James 3:15 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

This wisdom descendeth not from above, &c.— "For, whatever pretences such a person may make, (James 3:14.) to a greater knowledge, or a sounder faith than others, this fierce zeal and love of strife is not the wisdom which descends from heaven; but it is produced upon earth, arising from a excessive regard to the present world, and proceeds not from the Spirit of God, but from too great an indulgence of the sensual appetites: and it resembles the temper of demons,—those wicked spirits; for wherever there is such a sort of zeal, wherever such a spirit of strife and animosity is the root, the fruit which it yields must be irregularity, tumult, and almost every unchristian and destructive practice." St. James here calls the false wisdom of wicked me ψυχικη, animal, or sensual: it proceeded not from the spirit of God, but from a criminal indulgence of the sensual appetites and passions: it is in other places called the flesh, and condemned under that image. See Romans 8:5; Romans 8:7; Romans 13:14. 1 Corinthians 2:14.Galatians 5:19; Galatians 5:21. 1 Thessalonians 5:23.Jude 1:19. Dr. Bates supposes, that the three epithets in this verse refer to the three grand temptations of the world, avarice, pleasure, and ambition; the first of which is earthly, the second sensual, the third diabolical, being the sin by which the devils fell.