The Judgement is Coming (James 5:1-9)
We can see that in verses 1-6 James castigates a
group of rich people. Why does he do so? He builds up a list of reasons in
verses 4 to 6. The rich he has in mind are guilty of withholding wages from
their workers, of living luxuriously, and of having condemned and killed a
righteous person. So we can deduce that the rich here are opposed to the
Christian faith. Probably they had been the cause of the persecution that
James’ readers were experiencing. Given that only a few years had passed since
the crucifixion of Jesus, it is possible that the James is referring to Jesus
when he writes that the rich had killed a righteous person. Whether James means
this or not, we know that Jesus had said to his disciples that his opponents
would persecute him and would persecute them.
James urges the rich here
to commence weeping and howling, but he is not suggesting repentance. Instead,
he is describing cries of despair because of divine judgement. The divine
judgement is twofold, with one aspect occurring in the present and the other
aspect in the future. Both forms of judgement come from God. In the present, he
ensures that their possessions will be destroyed, even the precious metals that
they might imagine would not erode; and in the future, he will deal with them
severely (they are like animals being prepared for slaughter).[1]
What does this passage say
to us? First, it is unlikely that the rich oppressors would have read this
passage because the letter was not sent to them. So, in a sense, this
description of the fate of the rich oppressors is for the information of the
oppressed. Maybe the sufferers were wondering if God had forgotten them, and
these verses are a reminder that he knows what had happened to them and would
yet take action.
Second, God will judge
those who oppress the poor. We cannot limit the unpaid in verse 4 to
Christians, although among the unpaid there were believers. James points out
that the wages that were kept back speak loudly in heaven. The rich may have
imagined that the poor had no voice, but in fact the laments of the harvesters
were listened to by God and he will yet deal with it. I wonder how many poor
have been oppressed down through history. We are familiar with the Highland Clearances.
Judgement day is coming for those who oppressed the poor at that time.
James’ words here about
the sinful behaviour of the rich are expressions of indignation against evil
practices. In doing this, he was giving to us an example of the proper use of
the tongue. His response justifies the occasions when the church speaks out
against injustice; indeed, his response indicates that the church is required
to say that such behaviour is wrong. James would have been aware that many of
the Old Testament prophets used similar words about injustice, and they have
been models for many Christians to do the same.
Practice
patience
But how should the believers respond as they
endure their problems and wait for the coming of the Lord? James does not
suggest that they should attack their persecutors physically or verbally.
Instead he mentions several outlooks that they should develop as Christians,
each connected to perseverance.
The first response is
patience itself. When we are asked to show patience, we are usually told how
long we will have to be patient for. Perhaps we are in a traffic queue and we
are told that we will have to wait for half an hour. We can spend the time
jumping in and out of the car in order to see if the traffic is moving, or we
can speculate with our passengers about what is causing the problem, or we can
turn on the radio and listen to a nice piece of music. Which option is a sign
of patience? The one listening to the music. In the Christian life, how long to
we have to wait for things to be put right? The second coming of Jesus. It will
be a great event and the equivalent of listening to the music is thinking about
the promises of his coming.
James uses the
illustration of a farmer who has to show patience until the time of harvest –
that is the time when the rains would come. In Palestine, the early rains are
the autumn and winter rains that come between October and January and the later
rains come in March and April in time for the harvest (barley harvest was in
March and wheat harvest was in April and May). Could the farmer make the rains
come earlier by getting anxious? Could he make them come sooner by having a
prayer meeting? He would be regarded as silly if he engaged in such behaviour.
James’ point is that we need to a have a fixed point of guaranteed expectation.
The farmer looked ahead to when the rains would come. Until then, life in a hot
country would seem to be doing the opposite for a good harvest. Similarly, we
look ahead to the return of Jesus even although everything seems to indicate
that there is no point in doing so. But the farmer got the harvest, and we will
get our blessings when Jesus comes.
The second response is the
necessity of establishing our hearts. The plural seems to suggest that this is a
communal responsibility in distinction from developing patience which is an
individual responsibility. Again James links this response to the second coming,
so the means of strengthening is connected to a proper focus on the return of
Jesus. This focus would have been helped in the early church by the practice of
having the Lord’s Supper every Sunday since it is to be done until he comes.
The necessity of strengthening is a reminder that the patience required is not
passive. Instead, it includes resolve to be loyal and a determination to
encourage one another.
The communal focus
continues in the next requirement which is that believers should not grumble
against one another, and it too is connected by James to the second coming,
except that on this occasion he describes Jesus as the Judge. The picture James
uses is that of the Judge observing what is happening and listening to what is
said. Obviously, all this fits with James’ ongoing comments on the misuse of
the tongue. It may be the case that times of opposition are occasions when
grumbling is more likely. Yet grumbling, whenever it occurs, is an inaccurate
comment on the providence of God, and is obviously not an expression of
brotherly love. Moreover, James makes it clear once again that believers will
be judged for using wrong words.
Instead of grumbling,
James says that his readers should think about Old Testament examples of
persevering in times of trial. The first example are the Old Testament prophets
who remained steadfast in times of severe opposition. We should be able to
recall what happened to some of them. Jeremiah was placed in a pit, Daniel was
put in a den of lions, Isaiah was sawn in two, and John the Baptist was imprisoned
and martyred for his loyalty. The message given to each by God resulted in very
strong opposition and several paid for their testimony with their lives.
The second example
mentioned by James is an individual, Job. We know his story, how he had to
persevere in his faith through a sequence of tragedies involving his
possessions, his family and his health. How did Job cope with his troubles? He
did not get much help from the advice of his friends. Instead he thought of the
coming of the Lord. We are familiar with the words recorded in Job 19:25-27: ‘For
I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And
after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I
shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart
faints within me!’ In that verse, he accepts the possibility that things in
this life might get even worse, yet he also affirms that eventually he would
meet with God in the form of a Redeemer, a wonderful description of Jesus.
James mentions two
responses that his readers had deduced from his examples, and since he knows
that they had made these responses it may be an indication that he had spoken
with them before about those examples. The first of the two lessons is that we can
count the suffering prophets blessed, which must be a reference to what
happened to them afterwards when they went to heaven. The second lesson is that
in a strange way the sufferings of the prophets and Job reveal the merciful
purpose of God, and I assume James means that they were witnesses to what the
Lord would yet do for sinners through Jesus.
Three
applications
As we think of James’ message here, three
applications seem suitable. First, the requirement for patience is very counter
cultural and that in two ways. Often the response of people when they have
suffered is to take revenge. Here the believers are being told to leave revenge
with the Lord and not to take it themselves. Again, today we live in instant
society where we are led to assume that answers will be provided immediately.
But that is not the law of God’s kingdom. He works to his own timetable, and
our response is to be steadfastness or persistence.
Second, we should choose
our heroes from those who are good examples of devoted service for Jesus. We all
need role models. Sadly, today people try and copy celebrities and most of them
are not good examples for Christians. Instead we should follow those who serve
the Lord from the heart. We can read about them in biographies and see some of
them in videos. It is also inevitable, given the nature of God’s grace, that we
will see them in churches to which we belong. The best ones are in the Bible
because there we have God’s descriptions of their lives. None of them were
perfect, but all of them were dedicated servants of the Lord.
Third, the words of James
here challenge us to think about how our lives will look when they are assessed
on the Day of Judgement. What will Jesus the Judge think of our words and
actions? He knows all the details and he will pronounce an accurate verdict. Our
degree of dedication and our words will resurface on that day. It is good to
know that the Lord is merciful, but it is also important to remember that he is
truthful and impartial, and we will discover each of them when we stand before
him at the end of the day.
[1] ‘They are mistaken, as I
think, who consider that James here exhorts the rich to repentance. It seems to
me to be a simple denunciation of God’s judgment, by which he meant to terrify
them without giving them any hope of pardon; for all that he says tends only to
despair. He, therefore, does not address them in order to invite them to
repentance; but, on the contrary, he has a regard to the faithful, that they,
hearing of the miserable and of the rich, might not envy their fortune, and
also that knowing that God would be the avenger of the wrongs they suffered,
they might with a calm and resigned mind bear them’ (John Calvin, Comment on
James 5:1).