[James' scolding, repentant words become increasingly harsh on the church of his day. Here he uses such strong language that one is almost tempted to think that he may not be addressing his invectives to believers. Yet the very first thing I would like to emphasise is that this exhortation is addressed to Christian believers, to the church of Christ. It is to Christian believers that he is saying these things: you murder, you are envious, you have nothing, you do not pray, you are fornicating men and women, you are enemies of God! And that is what is so shocking in this passage. Also, the distinction in the last verse between "prideful" and "humble": it does not refer to those outside the church and those inside the church, but there are prideful and humble believers inside the church! And James is rebuking the faith of his readers precisely because he sees from certain signs, news, reports, that one of the greatest dangers threatens believers: pride, arrogance, presumption! What a strange contradiction: prideful believers, arrogant piety! But is there such a thing? Does it exist? - Yes. Very often. Even today! James shows the inappropriateness of such a state of faith in three respects: in our relationship to people, to God, and to the world. Let's look at each of them one by one!1) We learn from the letter, and the historical record confirms this, that the few churches to which James addresses his letter were living in a time of turmoil and warfare. Hot-headed patriots were constantly stirring up rebellions against the occupying Roman power. Religious fanaticism, it seems, did not shrink from murder. The country was in a confused and unhappy political situation, and the bloody uprisings did not help the people. Persecuted Christians were at the head of the movements, and it is probable that they watched the changing events with dread or secret hope - and yet James accuses them directly: 'Where are there wars and strife among you? Is it not from your jealousies, which war among your members? Ye desire something, and ye have none: ye kill and envy, and cannot gain it; ye fight and war, and have nothing, because ye ask not. (Jas 4:1-2) It is as if he were saying, "You may not personally be involved in the actions that are causing so much turmoil among you, but don't think that you have no part in them. Yes, you are responsible for all the misfortunes in which your people are suffering, because the root of the political struggles, the turmoil, the warfare, is also within you: in your hearts! It is from your jealousies that these murders arise, from the desires of your members, from your selfish desires, from the desires of your envious nature!
It is good thus to see our individual lives in such a connection with the lives and destinies of our whole people! It means that our own individual thoughts, feelings, desires and passions affect the whole community in which we live. Physicists tell us that the law of gravitational attraction in the universe says that even the slightest movement, such as raising my hand, cannot happen without some tiny effect on the whole universe. How much more so in the spiritual world, where the dynamic forces of emotions, desires and feelings are in tension! Let it not be thought that the little squabbles which take place within the family, the little intrigues which arise between neighbours and colleagues, the hateful thoughts of revenge which gather in the depths of the heart of a bitter man, such movements of the soul remain isolated phenomena. - No!" says James, "but they are mysterious forces, influences, radiations, which in some way live on, infect, pollute the air, and hinder the possibilities of peaceful coexistence and the prosperity of the whole people. The inner unpeacefulness is projected, spilled out, and feeds, increases the many tensions in the general human coexistence.
What he is saying here is astonishing: "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Is it not from your jealousies, which are warring among your members? Ye desire something, and ye have none: ye murder and envy, and cannot obtain it; ye fight and war, and have nothing, because ye ask not. (Jas 4:1-2) And now it would be especially good if the Holy Spirit of God would make this warning alive for us and make us understand from it the responsibility we all personally have at this very moment, when God's grace, by easing the general international tension, gives us a real hope for a peaceful unfolding. Through the words of James, the Lord is asking us not to tolerate in ourselves any cynicism, any gloating 'just as it should be', any 'temper' which feeds wars and struggles and thus prevents the desired peaceful unfolding. Let us now learn from our Lord what He has asked: that He is gentle and humble of heart! "God opposes the proud" (Jas 4:6b) - that is, He opposes those who are prideful, arrogant, self-righteous, and who judge the living and the dead with sovereignty, and "He gives grace to the humble." (James 4:6c) And we need that grace! So let us humble ourselves under God's mighty hand, now more than ever.
2) Then he continues his rebuke: "...you have nothing, because you do not ask. You ask, but you receive not, because you ask not well, that you may spend it on your provocations." (Jas 4:2c-3) This expresses the pride of the believer in God. He does not ask God for what he needs, or if he does ask, he does not ask well, he asks selfishly. Here James takes us back to the inner room. Into our private communion with God, into our prayer life. Look, he says, here is the root of all trouble, in your prayer life, in its messiness, its incompleteness. "You argue too much," he says. You ponder, you quarrel, you wish, you long - but you pray little! You do not take seriously this great opportunity to pray, to turn with our pleading words to the place where the destiny of the world is being settled in the highest place, before the royal throne of grace! We form our own opinions about the historical situation, we make plans for our future, we judge and criticise people and nations without discussing all this in silent prayer with our Lord.
In the book "Letters from Hell", the devils rejoice in hell among themselves that believers themselves do not take seriously what they could gain from God through prayer! But we give the devils much pleasure in this way! With our prayers! We see our lives as a big private business, where we fight for our place and opportunities by our skill, positioning, violence, and not in the kind of fellowship with God that He has established with us through the death of Jesus. So then, of course, it is these particular "arousals" that lead us in everything: in our choice of mate, in our upbringing of children, in our attitude to work, to world events! These are the impulses that give birth to the fights and wars. For we do not ask the Lord for guidance in the everyday events of life, but we produce them ourselves!
"You have nothing because you do not ask." (James 4:2), James says reproachfully. Or do you ask? Do you say you pray? Well, he continues, "You ask, but you receive nothing, because you do not ask well, so that you spend it on your frivolities" (James 4:3). What do you usually ask for? Have you not noticed how selfish, how self-centred even your prayer is? We usually translate Jesus' saying: "Take my word upon you" (Mt 11,29a) and interpret it as follows: "Lord, take my word upon you! "Take my word, O Lord, take me, my Lord, Here are my plans, my hopes, my desires: make them come true, Lord! Help me, give me health, a job, bread, good children, surround me with your love, your grace. Isn't that how we pray? Even our prayers are always about me! As if the whole heavenly apparatus were there to serve the interests of the self! How lightly we stand before God even in prayer, even there we cannot truly humble ourselves, even there we are preoccupied with ourselves, even there we think we are the centre of the world! Even there, we cannot seek what God's will is, what God's plan is for me, for us, for our Church, for our people, for all humanity. No wonder we have little experience of the power of prayer, for "God is against the proud"! (James 4:6b) We ask in vain, but we do not receive, because we ask wrongly! It is to spend it on our frivolities! Grace is given to the humble, to those who do not want to assert their small self against God, but dare to be fully His!
3) Finally, James scourges his followers for their wrong attitude towards the world: "Men and women of harlotry, do you not know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? He who therefore would be a friend of this world becomes an enemy of God." (James 4:4) Here the pride of the believer is shown in his desire to misunderstand this Word. He thinks, well, God's Word also tells me to turn away from this world. The world is ungodly, sinful, satanic, the friendship of the world makes you an enemy of God. So I should withdraw, I should ignore it, I should let the world go its own way to destruction, I should only concern myself with the things of God, I am the chosen one whom God has chosen out of this world that is doomed to destruction, so I should not pollute myself with it! This is the arrogant piety which, in the consciousness of its own election, looks down on the world from on high, and which, as it were, appropriates God's love for itself or for the Church, and believes that only God's wrath can prevail against the world.
Well, in this Word, that "...the friendship of the world is enmity with God" - that is not what it is! This is not the arrogant turning away from the world that he is encouraging! For he really knows - as we would know! - that God's love is not limited to the lives of a few believers, or even to the Church, because God loved the world by giving His only begotten Son! The benefits and effects of Christ's redemptive death are not limited to the church, but extend to the whole world. The same Jesus Christ who died for us on Calvary is Lord of the whole world! The same Jesus Christ who obtained for us the forgiveness of sins through the sacrifice of eternal life, who protects and preserves His Church: the same Christ is at work in the history of the world to fulfil His redemptive glory. A believer meets Christ in the world, for He is at work in the world. And it is not the world outside his heart or his church that the believer must contend with, but the world inside his heart and his church! It is not the love of the world that makes me an enemy of God, which God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son for it, but the love of the world within me! It is the world that is the enemy, the world that is gaining ground in me, in my thoughts, in my behaviour, in my spirit, which is contrary to God's will. I must love the world outside of me with the sacrificial, servant love with which God has made me, through Christ, one of his own.
It also says (according to an earlier new translation), "God jealously desires the soul which he has given to dwell in us." (James 4:5) What unheard of love is this! Like a loving bridegroom, he "jealously desires" a man's soul. That is why he calls the believer a harlot, whose soul is not filled with his love, but with worldly cares, desires, and lusts, and at the same time despises, despises, hates, calls the outside world Satan. James says: look, you also carry within you, you warm in yourself, what you despise in others! You have the same fears in you that you consider satanic in the so-called unbelieving world! Dost thou not perceive that of all pride, prideful faith, haughty piety, is the most hateful? To the proud God is against them, and only the humble have grace!
We have already taken a step towards humility, when we see what pitiful figures we are, haughty Christians, prideful believers, and overweening pious men! Further in this direction, deeper still, going down the steps of humility, there is the cross of Christ, there is grace, where we can begin again and live our faithful life differently!
It is indeed as our hymn says:
Before the Lord, if thou dost humble the heart,
He will not wait for you in vain, He will come in and bless you.
Pride of the flesh is death! But if you repent of your sin,
His Holy Spirit will abound, And the heart will find salvation.
(Cant. 312, verse 3)
Amen
Date: 12 July 1953.
Lesson
Jak 4,1-6