James 5:1-6

RULES FOR DAILY CONDUCT

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

James 5:1. Rich men.—Always in Scripture, the men who are proud of their riches, centred in their riches, and are nothing but rich. The good man, who happens to have the trust of wealth, and is trying to use it faithfully, should not be thought of as addressed in Scripture reproofs. Howl.—Only used here in the New Testament, but found in Isaiah 13:6; Isaiah 14:31; Isaiah 15:3; “weep with howling,” a desperate form of distress. Illustrate by the woes that came on the rich in connection with the siege of Jerusalem. Shall come.—Better, “are now actually coming.”

James 5:3. Cankered.—Rusted; used generally of the tarnish that comes over all metals exposed to the action of the air. Witness against you.—“For a witness to you,” not testimony against, but warning lest. For the last.—Better, “in the last.” Evidently in mind is the speedy fulfilment of our Lord’s predictions.

James 5:4. Of the Lord of sabaoth.—Κυρίου Σαβαώθ. Lord of hosts, especially characteristic name found in Malachi.

James 5:5. Lived in pleasure.—Better, “ye lived luxuriously and spent wantonly.” As in.—Better, “in.” “The rich men’ of Judæa, in their pampered luxury, were but fattening themselves, all unconscious of their doom, as beasts are fattened for the slaughter” (Plumptre).

James 5:6. The just.—Not specifically “the Just One,” but generally “pious, righteous men.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— James 5:1

Rich Men that are Only Rich.—This passage seems to have the character of an “aside” or “parenthesis.” It is difficult to conceive that persons of such character, worthy of such severe condemnation, could have been members of the Jewish Christian Churches. It is more reasonable to think that St. James sends this severe message to such as were persecuting the members of the Churches, and riding over them in the masterfulness of their pride, and that he designed to comfort the persecuted and distressed by the assurance that God was surely dealing with their persecutors, and that there could be no reason for envying their lot. The message is but an echo of our Lord’s saying, “Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation” (Luke 6:24). It is important to make a careful distinction between persons who are rich and persons who are only rich. It is not wrong to be rich. It is not necessarily a hindrance to Christian life to be rich. A man may just as sincerely and acceptably lay his riches upon the altar of service as anything else that he has. But it is wrong to be a rich man and nothing else. It is wrong when that is all you can say about the man. It is woful wrong when you are compelled to say that he is a bad rich man. This message should not be taken as sent to all rich men—only to such rich men as St. James describes. This distinction and qualification needs to be kept in mind in treating all the New Testament references to rich men. With some care the circumstances of the rich Jews, in the time immediately preceding the final fall of Jerusalem, should be presented.

I. Riches with troubles.—In the best of times to increase riches is to increase anxieties and troubles; and when hard times come, their strain is always felt most severely by the rich. For one thing, as riches increase, wants are multiplied, indulgences become necessities, and there is so much to give up, when banks break, ships founder, and speculations fail. The poor may feel the strain of troublous times first, but they do not feel it worst. It is but a little step from their usual limitations down into poverty; but it is a big step from the mansion to the workhouse. St. James sees, in the swiftly advancing miseries that were coming on the Jewish nation, the just judgment of God on men who were rich, and nothing else; at least, nothing else that was good. If a man is only rich, he can lose everything in a time of national calamity. If a man has character, and is rich in that way, all the woes of the world cannot take his riches away. Ward Beecher says: “No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.” We envy the rich; but perhaps we should not if we clearly saw that we must take riches with trouble. That truth may be borne in upon us by watching the faces of the carriage-folk in Hyde Park. It is a most rare thing to see a sunny face in middle-aged man or woman; discontent, weariness, envy, bad temper, well-nigh everywhere, so plainly revealing that, for them with all their riches, life is a failure and a bore. If it is thus when a country is peaceful and plenty abounds, what must be the troubles of the rich when Roman armies encircle the city, and drought and famine and pestilence stalk around? Riches can do so little to alleviate misery then; and a gaunt, famished crowd have no respect for any, but grasp and steal wherever they can. Bishop Wordsworth vigorously paraphrases James 5:2: “Your wealth is mouldering in corruption, and your garments, stored up in vain superfluity, are become moth-eaten: although they may still glitter brightly in your eyes, and may dazzle men by their brilliance, yet they are in fact already cankered; they are loathsome in God’s sight; the Divine anger has breathed upon them and blighted them; they are already withered and blasted.” When the rich man has character, then only is he prepared for the trouble-times of life; then only has he the “treasure in heaven, which neither moth nor rust doth corrupt.”

II. Riches with injustice.—“Behold, the hire of the labourers who mowed your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth.” It is making wholly wrong use of this passage to compel it to support modern socialistic schemes, which are based on the false assumption, that all employers of labour deal unfairly with their labourers. It would be as true to say that all labourers deal unfairly with their employers; and that is manifestly false. There are cases. Deal with the cases; but do not attempt to base a general law upon isolated cases. Oppressing the hireling in his wages was, however, a characteristic Jewish sin. “The grasping avarice that characterised the latter days of Judaism showed itself in this form of oppression among others.” And it should be recognised that the possession of riches easily becomes, or supports, a temptation to deal unjustly with the poor. Injustice may take form as

(1) failure to consider their due claims;
(2) reserve of the payments due to them through indifference or wilfulness;
(3) inattention to the things necessary to their physical, sanitary, and moral well-being. Happy is that man in the possession of riches who, having a sensitive conscience, finds it brings him no accusations of injustice.

III. Riches with self-indulgence.—“Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.” The sentence is a severe one, and forcibly presents to us the self-centredness of the rich, pampering his appetite—every sort of appetite—clothing in scarlet and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day, like Dives. St. James, with the licence of poetic imagination, pictures them dressing themselves for death, fattening themselves for the day of slaughter. This self-indulgence is the supreme peril of the rich. They have no call to the exercise of self-restraint, and every moral fibre becomes relaxed. Self-indulgent people easily do wrong things.

IV. Riches with violence.—“Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one.” Not Christ. St. James is speaking in a poetic vein, and giving point to his accusation by compelling them to think of some one case. Reference is directly to some cases of persecution, in connection with the Jewish Christian Church, which had aroused St. James’s indignation. Of this all may be assured who suffer wrong in any way from the masterfulness and injustice of unprincipled rich men—“Their cry enters into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.” “He is the avenger of all such.”

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

James 5:1. The Poverty of Riches.—It is important to recognise that the rich man denounced in Scripture is never the man who merely has possessions. They may come to him by the accident of birth, or as the natural result of business ability. There is nothing wrong, or necessarily mischievous, in possession; and wealth is just as truly a trust from God, to be used in helpful ministries, as is any personal talent. But, like everything else frail man deals with, riches may be misused. They may come to be trusted in; they may take the soul’s confidence from God. They may spoil a man’s relations with his fellow-man. They may seriously deteriorate a man’s personal character. The peril of riches lies in their persuasion of the man to trust in them, and in their attraction of the man to seek them at any cost or sacrifice. “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.” Because riches so easily entice, persuade, and tempt, it is necessary to point out what a side of poverty there is even to great riches. Its purchasing power is the real test of the value of wealth. It is thus we estimate the differing values of gold and silver and copper. A thing is reckoned of no value if it has in it no purchasing power.

I. What can riches buy?—Only what belongs to the range of material good. We need not think of that material good as in any narrow limitations. It includes all pleasant things meeting bodily needs and bodily desires; but it includes also all that ministers to mind, to artistic feeling, to society interests, and even to spiritual necessities. The rich man has at command whatsoever of good the material world can supply; and getting it for himself, he cannot help getting it for others to share with him. If man were only of the earth earthy, riches might secure supply of all his need.

II. What cannot riches buy?—It has no purchasing power in any of the immaterial worlds. It cannot buy love. It cannot secure the noblest form of human service—the service of love. Love is only bought with love. No coin was ever yet paid for it. True of the love of man to man. Sublimely true of the love of God to man. It is bought “without money and without price.”

James 5:4. Loyalty to Workpeople.—There are peculiarities in Eastern workpeople which partly explain the need for such advice as this. Eastern workpeople have no such personal independence as characterises even the labourers of our Western lands. They are more correctly associated with our idea of slaves. They have the spiritless character, the unintelligent submission, the disposition to shirk burdens, which we connect with our notion of slaves. In Eastern countries no kind of servant or workman can be trusted alone without direct personal supervision. Overseers are always appointed, to keep them at their duty. As a natural consequence, masters readily become severe and tyrannical, indifferent to the labourers’ well-being, and practically out of all sympathy with them. Moses had to legislate for their protection (Leviticus 19:13). Prophets had to denounce the sin of oppressing the labourer (Jeremiah 22:13; Malachi 3:5). “The grasping avarice that characterised the latter days of Judaism showed itself in this form of oppression.” Christianity indirectly improves the position and relations of workpeople. It does not directly interfere with social conditions. Its principle is distinctly stated in the apostolic decision, “Let every man wherein he is called, therein abide with God.” It affects workpeople by improving them, and by altering the sentiments of their masters concerning them. A worldly master sees in his workpeople only persons with whose help he is to make money. A Christian master sees in his workpeople persons for whose all-round well-being he is responsible. There are some senses in which they cannot help themselves. Yet in those things their truest well-being is bound up. Loyalty to Christ means loyalty to them; and this brings upon the Christian a burden of responsibility to them. Let the Christian master feel his loyalty to those who serve him, and cherish a right spirit towards them; these will be sure to inspire right and wise and kindly deeds. How far the individual sense of loyalty and responsibility is likely to be destroyed by modern strikes, combinations, social, or rather socialistic, movements, must be left open to individual decision.

James 5:5. The Moral Mischief of living delicately.—It greatly surprises us that such intensely severe reproofs could be needed for persons in the actual membership of the early Christian Church. The R.V. renders this passage, “Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure.” We might render, “Ye lived luxuriously, and spent wantonly.” In this is severely reproved the misuse of the riches possessed. And riches are always misused when they are made to pamper bodily appetite. The word “delicately” is suggestive as reminding us that luxurious and wanton living as readily takes refined and artistic as coarse and animal forms. The point which may be worked out is that, no matter what may be the station, culture, or resources at command of the Christian professor, he is under absolute obligation to Christ to hold himself under all due self-restraint, and to put all his relations into wise and careful limitations. His “moderation is to be known unto all men.” This means a moral bracing himself up, to secure control of himself, and control of his circumstances; and with that control the man is safe amid temptations. But any form of self-indulgence unbraces a man, loosens and weakens the moral fibre. And when a man loses his power of self-restraint and self-rule in some one thing, he can never be certain of holding his power of self-restraint in any other. And, moreover, he has opened one “gate of the city of Man-soul” to the enemy, and the city is no longer safe. It is usually on the side of some bodily indulgence that Christian professors begin to fail. Moral mischief comes with indulgence at the table, or in drink; sometimes there is a relaxation which allows a man to be carried away by worldly pleasures or sensual attractions—the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life.” The apostle gives the advice, which we may wisely apply in a variety of directions, when he bids us “keep the vessel of our body in sanctification and honour.” In relation to delicacy of eating and drinking, it should be better known than it is, that highly cooked and spiced foods bear mischievously on the animal feelings which are so closely associated with the moral life.