James 4:1-10 — Faith Without Intimacy Is Dead

BIG IDEA:

HUMBLY DRAW NEAR TO GOD AND HE WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU

INTRODUCTION:

David Nystrom: So here the two ways are set with particular clarity and urgency before his readers: earthly wisdom or heavenly wisdom, self-interest or the law of love, self-exaltation or exaltation at the hand of God. His language is powerful and graphic: Resist the devil/come near to God; wash your hands/purify your hearts; grieve and mourn/turn joy to gloom; humble yourselves/God will lift you up. The seriousness of the matter is confirmed in the harsh vocabulary James marshals: They “kill” (4:2); they are an “adulterous people” (4:4), whose actions make them “an enemy of God” (4:4); they are “sinners” (4:8).

Thomas Lea: James’s readers claimed to be Christians, but they had the spirit of their unconverted neighbors in them. They were dominated by a self-will which pursued pleasure, power, and prominence rather than the will of God. James rebuked their sinful ways and urged his readers to turn to God with repentance and purity.

Craig Blomberg: James 4:1–10 flows so naturally from 3:13–18 that some commentators keep the two subsections together as a single passage.  Having just warned against the evils that result from jealousy and rivalry (3:14, 16), James now points out what some in his churches have seemingly allowed those motives to produce—coveting and quarreling—which resemble devotion to this fallen world rather than to God (4:1–6). Vv. 7–10 offer the antidote: resist the devil (recall the link between the world and the devil in 3:15) and submit to God (as with those who exhibit wisdom from above, cf. 3:13, 17–18).

The Misuse of Speech in Quarrels and Slander (4:1–12)

A.  Christians should reject strife as stemming from friendship with the world (vv. 1–6).

1. The question raised and answered: Where does strife come from? From our evil natures (v. 1).
2. The behavior observed: Strife among Christians does not satisfy their desires (vv. 2–3).
3. The question and answer rephrased: Where does all this selfishness come from? From friendship with the world, which is incompatible with friendship with God (v. 4).
4. The appeal to Scripture: God does not want us to act this way and makes it possible for us not to act this way (vv. 5–6).

B.  Christians should humbly submit to God in response to his friendship (vv. 7–10).

1. The main point stated: Submit to God (v. 7a).
2. Three commands on how to do this (vv. 7b–9).
3. The main point restated: Humble yourselves before God (v. 10).

C.  Christians should reject slander as one particularly insidious manifestation of strife (vv. 11–12).

1. Slandering fellow believers slanders God’s law, which prohibits such action (v. 11a).
2. This usurps God’s role as sole judge by placing believers in a position of judging God’s law instead of obeying it (vv. 11b–12).

David Platt: Two Pictures of Friendship

A.  Friendship with the world (4:1-5)

1. comes from the sinful desires of the flesh,
2. is motivated by a longing for earthly pleasure,
3. and results in spiritual adultery against God.

B.  Friendship with God (4:6-10)

1. comes from the gracious desire of God,
2. is motivated by a longing for eternal satisfaction,
3. and results in submission to the authority of God.

We have a chapter break after 3:18, but the reality is that the fights and quarrels James refers to in chapter 4 flow from the worldly wisdom that was permeating the community of faith in chapter 3. In fact, the word “covet” in 4:2 comes from the same word James uses in 3:14 and 3:16 that is translated “envy.” James illustrates in chapter 4 the disorder and evil that is the result of the envy and selfish ambition of chapter 3. This picture is summed up in 4:4: “Adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.” We’ve seen two pictures of wisdom that lead us now to think about two pictures of friendship.

I.  (:1-2) RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS CAN BE TRACED BACK TO WORLDLINESS = A LUST FOR:

• WORLDLY PLEASURES
• WORLDLY POSSESSIONS
• WORLDLY POWER / PRESTIGE

INSTEAD OF DEPENDING ON GOD

A.  The Surface Problem = Fighting with One Another

“What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?”

Zimmerman: Although James specifically had in mind the conflict that leads to battered congregations and split churches, his words apply equally well to abusive families and broken homes. The same passions that lead to church disputes are at the root of all conflicts. Affairs of the heart, whether against God or a spouse, are remarkably similar. Following the steps James prescribes for dealing with these issues in the church will also extend their benefits into our homes and society.

R. Kent Hughes: The hounded Jewish congregations of the Dispersion were shot through with strife. They were experiencing class conflicts between the gold-fingered rich and their many poor (cf. 2:1–11). Rival would-be teachers grasped at the imagined good life of being Christian rabbis (literally “great ones”) (cf. 1:19–26; 3:1). They boiled with “bitter jealousy” and “selfish ambition” and fell to “disorder and every vile practice” (3:14, 16). They praised God in church at every mention of his name, saying “Blessed be he! Blessed be he!” and then verbally cursed their fellow parishioners on the street (3:9, 10). Some of the new believers in these congregations were former Zealots, violent political activists. Because of this, many prominent scholars believe some may have actually become violent in the churches.

B.  Three Root Problems = Worldliness

1. First Root Problem = Lust for Worldly Pleasures

“Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?”

Spiros Zodhiates: The passions of the flesh are described as constantly fighting to have their way, to be victorious over the spirit, over the new nature which Jesus Christ has given us.  The flesh knows nothing of the grace of forgiveness and of esteeming others superior to ourselves.  Pride and arrogance are instruments of the flesh for fighting its battles.  The flesh loves war, war against others and war against what is lofty and ideal in life.  The flesh is quick to declare others enemies.

John Painter: The first question refers to external conflicts between people (en hymin), while the second one identifies an internal conflict within people (en tois melesin hymōn).

David Nystrom: It is the passions, or more properly the decision to cultivate rather than control the passions, that have contributed to the problems within the church. These passions (untrammeled desire for power and authority, a desire for popularity within the eyes of the powerful, etc.) constitute a state of double-mindedness. The members of the congregation are pushed this way and that, first by their conscience, then by the evil impulse.

Alec Motyer: James, however, is not examining our inner conflicts, but the wars we wage against each other. All our desires and passions are like an armed camp within us, ready at a moment’s notice to declare war against anyone who stands in the way of some personal gratification on which we have set our hearts.

Our condition (1b) is one of self-willed determination, summed up as passions. This word, like the words desire and covet in verse 2a, is in itself morally neutral. It means ‘pleasures’. All would be well except that in us ‘pleasures’, ‘desires’ and strong longings are allied to, and at the service of, a sinful nature. Consequently the sinful self, setting its heart on this satisfaction or that, will not allow anything to stand in its way: so you kill … so you fight and wage war (2a). The condition becomes a practice.

James’ language sounds so extravagant, so exaggerated in our ears, that we feel we must positively refuse to see our small-time disagreements and occasional squabbles as meriting such a description. But if we take this line we only show how imperfectly our thoughts have been brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. When the Lord Jesus undertook to explore the length and depth of the sixth commandment, he spoke of anger, derogatory, dismissive remarks, name-calling. He illustrated his serious intent by the story of the sudden realization, during worship, that a brother has ‘something’ against us (Mt. 5:21ff.).  He spoke not of great, prolonged or unjustified anger, or anything of the sort. He did not specify ‘something big’, or ‘something important’, which a brother might be holding against us—or even some charge with which we agreed—just ‘something’. Was the Lord Jesus exaggerating when he brought it all under the heading of murder? Or was John extravagant when he said that anyone who failed to love his brother was like Cain (1 Jn. 3:11–12)? It is we who diminish the importance of right relationships, not the Scriptures which exaggerate the importance of quarrels. We smile with the wrong sort of tolerance over a touchy and difficult brother or sister; we shrug our shoulders over two who have fallen out. But we should not be tolerant of war, or shrug our shoulders over fightings.

2. Second Root Problem = Lust for Worldly Possessions

“You lust and do not have; so you commit murder“

C. Leslie Mitton: The fierceness of their desire and the violence of their resentment against interference with it actually culminates in murder. This is not other than our Lord warned us to be prepared for. He said: ‘For within, out of the heart of man, comes … murder‘ (Mark 7:21).  The Old Testament bears witness to the same grim truth.  Bitter jealousy led Cain to kill Abel.  Thwarted covetousness led to Naboth’s death at the hands of Ahab and Jezebel.  Uriah the Hittite was sent to his death to make way for David’s lust.

Robert Plummer: When James asks, “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” one can only imagine the finger-pointing and accusations if his recipients had been allowed to respond.  It’s not other people or unjust situations that are causing a quarrel; it’s evil desires in our own hearts.  We must look first within ourselves for the cause of the strife around us.  A covetous heart inevitably demonstrates itself through quarreling and fighting (v. 2).  What does James mean, though, by accusing the community of killing because of unfulfilled desires (v. 2)?  Actual murder does not fit the context.  Perhaps James is drawing on the language of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, where hateful speech and actions are associated with murder (Mt 5:21-22; cf. 1Jn 3:15).

3. Third Root Problem = Lust for Worldly Power / Prestige

“And you are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel“

David Roper: All of us have certain desires, many of them legitimate. But often we are frustrated in the expression of these desires. When we are frustrated, we have two options. We can either assert ourselves and get what we want by ourselves, and thus cause conflict and destruction – or we can ask God. And if we ask God he delights to give.

Spiros Zodhiates: History tells us of a statue that was erected to a celebrated victor in the public games of Greece named Theogenes.  The erection of this statue so excited the envious hatred of one of his rivals that he went every night and strove to throw the statue over by repeated blows.  Ultimately he succeeded, but alas, the statue fell upon him, and he was crushed to death beneath it.  Such generally is the end of the man who allows himself to be carried away by the spirit of envy.

C.  The Fundamental Problem = Lack of Dependence upon God

“You do not have because you do not ask“

Only God can satisfy the needs of the human heart

Alexander Ross: These desires for the wrong kind of pleasure which are at work in our members, he says, wage ceaseless warfare against everything that stands in the way of their gratification, and they express themselves in covetous longings after the wealth and the possessions of others, and thus strife and bloodshed arise, and even murders may result.

II.  (:3-6) FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD = HOSTILITY TOWARDS GOD

(THE TUG OF WAR BETWEEN FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD AND FRIENDSHIP WITH GOD)

A.  (:3) Worldly Motives Abandon You to a Life of Frustration

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives,

so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

B.  (:4) Worldly Alliances Alienate You as an Enemy of God

“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? 

Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

Dan McCartney: The intention to be a friend of the world makes a person an enemy of God because it puts the world in the place of God; it submits to the world’s ethics and values instead of God’s, desires the things of the world instead of God, and exalts the creature over the creator. James’s application is that both those who have resources but spend them on their own “pleasures” and those who have not but want them for “pleasures” are indicted as “friends of the world,” spiritual profligates.

The word for “friendship” (φιλία, philia) ordinarily means simply “affectionate regard” (LSJ 1934), but it can slide over into the semantic range of sexual love (cf. Prov. 5:19 LXX). Hence, when James berates the world’s would-be “friends” as “adulteresses,” he implies that flirting with the world is akin to spousal unfaithfulness.  In the OT idolatry sometimes was called “adultery” because Israel was represented as God’s bride (especially in Hos. 1–3; but see also, e.g., Isa. 62:5; Ezek. 16:32; 23:45), and, like marriage, Israel’s covenant relationship with God demanded exclusive fealty. Although James does not spell it out, he no doubt shares the conviction of other NT writers (e.g., John 3:29; Eph. 5:28–32; Rev. 21:2) that the present-day community of faith, the people of God, is the bride of Christ, and hence idolatry or covenantal unfaithfulness of any kind is tantamount to adultery.  Coziness with the world and its values is not unknown in the church of our day either, and such coziness should be named for what it is: a manifestation of unbelief (nonfaith).

Daniel Doriani: God’s value system is different. In his eyes, all humans have honor, since he made all in his likeness. Therefore, we are not God’s friends if we define people by their acquisitions, their merit, and their “station.” We must not adopt the values of our culture. We cannot be loyal to the culture and to the kingdom. Their values clash. To try to serve both systems is adultery. Yet the Lord, like a good husband, woos his faithless wife instead of seeking divorce.

C.  (:5) Worldly Loyalty Arouses the Jealousy of the Indwelling Holy Spirit

“Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose:

‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’?”

Daniel Doriani: [After quoting a variety of translations, points out the key interpretative questions] — These respected translations reveal what the main questions are.

1. First, does the verse speak of the human spirit or the Holy Spirit? (The question arises because the Greek did not differentiate lowercase and capital letters as we do; as a result our Greek New Testament never capitalizes “spirit,” even when it clearly refers to the Holy Spirit.)
2. Second, is the intense envy or jealous yearning that James describes best understood as a positive or a negative desire?
3. Third, is the spirit (or Spirit) the subject or the direct object of the sentence? Is the subject of the sentence the human spirit or God?

Dan McCartney: five options:

1. “The Spirit that God has caused to dwell in us [believers] yearns jealously” (i.e., God the Holy Spirit does not tolerate his people trying to be friends with the world).
2. “God yearns jealously regarding the (Holy) Spirit that he has caused to dwell in us” (i.e., the threat of withdrawing the Holy Spirit hangs over those who want to become friends of the world; NASB).
3. “God yearns jealously regarding the breath of life that he has put within us” (i.e., God vehemently desires fealty from his human creatures generally; NRSV, ESV).
4. “When the (human) spirit that God has caused to dwell in us yearns (for the pleasures of the world), envy (and thus fighting) is the result.”
5. “The (human) spirit that God has caused to dwell in us yearns (for the world) enviously” (NIV).

Hence, in my judgment, the “S/spirit he caused to dwell in us” is a reference to the divine S/spirit considered not as the person of the Holy Spirit but as the presence of God in divinely given wisdom and understanding, or what the OT called the “spirit of wisdom” with which the Messiah was to be anointed (Isa. 11:2) but that had already been given to leaders such as Joshua (Deut. 34:9) and even artisans such as Bezalel (Exod. 35:31). The jealousy with which God yearns over it reflects the common Jewish understanding that in order to keep the S/spirit, one must remain in submission to God (James 4:7), and that the divine S/spirit is unavailable to the proud.

Therefore, 4:5b basically reflects, as it were, an implied threat of withdrawal of the spirit of true wisdom.

A second approach, one that is available to those who think that 4:5b is speaking of God’s jealousy, is to identify the quotation as a paraphrase of the explanation attached to the second commandment, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exod. 20:5), or other similar texts (e.g., Ezek. 8:3).

Alternative View:

John MacArthur: One cannot be dogmatic, but, in context, it seems that the Authorized (King James) rendering is preferable: “The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy.” James would therefore be saying, in effect,” Don’t you know that you yourselves are living proof of the veracity of Scripture, which clearly teaches that the natural man has a spirit of envy?” That interpretation is clearly consistent with James’s emphasis in the larger passage.

Walter Wessel: God is a jealous God (cf. Ex. 20:5; 34:14; Deut. 32:16; Zech 8:2; I Cor. 10:22)

George Guthrie: In the face of his people’s friendship with the world, God does not sit by idly. He has made us for relationship with himself, and he will not passively let us embrace the world in an adulterous relationship.

Alec Motyer: If this spirit is simply the spirit of man, what is the point of the descriptive clause which he has made to dwell in us? Why should James call attention to the fact that our spirit, involved as it is in sinful longings, was nevertheless placed in us by the Lord? It would, of course, underline our sinful corruption of a good design of God, but the context does not seem to need such a point to be made. On the other hand, if the reference is to the Spirit, made to indwell us by the act and purpose of God, then the unique verb ‘to make to indwell’ (katoikizō), used nowhere else in the New Testament, is justified and the ‘greater grace’ of verse 6 has added force in the light of this considerable grace noted in verse 5.

Ralph Martin: God opposes those who fight and war within the church, and he has placed his Spirit within his people to combat that tendency. Therefore, it is God’s jealousy that is described in v 5, for he stands waiting for the belligerent to forsake their envy of others and direct their attention back to him.

R. Kent Hughes: I am convinced that the text refers to the Holy Spirit’s jealousy over us because it best fits the argument of the context and because it touches on that grand truth so indispensable to the New Testament theology—the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Understanding that the Holy Spirit’s jealousy for us is what is meant here opens a heart-changing truth to us: even when we sin by seeking our pleasures in friendship with the world, we are greatly loved, for jealousy is an essential element of true love. We are brides of Christ, and the Holy Spirit does not want us to go somewhere else to “have our needs met.” The Holy Spirit’s true love for us evokes a proper intolerance of straying affection. The personalness of this ought to steel us against wandering.

This jealous Spirit is inside us. When we sin, he is pained! Furthermore, his jealousy is passionate, for the idea in the Greek is that he longs or yearns for us with an intense jealousy.

To realize that the awesomely holy God who transcends the universe and is wholly other and self-contained is at the same time personally and passionately and lovingly jealous for our affection—this realization ought to stop any of our “affairs” with the world and cause us to prostrate our souls adoringly before him. How we are loved! And how we ought to love! For as John informs us, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

Though God is the author of all true pleasures and desires us to enjoy life, the illicit tugging strings of self-centered hedonism constantly pull at us. And many of us have become friends of the fallen world order and are thus God’s enemies. What are we to do?

D.  (:6) Supernatural Grace is Available to the Humble

“But He gives a greater grace.  Therefore it says,

‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'”

My wife and I worship with our fellow believers at Grace Bible Church.  When I think on this verse, I wonder if the name of our church should actually be Greater Grace Bible Church!  What a marvelous promise from our all-sufficient God.

Alec Motyer: What comfort there is in this verse! It tells us that God is tirelessly on our side. He never falters in respect of our needs, he always has more grace at hand for us. He is never less than sufficient, he always has more and yet more to give. Whatever we may forfeit when we put self first, we cannot forfeit our salvation, for there is always more grace. No matter what we do to him, he is never beaten. We may play false to the grace of election, contradict the grace of reconciliation, overlook the grace of indwelling—but he gives more grace. Even if we were to turn to him and say,” What I have received so far is much less than enough,” he would reply,” Well, you may have more” His resources are never at an end, his patience is never exhausted, his initiative never stops, his generosity knows no limit: he gives more grace.

Annie Johnson Flint:

He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater;

He sendeth more grace when the labours increase;

To added afflictions He addeth His mercy,

To multiplied trials His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done:

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,

His power has no boundary known unto men;

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

III.  (:7-10)  INTIMACY WITH GOD = THE CURE FOR WORLDLINESS

6 STEPS TOWARDS RENEWED INTIMACY WITH GOD

(THE PATHWAY TO TRUE INTIMACY WITH GOD)

No “self-help” program here; this is a “God-help me” program.

A.  Submit to God

“Submit therefore to God.”

B.  Resist the Devil

“Resist the devil“

Result: “and he will flee from you“

Daniel Doriani: James links submission to God with resistance of the devil. That is, to submit to God’s authority is to resist the devil’s authority. To submit to God is to order our lives under his authority. To resist the devil means we oppose, we fight back, we take a stand against the devil’s authority. To oppose Satan in this setting means to resist temptations especially to fight each other or covet (4:1–2). Curiously, Paul says one way to resist Satan is to flee from him, that is, to flee from his blandishment to sin.

C.  Draw Near to God

“Draw near to God“

Result: “and He will draw near to you.”

John Painter: Fundamental devotion to God is crucial for resisting the devil and controlling desire. This means that desire, when transformed and redirected toward God and neighbor, does not have acquisitive and possessive intent but instead is devoted to serving God and neighbor (2:8; 4:6–8).

D.  Cleanse Yourselves

1. Outward Purity

“Cleanse your hands, you sinners;”

John MacArthur: Beginning in 3:13, James warns against the worldly wisdom of unbelievers, which “is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic” (v. 15). It produces “jealousy and selfish ambition, … disorder and every evil thing” (v. 16) and gives evidence that the one possessing it is “an enemy of God” (4:4). He here offers those unbelievers an invitation to saving faith. This text, like the epistle as a whole, includes admonitions to believers to put away any remaining vestiges of their former worldly living that continue to mar their spiritual lives. But the primary emphasis is clearly on those who claim to be saved but are not. The interpretive key identifying the recipients of James’s rebuke as unbelievers is the term sinners—a term used only to describe non-Christians.

2. Inward Purity

“and purify your hearts, you doubleminded.”

The doubleminded are those with divided loyalty between God and the world.

Peter Davids: Thus in the NT one finds the moral call to purity (Mt. 5:8; Mk. 7:21–23 par.), a call that John, Hebrews, 1 Peter, and the Pastorals take up. The call is for right deed and right commitment: pure hands would do good works and pure hearts would be totally committed.

E.  Grieve over Your Sin

“Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning,

and your joy to gloom.”

Peter Davids: Rather than experience mourning at the judgment, sinners should mourn now in true repentance so that they will not have to mourn then.

Craig Blomberg: James does not claim that there are never times for joy, but he maintains that this is the time for repentance, a “reaction … for purposes of restoration. Those who follow such a path will be qualified to laugh and rejoice” at the time of the eschatological reversals.  Once we realize the grievous nature of our sins, we ought to “be upset and show it when we realize just how far away we let ourselves get from God,” crying “at the horror of” our sins.

F.  Humble Yourself

“Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord“

Result: “and He will exalt you“

Curtis Vaughan: It calls for an awareness of God’s greatness and glory and our own insignificance and unworthiness.  It suggests an acknowledgment of God’s right to rule our lives and our readiness to do His will.

George Guthrie: The value of humility as the right path to exaltation is widely published in the OT, but the most immediate backdrop for James is the teaching of Jesus, who said, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11; cf. Mt 23:12; Lk 18:14). The thought is echoed in the writings of the early church (e.g., 1Pe 5:6; see Moo, 196), due in no small measure to the example of the Lord himself, who lived a life of perfect submission to the Father in the face of suffering and was exalted as a result (Heb 2:9; Php 2:5–11). This forms a cornerstone of the Lord’s upside-down value system, which governs the kingdom. The way “up” is “down”; the path of freedom is submission; the road to joy is walked in mourning and with tears. Yet the end result is grace. The Lord lifts those who, recognizing their sin, repent, bowing before him in submission.

Craig Blomberg: Finally, we reach the conclusion of the discussion of humility versus pride, started back in 3:14, as James rephrases his call for submission and God’s promise of exaltation. It is not for us to compete for position for the sake of our own selfish ambition; instead, it is for God to exalt as he wills. The theme of humility here proves essential to James’s thought: God gives grace to us when we are humiliated and exalts us, but we in turn are asked to humble ourselves. Having introduced this theme due to the arguments and rivalry occurring in his churches (recall 3:14 and 4:1–2), James concludes it with humility as his answer to these problems. People who are humble do not seek their own “rights” to positions of leadership, but allow God to encourage and lift them up as he sees fit. Thus, humility comprises an essential attribute for community.

In contrast with pride and selfish ambition in the church, “only self-abasement and repentance is needed to gain the true exaltation which comes not from the world, but from God (cf. 1:9–11).”  “Humility is not passivity, but receptivity. It is certainly not groveling before God or others; it is simply accepting truth, learning from every situation, growing in simplicity and in wisdom.”  As throughout the Bible, God’s people must work hard to please him, but by his great grace (recall v. 6) that work accomplishes something of eternal value.  James has now completed his inclusio, begun in v. 7.