Part 10

We may omit the inconsistency of “sorrow and of joy,” for that is the lot of all of us, but certainly the tongue must not play the part of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “Therewith bless we the Lord and Father,” the only instance of this precise combination of words in the Bible, expressing God’s power and loving approachableness (cf. Matt. 11:25). The highest function of human speech (Hort) is the praise of God the Father. Note how when Zacharias recovered his speech, he first praised God (Luke 1:64). It is glorious to praise God in prayer, in song, in sermon. “O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise” (Psalm 51:15). “Praise ye Jehovah. Praise Jehovah, O my soul. While I live will I praise Jehovah: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being” (Psalm 146:1 f.).

“Bless, and curse not” (Rom. 12:14). Curse not God in anger or in flippant profanity. The tongue that praises God surely will not profane his name. But curse not men who are made after the likeness of God, those who are like God in their moral and spiritual nature and not like the beasts of the field (Gen. 1:26; 2 Cor. 3:18). And yet, _horribile dictu_, this is precisely what we do. “Therewith curse we men.” James here includes himself in the common run of humanity.

The tongue exercises this strange power of running away with us like a runaway horse with the bit in his mouth. The scorn of men for men is seen in John 7:49, in the Pharisees’ sneer at the mob: “This multitude that knoweth not the law are accursed.” It is most likely, however, personal abuse that James here refers to. Men who are made in God’s image are abused by the very tongue that blesses God. We curse other children of our common Father, God. James does not mean, even by implication, to approve cursing at all. It is the wicked man whose “mouth is full of cursing” (Psalm 10:7). If we do not love our brother, we do not love God (1 John 4:20). And yet “out of the same mouth cometh forth blessing and cursing.” We make our tongue a sort of combination of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. “My brethren, these things ought not so to be”—a mild statement all the more effective from its very temperateness.

The point is easy to illustrate. “Doth the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?” James was familiar with the brackish waters of parts of Palestine. The water of the Dead Sea is really bitter, though fed by the snows of Hermon and the sweet springs of the Jordan valley. The waters of Marah were bitter (Ex. 15:23), and one may recall “the water of bitterness that causeth the curse” (Num. 5:18, 23). See also Revelation 8:11 for the waters that were made bitter. Pliny (N. H. ii. 103) tells a fable of a fountain of the sun that “was sweet and cold at noon and bitter and hot at midnight” (Mayor). It is possible to sweeten water, as we see in the great filtering plants in our modern cities. And sweet water can become bitter. But water is not sweet and bitter at the same time from the same fountain. You have sweet water on Hermon and salt water in the Dead Sea (also called the Salt Sea), but not both in the same place.

The Vine and the Fig Tree (3:12)

James has not only a new image here but also a new point of view (Hort). He has, in verses 9-11, shown the inconsistency of two kinds of speech from the same tongue. Now he goes deeper to the heart behind the utterance. The comparison is here made between the heart and its utterance (tongue). The grape and the fig are the commonest fruits in Palestine. “Each tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44). Yes, and Jesus had just said (6:43): “For there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit; nor again a corrupt tree that bringeth forth good fruit.” It is not uncommon to find the point made somewhat as James has it. So Epictetus (Diss. ii. 20) says: “How can a vine grow, not vinewise, but olivewise, or an olive, on the other hand, not olivewise, but vinewise?”[80] And Jesus says: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt” (Matt. 12:33). Once more hear Jesus: “Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” (Matt. 7:16). It is the appeal to life.

It has been charged that James exaggerates the evil of the tongue, but one who knows life as it is must agree with James. Sirach says, “Curse the whisperer and the double-tongued, for such have destroyed many that were at peace” (28:13). Plummer quotes also a clause from the Syriac that is not in the Greek: “Also the third tongue, let it be cursed; for it has laid low many corpses.” Sirach (28:14 f.) continues: “A third [or backbiting] tongue hath unsettled many, and driven them from nation to nation; and strong cities hath pulled down, and overthrown houses of great men. A backbiting tongue hath cast out capable women, and deprived them of their labors.” The “third tongue” injures three classes (Plummer): the person who utters the slander, the one who listens, and the one of whom the slander is told. It is a triple sin and only sin. “Neither can salt water yield sweet,” James adds, and his conclusion falls with the force of a trip hammer. The crisp wisdom of James about the tongue makes one wonder afresh if his mother had not taught him some of these aphorisms as a child.

IX The True Wise Man

The connection between the paragraph about wisdom (3:13-18) and the preceding discussion of the perils of the tongue is very close. James is still thinking of the men who supposed that they had true faith but who did not practice it; “men who supposed that they had a deeper wisdom and a larger knowledge than their brethren, and who were continually asserting their claim to be teachers” (Dale). But Hort considers the passage on the tongue a “long digression,” a view hardly tenable. These ambitious teachers had overlooked the havoc wrought by tongue (and pen).

James has given a needed warning about that phase of the subject and now turns to the subject matter itself. The ambitious teacher will do all the more harm if he is not merely a bungler of real wisdom but a disseminator of false wisdom. Already the air was full of all sorts of fads and fancies that appealed to the unthinking and the unwary. The Essenes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Epicureans, the Stoics, the Mithraists, the Gnostics, the Judaizers, the cult of emperor worship, with more or less distinctness were clamoring for a hearing. There were professional sophists who traveled over the country with patent solutions of all problems. Some appealed to the nervous or the neurotic, like Christian Science today; others to the ignorant, like Russellism or Mormonism. Paul will later discuss both speech and wisdom “as good things liable to grievous abuse” (Hort), in 1 Corinthians 1:5, 17; 2; and 3.

The Call for the Wise Man (3:13a)

“Who is wise and understanding among you?” The question does not mean that nobody is wise and understanding, but it calls a halt on the rush of volunteers who have apparently a superfluity of wisdom. An overplus of conceit is intolerable for normal persons. Job (12:2) has our sympathy when he retorts to his officious advisers: “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you.” Once more Job (28:12) asks: “But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?” Here, as very often in the Old Testament, we have wisdom and understanding used together. God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding (1 Kings 4:29). “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; ... get understanding” (Prov. 4:7). In Psalm 107:43 we have the question: “Who is wise?” James is thoroughly acquainted with the wisdom literature of the Jews, both canonical and uncanonical, and is at home in the handling of this theme. His words are not many, but they carry much of depth and power.

Many of the professional wise men, then as now, were frauds who easily duped the gullible populace. They were magicians like Simon Magus, who gave it out that he was some great man, and the idle crowd took him at his high estimate of himself (Acts 8:9 ff.). Note also the cases of Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:6 ff.) and the Jewish exorcists (19:13 ff.). The success of these men is one of the most humiliating contemplations about our common humanity. Carlyle bluntly called most people fools. But there were really wise men then also, like the Magi and others, who sought light and truth. Oesterley thinks that James by this question appeals to the self-respect of his hearers, who are tired of men with “the lust of teaching and talking” (Plummer). James is still directing blows at sham religion, and there is ample cause for such attacks in all the ages. Hypocrisy flourishes in all ages and in all climes. This meanest of parasites has a marvelous vitality.

The combination of “wise” and “understanding” is not without point (cf. Deut. 4:6; Isa. 5:21). This is the only instance of the combination in the New Testament. In classic Greek the second word was used of a skilled or scientific person who had gained technical knowledge of a subject. It implies personal acquaintance and experience, not mere abstract knowledge or intellectual apprehension of the theory of a thing. It is book learning plus practical application, as opposed to one without this special training. Then the word for wise is given by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. I. v.) to mean “the understanding of things human and divine, and their causes.” It is the word found in the term “philosophy” and implies thoughtfulness, penetration, grasp of the relations of things, and the right use of one’s knowledge for the highest ends. There are learned fools, men who have a lumber of learning in their heads but in a disorderly jumble. In the use of James the only really wise man is he who places God in the center of his life, who serves Christ as Lord and Master, who keeps the intellect in subjection to the will of God.

There are plenty of ignorant fools also, men who have neither intellectual apprehension nor practical wisdom. It is hard to tell which is the sadder spectacle, the learned fool or the ignorant fool. But, certainly, a premium is not to be placed upon either class. Both classes of fools are to be kept out of the ranks of teachers and preachers if it can be done. Advice on all sorts of subjects is so plentiful that there seems to be an abundance of easygoing wisdom. But the world is still eager to listen to the true wise man if he can be found (cf. Van Dyke’s _Other Wise Man_). But the very reputation for wisdom may lead to posing as a wise man. James dares to challenge the candidates for teachers of wisdom in the churches. Is it not possible that not enough care is taken in the choice of teachers in the churches and the ordination of preachers of the gospel?

The Proof of the Wise Man (3:13b)

Wisdom is not a matter for mere technical inquiry. One has to stand an examination on wisdom; but it is that of life, unwritten and written—that of deeds, not of words. “Let him show by his good life his works in meekness of wisdom.” This test of the wise man is put in a peculiarly Jacobean style. The very position of the word “show” is emphatic; it is the first word in the sentence. If one may use the vernacular, we are all “from Missouri” and “have to be shown” when it comes to each other’s wisdom. The test is the acid test of deeds, not words. We may quibble over words and talk like a wise man, but time will prove our words by our deeds.

One may speak like a wise man and in reality be the biggest sort of a fool, yea, a scoundrel. People have learned to discount mere talk when it stands alone. Just being a preacher is not enough. One must practice what he preaches. The Roman Catholic doctrine relieves the priest from the obligation to live the morality which he preaches, but surely that is a travesty on the ethics of Christianity. It is false ethics and false religion. People have a right to hold the preacher to the standard of the gospel, just as he has the right to urge upon them the highest ideals of conduct. There is a wonderful leveling process going on all the time. Lincoln said with rare wisdom that a man may fool all the people part of the time and some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

The greatest asset that the preacher has, after all, is his life, a long life of piety and consecration. There is no answering that argument—“by his good life his works.” This is the only proof that counts in the long run. The King James Version has here “good conversation,” which was at one time good English (_conversatio_, _conversari_), originally one’s conduct or bearing (turning oneself about, the precise idea in the Greek word). But long ago the English confined the word to talk, perhaps because some people did little else but talk. But quaint English must give way to the modern preciseness of speech.

It is the beautiful manner of life that speaks the language of business today, the flower of a white life that adorns the profession of the service of Christ. But even so, it must be behavior that is sincere, that finds expression in acts, not mere external mannerisms, posing, attitudinizing, stage effect. Nothing is more repulsive than professional pietists who attract attention to themselves rather than to Christ the Lord. It is a case pre-eminently where actions speak louder than words and where words alone do more harm than good. Bengel puts it tersely: _re potius quam verbis_. In simple truth, the more a man says in claim of superior wisdom, the less he is credited with the possession of any wisdom.

But it is not merely a case of deeds versus words but also of “gentleness and modesty versus arrogance and passion” (Mayor), “in meekness of wisdom,” “with the modesty of wisdom” (Moffatt). Meekness was not ranked high among the Greeks. Aristotle (Eth. Nic. IV. v) considered it a second-rate virtue, “the mean between passionateness and impassionateness” (Plummer). Epictetus (bk. II, chap, i, § 36) says: “But think that thou art nobody and that thou knowest nothing.”

The Christian conception rests upon the idea in the Psalms that meekness is a favorite trait of the devout. “The meek will he guide in justice; and the meek will he teach his way” (25:9). “Jehovah upholdeth the meek” (147:6). In Sirach (3:18) we read: “The greater you are, the more you humble yourself.” But there is no word comparable to that of Jesus, who said of himself, “I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt. 11:29), in his plea for men to come to him as teacher. It is an essential prerequisite in the teacher, else he is unapproachable and is aloof and cold. Jesus pronounced a Beatitude on the meek (Matt. 5:5), but he did more—he exemplified meekness in his life.

By meekness James does not mean effeminacy or weakness (any more than did Jesus). He does mean the absence of pretentiousness and wilfulness. Peter (1 Peter 3:15) uses the expression “with meekness and fear” for the spirit with which one is to defend the faith, the “reason concerning the hope that is in you.” There can be firmness and courage without bumptiousness and bigotry. There are frequent exhortations in the New Testament along this line (cf. Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:24; 1 Cor. 4:21). The wise man wears the crown of modesty. This spiritual paradox seems absurd to the merely worldly-wise.

The Disproof of the Wise Man (3:14)

“The possession of wisdom was made a claim to teachership” (Hort). So the absence of wisdom is a positive disqualification. One may, no doubt, possess wisdom and yet not be able to teach. But the lack of wisdom is itself a sufficient bar. The wrong spirit shows the lack of wisdom. “But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart,” what then? There were many controversialists who had both of these vices.

Jealousy is not evil per se. It wavers between the good and evil sense and in itself is merely zeal, which may be for good or ill. (For the good use see 2 Cor. 11:2; Gal. 1:14.) Sometimes this zeal was not according to knowledge (Rom. 10:2). Envy is distinguished from zeal (emulation) by Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 11. 1). But in the New Testament the bad sense of this word prevails (James 4:5; 1 Cor. 3:3; Gal. 5:20; Rom. 13:13), and it is listed with the works of the flesh. The bitterness of jealousy is only too well understood by those who give way to this petty vice. It tastes bitter, and the taste lasts a long time. Bitterness is itself punishment enough for the victims of the sin (Eph. 4:31).

The other word, “faction” or “party spirit,” has an uncertain etymology, probably from the word for hireling. At any rate, the word is soon applied to partisans who court and bribe adherents to their candidate. It presents the very quintessence of partisanship and of narrow-mindedness. This is not a mark of wisdom and is not a thing to boast of, at any rate. “Glory not” about it, “do not pride yourselves on that” (Moffatt). And yet this is precisely what many of the Jewish Christians were doing already. Thus they lied against the truth, were “false to the truth,” as Moffatt has it. Such partisan triumph is usually obtained by underhand methods and by the suppression of part of the truth. There is such a thing as “poisoned truth.” So partisan victory often leaves a bitter sting, because those in defeat know that an unfair advantage has been taken of them and of the truth of God.

It is clear that these opening chapters in the Epistle of James reveal a pitiful condition of controversy among some of the Jewish churches, such as Paul has to rebuke in Corinth later (cf. 1 Cor. 1-4). “The whole Christianity of many a devotee consists only, we may say, in a bitter contempt for the sins of sinners, in a proud and loveless contention with what it calls the wicked world” (Stier).

The point of James is precisely this. The very contentiousness which they regarded as supreme proof of their qualifications as exponents of the faith is here urged by James as absolute proof that they are disqualified for the position of teachers. Their bitterness makes it improper for them to talk about love and gentleness. Sometimes the very fierceness of one’s contention for orthodoxy drives some people into heresy. It is a sad outcome when one’s high and holy ambition to teach the things of Christ is frustrated by a Christless spirit of wrangling and personal abuse.

The Wisdom from Below (3:15 f.)

Wisdom is precisely what we all need and desire, but the bitter self-seeking partisans just described “do not cherish the truth except as a possession of their own, or a missile of their own” (Hort). “This wisdom,” claimed by the pompous bigots in verse 14, can only be so described in terms of courtesy or, more exactly, of irony. It is only wisdom so-called and is real folly. It is at best worldly wisdom, “earthly,” not merely in the sense of taking place on earth rather than in heaven (John 3:12) but with the earthly horizon and outlook as opposed to the heavenly, like those who mind earthly things (Phil. 3:19). Such a wisdom passes for “the wisdom of this world” (1 Cor. 1:20; 3:19) but is distinctly not “God’s wisdom,” “a wisdom not of this world” (1 Cor. 2:6 f.).

“This wisdom” is not merely earthly but does not come down from above, more exactly, “is not of a kind that cometh down” (Hort)—not such a wisdom, indeed, as God gives (James 1:5). It has the smell of earth in the evil sense of that term. It is not from above but in reality from below. Jesus said to the Pharisees: “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23). The antithesis is complete both in origin and spirit. The axioms of the selfish, like “look out for Number One,” are the wisdom of the devil: “All that a man hath will he give for his life” (Job 2:4).

This selfish wisdom is merely that of the natural man, not a mark of the regenerate spirit. There is no single English word that properly renders this word. “Psychic” transliterates it but does not translate it. “Sensual” makes it too much a matter of the body, as does “fleshly,” like the Vulgate _animalis_. It does not appear in the Septuagint and only six times in the New Testament (James 3:15; Jude 19; 1 Cor. 2:14; 15:44, 46). The broad distinction between soul and body or mind and body (dichotomy) is not so hard to grasp, but the threefold division (trichotomy) into spirit, soul, and body, as in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, seems to place the psyche below the pneuma.[81]

It seems clear from 1 Corinthians 2:14 that the spiritual man is the regenerate man, while the natural man is the unregenerate man in his unsaved state of sin. So here, therefore, this earthly wisdom is that of the unregenerate man; it is not sanctified wisdom. He may not be carnal, the slave of the animal passions, but merely coldly unspiritual. Such a wisdom does not reach the higher levels of the man’s nature.

But it is still worse. Such a wisdom is demoniacal, devilish (_diabolica_, Vulgate), “in that it raised up the very devil in the hearts of both opposer and opposed” (Oesterley). It is wisdom such as that which demons have (Bengel), not such as God gives (1:5). It is the wisdom of those who do the will of the flesh (Eph. 2:2 f.), who follow the teaching of demons (1 Tim. 4:1). One is reminded of the words of Jesus in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil.” “Thus the wisdom shared by demons answers to the faith shared by demons of 2:19” (Hort), the tongue set on fire by hell (3:6).

It is indeed a keen knowledge of human nature that James here reveals, but it is a sad indictment all the same. It reads like nature in the rough, red in tooth and claw, the law of the jungle, not the law of grace. It is Nietzsche’s superman, not the love that serves, that came to minister and not to be ministered unto. The might of right is not understood by those who hold that might is right. There is a new paganism today in Berlin, in Paris, in London, in New York. It is very subtle and very scornful of the pity of Jesus.

Red blood is a good thing, to be sure, so be it that it courses through a clean heart. The survival of the fittest is the law of nature, but fittest for what? The law of the wolves is to turn and devour the wolf that falls in the chase. The philosophy of Nietzsche is a bit more brutal in its plainness of speech than the wisdom of the world usually puts it. But even so, its demoniacal character stands out more sharply. “I want; therefore, I have the right to get.” This is the policy of aggression on the part of nations and individuals, of rogues and rapists, of grafters and white-slavers, of bank-looters and oppressors of labor.

The further comment of James elucidates his point: “For where jealousy and faction are (v. 14), there is confusion and every vile deed.” Jealousy and faction come from the devil. He sows suspicion in the churches, in the midst of families, in the hearts of those who let him in. James had already (3:8) accused the tongue of being a restless evil and (1:8) had spoken of the unstable man. God is not the God of confusion but of peace (1 Cor. 14:33), so that the factions in the churches cannot claim God as supporting them, any more than nations at war have the right to make flippant claims that God is on their side in a conflict.

Oesterley has a fine description of the spirit of the professional controversialist: “Acute argument, subtle distinctions, clever controversial methods which took small account of truth so long as a temporary point was gained, skilful dialectics, bitter sarcasms, the more enjoyed and triumphed in if the poisonous shaft came home and rankled in the breast of the opponent—in short, all those tricks of the unscrupulous controversialist, which are none the less contemptible for being clever—this was wisdom of a certain kind.” But in reality it left the way open for “every vile deed,” for the word here for “vile” means worthless, not immoral.