Some advocate the church should become involved with every possible social endeavor. They say Christians ought to Christianize society. They find in James 1:27 the basis of their contentions. They call this passage of Scripture the Magna Carta for Christian social action. But is that what this verse really teaches? If we divorce it from its setting and see no relationship between it and the verses which precede it, only then is such a meaning conceivable.
James has been dealing with matters concerning a man's relationship to God. In the immediate context regeneration through the Word of truth provides the basis for the believer's conduct. It's the Word of truth that produces "pure" or "genuine" religion (James 1:27).
Part 1 (James 1: 18-21)
Of all God's gifts to man, the most precious is the new birth. James associates "every good gift and every perfect gift" (James 1: 17) with "of his own will begat he us" (vs. 18). This sounds very much like the Apostle Paul. The Scriptures do not give us the least hint in this passage, or in any other place, that salvation can be achieved through human merit.
Before challenging his Christian readers to be "doers of the word" (vs. 22) James reminds them of the work of regeneration which God performed in them. To be begotten of God is to have life imparted to us. to be born again. That's what regeneration means. James associates several important truths with this life from God. God gives it of His own will. Man merely receives it. No one can earn it.
This good and perfect gift is related to the Word of truth. The Scriptures are the means by which God's will, relative to our salvation, becomes a reality for us. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the place of the Word as an instrument in salvation is a part of God's plan and will from eternity past.
This being said, we should know the Word well. We should be able to handle it with precision. God never decreed man should be saved by divine fiat. Rather, He willed His infallible Word be used by the Holy Spirit, for men... even fallible men, to bring conviction and salvation to sinners.
God's purpose in saving us is that we should be to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:12) and that we should be holy and without blame before him in love (Ephesians 1:4).
God purpose, "that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures" (James 1:18), is a reference to an Old Testament practice.
As an act of consecration and in connection with the Passover feast celebration, the Jews brought a sampling of the harvest which became a token, an earnest, so the rest of the harvest would follow and it would be the same kind as represented by the first fruit. The whole practice had to do with ownership and priorities.
The new birth is the starting point which makes possible subsequent growth in the likeness of "the Father of lights." James is now ready to explain what the Word of truth requires of us if we are to be conformed ot the image of our procreator (vs. 19-21).
The same Word which the Holy Spirit used to regenerate us and bring us to see our need of receiving Christ is also the means and the measure of the Christian's deportment. All of our actions are to be regulated by the Word of truth. We must be quick to hear the message, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.
Often we are swift to speak, slow to hear, and quick to wrath. These qualities are not natural to men, they require, for their fulfillment, the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart.
James is striking here at the sins of unjust criticism and pride. Men do not want to hear what God or someone else has to say because they feel sufficient and think they possess better knowledge.. they're comfortable the way they are. They speak quickly because they are confident in their complacency.. thinking they have all the right answers. They have no patience and explode in anger because they have been offended... truth is always offensive.. when you're standing outside of it!
Anger and talk are very definitely related. Anger causes irrational speech. Soon the talk incites the temper, and the temper the talk.
Evidently, James understood this relationship between speech and anger because he follows his exhortation with the comment, "for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (vs. 20). That is, man's wrath doesn't produce God's righteousness. The display of wrath by a believer is not a demonstration of the fruit of the Spirit in the heart. One aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is "peace" (Galatians 5:22), which is, of course, contrary to wrath.
The evils to be put away (James 1:21) are actions which are opposed to the Word of truth. Here in the Word is called the "engrafted" word. James calls hot temper by its real name--sin. The same word which was the instrument to bring life (vs. 18) is that which is to govern conduct (vs. 19b). It sets the standard of Christian behavior.
A definite relationship is implied here between receiving the "engrafted word" and putting away the sins described in the first part of the verse 21. When we receive the Word and obey it, these sins must go. While the sins remain, our appetite for the Word of God diminishes. The poisonous and noxious weeds of "filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness" or better "over flowing of wickedness," must be rotted out before the implanted Word of truth will produce its best results.
No doubt the "filthiness" here refers to impurity related to thought and speech (vs. 19). "Wickedness" or as the King James has it "superfluity of naughtiness," means "malice produced by forbidden anger." These, James insists, are to be dug up and discarded much as you would weed the garden. Their presence is certain to dwarf the soul.
Part 2 (James 1:22-27)
James has already spoken about "receiving the Word (vs 21). Now he wants to explain how a person acts who has had thw Rod implanted in him. He is saved, but he must practice the precepts. Wrong as it is never to listen, it's also wrong merely to listen and never to act.
Some Christians are like sponges, always soaking in spiritual truth but never giving anything out. The more we know, the more truth we are exposed to, the more responsible we become. The doing of the Word involves work on our part.
It means we get on the team with God and off the grandstand. We're servants, not spectators. God wants active and involved participation. To do otherwise is to miscalculate. That's precisely what James means by "deceiving your own selves" (vs. 22). No one else is fooled. Self-deception is the worst kind of ignorance.
When one choses to not practice the precepts of the Word he is like a person who looks at himself in a mirror, observes his need for grooming, but turns from the mirror without attempting to change his appearance (vs. 24). Many professing Christians live just like that today.
Our lives are untidy, we're not well groomed. Sunday after Sunday we hear the Word in an evangelical church from a pastor... week after week we are exposed to the Word through one avenue or another; yet our lives are never changed. Why? Is the Bible at fault? Is the Lord to blame?
James lays the blame at the doorstep of the hearer. He "goeth his way" and "forgetteth" (vs. 24). The truth of Scripture must be lived. It must be practiced if its benefits are to be realized. The one to whom James refers is guilty of not heeding the warnings which he observes.
He takes only a passing glance, and away he goes. What's worse, he quickly turns his attention to other interests...he "forgets what manner of man he was" (vs. 24b). This is what a person is like who is under the faithful proclamation of the Word but never applies it to this own needs.
Verse 25 introduces us to the one who is not only confronted with the Word but whose life is altered by its power. He "looks", which means he is curious and eager to understand and appropriate God's Word. He "continues" in the Word, unlike the man who "goes on his way".
The blessing of God is promised to attend the person who "hears" the Word and performs what the "law of liberty" demands. The term "law" implies certain duties are required of us. The word "liberty" suggests we obey the Word willingly and freely--not under compulsion as slaves but wholeheartedly in love as sons and daughters of God. Believers delight in God's commandments, and so perform them eagerly.
James is concerned about the mere religious profession. He is fully aware of people who are punctilious about forms and ceremonies but fail to bridle the tongue. People who have no control over a razor-sharp tongue are not truly religious (vs. 26).
The word "religion" from its Latin derivation means "to rebind" and implies a religious man is a person who has been rebound to God. A critical and vitriolic tongue is an evidence of an empty profession of faith and of estrangement from God.
I've never liked the term "religous" because of its negative connotation. Nowadays.. its seems to fit those who use works to earn favor... when really James teaches pure and true religion is the opposite of works based belief.
A genuine relationship to God, a real experience with the Holy Spirit, a truly regenerate heart, manifests itself in a "pure" religion (vs. 27). James is speaking about the outcome of a genuine faith. He is not suggesting philanthropic service, financing orphanages or hospitals, or any kind of human social morality are sufficient to get us to Heaven.
True religion involves service and ministrations, but it must be "pure"--that is, performance which arises out of obedience because of a purified heart of love.. not out of force.. or compliance with laws to gain favor.
The kind of service which constituents pure religion involves charity and purity. Charity prompts the believer to visit the orphans and widows. The word "visit" means for more than grudgingly paying them a social call.
It means "to look after carefully." All needy people come within the scope of the believer's interest and help. A truly religious man delights to help those who cannot help themselves and cannot repay their debtors.. because he loves the Lord above all else.
In making the round of visitation and coming in contact with the defilements of the world, we must be careful we are not contaminated by it. Conformity to the world will bring unhappiness and disgrace. True believers have overcome the world.
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