James 3

James 3:1-4

Division 4. (James 3:1-18; James 4:1-17.)The walk through the world. The whole epistle of James, as we have seen, is of that character which we call “practical.” We may expect, however, that in a fourth division practice will come in some special way before us. We have it, therefore, in what follows now. He has just shown us that faith is the first necessity for it, and that it is from faith that everything that is right in this way springs. Now he comes simply to look at the practice in itself, the walk through the world, the world having that character which we know so well, and which is God’s ordained testing for the Christian. This is the good of it, the testing by it; and the apostle brings before us, in the first place, that which, where it is found in full reality, shows indeed the perfect man.

1. But notice, then, that this perfect man is manifested as such by being able to govern himself, and that he is recognized as having in him that which in itself is perfectly untamable by any power merely of man. It is remarkably and beautifully brought out by the prophet Isaiah, as to the perfect Servant of whom he speaks in his fifty-third chapter, that under the greatest stress of trial that could possibly be conceived, a trial which went on to the awful death which the Lord suffered, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth” -He was perfect master of Himself under all circumstances. And again, as the prophet bears witness, while on the one hand “He had done no violence,” on the other “neither was there any deceit in His mouth.” Violence comes from the abuse of power; deceit is the resource of weakness. In the Lord there could be neither. The perfect trial was but perfect manifestation of supreme excellence. His was unique obedience to the will of God, while accompanied at the same time with perfection of another kind, which made Him able to realize all the weakness of which He was the subject, He to whom sin was suffering only, and the sorest possible suffering, even to the bearing of its heavy burden upon the tree. The apostle is speaking, then, of the government of the tongue; and he begins with that in which the line has carefully to be drawn between good and evil. “My brethren,” he says, “be not many teachers, knowing that we shall receive the greater judgment; for in many things we all offend.” Yet there is nothing clearer in Scripture than that, whatever one receives in the way of truth from God, he is responsible to minister it in whatever way lies open to him, for the help of others. The mere fact of the possession of that which is infinite riches to the soul that possesses it makes it a responsibility, which love at once must recognize, to minister it to others. Thus, in a sense, all may be teachers, while, of course, not in the sense in which the apostle is speaking here. There is the special gift of a teacher; and, inasmuch as it is special, it is not for every one to assume that he has it. It is the assumption of such a place as this, of which the apostle is speaking. As already said, there is need of careful discrimination, and that we should not turn his words into discouragement with regard to that in which our responsibility is so strongly emphasized.

Priscilla was a woman; and, says the apostle, “I suffer not a woman to teach;” yet Priscilla and Aquila take Apollos and instruct him in the word of God more perfectly. Was she right?

It is surely very clear that she was, and that Paul always recognizes her in an unmistakable way as eminent among women. Let us understand clearly that that which love moves us to, it gives at the same time authority for doing. It needs no authority but that which lies in its own compelling power. Love is the humblest thing that can be. It seeketh not its own; its delight is to pour itself out, to abnegate itself; and therefore, of necessity, it would at once guard one from any self-assumption. We may any of us teach that which we know, without the least pretension to be, as it were, by profession teachers; just as we may and must evangelize, -that is, carry the gospel to those who have it not, -without in the least assuming by this to be, in the proper sense, evangelists.

Here love will be found that which gives wisdom for every condition. True love is not blind and foolish, but deep-sighted.

Love guides and governs in all that it incites us to. If we assume the responsibility of the teacher’s place, then, as the apostle says here, we shall receive a “greater judgment;” and who can question it? A greater responsibility means a greater judgment; that is to say, God will require from us in proportion to the place we have. Is He not right? and can we expect anything else? And this is a warning, therefore, as to assumption. It is not meant, in the least, to be a hindrance to anything that love may impel to.

But indeed, as the apostle says, “in many things we all offend,”* and in word how easy it is to offend! In this case, if it be a questionof putting forth that which purports to be interpretation or application of the word of God, how necessary to realize the responsibility in handling that which, as the word of God, comes authoritatively to the souls of men!

Here too, if we did not know God’s grace, with the greatest gift we should be tongue-tied. It was he that did not trust this grace in his master who went and hid his lord’s money -was unable, therefore, to use it for the very purpose for which it was entrusted to him. We are as responsible to use as we are responsible not to abuse. We cannot escape from responsibility on either hand. How blessed to know, in the consciousness that still “in many things we all offend,” a grace upon which we can cast ourselves and go forward, if only there be with us the governing sense of whom we serve, and the serious desire to serve Him in it!
But the apostle goes on more fully into this question of the tongue. “If any offend not in word, he is a perfect man, able to bridle also the whole body.” And yet how easily we let our tongues run on! In fact, the place that the apostle gives the tongue is that which governs the whole body. The bit in the horse’s mouth is a small thing in itself, and yet the whole body is turned by it. The ships, in the midst of violent winds that act upon them, yet are turned about by a very small rudder, according to the direction that the helmsman gives. So, we may think little of the tongue, although it is the very thing by which we boast so much, but, verily, “How much wood can be kindled by how small a fire!” And here he breaks out into a description of it which is startling in its vehemence. “The tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire of hell.” Of course, he is speaking of it as unrestrained by the fear of God, or unguided by the power of the Spirit.

How much might we speak of the wonderful power of the tongue on the other side! What a ministry of comfort and blessing is in it!

But the best gifts are in their perversion just as fruitful for evil as they are good when used aright. The sweetest ties, the most precious relationships that God has instituted amongst men, are just in the same proportion fruitful for evil in their perversion. Nevertheless there is, no doubt, a special need for such a warning as this with regard to the tongue. How apt we are to be careless about it! How apt we are to release it somewhat from the control that we ought to exercise over it! How soon, if it escapes from such control, it does the damage which we know a little fire may! How much further evil may a little evil in it -mere unguarded words, as we say -excite in others! It is an untamable evil, says the apostle; that is, of course, naturally.

We have always to govern it, saints as we may be. The liberty which is truly ours does not extend, as we know, to a liberty with regard to that body which is still unredeemed, which is dead because of sin; and among Christians, where is there, in fact, any source of evil, and so readily allowed to manifest itself, as the tongue? “It is a restless evil,” says the apostle, always seeking expression, yet “full of death-bringing poison.” “We bless the Lord on the one hand, and curse men on the other; men whom God has made in His own likeness. Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. How thorough an inconsistency, as the apostle urges! In nature you do not find such things. The fountain does not send forth sweet and bitter water out of the same opening; nor a fig tree yield olives; nor a vine, figs; nor can that which is salt produce sweet water.

Nature itself in this way rebukes one who was meant to be the lord of nature, as the image of Him who is the Governor over all. He has, alas, yielded himself to the government of another, and thus he has lost the power of government, largely, over nature, but above all over himself.

The child of God away from God displays in full reality the power of the fall, and, as the apostle urges here, the tongue is an eminent example of this. 2. Out of the heart the mouth speaketh. We have begun with the utterance of the mouth. Now we go on to that which is more in the heart itself. “Whoso is wise and intelligent among you, let him show out of good behavior his works in meekness of wisdom; but if ye have bitter emulation and strife in your hearts, boast not, and lie not against the truth.”* This is the spirit of the world, and the corruption that is in the world is through lust. It is the fruit of a heart unsatisfied with God, with that which alone can satisfy, and as a consequence there is of necessity a restless seeking of what will do this. The world cannot furnish it, and hence it goes on, only with more and more urgency and bitterness all the time.

This is not a wisdom which cometh down from above. It is “earthly, sensual, demoniacal.” It is first “earthly.” It brings in no motive that is not of earth.

The word for “sensual” is one that we have had before as “natural.” It is “psychic,” soul-led; “sensual” is probably here the best translation we can give to it. The soul is that which, as we have seen, divorced from the spirit, is only bestial. In it are found the instincts and appetites that have to do with the maintenance of life, and nothing more. With the presence of the spirit man has that which penetrates this soul-life, and makes it capable of higher things; but there is nothing of that here. The spirit has not its supreme place, the man is soul-led, soul-governed. This is the kind of wisdom here, which, however, has another and deeper significance still.

It is not only “earthly, sensual,” but “demoniacal;” Satan being the prince of the world, a more disastrous influence is over man than could be found even in his mere fallen nature. There is a “spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience,” the communication of a wisdom in some sense higher than their own, but at the same time only more evil.

This, then, alas, is the spirit of the world. Man is not his own master, even while he vainly talks of liberty and means most earnestly to do his own will and nothing else. But these wills among men are various, and in strife with one another. Thus emulation and strife are the necessary accompaniments of all wisdom which comes not from above. There is disorder and every evil thing. *We seem to have here the two kinds of outflow from the heart, like the two kinds of fruit from the same tree -a thing impossible in nature, but too frequently found in man. There is either the good works of meekness and wisdom, or the envy and strife which boast, but really give the lie to God’s truth. This seems to be the force of this last clause: strife and envy lead to boasting and a denial of the truth. Hence the believer is warned. -S.R. On the other hand, the wisdom that is from above is first pure. There is in it singleness and simplicity of heart. There is no double-mindedness or duplicity. It is without mixture, refusing the alliance with evil. The apostle emphasizes that this wisdom is, first of all, pure. It is from Him who is light, in whose presence everything is seen for what it is, and evil has necessarily its rightfully abhorrent aspect.

Thus the wisdom from above is “first pure, then peaceable.” There is no lukewarmness, no indifference to evil: there is no peace that can be made with it; but where purity is maintained, its natural character can show itself even towards the failing and the froward. It is “gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without contention,” (where there is not truth and right to contend for there is no spirit of it,) “without hypocrisy;” and the fruit of righteousness is found in the peace which is thus maintained: “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.” Thus it springs from righteousness and returns to righteousness again. “The effect of righteousness is peace,” but the effect of such peace is again righteousness. The apostle pursues the earthly wisdom of which he has been speaking to its results. “Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your pleasures” (the gratification of your lusts), “which war in your members? Ye lust, and have not.” There is, in fact, no power that can satisfy this. It is condemned, by its very nature, to dissatisfaction. “Ye kill, and are envious, and cannot obtain.” We see that we are being shown the natural tendencies of things as they work out in the world around. James is speaking, as one may say, in the synagogue, in a mixed congregation, in which more than the saints are before him. Ye fight and war.

Ye have not, because ye ask not.” It is indeed impossible for prayer to live in such an atmosphere, as we see at once; and yet even here the subtlety of the human heart can come in, as it has devised among the heathen false gods who are but the images of lust themselves, and who can therefore be appealed to in behalf of these. Alas, Christians ’too may ask and receive not, because they ask amiss, to consume it in their pleasures. We know perfectly well, alas, that self-indulgence can be found in those who are Christians also, and we may seek even from God Himself that which, after all, as He sees it, is merely something that may minister to this spirit. The apostle flames out here as contemplating, evidently, those who are pledged to God, but who are not abiding in the satisfaction yielded by that which is their own. “Adulteresses: know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” He is contemplating those espoused to Christ, and yet giving themselves to another; and, alas, how easy it is to forget that the friendship of the world is enmity with God. Does not that seem often a little strong, perhaps? There it must remain as the immutable Word of inspiration, and let us face it fully. The world and God are on opposite sides, and can never be brought together. We may choose with which we will be; with both we cannot really be. “Whosoever, therefore, is minded to be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.” How well would it be if we let such strong yet wholesome admonition search us to the very bottom! How well the question comes just here, “Think ye that the Scripture speaketh in vain?” How often it seems in vain even for the children of God themselves!

But “the Spirit, then, who has taken His abode in us, does He desire enviously?” This certainly seems to be the force of what is here, and it must therefore be a question, not an affirmation, as the common version makes it. “The Spirit who hath taken His abode in us” cannot mean the mere human spirit, and therefore envious desire can only be intended to be put in contrast with that which is His mind, a contradiction to Himself, which is emphasized by giving it the form of a question, as we must. We know, surely, that the Spirit of God that dwelleth in us can have nothing to do with the envious desires of the heart which go out after the world for satisfaction. Nay, “He giveth more grace.” What do we need, but to realize what this grace of God is, and what it has made our own, to have every unsatisfied lust stilled; and instead of grasping for ourselves, we acquire the lowliness that waits upon God, and to which He can minister. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” 3. He leads us now more into the sanctuary, to estimate things in the presence of God. Where God is, He must rule; and if we will be the arbiters of our own portion, we must, of necessity, be away from God. “Be subject, therefore, to God; resist the devil,” -for he is always near if God be far away, -“and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” A place before Him, even a place in Christ, is one thing; the desire for what that place implies is another. Thus, it can be said to those who in one sense are nigh, “Draw nigh to God;” and there is still this condition to be fulfilled in order that He may draw nigh to us. We are “no more strangers and foreigners.” He expects from us the affections of children, of those that desire intimacy; but this can only be ours in a way conformable to His own nature.

Thus, the word follows, “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.” The pleasures that men seek away from God need to be turned -as they will surely yet turn -into affliction for them. Let the soul anticipate this, and instead of rejoicing in such a condition, “be afflicted, and mourn, and weep; let the laughter be turned to mourning, and the joy to heaviness.” No way for us but to anticipate the judgment of Him who judges not harshly, but according to truth. Let us humble, in His presence, the pride of heart which would dictate to Him, and account our own wills better than His will for us. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He shall exalt you. If we exalt ourselves, He will surely abase us. He that humbleth himself shall as surely find exaltation, but it will be in His own manner. But if we speak of judgment, and rightly exercise it with regard to ourselves, we have to remember here also that it is not for us to judge our brother. To judge evil is right, of course, and necessary; to judge of that which we have to do is our responsibility always, and therefore of all with which we associate ourselves; but, after all, there must always be with this the reserve, as to those whose ways may be involved in this, that there is One alone who knows the heart, and can give perfect judgment. We are to beware therefore of taking the place of the judge instead of that of obedience simply, which is our own. To act as in the judgment-seat is really, says the apostle, to judge the very law itself; it is to take it away from Him to whom only the law gives it. One only is the Lawgiver and Judge, who can carry out every decision, “who is able to save and to destroy.” What right have we to anticipate His judgment?*
There is another form of this forgetfulness of God to which the apostle turns -a very common one. “Go to now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain; ye who know not what will be on the morrow.” It is not, as we see directly, that he means to forbid all exercise of thought as to the morrow, but only the spirit of those who plan without God, who forget the uncertainty of everything here: “For what is your life? it is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” It is the spirit of self-confidence he is condemning, which boasts of what it can do without God: “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, and we shall live, we will also do this or that; but now ye glory in your vauntings. All such glorying is evil.” He adds a word now which should forever settle the question of sinless perfection for a Christian: “To him who knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”* This is much more, of course, than the prohibition of positive evil. There is a negative evil which we have carefully to keep before us. The responsibility of knowing what it is good to do is one that, while we may in a general way allow it, yet deserves far deeper consideration than we often would even desire to give it. How solemn it is to think of all the good that we might do, and yet have not done! How slow we are to recognize that this, too, is sin! We are so apt to claim for ourselves a kind of freedom here which is not Scriptural freedom; and there is no doubt, also, that we may abuse a text like this to legality, if there be legality in our hearts.

We are to be drawn, not driven. Yet the neglect of that which is in our hand to do, -which we, perhaps, do not realize our capacity for, and that only through a spirit of self-indulgence or a timidity which is not far removed from this, -such neglect, how hard it is to free ourselves of it, and how much do we miss in this way of that which would be fruitful in blessing for ourselves as well as for others! for, indeed, we can never sow fruit of this kind without reaping what we have sown; and the good that we can do to others, even if it requires the most thorough self-sacrifice, yet will be found in the end to have yielded more than it cost, and to have wrought in the interests of him who has not considered even or sought this. \