JAMES 3
James would warn us against being “teachers”. He had told us before to be swift to hear and slow to speak. We do not know much as yet, and it is important that we should be learners rather than teachers. We should consider this, because it would lead to our being formed after the model of Christ. He was THE Teacher, but He was so as being always Himself in the spirit and attitude of the instructed One. “The Lord, Jehovah, hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed” (Isaiah 50: 4). That word “instructed” is the same word as “disciple”. The Lord was the true Disciple; He always spoke as the instructed One, and I do not think anything has much power in the affections of saints but what comes from one who is himself in the spirit of a learner. If we become conscious that one is learning, receiving impressions from God, we like to listen to him, for we are assured that we shall get something. John said, “That which we have seen and heard we report to you” (1 John 1: 3). He was teaching as a disciple, as one who had learned himself. That word “disciple” has somehow dropped out of common use, but we must take care that it does not drop out of our spirits; we need to keep in the place of disciples rather than teachers. One marvels to think of the Lord being instructed by the Father every morning as to what He was to say! One loves to think, for instance, of the intercourse between the Son and the Father who loved Him on the morning of the day of the incident at Sychar’s well. He was instructed what to say to that woman; He was instructed what to say to every weary soul. We often feel we have not a word for souls we come across. What is the secret of our emptiness? We have not been “morning by morning” in the place of the instructed with an opened ear, or else we should have a word for every soul that God would have us to speak to.
Even as to the Lord’s teaching His disciples He says, “All things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you” (John 15: 15). James would have us to express that beautiful feature of Christ. To assume to know is to incur responsibility, and that is serious for persons who are conscious that we all often offend. To [p. 23] keep in the spirit of learners would have a preservative effect. A learner has not high thoughts of self, and it is this which causes us often to offend, but he is really getting things for himself. The teaching that is proper to the house of God is, passing on to others what we have learned for ourselves; we pass it on as learners rather than as teachers.
This chapter is largely occupied with the tongue. James presents the tongue as the test member. If the tongue is under control every member of the body will be so also. We can sin with the tongue more easily than in any other way, and it is also the most direct outlet for everything of God in the soul. What is of God can come out more easily through the tongue than through any other member, so that it is really the test member.
If a child is deaf it is also dumb; ability to speak depends on ability to hear; if our ears are open every morning our tongues will be set free. Perhaps we do not sufficiently take account of the fact that the Holy Spirit came down as cloven tongues, God thereby saying, ‘I am going to give you an entirely new power of speech’. James describes the kind of tongues which we had naturally, but behind it in his mind, we may be quite sure, is the thought that new tongues have come in. “They shall speak with new tongues”, the Lord said (Mark 16: 17). Wonderful ability to speak is conferred in the gift of the Spirit.
If the Lord says, “They shall speak with new tongues”, there is great moral force in it; I should not like to say it has no application now. I do not mean that we should expect to speak foreign languages without learning them, but surely every believer should be marked by speaking with a new tongue! None of us would be happy to speak with the tongue described in verses 6 and 8!
A true teacher does not impress us by his ability to teach, but by the fact that he has been divinely taught;
[p. 24] he teaches in the spirit of a learner. I am very interested when a brother or sister says to me, “I was greatly impressed by a word this morning”. I feel they have learned something, and I want to share it.
The tongue becomes an index as to whether we are on natural lines or on spiritual. Indeed it properly becomes the indicator of the presence of the Spirit.
James addresses the whole profession, but be has specially in view those begotten of God. “Who is wise and understanding among you?” (verse 13). In the midst of a profession where things are very mixed as to their moral character, there are those who are “wise”. James has in view the last days (chapter 5: 3). The “wise and understanding” answer, as we have said before, to the wise in Daniel 11: 32, and Daniel 12: 3. “They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse; and they that turn the many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever”. These are the same persons who are referred to in Daniel 12: 10. “Many shall be purified, and be made white, and be refined ... but the wise shall understand”. The saints as James views them are wise, and they are being subjected to a refining process. James is a very refining epistle; that is why many neglect it; the mass do not want to be refined; they are like those of whom Daniel says, “But the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand”.
“The wisdom which comes down from above” lies in the Holy Spirit, and brings in heavenly features. It gives an entirely new ability to speak and act, but this is not apart from being subjected to the refiner’s fire. The constitution for it is there in every one who has the Spirit, but the refining process has to go on. We have to accept that we are in the crucible. The thought of refining is in many passages; it suggests in itself that there is value in the saints; they are gold and silver as being wrought of God and as subjects of grace and [p. 25] redemption, but they have to be refined to eliminate in a practical way what belongs to the natural man. The “wise” want to be purified and refined from what is of the natural man so as to come out as vessels of the wisdom that is from above. That refinement is the result of accepting from God the various testings and trials that befall us, and going through them with Him. That is why James says, “Count it all joy”; it is as much as to say, Remember that you are being refined by it. A purifying process is most necessary in the last days because of the general mixed and corrupt condition. Publicly in the Christian profession both the wicked and the wise are to be found, but we should be exercised that there shall be no mixture allowed practically in us, but as divinely refined we may be pure and holy vessels of the wisdom that is from above. In order to arrive at this we have to submit ourselves to the Lord’s disciplinary ways with us. He sits as the Refiner of silver, and it is a terrible thing to resist Him as Israel resisted. Jeremiah 6: 29, 30 tells us how patiently Jehovah had sat refining His people, but they would not be refined, so He had to reject them as reprobate silver. If we will not be refined we shall be rejected.
The refining process is going on, and also the action of the fuller’s soap (Malachi 3: 2). Refining has to do with what we are inwardly, but the fuller’s lye would have its application to our outward ways and associations, it would cleanse our garments. It is said of Christ in the transfiguration that “his garments became shining, exceeding white as snow, such as fuller on earth could not whiten them” (Mark 9: 3). One marked by the features described in James 3:17 is morally transfigured or transformed. Shall we not humbly say that, by the grace of God, whatever the heat of the refiner’s fire, or the sharpness of the fuller’s lye, we want to be purified so as to come out as the wise who have wisdom from [p. 26] above? We do not want to go on with a mixture of blessing and cursing, of sweet and bitter, of salt water and sweet water. James puts it to us, What do you think about it? Will that do for you? No, these things ought not to be. James appeals to the “wise and understanding” that they may refuse what does not come down from above, and give place to the features of the wisdom from above, which are really the beautiful features of Christ.
“But the wisdom from above first is pure, then peaceful, gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, unquestioning, unfeigned”. Purity is its first characteristic; the real power of the kingdom comes out in ability to maintain heavenly purity. These seven things are like the seven pillars of wisdom’s house in Proverbs 9. They are features of the divine nature which are very suitable to the last days, the days in which we live. Purity is the absence of any mixture of dross; the pure metal remains. This is how James introduces the heavenly. There is a general idea that James is a practical man who will put us straight down here, but it is important to see that he does it by introducing the heavenly. He tells us that “every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above”; he speaks of “the Lord of glory”; he would have us to be vessels of the wisdom that is from above. He gives us the light and power of the heavenly. James as well as Paul brings in the heavenly.
These heavenly features were seen in perfection in the Lord. How contrary they are to what obtains in the world! What a contrast to the man described in the early part of the chapter, whose tongue is a world of unrighteousness, and is set on fire of hell!
The “wise” of Daniel 11 find themselves in the presence of antichrist — the king who “shall do according to his will” (verse 36). It is in the presence of all that [p. 27] lawlessness which will be headed up in antichrist that the wise are being refined, and brought out in a heavenly character that is suitable to God. “They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse, and they that turn the many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever”. James would set us all as stars in the moral sky while the features of antichrist are round about us. The whole principle of the world today is that man “shall do according to his will”, and in the presence of such features the features of Christ are to be displayed in the saints. “Meekness” is the effect of being so disciplined of God that there is no longer any action of my own will. It needs a lot of discipline to bring it about. The word for “meek” and “afflicted” is the same in Hebrew indicating that meekness is the product of accepted discipline. The meek man has been through the furnace of affliction and refined there; he has the “meekness of wisdom”.
“Mercy” and “good fruits” are combined because all that is good fruit in the estimation of God must have the character of mercy. It is His own character reproduced in His people. “I will have mercy and not sacrifice”.
All these beautiful features of the wisdom that is from above are the features which God would have to mark His people at the end of the dispensation. James writes for the last days, and takes account of the people of God as “in the dispersion”. However scattered things may be, all that is in God, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit, remains for us. If we have exercised hearts we can come out in these beautiful features of the “wise”. Let us pray over these seven features!