Introduction
In James’ introductory chapter, he
spoke of four themes he would teach upon in this epistle. One of those is the
theme of the first ten verses of James 4. James expressed that theme saying
Christians are rich because they enjoy an inheritance with Christ in the
kingdom of God. He said in James 1:9, “But the brother of humble circumstances
is to glory in his high position.” The difference in chapters one and four is chapter
one compares believers (the poor) to unbelievers (the rich), but chapter four
compares believers who are rich and poor.
In the first ten verses of chapter
four, James spoke about envying other brothers and sisters and the greater
grace – God’s grace. He spoke about the character of those who envy, quarrel,
and fight and what God felt about the people who do these things. As a
resolution, James stated what Christians must do to return to a right
relationship with God and what God would do as a result.
These verses are pertinent for us
because we, too, at times begrudge a person of his or her possessions. We
become embittered and quarrelsome. James spoke to the heart of every person knowing
we are all weak and need to hear this lesson about returning to God and
receiving His grace.
The Situation
Envy.
James explained the situation in
the first verse. He said, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among
you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?” Before we
dissect this verse, let us study the words. “Quarrels” comes from the Greek
word polemos and means a verbal fight
or dispute[i]. “Conflicts”
comes from the word mache. It means a
physical fight of people at variance or in contention[ii]. When
James spoke of “pleasures,” he used the word hedone, which meant desires and pleasures[iii]. From
this word comes our English word hedonistic. The final word we must understand
is “members.” It comes from the Greek word melos,
which can be a limb or member of the human body or members of a group of people[iv]. As we understand
this, we realize James taught about the conflicts between brother and sister
Christians over desired things, which the rich could more readily afford. James
confronted these Christians about their quarreling and fighting over
“pleasures,” things unnecessary for living, but chosen additions from one’s
desires and wishes. Titus spoke of this, too, in Titus 3:9. He told believers,
“Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the
Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.” James, in later verses, said the
same as Titus, avoid these controversies.
Lusting.
With verses two through five, James
explained what happens when a person desires what another has, why that person
does not get what he or she wants, and what God considers these people. James
stated explicitly what fighting over pleasures was. He said in verse two the
Jerusalem Christians lusted over what they did not possess. A person’s lusting
over something is not an innocent thing. God calls it a sin. He called it “coveting”
in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and commanded the Israelites not to covet
a neighbor’s house, wife, servants, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to the
neighbor (Exodus 20:17). The word “lust” James used comes from the Greek word epithumeo and means to have a desire for
those things forbidden by God[v]. The
word “covet” from the tenth commandment comes from the Hebrew word meaning to desire
greatly and to take pleasure in. In James 4:2, James noted the believers lusted
for the things other Jerusalem Christians owned. God forbade covetousness
because it turned the person’s attention from seeking God and following Him to
seeking something or someone else instead of God. When someone lusts after a
person’s possessions, it refocuses that person’s attention primarily to getting
what he or she desires instead of focusing on God. That which should have been
first in the life of the believer – God - took second place in the heart of the
person. For this reason, God forbade coveting/lusting after what another person
had.
Murder.
James addressed, too, when a person
lusted after something another person had, quarrels and fights could lead to
murder. Murder occurs when one puts him or herself and his or her desires about
the value of another person’s life. Possessions are of greater value than God
and human life to the person who lusts. This way of thinking and living goes against
what Moses taught in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Jesus taught in Matthew 22:37-40.
Relationships with God and other people are to be paramount to any other thing
in the hearts of people. James continued in verse two by telling the Jerusalem
Christians the lust, quarrels, fights, and murders occur because a person
envies another person. Lust comes from wanting something God forbids. Envy is
the heart action from which lust comes. The Greek word for “envy” is zeloo, and it means to desire earnestly[vi]. Envy
leads to boiling with desire for something in another’s possession so that
hatred and anger occur. From that hatred, fights and murder can happen if envy
is not checked.
Unwise.
James did not leave his hearers
with definitions and results of envy and lust. He explained the envious
believers did not get what they desired because they did not ask. This
statement takes the hearer back to what James said in James 1:5. He said the
Christians did not possess because they did not ask. Notice though, James told
them to ask for wisdom when they were going through trials. Lust and envy arise
because of temptation and are a trial. Instead of asking to receive what the
other person has, as James instructed, the believer must ask for wisdom from
God to combat the temptation and grow more Christlike. Besides this reminder,
it brought attention to another lesson from James 1. James taught them in James
1:12 followers of Jesus are richer because they will inherit the crown of life.
Their riches are not comparable to the world’s riches, so do not seek the
riches of the world.
Self-Absorbed.
James went a step further in
chapter four. He implied the person did not have what he or she desired because
they did not ask, not just did not have wisdom. This meant God wanted them to receive
the good things of the world. Yet, James qualified this in verse three and
stated, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so
that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Wrong motives are the reason people
do not get that which they want. “Wrong motives” comes from the Greek word kakos and means improperly or wrongly[vii]. The
Jewish Christians did not receive what they wanted from God, James said,
because they asked improperly. They wanted to use what they received solely for
themselves and not for God’s service – not to give God glory. The believers,
James said, wanted to “spend it on their pleasures.” John spoke about this in 1
John 5:14 when he said, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that
if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” James pointed out in
chapter four, the people did not ask to receive what they wanted from God. He said
they would not have received it because they did not ask for the right reasons.
The believers wanted the other person’s possessions for their own pleasures.
Adulteresses.
James spoke with conviction and
called the Jerusalem Christians “adulteresses” in verse four. This meant the
people desired what other people had to the extent they did not ask God for
them because they knew God would not give it to them. They relegated God to
second or third in their lives behind their own pleasures. When a person
chooses something or someone else as having greater priority in his or her life
than God, God calls that adultery. “Adulteress” comes from the Greek word moichalis and means those who relapse
into idolatry to play the harlot against God by having an intimate relationship
with that person or thing instead of God[viii]. It
is a faithlessness to God that makes a person unclean in the Levitical sense or
makes the person apostate. The adultery of the Jewish Christians, James said,
came from “friendship with the world.” Desiring things of the world instead of
God is “hostility toward God.” Paul explained this in Romans 8:6-7. He said,
“For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life
and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does
not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and
those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
God’s Jealousy.
Lest the Jerusalem believers think
James fabricated this teaching, he reminded them in verse five what Scripture
says and its pertinence for daily living. He said, “He jealously desires the
Spirit which He has made to dwell in us.” James did not take this statement verbatim
from any one part of Scripture but from the intent of it in many places. Proverbs
3:32-34 indicates this saying. Paul spoke on the situation in 1 Corinthians
6:19 when he said, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy
spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” Because
God’s Holy Spirit lives in believers, He jealously desires we stay in
relationship with Him. God is jealous for His people. Moses told the Israelites
the same thing in Exodus 34:14 while they wandered the wilderness. When a
person sins by putting something else at a higher priority than God, the
relationship is not as close as it was earlier. The more a person sins, the
higher the wall that separates the person from God. This point is what James
made in verse five. By lusting after and envying what others possessed, the
believers put their desire for the things over their desire for a close relationship
with God. These things caused a separation from God and a greater alliance with
things of the world – “friendship with the world and hostility toward God.”
These Jerusalem believers sold themselves to sin and the world to get what they
desired and they became adulteresses.
The Exhortation
A Greater Grace.
James began the second section of
this lesson with an assertion in verse six. He said, “But He gives greater
grace.” What God gives is of a greater degree and comes from the pre-eminent
Giver. What He gives is best. James said God gives grace. “Grace” comes from
the Greek word charis, which means
that which brings joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness to life, and loveliness. It
comes from God’s loving-kindness, goodwill, and favor to strengthen, guard, and
increase a person’s faith, knowledge, and affection toward God and lights
within the Christian a desire to exercise Christian virtues[ix]. God’s
grace gives greater pleasure, if pleasure is what the believer seeks, and with
it comes joy, delight, loving-kindness, and goodwill from God and from the
person toward other people and God. What God gives is greater than what can be had
from the world.
Pride and Humility.
Lest that not deter the Jerusalem
believers from envying and fighting over possessions of each other – sinning
against God and man, James gave another reason. This reason must have gripped
the hearts of the church members and then gave them hope. James said in verse
six, “Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the
humble.’” The word “proud” comes from the Greek word huperphanos and means showing one’s self above others with an
overweening estimate of one’s means and merits, despising others or even
treating them with contempt[x]. God
opposes those who consider themselves more worthy of honors and things because
of their status or monetary position in the world. He gave to the person whatever
the he or she has. To take the glory from God and apply it to self places self
before God in importance. Counter to this, James said God gives grace to the
humble. God gives joy, pleasure, delight loving-kindness, and goodwill to the
humble, those who do not consider themselves above God or other people. Humble
people realize they are not greater than God and do not take the glory from
God, but rely upon Him for their every need and for His plan for greater good. By
saying this, James implied God does not give grace to the proud. They are never
satisfied or sated and always seek more things and honors only to never have
lasting joy, pleasure, kindness, and goodwill. This verse was James’ warning to
those who envied and fought over things of the world - things other people had
and they did not.
To Receive God’s Grace.
With verses seven to nine, James
explained how to receive God’s grace. He listed six things people must do to
receive God’s grace. These verses read like a to-do list. James said:
·
Submit to God
·
Resist the Devil
·
Draw near to God
·
Cleanse your hands
·
Purify your hearts –
a)
Be miserable and mourn and weep
b)
Let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to
gloom
·
Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord
Submit to God
Submitting to God means subordinating
yourself and your plans to God and yielding to His advice and warning. Submitting
is subjecting yourself to another person. Peter encouraged his hearers “to
humble themselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt them at the
proper time” (Peter 5:6).
Resist the Devil
Resisting is not just a refusal to do
something, but is actively opposing something or someone. Here James told the
believers to “resist the devil and he will flee.” Actively seek God - His will and strength - and the devil cannot
stand against you. For Paul, this is putting on the armor of God to stand
against the schemes of the devil (Ephesians 6:11). By doing this, the believer
relies on God and uses His power to combat Satan.
Draw Near To God
Drawing near to God brings a promise of
God drawing near to the believer. “Drawing near” means to join another person, in
this case God. The believer forms an intentional bond with God subjecting him
or herself to God’s will, love, grace, and power. By drawing near to God,
believers have lasting joy and hope. The Chronicler stated to the Israelites in
2 Chronicles 15:2, “The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek
Him, He will let you find Him, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”
James stated this promise as a lesson and reminder for the believers of the
Jerusalem church.
Cleanse Your Hands
Cleansing one’s hands means making one’s
self clean from physical stains and dirt. For one’s relationship with God, it
means a moral cleanness from evil and the contamination from sins and guilt. In
the Levitical sense, a moral cleanliness occurred when a person removed his or her
sins by the method God commanded in the Old Testament – via the sacrifices at
the temple and the washing of hands and garments. God never meant this cleaning
to be sufficient to remove sins forever, but as a means to be in God’s presence
at that time. By cleaning one’s hands from sin, a person could go into the presence
of God.
Purify Your Hearts
To remove the sins of people for all time,
God gave the new covenant with the better sacrifice, His Son, Jesus Christ,
whose blood removed the filth of sin and guilt and paid the judgment penalty for
every person who believes in Him. This sacrifice provided the purification of
hearts of all believers so they can have access to God anytime they return to
Him. From this, we learn James meant for believers to turn to God, confess
their sins with earnest hearts, and live in union with Him. Peter extended
James’ teaching in 1 Peter 1:22 when he said, “Since you have in obedience to
the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently
love one another from the heart.”
James made one other statement about
cleansing hands and heart. He called them double-minded. It alluded to James
1:8. When they cleansed their hearts and hands, they were not to do it just for
the moment, but in earnest and with all their heart and mind. They could not
expect forgiveness when they wavered and doubted about God’s desire to bless
them with His grace – love, goodwill, and joy. They had to return to God with
sincerity seeking to follow Him completely. This required mourning and weeping
over their sins and separation from God realizing the joy and pleasures they
sought would not fulfill them but would bring gloom. That joy was a false joy.
Humble Yourself Before God
The final thing James commanded the
believers to do was to humble themselves in the presence of the Lord. This
called for them to realize they themselves were nothing compared to their
Creator, Jehovah God. When a person humbles him or herself, he or she
recognizes his or her pride and lowness and seeks forgiveness from God
recognizing He is greater. He provides all they need for physical and spiritual
life. Nothing they do or can grasp for themselves would be adequate or enough.
None of it would bring joy or the greatest riches - the crown of life in God’s
kingdom. What is of the earth perishes. What God gives is eternal.
Exaltation - God’s Action Toward You.
James said when a believer arrives at this
point – humbling him or herself before God – God will draw near to and exalt
him or her. He will lift the person up in dignity, honor, and joy. This person
knows God loves him or her and wants the best for him or her. Job expressed
this exaltation in Job 5:11 when he said, “So that He sets on high those who
are lowly and those who mourn are lifted to safety.” Ezekiel expressed this in
Ezekiel 21:26.
Recap
When a person desires what another
person has be it things or people so he or she thinks continually on that desire,
envy and lust occur. When a person gives envy and lust free rein, anger and
hatred happen. From that, quarrels and fighting ensue so that the one who has
defends his or her right to have and keep the thing or person and the one who
does not have fights to get it. Both people in this situation show pride and
lack of care for the other person. When this fighting escalates to an intensity
where one or the other person is killed, a devaluing of human life occurs. From
this situation, the relationship with God and other people becomes secondary to
the desire to have things or people. When people replace God as primary in a
person’s life, adultery occurs. Adultery comes from idolizing something or
someone more than God and shows the person desires “friendship with the world”
more than a relationship with God. When that occurs, the person becomes an enemy
of God. Because of this sin and because God jealously desires the Spirit He
made to dwell in believers, He disciplines and judges people from His
righteousness.
James made clear the Jerusalem
believers realized they placed their lusts before God in their lives. He
reminded them God gives a greater grace – a greater joy, love, goodwill, mercy,
and pleasure – than can be found in things from the world. James exhorted them
to return to God by telling them God opposes the proud. He encouraged them to
return to God because He gives grace to the humble. James explained to the
Christians of Jerusalem how to return to God. He told them to submit to God, resist
the devil, draw near to God, cleanse their hands, purify their hearts, and
humble themselves in the presence of the Lord. God wants every person to return
to Him, and He promises He will forgive them.
Relevance and Conclusion
James reminded the Jerusalem
Christians God’s grace is the greater blessing and benefit for the people than
what they could give themselves. By relying solely upon themselves, they
created pride in providing and continued to turn away from God creating a
bigger wall between Him and themselves. The pleasures and desires they sought
caused strife between them and the surrounding people, including other members
of the body of Christ.
Today we see this happening in
daily life and in our churches. God blesses some people with more physical
prosperity than others for His purposes. When people who do not have the same
blessings from God envy their richer brothers and sisters, hatred builds in
them which then creates a wall in their relationship with the person and with
God. That person who envies no longer sees the blessings God have him or her
and discounts it wanting worldly things. Contentment is not found in God’s provisions.
Just as James brought this situation to the attention of the Jerusalem
Christians, he warns us, too, of this situation in our own churches and within
ourselves.
As a good teacher, James reminds us
that God gives a greater grace than any we think we could give for ourselves.
Our joy will not be better with possessions provided by our own hands. In
addition to this, God’s will not smile on our self-reliance instead of Him nor on
our pride in having done so. Because the natural human tendency is to walk away
from God and become worldly – being prideful, angry, envious, hateful, James
reminds each believer, and even each person, a better grace - God’s grace - is
available for those who turn to God. He gave six things each person must do to
receive God’s grace as above outlined. The biggest step is to humble yourself
before God. This step is the hardest for any person. It requires a yielding of
our desires and plans to God and His better plan. It requires a submission of
our goals to God’s best goal – proclamation of the Good News of salvation
available to every person.
As a Christian today, have you
allowed Satan to convince you to strive for that bigger house, higher position
in the company, industry, or organization? Have you allowed him to convince you
to strive for things beyond necessary because you deserve them? Or have you
stopped asking God what to strive toward and are now doing your own thing
without His guidance regarding what is best for you and your family?
If you are a Christian in service
to the Lord, have you sought greater income in fear you will not have enough on
which to retire? Have you sought leadership positions so that your works will
be more visible and praise be given to you? Maybe you simply stopped seeking
God’s will because you are tired and you have lost sight of God’s calling.
We each can return to God. God is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. He wants to renew a relationship with
you. Remember, that is why He gave Jesus Christ to be the living sinless
sacrifice on a cross. God’s plans are the best plans for us, our families, and
the world. God’s plan from the beginning of the world is to be in a
relationship with every person. Through you, His child, He desires to make His
love known to other people. Will you return to Him and allow His grace to pour
to you and through you? Will you be the conduit of His love and mercy so other
people will see God through you, seek Him, and come to know Him in a saving
relationship?
If you do not know God in this
personal way, He waits for you to call to Him. You only have to admit Jesus
Christ is God’s Son. Believe He died as the sacrifice for your sins to give you
salvation and eternal life. Confess your sins to God with an earnest and
contrite and He will forgive you. You can be rich because you have an
inheritance in the kingdom of God, too.
Whether you already are a Christian
and just need to return to God seeking forgiveness or you are not a Christian
and want to be, God waits to welcome you into a relationship with Him.
What will you decide?
What will you do today?
[i]
Thayer and Smith, The NAS New Testament
Greek Lexicon, 1999. (http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/polemos.html).
