Part 14

The social test of modern Christianity is to do justice to the laboring men without doing injustice to the capitalists. The conditions of life must be made easier. If corporations have no souls, the men who toil at the forge have. Men are entitled to a bit of heaven here and now at their own hearth and home. Somehow, many of the laborers have come to feel that the churches do not sympathize with the struggles of the laboring classes to better their hard lot but fawn upon the very rich who sometimes grind the toilers to the earth. It is easy to be extreme and unjust to one side or the other. The main thing is to be faithful to God and man, to man as man. The poorest of men is worth more than a sheep, yes, than gold and silver. The soul is without price, and the soul dwells in the body. We must shake the shackles free from men and women who cry out to God. The Lord God of Sabaoth has heard their cries and will punish the offenders in due time, but that fact does not absolve us from our present duty in the midst of conditions that call for action. Wronged workers have a right to a hearing at the bar of public opinion. They will cry on until they are heard.

The Wanton Use of Money (5:5 f.)

Evidently James is all ablaze as he faces the situation of his readers. These Jewish plutocrats, some of them shysters, have made their money out of the blood and sweat of the toiling poor. And then they spend it in a way to anger the wronged workers still more. They live in the most luxurious extravagance and waste of money while the cold, half-naked, hungry toilers who made the wealth go unpaid. It is no wonder that such laborers grow bitter at heart. It is a vivid and even ghastly picture of the wicked rich who revel at the cost of human happiness, who with careless indifference shut their eyes to the misery all around them due to their own injustice. Christianity endeavors to make this cold cynicism impossible, to persuade to be just and, if need be, go the second mile in eagerness to help rather than to hang back and higgle over the first.

“Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure, ye have revelled on earth and plunged into dissipation” (Moffatt). The sound of revelry by night has no melody to the ears of the man whose wife and children are starving because he does not get a square deal from his employer. In Hermas (_Sim._ 7. 1) both of these verbs are used together (“reminiscence of this passage,” Mayor) of those who gave themselves up to the lusts of the world. See also 1 Timothy 5:6: “She that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth.” One is reminded of the picture of the beggar Lazarus who lay at the rich man’s gate while the man feasted within. The conditions will be reversed in heaven if the poor are Christians and the rich man is unsaved (Luke 16:25). That hope is not to be despised, but James is not content to spare the rich now while they inflict such wrongs on men whom they employ.

“Ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.” We have here a hard phrase to understand. Homer uses the verb meaning to turn milk into cheese (_Od._ ix. 246). But we cannot feel sure (cf. Luke 21:34). And what is “the day of slaughter”? Moffatt boldly renders it thus: “You have fattened yourselves as for the Day of Slaughter.” That is at least comprehensible. At any rate, when Jerusalem was destroyed, the Romans slew the rich Jews indiscriminately, whether they remained in the city or flew in despair to the Romans who were bent on plunder (cf. Josephus, _War_, v. 10, 2). The pious poor in all the ages have suffered at the hands of the rich and the mighty. Even in America religious liberty came as the result of fierce struggle. Political freedom was bought with the price of blood. Economic justice will be won only by tears and blood.

The very limit is reached. “Ye have condemned, ye have killed the righteous one; he doth not resist you.” Many take these words to refer to the death of Jesus as the culmination of iniquity, when the rich Pharisees and Sadducees obtained the death of the poor Carpenter of Nazareth. In these words Peter charged that the Jews had been guilty of Christ’s death: “But ye denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of life” (Acts 3:14 f.).

Certainly the application to Jesus has a deal of verisimilitude. Stephen used similar language: “And they killed them that showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7:52). “The Righteous One” is thus seen to be one of the titles given Jesus by the early disciples. There is no reason why James should not have referred to the death of Jesus in those words.

But the book of Wisdom has similar language about the righteous poor who are oppressed by the wicked rich, and the parallel is so clear that probably James refers directly to it. See Wisdom 2:10 ff.: “Let us oppress the poor righteous man; let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the ancient grey hairs of the aged.... Let us lie in wait for the righteous; because he is not for our turn, and he is clear contrary to our doings; he upbraideth us with our offending the law.” It was so in the days of the prophets. Hear Amos (2:6 f.) as he thunders against the evils of his day: “They have sold the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes—they that pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor” (surely the most greedy of men for real estate, if they even seek that on top of the head of the poor!). The picture is one of the oppression of the good man who is unresisting and allows himself to be robbed. The horrors of war to helpless women and children come before us.

It is curious that in the legendary account[92] of the death of James, who was later called also “the Just,” we are told that the Jews ran upon James, crying, “Oh! oh! even the righteous one.” One of the priests vainly cried out: “Stop! What are you doing? The righteous one is praying for you.” According to this story, James himself finally met the very fate of those unfortunate victims of Jewish greed and hate, of whom Jesus is the chief illustration. Progress in behalf of human rights is won only by slow advances here and there. But in the end of the day the cause wins. The stars in their courses fight against Sisera and all the enemies of man and God.

XII Perseverance and Prayer

The purpose of James in writing his epistle comes out clearly in 5:7-20. He wishes to hearten the Jewish Christians in the midst of their trials as well as to make a protest against the oppressions to which they were subjected. “The storm of indignation is past, and from this point to the end of the Epistle St. James writes in tones of tenderness and affection” (Plummer). He has denounced the persecutors and now turns to the brethren who are under the heel of the money devil.

Patience till the Parousia (5:7 f.)

“Be patient therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” Moffatt has it “till the arrival of the Lord.” The example of the righteous man, whether Christ or the typical righteous poor man, argues strongly for long-suffering (“long-tempered” like our “sweet-tempered,” “quick-tempered,” and the opposite of “short-tempered,” according to Mayor). In the Christian race one cannot afford to be short of wind. He has a long run and must hold out until the goal is reached (cf. Heb. 12:1-3).

One is reminded of the opening note of the Epistle of James (1:2-4), where he urged joy in the midst of varied trials. The wicked rich deserve all the fierce denunciation that James has just bestowed and all the penalty that God will inflict, but the suffering Christians must not engage in mere recrimination. James does not discourage protest against wrong or the effort to remove evil. But there is a residuum of suffering and pain in the cup of all of us. When all else is done, in the end of the day we must drink that cup. Let us do it with the spirit of soldiers who fall in the trenches at the post of duty. It is better to do it without flinching and without making a wry face. God is full of long-suffering toward us (Rom. 2:4; 1 Peter 3:20), and men have shown the same spirit (James 5:10; 2 Cor. 6:6). The patience in James 1:3 f. is just “remaining under,” but here the point is to do it and make no fuss about it, not to call attention to what one is suffering, to be a martyr without insisting on being recognized as one.

The early Christians were so eager for the second coming of the Lord Jesus that they were impatient for his return and some of them completely upset about it, although Jesus had emphasized the utter uncertainty of the time and had urged watchfulness and readiness. By a skilful turn (Plummer) James “makes the unconscious impatience of primitive Christianity a basis for his exhortation to conscious patience.”

Some of them no longer had a taste for the slow work of plowing, sowing, and reaping, forgetting what Jesus had said of the gradual growth of the kingdom of God from seed to harvest. So James, probably with the words of Jesus in mind, says, “Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth.” The farmer, tiller of the soil, has much to discourage him in the making and selling of his crops. The soil has to be kept up to its level of fertility and must be properly prepared. The seed must be of good quality and has to be sown at the proper season. The weeds will come, and the harvest is dependent on the sun and the rain. He cannot hasten the process. When he has done the most scientific farming, he can only wait in expectancy. Often, perhaps daily, the farmer watches the growth of the grain, “being patient over it,” bending over it as a fond father. He knows that he cannot hasten the season. The early rain made possible the sowing of the seed. The latter rain will make possible a harvest. Meanwhile, he can do nothing but wait “until it receive” the final touch from God’s hand. By force of circumstances the farmer has to exercise long-suffering toward his crop of wheat.

“Be ye also patient.” James applies his illustration with directness and power. “Ye also,” as well as the husbandman. He does it, for nature has taught him her secrets. “Ye” should do so, for Jesus has shown you the way. “Establish your hearts.” Peter is charged with just this task when he has turned (Luke 22:32). God strengthens us (1 Peter 5:10; 1 Thess. 3:13), but we must do our share. “For the coming of the Lord is at hand.”

The phrase “is at hand” is the one that John the Baptist used of the nearness of the kingdom of heaven which had come right upon them (Matt. 3:2). So Peter (1 Peter 4:7) says, “The end of all things is at hand.” Paul (Phil. 4:5) says, “The Lord is at hand.” There is no doubt that the early Christians hoped that Jesus would come back quickly and thus relieve them from the ills of an impossible social system (Rom. 13:11; 1 Thess. 4:15; 1 John 2:18). But they did not at all feel sure that Jesus was coming right away (1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Thess. 3:1 ff.; 2 Cor. 5:1-10; Phil. 1:21-23).

When 2 Peter was written, scoffers were already asking, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Peter 3:4). The answer is given that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Back to their tasks they must go, back to the building up of the kingdom of God in the midst of a world of woe and sin, on with the conflict till Jesus comes, on with the long siege against human greed and inhumanity to man. Patience is the word—patience and prayer, pluck and praise, power and peace in the end.

Folly of Recrimination (5:9)

If things do not go to suit us, the natural way is to blame somebody else for what has befallen us. We generally exculpate ourselves from all responsibility. A naïve illustration of this propensity is found in John 12:19: “Behold how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after him.” At the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem the Pharisees, thinking that their cause against Jesus was lost, turned and blamed each other for the outcome. So then “murmur not, brethren, one against another.” Literally it is, “groan not, brothers, against one another.” See Romans 8:23: “We ourselves groan within ourselves.” It is the inward and unexpressed feeling rather than the outward expression of dissatisfaction (cf. James 4:11).

The secret grudge is taken out in groans and murmurs. In Mark 7:34 Jesus is said to have groaned as he looked up to heaven and prayed, perhaps out of sheer weariness at the burden of sin and sorrow that was upon him. It is hard to be content and to smother resentment at known or suspected wrong. The suppressed volcano may easily break out into a violent eruption. “Let them wander up and down for meat, and grudge if they be not satisfied” (Psalm 59:15, AV). The murmur of a mob is often senseless, and in all events we must bear in mind that we bring down condemnation on our own heads.

“That ye be not judged,” says James. He recurs to this point in 5:12. Probably the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:1 are recalled by James. “Behold, the judge standeth before the door.” He will hear all complaints and set everything right. The picture appears to be that in the Mishnah _Ab._ iv. 16: “This world is as if it were a vestibule to the future world; prepare thyself in the vestibule, that thou mayest enter the reception room.” Jesus is the Judge who stands at the door through which all must pass. The conception is eschatological and apocalyptic. See Matthew 24:33: “Know ye that he is nigh, even at the doors.” In Revelation 3:20 Jesus is represented as saying: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Let him in now, that you and he may sup together. Let him in now, else you may stand before him hereafter as culprit and helpless and hopeless. “Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and ye perish in the way” (Psalm 2:12). Treat kindly one another so that you will not need the Son to act as Judge between you.

Examples of Patience (5:10 f.)

James, like a practical preacher, loves to illustrate his points. He has a fitting one at hand in “the prophets who spake in the name of the Lord.” They spoke in the name, with the authority and with the power of the Lord. The idiom is common enough in the Septuagint and, indeed, in the papyri.[93] They spoke as the representatives of Jehovah. Mayor seems a bit perplexed over the failure of James to mention Jesus as the supreme example of suffering, as is done by Peter (1 Peter 2:21), who spoke of Christ’s leaving us an example, by Paul (Phil. 2:5-11), and by the author of Hebrews (12:1-5).

Perhaps James may have thought it was particularly pertinent for these Jewish Christians to be reminded of the prophets as an “example of suffering and of patience.” Certainly they endured evil in abundance and had great need of long-suffering. It was common enough to appeal to them for this purpose. Jesus did it with keenest irony at the mock heroic monuments built later to the memory of the martyred prophets (Matt. 5:12; 23:34, 37). Stephen did it with so sharp a tongue that the Sanhedrin stoned him to death for his courage and proved the truth of his words by their own acts (Acts 7:52). Elijah says to Jehovah, “The children of Israel have ... slain thy prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:10, 14). Jeremiah says also, “Your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion” (2:30). As patterns of patience take Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. These illustrate in various ways the patience of which the readers of the Epistle of James stand in sore need.

“Behold, we call them blessed that endured.” He had already done that in James 1:12. Jesus had promised salvation to the one who endured to the end (Matt. 24:13). Men usually felicitate the survivors of a catastrophe. Often they become popular heroes.

In particular, “ye have heard of the patience of Job.” Job was the most frequently quoted instance in Old Testament times and is a perfectly obvious one for James. And yet Job did have passionate outbursts of indignation at the gibes and superfluous advice of his tormenting friends, and even of his wife, when God seemed to have deserted him. But it must be remembered that Job did not curse God and die. He waited for God to speak and make it all plain. Job hardly exhibited long-suffering, but he clearly did show patience. He was not exactly meek, but he revealed the endurance of a sensitive man. Although Job is the most famous instance of patience in the Old Testament, yet he is nowhere else cited as such in the New Testament. We need not discuss the question whether Job is parable or fact, as the point is here precisely the same.

Ye “have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity, and merciful.” The outcome in the case of Job proves the point. It turned out all right with Job. So he illustrates the pity and mercy of the Lord; “the end of the Lord” is seen in the conclusion, like a novel that turns out happily at last. In the midst of the stress and storm of Job’s life and his violent outbursts of emotion and exalted feeling God is sympathetic and compassionate. God has understood Job and watched his endurance all the while. The story is so well known that James does not have to tell it but can depend upon his readers to see the point of the illustration.

Profanity (5:12)

This little paragraph seems to come in rather abruptly, with no connection with what precedes. As a result, Oesterley regards it as “a fragment of a larger piece” which James here tears from its context, perhaps a saying from Jesus. But Plummer is more likely correct in thinking of it as an appendix after rounding out the epistle, coming back to the blessedness of trial, with which topic the epistle opens.

The exhortations need not have a close connection with each other. As a matter of fact, James has spoken more against the sins of speech than any other single sin. Plummer well says, “He has spoken against talkativeness, unrestrained speaking, love of correcting others, railing, cursing, boasting, murmuring” (see 1:19, 26; 3:1-12; 4:11, 13; 5:9). He now recurs to the sins of speech to say a few words against one of the commonest evils of which he has not spoken specifically. He evidently is thinking of the words of Jesus as we have them in Matthew 5:34-37, though it is not an exact quotation.[94] He may, indeed, as Resch holds, give another version of the same logion (cf. 2 Cor. 1:17). But there was ample ground for this prohibition, as the Jews had learned how to split hairs on the subject of profanity.

The Third Commandment was plain enough on the subject, and it was supported by the Pharisees and the Essenes. The Essenes, indeed, opposed all oaths, even before courts, and were said to have been excused by Herod from taking the oath of allegiance (Jos., _Ant._ xv. 10.4). And yet, as Mayor notes, this is not consistent with the oath of initiation which the Essenes took (Jos., _War_ ii. 8.7). The Jewish view is well represented by Sirach 23:7-11 and by Philo (M. 2, p. 184).

The early Christians found trouble with this verse of James, as with the words of Jesus on the same point. See the list of quotations from the early writers in Mayor. Augustine sees no harm in oaths before courts if it were not for the danger of committing perjury. And yet it may be seriously questioned if Jesus or James is thinking of oaths in courts of justice, since Jesus himself did not refuse to answer when put on oath by the high priest before the Sanhedrin (Matt. 26: 63 f.). Besides, solemn asseveration is allowed in the Old Testament (Deut. 6:13; 10:20; Isa. 65:16). It is far more likely the flippant use of oaths (profanity) that is here condemned. There were, and are still, all sorts of devices by which more or less pious people feel justified in calling on the name of the Lord in ordinary speech. It is today one of the saddest things in life to note how common profanity is in the ordinary speech of men and of boys, mannish boys who imitate the men about them. It is positively disheartening to hear it on the streets, in the streetcars, in the trains.

If one is puzzled, as was Augustine, over the words “above all things,” on the ground that profanity is not worse than adultery and murder, we may take it either as a kind of hyperbole (as did Augustine) or as a sort of elative superlative (not literally _before_ all but only very important), as limited to the forms of impatience in the preceding context, like 1 Peter 4:8, where the same idiom occurs (Mayor). But if the strict interpretation be insisted on, one has only to consider what the sin of profanity really is. It is a blasphemous use of the name of the Most High God. The fact that it is usually done without thinking mitigates the offense, but sometimes the full bitterness of profanity is meant. Few things are worse than sulfurous speech like the very fumes of hell. For my part, I should not press the words “above all things” too far in this context.

“Swear not, neither by the heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath.”[95] Certainly this is plain enough to be understood. It is conclusive and inclusive and leaves no room for the milder forms of profanity for which Christians sometimes excuse themselves. “But let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay;” “let your ‘yes’ be a plain ‘yes,’ your ‘no’ a plain ‘no’” (Moffatt)—this, and nothing more. But there is the trouble. The need for emphasis and the love of strong assertion lead a person so easily to go beyond the bounds of good taste and decency. Edersheim (i. p. 583) has a Midrash quotation: “The good man’s yea is yea, and his nay nay.”

In calmer moments one knows that the value of his statement rests essentially on his own character for veracity. His mere word is enough and, in truth, all that one can offer. Violent expletives throw discredit on a person’s ordinary statements and suspicion on the one that he seeks to bolster up with artificial means. Profanity is one of the worst and most useless of sins. It brings good to none and harm to all, in particular to the one who uses it. “That ye fall not under judgment.” The Judge is at the door (James 5:9), and there is no escape.

Worship and Excitement (5:13)

Plummer has a very keen and pertinent heading for his chapter on this verse, and it is noteworthy that he devotes an entire chapter to this one verse, a verse that is little understood by most interpreters. His heading is this: “Worship the Best Outlet and Remedy for Excitement. The Connection between Worship and Conduct.” Certainly oaths are not the way to express one’s emotions, whether one be angry or merely excited, least of all when one has the miserable habit of profanity and is unaware of his foul speech. And yet it is not wrong to express one’s feelings. There is no merit in the self-repression of the cynic or the stoic. “Let the expression of strongly excited feelings be an act of worship” (Plummer). This is an intensely practical point.

“Is any among you suffering?” And what church or community does not have one or more of these occasional or chronic sufferers? The word has a wider meaning than mere bodily sickness. Paul uses it for suffering hardship as a good soldier (2 Tim. 2:3, 9; 4:5). It includes any kind of ill of body or mind. It means, literally, having hard experiences, and it refers to natural depression as a result of such misfortunes. The remedy is not in despondency or in suicide. The remedy lies in prayer. “Let him pray,” let him pray as a habit (present tense of durative action). Prayer is a blessing to the heart and to the mental life. It is good to talk with God. The worry disappears in God’s presence and often the very ill itself disappears. But if it does not go, he gives grace sufficient to bear the burden. So then prayer is the proper outlet for the depressed Christian.