In the last sermon, I mentioned one of my professors in graduate school, who condemned American prosperity in his teaching, but, at the same time, seemed to enjoy that prosperity in his daily life, whose teaching and way of life seemed to be completely disconnected. One of his students was a very vocal Marxist. He claimed that Capitalism was inherently unjust and that the relationship between employers and employees was, by definition, an oppressive relationship. He believed private property was wrong and that the poor and marginalized of the world had every right to seize power violently in order to create a more just society. He claimed that countries like the Soviet Union (this was before the fall of communism in Russia) and Communist China had been guilty of oppression, but that at least they were headed in the right direction. Maybe they’d failed to accomplish their goals, but at least they were trying to create a truly just society (in contrast with America, which was oppressive by definition). The interesting thing is that he was also a very prosperous, successful businessman. When he wasn’t working on his studies, he was participating wholeheartedly in this capitalistic system that he so strongly condemned. I think he was quite good at it (which is probably a good thing, because he wasn’t a very good scholar). But he never showed any evidence that he was disturbed about this contradiction between his way of life and the things he claimed to believe. His way of life was an implicit denial of the things he said in class. It was such a blatant contradiction that people in the department used to talk about it and wonder how he managed to keep these two things together.
We saw at the end of chapter three that James contrasts two types of wisdom: the wisdom of this world is characterized by envy and selfish ambition. It’s “earthly, unspiritual, of the devil;” it’s confined to the perspective of this fallen world and the spiritual powers opposed to God. The other kind of wisdom is given by God and is characterized by humility, meekness, gentleness and kindness. In chapter four, James is continuing this discussion and is applying it to the way we act toward others in the church. He asks his readers: “why is there so much fighting and conflict among you?” Why can’t they get along? Why can’t they seem to maintain unity in the body of Christ? The basic problem, James says, is that they’re living as if they belonged to this present world. They claim to follow Jesus Christ, but their outlook is “earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.” Their whole approach to life is a denial of their faith in Christ.
He describes the problem in verses 1-3. The problem is that they are being driven by evil desires. They’re committed to getting what they want, and they’re willing to fight for their own way. Listen to these verses in The Message: “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.” Their desires are out of line. They’re acting as if they have the right to grasp after whatever they want at the moment.
They are refusing to submit their desires to God’s lordship. This shows itself in two different ways. They try to get what they want without seeking God’s direction or help. This comes across clearly in The Message: “You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.” They know that God won’t give them what they’re asking, so they go after it themselves, determined to get their own way. Or, if they do get to the point of asking, they ask “wrongly” (NRSV). One commentator suggests that this translation isn’t strong enough, so he renders this verse: “You ask and do not receive because you ask evilly, so that you might spend it on your desires” (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James, p. 267). Their asking is evil, because they’re trying to use God as a way of getting what they want. When we allow our selfish desires to go on unchecked, unrestrained, even our prayer becomes corrupt. It becomes a way of trying to manipulate God into doing what we want Him to do.
When the church is full of people like this – people who are determined to get their own way at all costs, who either don’t pray at all or who use their prayer selfishly to get what they want – it naturally leads to “all these appalling wars and quarrels.” Each person is determined to get his own way, and each wants something different. The lordship of Christ in the church has been displaced by the petty desires of selfish people. James is painting a picture of a church where the spiritual fabric of the body is being torn apart. A church in this condition is a contradiction; its whole way of life is a denial of what the church is about.
In verses 4-6, James explains why this can’t possibly work. They’re trying to hold onto two mutually contradictory things, two things which, by their very nature, cancel each other out: “Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” He’s saying that they can’t have it both ways. They’re choosing to be friends of this world, which makes them, by definition, enemies of God. It’s impossible to hold onto both things, and when they try they only end up deceiving themselves.
James is using the language of the Old Testament prophets in verse 4. God has entered into a covenant relationship with His people, an exclusive relationship like the covenant of marriage. The Church is the bride of Christ. When we violate our covenant relationship with God, we’re guilty of spiritual adultery: “You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that ‘he’s a fiercely jealous lover.’ And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find” (The Message).
It’s tempting to respond, “well, I know I’m not guilty of spiritual adultery. I don’t worship idols, and I haven’t turned away from the gospel of Jesus Christ. I keep myself separate from the world and its ways; I don’t smoke, drink or use drugs, and I don’t go to R-rated movies.” But this passage is connected with the previous one, at the end of chapter three. James isn’t talking about what we normally think of as “worldliness.” What he’s saying is that if there is backbiting and division among us, if we just can’t get along with each other, this is evidence that we’re dominated by the kind of wisdom he condemns in chapter three, the kind of wisdom that is “earthly, unspiritual, of the devil.” If we’re intent on getting our own way at all costs, we’re guilty of spiritual adultery. We’re unfaithful to our covenant relationship with God; we’re cheating on Him.
James gives us the solution in verses 7-10. The solution is repentance. In our consumer-oriented culture, we’re in the habit of approaching the church as consumers in search of a product. If one church doesn’t deliver what we want, we go somewhere else. When things happen in one church that we don’t like, we pick up and leave. If we feel slighted or neglected, or if someone offends us, rather than confronting the problem directly, we find another church. And if we’re people who are determined to get our way at all costs, we’ll do damage wherever we go. Our sinful desires are never confronted for what they are. We allow our own sin of spiritual adultery to go on unchecked, and, by moving from one body to another, we spread the problem to other churches. This is not a trivial thing: “If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way.” However we justify ourselves, the fact is that when we approach the church in this way we’re acting as “enemies of God.” There are times when it’s necessary to leave one church and go to another, but we need to be careful that we do it under the lordship of Christ, and not out of a sinful desire to get our own way.
James is calling us to repentance: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” This is a painful and humbling process, which is why we tend to gravitate toward other solutions. It’s easier to stomp off in anger than it is to confront our own sinfulness and humble ourselves before God.
But if joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit, how does that fit with James’ instructions to “Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection”? How does this fit with Paul’s instructions to “rejoice in the Lord”? The people James is addressing are people who are living as “enemies of God.” They’re so bent on getting their own way that they’re incapable of rejoicing in the Lord. They’re not in any condition to experience joy in the Spirit. They’re closed in on themselves, alienated from God, because they’ve chosen to insist on their own way, rather than submitting to God and His will. Unless they begin with genuine repentance, any spiritual joy they experience will be a counterfeit.
One commentator makes this observation: “Many people in our day, both outside the church and within it, are marked by a superficial joy and brittle laughter. They live the hedonist philosophy, ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die’, that ignores the terrifying reality of God’s judgment. But even the committed Christian can slip into a casual attitude towards sin, perhaps presuming too much on God’s forgiving and merciful nature. It's to all such people that James issues his plea for a radical, thoroughgoing repentance. Only such repentance can produce true Christian joy – the joy that overflows from the consciousness of sins forgiven” (Douglas J. Moo, James, 150). Joy comes later. When we find ourselves convicted of sin, we need to begin with the painful and humiliating work of genuine repentance.
In verse 6, James quotes from Proverbs 3:34: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Verse 7 is a response to this: “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” If God opposes the proud, it’s sheer madness to go on insisting on our own way; it’s foolishness to try to resist His will. He resists the proud, but He gives grace to the humble; so, submit to Him. This idea of submitting to God is developed further in verses 8-9 with a series of three couplets: 1) “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you.” Resist the devil; draw near to God. Recognize that you are in a spiritual war, that there are evil forces seeking to destroy you. Resist them, but at the same time draw near to God. He is the source of strength and help, and as you draw near to Him, He will draw near to you (and the devil will flee from you). 2) “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Come to God for forgiveness inside and out. “Hands” points to our actions, and “hearts” indicates the condition of our inner lives. James is saying, “don’t neglect either of these.” Both need to come under the mercy and grace of God. And 3) “Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” When we clearly see the truth about our spiritual condition, we will feel grief. Don’t try to make yourself feel sad. The problem is that we rush ahead without really grasping the truth. Express your grief in prayer, that this is not the way you want to continue living. Stay with it long enough to allow it to sink in. Don’t worry about whether you feel grieved at the moment. Express grief at your sin and hard heartedness. Respond to God intentionally, and allow the feelings to follow along in their own time.
James wraps up this whole series with verse 10: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” Humility was one of the things he emphasized at the end of chapter three. Now he comes back to it. Remember that humility is seeing the truth about ourselves: “Humility is the truth about ourselves, the whole truth–about our weaknesses, our failures, our history, our virtues, our gifts. Once we are truthful about ourselves before God and others, we can deal gently with others who are afraid to face the truth about themselves or who fancy themselves our competitors. Christ humbled himself out of compassion; out of humility grows our compassion for one another” (Hugh Feiss, Essential Monastic Wisdom, pp. 90-91). Repentance is acknowledging that truth in God’s presence and crying out to Him in our poverty, asking for forgiveness and help to turn around and go the other way. In repentance, we’re humbling ourselves before God.
When we see that we’ve wandered from the truth we’re faced with a choice. We can admit the truth and turn to God in repentance, as James is instructing us to do, or we can stubbornly hold onto our own desires. If we do that, James says we are living as enemies of God. We may continue going to church, and we may avoid falling into serious moral failure. But our resistance of God’s lordship will show itself in an inability to get along with others in the church, an unwillingness to give up what we want for the good of the body. We can continue this pattern for a lifetime, as respectable churchgoers who arrive at the end of our lives as “enemies of God,” people who have persistently resisted His will. Jesus says about such people, that when they appear before Him He’ll say, “Depart from me; I never knew you.”
The author of Hebrews says: “It is a fearful things to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31). Resisting His will is sheer foolishness. The only way to respond is the way James gives us: “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you. Draw close to God, and God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you hypocrites. Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and deep grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. When you bow down before the Lord and admit your dependence on him, he will lift you up and give you honor” (NLT). When we humble ourselves before God, He graciously and mercifully lifts us up.
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