JAMES, A SERVANT (or _slave,_ or _bond-servant_) _OF_ GOD AND OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. — Bound to Him, _i.e.,_ in devotion and love. In like manner, St. Paul (Romans 1:1, _et seq._)_,_ St. Peter (2 Peter 1:1), and St. Jude brother of James (James 1:1), begin their Letters. The writer of this has be... [ Continue Reading ]
COUNT IT ALL JOY WHEN YE FALL INTO DIVERS TEMPTATIONS. — Better, _Account it all joy whenever ye fall into divers temptations_ — _i.e., trials;_ but even with this more exact rendering of the text, how can we, poor frail creatures of earth, it may well be asked, feel any joy under such? Do we not pr... [ Continue Reading ]
(2-27) Immediately after the salutation, and with more or less a play upon the word which we translate “greeting” (“rejoice,” James 1:1; “count it all joy,” James 1:2) there follow appeals on behalf of patience, endurance. and meekness.... [ Continue Reading ]
KNOWING THIS, THAT THE TRYING OF YOUR FAITH WORKETH PATIENCE. — And this verse confirms our view of the preceding one; the habit of patience is to be the blessed result of all the weary effort under God’s probation. James the Wise had learned it long and painfully, and he returns to his exhortation... [ Continue Reading ]
LET PATIENCE HAVE HER PERFECT WORK. — Do not think the grace will come to its full beauty in an hour. Emotion and sentiment may have their place in the beginning of a Christian career, but the end thereof is not yet. Until the soul be quite unmoved by any attack of Satan, the work cannot be deemed “... [ Continue Reading ]
IF ANY OF YOU LACK WISDOM. — The Apostle passes on to the thought of heavenly wisdom; not the knowledge of the deep things of God, but that which is able to make us wise unto our latter end (Proverbs 19:20). Few may be able, save in self-conceit, to say with Isaiah (Isaiah 50:4), “The Lord God hath... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT LET HIM ASK IN FAITH, NOTHING WAVERING. — Surely this verse alone would redeem the Apostle from the charge of slighting the claims of faith. It is here put in the very forefront of necessity; without it all prayer is useless. And mark the addition — NOTHING WAVERING. — Or, _doubting nothing_: re... [ Continue Reading ]
Once more the Apostle warns the doubtful, holding out no hope of help until the wavering mind be fixed on God.... [ Continue Reading ]
The eighth verse had better be joined with the seventh, and punctuated thus: — _Let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord:_ — _double minded, unstable in all his ways._ The reason why he can obtain nothing is because he is a man of two minds, and by consequence uncertain in his wa... [ Continue Reading ]
LET THE BROTHER OF LOW DEGREE REJOICE IN THAT HE IS EXALTED (or, better, _in his exaltation_). — There is no praise from the plain St. James for the pride which apes humility, nor the affectation which loves to be despised. If it please God to “exalt,” as of old, “the humble and meek,” then anew sho... [ Continue Reading ]
(9-11) Lowly-mindedness is the subject of the next paragraph. There is wide misapprehension of our state of trial: the poor and humble are apt to forget the honour thus vouchsafed to them, worthier in truth than the wealth of this world, which quickly fades away; and the rich and noble are often unm... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT THE RICH, IN THAT HE IS MADE LOW (or, better, _in his humiliation_). — And, on the other hand, let a change of state be a cause of joy to the rich man, hard though the effort thereto must confessedly be. There is an antithesis between his _humiliation_ and the _humility_ of “the brother of low d... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE SUN IS NO SOONER RISEN... — Translate, _the sun arose with the burning heat, and dried up the grass; and the flower thereof fell away, and the grace of its fashion perished._ The grace, the loveliness, the delicacy of its form and feature — literally, _of its face_ — withered and died away.... [ Continue Reading ]
BLESSED IS THE MAN THAT ENDURETH TEMPTATION. — Surely the Apostle links such blessedness with the nine Beatitudes, heard in the happy days gone by upon the Mount with Christ (Matthew 5:3). The words he uses in the original are the same as those which are expressed above, in our second, third, and fo... [ Continue Reading ]
(12-18) The Apostle returns to the consideration of the afflicted Christian. Such a one has a blessedness, greater infinitely than any earthly happiness, already in possession, and the promise of a future beyond all comparison. It may be well to point out in this place that the idea of blessedness w... [ Continue Reading ]
LET NO MAN SAY WHEN HE IS TEMPTED, I AM TEMPTED OF GOD. — Far be it from the true Christian either to give way to sin “that grace may abound” (Romans 6:1), or to suppose for one moment that God, and therefore power invincible, is drawing him from righteousness. Almost every reflection upon the natur... [ Continue Reading ]
So far the inspired Apostle has spoken of the outward part of temptation; now he lays bare the inner — for we suffer the two-fold evil. From without come the whispers of Satan, by himself or his legionaries, skilled in all that may entice and delude the unwary soul. And if the doctrine be true that... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN WHEN LUST HAVE CONCEIVED.... — Then come the downward steps of ruin — Lust, having conceived, bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. The image well depicts the repellent subject. The small beginning, from some vain delight or worldly lust and pleasure; next from... [ Continue Reading ]
DO NOT ERR, MY BELOVED BRETHREN. — Thus far James the Wise has declared what God is not, what qualities are alien to Him; but this is only a negative aspect of the truth, and he now would show the positive — namely, that God is the Author of all and every good. And this lesson he introduces with a c... [ Continue Reading ]
EVERY GOOD GIFT AND EVERY PERFECT GIFT IS FROM ABOVE. — This beautiful sentence, more musical still in the Greek, is thought to be the fragment of some Christian hymn. Two words are translated by our one “gift”; the first is rather the act of giving, the second the gift itself, and the effect of bot... [ Continue Reading ]
OF HIS OWN WILL BEGAT HE US WITH THE WORD OF TRUTH. — There is a greater witness to God’s goodness than that which is written upon the dome of heaven, even the regeneration of man. As the old creation was “by the Word” (John 1:3; John 1:10, _et seq._)_,_ the new is by Him also, the Logos, the Word o... [ Continue Reading ]
We come now to the third subdivision of the chapter. By reason of the Divine benevolence, the Apostle urges his readers — (1) to meekness, (2) self-knowledge, (3) practical religion. WHEREFORE, MY BELOVED BRETHEN. — There appears to be some small error in the MSS. here, but the alteration is only j... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE WRATH OF MAN WORKETH NOT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. — Sarcastically rings the context. Perhaps there is still a sharper point to the satire: the wrath of man does not work God’s righteousness “to the full.” The warning may well be sounded in the ears of Christians still, who are not less apt... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEREFORE LAY APART ALL FILTHINESS AND SUPERFLUITY OF NAUGHTINESS. — So Peter (1 Peter 3:21) speaks of “the filth of the flesh.” But the defilement here referred to seems general and not special, common, that is, to the whole natural man. The superabundance — the overgrowth — of evil will occupy the... [ Continue Reading ]
DOERS OF THE WORD. — Acting up to the full of their knowledge, whether gained by the spoken or the written Word of God. There is a force in the original sentence, which our own language cannot supply. The term “deceiving” is the contrary of that rendered “word,” and means its corruption; the Word wh... [ Continue Reading ]
HE IS LIKE UNTO A MAN BEHOLDING HIS NATURAL FACE IN A GLASS. — The Apostle points grimly to an example of this self-deception. _He_ (literally, _this_)_ is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a mirror._ Not a “glass,” but a mirror of polished steel, such as are still used in the East. “His... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR HE BEHOLDETH HIMSELF... — Better, _for he beheld himself and went his way, and straightway forgot what he was._ Like the simile in James 1:11, this is described as an actual occurrence, seen and noted by the writer. There is a recognition of the well-known face, followed by instant and complete... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT WHOSO LOOKETH... — Translate, _But he who looked into the perfect law of liberty and continued therein._ The past tense is still kept to enforce the figure of the preceding verse. The earnest student of the Scriptures stoops down in humility of body and mind to learn what the will of their Autho... [ Continue Reading ]
But St. James has thus far dilated only on the first part of his advice in James 1:19, “Let every man be swift to hear”; now he must enforce the remaining clause, “slow to speak.” IF ANY MAN AMONG YOU SEEM TO BE RELIGIOUS... — Better, _If any one imagine himself to be religious, not bridling his ton... [ Continue Reading ]
PURE RELIGION... — It will be observed that by religion here is meant religious service. No one word can express this obvious interpretation of the original, taken as it must be in completion of the verse before; and certainly “religion” in its ordinary sense will not convey the right idea. Real wor... [ Continue Reading ]