Christianity in Action (James 1:22-27)
James is pastoring believers who
have lost a great deal for following Christ closely – they have undergone
opposition and probably persecution. He deals with various dangers and sins
that they are now facing and provides appropriate advice for them to implement
in their new circumstances. We might imagine that since they had experienced
trouble because of their faith he would advise them to keep a low profile.
Instead, he urges them to engage in active Christianity based on the word of
God. In order to do this, he tells them that they need to understand the
purpose of the Bible and to persevere in obedience to it.
The purpose of the Bible
The first point that we can take
from what James says here is that the Bible is the only rule to direct us how
we may obey God. This is an important point to make and it is a reminder that
the message of the Bible is understandable. While there are doctrinal passages
that are difficult to understand, and about which we require help from teachers
as to their meaning, we cannot say that the practical demands are hard to
understand. They may be hard to obey, but that is not the same as saying that
they are hard to understand.
Connected to this fact is the
privilege and responsibility that we have been given. After all, James could
not have said this description to people who had never received the word of
God. Such are ignorant of what he requires. In his grace, he has given his word
to us, which is a great privilege because it tells us about the way of
salvation and about how we can live to his glory, which is the best way to live.
But along with being given it we have received a great responsibility, which
makes us accountable to God regarding our obedience of it.
The second point that James makes
is that the Bible is primarily practical. When he makes this statement, he says
something that we know is obvious. We only have to think of passages such as
the Ten Commandments to realise that is the case. Of course, James would have
been speaking initially of the Old Testament since the New Testament had not
been written at his time of writing. Nevertheless, what he says about the Old
is also true of the New. The Sermon on the Mount and the practical sections of
Paul’s letters and many other passages show that is the case. James makes it
very clear that belief and behaviour go together.
In stating this claim, James makes
serious points. First, he says that a failure to obey the word of God indicates
that we have been deceived – he does not say that such are in danger of
becoming deceived. Earlier in his letter he had reminded his readers of the
danger of temptations by the devil. All the temptations of the devil are
designed to prevent us from obeying the word of God. We can know that he has succeeded
if we choose not to obey the Bible. Disobedience is the sign that the devil has
deceived us. No doubt, the readers of this letter would have faced situations
in which it would have been difficult to obey God’s commandments and
disobedience would have seemed suitable. If they failed to obey, they have been
deceived. The same goes for ourselves whenever we fail to obey what God
requires.
Second, his illustration of a man
looking into a mirror tells us that the best way to remember God’s word is to practice
what it says. He points out that it is possible to read the word intensely,
with great concentration, similar to how a man checks how he looks in a mirror.
We can imagine a man looking into a mirror and noticing that he had a black
mark on his face. He knows that he should wash his face, but on leaving his
mirror he forgets about his black mark and makes his way along the road.
Although he has forgotten his black mark, everyone he meets can tell he has not
washed his face. Similarly, when we discover the commandments in the Bible by
diligent searching, if we forget to practice them, then everyone we meet can
see very easily that we are not practising them. It does not matter how
friendly the man is, those he speaks to see his black mark. So we can be nice
to people, yet they will see if we are disobeying the demands of the Bible.
The perseverance of the saints
Earlier we mentioned that the
Bible is straightforward to understand as far as obedience to God’s
commandments is concerned. Now in verse 25, James says that obedience to the
Bible produces spiritual freedom. Indeed, the Bible is designed to bring such
liberty to God’s people.
James uses a different word to
describe the Bible in this verse. Instead of calling it the word of God he says
that it is the perfect law. Now we live in a society that realises the
importance of the rule of law and one of the goals of earthly governments is to
produce better laws, a reminder that they never have what they regard as
perfect laws. God’s government does not have to engage in such projects because
he already has the perfect law.
Obedience to God’s word results in
freedom from the enslavements of sin in our own hearts. If I am drawn to a
wrong practice, the best response to preventing it is to obey a commandment
that prevents it. For example, I may be tempted to say something untrue about
my neighbour. Instead of doing so, I do something that expresses love for my
neighbour. When I do that, I am delivered from the chain of saying what was
wrong and I also avoid all the consequences that could flow from my wrong
words. It is a fact that if people had done that with their temptations when
they first came, they would not now be enslaved to those temptations.
Of course, it is not a sign of
spiritual freedom only to obey a commandment once. Instead the obedience has to
be lifelong. Sometimes we discuss the perseverance of the saints with regard to
our eternal destiny because we are concerned about it. Here we another type of
perseverance that God is concerned about, which is that we obey his word in a
consistent, comprehensive lifelong manner. So the question comes to us, are we
living in freedom?
There are many things that can
cause us to lose this freedom. One is tradition, things handed down and which
eventually become bondage. Where did all the teachings that the Reformers
rejected come from? They were traditions handed down from the past, most of
which the people had no idea why they were doing them. Traditions always have
the tendency to turn us into men-pleasers rather than God-pleasers and we end
up being concerned about their opinions instead of being concerned about what
God says. Happy is the person who can say about his life, ‘I only want to do
what God tells me to do.’
Another barrier to true freedom is
license, which is a failure to obey the commandments of God. License is an
expression of rebellion and it occurs whenever we disobey. In a strange way,
those who live in such a way imagine that they are finding freedom and
different words can be used to describe it such as self-independence and find
yourself. But all that is happening is a move to another master, whether it is
sinful self, the world, or the devil, or a combination of them. Moving away
from God’s law is not a move towards liberty. Instead it is a journey into
terrible bondage.
James gives a great encouragement
to his readers when he tells them that obedience to God’s word produces
immediate blessing. The blessing could be a divine blessing, such as peace or
joy sent by God. Or it could be that an obedient believer is happy in the sense
that he is freed from a condemning conscience or a sense of feeling guilty that
accompanies obedience. Either way, obedience to the word of God is the better
way to live.
The purity of religion
James reminds his readers that
there is such a thing as a worthless religion to avoid if we are wise, and he
has reminded his readers that true wisdom may be obtained from God by asking
for it. He provides the evidence for identifying such a thing, and the evidence
is an unbridled tongue or an uncontrolled tongue. James is not advocating that
his readers adopt silence as an expression of true religion because we have to
use our tongues in order to praise God, pray to him, have fellowship with one
another, and witness about our faith to other people. He says a lot about the
tongue in chapter 3, so we can wait until we reach there before looking at its
misuse more closely. Meanwhile we can observe the basic point he is making,
which is how wrong it is to be a talker about religion rather than a doer of
it. We can understand how someone can read the Bible, discover its
commandments, speak about them, and then not obey them. James says that such a
religion is worthless.
In contrast, James describes an
alternative kind of religion, which is also a very kind religion. The first
point that he makes is that this true religion is an expression of the life of
the Christian family – it takes place before the Father. This means that he is
the Spectator of what we are doing as his people. He delights to observe the
different ways in which his children engage in brotherly love. At the same
time, we recall that the Father is holy and wants his children to live holy
lives. Both these emphases are made here by James.
The expression of brotherly love
that James mentions is caring for orphans and widows. It may be that he has in
mind families that have been affected by the recent persecution they had gone
through and we can easily imagine how an increase in the number of orphans and
widows would be a sad and common outcome. Yet even if that is the initial case
with James, it does not mean that the church should only care about such in
times of persecution. Instead they should be a priority all the time. It would
be a sad church that did not care for its families that were in such straits.
Was the care of widows an ongoing
problem in the church in Jerusalem? It was an issue that the apostles had to
deal with in Acts 6. Maybe it was forgotten about easily among all the other
demands of life. Whether or not it was a longterm problem, the readers of
James’ letter, who probably were connected to the church in Jerusalem before
they were scattered, were reminded of this responsibility.
We should note that this focus is
not only a New Testament emphasis. In the Old Testament, God commands his
people to take care of widows and orphans who belonged to the covenant
community. It is possible that James is thinking of Psalm 68:50 (‘Father of the
fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation’) because it
mentions the same two themes as the verse from James – care and holiness. One
of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, wrongly assumed that his troubles had come to him
because he had not cared for widows and fatherless: ‘You have sent widows away
empty, and the arms of the fatherless were crushed. Therefore snares are all
around you, and sudden terror overwhelms you’ (Job 22:9-10). Eliphaz was wrong
in saying this to Job, yet his words reveal the importance of caring for widows
and fatherless.
Of course, we may say that social
security covers the financial needs of widows and orphans. Yet James does not
limit the concern to meeting financial needs. He merely says that they should
be visited, and he does not limit the visiting to office-bearers. I recall hearing
of Christian men would visit regularly widowed church families to have family
worship with them.
There is another obvious deduction
that we can make, which is that God wants his people to care about the most
vulnerable among them. It is interesting to note what will be regarded as important
on the Day of Judgement, as described in Matthew 25: ‘Then the King will say to
those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and
you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you
welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I
was in prison and you came to me.” Then the righteous will answer him, saying,
“Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?
And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will
answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these
my brothers, you did it to me”’ (Matt. 25:34-40).
The second aspect of true religion
is ‘to keep oneself unstained from the world’. This may seem like a daunting
target and impossible to attain. Of course, by the world James does not mean
the created world in which we can see the power and wisdom of God. Instead he
means the idolatry that puts someone or something above Jesus, the sinful
behaviour and wrong goals of society that is pursued instead of obedience to
God’s commands, and the outlook that is never satisfied with what it has, but
which is marked by covetousness.
It may help us to distinguish
first between our outward behaviour and our inward behaviour. The fact is,
there is no valid excuse if we sin outwardly because we should be able as
Christians not to behave in such a manner. There is no reason why I should
speak inappropriately or engage in a wrong practice. The simple way to avoid
those things is just to say no to them. It should be the case that a
non-Christian should not be able to point the finger at a Christian and say
that they have said or done a wrong thing.
How about our inward sinfulness
with regard to the world? We have to accept the fact that we will never be
sinless in heart and mind while we are in this world. So how do we stop the
world influencing us? One way is by doing what the Bible says instead of
ignoring what it commands. A second way is to pray for cleansing constantly by
the the blood of Jesus. A third way is to ask God for the Spirit’s power to
work in our hearts when we sense the drawing power of the world. A fourth way
is for us to be encouraging one another by mentioning spiritual things to one
another. There is a verse of a hymn that says this very simply:
Tell me the same old story when you have cause to fear
That this world’s empty glory is costing me too dear.
Yes, and when that world’s glory is dawning on my soul,
Tell me the old, old
story: ‘Christ Jesus makes thee whole.’
Obviously, this is a statement
that the world can pollute. It is also a clear assertion of our responsibility
to prevent pollution. Tolerating or dabbling in things that will pollute our
minds or our affections is the opposite of true religion. In general, it is not
difficult to avoid pollution. The TV has an off switch, the newspaper article
does not have to be read, the immoral conversation in the place of employment
does not have to be participated in. Yet James is also indicating that one way
to keep pollution away is to do what is commanded by God. After all, if his readers
spent time caring for the needy, they would not spend that time getting
polluted.
In conclusion, we can say, first,
that true religion is social (helping others) and sacred (conscious of the eyes
of God), or as put elsewhere it involves love for our neighbour and love for
God. Second, true religion can be practised in any set of circumstances,
whether in times of persecution or in times of peace. Third, we have to ask
ourselves repeatedly if we have true religion.