James 1

CHAPTER I

The Greeting, 1:1

James 1:1

1 James, God’s and the Lord Jesus Christ’s slave, to the twelve tribes in the Diaspora: be joyful! The nominative to indicate the writer; the dative the people addressed; the imperatival infinitive the greeting—all in regular ancient letter form. This document is a letter and not a diatribe as has been stated. The loving address “brethren,” even “my brethren,” “beloved brethren,” appears again and again; James takes the readers to his heart with this and makes himself one of their number.

This is the James who heads the mother church at Jerusalem, is the chief of its elders, “the brother of the Lord,” the associate of the Twelve apostles, is in dignity and standing almost apostolic, whom the Lord himself made a witness of his resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7) by a special appearance to him alone, the man who presided at the Apostolic Conference a few years after he wrote this letter. He was so well known that in the early days of the church’s history his name “James” was enough to identify him in Jerusalem (Acts 12:17); it is enough to enable the readers of this epistle to identify him.

We should remember the relation of the mother church to all the other churches in all other places. Even the Gentile churches that were later founded by Paul regarded the church at Jerusalem as the original church that had been gathered by the Twelve, as the mother of all other churches. All other churches must maintain fullest fellowship with this original church. In a deep, spiritual way all of Paul’s churches were parts of the original church, extensions of her in other lands. This relation and connection with the mother church was especially strong in the case of the readers who were addressed by James.

They were not only Jewish Christians; many of them had come from Jerusalem, had been members of the mother church, had fled from Jerusalem because of Saul’s persecution. They felt themselves most intimately connected with the mother church since so many of them knew James personally. When they were obliged to flee the fugitives preached the Word wherever they settled (Acts 8:4); they won new converts, but these also felt themselves in the same close relation to Jerusalem and thus in relation to James, who had become the chief elder from the time when the mother church had been organized under its own elders. This was due chiefly to the distinction that had been accorded him by the Lord and to the superiority of his personal character. In later ages and in distant lands the question arose as to who this “James” or Ἰάκωβος (“Jacob”) was; this question did not exist for the persons who received his epistle.

The apposition “God’s and the Lord Jesus Christ’s slave” is not added for the purpose of identifying James; it would, in fact, not identify him for people who did not know him. The apposition states in what capacity and in what manner James intends to address his readers, namely as a slave. Some regard δοῦλος as official since this term is applied to Moses and the prophets. Paul uses it a few times in the captions of his letters. Others regard the word as meaning “worshipper” and fortify this view by a reference to pagan usage.

When James denominates himself a doulos of God and of Christ he wants his readers to consider him as one who belongs wholly to God and to Christ, yea, one whose whole will is wholly subservient to their will, who never questions it, never deviates from it (C.-K. 361). As such a slave James addresses his readers who are his “brethren,” likewise slaves of these heavenly masters, likewise bowing their wills to these masters in all things. By the use of this term James places himself on the same level with his readers and them on the same level with himself. They are to hear what this fellow slave of theirs has to tell them about the obedience that they all owe their masters in heaven and especially also to point out to them where they have been remiss and have followed their own wrong and foolish wish.

This word thus fits this ethical and nondoctrinal letter in the closest way. Like his readers, James acknowledges two masters who own him and direct his will: “God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” There are no articles in the Greek because these are proper nouns exactly like Ἰάκωβος which also has no article and should have none. The significant factor is the combination “God” and “Lord Jesus Christ.” This does not intend to convey the thought that the God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Old. When James combines “God” and “Lord Jesus Christ” when he is calling himself their slave he points to the divine grace, redemption, justification, sanctification, and salvation that have come to him as a slave of God and of Christ and have come equally to his readers as brethren in this slavery. This “Lord” is the one who bought them as his own by his blood (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23); by him they have come to the Father (John 14:6): “my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with silver or gold, but with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death, that I may be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as he is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity” (Luther).

“Lord Jesus Christ” is his full name; “our” is often added. Κύριος is to be understood in the full soteriological sense; it certainly also includes the deity of Jesus even as God and this Lord are here joined in a saving relation to James. The title “Lord” goes back to the days before the death and the resurrection of Jesus when the apostles saw their divine Lord and Savior in Jesus. When many Gentiles came to faith, “Lord” came to have an added significance in opposition to pagan divinities and the deification of the Roman emperors, which was expressed by calling them “Lord”; but this title does not have such significance for James. Jewish ears heard the LXX’s meaning in Κύριος since Yaweh and ’Adon were translated by the Greek word Κύριος. To Jewish Christians Χριστός, whether it is placed before or after “Jesus,” meant “Messiah,” the Anointed, who had been promised in the Old Testament.

Equally pertinent is the designation of the readers as “the twelve tribes in the Diaspora.” The article is repeated with the phrase, and this fact places its connection with the noun beyond question. First Pet. 1:1 has a similar expression: “the elect strangers of the Diaspora” i. e., of a number of provinces, Pontus, etc.; yet this expression is only similar. James refers to all the Jewish Christians that are scattered in localities outside of Palestine. He does not refer to all the Jews of the far-flung Diaspora throughout the Roman Empire, for James is not addressing Jews as Jews. He is as a Christian Jew writing to Jewish Christians only in order to admonish them concerning their life as Christians. There could as yet have been no congregations that had a heavy contingent of Gentile converts; this designation would then not have been fitting, for it would apply to the Jewish portion of the readers in one sense, to the Gentile portion in another. Moreover, the Gentile portion could not have understood this expression without a good deal of added explanation.

Although the ten tribes had been lost for a long time and, save for a few individuals (Anna, Luke 2:36, is one), had been absorbed in distant exile, in Matt. 19:28 Jesus speaks of the twelve tribes, and Paul does so in Acts 26:7. James speaks of the twelve tribes in an ideal way. At this time Judah and Benjamin were regarded as Israel. “In the Diaspora” means outside of the Holy Land, among Gentile people. The extent of the Diaspora is not further limited because this limitation lies in the Christian faith of the persons addressed. Applied to them, the designation becomes symbolical: the true people of God who, like James, were now slaves of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, were Christians, some of them living in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, others, namely those addressed, in the Diaspora.

Still more is suggested by the thought of being “in the Diaspora.” The Jews regarded it as ideal to reside in their own land within easy reach of Jerusalem and the Temple. Although so many of them voluntarily lived far away among pagans, this seemed to them like living in exile, their real fatherland and true earthly home being the land given them by God. This Jewish conception is applied to the readers in a symbolic or figurative way: they are far away from the mother church, the central seat of the gospel, from the watchful care of the apostles and the elders of the mother church; they are among Jews in pagan cities and are suffering trials and temptations accordingly and have all sorts of faults and sins growing up like weeds in their midst and all too few capable gardeners to do the weeding. As any Jew felt himself to be amid special dangers to his religion in the Diaspora, so these Jewish Christians are depicted by James as being in a similar condition regarding their Christian life. It is with this thought in mind that he pens this letter. “The twelve tribes” is to make them think of their high calling in Christ; “in the Diaspora” is to make them think of their condition.

One may debate about the extent of the Jewish Christian dispersion. Some have called it eastern and then regard First Peter as a corresponding letter that is addressed to the western dispersion; but this view is not universally accepted. We have only Acts as our guide. We cannot extend this dispersion beyond Syro-Phoenicia and Syria.

Another point that is discussed is whether these Jewish Christians were still members of the Jewish synagogues. The Christians in Jerusalem were certainly a separate group and were no longer members of the synagogues although they attended the services at the Temple (to judge from Acts 21:23, etc.). The Christians in the Diaspora had their own places of worship (2:2). They were, however, a part of the Jewish community of each city and thus had a good deal to suffer from their own nationalists. We know of little more that can be said. James writes with full knowledge of his readers’ condition, which required, not doctrinal instruction to fortify against apostasy (as in Hebrews), but moral admonition.

This lack of doctrinal instruction disappointed Luther when he read this epistle; but there is no reason for disappointment. An ethical epistle is as much in place as are the ethical portions of other epistles, and as is the ethical teaching of Jesus himself.

The greeting is χαίρειν‚ an imperatival infinitive like those that are used in laws and in maxims (Moulton, Einleitung, 283). This is the common greeting in secular letters; we have another sample in Acts 23:26. It is used in Acts 15:23, for James perhaps dictated the letter of the conference. This form of greeting is a part of the evidence for the early date of our epistle; a little later, when Paul writes his letters, the Christianized form χάρις, κτλ., appears, and the unmodified χαίρειν, “be joyful or happy,” disappears.

Trials and Temptations, 1:2–18

How to Consider Trials, v. 2–4

James 1:2

2 What James thinks of his readers he shows by the way in which he designates them. He starts the body of his epistle without a preamble such as thanks to God for the good existing in his readers, a prayer for their need, a remark that information about the readers has reached him and the mother church. This directness we consider part of the character of James. It is a mark of the entire epistle. Sentence after sentence is short and direct; and when the last admonition is reached, he stops as he has begun. In all of this James resembles the old prophets, whose spirit fills him to a marked degree.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you fall foul of various kinds of trials, realizing that the testing out of your faith works out constancy.

The greeting is necessarily phrased in the third person. James at once begins the body of the epistle with a loving address in the second person, “my brethren.” As a brother he asks his brethren to accept his admonition; as a brother he is concerned about his brethren and the trials with which they are beset. He and they are “brethren” in “the faith,” slaves of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. This should not be overlooked, and the epistle of James should not be regarded as lacking the gospel basis of saving, justifying, sanctifying faith. We have the whole basis in these first two verses. The readers are beset by many trials; they also show great faults in their lives. With a loving, sympathetic heart James takes up the trials first of all.

How should the readers consider their many trials? As “all joy.” The participle states why: because their faith is thus developed into constancy, brave perseverance. It grows into strong manhood. It is tested out; the dross is removed. Christians ought to rejoice because of that and not pity themselves or grow sad.

One of the characteristics of James’s style is to repeat a word he has just used. So χαράν here repeats χαίρειν: the greeting “be joyful” goes forward into “all joy.” The thought is that, when trials come, a lot of joy comes to people of faith. There is no denial that trials also produce strain and pain; there is, however, the reminder that, when they come, and when we evaluate them aright, we ought to bear them with joy. The flesh will not like them, but the spirit will rejoice to prove itself and to gain from the trials what Christ intended should be gained. The aorist imperative is in place, for it is more decisive than the present and determines once for all that the readers are to consider it all joy whenever trials come, no matter when they come, or of what kind they may be.

James loves occasional, unsought alliteration: here πειρασμοῖςπεριπέσητεποικίλοις. The verb is used in the sense of “encounter” and refers to an unwelcome encounter (robbers in Luke 10:30, misfortune, and the like): one falls somewhere where trials are all around him, and he cannot get away, they pounce upon him. We translate this Greek word “trials” and not “temptations” (our versions) because the verb says that we fall foul of them; we encounter them from without. In v. 13, 14 James speaks of temptations and shows that these are due to a man’s own inward lust. The adjective means “varicolored,” “motley”; these are trials of various kinds, they are like Joseph’s coat of many colors. The aorist expresses actuality: “whenever you actually fall foul of various kinds of trials.”

James 1:3

3 Just as direct and to the point as is the admonition is its substantiation: “realizing that the testing out of your faith works out constancy.” Γινώσκω is the proper verb, οἶδα would not be; the latter indicates only the relation of the object to the subject, the former the relation of the subject to the object. I “know” many things which do not affect me; I “realize” things that do affect me and cause a strong reaction in me. The ὅτι clause states what we are to realize in all our trials. The participle matches the imperative: realizing what trials really are and what they accomplish, we will consider them all joy. They constitute “the testing out of our faith,” and this testing out produces constancy. Τὸδοκίμιον, the substantivized neuter adjective, is the classic substitute for an abstract noun. James knows his Greek.

Paul loves this verb “to test out” and its derivatives. Faith is a precious thing; it is like gold which should stand every test and, whenever it is tested, should be accepted as having full value. “Trials” and “testing out” match.

We should regard trials as tests of our Christian faith. If we have true faith we ought to be glad to have it tested out and proved to be genuine. If I have genuine gold coins I shall welcome any test to which they may be subjected. Faith is, however, not cold metal to be weighed and subjected to strong acids; it is a living, vital matter. Its testing out thus produces ὑπομονή, which is another word that is found in Paul’s epistles, “remaining under,” lasting because it is genuine, hence “constancy,” “perseverance.” Trench calls this a noble word which always has a background of manliness: “the brave patience with which the Christian contends against the various hindrances, persecutions, and temptations that befall him in conflict with the inward and outward world.” It is never used with reference to God because it always refers to things: “The man ὑπομένει, who, under a great siege of trials, bears up and does not lose heart or courage.” His faith is genuine and, because it is living, grows with every test. The companion word refers to persons and is thus used also with reference to God: “The man μακροθυμεῖ, who, having to do with injurious persons, does not suffer himself easily to be provoked by them or to blaze up into anger.” In general propositions we have the present tense; in κατεργάζεται the preposition is perfective: the testing “works out” constancy.

James 1:4

4 Now let this constancy have (its) work complete in order that you may be complete and entire, lacking in nothing.

Δέ is neither “and” nor “but”; it is expository and brings out the point that is implied in v. 2, 3. With ἔργοντέλειον James repeats κατεργάζεται; τέλειον is also repeated by τέλειοι. This verbal linking is beautiful and links the thought as well. If the result of trials is so good, we should have this result in its entirety. Let this noble constancy of faith then have “its work complete,” i. e., so that its goal is fully reached. Many trials may come upon us, but each carries our constancy nearer to the goal. Let it continue to do so (present imperative). Who wants to remain incomplete, immature?

Our aim must certainly be “that we may be complete and entire, lacking in nothing.” Τέλειοι = having reached the goal of our faith by constancy; ὁλόκληροι adds the thought that all the parts of this completeness and this constancy are present. These positive adjectives are intensified by the addition of the negative “lacking in nothing,” neither coming short of the goal nor having one part or the other still missing in us. The adjectives are finely discussed by Trench, Synonyms.

This is the proper way to look at all our trials: they help to do something that is most necessary and blessed for our faith, that brings it to constancy, and this constancy makes us complete and entire in our faith. It is certainly a matter of joy to see this work progressing more and more toward its end. It is not necessary to bring in the whole round of Christian virtues and of the moral life. James deals with our faith in Christ, with the constancy of this faith, its manly maturity that has no weak spots anywhere. Trials test it out for possible weak spots so as to make us genuine and solid all around. Trench is unclear regarding the word “entire”: so that no grace is wanting.

James is speaking of the root, which is faith, not of the fruits, which are Christian graces. James is not a moralist; he is a genuine apostolic preacher.

How to Use Prayer when Trials Come, v. 5–8

James 1:5

5 Now if anyone of you lacks wisdom, let him ask from God who gives to all without reservation and not as upbraiding; and it shall be given to him.

The fact that James should speak of “wisdom” in connection with trials is entirely natural. James knew Ps. 73 and the Book of Job, where men wrestle with the great problem of trials that overwhelm the godly and do not come upon the ungodly, and where the true solution of the problem is offered. In this verse James speaks of wisdom only in this connection; in 3:13, etc., there is a different connection. Σοφία is true knowledge that is applied in a practical way. There is a wide range of subjects to which the application of wisdom may be made. James here applies wisdom to faith as it benefits one under trials. We have a sample of this wisdom in v. 2–4; yet wisdom has a much wider application in connection with our faith.

We note that λείπεται repeats λειπόμενοι, that αἰτείτω is repeated in v. 6, and that διδόντος and δοθήσεται emphasize the idea of giving. A Christian may well feel himself in the dark in the midst of trials. A good degree of wisdom is required to see the good in trials. The Twelve had such wisdom when they rejoiced to suffer shame for Christ’s name, Acts 5:41. It is not difficult to obtain: if anyone lacks it, let him pray for it, and it will be given to him. James re-echoes many sayings of Jesus, which is an indication that he heard them from Jesus’ own lips. “Ask, and it shall be given you.” (Matt. 7:7; 22:23; Mark 11:24; John 14:13; 15:7; 16:23).

The remarkable thing is the fact that James designates “the One giving,” namely “God,” as giving ἁπλῶς, which epexegetical καί expounds as meaning μὴὀνειδίζων. The adverb is never used in the sense of “liberally” (our versions); this meaning is given it only because it seems to fit the present context. The meaning is rueckhaltslos or ohne Bedenken (G. K. 385). When God gives he gives and has no secret, restraining thoughts. He gives “without reservation” and thus “not as upbraiding” the petitioner, not as scolding him for his lack of wisdom, i. e., for his foolish thoughts about God’s sending perplexing trials.

This is said in order to encourage each of us to ask of such a kindly and true Giver. The middle voice of αἰτέω, as 4:3 shows, does not have the same force as the active although G. K. thinks so; but see Moulton, Einleitung, 251, etc.; R. 805. B.-D. 316, 2 thinks that in 4:3 the middle and the active are exchanged, and B.-P. 38 minimizes the difference between them. It is, however, acknowledged that the middle is used regarding asking in business relations, where a person has a certain right to ask for something. By his oath Herod had given Salome such a right (Mark 6:24, middle).

By his promises to us God has given us such a right, and the middle imperative bids us use this right. The middle voice harmonizes perfectly with the way in which James designates the great Giver. Even the fact that he gives “to all” means much; for no matter who the poor, distracted person is, God does not intend to let him go away empty. Yet God has his means for giving the great gift of additional wisdom. This is his Word. Wisdom does not come down out of the sky.

God’s Spirit instructs, enlightens, makes us wise by means of his Word. This angle of the matter James takes up in v. 21, etc.

James 1:6

6 James speaks of faith: But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting; for the one doubting is like a seawave wind-driven and tossed (up and down). Yea, let not that person think that he shall receive anything from the Lord—a man double-minded, unstable in all his ways!

“Let him ask” takes up the preceding “let him ask”; the object to be asked for is wisdom as this is applied to the trials that come upon us Christians. We should confine ourselves to the closely connected thought of James and not think of some other object such as the cessation of the trials or benefactions apart from trials. The testing out of faith is to work out constancy, and this constancy is to have its work complete so as to make us ourselves complete and entire, lacking nothing. Such trials are, then, to continue. The great need of the believer is wisdom to understand all God’s purposes in placing us amid these continuous trials.

When a believer asks for this wisdom he must do so “in faith,” i. e., altogether “in connection with (ἐν) his faith.” This means not only that his prayer for wisdom must spring from true Christian faith, but also that it must be offered wholly in the interest of this faith, its complete constancy and our own becoming complete. This prayer, offered thus “in faith,” has the direct and unqualified promise that it will be given what it asks, for the one thing that God wants to do is to bring the faith of every one of us to this completeness. “In faith” (positive) is made clear by the addition “nothing doubting”—μηδέν because of the participle, the natural negative of which is μή; and by διακρινόμενος, judging now in one way, now in another about our trials and hence “wavering” in judgment (A. V.) or “doubting” (R. V.).

James does not mean that we are not to doubt that our prayer will be granted by God. Nor does he mean that this prayer asks for the cessation of trials or for something that is not connected with trials and with our faith during these trials. Nor does James have in mind a faith in God in general and not a faith specifically in Christ. Nor is the truth here expressed altered by the fact that often God does not hear our prayers. James is writing to brethren who are one with him in confessing themselves as “slaves of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and “your faith” (v. 3) is faith in God and in the Lord Jesus Christ. The older commentators who understood “in faith” to mean faith “in Jesus Christ” are correct. This entire epistle deals with Christian faith and shows how this faith should be genuine, true, active, living, fruitful.

“In faith” implies prayer that comes to God and the Lord Jesus Christ with trust, simple trust, and in the interest of this its trust, that asks for wisdom to establish itself more and more, to be fully and in every respect the faith and trust it ought to be so that by it the petitioner is made the complete Christian he ought to be. Μηδὲνδιακρινόμενος expounds this: when he asks wisdom of God and the Lord as a true slave of both (v. 1) he is to have no other thought, no other judgment in his mind, no indecision of any kind, half of the time deciding in his secret mind (the participle is middle: “for himself”) that he wants this, half of the time that he wants that, neither one of which is in the interest of simple, genuine faith. As God is the One who gives ἁπλῶς, “without any secret reservation in his mind,” so we must ask for wisdom for our faith without any secret contrary, vacillating notions in our minds. To put it in our own words: God is honest and frank in his giving and in his promise to give, and he wants every petitioner to be honest, frank, and true in his asking. Alas, too many speak proper words when they pray amid trials, but they do not mean them in the bottom of their hearts.

In a flash, by a striking figure, James exposes what “the one doubting” really is, i. e., what God sees him to be. Here the participle again repeats the preceding participle. “He is like a seawave wind-driven and tossed up and down.” The second perfect ἔοικε is derived from εἴκω and is found only here and in v. 23. It always has a present meaning. The tertium comparationis is instability. A seawave is unstable; at one time the wind blows it one way, again another way. It is subject to the play of the wind, to all its vagaries.

More than that, it is tossed, keeps going up and down, up and down. There is a double instability, a lateral and a perpendicular one: running in whatever direction the wind may take, bobbing up and down without cessation. A thought strikes the unstable mind from one direction and then from another, and the mind has no resistance, no ὑπομονή, constancy, it just yields. Yet even so it is inconstant, for it sinks and falls, sinks and falls. It takes up a thought and then drops it again; it rises in enthusiasm with a thought and then lets go of it in discouragement. Pitiful indeed!

James had not lived in Capernaum beside the Sea of Galilee for nothing.

James 1:7

7 Γάρ is confirmatory: “Yea, let not that person think that he shall receive anything from the Lord.” The apposition describes “that person” so as to show the reason that he certainly cannot expect to receive anything: “a man double-minded, unstable in all his ways.” Note how James uses ἄνθρωπος, “a person,” and ἀνήρ, “a man”; he uses the latter when he attaches qualifiers. The usual comment has ὁΚύριος equal God (Old Testament designation) and points to 4:10 and 5:4, 10. But what about 1:1; 3:9; 4:15; 5:8, 11, 14, to which 4:10 and 5:10 also belong? After James uses “Lord” with reference to Jesus in 1:1 and repeatedly in other chapters, we see no reason for making “the Lord” mean “God” in the present passage. The truth is that only in 5:4, in the combination “Lord Sabaoth,” does James use “Lord” as a designation for “God”; elsewhere he writes “God” when he refers to God. Some commentators seem to think that the New Testament or at least James (who is regarded as being excessively Jewish) warrant no prayer to Jesus and thus no answer to prayers from Jesus (which has the appearance of subordinationism).

James 1:8

8 The A. V. translates v. 8 as a separate sentence by inserting a copula; others punctuate so as to make this “man” the subject of “shall receive.” The R. V.’s translation is correct; we have a most effective apposition. The adjective “double-minded” (“double-souled”) is a new Greek formation so that some think that it was coined by James; it is used often after the time of James as if it caught men’s fancy. This word is certainly expressive of just what James means by the figure he used in v. 6: a ψυχή that seems like two by flying in opposite directions. This is enhanced by the verbal “unstable (not placed down to stand solidly) in all his ways.” A weak wobbler does not wobble merely in one respect.

James broadens in his description of the man he has in mind and in what he says about the prayers of such a man: he need not think that he will receive “anything,” to say nothing of so great a thing as wisdom. We need not discuss as to how far “all his ways” is Hebraic (the singular is used in 5:20); found frequently in the Old Testament (derek), “way” and “ways” are also used repeatedly in the New Testament and are natural in all languages where, as in Greek, we also use the corresponding verbs “to go,” ἔρχομαι, Or “to Walk,” περιπατέω.

A Bit of the Wisdom That Is Good for the Christian amid Trials, v. 9–11

James 1:9

9 We have a piece of this wisdom in v. 2–4; this is another piece. It is wisdom, indeed! Δέ, which is omitted in the A. V., is translated “but” in the R. V. (as it is in v. 5); it is really the common transitional particle and is then not adversative. Now let him boast, the brother, the lowly one, in his high position; on the other hand, the rich one in his lowly position!

This is beautiful parallelism and antithesis. We keep the word order of the Greek and its emphatic position of the imperative, its emphasis on “lowly” (the article is repeated as if the adjective is an apposition in a climax; see R. 776 and the examples). “The brother,” writes James, yours and mine, any one of “my brethren” (v. 2). But it is here “the lowly one,” not the rich one (v. 10), the one who is poor in earthly wealth, lowly in his entire station in life. It makes no difference as to how this brother comes to be so lowly. Many poor Jews embraced Christianity; many had lost their property during the persecution that had been inaugurated by Saul. We take it that not a few of the readers who were addressed by James were lowly in regard to money and in regard to their social position.

That fact itself was a trial for them; it was so in ancient times, read Ps. 73:3–12. These lowly Christians see the earthly riches and prosperity of unbelieving Jews. They ask the question asked in Ps. 73:11. The worst feature is not their poverty but the “waters of the full cup wrung out to them,” the maltreatment to which their lowly position subjects them. If they would give up their faith in Christ they might improve their earthly state; their refusal multiplies their trials in many ways (v. 2). Does James pity them and allow them to pity themselves?

The very opposite: Let such a brother boast, yea, boast, no less, “in his high position!” Let wisdom open his eyes to see what “height” he has attained. He is a true child of God in Christ Jesus. Priceless spiritual blessings are his. Let him shout for joy (v. 2: “all joy”)!

James 1:10

10 On the other hand (δέ is used in this sense), the brother who is rich as Abraham, David, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathaea, Barnabas (Acts 4:37) were rich—to mention only these—what about such a brother? Christ always found some true believers among the wealthy and those who were in high earthly positions, not so many, yet some (1 Cor. 1:26). This brother has an equal reason for boasting, yet his boasting extends in the opposite direction: Let him ever keep boasting, yes, boasting, no less, “in his lowly position.” Just as “the lowly one” and “the rich one” refer to earthly positions, so “in his height” (ὕψος) and “in his lowliness” (ταπείνωσις) refer to spiritual positions. The two statements balance perfectly; the imperative belongs to both. The beauty of thought and of expression is greatly increased when James has ταπείνωσις repeat ταπεινός. We have seen how James employed this literary device several times in the few preceding verses.

Here, however, this verbal corresspondence is far more effective because “the lowly one” is to be understood in the earthly while “his lowliness” is to be understood in the spiritual sense. We credit James with great mastery of thought and of expression.

Faith in Christ lifts the lowly brother beyond his trials to the great height of a position in the kingdom of Christ, where as God’s child he is rich and may rejoice and boast. Faith in Christ does an equally blessed thing for the rich brother: it fills him with the spirit of Christ, the spirit of lowliness and true Christian humility (Phil. 2:3–11: “with lowly-mindedness,” v. 3). As the poor brother forgets all his earthly poverty, so the rich brother forgets all his earthly riches. The two are equals by faith in Christ.

But instead of using only this idea, which is rather common in Christian circles, the wisdom which James offers goes much farther. He puts his thought chiastically and flashes the chiasm upon his readers by means of the contrast between “height” and “lowliness” by making this “lowliness” (spiritual) the counterpart of “the lowly one” (in earthly life). This rich brother has lost all high-mindedness, he has gained the lowliness which is true Christian and spiritual wisdom. Earthly riches no longer affect him. He knows himself to be a poor sinner who is saved by grace alone, whose earthly life is only a poor, transient flower.

Other interpretations are offered. One regards this rich brother as a rich worldling and says that James treats him with sarcasm by telling him to glory, if he wants to glory, in being nothing. We pass this and other inadequate interpretations by.

James continues with ὅτι consecutivum (on which see R. 1001): seeing that as herbage bloom he shall pass away, for the sun rises with the heat and withers the herbage, and its bloom falls off, and the beauty of its appearance perishes.

Note the repetition of ἄνθος and χόρτος. Faith in Christ produces true humility in the rich brother by bringing him to the full realization of the fact that, rich as he may be, he shall presently pass away like the bloom on the herbage. It is the poet in James that leads him to expand the figure. Moreover, he wants its fulness to impress every wealthy believer the more with the wisdom (v. 5) which lies in the thought of the scorched bloom.

James 1:11

11 Γάρ makes it all plain. The aorists are gnomic (universal and timeless, R. 836, etc.), and we can translate them only with the English timeless present. The sun rises with the heat (καύσων with σύν). But this word does not refer to Eurus, the Sirocco or burning wind that blows from the east and the south, the hot desert region near Palestine, B.-P. 665, etc. Then the herbage dries up (ξηραίνω); its beautiful bloom falls off, and all the loveliness of its face (πρόσωπον) perishes. Thus also shall the rich one fade in his goings (μαραίνω, “to extinguish,” the future passive is to be understood in the sense of the middle), hardly in his travels as a merchant who is buying and selling; or while he is still busy acquiring more wealth and before he feels satisfied to rest and to enjoy it; but in his activities in general. For we must note that the figure as it is expanded applies to the life of the wealthy man and not only to the withering away in death.

To be sure, the lowly, poor Christian will also die; but he never blooms like the one who has wealth. The figure is thus applied only to the latter. If he as a true Christian learns lowliness he loses nothing; Christ is his all in all. Would that every rich Christian might glory in his lowliness!

Blessed the Man Who Is Tested out by Trial, v. 12

James 1:12

12 Blessed a man who remains constant under trial, seeing that, having gotten to be tested out, he shall receive the crown of the (heavenly) life, which he promised to those who love him.

Our versions seem to be under the impression that the turn from trials to temptations is made at this point and translate: “Blessed the man that endureth temptation.” But this is not satisfactory, for πειρασμός was used in the plural in v. 2, and ὑπομένει has the same root as the twice repeated ὑπομονή occurring in v. 3, 4, and δόκιμος repeats the τὸδοκίμιον that was used in v. 3. This causes it to appear certain that James is still speaking of trials. In addition, his calling the man who shows constancy under trial (trials working out constancy, v. 3) “blessed” completes the thought expressed in v. 2, that we must count it “all joy” when we fall in with all kinds of trials. In v. 2–4 the mediate cause for joy is brought forward: constancy is wrought out, and when it has done its work completely, we are ourselves complete, entire, lacking nothing. Now the ultimate effect of trial is brought forward, the reception of the crown of the heavenly life. Thus in every way, linguistically and in thought, v. 12 is to be associated with v. 2–4.

This is a beatitude like those that are found in the Psalms, like those spoken by Jesus (Matt. 5:3, etc.). Μακάριος is the Hebrew ʾashre, which is used, for instance, in Ps. 1:1: “Blessed!” It is neither a wish: “May he be blessed!” nor a mere description, but a judgment, a verdict (like the opposite οὐαί: “Woe!”) and thus exclamatory. There is no need for inserting a copula, Ἀνήρ is used as it was in v. 7.

What we have said regarding ὑπομονή applies also to the verb which means “to remain bravely constant under” something, thus to persevere, to hold out, and here to do this under “trial,” which always intends to test out a man, to reveal whether he is genuine or not in his Christian faith. The singular “trial” is collective as befits the general statement.

Consecutive ὅτι, “seeing that,” is like the one that was used in v. 10. This is what is consecutive, what follows such constancy under trial: “having gotten to be tested out” (like a genuine gold coin), found genuine and thus accepted as no less—such a man “shall receive the crown of the life” (appositional genitive: the crown = the life), the crown of which Paul speaks in 2 Tim. 4:8; and John in Rev. 2:10, where τὸνστέφανοντῆςζωῆς appears exactly as it does in our passage. Trench states that στέφανος does not mean “crown” in the sense of a royal crown and advocates that διάδημα alone means the latter, “diadem,” which consists of a fillet or ribbon that is bound about the head. But there are many instances in the LXX in which stephanos is used with reference to royalty: 2 Sam. 12:30; Ps. 21:1, 3; Zech. 6:11; Rev. 4:4; etc. The crown (stephanos) of thorns, like the reed (scepter) in Jesus’ hands, was to mark him as King of the Jews. Christians are made kings and priests who are to sit with Christ in his throne, to reign with him (βασιλεύειν).

While “crown” often designates the victor or is a mark of high honor, it has also a royal connotation, in fact, Isa. 63:3 combines crown and diadem. In 2:5 those who are rich in faith are called “heirs of the kingdom” and, as is done in our passage, are described as “those who love him,” i. e., the Lord.

The context decides whether victory or kingship is the implication of the crown. Here, where trial is in the context, the former suggests itself, yet, in view of 2:5, not without the latter. One may wonder whether James thought of the victor’s wreath which was bestowed after an athletic contest as Paul does in 1 Cor. 9:24, 25. This is unlikely in the case of James as well as in the case of his readers who, as former Jews that were confined to Jewish ideals, had the Old Testament imagery in mind. Paul wrote for Gentile Christians, and the pagan imagery of the great athletic contests, which formed such notable events in the great cities where he labored, would be recalled to their minds.

James does not need to name the Lord as being the one who promised this crown to those who love him; his readers know that it is the Lord. The Gospels have no promise that contains the word “crown”; Matt. 19:28a is the nearest approach to it. Yet life eternal is promised often, both as we have it now and as we shall have it in glory. So we take it that James refers to no special passage but to all the Lord’s promises of heavenly glory. It is a supposition to think that James refers to an unwritten promise of Jesus in which the crown of life is promised to those who love him.

It is difficult to understand why some regard God and not the Lord Jesus as the subject. Some commentators of this epistle seem to ignore Jesus and to substitute God at other points (as in v. 8 in the case of “from the Lord”) also as though James did not think of Jesus very often. In 2:5 James does speak of God’s promise to those who love him, yet at the very beginning (1:1) God and the Lord Jesus Christ are combined as owners and masters of James, their slave.

It is worth noting that love is frequently emphasized in connections like the present one, here love to Christ (as in 2 Tim. 4:8) and in 2:5 love to God (as in Rom. 8:28). The fact that this love is the outcome of faith (v. 3) is self-evident to James and to his readers. The Lord’s promise to those who love him stimulates their love; his love will fulfill this promise in the case of those who love him. He delights to crown them in the end. As our faith makes us constant under trials, so also does our love for him who first loved us and died to save us. This is, of course, ἀγαπᾶν, the noble love of understanding coupled with corresponding purpose.

The substantivized present participle “those loving him” is qualitative in order to indicate their enduring love to him. Trial tests love as well as faith.

How Temptation Works in Us, v. 13–18

James 1:13

13 Let no one when tempted say: I am being tempted from God. For God cannot be tempted as regards things base; and he himself tempts no one.

James proceeds from trials to temptation. We may note that he does not use the noun πειρασμός as he did in v. 2 and 12 but verb forms. While this noun may mean “temptation,” solicitation to commit sin, by combining the noun with δόκιμος, testing out as tried and true (cf., v. 2, 3, 12), James indicates that he uses the noun in the sense of “trial” and not in the sense of “temptation” with its evil connotation. Trench compares the two verbs: when they are used together (as the noun and the adjective are used in v. 2, 3, 12), the idea is that trial tests out so that the person tried is found genuine. In v. 13 there is a different thought: there is no δοκιμάζειν or δόκιμος, no testing out with the expectation of finding genuine. We here have the opposite, namely the evil sense of πειράζειν, for the context shows that solicitation to sin is meant.

We should translate “tempt.” The way in which James proceeds from trials to temptations shows that the former may turn into the latter, and that James has this in mind when he now deals with the latter. That is, however, all we may say. James does not confuse the two, nor should we when we are interpreting him.

No person, when he is tempted, is ever to say: “I am being tempted from God” and blame the solicitation to sin onto God. Ἀπό is not ὑπό: “by God,” as if, like Satan, God were the actual tempter. Ἀπό has the idea of remoteness and suggests the thought that, while tempters are the direct agents who are trying to make us commit deadly sins, God is somehow to blame for the whole thing. If, then, we do fall because of temptation, the blame is not really ours.

We see a sample of this in the very first temptation. Adam says to God: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” God was to blame, for did he not create Eve for Adam? Adam certainly did not create her for himself! There are all manner of ways in which the blame can be shifted to God. Did he not make us with these bodily appetites of ours? Did he not create sex, for instance? Did he not make so many things so attractive to us? Does he not place them so dangerously near to us? So the fallacious reasoning runs on.

An additional word may be in place. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness in order that he might be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1). Jesus was to vanquish the devil. Heb. 2:18 and 4:15 add the thought that Jesus was tempted and tried for our sakes. In the Lord’s Prayer we ask God so to lead us by his providence as to keep us out of temptation that is too strong for us and to strengthen us in the temptation we do have to face (see on Matt. 6:13). 1 Cor. 10:13 indicates how God answers this petition. When God sent Jesus to be tempted by Satan, and when he now lets Satan tempt us, we should not blame God but should remember that God’s own Spirit helped Jesus to crush Satan, and that he now helps us to vanquish him.

Thus we are to be made more and more proof against temptation. But there is another side to temptation, which v. 14 points out. There lies the real danger.

As for God, he is ἀπείραστοςκακῶν, “untemptable as regards things base.” The genitive indicates relation: nicht versuchbar im Boesen, dem Boesen fremd, C.-K. 918; this is not an ablative (R. 516). Κακά are things that are morally base and degrading; “evil” in our versions is not exact enough. The opposite is ἀγαθά, things beneficial, heilbringend, good for salvation. Δέ adds the other side. As nothing that is base in any way is able to tempt God, so he on his part (αὐτός) “tempts no one,” never solicits a single believer to anything that is morally base. Ever and ever he warns against all moral baseness. We have his warning when we come in contact with baseness in this base world. God puts his Spirit into our hearts to strengthen us to repel all baseness like Joseph (Gen. 39:9) when we do come into outward contact with it. He even keeps from us any temptation that is beyond our strength.

James 1:14

14 Would that James could have stopped with v. 13! But each one is tempted by his own lusts, being drawn out (by them) and allured with bait.

We note that James does not say: “Each one is tempted by the devil or by wicked men who act as the devil’s tools.” That would go only halfway in refuting the charge against God; it would also fail to put the blame where it must eventually be put, namely on ourselves, for James has this in mind (v. 15). It is not well to punctuate as our versions do; the phrase is to be construed with the main verb, and since the modal participles are also passive, it is in effect to be construed also with these.

Each one “is tempted by his own lusts.” Even innocent things often arouse these evil desires, and, of course, appeals that are made to them from wicked sources easily arouse them. We should look for the blame here. While it is a vox media for “desire,” ἐπιθυμία, like πειράζω, has developed a bad meaning so that we translate “lust.” Temptation draws it out and then lures it with bait; these participles are figurative: in this way the hunter and the fisherman draw the game or the fish out and get them to take the bait. An illustration has been found in Eve who was first moved from her secure trust in God by the words of the tempter and was then attracted by the fruit itself. As far as the temptation of one who is already a sinner is concerned, who is already subject to lusts, the difference between him and Eve should not be overlooked.

James 1:15

15 The matter is left incomplete in v. 14 where “by your own lusts” is the main point. A new figure completes the natural history of lust as it operates in temptation. Then the lust, having conceived, gives birth to sin; and the sin, having been completed, brings forth death.

Note the perfect parallel in the wording. The metaphor resembles Ps. 7:14. The object is not to show the course of fatal temptation by tracing it from lust to death but by exhibiting its course and its outcome to show that it cannot possibly be “from God.” Lust conceives (συλλαμβάνω in the sexual sense, sometimes with an added phrase, “to become pregnant”) when it allows itself to be excited by its object; it becomes like a female that is hot for impregnation and then gives birth to sin. No article is used because the type or kind of sin is immaterial, actual sin of one kind or another is meant. Some think of sin in general, but lusts are many, and each gives birth to its own kind of sin.

Once the sin is born, it comes to completeness. This does not mean that, like a babe, it gradually grows to the adult stage. James is speaking of a Christian who loses his faith and spiritual life in some temptation. Unbelievers are in spiritual death from the start. When sin is born of the fleshly lust that is still lingering in the believer, the question still remains whether his faith, which is crushed down for the moment, will not again assert itself and rid itself of the deadly hold of sin by true repentance. Peter repented. Ananias and Sapphira carried their sin through to completion. David repented. Sin is brought to completion when repentance is blocked.

The two participles are quite different and are chosen because they are so exact; they could not be interchanged. Sin does not conceive, it is brought to completion and then brings forth death, i. e., spiritual death, separation from God and the life in God. Τίκτει and ἀποκυεῖ are synonyms; the compound is found only here and in v. 18. Sin is pregnant with death because of its very nature; in another figure, the shadow of sin is death.

It is an injustice to James to say that he is inferior to the Jew Philo in his spiritual insight into and his psychological tracing of temptation through lust to sin and to death. James uses less words, only a few lines. Try to put the whole matter into so few words and then compare your effort with the words of James. His are perfect and masterly; like Philo, you, too, will fall far behind him.

James 1:16

16 Do not be deceived, my brethren beloved! namely in this matter of temptation, as if you could in some way shift the blame onto God. The verb may be middle, and the present imperative with μή may give it the meaning: “Stop deceiving yourselves!” The loving address reveals the earnest solicitude of James.

James 1:17

17 This is the truth in regard to God: All giving (that is) good and everything given (that is) complete is from above, descending from the Father of the (heavenly) lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow cast by change.

Nothing except what is good and complete comes to us from God; all the bright heavenly bodies are his children, he can change even less than they. Because James has a hexameter in πᾶσα … τέλειον, some commentators deny that he wrote it and attribute it to somebody else and let James quote it. And the readers of James are to know the source of the quotation. Well, James is a fine writer and perfectly capable of drifting into metrical rhythm (R. 1200). It is not honorable to rob even a holy writer of his just due.

The words are beautifully chosen and are placed exactly right. Λόσις = the act of giving; δώρημα, a word expressing result = the thing given (δῶρον would be just “gift,” and δωρεά a “present”). The two words that are chosen by James correspond: in everything that is given we see the giving, and the giving always has something it gives, and both of these are “from above,” “descending” to us from God. The A. V. has both nouns mean “gift” and erases the richness of James; the R. V. has “gift” and “boon” and translates neither term exactly.

The adjectives are placed predicatively: “all giving (that is) good and everything given (that is) complete.” All and every one of them (act as well as object) are from above, i. e., from heaven, God’s throne, where alone goodness and completeness dwell. In regard to ἀγαθή both C.-K. and G. K. note the religious meaning that refers to salvation: all giving that is heilbringend, beneficial in a saving way. To which is to be added τέλειον; the thing given is “complete,” not falling short of the goal. Seek not on earth among imperfect, faulty creatures such δόσις and such a δώρημα. Without exception they descend to us from above. Look upward for them!

In v. 5 James has already described the Giver as the One who gives without reservation, without upbraiding us who deserve nothing at all from him. After thus showing his character as a Giver he now describes his changelessness. “From above” points us to heaven, and “from the Father of the lights” places him above all the radiant heavenly bodies. We see them as “the lights” in the firmament. Well, they are great and wonderful, but they are only this far greater Father’s children, who is the eternal, perfect light. We decline to allegorize these “lights” into shining spirits or into anything else. As James saw the sun, the moon, and the stars, they led him to see still more, namely their fatherly Creator himself.

These lights vary, they are sometimes brighter than they are at other times. They are only creatures. With God there is no variation whatever but only an unchanging refulgence of blessedness and of glorious goodness. Ἔνι = ἔνεστι, and παραλλαγή is not an astronomical term. These lights are subject to τροπῆςἀποσκίασμα (another word in -μα expressing result), “a shadow cast,” the genitive is a genitive of cause: “due to turning” or “change” (M.-M. 642). In our opinion the comment that speaks of revolutions of the heavenly bodies, the waning moon, the eclipses, etc., leaves us quite at sea by introducing strange astronomical ideas. James is saying something that his readers, who are ordinary people, are able to understand at once.

Many a night is entirely dark, and nothing is seen in the sky. A change has cast a great shadow. There are dark days when the sun is in shadow. “Change,” τροπή, comes and goes. With God there is nothing of this kind. “I am the Lord: I change not,” Mal. 3:6. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” 1 John 1:5.

Could temptation, i. e., solicitation to anything morally base, κακά, v. 13, come from him? It can come only from beneath, from the pit of hell, from the lusts that are still within us (v. 14).

James 1:18

18 James can say more. Having willed it, he brought us forth by means of truth’s word so that we are a kind of first fruits of his created things.

God has regenerated us, has made us a kind of first fruits that are set peculiarly apart and sanctified unto him. Will he undo this by tempting us to sin? The participle is emphatic. It is not enough for James to say that God brought us forth, he adds that God willed to do this. The best distinction between βούλεσθαι and θέλειν is found in C.-K. 224, etc. These verbs are synonyms, both refer to the will willing something, the former being wider than the latter so that the latter may be substituted for the former but not vice versa.

The former = to have in mind, to intend, to will in preference; it marks the chosen direction. Paul uses it when he is directing Timothy: “I intend” that this or that be done and not something else. Θέλειν expresses determination, the will energetically pressing for the deed. The former is in place here. While we were lost in sin, God resolved by free choice not to let us perish in sin but to bring us forth as new creatures by means of his saving Word. And this will of his is without variation or change (v. 17); it is impossible to think that God should alter or modify it in any way.

James uses “brought forth,” the same verb that he used in v. 15. We have seen that James loves to repeat a word instead of using a synonym and a different word. Sin brings forth death, that is its nature; with his Word of truth God brings forth a holy first fruits that are consecrated, freed from sin and death. This undoubtedly means regeneration. The dative of means “by truth’s Word” places the matter beyond question; cf. 1 Pet. 1:23; 1 Cor. 4:15. Neither noun has the article because the quality of each is to be stressed.

The absence of the article does not make the expression indefinite, for the genitive lends definiteness. There is only one “Word of truth,” i. e., the gospel, the power of God unto salvation. “Thy Word is truth,” John 17:17, and sanctifies. Whether the genitive is regarded as appositional: “Word consisting of truth,” or as objective: “Word speaking truth,” makes little difference; we might make the genitive qualitative as it is in a compound: Wahrheitswort, “Word marked by truth.” As “Word” it reaches our heart, as “truth,” ἀλήθεια, it brings us reality, the whole reality, the actual facts about ourselves, about God, about Christ, about the plan of salvation. “The Word” is often enough, so also is “the truth.” Singly or combined they stand against falsehood, lies, delusions; in v. 16, “do not be deceived.”

So strong is the older grammatical opinion that εἰςτό expresses only purpose that Mayor regards forty-one of the forty-two of these clauses that occur in Paul’s writings as pure purpose clauses. Even the grammarians prefer to find a purpose wherever they can regard the thought as a purpose. Our versions find a purpose here: “that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.” How long do we have to wait after God has brought us forth by truth’s Word until we get to be such first fruits? Are we not at once God’s sons, children, heirs, saints, ἡγιασμένοι, those having been sanctified, etc., etc.? The εἰςτό states result here: God brought us forth “so that we are a kind of first fruits,” etc. Our new birth from above (John 3:3: ἄνωθεν) is not incomplete, partial, incipient; this δώρημα from above (ἄνωθεν) is τέλειον, complete (v. 17).

First fruits (an idiomatic plural in the English, a collective singular in the Greek although it is used also in the plural) of the harvest and of the first-born belonged to God in a peculiar way; see the Bible Dictionaries. The figure is expressive in the case of readers who have come out of Judaism, C.-K. 180, Deo sacrum. Of all the created things we reborn children of God are his peculiar possession, sacred to him, not only created by him but also brought forth in a spiritual birth by means of his Word. Will he tempt us again to fall away? Nay, he will continue to shower perfect gifts upon us (v. 17). The addition of τινά, “a kind of first fruits” (R. 742), indicates that James applies the metaphor of first fruits in a special way. Also pagan writers use the plural of this word (Liddell and Scott), but they do so without the far richer connotation that is derived from the Old Testament.

Hearing and Doing the Word, v. 19–27

19, 20) James has mentioned “truth’s Word” in v. 18 with a purpose in mind. Being brought forth by it, we are ever to hear and to do this Word. This admonition is set forth at some length.

Know it, my brethren beloved! Moreover, let every person be swift for the hearing, slow for the speaking, slow for wrath; for a man’s wrath does not work God’s righteousness.

The A. V. follows the inferior reading ὥστε in place of ἴστε. The latter may be either the indicative (R. V.) or the imperative of οἶδα, either an acknowledgment that the brethren do know or an admonition telling them to know. The address “my brethren beloved” (v. 16) again marks the earnestness and the loving concern of James and—we think—a new paragraph. Yet, whether it is appended to v. 18 or regarded as starting a new paragraph, the unexpressed object of what the brethren know or are to know (and thus to act on) is what James has been saying in the preceding verses; it cannot be what follows because this consists of more imperatives.

James says only ἴστε, “know,” and not γινώσκετε, “realize.” He asks for the less, for what is easy, and is concerned that his readers get to know a few vital things about God and about what he has made of them. James will tell them what to do with this knowledge.

First of all and as a preliminary effect (specifying δέ introducing it), “let every person be swift for the hearing, slow for the speaking, slow for wrath.” Ἄνθρωπος and ἀνήρ are used as they were in v. 7, 8. Infinitives with adjectives would be enough to express the idea, but εἰς (with the dative idea, R. 1052) is even more expressive. The aorists mean: the whole business of talking. James is clearing the way for the proper reception of the saving Word of God. A person who keeps up his own talking makes a bad hearer.

Like a flash there comes the second βραδύς, “slow to wrath.” That is the trouble with lack of hearing and keenness for talking: not everybody will care to hear so much talk, other talkers will also talk, will contradict, hence there will arise a clash, the “wrath,” the violent passion. One must have seen Orientals in action to get the full effect of what James forbids. While I was touring in the Orient I saw a slight difference of opinion argued with a violence that seemed to promise immediate blows if not murder. Intemperate talking leads to this sort of thing, and the bitter wrath thus engendered often rankles in the breast of someone for a long time.

James points out what such wrath is never able to produce, namely to work “God’s righteousness.” The verb “to work” shows that “righteousness” refers to conduct which is adjudged by God as righteous. The genitive is not subjective, for God prescribes this righteousness and right conduct, it comes from him. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by them that make peace” (3:18).

It seems best to take this injunction in its full breadth, to regard it as a general principle of Christian conduct which includes also our meekness in hearing the Word but which goes farther as a general principle always does. So we should not restrict “wrath” and regard it as anger with God for sending us trials, angrily charging him with tempting us. Such implications do not lie in the injunction. C.-K. 312, etc., thinks of wrathful, passionate defense of God’s honor as though God’s righteous cause were dependent on our Eifer (bringing in also justifiable wrath by a reference to Eph. 4:26); but this seems rather far afield.

James 1:21

21 Wherefore, by putting away all shabbiness and what there is of a lot of baseness accept with meekness the implanted Word that is able to save your souls!

There is and will be discussion regarding what James wants his readers to put away. The questions involved are: what is the meaning of ῥυπαρία; does πᾶσαν modify also περισσείαν; what does περισσείανκακίας mean? We can state only our opinion. In the first place, ἀποθέμενοι is to be understood literally, it is not a figure that is taken from removing clothes. The literal sense is entirely sufficient. In the second place, πᾶσαν has its mate in περισσείαν: the readers are to get rid of all ῥυπαρία and, as Oesterly puts it, of all the “manifold” baseness, or, as B.-P. 1041 has it, of all die viele Schlechtigkeit. Περισσείαν means that there is a whole lot of it, and all of it must be put away.

Κακία is not “wickedness” (R. V.), the word for this term would be πονηρία; nor “malice” (R. V. margin), a mistranslation that is found in a number of passages; it is Schlechtigkeit, “baseness,” “meanness,” “good-for-nothingness,” and there is a lot of it of various kinds. We cannot translate περισσεία “superfluity” (A. V. although “superfluity of naughtiness” has caught the English ear), nor “overflowing” (R. V.). Everybody feels that James does not intend to say that we are to put away only the excess of baseness; all of it, whether it is excess or not, must go. Περισσεία indicates only that there is a great quantity of baseness just as πᾶς points to all of the ῥυπαρία. Luther is right when he translates simply: alle Bosheit (Schlechtigkeit would have been better).

If ῥυπαρία means “filthiness” as many translate this New Testament hapax legomenon, one wonders why “all filthiness” is brought into this connection unless all sinful conditions are to be referred to by filthiness and then by baseness. Taylor, in Mayor’s Commentary, suggests that ῥυπαρία is to be regarded passively and base, κακία, actively; but who would sense such a distinction? Besides, the latter is a condition as is also the former. The best hint is found in Plutarch who uses this word in the sense of “shabbiness” in money matters (Mayor). Applied to the mind of a Christian, it would match “meanness” when describing the condition which prevents the accepting of the saving Word with meekness. Never ready to hear and to learn, always quick to talk a lot, even quick to flare up when others will not let him talk, or when they venture to contradict, this person shows himself cheap and shabby and also mean and inferior in his mind. He is not fit to accept the Word in that state.

The opposite of these hindering conditions and their outgrowths is “meekness,” πραΰτης or πραότης (allied to ταπεινός, “lowly” and “lowliness,” which are used in v. 9, 10; see Trench). The pagan world despised the lowly man and admired the bold, masterful man who made others bow to his arrogant will; but Christianity elevated “lowliness” or “lowly-mindedness” as being one of the great spiritual qualities to be sought and to be cultivated in the spirit of Christ. The pagan world, however, regarded “meekness” as a virtue, but only when it was understood in the sense of equanimity and composure; but Christianity placed meekness into its true relation to God and thus also to our fellow men. It is that inwrought grace of spirit which accepts God’s Word without back talk, dispute, or questioning; it also accepts his providential dealings in the same spirit. Its root is the full realization of one’s sinfulness and unworthiness and of the grace which God extends. Thus James writes: “in meekness accept the implanted Word as the one able to save your souls.” Cf., 3:13.

Ἕμφυτον does not mean “engrafted” (A. V.), the word for this thought would be ἐμφύτευτον; nor is the Word a bud that is grafted into us. The adjective might mean “innate,” something that is natural to us, but this would not be true. “Implanted” (R. V.) is correct, but it is not proleptic: implanted by being received. The readers are Christians, the Word has been implanted in them; James is not telling them to accept it for the first time. The acceptance referred to by this aorist imperative of actuality is made clear by v. 22: a full, actual, complete acceptance which does not only hear the Word and formally accept it but actually does the Word.

To be sure, the readers are also to hear it again and again. In this epistle James himself continues this implanting. What he means is that they shall completely accept the Word which they have already heard and will continue to hear. James may, indeed, have in mind the parable of the Sower and the Seed and the good soil that produces a hundred fold.

“As able (or: as the one able) to save your souls” not only describes the Word but at the same time offers the supreme motive which ought to urge its eager acceptance. Paul calls it “the δύναμις or power of God for salvation” (Rom. 1:16), “by which also you are saved” (1 Cor. 15:2), “the gospel of your salvation” (Eph. 1:13). The supposition that James refers only to the law cannot be entertained; the law is never able to save the soul but is able to show only how much the soul needs saving (Rom. 3:20). To save “your souls” by no means excludes the salvation of the body. No contrast between soul and body is implied. The soul is mentioned as that which animates the body and may thus be used as a designation for the entire person; Acts 2:41, “about 3, 000 ψυχαί or souls.”

James 1:22

22 The effective aorist imperative is followed by a durative, descriptive present imperative, and δέ specifies what effective acceptance of the saving word means. The German aber may particularize in the same way. Now continue to be Word-doers and not only hearers, cheating your own selves by false reasoning.

The present tense does not imply that the readers have never been doers or have ceased to be doers; some of them may have grown slack in doing, all of them are ever to continue being doers. To this day many are satisfied to be only hearers or little more than that. Too many are at least feeble doers. It has been correctly observed that this was the great fault of the Jews. They attended the synagogue diligently, again and again heard the lections that were read there in regular order like our Gospel and our Epistle lections; but the saving gospel that was contained in the Old Testament Word which they heard failed to produce saving faith and the fruits of that faith in them. They trusted in their hearing and in a measure of formal obedience to the ceremonial regulations of the Mosaic law. When their rabbis, scribes, and elders taught the Old Testament Word they went no farther.

James is misunderstood when he is regarded as an exponent of Jewish thought and teaching to the effect that one must not only hear the precepts of the divine law but also do them. James is regarded as insisting only on Christian ethics. Matt. 7:21; Luke 6:46; 11:48; Rom. 2:13; 1 John 3:7, and John 7:17 are interpreted in the same way. For this reason such injustice is done to James. He is regarded as a preacher of works and not a preacher of faith like Paul. Yet he has just said that we must “receive the Word” and that that Word has power “to save our souls.” To be a doer of the Word is to do the will of God, and his Word and will are “that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life” (John 6:40).

To do the Word is to believe it for the saving of the soul. The Word ever asks for faith and intends to work faith. If it is thought that James had the Sermon on the Mount in mind, then one should not forget Matt. 6:12a, the prayer for forgiveness; 6:33, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; to say nothing of the Beatitudes, of first becoming a good tree, and of having the righteousness that is better than that of the Pharisees. He who neglects faith may stress works all he pleases he will get no genuine works at all.

To be only a hearer means more than to be lazy in doing; only a hearer means hearing without real faith. Like Paul, James knows that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing is by the Word of God (Rom. 10:18) which is to be heard in faith. Its first and foremost call is: “Believe!” That is why we do the Word by faith, and why this faith is called obeying the Word. Where true faith is found all else follows. The mere hearers are described as “cheating themselves by false reasoning” (M.-M. 487). They reason and argue παρά, beside the mark; their thinking is off the track. Hearing is a means, a very essential means and not an end.

James 1:23

23 James offers a convincing reason for his admonition. To make it more concrete and vivid he individualizes and shows us a sample of each kind of hearer and weaves in an expressive figure. Because if one is (only) a Word-hearer and not a doer this one is like a man taking cognizance (only) of the countenance of his being in a mirror, for he took cognizance of himself and has gone away and straightway forgot what kind he was. But the one who looked closely into what is complete law, (namely) that of the (true) liberty, and remained so, having become not a forgetful hearer, on the contrary, a work-doer, this one shall be blessed in his doing.

The description of each of the two individuals is elaborate. “If one,” etc., thinks of a forgetful hearer; but “he that did,” etc., presents the actual hearer who did not forget. The difference is not a mere variation in style; James only imagines the one while he offers the actual past and future history of the other.

A hearer and not a doer of the Word “is like (ἔοικεν, see v. 6) a man (ἀνήρ, see v. 7) taking cognizance of the countenance of his being in a mirror.” The best translation of γένεσις is Dasein, C.-K. 234; it does not mean Lebenslauf, B.-P. 242. “Natural face” in our versions regards the expression as a part of the figure that is suggested by “in a mirror,” but James says more than this; “the face of his birth,” R. V. margin, is unsatisfactory. This man does take cognizance, he does it carefully; the supposition that he takes only a superficial look at his countenance is not correct. Of course, he looks only at the image of himself (ἑαυτόν in v. 24), at the outward side of his being (γένεσις); he does not get into the inwardness of the Word at all. We have these hearers to contend with in all our preaching; the real power of the Word does not penetrate them. In the day of Jesus and of James Judaism had many of them.

James 1:24

24 “For” explains by stating what happened in an actual case. This man “took cognizance of himself,” which was well enough, and then “has gone away and immediately forgot what kind (of man) he was.” This is what made him a hearer only: he saw, he went off, he forgot. His hearing netted him nothing as far as the real purpose and the power of the Word are concerned. The two aorists are usually called gnomic; the perfect between them then causes difficulty, and some call also it gnomic, and B.-D. even speaks of Verdacht inkorrekter Mischung, suspicion of an incorrect mixing of tenses. R. 844 and 897 are better: this is the dramatic, vivid perfect. The English mind should catch a little of the mental alertness of the Greek, which purposely changes the tenses; this is “a sort of moving picture arrangement.” Instead of incorrectness we have something that is finer than mechanical correctness.

But we should drop the gnomic idea. James describes an actual case that occurred in the past. The man took cognizance; he actually did so; the aorist says so, but it does not say that anything of this cognizance remained with the man. He went away; the perfect implies that this being away continued. We then have another simple historical aorist: “he forgot what kind (of man) he was”; all of it just dropped out of his mind. It is the same picture that is drawn by Jesus in a different way in Matt. 13:4, 19: the little birds just carried away the good seed. “He has gone away,” and very soon while doing so “he forgot” while his going away continued.

Yes, he came and heard again and again, but this was the story every time. The oftener he did this sort of thing, the more easily he was able to repeat it: to hear—to be going away—to forget.

James 1:25

25 On the other hand, here is one who looked closely into the Word itself. From the use of παρακύπτω in John 20:5, 11 the conclusion has been drawn that the verb always implies only a hasty look; but in 1 Pet. 1:12 this looking into by the angels is not hasty. In John 20:5 John, too, must have taken a most earnest and serious look into the tomb. Not only did this man look closely into the Word and what it really contains, he “remained” so. It gripped and held him; “remained” (παραμείνας, an aorist participle to indicate the fact) need not be a perfect tense (to match the perfect tense used in v. 24), for the verb itself expresses continuance. “Remained” = he did not forget but “became (got to be) not a forgetful hearer (like the other man), on the contrary, an (actual) work-doer,” the objective genitive emphasizes the idea of “doer.” We need not repeat that the doing and the work referred to are not mere good works but first and foremost true, living faith.

So “this man will be blessed in his doing.” The future tense after the aorist participles surprises us. James does not say “was blessed”; he certainly “was,” but he will also be blessed for evermore. Not the mere hearer but the actual doer, not he who forgets but he who remains will be blessed; the one remains empty, the other will be filled with divine blessing by the heavenly Giver (v. 5). Μακάριος (see v. 12) is used in the Beatitudes.

What does James mean by νόμος (no article is used either here or in 2:12) τέλειοςὁτῆςἐλευθερίας? In substance the same as “truth’s Word” (v. 18) and “the implanted Word” (v. 21), the contents of which are both law and gospel, the doing of which = repentance and faith (in v. 18 regeneration) and a life of Christian obedience. James refers to the contents of the Old Testament plus the teaching of Jesus and his apostles. Here and in 2:12 and also in “royal law” in 2:8 we have designations that are borrowed from Jesus himself and reflect John 8:31, 32; Jer. 31:31–34 (not only v. 33), and the Sermon on the Mount, especially the failure of not doing and the blessedness of doing which are described at the end of this Sermon (Matt. 7:24–27).

Nothing is gained by referring to the term Torah when speaking of νόμος. To look eagerly into what is “law complete” is to study to do what Jesus expresses in John 5:39, what the Jews did not do, namely to see him in the Word and not merely the Mosaic ceremonial regulations, for which failure Moses himself would accuse the Jews (John 5:45–47). So to look into the Scriptures means to have saving faith: “the implanted Word, the one able to save your souls” (v. 21). “Complete” (τέλειος) = both law and gospel which constitute the nomos; James uses the word nomos so as to include both. He does not use εὐαγγέλιον in this letter. Those who eliminate the gospel from this expression of James’s have difficulty in understanding his thought, cf. C.-K. 426, etc.

“Complete law,” without the article and thus strongly qualitative, is made specific by the attributive genitive: “(namely) that of the (true) liberty.” This is probably a genitive of relation although its relation to “the liberty” characterizes also this law, shows that it is “law complete.” “The liberty” with its article is the one the readers know (John 8:31, 32). The legal injunctions with which alone the Jewish religion dealt were nothing but slavery; John 8:33, etc., makes this very plain. The gospel feature of the Word brings the real liberty, the freeing from the curse of sin and from the power of sin. Leave out the gospel from the nomos of James, and “the liberty” becomes an illusion, it is like the blessing in the verb “shall be blessed.” No doing of any system of legalism ever brought true liberty or blessing to save the soul.

We might at this place compare in detail what Paul and James say regarding liberty and law. It will not be necessary, for nowhere does Paul say that our liberty allows us to transgress the moral law by sinning (James expresses the same thought in 2:10–12), and everywhere Paul says we are freely to slave for God. To have James disagree with Paul is an unsatisfactory undertaking. Rudolph Stier’s commentary on James sermonizes, but its comments on this verse are worth reading.

James 1:26

26 James returns to v. 19, 20, his starting point: a lot of talk about religion and wrathful contention about it are anything but what God wants, who sends us the Word so that we may accept it in meekness, hear and do it, and thus be blessed and saved. If one thinks to be religious while not bridling his tongue but deceiving his heart, this one’s religion is vain. Religion pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to guard oneself unspotted from the world.

The A. V. has “among you,” which is the translation of a spurious reading. We translate “thinks” and not “seems” (A. V.). James does not say that this person “seems to be religious” to others who see him; James says to this person himself that he “thinks he is religious.” Θρησκός (accent thus), which is found only here in the New Testament = one who observes the cultus exterior. There is no doubt that the man does this, he is religious in this sense, James does not deny it.

James only adds the rest of it. This man thinks he is religious “while not bridling his tongue but deceiving his heart.” The kind of religion which he practices allows him to let his tongue go like an unbridled horse, it is without inner religious control. This is another of the telling figures used by James. He returns to it in 3:3 where he has much more to say about the tongue of the teachers of the church. The indefinite τὶς makes the statement broad, it is like “quick to talk” which occurs in v. 19. This man is always voicing his own opinions and damaging people right and left like an unrestrained horse; he talks even religion in the same way and is not meek to hear the Word for his own soul’s good.

James adds “but deceiving his heart,” fooling himself in his very religion. Well, this man has “religion,” a cultus exterior, but it is μάταιος, i. e., it does not get him to the goal for which religion is intended. James does not say κενός, “empty,” for this man’s religion has a sort of religious content, but it is one that does not save his soul or make him μακάριος, “blessed.”

James 1:27

27 While “religion pure and undefiled” is also a cultus exterior it shows its pureness and its undefiled state by proper fruits, two of which are named as samples. The first is “to look in upon, to visit with comfort and help, orphans and widows in their affliction,” those who are most in need of help, who are mentioned so often in the Old Testament as being under God’s special protection. It seems as though James has in mind Matt. 23:14 and Luke 20:47: the hypocritical Pharisees who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. To visit the least of these brethren of Jesus is to prove oneself a true slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, Matt. 25:40. This is a sample of the love which is the true fruit of faith. As far as we are able to glean the circumstances of the readers from the epistle itself, there was much room for works of this kind. Already in the old mother congregation there were many widows (Acts 6:1); these, too, had fled during the persecution under Saul, which fact certainly did not improve their circumstances.

With an arresting asyndeton James reaches into another side of the true Christian life which is an evidence of “religion pure and undefiled before God the Father,” namely “to guard oneself unspotted from the world.” James resembles John in this use of “the world” as a designation for the ungodly, unbelieving mass of men; we regularly use the word in this sense today (see also 4:4). The world is vile and foul; to guard oneself unspotted means that none of this uncleanness lodges permanently in our hearts and our souls. It means also that we attend to constant cleansing (John 13:10). If the other is a work of love, this is surely a work of faith.

The readings vary as to the use of the article or the articles or the absence of the article in the παρά phrase, but the sense remains practically the same. Some copyists seem to have tried their hand at altering the reading according to their ideas of Greek usage. “God the Father” requires an article in English. He judges as to what religion is pure and clean, undefiled and unspoiled. We learn his judgment from his Word.

Rationalists have pointed to this passage as being one that supports their idea of genuine religion: Just do works of charity and lead a clean moral life; all the rest does not matter! They do the same with Peter’s statement: “In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him” (Acts 10:35): Just so you believe that there is a God and try to do what is right! But it is not fair to select a single sentence out of an epistle or a discourse and to ignore the context.

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

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

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage, besorgt von Albert Debrunner.