JAMES 1
This epistle views the twelve tribes as in a very different position from that in which they are presented in the book of Joshua. We see there how the tribes dispossessed their enemies under the leadership of Joshua, and were set in the inheritance. That would answer to the early days of the assembly when there was spiritual leading on the part of the apostles, bringing the saints into the full blessing that was in the heart of God to bestow. But James addresses the twelve tribes as “in the dispersion”. He takes account of the people of God in their entirety — “our whole twelve tribes” as Paul says — but he views them as being “in the dispersion”, which answers very much to the position in which we find ourselves publicly today. The people of God are seen here as scattered from the inheritance in the government of God. It is an epistle specially suited to an abnormal state of things. It gives what would stabilize us, and lead to our being “perfect and complete” even amidst a scattered condition of things. In this way it has a peculiar application to ourselves.
We have to accept the conditions in which we find ourselves; they are conditions which involve a good deal of testing, and we are not to deprecate the testing, but to look on it as advantageous. James plunges at once into this subject: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into various temptations, knowing that the proving of your faith works endurance”. We find ourselves in a testing time, and we have to accept it; it is not an [p. 4] easy time for the people of God. But if we accept the conditions, and go through them with God, a real increase of spiritual power will be found.
James writes as a bondman of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is only those who realise that they are bondmen, and thus under definite and abiding obligation to be faithful, who will stand in a day of testing. One has often felt that we are too much on volunteer principles; but we are not volunteers, left at liberty to do as much as we like, and go as far as we like; we are bondmen.
Every test is a gain; it is well for us to take account of things in that way, because we are always being tested, and we do not always bear in mind that these tests are permitted of God, and that our increase in spiritual power largely depends on our facing them with God. God wants reliable material in His assembly. I was once in an engineering works, and the proprietor took me to a room and said, “This is the testing room. Every bit of material that comes into our works is brought here first”. There were various machines for testing the strength and enduring quality of iron bars and other things that were there; nothing would be passed on but tested material. James opens his epistle by putting us into the testing room. Every testing is apportioned in the faithfulness of God to each individual that is subjected to it. None of us really gets a test that is out of proportion to our ability to bear it. The tests raise the question whether we are able to move on with what is of God in the face of every kind of difficulty. Each saint who accepts a testing, and goes through it with God, is prepared for the next, and finally, under the faithful hand of God, there is no element left lacking that God would form in that soul.
It is encouraging to see that God has taken us up in view of developing certain features in us, and those features are developed on the line of endurance. There is nothing accidental or haphazard in any testing that [p. 5] comes; we have exactly the test which is needed to bring out the nature of our knowledge of God, and the amount of faith we have, and to furnish that faith with power of endurance, so that there is real increase. If I shirk a test, I lose the gain of it. The gain of a test lies in facing it and going through it with God. Our whole life is a series of tests, but all together they are planned so as to work out in result the accomplishment of what is in the mind of God in regard to each saint. It is beautiful to think of it working out to completeness, so that there is not an element wanting. We can count it joy in view of the issue. If I am tested as to whether I will compromise a divine principle, and I evade the test, I lose the gain that would have accrued from facing it. But if faith comes into exercise there will not be a single test that will not be productive of good to us. We have to submit to the government of God, as suffering under it the consequences of our own failures, and the general failure of His people. But there is a deepening under the government of God of all moral exercises. Most of us are shallow and superficial at the beginning, but testings bring about a deepening, a truer self-knowledge; we discover what weakness and want of wisdom are in ourselves. Such exercises turn us to God for wisdom. The great gain of faith is that we reach God about things, and what is merely natural is displaced. “That ye may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” contemplates that God has a certain end to reach with every one of us, and He means to add every element that is needed to make up the complete thought that He has in His mind for us.
Endurance is a quality which is of primary importance. Moses persevered as seeing Him who is invisible. There is a danger of going on to a certain point in one’s exercises, and then stopping short. If endurance has its perfect work we shall be “perfect and complete”. Every needed element will be added in the faithfulness of God.
[p. 6] The Lord Jesus was never deflected; He went straight on; He was marked by endurance; He “endured the cross”. It was a great and precious feature in Him that He endured. He went through everything, even to the endurance of the cross.
This scripture would teach us that we are under the hand of God in every testing, and if we go faithfully through the test with Him we shall reach the perfection and completeness of what He has in His mind for us in it. Endurance and wisdom are two primary necessities for us in a day like the present. It is a difficult time, and for such a time both endurance and wisdom are needed, and they are the two things to which James calls our attention first. However unforeseen by us a difficulty may be, it cannot baffle divine wisdom. Wisdom is a most comprehensive thing. There are, I believe, ten different words in Hebrew for wisdom, which suggests its varied and comprehensive character; it takes different forms according to the need of the moment. Scripture speaks of the “all-various wisdom of God” as being made known through the assembly (Ephesians 3: 10). Wisdom is infinitely varied, and it will meet everything. There is not always chapter and verse for every detail; if there were it would leave little room for wisdom. Wisdom is essential, and it can be got by asking of God. He is not unwilling to bestow it; He gives to all freely, nor does He reproach us for the lack of it. “And it shall be given to him”. There is no uncertainty as to the result to those who “ask in faith nothing doubting”. A doubter is double-minded and unstable; he does not really know God; he is carried by the influences of the moment, and there is no wisdom in this.
I have no doubt that James, in his references to wisdom here and in chapter 3, has in mind the “wise” of Daniel 11: 33, 35; 12: 3 — the Maschilim — who have benefited by the instruction of the thirteen Maschil psalms, so as to have understanding in the mind of God in the last days.
[p. 7] How necessary to ask of God for this in a day of dispersion, when the whole condition of things is abnormal! I remember a remark of Mr. Darby’s which impressed me: “If the apostle Paul were living today I do not know what he would do. Nay! I go further, and say Paul himself would not know what to do”. His thought was that even an apostle would have to ask and receive wisdom from God to know how to act in the peculiar circumstances of the present day. Nothing but wisdom from above will ever carry us through. But it is impossible that the “wise” should be baffled, however great the difficulties may be. Wisdom comes out in knowing how to act in presence of difficulties. The deacons in Acts 6 were men full of the Spirit and wisdom, and it was said of Stephen that “They were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke”. His address in Acts 7 is a wonderful example of a man speaking in wisdom; no answer to it was possible. Wisdom is needed that we may use knowledge aright. If knowledge is not used in wisdom and love we may stumble the very persons we want to help.
The brother of low degree is elevated in coming amongst the brethren, but the rich finds humiliation. Both are to glory. If we are really low grace acts to elevate, but if we have anything that gives us importance in the flesh, that has to be brought down. It belongs to an order of things which passes away as the grass’s flower when exposed to the “burning heat” of the sun. The reference here is not to the light of the sun, but to its “burning heat”. The sun having risen is a figure of God having come forth in revelation, but this viewed in its effect upon all that gives apparent glory or comeliness to man. The shining of God withers everything that man, as such, would trust in; yea, it withers the man himself. But this is that God alone may be looked to as the source of good. As one of “low degree” I can look up to Him as the source of “every good gift and every perfect gift”, and this is great elevation. Nothing withers what comes down from above. If there is “burning heat” to wither what is of the flesh, there is the beneficent light of God revealed in love, giving every good and perfect gift. In this light, and as loving God thus revealed, there is power to endure testing. To endure temptation proves that there is something there which is not of withering nature — something which God can bless and distinguish. “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for, having been proved, he shall receive the crown of life, which He has promised to them that love Him”. God loves to see evidences of life, and to give the crown of life to those whom He has proved. Such acquire peculiar distinction with God. It is a great advantage to be a brother of “low degree”, for such are elevated in the knowledge and joy of what comes down from above, through the outshining of God in His goodness. But if I have had anything that made me rich, such as Paul could refer to in Philippians 3, true glory consists in being humbled as to it all, and in this way the rich becomes in his mind and spirit a “brother of low degree”. One might come into the assembly as having some status through wealth, or through natural abilities or qualities, and if so one would be sure to find humiliation, and such humiliation is really a ground for spiritual glorying. It is to make room for what is from above, and thus to help us on the line of life. The testings to which we are subjected bring out the fact that the saints love God, and it is such who receive the crown of life.
Temptation is looked at in the first twelve verses of this chapter as the testing of what is of God in the souls of His people, so that it is to be counted joy because there is ability to endure the test. When that is the case testing only develops the power of endurance which is there by grace. But in verses 13 - 15 James turns to speak [p. 9] of temptation in another way — as the enticement of one’s own lust. This raises the question whether we are looking for pleasure on the line of gratifying the desires of our flesh, or on the line of receiving every good and every perfect gift from God? For our own lust is contrasted here with divine giving. James had already spoken of God as giving liberally; and he goes on to say that “every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights”. Now we are tested as to whether we are continually looking up expectantly for what God will give — for things that come down — or are we yielding to the solicitations and enticements of our own lusts and fleshly desires? Practically we are ever on one line or the other.
It is most important that we should have the upward look of appreciation for those things which are the fruit of the revelation of God in love. Nothing comes down but what is good and perfect. Now do we want what is good and perfect, or the gratification of our own fleshly desires? The answer will show where we are in our souls with God. Salvation in a practical sense is that one is removed from the region of one’s own desires into the region where there is divine giving, and in that region there is unalloyed happiness instead of lust giving birth to sin, and sin, fully completed, bringing forth death, That is something very different from the crown of life spoken of in verse 12. The line that leads to life is connected with the giving of God; our own desires lead to sin, and sin to death. To be outside the activities and giving of divine love is death morally.
Then in sovereign love God has begotten us by the word of truth. This is a free gift also†. He has brought us forth; it implies that we come forth
†For other remarks on the candlestick and the shewbread, the reader is referred to “An Outline of Exodus,” chapter 25.
[p. 10] in public evidence. The word of truth works in us morally, so that what God desires for His intelligent creatures becomes exemplified in those brought forth by it. His creatures find all that they desire in God, and they become what He desires — firstfruits for Him. The features of the world to come are brought forth in them.
The substance of John’s ministry is in verses 17, 18. If God had not exercised His own will in sovereign love none of us would have had a bit of appreciation of Christ, or desire to move after Him. But He has begotten us by the word of truth that we might appreciate the shining of the revelation of God, and find it to be an unchanging source of happiness. Every good and perfect gift is the fruit of the revelation of God; it comes down from the Father of lights; He is the source of every choice gift. The most wonderful thing possible is the revelation of God; we should ponder it as the greatest thing that our hearts can know. John 1 and Hebrews 1 are chapters we should cherish, for they speak of the effulgence of God shining out in His Son; all the splendour of God shines out there. The most magnificent thing in nature is the sun; it has incomparable glory, and therefore the sun is the great figure in nature of the outshining of God. We are told of the Lord that His face shone as the sun (Matthew 17: 2). What happiness for those “in the dispersion” to be brought consciously into the presence of every good and every perfect gift as the fruit of the outshining of God in His unchangeable glory! Nothing that can happen in the Christian profession, or in any individual, can dim the shining of God. Clouds may come in below and hide the sun from us, but they do not dim its shining. The moon has phases but the sun has none; there is no variation nor shadow of turning there. The “Father of lights” really brings in John’s ministry, which does not vary nor have a shadow of turning.
[p. 11] The Lord, in John 4, called the attention of the woman to the giving of God. God is revealed as a Giver. Not one of us in nature had that thought of God; we thought of Him as a Demander, and naturally — strange to say — man would rather think of God as a Demander than as a Giver. But the Son in manhood has revealed the giving God; He delights to give; He has given His Son, His Spirit, everything that is good and perfect, and there is no variableness nor shadow of turning in Him as the Father of lights. In the solar system the sun is the father of lights; there is no light that is not begotten by the sun; the light of the moon and of the planets is begotten by the sun. The sun is the father of every light in the solar system, and God is the Father of lights. Wherever there is light it is of God. As brought forth by God His children partake of the character of light; they are spoken of by both John and Paul as “sons of light”; they are begotten by the revelation. James brings in really a great deal more than most people think.
If we were more conscious of being “in the dispersion” we should more appreciate the unvarying and unchangeable character of God as known in the light of revelation. We dwell a good deal sometimes on things that have changed, and will change, but we need to abide more in the light that does not change — the shining out of God in His Son, and the giving of every good and perfect gift. We can have everything that is of true value as gift, and God delights to be known in the character in which His beloved Son has revealed Him here. The greatest thing in the universe is the shining of God. That, in itself, is the supreme giving, and every perfect gift is the result of it. It is a peculiar encouragement to see that, though those to whom James writes are “in the dispersion”, the best of everything remains. The revelation of God remains, and all that is bound up in it. Do we appreciate that? So that we are thankful to live in [p. 12] the light which remains unchanged, in spite of all that has come into the Christian profession. The Gospels and the Epistles remain; there is not a word in them that has been invalidated.
God is securing firstfruits now. In a coming day He will bring the First-begotten into the world, and the great harvest will be gathered, but He is securing firstfruits now, and there is something peculiarly precious in first-fruits. God in sovereign love, by an act of His own will, has brought forth a generation who are firstfruits of His creatures; they are brought into evidence now.
James speaks of “the implanted word” (verse 21). God implants the word of His grace, the word of truth, in the souls of His people. The “implanted word” is not simply what we listen to. James says a good deal about hearing, but this is different; it is something implanted in the soul. How important that we should accept it with meekness! God has come out in the revelation of Himself; He is the Father of lights; and He has shown us that the thought of giving is inseparable from the revelation. In the face of that do I want to cherish desires of my own flesh? Think of the blessed God, known as giving! He gives everything that is good and perfect, so that as fully blessed in receiving from Him we may come into evidence as firstfruits of His creatures. What should a creature of God be? All the delight of an intelligent creature should be in the blessed God, and in receiving from Him, and God’s delight would be secured in such a creature. God is working powerfully to bring in as firstfruits now what will mark the world to come. Then James says, Now what about YOUR side? You lay aside all filthiness and wickedness and accept with meekness the implanted word; that is how you will come into the good of it.
To be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath is our side. It is much more important that we should hear than that we should speak, and it is also important [p. 13] not to allow any movement of strong feeling that will not do any good. The only thing effective in any soul is the knowledge of God; nothing else will affect men inwardly to any great extent. We have to bear in mind how God is operating on us and on others. It is not what I say, or my strong feelings, that are going to produce a divine result. It is a question of accepting with meekness the implanted word. The implanted word is the word as rooted in the soul, not simply what we have heard, but what we have been brought forth by. That is, there has been a divine operation giving the word power in our souls. The word is implanted by a sovereign operation of God. Then there is our side — the meekness in which we accept it, leading to our souls being saved. When the implanted word is accepted with meekness it displaces all the workings of our natural minds, and it brings in what is of Christ morally, and this leads to our being doers of the word. One who is not a doer of the word has no true self-knowledge, nor is he delivered from what he is naturally. No one will want to part company with himself till he has acquired self-knowledge in a way that cannot be forgotten. James says that if you hear the word and are not a doer you are like a man considering his natural face in the mirror, and going away and forgetting what he is like. If you look into the glass and see your features and forget what they are like there is no true self-knowledge. The word has not really done its work.
The sun has come up and withered the grass, and its flower has fallen; that is one effect of the revelation of God, God shining out withers all that is of the flesh; but, on the other hand, it makes known that every good gift and every perfect gift is available. In the light of Christ, the blessed Son of God, there is a full exposure of our natural features.
If I have really looked at my features in the light of God I shall not forget what they are like, but there will [p. 14] be awakened in my heart a great desire for something that I can look at with satisfaction. I shall want to fix my view on the perfect law, that of liberty, and to abide in it. The perfect law, that of liberty, is something which we can fix our eyes upon; it speaks of perfection brought in so that it can be contemplated. Brought in not as demand, but as liberating power. It comes into our view in Christ. We see One moving in absolute liberty, every act of His, every word, every thought, ministering delight to the heart of God. Now fix your view on that.
Every claim of God in love has been seen as perfectly answered to by a blessed Man in this world; all the divine pleasure has been exemplified in One who ever responded in a Son’s affections to God. Fix your view on that and continue in it. It corresponds with what John says to us about abiding in Christ. “He that fixes his view on the perfect law, that of liberty, and abides in it, being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, he shall be blessed in his doing”. He moves after Christ; his heart has been entranced by the perfection he has seen in One who ever moved in the liberty of a nature that delighted to please God.
We often claim to have been set free; we tell the Lord that He died to set us free. And He has given the Spirit to liberate us so that we might fix our view on Him, and move after Him in affection. If we do, we shall be found walking even as He walked, in liberty. The one begotten of God can never forget what he was like as to his natural face, but it makes him long to fix his view on what is perfect, and to abide in it. We are really free, through grace, to move after Christ, and to abide in Him; hence we are going to be judged by the law of liberty. “So speak ye, and so act, as those that are to be judged by the law of liberty” (chapter 2: 12). Judged by the law of liberty! Think of that! Liberty has been secured for us by the blessed God at an infinite cost. We have seen it [p. 15] perfectly in Christ, and the One in whom we have seen it has gone into death to set us free — that we might have the Spirit as liberating power.
We are going to be judged by the fact that divine love has set us up with capability to do the will of God, and to have firstfruits character. God is saying, I am going to judge you by what I have conferred upon you. As knowing God through His revelation of Himself, new motives of a wondrous character begin to operate in our hearts, and the Spirit is given to us as power. God works from within. “Behold thou wilt have truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden parts thou wilt make me to know wisdom” (Psalm 51: 6). Wisdom comes to be known in the hidden part; it is there we cherish Christ. We abhor ourselves, but we appreciate Christ, and move affectionately after Him. All is at divine charges. We are not called upon to originate anything, but to respond to what God initiates, like an echo which does not originate the sound but sends it back. We receive from God; we accept the implanted word with meekness. A broken and contrite heart is the only heart that is any good to God; such a heart appreciates Christ, and moves after Him affectionately. If we do that we shall be a delight to God, and be part of His firstfruits.
The tongue is the first member to be affected by the knowledge of God, and by the view being fixed on Christ. The tongue is the shortest avenue from the heart, and the first evidence of grace working in the heart is that there is power to restrain the expression of what is natural or fleshly. Then there is a drawing to the afflicted. Instead of going where we shall be in agreeable surroundings we begin to think of those who need comfort. And we judge the world as a system where everything is defiling. These are the great elements of pure religion.