CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
James 1:23. Natural face.—Lit. “face of his birth”; “the face he has by corporeal birth.” γενέσεως is used in distinction from the notion which follows of spiritual features. The tenses of the verbs (aorist) imply, “looks at himself once for all”; “has taken his departure and is gone”; “forgets and thinks of it no more.”
James 1:25. Looketh.—παρακύψας; to lean aside, to stoop to look, at something which attracts attention; hence to look particularly, to scrutinise; implying close inquiry after truth. Perfect.—Because regarded as the consummation of Judaism; the law of Moses was incomplete in respect of pardon of sin and holiness. Law of liberty.—Its characteristic is its freeing men from the bonds which prevent their being righteous. “The gospel is in a proper sense the law of liberty, because those who receive it render a free, loving obedience from an inward, vital principle.” Dean Alford says, “Not in contrast with a former law of bondage, but as viewed on the side of its being the law of the new life and birth, with all its spontaneous and free development of obedience.”
SYNONYMS OF THE WORD θρῆσκος
θεοσεβής, only in John 9:31; necessarily implies piety towards gods, or the God. εὐσεβής may mean this, but may also mean piety in the fulfilment of human relations; it implies worship or worthship, and reverence well directed. εὐλαβής, passed from caution and carefulness in human things to the same in Divine things. Devout, or the special Jewish Old Testament phase of piety. In the mingled fear and love which constituted together the piety of man toward God, the Old Testament emphasises fear, the New Testament love. εὐλαβής therefore suits the Old Testament piety. It represents the scrupulous worshipper making conscience of omitting anything. In θρήσκος, Lat. religiosus, we have the zealous and diligent performer of the Divine offices of the outward service of God. θρησκεία, cultures exterior, predominantly ceremonial, external service. The external form or body of which εὐσέβεια is the informing soul.—After Trench.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— James 1:22-25
Following up Religious Instructions.—One of the weaknesses of the Hebrew Christian communities was that so many of the members thought they were called to teach, and were able to teach. It is the constantly recurring weakness of the so-called Free Churches, which encourage their members to use their various gifts in the service of the Church. Persons who think they can teach and cannot are amongst the most difficult and troublesome people to deal with. St. James’s counsel here is directly addressed to such persons. He politely but searchingly says, “You would make better hearers than teachers; and you would find plenty of sphere for your energy, if you set yourselves to do the things about which you hear.” “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves.” There is a hearing only, which leads to nothing. The seed of truth lies as on a hard field-path, exposed to the birds. There is a talking only about what is heard, which is more than useless, which is mischievous, because self-satisfying. There is a doing of what we hear which is in every way valuable, for it implies thought, care, anxiety, right sense of responsibility and duty. Doing prefers silence.
I. Religious knowledge is not the final result of religious instruction.—It is a proper result, one to be distinctly aimed at. But it may be made a final result by the teacher who has the special gift of teaching; and by the hearer who is mentally strong, naturally critical, or unduly interested in doctrine. It needs to be strongly urged on public attention in these days, that religious knowledge is no more than a stage on the way to the final result aimed at by the public presentation of religious truth. F. W. Robertson says, “I can conceive of no dying hour more awful than that of the man who has striven to know rather than to love, and finds himself at last in a world of barren theories, loving none and adoring nothing.”
II. Religious feeling is not the final result of religious instruction.—This truth appeals to quite a different class of hearers—to the emotional class. There are very many persons who think they can never get a blessing from public services unless their feelings are moved. And the claim of these really good, but somewhat weak-charactered, people mischievously influences our public preachers, who allow themselves to cultivate the merely rhetorical and pathetic, and to imagine that they have gained splendid triumphs when they have subdued congregations to tears. It is well therefore to set forth the surface and temporary character of religious emotions, and the temptation to satisfy ourselves with them, and even flatter ourselves in our goodness as indicated by them. Many a Christian’s life, if read searchingly, will be found very full of high, forced, fictitious emotions and feelings, but very weak in masteries of evil, power of principles, self-sacrifices, holy charities, and good works. People seem to prefer that which cultivates the sentimental.
III. Religious talk is not the final result of religious instruction.—Some hearers simply reproduce what they hear, with variations, and imagine they have reached the true result when they have given everybody whom they can influence their idea of the sermon. And their talk is of no value to themselves, or to any one who listens to them. In every sphere of life it is found that the talkers are the helpless people, if they are not the mischievous people. While they stop and talk, the real work of life waits undone. True preaching tends to stop talk, by compelling people to think, and to inquire what they can do.
IV. Religious doing is the final result of religious instruction.—Our Lord, as the great Teacher, constantly enforced this truth by direct word, e.g. “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them”: by pictures, “as of the good tree that brings forth good fruit”; and by parable on parable, such as that of the “talents.” The apostle constantly urges the same thing. St. James has it for the one thing that he variously illustrates and impresses. The true hearer is “the doer that worketh”; and the true preacher or teacher is he who can inspire men unto doing, lead into the life of service.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
James 1:22. Spiritual Parasites.—The plants that grow on the great trees, and thrive on the sap of the trees, only bring forth their own fruit unto themselves. They in no sense help the mission of the trees. Nay, their simple receptiveness becomes a drain of the tree’s life, and even effects its ultimate ruin. There be those in the fellowship of Christ’s Church who are “hearers only”; receptive only; they take in everything, give out nothing, help in nothing, do nothing but serve and please themselves. They are but parasites, but they may have a fatally mischievous influence on the Church’s life. He who receives is honourably bound to use what he receives in the common service; but this no parasite ever does.
Living the Truth.—A brief and simple but very expressive eulogy was pronounced by Martin Luther upon a pastor at Zwickaw, in 1522, named Nicholas Hausman. “What we preach,” said the reformer, “he lives.”
True Religion.—A man’s religion is not a thing all made in heaven, and then let down and shoved unto him. It is his own conduct and life. A man has no more religion than he acts out in his life.—H. Ward Beecher.
An End in view for Hearers of the Gospel.—It is strange folly in multitudes of us to propound no end in the hearing of the gospel. The merchant sails, not only that he may sail, but for traffic, and traffics that he may be rich. The husbandman ploughs, not only to keep himself busy, but in order to sow, and sows that he may reap with advantage. And shall we do the most excellent and fruitful work fruitlessly—hear only to hear, and look no further? This is indeed a great vanity, and a great misery, to lose that labour which, duly used, would be of all others most gainful; and yet all our meetings are full of this.—Leighton.
James 1:22-24. Profitless Hearing.
I. The vacant hearers.—These are men who are drawn mechanically to the sanctuary, and leave all but their bodies elsewhere.
II. The curious hearer.—This spirit brings the attention to bear upon a subject, but merely to dissect and criticise it.
III. The captious hearer.—Here the attention is excited only to be turned against the teachings of religion. The business here is to catch the preacher in his words.
IV. The fashionable hearers.—These welcome the Sabbath so as to display to advantage their attractions.
V. The speculating hearers.—These are they whose selfishness leads them to make a pecuniary gain of godliness. It is respectable to attend Divine worship, therefore they go.
VI. The self-forgetful hearers.—Those who listen to find out their neighbours’ defects.
VII. The prayerless hearers.
VIII. The unresolved hearers.—J. T. Tucker.
James 1:23. Eastern Mirrors.—The mirrors in use among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans were of polished metal; and as these presented a less perfect image than our modern mirrors, to see through, i.e. by means of, a mirror had become among the later Rabbis, as well as with St. Paul, a proverbial phrase for man’s imperfect knowledge of Divine things.
Objects that may be looked at.—St. James especially draws attention to the character of the looking, and the dependence of the after-results upon that character. But we may also compare the objects looked at, and the results dependent on looking at right and fitting objects. There is—
1. Looking in at self.
2. Looking around on others.
3. Looking out at truth.
4. Looking up to God. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews bids us “look off”—look away—“unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”
Characters seen in the Use of Mirrors.—Vanity is thus shown. So is the anxiety to please. But the indifference which involves a hurried and careless use of the mirror should be recognised as a moral weakness. A Christian man ought to be the “best possible” in every relation of life, and in the use of every power of influence. Much influence does come from his personal appearance, expression of countenance, and manners. A careful use of the mirror may therefore be a sign of right Christian carefulness, and anxiety to serve others in every kind of ministry. “It is possible, though it can hardly be insisted on, that there is an emphasis on a man’s casual way of looking at a mirror, and the more careful gaze supposed to be characteristic of a woman.”
James 1:24. Fading Impressions.—This is described as an actual occurrence, seen and noted by the writer. There is a recognition of the well-known face, followed by instant and complete forgetfulness; and thus is it often with the mirror of the soul. In some striking sermon, or book, a man’s self is made manifest to him, and the picture may be too familiar to cause aversion; but, whether or no, the impression fades from his mind as quickly as the echoes of the preacher’s words. At the best the knowledge was only superficial, perhaps momentary, widely different from that which comes of a holy walk with God.—E. G. Punchard, M.A.
James 1:25. The Perfect Law.—That must be the law which secures to man the liberty and the power to do right. And that liberty and that power are precisely the things which man supremely needs, seeing that he finds himself under persuasion and constraint to do wrong.
The Perfect Law and its Doers.—St. James is the preacher of works, but of works which are the fruit of faith.
I. The perfect law.—In every part of the revelation of Divine truth contained in the gospel there is a direct moral and practical bearing. No word of the New Testament is given to us only in order that we may know truth, but all in order that we may do it. No man can believe the principles that are laid down in, the New Testament, and the truths that are unveiled there, without their laying a masterful grip upon his life, and influencing all that he is. In the very central fact of the gospel there lies the most stringent rule of life. Jesus Christ is the pattern, and from those gentle lips which say, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments,” law sounds more imperatively than from all the thunder and trumpets of Sinai. In the great act of redemption, which is the central fact of the New Testament revelation, there lies a law for conduct. God’s love redeeming us is the revelation of what we ought to be; and the cross, to which we look as the refuge from sin and condemnation, is also the pattern for the life of every believer. It is a law just because it is a gospel. If your conception of Christianity has not grasped it as being a stringent rule of life, you need to go to school to St. James. This thought gives the necessary counterpoise to the tendency to substitute the mere intellectual grasp of Christian truth for the practical doing of it. Not what we believe, but what we do, is our Christianity; only the doing must be rooted in belief. Take this vivid conception of the gospel as a law, as a counterpoise to the tendency to place religion in mere emotion and feeling. Notice that this law is a perfect law. James’s idea, I suppose, in that epithet, is not so much the completeness of the code, or the loftiness and absoluteness of the ideal which is set forth in the gospel, as the relation between the law and its doer. He is stating the same thought of which the psalmist of old time had caught a glimpse. “The law of the Lord is perfect,” because “it converts the soul.” That is to say, the weakness of all commandment—whether it be the law of a nation, or the law of moral text-books, or the law of conscience, or of public opinion, or the like—the weakness of all positive statute is that it stands there, over against a man, and points a stony finger to the stony tables, “Thou shalt!” “Thou shalt not!” but stretches out no hand to help us in keeping the commandment. It simply enjoins, and so is weak—like the proclamations of some discrowned king who has no army at his back to enforce them, and which flutter as waste-paper on the barn-doors, and do nothing to secure allegiance. But, says James, this law is perfect, because it is more than law, and transcends the simple functions of command. It not only tells us what to do, but it gives us power to do it; and that is what men want. The world knows what it ought to do well enough. There is no need for heaven to be rent, and voices to come to tell men what is right and wrong; they carry an all but absolutely sufficient guide to that within their own minds. But there is need to bring them something which shall be more than commandment, which shall be both law and power, both the exhibition of duty and the gift of capacity to discharge it. The gospel brings power because it brings life. “If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness had been by the law.” In the gospel that desideratum is supplied. Here is the law which vitalises, and so gives power. The life which the gospel brings will unfold itself after its own nature, and so produce the obedience which the law of the gospel requires. Therefore, says James further, this perfect law is freedom. Of course, liberty is not exemption from commandment, but the harmony of will with commandment. Whosoever finds that what is his duty is his delight is enfranchised. We are set at liberty when we walk within the limits of that gospel; and they who delight to do the law are free in obedience,—free from the tyranny of their own lusts, passions, inclinations; free from the domination of men, and opinion, and customs, and habits. All those bonds are burnt in the fiery furnace of love into which they pass, and where they walk transfigured and at liberty, because they keep that law. Freedom comes from the reception into my heart of the life whose motions coincide with the commandments of the gospel. Then the burden that I carry carries me, and the limits within which I am confined are the merciful fences put up on the edge of the cliff to keep the traveller from falling over, and being dashed to pieces beneath.
II. The doers of the perfect law.—James has a long prelude before he comes to the doing. Several things are required as preliminary. The first step is, “looketh into the law.” The word employed here is a very picturesque and striking one. Its force may be seen if I quote to you the other instances of its occurrence in the New Testament. It is employed in the accounts of the Resurrection to describe the attitude and action of Peter, John, and Mary as they “stooped down and looked into” the empty sepulchre. In all these cases the Revised Version translates the word as I have just done, “stooping and looking,” both acts being implied in it. It is also employed by Peter when he tells us that the “angels desire to look into” the mysteries of redemption, in which saying, perhaps, there may be some allusion to the silent, bending figures of the twin cherubim, who, with folded wings and fixed eyes, curved themselves above the mercy-seat, and looked down upon that mystery of propitiating love. With such fixed and steadfast gaze we must contemplate the perfect law of liberty if we are ever to be doers of the same. A second requirement is, “and continueth.” The gaze must be, not only concentrated, but constant, if anything is to come of it. Old legends tell that the looker into a magic crystal saw nothing at first, but, as he gazed, there gradually formed themselves in the clear sphere filmy shapes, which grew firmer and more distinct until they stood plain. The raw hide dipped into the vat with tannin in it, and at once pulled out again, will never be turned into leather. Many of you do not give the motives and principles of the gospel, which you say you believe, a chance of influencing you, because so interruptedly and spasmodically, and at such long intervals, and for so few moments, do you gaze upon them. Steadfast and continued attention is needful if we are to be “doers of the work.”—Homiletic Review.
Practical Exhortation.—
1. Cultivate the habit of contemplating the central truths of Christianity as the condition of receiving in vigour and fulness the life which obeys the commandment.
2. Cultivate the habit of reflective meditation upon the truths of the gospel as giving you the pattern of duty in a concentrated and available form.
3. Cultivate the habit of meditating on the truths of the gospel, in order that the motives of conduct may be reinvigorated and strengthened. Make of all your creed deed. Let everything you believe be a principle of action too; your credenda translate into agenda.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
James 1:22. Doers of the Word.—Cromwell is said to have once entered a church where stood gold and silver figures of the twelve apostles. “What do these here?” said he. “Nothing,” was the reply of the priest in charge. “Very well,” said Cromwell, “take them away; melt them down, and send them about doing good.”
Hearing and Doing.—There is a story told of two men who, walking together, found a young tree laden with fruit. They both gathered, and satisfied themselves for the present; but one of them took all the remaining fruit, and carried it away with him, the other took the tree, and planted it in his own ground, where it prospered and brought forth fruit every year; so that though the former had more at present, yet this had some when he had none. They who hear the word, and have large memories, and nothing else, may carry away most of the word at present, yet he that perhaps can but remember little, who carries away the tree, plants the word in his heart, and obeys it in his life, shall have fruit when the other has none.—Old Writer.
Religious Excitement ineffective.—A celebrated preacher of the seventeenth century, in a sermon to a crowded audience, described the terrors of the last judgment with such eloquence, pathos, and force of action, that some of his audience not only burst into tears, but sent forth piercing cries, as if the Judge Himself had been present, and was about to pass upon them their final sentence. In the height of this commotion the preacher called upon them to dry their tears and cease their cries, as he was about to add something still more awful and astonishing than anything he had yet brought before them. Silence being obtained, he, with an agitated countenance and solemn voice, addressed them thus: “In one quarter of an hour from this time the emotions which you have just now exhibited will be stifled, the remembrance of the fearful truths which excited you will vanish; you will return to your carnal occupations or sinful pleasures with your usual avidity, and you will treat all you have heard ‘as a tale that is told.’ ”
James 1:23. Seeing Ourselves.—The wife of a drunkard once found her husband in a filthy condition, with torn clothes, matted hair, bruised face, asleep in the kitchen, having come home from a drunken revel. She sent for a photographer, and had a portrait of him taken in all his wretched appearance, and placed it on the mantel beside another portrait taken at the time of his marriage, which showed him handsome and well-dressed, as he had been in other days. When he became sober he saw the two pictures, and awakened to a consciousness of his condition, from which he arose to a better life. Now, the office of the law is not to save men, but to show them their true state as compared with the Divine standard. It is like a glass, in which one seeth “what manner of man he is.”