The Christian Service of God.
I. The general meaning and intention of this passage is obvious. No doubt some of these early converts from Judaism, to whom the Epistle of St. James is addressed, found it very hard, trained as they had been in mere outward formalism, with no deep sense of personal responsibility, to form an adequate conception of the lofty moral purity involved in that perfect law of liberty which they had professed to accept as the law of their lives. It had not penetrated the will and become its ruling principle. They had not succeeded in freeing themselves from the bondage of the evil habits in which they had been trained; they had not learned that God as revealed to them in Christ must be worshipped with the service of a blameless life. St. James mentions a very obvious fault, that of an unbridled tongue, as an example of the habits which are inconsistent with this service. "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."
II. This, however, is a mere negative view of the subject; in this St. James only gives us an instance (one out of many) of a habit by which the religious service of God is violated. He goes on further to tell us in what that service consists. And he teaches us that its most obvious and indispensable features are two: (1) active benevolence, and (2) unworldliness.
III. The religion here spoken of is the outward service of God only, and must flow from a heart changed and purified by a living faith in Jesus Christ. It is from His Spirit that we must seek the power of rendering this religious service; and to obtain the aid and teaching of that Spirit is the first duty of our Christian calling.
G. E. L. Cotton, Expository Sermons on the Epistles,vol. ii., p. 28.
Christian Service of God.
I. It is clearly wrong so to interpret St. James as to make him say literally that the whole of religion consists in acts of charity and temperance. It is manifest that every idea of religion contains in it the idea of serving God. And it is equally clear that there can be no serving God without intending to serve Him that is, without thinking Him to have a claim on our service. When, then, St. James calls the works of charity and temperance "pure and undefiled religion," or the service of God, it is plain, by the very force of the words, that he must mean such works of charity and temperance as are done in order to serve God that is, such as are done in faith. For if they be done without any notion of God they cannot be called a pure service to God, for they are not a service to Him at all, except accidentally; they are no service so far as regards our intention.
II. What St. James means, then, is no more than this: The Christian who would truly serve God in Christ must serve Him not in word, but in deed; and he selects especially two classes of good deeds which form, as it were, the very essence of that service: those of charity and purity. And here the lesson of the text is one peculiarly applicable. It points out what are, and ever have been, the peculiar virtues of Christianity, what all parts of the New Testament alike insist on. And they are so insisted on, not only for their importance, but also for their difficulty, because they are at variance with some of our strongest inclinations and must be practised against the greatest temptations to the contrary, because, although we may find one of the two agreeable to us, it hardly ever happens that we find both to be so; but, on the contrary, men have endeavoured to make up for neglecting the one by their great attention to the other, as if benevolent persons might be excused for their worldly-mindedness or persons of strict and pure and quiet lives might be excused for their want of active charity.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. vi., p. 261.
Pure Religion and Undefiled.
What is the ground of the difference of tone observable in the inspired writers (and especially in St. Paul and St. James) on the subject of true religion, one giving the most emphatic prominence to faith, the other a prominence equally emphatic to works? The ground is to be sought
I. Partly in the truth which they set forth. There are many analogies between objects contemplated by the eye and truths contemplated by the mind. We walk abroad, and some work of art say a house meets our eye. We place ourselves before it to survey its architecture. The front presents certain features: columns, doors, windows, balconies, verandahs. We move round it to another point of view. The picture is then changed. On this side possibly are trellis-work and creepers; no entrance is observable, and the outlook from the windows is upon wood instead of landscape. But we have yet two more sides to survey, which may very possibly present different features still, and after that we may mount a neighbouring eminence which commands the house, and obtain a view different entirely from all the preceding, the gables and chimneys seeming to emerge from a tuft of trees. Now, as it is with real objects, so it is with real truths. If they be indeed truths, they too are solid, and have more than one aspect.
II. In the difference of their own minds. If there be many aspects of Christ, there are several inspired minds which contemplate and set forth those aspects. True religion has a body, or substantial, and a spirit, or animating, part. The body of it is faith; the spirit of it is works. And because one definition of it may contemplate its body, and another may contemplate its spirit, both definitions may be equally true, and yet both utterly different. St. James is contemplating the vitality of religion, not its mere personal appearance. He says, "Rest not content with the outward framework." The production of the framework will not satisfy the great Judge at the last day. He will push His researches beyond that. He will inquire whether the framework has shown itself alive, whether it has breathed, and moved, and walked, and wrought, and given the other symptoms of life.
E. M. Goulburn, Occasional Sermons,p. 36.
References: James 1:27. C. H. Gough, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 317; B. Wilberforce, Ibid.,vol. xvi, p. 97; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 242.James 2:1-9. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 460. James 2:8. D. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiv., p. 157. James 2:10. J. H. Thorn, Laws of Life,2nd series, p. 167. James 2:10; James 2:11. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 107. James 2:10-26. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 39.