note, namely that in consequence of this yearning God “gives greater grace,” undeserved favor of all kinds. This is what his friendship to us means. Do the readers want to forfeit it? James quotes Prov. 3:34 as it is in the LXX and changes “Lord” to “God”: God resists the haughty but gives grace to the lowly.

This substantiates what James has just said about God’s giving grace. The haughty are the friends of the world, for the world promises to satisfy their pride, which God does not do. The lowly or humble realize that they have nothing, and they are happy to receive God’s rich grace which satisfies their souls. They are like empty vessels which God can fill; the haughty are full—how can God fill them? Least of all do they desire “grace” which is intended only for the unworthy and the humble.

Many pages have been written regarding the different interpretations of v. 5 and the discussions of these interpretations. We confine ourselves to two points. We are not convinced that the question is a formula of quotation. Such a formula has never been used: “Do you think that the Scripture speaks in an empty way?” If a quotation were to follow, we should certainly expect the addition “saying that.”

What follows has never been verified as being a quotation; nothing like it has been found in any writing as all admit. The fact that the Scripture does not speak in an empty way refers to v. 4 which presents as a teaching of Scripture the truth that friendship of the world is enmity against God, etc. The idea is not that this is a quotation, but that it is a teaching of Scripture and by no means empty. Τὸπνεῦμα cannot refer to our human spirit (our versions), nor does ἐπιποθεῖ ever mean “lusts,” for this word never has an evil meaning. It is also strange to think that envy of our spirit should suddenly be introduced at this point. We note that the attested reading is κατῳκισεν, “made to dwell,” and not κατῳκησεν, “dwelleth,” which is used by the A. V.

James 4:7

7 Because God gives grace to the lowly, James urges his readers to drop their haughtiness. The ten imperatives that follow are peremptory aorists that call for decisive action. Accordingly, submit yourselves to God! The second aorist passive ὑποτάγητε is to be understood in the middle sense and matches the preceding ἀντιτάσσεται; both are derived from τάσσω: God “ranges himself against” the proud—“you range yourselves under” God. The verb means: take your position in the τάξις, the rank and file, under God to do his will and to obey his Word alone; do this effectively, definitely, once for all.

But withstand the devil, and he will flee from you! Do this just as decisively and just as definitely. The one act involves the other. “To withstand” him involves an attack on his part. Eph. 6:10, etc., describes at length with what weapons we are to fight the attack. The tense as well as the verb imply that we can successfully withstand the devil although this will mean a fight. Success is also indicated by the addition: “and he will flee from you” like a defeated enemy. James has mentioned “demoniacal” wisdom and thus now mentions “the devil” himself, the head of the demon kingdom. Although he is great and mighty, we can put him to flight.

“Deep guile and great might

Are his dread arms in fight:

On earth is not his equal.…

Scowl fierce as he will;

He can harm us none,

For he is judged—undone;

One little word o’erthrows him.” (Luther)

Friendship of the world is friendship with the devil, supine submission to him. The world and the devil are always associated.

James 4:8

8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you! The aorist is again decisive and indicates that the readers are not to draw a step or two nearer to God but are to approach him completely. This is said to Christians who are to flee to God by repentance and faith, who will then always find him drawing near to them in grace, pardon, protection. The devil will flee from us, God will draw near to us. James intends to use this contrast. The parable of the Prodigal illustrates the returning to God in repentance and his drawing near to the repentant one.

Two additional imperatives state how we are to draw near to God, or, we may say, what a part of this act means. Cleanse hands, sinners! and purify hearts, double-minded! Note the fine synonymous parallelism, yet “hands” and “hearts” combine outward and inward renewal. Both verbs are used to indicate ritual cleansing, “to cleanse” for the removal of the uncleanness, “to purify,” more positively, to render pure. Here the words do not, however, have a ritual meaning but refer to true Christian moral cleansing and purification. They would, however, retain some of their ritual flavor for Jewish readers. The absence of the articles with “hands” and “hearts” stresses the qualities of the nouns. “Hands” makes us think of all our deeds, for they are so much employed for our deeds; while “hearts,” the seat of the thoughts and of the will, constitute the inner source of all our actions.

“Brethren” will not serve here where James must indicate what is to be removed. “Sinners” is the proper form of address. The hands must cease from the sinning in which they have been engaged. Δίψυχοι (1:8), people with a double psyche—we call them “double-minded”—fittingly describes the bad condition of the heart; it is like “adulteresses” which was used in v. 4. They have a hankering after the world while they think that they are holding to God.

James 4:9

9 We again have three imperatives (v. 7), but they are now entirely unmodified and together demand true repentance but do so in a concrete way, for all three refer to the evidences of repentance, since where these truly appear, repentance will fill the heart. Be wretched and mourn and sob! So the readers are to feel because of their past worldly, sinful, double life. They are to be broken up about it; they are to mourn over it. This verb recalls Matt. 5:4 where Jesus calls such mourning ones blessed. In true sorrow of heart they are to sob at the thought of their sins as repentant Peter and the sinner mentioned in Luke 7:38 sobbed.

The next clause, which has only one imperative, brings out the change that is depicted by the three preceding imperatives. Your laughter, let it be turned into mourning, and your joy into dejection! These are the laughter and the joy of their past sinful ἡδοναί or “pleasures.” Let true repentance turn them into “mourning”—James loves to repeat and to link together—and into dejection (the adjective κατηφής means to be “of a downcast look”); compare the publican in Luke 18:13. The supposition that James demands that the whole life of Christians is to be one of weeping, sadness, etc., is untenable. James describes what must take place when sinning Christians return to God on their knees in true repentance.

James 4:10

10 The last imperative is summary and, like the third, is followed by a glorious promise. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you! We may compare Matt. 23:12; Luke 14:11; and also 1 Pet. 5:6; yet James speaks of self-humiliation in repentance only, and we should not extend the force of his words beyond that. The passive is to be understood in the middle sense as was the one that was used in v. 7. “The Lord” probably refers to Christ; the term connotes his exalted lordship which is filled with grace toward us whom he has made his blessed slaves (δοῦλος in 1:1). The exaltation is thus that of pardoning grace (v. 5, 6); the penitent sinners are restored to their position in this Lord’s kingdom.

Speaking Against a Brother, v. 11, 12

James 4:11

11 It is not exact to say that James now reverts to 1:26 and 3:1–10, namely to what he said about bridling the tongue and about the uncontrolled tongue. This is apparent from the way in which he corrects the sin to which he now draws attention; it is a usurpation of authority that conflicts with the authority of God. This little piece as well as the next one (v. 13–17) are to be connected with the foregoing (v. 1–10), with the readers’ turning away from God, no longer subjecting themselves to God, no longer being humble but haughty. This spirit always shows itself in the way in which it treats the brethren. In 1 John 4:20, 21 the same truth is expressed; James, however, scores a specific sin and not lack of love in general.

Stop talking against each other, brethren! After the ten preceding aorist imperatives, all of which are positive, the present and the negative imperative strikes a different note and itself already shows that James is taking up a new subject. The address, “brethren,” substantiates this stern rebuke (“adulteresses,” “sinners,” in v. 4, 8) and then again turns to admonition. To talk against each other or about one another (genitive after the preposition in the verb) is unwarranted derogation, afterreden (Luther), it is our common expression “running each other down,” which is still a frequently occurring sin. When the present imperative is negative it often means to stop something that is being done (see R. 851, etc.). The plural implies that this sin was rife among the readers.

He who talks against a brother or judges his brother talks against law and judges law. Now if thou judgest law thou art not a doer of law but a judge, i. e., thou art assuming a wholly unwarranted authoritative position that belongs not to thee but only to God. The first statement is objective: “The one talking against his brother,” etc. The second is subjective: “Now if thou judgest,” etc. The subjective rests on the objective. Together they form a syllogism which is compact and straight to the point. “Or” is conjunctive and not disjunctive.

One may call this sinner a person who talks against his brother “or” one who judges his brother. The same person is referred to, and hence we have but the one article; two articles would denote two sinners and would imply that there is a difference in their sinning.

We usually expose this sin by showing that it reveals lack of love or a sinful condition in the heart. James exposes it in a more striking way, namely by placing this sin in relation to law and thus by way of law in relation to God. The basic proposition is that one who runs down a brother thereby judges his own brother. Both are protected by law; in fact, this equal protection makes them brothers. By first using “a brother” and then “his brother” James has the possessive pronoun emphasize this relation. Thus, since talking against a brother is judging one’s own brother, this is no less than talking against law and judging law. It is attacking law as though it should not protect one’s own brother; judging one’s brother is eo ipso judging law itself.

The thought is completed by saying what this sinner really makes of himself. James now speaks personally. “If thou judgest law thou art not a doer of law but a judge,” i. e., instead of together with thy brother remaining under law to be a humble doer of law and to have its protection thou art making thyself superior to law, art passing judgment on law itself, art saying that it has no business to protect thy brother, that it should leave thee free to attack him ad libitum. In short, no one can run down a brother without running down law; or, what amounts to the same, judging one’s own brother is judging law, making oneself superior to it instead of remaining humbly under it simply to do what it orders. What James thus says is perfectly true; he looks at the vilifier and slanderer with a clear eye and sees him as a usurper who is in conflict with the position that is occupied by God alone.

Anarthrous νόμος does not = “the law”; James does not use the article of previous reference when he mentions “law” the second time, he keeps the word purely qualitative throughout. The reason is obvious. He is not writing to Jews but to Christians; hence he does not say “the law,” i. e., the Mosaic code. He has already spoken of “law complete, the one (related to or marked by) the (true) liberty” (1:25), also of “royal law” (2:8); and so he now again writes simply “law—law.” The idea that James refers to the Torah, and that he has in mind the old rabbinical controversies about “unnumbered differences of opinions with regard to legal observances” and disputes of his readers about “what was and what was not Torah-observance,” each vilifying the other who differed from him, is unsupported by the context.

James 4:12

12 One (only) is the lawgiver and judge, the One able to save and to destroy. But thou, who art thou as the one that judgest thy neighbor? Who art thou to arrogate to thyself the position which belongs to God alone? Εἷς is the subject and not merely the numeral: “There is one lawgiver” (A. V.), and the sense is, “One only.” “The lawgiver and judge” is the predicate (R. V.) and has the article because it is identical with and convertible with the subject (on this use of the article with the predicate see R. 768). This is an important point.

Moreover, the one article combines the two nouns “the lawgiver and judge.” Since God is the one he is also the other. The articulated participle ὁδυνάμενος, κτλ., is an apposition: “the One able to save and to destroy.” These two acts establish God’s position (Matt. 25:46). This is a reference to God and not to Christ who is never called “the lawgiver.” Christ executes God’s judgment (John 5:27).

The final question is crushing. Thou, whose position is at the side of thy brother, at the side of thy neighbor, thou who shouldest be “a doer of law,” whom makest thou thyself “as the one that judgest thy neighbor”? James uses the thought that Jesus expressed in Matt. 7:1; Luke 6:37; Paul uses it in Rom. 14:4, 13. This flagrant, arrogant judging usurps God’s authority, sets aside his law and judgment, and presumes to set up law and judgment of its own. The articulated participle ὁκρίνων is a predicate apposition to “thou”: “as the one that judges.”

James himself states the kind of judging he refers to, namely καταλαλεῖν, running down a brother. To think that this refers to all judging would destroy the entire epistle as well as all apostolic denunciation of the sins of the readers. Preachers are to voice God’s law and God’s judgment on evil conduct in no uncertain terms (2 Tim. 4:2; 2 Sam. 12:7), and brethren must likewise correct each other. But the judging that goes beyond this and aims only at tearing down the good name of a brother by imputing to him false motives and intents is an entirely different matter. It is a flagrant usurpation as if we had the power to send to heaven or to hell according to any law which we may be pleased to set up.

Planning Business without Regard to God’s Will, v. 13–17

James 4:13

13 Disregard of God is still the underlying thought; in v. 1–10 God is disregarded in preference to the world, in v. 11, 12 he is disregarded by judging a brother, he is now disregarded and ignored when one is planning business—something that is done constantly to this day.

Come now, you who say: Today or tomorrow we will go to this city and will spend there a year and will do business and will get gain—you such as do not know a thing of tomorrow!

Ἄγε is used like an interjection; νῦν is added in order to make it more pointed. In the classics it introduces an imperative as it does in 5:1. The fact that this expression is repeated in 5:1 is not sufficient reason for concluding that the same persons are referred to in both places. Οἱλέγοντες is a vocative. Some texts have “today and tomorrow we will go”; but why James should be thinking only of a city that is two days’ journey away is not apparent. The reading is “or.” The distance to the city selected and the time needed to get there are wholly immaterial.

Nor is James thinking of only one case. The thing planned is sometimes to start today; it is sometimes to start tomorrow. What is true of the start is also true of the entire project; it is all fixed and settled: we will go to this city (the one we have selected), we will spend a year there, we will do business (we have the word “emporium”), we will get gain. The whole thing is settled, down even to the profits of the year’s trade.

The Jews always loved trade and were shrewd in making it pay. Travel and trade were brisk during the days of the empire. The Jews had ready means of communicating business conditions and opportunities to their own people. Jewish Christians were of the same type and were posted on business conditions where they were still in contact with Jews. The future tenses are volitive: we will do so and so. The point is that those who speak as these people do—James is addressing these alone—add nothing concerning God. They act as though the course of a whole year were entirely in their own hands.

James 4:14

14 With a touch of irony James adds: “you such as do not know a thing of tomorrow” to say nothing of all the morrows of a whole year! R. 961 thinks of the English “whereas” used in our versions when he regards οἵτινες as concessive; it is qualitative: “you such as do not know.” The texts vary between τὸτῆςαὔριον and τά, the text B omitting the neuter article. We prefer the reading that has the genitive with τό. This preference disposes also of Westcott and Hort’s punctuation which includes the following words: “such as do not know of what sort your life of the morrow will be.” The sense of such a construction would be wrong, for these people do not know whether they shall be alive tomorrow. Τῆς (supply ἡμέρας) αὔριον modifies τό: “the thing of the morrow.” “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” Ps. 27:1. An example in point is the rich fool who planned to build his barns greater when that very night his soul was required of him.

James has this uncertainty of life in mind. Of what sort is your life? A vapor, to tell the truth, you are one appearing for a little while, thereupon also vanishing away. Ἀτμίς = Dampf, Dunst, “breath,” or “vapor,” of either steam or smoke; in 1:10 James uses a different figure. Instead of saying “is” James uses “you are,” which is stronger. Γάρ = “to tell the truth” or “in fact.” James himself brings out the point of the metaphor: “a vapor, one appearing for a little while, thereupon also (καί, just as it appears) vanishing away,” now you see it curling up, now it is completely gone. Compare Ps. 39:4–6. How foolish to plan for a whole year as if we were sure of living out the year!

James 4:15

15 We construe: You that say, “Today or tomorrow we will, etc.,” … instead of your saying, If the Lord wills, we shall both live and do this or that. Over against what these people actually say James places what they ought to say as Christians. Our life and our every movement depend on the Lord’s will. Without his will not a sparrow falls to the ground, Matt. 10:29, 30. We are told that formulas like “if God wills,” “with God,” “the gods intending,” “the gods willing,” were common among pagan Greeks, and that “James is here recommending to Christians a Hellenistic pious formula of strictly heathen origin.” In later centuries such a form was used also by Mohammedans: inshallah, “if God will,” which is a common, colloquial expression in modern Arabic. Finally, we are told that the Jews borrowed it from the Mohammedans.

The Old Testament, it is true, does not use “if God will,” “if ὁΚύριος wills.” The New Testament does. Paul makes his return to Ephesus contingent on “if God wills” (Acts 18:21); in 1 Cor. 4:19 and 16:7 we have “if the Lord permit,” in Heb. 6:3 “if God permit.” It is not at all a question regarding James alone. The apostles and the early church used these expressions and used them in a variety of forms. It has yet to be shown that they adopted them from Greek pagan sources. Simply to assert this is by no means to prove it. Was the apostolic dependence on God and the Lord incapable of producing its own expressions?

Did it have to be taught by pagans and by their polytheism? Deissmann’s assumption that we meet pagan words, expressions, and ideas at every turn in the New Testament, and his scorn of every effort to read the New Testament without the pagan spectacles which he offers us, should be firmly challenged. We challenge also those who find many Jewish apocalyptic citations, no matter how farfetched these may be. As for Mohammedanism, this drew on Christian sources and added its fatalistic conceptions while the Greeks always thought polytheistically.

“If the Lord wills” (either the aorist subjunctive θελήσῃ or the present θέλη, one act of will or God’s willing in general) is the entire protasis of the conditional clause. “We shall both live and do this or that” (καί … καί) are plain future indicatives exactly like those used in v. 13 and are in the apodosis of the conditional clause. A few texts make the two future indicatives aorist subjunctives. We then translate: “If the Lord will and we live (condition doubled), let us do this or that” (hortative) or: “we will also do this or that” (volitive). As for the double condition, the Lord’s will controls not only our doing this or that but also our being alive or not.

Only “if the Lord wills,” shall we live and do this or that. It is always Deo volente and never nobis volentibus. To forget this is serious indeed. Gott macht dann einen Strich durch die Rechnung. But when we say “God willing,” this must not be an empty phrase on our lips. When James says that “we shall do this or that” he includes much more than business and getting gain; “this or that” covers everything that God may permit us to do. He may let us fail in business in order to keep us humble, to destroy our love of money, etc.

James 4:16

16 But now you are boasting in your pretensions; all such boasting is wicked. To one, then, knowing to do good and not doing it, to him it is sin.

The language used in v. 13 is a boast; it is only a sample, for those who think and speak thus, who disregard God in their lives, will do so many times and in many ways. It is worse than boasting, it is boasting “in your pretensions.” The noun ἀλαζονεία and the adjective ἀλαζών = hollow pretense, making more of oneself than the facts warrant; in particular, acting as if one has more than he has when he perhaps has nothing, or pretending to do what is beyond him. Here the pretensions are the fact that these people act as if they could dispose of the future while it in reality rests solely in the will of God (G. K., 227, etc.). All such boasting is πονηρά, “wicked,” actively wicked, no less, and in this sense “evil.”

James 4:17

17 James states exactly where this wickedness lies; he does it by stating the general principle which takes in much more than is here discussed but certainly covers also this boasting in foolish pretensions. All the commandments of God, in fact, also all the gospel directions for the Christian life are broad and general and thus apply to individual situations and to specific cases. If the readers did not know and thus failed to do what is καλόν, good in the sense of morally excellent, they would have some excuse. The readers cannot plead for mitigation. So in this their action the principle applies to them that to one knowing to do what is excellent and yet not doing it, to him this omission is plain, downright sin, ἁμαρτία, missing the mark. The two dative participles are without the article: “one knowing and not doing,” and while they are indefinite and broad they are somewhat limited by the definite αὐτῷ, “to him.”

The supposition that because this principle is so broad it applies to all that James has written in this epistle, cannot be correct; for it should then be placed at the end of the whole epistle. James intends to apply it to what he says in this paragraph. Jewish casuistry regarded many omissions as not really being sins; but this is not typically Jewish, it is the superficial judgment of thousands today, even of many who have been taught and should know better. James is, however, not combating Jewish casuistry here.

There is the similar Roman Catholic doctrine of probabilism, to which Plummer draws attention. Its greatest exponent is Liguori, the Jesuit. In the moral field this casuistry allows one, if he is able to raise some doubt about the full validity or extent of a moral law, to follow his own inclination, i.e., to do or to omit to do on the strength of such a doubt. With this doctrine goes its companion, probabiliorism. On the whole subject and also on the present stand of the Catholic Church, Meusel, Kirchliches Handlexikon, furnishes information. Not to do when one knows is not sin as long as one can on at least some father’s say-so or on some apparent ground cast some doubt on what one knows one should do. How many Protestants follow the same principle in order to justify their own sins of omission or of commission!

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, 4th ed.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.