CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
Verses 2-15. From the outset James lowers man, he puts him in a place of dependence upon God, he sees him submitted to the trial of faith. But trial works its results; it bears the fruit of patience; it leads to the prayer of faith; it causes us to value a low degree, and lastly, makes us worthy of the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.
Verse 4. “But let patience have her perfect work.” Patience sustains and enables us to wait according to God for the issue of the trial, without availing ourselves of speedy deliverance out of it, suggested by the flesh. For instance, Saul was not able to wait patiently.
Verse 5. “Let him ask of God.” When trial comes the first resource of the Christian, as also the first motion of the new man, is prayer. God always hears the prayer of His saints. Thus strengthened from above, the Christian is enabled to go through the trial in the spirit of obedience. In Gethsemane Christ prayed before being in the trial; then in obedience He took the cup from the Father’s hand. If we neglect prayer and the difficulties come upon us unawares, we enter into temptation and we fall. Peter slept when he should have prayed, drew the sword when he should have submitted, denied Jesus when he should have confessed Him. God “upbraideth not.” God gives without reproaching our state.
Verse 6. “Let him ask in faith.” God desires that we should cause our prayers to ascend in a spirit of confidence in His goodness.
Verses 9-11. A low degree is that in which alone God is willing to meet us in this world.
Verses 12-15. Trial (or temptation) may come to us from two sources: from God, when heart and faith are tested — “God tempted Abraham”; from the adversary when it reaches us through lust, and flesh is allured. How much better is it to have to do with God in the trial than with Satan!
Whoever knows himself will pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” May the grace of God so work in us that we may not need to be sifted by Satan in order to be stripped of our pretensions. When Jesus prayed for Peter, whom He knew to be self-confident, He did not ask that His disciple might be spared the sifting of the enemy, but only that his faith should not fail him.
Verse 15. “When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.” Paul speaks in the inverse order in his Epistle to the Romans; chapter 7: 8. “Sin wrought in me all manner of lust.” The difference between these two statements is this: Paul confines himself to spiritual principles; whilst James desires to shew their effects. One completes the other; sin, in the nature of man produces lust (Romans 7), and lust produces sin in the conduct; James 1.
Verses 16-18. The Epistle of James acknowledges regeneration by the power of the grace of God, even as it owns also faith in Jesus (chapter 2: 1) — two fundamental truths of the gospel. “Begat he us with the word of truth,” 1 Peter 1: 23-25; John 3.
“That we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” God will reconcile all things to Himself; His creation and His elect. We, the begotten of the Father, are the firstfruits of that reconciled creation. In a certain sense, Adam after his sin may be said to have been the firstfruits of fallen creation.
[p. 155] Verses 19-27. Patience and obedience are two practical graces, two of those perfect gifts which the Father gives and which He delights to see developed in us. The new life is always dependent: too much or too little energy is worthless. As soon as self-will manifests itself, as soon as the man wills, there is sin.
Verse 21. “The engrafted word.” As a graft becomes an integral part of the subject into which it is engrafted, so the word becomes a part of the Christian. This is not the case with a law which remains a command outside of us. Let the word produce its effect in us, still its authority over us remains, an authority which is of God. The word builds up, enjoins, or condemns, as the case may be.
Verse 25. “The perfect law of liberty.” In James, the divine nature in us is always seen to be in perfect conformity to the law of God. That nature loves what God enjoins. When it so happens that the person to whom a command is made desires to do the thing commanded, he is pleasing himself whilst obeying the command. Such is the law of liberty. We see it exemplified in Christ; in order to attempt the hindrance of His liberty, it would have been necessary to impede His obedience. So it is with the divine nature in the Christian, it is always free, that is to say, ready to do the will of God. The conflict of the Christian does not destroy this truth, the principle in such case being “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
Three laws are mentioned in James:
Firstly, the law of Moses in chapter 2: 10, 11.
Secondly, the royal law, which is love to one’s neighbour in chapter 2: 8.
Thirdly, the perfect law of liberty, in chapter 1: 25; chapter 2: 12. The two last resemble each other.
Verse 26. “And bridleth not his tongue.” The tongue is that which divulges most promptly the state of the soul. When abiding in the presence of God we have not an evil, or over-abundant, speech. “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him,” Habakkuk 2: 20.
Verse 27. “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father.” When abiding in subjection to God, life manifests itself, selfishness disappears, and we keep ourselves unspotted from the world.