Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Parallel Translations
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Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
Let endurance have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
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My brethren count it excedynge ioye when ye faule into divers temptacions
for as moche as ye knowe how that the tryinge of youre fayth bringeth pacience: and let pacience
have her parfect worke that ye maye be parfecte and sounde lackinge nothinge.
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My brethren, count it exceeding ioy, when ye fall into diuers tentations,
Knowing that ye trying of your faith bringeth forth patience,
And let patience haue her perfect worke, that ye may be perfect and entier, lacking nothing.
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Cross-references (50)
- 1 Peter 1:6-8 (v2) Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved in various trials, that the proof of your…
- James 1:12 (v2) Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to…
- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (v2) He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in…
- Matthew 5:10-12 (v2) Blessed are those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. “Blessed are you when people…
- Romans 5:3-4 (v3) Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and…
Show all 50 cross-references
- Luke 6:22-23 (v2) Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake. Rejoice…
- Philippians 1:29 (v2) Because it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer on his behalf,
- 2 Peter 2:9 (v2) the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
- Romans 8:17-18 (v2) and if children, then heirs: heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with…
- Revelation 2:10 (v2) Don’t be afraid of the things which you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be…
- Colossians 1:24 (v2) Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his…
- Hebrews 10:36 (v3) For you need endurance so that, having done the will of God, you may receive the promise.
- Romans 8:35-37 (v2) Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…
- Colossians 1:11 (v3) strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, for all endurance and perseverance with joy,
- Luke 21:19 (v4) “By your endurance you will win your lives.
- 1 Peter 5:10 (v4) But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect,…
- Acts 5:41 (v2) They therefore departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for Jesus’ name.
- 1 Peter 4:13-16 (v2) But because you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, that at the revelation of his glory you also may rejoice with exceeding joy.…
- Romans 8:28 (v3) We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.
- 2 Corinthians 4:17 (v3) For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,
- 1 Peter 1:7 (v3) that the proof of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in…
- Matthew 5:48 (v4) Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
- Hebrews 10:34 (v2) For you both had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for…
- Romans 15:4 (v3) For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that through perseverance and through encouragement of the…
- 2 Timothy 3:17 (v4) that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
- 2 Peter 1:6 (v3) and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control perseverance; and in perseverance godliness;
- Philippians 2:17 (v2) Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all.
- Romans 8:25 (v3) But if we hope for that which we don’t see, we wait for it with patience.
- Hebrews 11:36-38 (v2) Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were…
- Hebrews 12:1 (v3) Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily…
- 2 Thessalonians 3:5 (v3) May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love, and into the perseverance of Christ.
- Romans 2:7 (v3) to those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life;
- Galatians 6:9 (v4) Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.
- 2 Thessalonians 1:4 (v3) so that we ourselves boast about you in the assemblies of God for your perseverance and faith in all your persecutions and in the…
- Hebrews 13:21 (v4) make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom…
- James 5:7-11 (v4) Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient…
- Habakkuk 2:3 (v4) For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove false. Though it takes time, wait for it;…
- Psalms 37:7 (v4) Rest in Yahweh, and wait patiently for him. Don’t fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who makes wicked plots…
- Psalms 40:1 (v4) I waited patiently for Yahweh. He turned to me, and heard my cry.
- James 3:2 (v4) For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also.
- Matthew 10:22 (v4) You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.
- Philippians 3:12-15 (v4) Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold…
- James 1:5 (v4) But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
- Luke 8:15 (v4) Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with…
- 1 Corinthians 2:6 (v4) We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to…
- Colossians 4:12 (v4) Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, salutes you, always striving for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and…
- Job 17:9 (v4) Yet the righteous will hold to his way. He who has clean hands will grow stronger and stronger.
- John 17:23 (v4) I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me and loved them, even as you loved…
- 1 John 4:17-18 (v4) In this love has been made perfect among us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as he is, even so we are in this…
- 2 Peter 1:9 (v4) For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (27 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv2–4 2 All joy. The first exhortation is, to bear…
2 All joy. The first exhortation is, to bear trials with a cheerful mind. And it was especially necessary at that time to comfort the Jews, almost overwhelmed as they were with troubles. For the very name of the nation was so infamous, that they were hated and despised by all people wherever they went; and their condition as Christians rendered them still more miserable, because they held their own nation as their most inveterate enemies. At the same time, this consolation was not so suited to one time, but that it is always useful to believers, whose life is a constant warfare on earth.
But that we may know more fully what he means, we must doubtless take temptations or trials as including all adverse things; and they are so called, because they are the tests of our obedience to God. He bids the faithful, while exercised with these, to rejoice; and that not only when they fall into one temptation, but into many, not only of one kind, but of various kinds. And doubtless, since they serve to mortify our flesh, as the vices of the flesh continually shoot up in us, so they must necessarily be often repeated. Besides, as we labor under diseases, so it is no wonder that different remedies are applied to remove them.
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The Lord then afflicts us in various ways, because ambition, avarice, envy, gluttony, intemperance, excessive love of the world, and the innumerable lusts in which we abound, cannot be cured by the same medicine.
When he bids us to count it all joy, it is the same as though he had said, that temptations ought to be so deemed as gain, as to be regarded as occasions of joy. He means, in short, that there is nothing in afflictions which ought to disturb our joy. And thus, he not only commands us to bear adversities calmly, and with an even mind, but shews us that this is a reason why the faithful should rejoice when pressed down by them.
It is, indeed, certain, that all the senses of our nature are so formed, that every trial produces in us grief and sorrow; and no one of us can so far divest himself of his nature as not to grieve and be sorrowful whenever he feels any evil. But this does not prevent the children of God to rise, by the guidance of the Spirit, above the sorrow of the flesh. Hence it is, that in the midst of trouble they cease not to rejoice.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2–4 The first place or part touching comfort in afflictions,…
The first place or part touching comfort in afflictions, wherein we ought not be cast down and be fainthearted, but rather rejoice and be glad.
Seeing their condition was miserable in that scattering abroad, he doth well to begin as he doth.
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The first argument, because our faith is tried through afflictions: which ought to be most pure, for so it is behoovable for us.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv2–4 2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye…
2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
Ver. 2. Count it all joy] The world wondereth (saith Mr Philpot the martyr) how we can be so merry in such extreme misery. But our God is omnipotent, who turneth misery into felicity. Believe me, there is no such joy in the world as the people of Christ have under the cross; I speak it by experience, &c. He counted it so upon mature deliberation, as the apostle here adviseth.
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All joy] That is, full joy (by a Hebraism), complete and perfect; such as is the joy of merchants when they see their ships come laden in.
When ye fall into] Not go in step by step, but are precipitated, plunged. Or when ye fall among, as he that went down towards Jericho fell among thieves, Luk 10:30. When ye are so surrounded that there is no escaping them, being distressed, as David was, Psa 116:3.
Into divers temptations] Crosses seldom come single ( Catenata piorum crux), as neither do mercies, but trooping and treading one upon the heels of another. {a} After rain cometh clouds, Ecc 12:2. As in April, no sooner is one shower unburdened, but another is brewed. And when the apostle calleth them temptations, he meaneth such afflictions as will put us hard to it, and show what metal we are made of; pressing and piercing crosses.
{a} Aliud ex alio malum. Teren.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2–4 My brethren; both as being of the same nation…
My brethren; both as being of the same nation and the same religion; so he calls them, that the kindness of his compellation might sweeten his exhortations.
Count it; esteem it so by a spiritual judgment, though the flesh judge otherwise.
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All joy; matter of the chiefest joy, viz. spiritual. So all is taken, 1Ti 1:15.
When ye fall into; when ye are so beset and circumvented by them, that there is no escaping them, but they come upon you, though by the directeth of God’s providence, yet not by your own seeking.
Divers temptations; so he calls afflictions, from God’s end in them, which is to try and discover what is in men, and whether they will cleave to him or not. The Jews were hated by other nations, and the Christian Jews even by their own, and therefore were exposed to divers afflictions, and of divers kinds, 1Pe 1:6.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv2, 4 Our apostle’s design in this epistle being to support…
Our apostle’s design in this epistle being to support the believing Jews under their great sufferings for the cause of Christianity, he first acquaints them with the nature of those sufferings which they might expect to fall under for the same; he calls them temptations, that is, trials, they are correcting trials for sin, and they are experimental trials of the truth of grace, and of the strength of grace; the affliction of God’s children are trials castigatory, probatory trials.
Note, 2. The advice given in these trials, to count it joy, all joy, when they fall into temptations, yea, into divers temptations; not that afflictions are in themselves joyous, the temptation or trial is not matter of joy, but of sorrow and heaviness considered in itself, but because of their good effects and sweet fruits, in proving our faith, and increasing our patience; but mark, he says, when ye fall into temptations, not when ye run yourselves into them, or draw them upon yourselves; we lose the comfort of our sufferings, when, either by guilt or by imprudence, we bring them upon ourselves.
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Note here, that trials, how evil and afflictive soever in themselves, and in their own nature, yet administer occasion of great joy to sincere Christians, We glory in tribulation Rom 5:3; it denotes the highest joy, even to exultation and ravishment; there is joy resulting from the consideration of the glory that rebounds to God, of the honour done to us, of the benefit done to the church, and to ourselves, by confirming the faith of others; evidencing the sincerity of grace to ourselves, preparing us for, and giving us a swifter passage to heaven.
Note, 3. Our apostle’s argument to press them to joy and rejoice under their afflictions; and this is taken, 1. From the nature of them, they are trials of faith. 2. From the effect and fruit of them, they beget or work patience.
Learn hence, 1. That the afflictions which the people of God meet with, are trials of all their graces, but especially of their faith. This is a radical grace: we live by faith, we work by love: now of graces, Satan has a particular spite agianst the Christian’s faith, and God has a particular care for the preservation and perfection of it, Knowing the trial of your faith worketh patience; that is, it administers matter and occasion for patience, and, by the blessing of God upon it, it produces and increases patience; often trial puts us upon frequent exercises, and the frequent exercise of grace strengthens the habits of grace: Consequently the more our trials are, the stronger will our patience be: Knowing that the trial of your faith worketh patience: it follows, Jas 1:4.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v2 We now come to consider the matter of this…
We now come to consider the matter of this epistle. In this paragraph we have the following things to be observed: -
I. The suffering state of Christians in this world is represented, and that in a very instructive manner, if we attend to what is plainly and necessarily implied, together with what is fully expressed. 1. It is implied that troubles and afflictions may be the lot of the best Christians, even of those who have the most reason to think and hope well of themselves. Such as have a title to the greatest joy may yet endure very grievous afflictions. As good people are liable to be scattered, they must not think it strange if they meet with troubles. 2. These outward afflictions and troubles are temptations to them. The devil endeavours by sufferings and crosses to draw men to sin and to deter them from duty, or unfit them for it; but, as our afflictions are in God's hand, they are intended for the trial and improvement of our graces. The gold is put into the furnace, that it may be purified. 3. These temptations may be numerous and various: Divers temptations, as the apostle speaks. Our trials may be of many and different kinds, and therefore we have need to put on the whole armour of God. We must be armed on every side, because temptations lie on all sides. 4. The trials of a good man are such as he does not create to himself, nor sinfully pull upon himself; but they are such as he is said to fall into. And for this reason they are the better borne by him.
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II. The graces and duties of a state of trial and affliction are here pointed out to us. Could we attend to these things, and grow in them as we should do, how good would it be for us to be afflicted!
1. One Christian grace to be exercised is joy: Count it all joy, Jam 1:2. We must not sink into a sad and disconsolate frame of mind, which would make us faint under our trials; but must endeavour to keep our spirits dilated and enlarged, the better to take in a true sense of our case, and with greater advantage to set ourselves to make the best of it. Philosophy may instruct men to be calm under their troubles; but Christianity teaches them to be joyful, because such exercises proceed from love and not fury in God. In them we are conformable to Christ our head, and they become marks of our adoption. By suffering in the ways of righteousness, we are serving the interests of our Lord's kingdom among men, and edifying the body of Christ; and our trials will brighten our graces now and our crown at last. Therefore there is reason to count it all joy when trials and difficulties become our lot in the way of our duty. And this is not purely a New Testament paradox, but even in Job's time it was said, Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth. There is the more reason for joy in afflictions if we consider the other graces that are promoted by them.
2. Faith is a grace that one expression supposes and another expressly requires: Knowing this, that the trial of your faith, Jam 1:3; and then in Jam 1:6, Let him ask in faith. There must be a sound believing of the great truths of Christianity, and a resolute cleaving to them, in times of trial. That faith which is spoken of here as tried by afflictions consists in a belief of the power, and word, and promise of God, and in fidelity and constancy to the Lord Jesus.
3. There must be patience: The trial of faith worketh patience. The trying of one grace produces another; and the more the suffering graces of a Christian are exercised the stronger they grow. Tribulation worketh patience, Rom 5:3. Now, to exercise Christian patience aright, we must, (1.) Let it work. It is not a stupid, but an active thing. Stoical apathy and Christian patience are very different: by the one men become, in some measure, insensible of their afflictions; but by the other they become triumphant in and over them. Let us take care, in times of trial, that patience and not passion, be set at work in us; whatever is said or done, let patience have the saying and doing of it: let us not allow the indulging of our passions to hinder the operation and noble effects of patience; let us give it leave to work, and it will work wonders in a time of trouble. (2.) We must let it have its perfect work. Do nothing to limit it nor to weaken it; but let it have its full scope: if one affliction come upon the heels of another, and a train of them are drawn upon us, yet let patience go on till its work is perfected. When we bear all that God appoints, and as long as he appoints, and with a humble obedient eye to him, and when we not only bear troubles, but rejoice in them, then patience hath its perfect work. (3.) When the work of patience is complete, then the Christian is entire, and nothing will be wanting: it will furnish us with all that is necessary for our Christian race and warfare, and will enable us to persevere to the end, and then its work will be ended, and crowned with glory. After we have abounded in other graces, we have need of patience, Heb 10:36. But let patience have its perfect work, and we shall be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
4. Prayer is a duty recommended also to suffering Christians; and here the apostle shows, (1.) What we ought more especially to pray for - wisdom: If any lack wisdom, let him ask of God. We should not pray so much for the removal of an affliction as for wisdom to make a right use of it. And who is there that does not want wisdom under any great trials or exercises to guide him in his judging of things, in the government of his own spirit and temper, and in the management of his affairs? To be wise in trying times is a special gift of God, and to him we must seek for it. (2.) In what way this is to be obtained - upon our petitioning or asking for it. Let the foolish become beggars at the throne of grace, and they are in a fair way to be wise. It is not said, "Let such ask of man," no, not of any man, but, "Let him ask of God," who made him, and gave him his understanding and reasonable powers at first, of him in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Let us confess our want of wisdom to God and daily ask it of him. (3.) We have the greatest encouragement to do this: he giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. Yea, it is expressly promised that it shall be given, Jam 1:5. Here is something in answer to every discouraging turn of the mind, when we go to God, under a sense of our own weakness and folly, to ask for wisdom. He to whom we are sent, we are sure, has it to give: and he is of a giving disposition, inclined to bestow this upon those who ask. Nor is there any fear of his favours being limited to some in this case, so as to exclude others, or any humble petitioning soul; for he gives to all men. If you should say you want a great deal of wisdom, a small portion will not serve your turn, the apostle affirms, he gives liberally; and lest you should be afraid of going to him unseasonably, or being put to shame for your folly, it is added, he upbraideth not. Ask when you will, and as often as you will, you will meet with no upbraidings. And if, after all, any should say, "This may be the case with some, but I fear I shall not succeed so well in my seeking for wisdom as some others may," let such consider how particular and express the promise is: It shall be given him. Justly then must fools perish in their foolishness, if wisdom may be had for asking, and they will not pray to God for it. But, (4.) There is one thing necessary to be observed in our asking, namely, that we do it with a believing, steady mind: Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, Jam 1:6. The promise above is very sure, taking this proviso along with us; wisdom shall be given to those who ask it of God, provided they believe that God is able to make the simple wise, and is faithful to make good his word to those who apply to him. This was the condition Christ insisted on, in treating with those who came to him for healing: Believest thou that I am able to do this? There must be no wavering, no staggering at the promise of God through unbelief, or through a sense of any disadvantages that lie on our own part. Here therefore we see,
5. That oneness, and sincerity of intention, and a steadiness of mind, constitute another duty required under affliction: He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind, and tossed. To be sometimes lifted up by faith, and then thrown down again by distrust - to mount sometimes towards the heavens, with an intention to secure glory, and honour, and immortality, and then to sink again in seeking the ease of the body, or the enjoyments of this world - this is very fitly and elegantly compared to a wave of the sea, that rises and falls, swells and sinks, just as the wind tosses it higher or lower, that way or this. A mind that has but one single and prevailing regard to its spiritual and eternal interest, and that keeps steady in its purposes for God, will grow wise by afflictions, will continue fervent in its devotions, and will be superior to all trials and oppositions. Now, for the cure of a wavering spirit and a weak faith, the apostle shows the ill effects of these, (1.) In that the success of prayer is spoiled hereby: Let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord, Jam 1:7. Such a distrustful, shifting, unsettled person is not likely to value a favour from God as he should do, and therefore cannot expect to receive it. In asking for divine and heavenly wisdom we are never likely to prevail if we have not a heart to prize it above rubies, and the greatest things in this world. (2.) A wavering faith and spirit has a bad influence upon our conversations. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways, Jam 1:8. When our faith and spirits rise and fall with second causes, there will be great unsteadiness in all our conversation and actions. This may sometimes expose men to contempt in the world; but it is certain that such ways cannot please God nor procure any good for us in the end. While we have but one God to trust to, we have but one God to be governed by, and this should keep us even and steady. He that is unstable as water shall not excel. Hereupon,
III. The holy humble temper of a Christian, both in advancement and debasement, is described: and both poor and rich are directed on what grounds to build their joy and comfort, Jam 1:9-11. Here we may observe, 1. Those of low degree are to be looked upon as brethren: Let the brother of low degree, etc. Poverty does not destroy the relation among Christians. 2. Good Christians may be rich in the world, Jam 1:10. Grace and wealth are not wholly inconsistent. Abraham, the father of the faithful, was rich in silver and gold. 3. Both these are allowed to rejoice. No condition of lie puts us out of a capacity of rejoicing in God. If we do not rejoice in him always, it is our own fault. Those of low degree may rejoice, if they are exalted to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom of God (as Dr. Whitby explains this place); and the rich may rejoice in humbling providences, as they produce a lowly and humble disposition of mind, which is highly valuable in the sight of God. Where any are made poor for righteousness' sake, their very poverty is their exaltation. It is an honour to be dishonoured for the sake of Christ. To you it is given to suffer, Phi 1:29. All who are brought low, and made lowly by grace, may rejoice in the prospect of their exaltation at the last in heaven. 4. Observe what reason rich people have, notwithstanding their riches, to be humble and low in their own eyes, because both they and their riches are passing away: As the flower of the grass he shall pass away. He, and his wealth with him, Jam 1:11. For the sun has no sooner risen with a burning heat than it withereth the grass. Note hence, Worldly wealth is a withering thing. Riches are too uncertain (says Mr. Baxter on this place), too inconsiderable things to make any great or just alteration in our minds. As a flower fades before the heat of the scorching sun, so shall the rich man fade away in his ways. His projects, counsels, and managements for this world, are called his ways; in these he shall fade away. For this reason let him that is rich rejoice, not so much in the providence of God, that makes him rich, as in the grace of God, that makes and keeps him humble; and in those trials and exercises that teach him to seek his felicity in and from God, and not from these perishing enjoyments.
IV. A blessing is pronounced on those who endure their exercises and trials, as here directed: Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, Jam 1:12. Observe, 1. It is not the man who suffers only that is blessed, but he who endures, who with patience and constancy goes through all difficulties in the way of his duty. 2. Afflictions cannot make us miserable, if it be not our own fault. A blessing may arise from them, and we may be blessed in them. They are so far from taking away a good man's felicity that they really increase it. 3. Sufferings and temptations are the way to eternal blessedness: When he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, dokimos genomenos - when he is approved, when his graces are found to be true and of the highest worth (so metals are tried as to their excellency by the fire), and when his integrity is manifested, and all is approved of the great Judge. Note hence, To be approved of God is the great aim of a Christian in all his trials; and it will be his blessedness at last, when he shall receive the crown of life. The tried Christian shall be a crowned one: and the crown he shall wear will be a crown of life. It will be life and bliss to him, and will last for ever. We only bear the cross for a while, but we shall wear the crown to eternity. 4. This blessedness, involved in a crown of life, is a promised thing to the righteous sufferer. It is therefore what we may most surely depend upon: for, when heaven and earth shall pass away, this word of God shall not fail of being fulfilled. But withal let us take notice that our future reward comes, not as a debt, but by a gracious promise. 5. Our enduring temptations must be from a principle of love to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ, otherwise we are not interested in this promise: The Lord hath promised to those that love him. Paul supposes that a man may for some point of religion even give his body to be burnt, and yet not be pleasing to God, nor regarded by him, because of his want of charity, or a prevailing sincere love to God and man, Co1 13:3. 6. The crown of life is promised not only to great and eminent saints, but to all those who have the love of God reigning in their hearts. Every soul that truly loves God shall have its trials in this world fully recompensed in that world above where love is made perfect.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–4 My brethren,.... Not only according to the flesh, he…
My brethren,.... Not only according to the flesh, he being a Jew as they were; but in a spiritual sense, they being born again of the same grace, belonging to the same family and household of faith, and having the same Father, and being all the children of God, by faith in Christ Jesus:
count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; not the temptations of Satan, or temptations to sin; for these cannot be matter of joy, but grief; these are fiery darts, and give a great deal of uneasiness and trouble; but afflictions and persecutions for the sake of the Gospel, which are so called here and elsewhere, because they are trials of the faith of God's people, and of other graces of the Spirit of God. God by these tempts his people, as he did Abraham, when he called him to sacrifice his son; he thereby tried his faith, fear, love, and obedience; so by afflictions, God tries the graces of his people; not that he might know them, for he is not ignorant of them, but that they might be made manifest to others; and these are "divers": many are the afflictions of the righteous; through much tribulation they must enter the kingdom; it is a great fight of afflictions which they endure, as these believers did; their trials came from different quarters; they were persecuted by their countrymen the Jews, and were distressed by the Gentiles, among whom they lived; and their indignities and reproaches were many; and their sufferings of different sorts, as confiscation of goods, imprisonment of body, banishment, scourgings, and death in various shapes: and these they "fall" into; not by chance, nor altogether at an unawares, or unexpectedly; but they fell into them through the wickedness and malice of their enemies, and did not bring them upon themselves through any crime or enormity they were guilty of: and when this was their case, the apostle exhorts them to count it all joy, or matter of joy, of exceeding great joy, even of the greatest joy; not that these afflictions were joyous in themselves, but in their circumstances, effects, and consequences; as they tried, and exercised, and improved the graces of the Spirit, and worked for their good, spiritual and eternal, and produced in them the peaceable fruit of righteousness; and as they were attended with the presence and Spirit of God, and of glory; and as they made for, and issued in the glory of God; and because of that great reward in heaven which would follow them; see Mat 5:11. The Jews have a saying (g),
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"whoever rejoices in afflictions that come upon him, brings salvation to the world.''
(g) T. Bab. Taanith, fol. 8. 1.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv2, 4 My brethren, count it all joy - Which is…
My brethren, count it all joy - Which is the highest degree of patience, and contains all the rest. When ye fall into divers temptations - That is, trials.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv2–4 Verse 2. Count it all joy] The word πειρασμος,…
Verse 2. Count it all joy] The word πειρασμος, which we translate temptation, signifies affliction, persecution, or trial of any kind; and in this sense it is used here, not intending diabolic suggestion, or what is generally understood by the word temptation.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v2 Jas 1:2-4. Count it all joy — That is,…
Jas 1:2-4. Count it all joy — That is, matter of the greatest joy; when ye fall into divers temptations — Πειρασμοις, trials; for though rendered temptations, it does not signify here what is commonly meant by temptations, for these we are directed to pray against, but it denotes trials by affliction and persecution. To these God, by whose providence they come, exposes men, not to lead them into sin, but to afford them an opportunity of exercising and improving their graces and virtues. Hence our Lord declared those to be blessed who were persecuted for righteousness’ sake, Mat 5:10; and exhorted such, (Mat 5:42,) to rejoice and be exceeding glad; sentiments which doubtless the Apostle James had in his eye when he spoke to the Jewish Christians in this manner. Knowing that the trying, or proving, of your faith — By persecution and affliction; worketh patience — Exercises and thereby increases your patience, through the divine blessing, and your resignation to God’s will, from which many other virtues will flow. But let patience have her perfect work — Let it be duly and fully exercised, that it may rise to the highest degree of perfection: 1st, By composing your minds to a sweet and humble frame under your sufferings. 2d, By acknowledging God’s hand in them, and blessing him for them. 3d, By resisting all inclinations to impatience, fretfulness, and murmuring. 4th, By quietly waiting for deliverance, in the way God hath appointed, till he shall see fit to grant Jas 2:5 th, By enduring to the end of the time of your trial; that ye may be perfect and entire — Adorned with every Christian grace and virtue; wanting nothing — No kind or degree of grace which God requires to be in you; but may be complete in all the parts of holiness.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2–4 My brethren - Not brethren as Jews, but as…
My brethren - Not brethren as Jews, but as Christians. Compare Jam 2:1.
Count it all joy - Regard it as a thing to rejoice in; a matter which should afford you happiness. You are not to consider it as a punishment, a curse, or a calamity, but as a fit subject of felicitation. Compare the notes at Mat 5:12.
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When ye fall into divers temptations - Oh the meaning of the word “temptations,” see the notes at Mat 4:1. It is now commonly used in the sense of placing allurements before others to induce them to sin, and in this sense the word seems to be used in Jam 1:13-14 of this chapter. Here, however, the word is used in the sense of trials, to wit, by persecution, poverty, calamity of any kind. These cannot be said to be direct inducements or allurements to sin, but they try the faith, and they show whether he who is tried is disposed to adhere to his faith in God, or whether he will apostatize. They so far coincide with temptations, properly so called, as to test the religion of men. They differ from temptations, properly so called, in that they are not brought before the mind for the express purpose of inducing people to sin. In this sense it is true that God never tempts men, Jam 1:13-14. On the sentiment in the passage before us, see the notes at 1Pe 1:6-7. The word “divers” here refers to the various kinds of trials which they might experience - sickness, poverty, bereavement, persecution, etc. They were to count it a matter of joy that their religion was subjected to anything that tried it. It is well for us to have the reality of our religion tested, in whatever way it may be done.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2–3 Into divers temptations. The word temptations, in this epistle,…
Into divers temptations. The word temptations, in this epistle, is sometimes taken for trials by afflictions or persecutions, as in this place; sometimes for a tempting, enticing, or drawing others into sin. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–4 My brethren--a phrase often found in James, marking community…
My brethren--a phrase often found in James, marking community of nation and of faith.
all joy--cause for the highest joy [GROTIUS]. Nothing but joy [PISCATOR]. Count all "divers temptations" to be each matter of joy [BENGEL].
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fall into--unexpectedly, so as to be encompassed by them (so the original Greek).
temptations--not in the limited sense of allurements to sin, but trials or distresses of any kind which test and purify the Christian character. Compare "tempt," that is, try, Gen 22:1. Some of those to whom James writes were "sick," or otherwise "afflicted" (Jam 5:13). Every possible trial to the child of God is a masterpiece of strategy of the Captain of his salvation for his good.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv2–4 2. My brethren—The plural of brother in English is…
2. My brethren—The plural of brother in English is brothers, to designate relationship; brethren, confraternity. The primitive Hebrews made very extensive applications of the word. Besides descent from common parents it was applied to cousins, countrymen, and fellow Jews. The Rabbies called a born Jew, brother; a proselyte, neighbour; but a Gentile, neither. From the Jews the Christians adopted it as title for all fellow Christians. St. James repeatedly uses it: Jas_4:11; Jas_5:7-8; Jas_5:19. He also uses beloved: Jas_1:16; Jas_1:19; Jas_2:5.
Count it all joy—At the very opening our apostle places his suffering brethren upon the highest point of consolation, namely, that height of Christian life in which trials are sure of being antecedents to triumph, and so are sources of joy. The Christian hero must not tremble at the danger, but rejoice in anticipation of the victory, and rejoice in the trial as the condition of triumph. To a people in the agony of persecution such an address is a thrilling note of cheer.
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All joy—That is, pure joy and nothing else.
Fall—For even the martyr must not court or rush into trial. He must rather flee from persecution. Note Mat_10:23. Yet when it is forced upon him, such should be his spiritual elevation that the trial shall be an occasion of joy. Especially should he rejoice that he is counted worthy to suffer for Christ. Act_5:41.
Temptations—There are divers or various forms of external things which become internal temptations. They may be hostile forms, as persecutions and assaults, (as in Luk_8:13,) and these tempt to yield through cowardice: or they may be seducing forms, to which we yield by compliance. The moral firmness with which the soul wards off these divers temptations and retains its pure integrity is called by St. James υπομενη, persistent firmness, imperfectly translated patience.
2. Being not hearers only, but doers of the word, 22-27.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2–4 2. count it all joy …] We lose, in…
2. count it all joy …] We lose, in the English, the link which connects the wish for “joy” merged in our “greeting,” with the thought which indicates how the wish may be realised even under conditions that seem most adverse to it. The transition may be noticed as characteristic of the style of the Epistle. Other examples of a like method will meet us as we go on. The Greek formula for “all joy” (literally, every kind of joy) suggests the thought of the varied elements of joy that were to be found in the manifold forms of trial.
into divers temptations] The word, as commonly in the New Testament, stands for trials that take the form of suffering, rather than for the enticements of pleasure. Comp. Luk_22:28; Act_20:19; 1Co_10:13; 1Pe_1:6. Its use implies accordingly that those to whom the Epistle was written were passing through a time of adversity. This was true, more or less, of the whole Jewish race, everywhere, but it was specially true of those who being of the Twelve Tribes, also held the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of those most of all who were most within the writer’s view. Comp. 1Th_2:14; Heb_10:32-33, for the sufferings of Jewish and specially of Hebrew Christians. The word for “fall into” implies an unlooked-for concurrence of adverse circumstances.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv2–4 (2) Count it all joy when ye fall into…
(2) Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.—Better, Account it all joy whenever ye fall into divers temptations—i.e., trials; but even with this more exact rendering of the text, how can we, poor frail creatures of earth, it may well be asked, feel any joy under such? Do we not pray in our Saviour’s words, “Lead us not into temptation”? (See Mat_6:13, and Note there.) Yet a little consideration will open out the teaching of Holy Scripture very plainly. The Apostle here is following the same line of thought as that expressed in Heb_5:14. By use (or habit, more properly) our senses may be exercised to the discernment of good and evil. The grace of God given to the soul is capable of growth and enlargement, like the powers of body and mind. If either be unemployed, weakness must supervene, and eventually decay and death. And just as the veteran who has proved his armour well, and learned to face habitual danger as a duty, is more trustworthy than a raw recruit, however large of limb and stout of heart, so with the Christian soldier. He must learn to “endure hardness” (2Ti_2:3), and bear meekly and even gladly all the trials which are to strengthen him for the holy war. Innocence is a grace indeed, and yet there is a higher stage of the same virtue, viz., the purity which has been won by long and often bitter conflict with the thousand suggestions of evil from without, stirring up the natural impurity within. Temptation is not sin. “You cannot,” says the old German divine, “prevent the birds flying over your head, but you can from making nests in your hair;” and the soul victorious over some such trying onset is by that very triumph stronger and better able to undergo the next assault, The act of virtue has, in truth, helped to build up the habit, from which, when it is perfected, a happy life cannot fail to spring. The interpretation of our Lord’s prayer is rather the cry for help to God our Father in the trial, than for actual escape from it: Lead us not, i.e., where we in our free will may choose the wrong and perish. And there is a strangely sweet joy to be snatched from the most grievous temptation in the remembrance that “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1Co_10:13).
(2-27) Immediately after the salutation, and with more or less a play upon the word which we translate “greeting” (“rejoice,” Jas_1:1; “count it all joy,” Jas_1:2) there follow appeals on behalf of patience, endurance. and meekness.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv2–4 Vers. 2-18. THE SUBJECT OF TEMPTATION. This section may…
Vers. 2-18. THE SUBJECT OF TEMPTATION. This section may be subdivided as follows:
(1) The value of temptation (vers. 2-4).
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(2) Digression suggested by the thought "of perfection (vers. 5-11).
(3) Return to the subject of temptation (vers. 12-18).
Vers. 2-4. The value of temptation. Considered as an opportunity, it is a cause for joy.
My brethren. A favorite expression with St. James, occurring no less than fifteen times in the compass of this short Epistle. Count it all joy, etc.; cf. 1Pe_1:6, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold temptations, that the proof of your faith (tomion uJmwn thv pistewv) might be found unto praise," etc. The coincidence is too close to be accidental, although the shade of meaning given to dokimion is slightly different, if indeed it has any right in the text in St. Peter (see Herr, vol. it. p. 102). Here it has its proper force, and signifies that by which the faith is tried, i.e. the instrument of trial rather than the process of trial. Thus the passage in ver. 3 becomes parallel to Rom_5:3, "tribulation worketh patience." With regard to the sentiments of ver. 2, "Count it all joy," etc., contrast Mat_6:13. Experience, however, shows that the two are compatible. It is quite possible to shrink beforehand from temptation, and pray with intense earnestness, "Lead us not into temptation," and yet, when the temptation comes, to meet it joyfully, Peripeshte. The use of this word implies that the temptations of which St. James is thinking are external. (see Luk_10:30, where the same word is used of the man who fell among thieves) 1Th_2:14 and Heb_10:32, 33 will show the trials to which believing Jews were subject. But the epithet "manifold" would indicate that we should not confine the word here to trials such as those.
Vers. 2-4.
Temptation as cause for joy.
What a reversal of the ordinary view, which regards trial and temptation as an unwelcome visitation! Prosperity is the blessing of the old covenant, adversity is the blessing of the new. Temptations should be regarded, not only as probations, i.e. as testing what we are, but as designed also for moral discipline and improvement. The character that has never been tried may be innocent, but it is liable to be crushed. It is lacking in the strength and vigor, which come from the formed habit of resistance, and therefore temptation may be the means of strengthening him who is subjected to it. It thus becomes an opportunity, and as such should be welcomed with joy. It produces patience, that "queen of virtues," which bears up under the heaviest weight, and purifies and ennobles the whole character. Patience must next be allowed her "perfect work;" for the Christian can never consider himself teleiov till he has come "to the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. (Shakespeare.)
(On temptation regarded as an opportunity, see Mozley"s "Parochial Sermons," Sermon 2.)
Vers. 2-4.
The strange paradox.
He has given them "greeting" (ver. 1), or, literally, wished them "joy." Was this a hitter irony? For in what condition were they? Persecuted, as Jews and especially as Christian Jews; oppressed, the poorer by the richer; and all, in the common heritage of human woe, afflicted in a hundred ways. And does he wish "joy" to these? Yes, even so. And, as though surmising the question, he goes on to insist yet more emphatically on the "greeting" which he has given. Joy? Yes, "count it all joy, when ye fall into manifold temptations." Joy in spite of these things? Rather, joy by reason of these things. Nor was this teaching unique among the apostles of the new faith. (Rom_5:3-5 1Pe_1:6, 1Pe_1:7) And confirmed by the common experience of Christendom: not merely joy in sorrow, but, by the blessed transmuting power of the gospel, joy wrought out through sorrow, strength out of weakness, life out of death. In the text we have these three truths presented our religion is a faith, a faith tested, a faith perfected.
I A FAITH. The fundamental condition of all life is faith. We must believe in ourselves, and in the instincts and promptings of our nature; in the world of nature, with its facts and forces and laws; in the world of men, with the relationships which it involves; and, largely, in the conduct and intents of our fellow-men respecting us; for daily we place practical trust in others in a thousand ways. Yes, faith, not knowledge, is the first condition of all life faith as checked and regulated by knowledge, truly, and as leading tofuller knowledge; but, primarily and essentially, faith. So with the spiritual life, the life in God; we must, as a first condition, believe in him, in his relation to us, in his will concerning us. But why is faith in him called distinctively "faith," when it is but one application, however important, of a principle which runs through all our manifold life? Because, in this application, it is the new use of a disused faculty; it is faith in One who is saving us; who, in saving, is dealing with us in a way we know not. So our faith, religiously, is our practical realization of spiritual things, and an absolute trust in God as the God of our life and God of our salvation.
II FAITH TESTED. "Divers testings." What are these? A world of sense, to which we have been enslaved; a world of sin, to which likewise we have been enslaved; and a world of suffering, besetting us on every side. The first testing our practical realization of unseen things; the second, our faith in the dictates of duty; the third, our trust in God, as dealing with us in love. Why is our faith thus tested? To prove it, whether true or false. No real holiness is possible, without the possibility of unholiness; hence what we call, specifically, "temptation." And no real trust is possible, without the possibility of untrust; hence what we call, specifically, "trial." Consider the infinite possible cost of holiness, in the constitution of a moral world. Sin; and, if sin, atonement. But God would allow that price to be paid, that holiness might be secured. Consider the terrible cost of a chastened trust, in the redemption of a moral world: suffering, alas, how bitter and prolonged! But God will allow that price to be paid, that trust may be secured. Yes, he will test. The allusion of dokimion: testing of precious metals. So, "that the testing of your faith, being much more precious," etc. (1Pe_1:7) But the figure fails, for a test applied to a dead thing is only a test; whereas a test applied to a living thing becomes more than a test developing, strengthening that which is tested. So the tree rocked by the storm, the army on the long march. So here: "The proof of your faith worketh patience." Untried innocence develops into holiness, and holiness becomes an enduring holiness, by the testing of "temptation;" trust develops into enduring trust, and endurance becomes more enduring, by the testing of "trial." So, by these diverse testings," does God work out our salvation. And in and through all there is the glorious power of the great redemption.
III FAITH PERFECTED. God is working towards an end: "That ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing." "Entire." Hence the diverse testings, by which each part of our character is put to the proof. Importance of a many-sided education; so a many-sided Christian life. God tests us, therefore, in this way and in that way, that, not halt or maimed, but with a completed manhood, we may enter into life. Perfect. " Not only must each part be proved, but each part put to the hill proof; just as the artist will not only chisel the marble into a complete statue, but also chisel each part of the statue to a perfection of exquisite finish. The goal, then, "perfect and entire;" tested sufficiently, in manifoldness and in continuance, till "lacking in nothing.
it all joy." Yes, a joy sacred and awful, as of the martyr in the flames. But of great tribulation"; (Rev_7:14) and, "They shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy". T.F.L. (Rev_3:4)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv2, 4 Count it all Joy when ye fall Into divers…
Jam_1:2-4
Count it all Joy when ye fall Into divers temptations
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The Christians duty in times of trial
This positive injunction of the Christian ethics may seem too difficult, if not impossible to be obeyed.
And even if the natural repugnance to suffering can be vanquished, the moral sense still shrinks from what is here commanded, to rejoice in temptation. The paradox is not to be removed by violently changing the established meaning of the word, which never means affliction simply, but in every case conveys the idea of a moral trial, or a test of character. A temptation, to which patience is the proper antidote, must be specifically a temptation to impatience, a rebellious temper, to which we are tempted by a state of suffering. We must, therefore, understand the words as having reference to those providential trials of mens faith and patience in which they are rather passive than active, and under which their appropriate duty is not so much resistance as submission. But even these trials and temptations are not to be sought for or solicited. It is not the mere name, or pretence, or some infinitesimal degree of joy, that believers under trial are to exercise, but all joy as opposed to none, and to too little, and to every kind of counterfeit. So far from repining when you fall into divers trials, count it all joy. But as we know, both from Scripture and experience, that no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, and that afterward (ὕστερον) it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby (Heb_12:11). This is perfectly consistent with the form of expression (ὃταν περιπέσητε) which might even be translated to mean when or after, ye have fallen into divers trials. This precise determination of the time at which the joy is to be exercised, as not the time of actual endurance, much less that of previous expectation, but rather that of subsequent reflection--I mean subsequent, if not to the whole trial, yet at least to its inception--this may throw some light on two points. The first is the paradoxical aspect of the exhortation to rejoice in that which necessarily involves pain and suffering. The paradox, to say the least, may seem less startling if we understand the text as calling upon men to rejoice, not that they are suffering, or while they suffer, although even this does not transcend the limits of experience, as we know from the triumphant joy of martyrs at the stake, and of many a lowlier believer on his death-bed, but that they have suffered, that it has pleased God, without their own concurrence, to afford them the occasion of attesting their fidelity, and submission to His will. The other point on which the same consideration may throw some light, is the choice of an expression which, although it primarily signifies no more than moral trial or a test of character, in general usage does undoubtedly denote a positive solicitation to do wrong. For even in this worst sense of temptation, it may be a subject of rejoicing, not beforehand, no, nor in the very crisis of the spiritual conflict; but when that is past, looking back upon the fearful risk which has been escaped, not merely with gratitude for its deliverance, but with unaffected joy that there was such a risk to be delivered from, because it has now, served to magnify Gods grace, and at the same time to attest its own fidelity. Just as the soldier, who would have been guilty of the grossest rashness, if he had deliberately thrown himself into the way of a superior enemy, may--when unexpectedly surrounded and attacked, he has heroically cut his way through--rejoice, not only in his safety, but in the very danger which compelled him to achieve it. But the joy experienced in the case before us is not merely retrospective, but prospective also. It is not an ignorant or blind joy, but is founded in knowledge, not only of the principles on which men ought to act, but of the consequences which may be expected from a certain course of action or of suffering. The trials or temptations of the Christian are the test of his faith, both in the strict and comprehensive sense. They put to the proof his trust in God, his belief of a hat God says, of what He promises. But in so doing, they afford the surest test of his whole religious character. Specific trust in Gods veracity and faithfulness cannot be an insulated act, or habit. It must have its causes and effects homogeneous to itself in the mans creed, in his heart, in his life. But it does not merely furnish present evidence of faith. It produces a permanent effect upon the character. It generates a habit of patient endurance in the way of Gods commandments, For of patience, as of faith, it may be said that it cannot stand alone, independently of other graces of Christian character. The principle of active and passive obedience is the same. He who will not do Gods will cannot endure it in a Christian spirit. He can only endure it in the way of punishment. Evangelical patience carries with it evangelical obedience or activity. It therefore comprehends a very large part of practical religion, and to say that it is matured by trial is to say that trial or temptation, in the sense here put upon the term, is an important means of grace, of spiritual growth, and instead of being angrily complained of as a hardship, ought not indeed to be desired any more than medicines, especially when composed of poisons, should be used as ordinary food; but when administered, without our agency or even option, by the Great Physician, should be thankfully submitted to, and afterwards rejoiced in, as a potent agency of Gods appointment which produces great effects, not by a sudden change, but, as the original expression seems to mean, by a gradual and long-continued process; for the trial of our faith worketh out, elaborates, and as it were laboriously cultivates a habit of persistent obedience and submission to the will of God, both in the way of doing and suffering. That the patience thus commended is not a sluggish principle, much less a mere condition of repose, but something active in itself and tending to activity in others, is evident enough from the apostles exhortation not to hinder it in its operation, but to let it have its perfect work or full effect. Could tills be said of mere inertia, or even patient nonresistance? All this affords abundant room for wise discrimination. It is evidently not a matter which can be conducted to a safe issue by mere audacity or force of will, by cutting knots which ought to be untied, which can neither solve themselves nor be solved by any intellectual force short of wisdom in the highest sense. This wisdom, the idea of which was familiar to the wisest of the heathen, has been realised only in the school of revelation. And woe to him who undertakes, without it, to solve the intricate and fearful problem of mans character and destiny! (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
Christs school of suffering
Luther has somewhere made that fine confession, that there were chiefly three things which had introduced him into the depths of true divinity, and which he was, therefore, accustomed to recommend to every one as proved--viz., silent meditation on the Word of God; persevering and ardent prayer, together with the Word of God; and inward and outward attacks on account of the Word of God. It is trial which must arouse the spirit plunged into earthly concerns, and benumbed by the influence of the world out of the sleep of security, and point him to that Word which leads the foolish to wisdom, the sinner to righteousness, Besides, in many cases, especially in the days of carnal ease, the flame of prayer, even on the altar of the regenerated mans heart, would burn out, if trials, returning from time to time, did not carry fresh wood to stir anew the fire of devotion. It is only by struggling that the inward life can become strong: it is only in the storm that the stem of life and godliness can take deeper and firmer roots.
I. In Germany it is one of the requisites of civil law, that he who wants to become a citizen SHALL PASS THROUGH THE POPULAR SCHOOL. They, therefore, speak of a legal school-duty which no one is permitted to shun.
There is, also, such a duty in the kingdom of God. He who wants to become a citizen of that kingdom must not refuse to enter the school of suffering which the Lord Himself has instituted on earth, and sanctified by His example. Already, as the natural descendant of Adam, the first sinner, every one has to carry his share of the common misery which weighs on humanity, and cannot avoid it. But what for the natural man is only a constraint laid upon him from without, is, in the case of the Christian, spiritualised and glorified into a deed of voluntary obedience. The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord. If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. We must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. They declare the duty of suffering to be a general law of the Christian life. If, therefore, we look into the roll of the citizens of the heavenly kingdom, we do not find there a single one who had not, in the school of suffering, to resolve heavier or easier tasks, and been obliged to stop longer or shorter there. You have, therefore, no right to complain, if the Lord takes you into the school of suffering, and there assigns you your task. You thereby only fulfil an obligation incumbent upon you as a citizen of the kingdom of God. You will not wish to be exempt from what is the lot of every one. Yea, it is an honour for you to belong to a school through which have passed the prophets and the apostles themselves, and out of which are come the first-fruits of the creatures of God.
II. The peculiarity of each school arises out of THE FIXED AIM TRIED TO BE ATTAINED WITH THE PUPILS, AND FOR WHICH, THEREFORE, ALL SCHOOL ARRANGEMENTS ARE CALCULATED. Thus, the burgher-school wants to form able burghers; the practical school, clever tradesmen; the military school, gallant soldiers; the college, intelligent servants of the sate and of the Church. In a similar manner, Christs school of suffering pursues a fixed aim. He wants to form His pupils into thoroughly-qualified men; in short, He wants to make nothing less of them than princes and priests in the kingdom of the immortal God. His patience and His obedience, His meekness and His humility, His firm faith and His persevering hope, His victorious fight and His glorious perfection, are to be reflected in the trial of their sufferings, so that He may be able to behold in them the true followers of His spirit, and sharers of His glorious life. From this point of view the apostles considered their sufferings, and by this the sharpest sting of them was broken, and the bitterest cup was wonderfully sweetened. We always bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. We are sorry to perceive that this apostolical apprehension of sufferings has become so rare among us. If faith can only lay hold on that thought, the burden of suffering is thereby diminished, and we are able to say, with St. Paul, Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
III. But, besides the aim of the school, there must, in each well-regulated establishment, also exist A FIXED PLAN AFTER WHICH TO PROCEED. If there is to be progress in the studies of the pupils, a well-pondered plan must not be wanting, by which is determined in what gradation the various branches are to be imparted, and what method of teaching must be observed. For Christs school of suffering, too, there is a fixed plan according to which the pupils are treated. It is in good hands, for it has been made by Him who gives term and measure to each thing, and always remembers that we are dust and ashes. As soon as the height fixed by Him is reached, the waters will fall again, the storm will abate, thou wilt again perceive the dry land, and thy soul will be permitted to thank the Lord on her harp, that He has been the help of thy countenance and thy God. (W. Hofacker.)
Trials
I. TRIALS ARE A COMMON CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE.
1. Numerous. They come one after another in quick succession, attack us at every point, and, by reiterated importunity, wear out resistance. A continual dropping wears the stone, and blow after blow shatters the fortress.
2. Diversified. The trials are addressed to the different elements of our nature, and are brought to bear on the ever-varying conditions of our life.
3. Combined. They conspire to encompass and overthrow, with such close and serried ranks that there seems no way of escape, and the sorely beset sufferer says, All these things are against me.
4. Intensified. Often, in the case of Christians of every age, the trials which befall them are more grievous from the time, place, and manner of their occurrence--sufferings inflicted through those that are dear, or when weakened by age or infirmity, and removed from the sympathy and succour of friends.
II. TRIALS ARE A NECESSARY CHRISTIAN DISCIPLINE. They are designed to reveal to us our own sinfulness and weakness, to discover the graces of the Spirit, to prove the strength of our faith, the ardour of our love, the constancy of our devotion. Like the tree which becomes the more firmly Tooted by the blasts which toss and twist its branches, the believer only clings more tenaciously to his Lord when his soul is tried by affliction.
III. TRIALS ARE A COMPLETION OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. What but lives thus perfected by the chastening hand of God can bow cheerfully beneath poverty, feeble health, and dark days of discouragement, or bear up under calumny and vexatious opposition, or wait and work even though the promise tarry and the blessing seems withheld? In proportion as we endure, we obtain grace in fullest measure, and adequate to every demand or emergency.
IV. TRIALS ARE A SOURCE OF CHRISTIAN GLADNESS. The conscious joy of trials springs from the results which follow them.
1. The honour conferred. Suffering for Christ is a gift of favour.
2. The comfort imparted. A stronger sense of assurance is wrought in the soul, and when trials are peculiarly severe, often a foretaste of future felicity is obtained, and martyrs are more than conquerors.
3. The usefulness achieved. The silent heroism and calm endurance of the sufferer are often more effective in maintaining and spreading the truth than the logical reasoning and persuasive eloquence of the preacher. (W. Ormiston, D. D.)
Gods school of trial for the good
I. THE DISCIPLINE OF THIS SCHOOL SHOULD BE CHEERFULLY MET.
1. Because trials test our faith.
2. The working of faith develops patience.
3. Patience tends to completeness of character.
II. THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS SCHOOL ARE OBTAINED BY PRAYER.
1. Spiritual excellence is the chief subject of prayer.
2. The great God is the only object of prayer.
3. Unwavering confidence is the power of prayer. (U. R. Thomas.)
The function of trial
Count it all joy means, Count it nothing but joy, Count it pure joy, Count it the highest joy, when trials of many different kinds surround you. They had trouble enough, and therefore they might have joy enough, if they could but learn the secret of extracting joy from trouble. And why should they not learn it? It is simple enough. A paradox to the thoughtless, it is an axiom with the wise. For trial means test. And it is as we are tested that we learn our own weakness, learn what and where it is, and are set on correcting it. The gospel affirms that we are infected with a moral weakness, or disease, of which our sorrows are the natural result, and of which they may become a sovereign remedy. For the sorrows bred by sin dispose us to hate and renounce the sin which produces them. The sorrows that disclose unsuspected weakness set us on seeking a strength that shall be made perfect in weakness. Nay, even the sorrows which involve shame and remorse have a cleansing virtue, if only our sorrow be of a godly sort. But the Jews of the Dispersion, it may be said, were not suffering for their sins, but for their virtues, for their faith in Christ and their obedience to His law! True; but in suffering for our faith, may we not also be suffering for our faults--for the weakness of our faith, for instance? The faith of these Jews must have been weak and immature. It may be that, but for the many trials which the hostility of the world and the synagogue brought upon them, they would have remained very imperfectly Christian to the end of their lives, even if they had remained Christian at all. Their trials put them on their mettle. When nothing was open to them but publicly renouncing Christ, or cleaving to Him, their choice was clear, their duty plain. They must cleave to Him; and, cleaving to Him, they would be driven closer and closer to Him by the very opposition designed to detach them from Him. On one point, happily for us, St. James is quite clear: viz., that tribulation is discipline; that by the divers trials which befall us God is making, or seeking to make, us perfect and complete. And where can we find a more inspiriting view of tribulation than this? It is God, our reconciled God and Father, who appoints these tests, God who applies them. And therefore we may be sure that they come for good ends. The proving of your faith worketh patience, i.e., it results in a firm and steadfast constancy, in a fidelity which can face all allurements and fears. Tried and faithful are all but synonyms in our common speech, so close is the connection between trials and fidelity, But if our trials are to produce this constant and faithful temper in us, we must let patience have a perfect work. Since chastening is grievous to us, the danger is that we should seek to escape it as soon as we can, forgetting that only he that endureth to the end will be saved. The acid that tries the gold bites the gold, or rather, it bites the alloy in the gold. Tests are painful; and they make unwelcome calls on our fortitude. We must therefore let patience have her perfect work, we must suffer our constancy, our fidelity to God, to be exposed to many and searching trials, if we would reap the full benefit of our trials. And what is this full benefit? That ye may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing, or lacking in nothing. The fall benefit of trial is, that, if we endure it with a patient fidelity, we become mature men in Christ Jesus, nay, complete men, lacking nothing that a Christian man should have and enjoy. And what higher reward could possibly be set before a reasonable and religious being? What we want, what we know we want, most of all, is to have our character fully and happily developed, its various and often hostile affections and aims absorbed and harmonized, by having them all brought under law to Christ. To become such men as He was, and to walk even as also He walked, is not this the supreme end of all who call and profess themselves Christians? is it not our chief good, our highest blessedness? (S. Cox, D. D.)
Joy in serious trial
In Count it all joy, i.e., Consider it as nothing but matter for rejoicing, we miss a linguistic touch which is evident in the Greek, but cannot well be preserved in English. In saying joy (χάραν) St. James is apparently carrying on the idea just started in the address, greeting (χαίρειν), i.e., wishing joy. I wish you joy; and you must account as pure joy all the troubles into which you may fall. It is just possible that all joy (πᾶσαν χάραν) is meant exactly to balance manifold temptations (πειρασμοῖς ποικίλοις). Great diversity of troubles is to be considered as in reality every kind of joy. Nevertheless, the troubles are not to be of our own making or seeking. It is not when we inflict suffering on ourselves, but when we fall into it, and therefore may regard it as placed in our way by God, that we are to look upon it as a source of joy rather than of sorrow. The word for fall into (περιπίπτειν) implies not only that what one falls into is unwelcome, but also that it is unsought and unexpected. Moreover, it implies that this unforeseen misfortune is large enough to encircle or overwhelm one. It indicates a serious calamity. What St. James has principally in his mind are external trials, such as poverty of intellect (verse 5), or of substance (verse 9), or persecution (Jam_2:6-7), and the like; those worldly troubleswhich test our faith, loyalty, and obedience, and tempt us to abandon our trust in God, and to cease to strive to please Him. The trials by which Satan was allowed to tempt Job are the kind of temptations to be understood here. They are material for spiritual joy, because--
1. They are opportunities for practising virtue, which cannot be learned without practice, nor practised without opportunities.
2. They teach us that we have here no abiding city, for a world in which such things are possible cannot be a lasting home,
3. They make us more Christlike.
4. We have the assurance of Divine support, and that no more will ever be laid upon us than we, relying upon that support, can bear.
5. We have the assurance of abundant compensation here and hereafter. St. James here is only echoing the teaching of his Brother (Mat_5:11-12). In the first days after Pentecost he had seen the apostles acting in the very spirit which he here enjoins, and he had himself very probably taken part in doing so (Act_5:41; cf. Act_4:23-30). St. Peter (1Pe_1:6) and St. Paul (Rom_5:3) teach the same doctrine of rejoicing in tribulation. There is no inconsistency in teaching such doctrine, and yet praying, Lead us not into temptation. Not only is there no sin in shrinking from both external trials and internal temptations; but such is the weakness of the human will, that it is only reasonable humility to pray to God not to allow us to be subjected to severe trials. Nevertheless, when God in His wisdom has permitted such things to come upon us, the right course is, not to be sorrowful, as though something quite intolerable had overtaken us, but to rejoice that God has thought us capable of enduring something for His sake, and has given us the opportunity of strengthening our patience and our trust in Him. This doctrine of joy in suffering, which at first sight seems to be almost superhuman, is shown by experience to be less hard than the apparently more human doctrine of resignation and fortitude. And here it may be noticed that St. James is no cynic or stoic. He does not tell us that we are to anticipate misfortune, and cut ourselves off from all those things the loss of which might involve suffering; or that we are to trample on our feelings, and act as if we had none, treating sufferings as if they were non-existent, or as if they in no way affected us. He points out to us that temptations, and especially external trials, are really blessings, if we use them aright; and he teaches us to meet them in that conviction. And it is manifest that the spirit in which to welcome a blessing is the spirit of joy and thankfulness. St. James does not bid us accept this doctrine of joy in tribulation upon his personal authority. It is no philosophers ipse dixit. He appeals to his readers own experience: Knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience. Knowing, i.e., in that ye are continually finding out and getting to know. The verb and the tense indicate progressive and continuous knowledge, as by the experience of daily life; and this teaches us that proving and testing not only brings to light, but brings into existence, patience. This patience (ὑπομονή), this abiding firm under attack or pressure, must be allowed full scope to regulate all our conduct; and then we shall see why trials are a matter for joy rather than sorrow, when we find ourselves moving onwards towards, not the barrenness of stoical self-sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια), but the fulness of Divine perfection. That ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing, is perhaps one of the many reminiscences of Christs words which we shall find in this letter of the Lords brother (Mat_5:48). (A. Plummer, D. D.)
The power of trial
It is absolutely essential that a teacher of moral ethics should be--
(1) Of joyful disposition;
(2) Competent to lead men into the depths of Christian character.
I. THE POWER OF TRIAL TO OCCASION CHRISTIAN JOY.
1. The trials to which these Jewish Christians were exposed. Though Christian people are not; now called to endure persecution, yet they are not without their individual trials; though they hear not the shouts and clamour of an invading foe, they are subject to the ravages of death; though they are not exposed to the intrigue of the political marauder, yet they are liable to the crash of commercial panic; though they are not exposed to the invective of aa enraged countryman, yet they are liable to the calumny of the idle gossip.
2. There was in the trials of these Jewish Christians an element of temptation.
(1) These temptations were numerous--divers. They were persecuted; their homes were plundered; their property was pillaged; they were exposed to poverty; they were liable to assassination.
(2) Variegated--divers. There was a blending in them of hope and promise; there was the fortune of war, and the promise of their countrymen to lure them.
(3) Precipitous and all-surrounding--when ye fall into. Grief comes unexpectedly.
3. These trials were to be made the occasion of joy. The Christian life is a grand paradox. In temptation it is in hope; in pain it is in gladness; in sorrow it is in joy; in old age it verges on immortal youth.
4. These Jewish Christians were addressed in the language of deep sympathy. St. James knew that they were in trial, and felt it his duty to write to console and guide them. Some men object to letter-writing; they cannot write even to sorrowing friends. Where are their brotherly instincts? We are near to Christ when trying to aid the sorrowful.
II. THE POWER OF TRAIL TO TEST CHRISTIAN FAITH.
1. Trial tests the reality of Christian faith. If under it we manifest the nobler moral qualities of the Christian character; if we are calm in thought, resigned in temper, prayerful in spirit, and patient in disposition, our faith must be genuine, as such graces are only the outcome of a veritable heart-trust in the Saviour.
2. A tried faith is a potential influence within the soul. No one can estimate the power of a faith that has survived the ordeal of temptation to give energy to a soul, beauty to a character, charm to a life, and influence with the world at large.
III. THE POWER OF TRIAL TO DEVELOP CHRISTIAN PATIENCE.
1. Patience consists in a calm waiting for the unfolding of the Divine will and providence.
2. Patience should be constant and progressive in its exercise--coordinate with every trial, superior to every distress, gathering new energy from its continued exercise.
IV. THE POWER OF TRIAL TO ENHANCE THE PERFECTION OF MORAL CHARACTER. St. James is not writing of the perfection of unrenewed human nature, but of the sublime possibility of Christian manhood. He is writing of a life that is animated by faith, that is cultured by deep sorrow, and that is capable of holy patience. (Joseph S. Exell, M. A.)
All joy in all trials
James calls the converted among the twelve tribes his brethren. Christianity has a great uniting power: it both discovers and creates relationships among the sons of men. It reminds us of the ties of nature, and binds us with the bonds of grace. Whatever brotherhood may be a sham, let the brotherhood of believers be the most real thing beneath the stars. Beginning with this word brethren, James shows a true brotherly sympathy with believers in their trials, and this is a main part of Christian fellowship. If we are not tempted ourselves at this moment, others are: let us remember them in our prayers; for in due time our turn will come, and we shall be put trite the crucible, Remembering the trials of his brethren, James tries to cheer them, and therefore he says, My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers trials. It is a part of our high calling to rise ourselves into confidence; and it is also our duty to see that none of our brethren despond, much less despair. The whole tendency of our holy faith is to elevate and to encourage. The message of the gospel is one of gladness, and were it universally received this world would be no longer a wilderness, but would rejoice and blossom as the rose.
I. THE ESSENTIAL POINT WHICH IS ASSAILED by temptation or trial.
1. It is your faith which is tried. It is supposed that you have that faith. You are not the people of God, you are not truly brethren unless you are believers. It is this faith of yours which is peculiarly obnoxious to Satan and to the world which lieth in the wicked one. The hand of faith is against all evil, and all evil is against faith. Faith is that blessed grace which is most pleasing to God, and hence it is most displeasing to the devil. He rages at faith because he sees therein his own defeat and the victory of grace. Because the trial of your faith brings honour to the Lord, therefore the Lord Himself is sure to try it that out of its trial praise may come to His grace by which faith is sustained. It is by our faith that we are saved, justified, and brought near to God, and therefore it is no marvel that it is attacked. Faith is the standard bearer, and the object of the enemy is to strike him down that the battle may be gained. It is by our faith that we live; we began to live by it, and we continue to live by it, for the just shall live by faith. Hold fast, therefore, this your choice treasure. It is by faith, too, that Christians perform exploits. Faith is the conquering principle: therefore it is Satans policy to slay it even as Pharaoh sought to kill the male children when Israel dwelt in Egypt.
2. Now, think of how faith is tried. According to the text we are said to fail into manifold temptations or into divers temptations--that is to say, we may expect very many and very different troubles. In any case these trials will be most real. Our temptations are no inventions of nervousness nor hobgoblins of dreamy fear. Ay, and note too, that the trials of Christians are such as would in themselves lead us into sin. A man is very apt to become unbelieving under affliction: that is a sin. He is apt to murmur against God under it. He is apt to put forth his hand to some ill way of escaping from his difficulty: and that would be a sin. Hence we are taught to pray, Lead us not into temptation; because trial has in itself a measure of temptation, and if it were not neutralised by abundant grace it would bear us towards sin. I suppose that every test must have in it a measure of temptation. Did ever a flower of grace blossom in this wretched clime without being tried with frost or blight? Our way is up the river; we have to stem the current, and struggle against a flood which would readily bear us to destruction. Thus, not only trials, but black temptations assail the Christians faith. As to what shape they take, we may say this much: the trial or temptation of each man is distinct from that of every other, That which would most severely test me would perhaps be no trial to you; and that which tries you might be no temptation to me. This is one reason why we often judge one another so severely, because feeling ourselves to be strong in that particular point we argue that the fallen one must have been strong in that point too, and therefore must have wilfully determined to do wrong. This may be a cruel supposition. Divers trials, says the apostle, and he knew what he said. And sometimes these divers trials derive great force from their seemingly surrounding us, and cutting off escape. James says, Ye fall into divers temptations: like men who fall into a pit, and do not know how to get out; or like soldiers who fall into an ambuscade.
II. THE INVALUABLE BLESSING WHICH IS GAINED BY THE TRIAL OF OUR FAITH. The blessing gained is this, that our faith is tried and proved. The effectual proof is by trials of Gods sending. The way of trying whether you are a good soldier is to go down to the battle: the way to try whether a ship is well built is not merely to order the surveyor to examine her, but to send her to sea: a storm will be the best test of her staunchness. They have built a new lighthouse upon the Eddystone: how do we know that it will stand? We judge by certain laws and principles, and feel tolerably safe about the structure; but, after all, we shall know best in after-years when a thousand tempests have beaten upon the lighthouse in vain. We need trials as a test as much as we need Divine truth as our food. Admire the ancient types placed in the ark of the covenant of old: two things were laid close together--the pot of manna and the rod. See how heavenly food and heavenly rule go together: how our sustenance and our chastening are equally provided for! A Christian cannot live without the manna nor without the rod. The two must go together. Sanctified tribulations work the proof of our faith, and this is more precious than that of gold which perisheth, though it be tried by fire.
1. Now, when we are able to bear it without starting aside, the trial proves our sincerity.
2. Next, it proves the truthfulness of our doctrinal belief.
3. Next, your own faith in God is proved when you can cling to Him under temptation. Not only your sincerity, but the divinity of your faith is proved; for a faith that is never tried, how can you depend upon it?
4. I find it specially sweet to learn the great strength of the Lord in my own weakness. The Lord suits the help to the hindrance, and puts the plaster on the wound. In the very hour when it is needed the needed grace is given. Does not this tend to breed assurance of faith?
5. It is a splendid thing to be able to prove even to Satan the purity of your motives. That was the great gain of Job. I reckon that the endurance of every imaginable suffering would be a small price to pay for a settled assurance, which would for ever prevent the possibility of doubt. Therefore, when you are tempted, Count it all joy that you are tried, because you will thus receive a proof of your love, a proof of your faith, a proof of your being the true-born children of God. James says, Count it. A man requires to be trained to be a good accountant; it is an art which needs to be learned.
III. THE PRICELESS VIRTUE WHICH IS PRODUCED BY TRIAL, namely, patience; for the proof of your faith worketh patience. The man who truly possesses patience is the man that has been tried. What kind of patience does he get by the grace of God?
1. First, he obtains a patience that accepts the trial as from God without a murmur.
2. The next kind of patience is when experience enables a man to bear ill-treatment, slander, and injury without resentment. He feels it keenly, but he bears it meekly.
3. The patience which God works in us by tribulation also takes another form, namely, that of acting without undue haste. In proportion as we grow like the Lord Jesus we shall cast aside disturbance of mind and fury of spirit.
4. That is a grand kind of patience, too, when we can wait without unbelief. Two little words are good for every Christian to learn and to practise--pray and stay. Waiting on the Lord implies both praying and staying.
5. This patience also takes the shape of believing without wavering, in the very teeth of strange providences and singular statements, and perhaps inward misgivings. If, in a word, we learn endurance we have taken a high degree. You look at the weather-beaten sailor, the man who is at home on the sea: he has a bronzed face and mahogany-coloured flesh, he looks as tough as heart of oak, and as hardy as if he were made of iron. How different from us poor landsmen. How did the man become so inured to hardships, so able to breast the storm, so that he does not care whether the wind blows south-west or north-west? He can go out to sea in any kind of weather; he has his sea legs on. How did he come to this strength? By doing business in great waters. He could not have become a hardy seaman by tarrying on shore. Now, trial works in the saints that spiritual hardihood which cannot be learned in ease.
IV. THE SPIRITUAL COMPLETENESS PROMOTED. That ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Afflictions by Gods grace make us all-round men, developing every spiritual faculty, and therefore they are our friends, our helpers, and should be welcomed with all joy. Afflictions find out our weak points, and this makes us attend to them. Being tried, we discover our failures, and then going to God about those failures we are helped to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Moreover, our trials, when blessed of God to make us patient, ripen us. A certain measure of sunlight is wanted to bring out the real flavour of fruits, and when a fruit has felt its measure of burning sun it developes a lusciousness which we all delight in. So it is in men and women: a certain amount of trouble appears to be needful to create a certain sugar of graciousness in them, so that they may contain the rich, ripe juice of a gracious character. Sanctified trials produce a chastened spirit. Some of us by nature are untender; but after awhile friends notice that the roughness is depart-ins, and they are quite glad to be more gently handled. Ah, that sick chamber did the polishing; under Gods grace, that depression of spirit, that loss, that cross, that bereavement--these softened the natural ruggedness, and made the man meek and lowly, like his Lord. Sanctified trouble has a great tendency to breed sympathy, and sympathy is to the Church as oil to machinery. A man that has never suffered feels very awkward when he tries to sympathise with a tried child of God. He kindly does his best, but he does not know how to go to work at it; but those repeated blows from the rod make us feel for others who are smarting, and by degrees we are recognised as being the Lords anointed comforters, made meet by temptation to succour those who are tempted. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Trial a blessing
I. How THEY WERE TO REGARD THEIR TRIALS (Jam_1:2). My brethren, he says--my brethren both by nature and grace, alike as Jews and Christians, as children of Abraham and children of a better father, the God of Abraham--count it--that is, reckon, think it--all joy--joy of the highestkind, and, indeed, of every kind--joy not in some small measure, but in the very largest, not in certain but the whole of its elements and aspects. When ye fall into divers temptations. The language points to our being unexpectedly surrounded by temptations. It does not apply to the case of those who recklessly rush into them, who by their own presumption or folly bring them upon themselves. No happy effects can be looked for then, and the feelings suited to such circumstances are the reverse of joyful. He speaks not simply of temptations, but of divers, that is, manifold, various temptations. He exhorts us to be affected in this way, not merely under one or two of them, but under any number, succession, combination of them--under them not only when they are of this or that kind, but whatever kind they happen to be of--under them not only when they come singly and go speedily, but even when they rush upon us from every side, and seem as if they would never take their departure. James here but reiterates the teaching of the Great Master (Mat_5:12). Many in early times found it possible to obey the injunction (Act_5:41; 2Co Rom_5:3; Heb_10:34). Trials of any kind, such as earthly losses, bodily afflictions, domestic sorrows, spiritual assaults, are painful in their nature. Not only so, there is an element of danger in every one of them, there is the risk of failure, of dishonouring God in the fires, and losing the benefit of the visitation. But when we are providentially brought into such circumstances, then we should feel not only calmly submissive, but even gratefully glad. We are in a Fathers hand, His purposes are all wise and gracious, and, in the very midst of our heaviness, we should greatly rejoice.
II. WHY THEY WERE THUS TO REGARD THEIR TRIALS (verse 3). If we remember how apt we are to deceive ourselves--how ready to rest in mere appearances, when all is prosperous and pleasant--how we need to be shaken and sifted to know what in reality and at bottom we are--we shall hail whatever searches us through and through, even though it may pierce like a sword, or scorch like a furnace. But how is the result brought about? Knowing this, he says, knowing it as you do, both by the testimony of Gods Word and the experience of Gods people--knowing it as a thing often evidenced and indubitably certain--that the trying of your faith worketh patience. Faith is the primary, radical grace of the Christian character. From it, as a root, all the others spring; on it, as a foundation, all the others are built. It is the grand principle of the new life, which grows as it grows, and declines as it declines. It worketh patience--endurance, perseverance, which is more than calm submission to theDivine will, even resolute, energetic constancy in the doing of that will, a standing out, a holding on, and pressing forward in spite of the sufferings undergone. Hence it is said elsewhere, Knowing that tribulation--which corresponds to the trying or proving in the present case, for it is effected by means of tribulation--worketh patience, and patience experience Rom_5:3-4). This is the result brought about, the effect produced. Such dealings not only evince the reality of faith, but promote its growth, for they stir it into more conscious and vigorous exercise. The most tried Christians are the strongest. The proving of faith issues in endurance, and at every step this endurance grows less difficult and less precarious. Past evidences of the Divine love, wisdom, and faithfulness in the time of need, stablish the heart and banish fears in prospect of impending and under the pressure of present trials. Thus there is a going from strength to strength in the path of suffering. But here the apostle pauses, as it were, and turns aside for a moment to exhort those whom he addresses regarding this patience (verse 4). Let this endurance not stop short in its course; let it produce its full effect, work out its complete result. How needful the counsel! We grow weary, grasp at premature deliverances, have recourse to questionable expedients. *We are net willing to wait Gods time and way of extrication. In order to have its perfect work it must act, not partially, but fully; and, I add, it must act not temporarily, but permanently. The purpose of the whole, and the effect, when realised, is, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Let it be perfect, and we are perfect; so wide is the influence, so precious are the fruits of the grace of patience. The language here may be expressive of Christian completeness or maturity--of the new life in its full development, its well-balanced, vigorous exercise. He who is not only sound but strong, no longer a babe but now a man, is so far perfect. Entire--that is, having every requisite element and feature, and each in its proper place, all that enters into stability and consistency of character, to the exclusion of whatever is of an opposite tendency, and might have the effect of marring or weakening. As if that were not enough, he adds, wanting nothing--nothing essential to spiritual manhood, to the thoroughness of our personal Christianity. In proportion as we have this endurance at work, we possess grace in all its varied forms and ripest fruits--grace adequate to every duty and emergency.
1. See here the mark to which we should ever be pressing forward. Christians, you are not to be satisfied with holiness that is partial either in its extent, its compass, or in its degree. You are to seek that it may fully pervade every power and relation of your being.
2. See the discipline by which alone this mark can be reached. There must be endurance to the end; and that comes only in the way, and as the fruit of trial. The gold cannot be tested and refined without the furnace. It is the lashing-waves, the roaring breakers, which round and polish the smooth pebbles of the beach. It is only by being burned or bruised that certain spices reveal their fragrance. (John Adam.)
Benefit of temptations
Of what temptations, think you, was the apostle speaking? Did he mean, think you, that we were to count it all joy, when we were tempted to the things which are pleasurable to our fleshly appetites, our senses, our pride, but which displease God? Even these temptations may be turned to good by the overpowering grace of God, because every trial in which, by His grace, we stand does bring us larger grace and greater favour of God. But out of such temptations it is a joy to have passed. But there is no joy to fall into them; because even apart from the issue, whether we conquer or are conquered, there is the separate peril whether, by a momentary consent, we displease God. What were, then, the temptations into which the early Christians were chiefly exposed to fall, into which the apostle bids them count it all joy to fall? St. Paul recounts them where he speaks of these things which, by the grace of Christ, shall not separate from the love of Christ (Rom_8:35-37; Rom_5:3). But why, then, are we to count such temptations as these joy? Why is it to be a joy to have to forego what flesh and blood desire, to do what flesh and blood shrink from?
1. First (which contains all), it is a token of the love of God. It is a badge of our sonship, an earnest of our future inheritance. To be without trial would be to be neglected by God. To have trial is a proof that God is thinking of us, caring for us, giving us something which may approve us to Him. It is not the happy lot to have few troubles. The greatest friends of God had most and the heaviest. The happiest lot is to receive in peace, whether more or fewer, what God permits, and by His grace to endure, and to be more than conquerors through Christ that loved us; strengthened by our very conflicts, proofs against temptations through temptations; abounding in grace through the victories of grace, cleaving close to God by overcoming that which would separate us from Him.
2. Then, suffering likens us to Christ; it is a portion of the Cross of Christ.
3. Then, trouble bursts the bonds of this life and shows us the nothingness of all created things. Trouble drives the soul into itself, teaches it to know itself and its own weakness, rouses it when torpid, humbles it when it lifts itself up, strengthens the inner man, softens the heart, cuts off offences, guards virtues. Yet not only are those severer troubles channels of Gods grace to the soul, but even temptation itself, when the soul hates it, purifies it. Then only is temptation dangerous when it is pleasant. Then flee it, as worse than a serpent, for it threatens thy souls life. The apostle speaks not of temptations which we run into, temptations which we seek out for ourselves or make for ourselves, temptations which we tamper with; but temptations into which, by Gods providence, we fall. The least, if thou court it, may destroy thy life; out of the greatest, God, if thou seek Him, will make a way of escape; not a mere escape, but out of it, aloft from it, over it. For this the very faith and truth of God are pledged to us that, if we will, we shall prevail. In this way, too, Davids words come true, It is better to fail into the hands of the Lord than into the hands of man (2Sa_24:14). The trials which God sends, as sorrow, losses, bereavement, sickness, are always directly to our profit if we do not waste them. In strife with temptation only canst thou know thyself. The unrest of temptation sifts whether a man, when in rest, truly loves God. Temptation shows us how weak we are to resist the very slightest assaults. We see in our weakness how any good in us (if there be good) is not of us but of God. And so temptation, if we are wise, makes us more watchful. Slighter temptation is either the way into or the way out of greater. Slighter temptations, if yielded to, prove a broad and high way which leads to greater, and, but for Gods mercy, to destruction and death: slighter temptations, if resisted, open the eyes to the peril of greater. Or, again, a great sudden temptation has revealed to the soul the danger of tampering with less. And so temptation drives us to Him who hath said, Call upon Me in the time of trouble, so will I deliver thee, and thou shalt praise Me. I will be with him in trouble, saith God. I will be unto him a wall of fire round about. My strength is made perfect in weakness. The depth of trouble calls deeply. The deep earnest cry is answered. The longing of the soul is the presence of Christ. He who gives the grace to cry to Him wills to hear. And with the nearer presence of God to the soul come larger gifts of grace and more joyous hope of pleasing God. Experience has made it a Christian proverb, God gives no grace to man except upon trouble. In victory over temptation God gives a holy fervour. He makes the soul to taste and see that it is far sweeter for His sake to forego what the soul desireth than against His will to have it. Then, after or in temptation, God will give thee consolation. As when on earth our Lord called His disciples to rest awhile, He will, after a while, if thou hold out, give thee rest, or else by the very trial He shields thee from some greater trial. And what will the end be? Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life. Every temptation resisted by the grace of God is a jewel in the heavenly crown. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
The use of trial
The use and ordination of persecution to the people of God is trial. God maketh use of the worst instruments, as fine gold is cast into the fire, the most devouring element. Innocency is best tried by iniquity. But why doth God try us? Not for His own sake, for He is omniscient; but either--
1. For our sakes, that we may know ourselves. In trials we discern the sincerity of grace, and the weakness and liveliness of it; and so are less strangers to our own hearts. Sincerity is discovered. A gilded potsherd may shine till it cometh to scouring. In trying times God heateth the furnace so hot that dross is quite wasted; every interest is crossed, and then hirelings become changelings. Sometimes we discover our own weakness (Mat_13:1-58.); we find that faith weak in danger which we thought to be strong out of danger. In pinching weather weak persons feels the aches and bruises of their joints. Sometimes we discern the liveliness of grace. Stars shine in the night that he hid in the day. Spices are most fragrant when burnt and bruised, so have saving graces their chiefest flagrancy in hard times.
2. Or for the worlds sake. And so--
(1) For the present to convince them by our constancy, that they may be confirmed in the faith if weak, or converted if altogether un-called. It was a notable saying of Luther, The Church converted the whole world by blood and prayer. We are proved, and religion is proved, when we are called to sufferings. Pauls bonds made for the furtherance of the gospel Php_1:12-13). Justin Martyr was converted by the constancy of the Christians. When he saw the Christians so willingly choose death, he reasoned thus within himself: Surely these men must be honest, and there is somewhat eminent in their principles. So I remember the author of the Council of Trent said concerning Anne de Burg, a senator of Paris, who was burnt for Protestantism, that the death and constancy of a man so conspicuous did make many curious to know what religion that was for which he bad courageously endured punishment, and so the number was much increased.
(2) We are tried with respect to the day of judgment (1Pe_1:7). Use: It teaches us to bear afflictions with constancy and patience.
1. Gods aim in your affliction is not destruction, but trial Dan_11:35).
2. The time of trial is appointed (Dan_11:35).
3. God sits by the furnace looking after His metal (Mal_3:3).
4. This trial is not only to approve, but to improve (1Pe_1:7; Job_23:10). (T. Manton.)
The benefit of trial
There are two general grounds on which believers may well do what is here required of them.
1. In spite of their trials they have precious privileges and exalted prospects--such privileges as peace with God and hearts renewed to righteousness.Psa_73:24).
2. Their trials themselves are fraught with good. They are part of Gods paternal discipline. They are fitted to give them many salutary lessons respecting the evil of sin and the value of salvation.
3. And, finally, the trial of their faith, as the apostle goes on to say, worketh patience. (A. S. Patterson, D. D.)
Trial and joy
The first thing he taken notice of is their sufferings--the troubles to which they are exposed on account of their faith in Christ. By and by he will have plenty to say of their sins, of conduct unbecoming Christian believers, conduct he will be sure to rebuke. If you see it to be your duty to point out a mans sins to him, do not do it till you are quite sure you have let him see that you feel for him with all your heart, and that you have no other wish than to do him good.
1. It verified the faith. Without the trial there might have been suspicion about the reality or the strength of it. The trial came and the faith endured. If you suffer because you are a Christian, this tries you whether you are a Christian. If you suffer in what we call the course of Providence, this tries you whether you have faith in Him who guides and governs all things. And so in every event of life that seems antagonistic to your welfare, it is a test of the reality of your faith, and, therefore, a ground of joy.
2. Trial not only verifies faith, it strengthens it as well, strengthens it so that it is stronger through the trial than it was before. The reason is plain. Whatever exercises faith strengthens faith; whatever compels it to come forth from disuse, whatever rouses it to assert its existence, increases its strength. Our antagonist is our friend. Trials provoke faith, and the best thing that can happen to it is just to be provoked. You wrap up a childs limbs, you give them no free play, you compress the very channels in which the life-blood flows, and you wonder there is no increase of strength.
(1) The purpose of all trial is the trying of faith. Life is the very sphere of trial, and everything that crosses us is a cross in the way we travel to a purer and a stronger faith.
(2) Every kind of a trial which the Christian experiences has its special joy. There is a drop of pleasure in every bitter cup which is peculiar to that cup.
(3) The beneficence of the trial-character of life; of the demand for verification of faith. Would you go to sea in a ship whose engines had not been tested? What about the journey to the eternal would?
(4) How does a man come out from his trials? On a higher plane of spiritual life or on a lower one? He may see here the test.
(5) There are trials before us that may be too strong for us. Let us see to it that our faith now be so confirmed that it will be more than conqueror over whatever the future may contain. (Peter Rutherford.)
Rules whereby to estimate trials
That your judgments may be rectified in point of afflictions, take these rules.
1. Do not judge by sense (Heb_12:11).
2. Judge by a supernatural light. Christs eye-salve must clear your sight, or else you cannot make a right judgment: there is no fit apprehension of things till you get within the veil, and see by the light of a sanctuary lamp 1Co_2:11). So David, In Thy light we shall see light Psa_36:9); that is, by His Spirit we come to discern the brightness of glory or grace, and the nothingness of the world.
3. Judge by supernatural grounds. Many times common grounds may help us to discern the lightness of our grief, yea, carnal grounds; your counting must be an holy counting. Gods corrections are sharp, but we have strong corruptions to be mortified; we are called to great trials, but we may reckon upon great hopes, &c. From that all joy; afflictions to Gods people do not only minister occasion of patience, but great joy. The world hath no reason to think religion a black and gloomy way. A Christian is a bird that can sing in winter as well as in spring; he can live in the fire like Mosess bush; burn and not be consumed; nay, leap in the fire. But you will say, Doth not the Scripture allow us a sense of our condition? How can we rejoice in that which is evil?
(1) Not barely in the evil of them; that is so far from being a fruit of grace that it is against nature; there is a natural abhorrency of that which is painful, as we see in Christ Himself (Joh_12:27).
(2) Their joy is from the happy effects, or consequences, or comforts, occasioned by their sufferings. I will name some.
(a) The honour done to us; that we are singled out to bear witness to the truths of Christ: To you it is given to suffer (Php_1:29).
(b) The benefit the Church receiveth. Resolute defences gain upon the world. The Church is like an oak, which liveth by its own wounds, and the more limbs are cut off the more new sprouts.
(c) Their own private and particular comforts. God hath consolations proper for martyrs and His children under trials.
The sun shineth many times when it raineth; and they have sweet glimpses of Gods favour when their outward condition is most gloomy and sad. There is a holy greatness of mind, and a joy that becometh the saddest providences. Faith should be above all that befalleth us; it is its proper work to make a believer triumph over every temporary accident. Again, another ground of joy in ordinary crosses is, because in them we may have much experience of grace, of the love of God, and our own sincerity and patience; and that is ground of rejoicing (Rom_5:3). Lastly, all evils are alike to faith; and it would as much misbecome a Christian hope to be dejected with losses as with violence or persecution. You should walk so that the world may know you can live above every condition, and that all the evils are much beneath your hopes.
4. From that when ye fall, observe that evils are the better borne when they are undeserved and involuntary; that is, when we fall into them rather than draw them upon ourselves.
5. From that divers, God hath several ways wherewith to exercise His people. Crosses seldom come single. When God beginneth once to try He useth divers ways of trial; and, indeed, there is great reason. Divers diseases must have divers remedies. Pride, envy, covetousness, worldliness, wantonness, ambition, are not all cured by the same physic. And learn, too, from hence, that God hath several methods of trial--confiscation, banishment, poverty, infamy, reproach; some trials search us more than others. We must leave it to His wisdom to make choice. Will-suffering is as bad as will-worship.
6. From that word temptations, observe, the afflictions of Gods people are but trials. Well, then, behave thyself as one under trial. Let nothing be discovered in thee but what is good and gracious. Men will do their best at their trial; oh, watch over yourselves with the more care that no impatience, vanity, murmuring, or worldliness of spirit may appear in you. (T. Mounters.)
Joy in temptation
1. Of the nature of temptation.
2. Of the joyful result to the true Christian.
3. Of his duty under it.
I. THE NATURE OF TEMPTATION.
II. THE JOYFUL RESULT TO THE TRUE CHRISTIAN.
1. We must here remember, first, the account which St. Paul has given us of Gods dealings: Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. So that, in the suffering of trial, the believer has one especial mark of Gods favour.
2. But though all Gods people are partakers of chastisement, yet, as mere suffering is not a sufficient test of grace, there is another particular to be noticed, namely, the awakening tendency of trials. I have alluded to the extreme danger of the state of quiet and prosperity when the world smiles upon men; when Satan seems to have departed from them; and when their natural propensities to ease are furthered by all surrounding circumstances Jer_48:11).
3. This is another useful tendency of trial--it humbles men. Who is so likely to boast as he who has just put on his armour, and has never yet seen the battle?
4. I think we may now easily see that the results of trial to the believer are joyful. Every branch in the living vine that beareth fruit the heavenly Husbandman purgeth, that it may bring forth more fruit.
III. But it is time, in the third place, to speak more particularly of THE CHRISTIANS DUTY UNDER TEMPTATION.
1. And here, I would say, first, he must meet it in faith. And surely there are enough of precious promises whereon we may stay ourselves.
2. I would make another observation; and that is, you must under trial show submission to the Lords hand. Persons are very often ready, like Cain, to cry out, My punishment is greater than I can bear.
3. The next point that I would press on you is the exercise of patience. This is especially dwelt on by the apostle in my text, when he says, Let patience have her perfect work; that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. Abraham, for instance, was long, very long, kept childless, till he was forced to hope even against hope. It is by slow degrees that the proud heart is humbled, and the self-sufficient spirit moulded into childlike submission to the will of God. If the gold be taken from the furnace before it be thoroughly purified and refined, why surely it had better never have been cast into the fire.
4. I make but one more closing observation. How anxious ought we to be to reap the benefit God intends from trial! When we contend with the enemies of our salvation, there can be no such thing as a drawn battle; if victory be not for us, we shall be worsted. And there is no state of more fearful augury than that of the man whom trial, chastisement, temptation, hardens. It is only sanctified trial that is profitable; and in order that trial may be so sanctified, we must earnestly implore the blessing of the Divine Spirit. (J. Ayre, M. A.)
Trials the law of life
Life is not always easy to any, of whatever condition or fortune. And men increase the painfulness of living by undertaking life on a wrong theory, viz., the conception of the possibility of making life free from trouble. They dream of this; they toil for this; they are all disappointed. It is impracticable, man might just as well seek to live without eating or without breathing. All human beings are born to trouble as the birds fly upward. Why, then, should we increase the difficulties of human life by adding to its natural limitations the attempt to reach the unattainable? They live the less difficult lives who early adjust themselves to the natural fact that trouble is to be the normal condition of life. They prepare themselves for it. They fortify themselves by philosophy and religion to endure the inevitable. Then every hour free from trouble is so much cleat gain. But to him who adopts the other theory--and who does not?--every trouble is so much clear loss. The man in trouble, the fish in water, the bird in air: that is the law; why not accept it? That fact need not discourage us. It does not take from our dignity, nor from our growth, nor from our final happiness. The painter cannot have his picture glowing on the canvas by merely designing it, nor the sculptor transmute his ideal into marble by a wish. The one must take all the trouble of drawing and colouring, and the other that of chiselling and polishing. It is no necessary discouragement to a boy that he must be under tutors, and must go through the trouble and discipline of school-day, even if he be a prince. It is the law. That answers all. It need scarcely be added, that for any success we must conform to the law. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The afflictions of the saints diverse
1. These afflictions are manifold in respect of the diversity of instruments which God useth in afflicting them upon the saints. For sometimes He useth the devil, sometimes men, sometimes His other creatures as instruments.
2. As in respect of the divers instruments thereunto by God used, the temptations of men are manifold; so if we look into the nature of temptations they are no less diverse. Some are afflicted by exile and banishment, some by captivity and imprisonment, some by famine and nakedness, some by peril and persecution, some by slander and reproachful contumely, some by rackings and tearings in pieces, some by fire and faggot, some by sores of body and sundry diseases, some suffer in themselves, some are afflicted in their friends, in their wives, in their children, some in their goods, some in their bodies, some in their credits, some by sea, some by land, some at home, some abroad, some by open enemies, some by counterfeit friends, some by cruel oppression, some by manifest injuries, some by force, some by fraud.
3. Finally, the ends wherefore they are afflicted are diverse; therefore in flint respect also they may not amiss be counted diverse. Sometimes we are afflicted to the end we should be humbled, tried, sometimes that in the nature of Gods blessings we may better be instructed; sometimes we are afflicted that God may be glorified, sometimes that our sins may be remitted, sometimes that the pride of our hearts may be repressed and sinful desires mortified; sometimes we are afflicted that Gods love towards us may the more lively be expressed, sometimes that thereby the world may be hated of us, sometimes that we may be more zealous in prayer for deliverance, sometimes that we may be made conformable and like the image of the Son of God, together with Him may be partakers of His glory. Finally, to make us forsake all trust in other, and to bring us home to God. As Isaiah teacheth us, at that day shall the remnant of Israel, and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob, stay no more upon him that smote him, but shall stay upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. (R. Turnbull.)
A deep spring of joy
Their spring of joy did not flow from the mere surface of life. It bubbled up from the deep underlying strata, and still ran on whatever changes vexed the surface. (S. Cox, D. D.)
Joy in tribulation
Mr. John Philpot was shut up with some Protestant companions in the Bishop of Londons coal-cellar, but they were so merry that they were fetched out to be reprimanded for their unseasonable mirth. The world wonders, wrote the good man to a friend, we can be merry under such extreme miseries, but our God is omnipotent, who turns our misery into joy. I have so much joy that, though I be in a place of darkness and mourning, yet I cannot lament, but both day and night am full of joy. I never was so merry before; the Lords name be praised for ever. Oh, pray instantly that this joy may never be taken from us, for it passeth all the delights in this world. (Sunday at Home.)
Joy commendable in trouble
Every bird can sing in a clear heaven in temperate spring; that one is most commended that sings many notes in the midst of a shower or in the dead of winter. (Bp. Hall.)
Temptations need not discourage
In all temptations be not discouraged. These surges may be, not to break thee, but to heave thee off thyself on the Rock Christ. (T. Wilcocks.)
Temptation a benefaction
Temptation is a necessity, and not only a necessity, but a benefaction. If you were to construct a man, you would have to put into him a certain percentage of temptation that he might become fully developed. (Prof. Hy. Drummond.)
The joyous end of trial
The quartz gold might bitterly complain when the hammer comes down on it--Ah! I shall never be good for anything again. I am crushed to atoms. And when the rushing water came along it might cry out, Here I am drowned. I am lost. I shall never come to the light any more. And when put into the furnace it might say, Now I am for ever undone. But by and by, see that ring that clases the brow of the king. It is that same gold that understood not, through much tribulation it must enter upon honour. It is even thus with us. We need not complain if the terrible temptation comes along. It will give us an opportunity of using the grace which God has bestowed; it will show what metal we are of; it will bring out our character if we have any; and we may thus count it all joy. (W. G. Pascoe.)
Trial a boon
Every possible trial to the child of God is a masterpiece of strategy of the Captain of his salvation for his good. (A. R. Fausset, M. A.)
Advantage of adversity
Tough trees grow in exposed situations, where the mightiest winds of heaven sweep and whirl from year to year. An experienced shipbuilder would not think of using for the mainmast of a ship a tree that had grown in a hot-house, where the whirlwind had never come. (R. V. Lawrence.)
Shaped by sorrow
The best steel is subjected to the alternatives of extreme heat and extreme cold. Were you ever in a cutlery? If you were, you noticed that the knife-blades were heated, and beaten, and then heated again, and plunged into the coldest water, in order to give them the right shape and temper. And perhaps you also noticed that there was a large heap of rejected blades--rejected because they would not bear the tempering process. They cracked and warped; when put upon the grindstone, little flaws appeared in some that, up to that point, had seemed fair and perfect. Hence they were thrown aside as unfit for market. So souls, in order to ensure the right temper, are heated in the furnace of affliction, plunged into the cold waters of tribulation, and ground between the upper and nether stones of adversity and disaster. Some come out of the trial pure, elastic, and bright, ready for the highest service; others come out brittle, with ill-temper, full of flaws and spots of rust, and are thrown into the rubbish-room of the Church as unfit for any but the lowest uses. Now if you would be of any account among the forces that are working out the salvation of this world, be still in the hands of God until He tempers you. Listen to that knife-blade in the hands of the cutler. Stop, now! I have been in the fire often enough. Would you burn the life out of me? But in it goes again into the glowing furnace, and is heated to a white heat. Stop hammering me! I have been pounded enough now. But down comes the sledge. Keep me out of this cold water. One moment in the fiery furnace and the next in ice-cold water. It is enough to kill one! But in it goes. Keep me off the grindstone. Youll chafe the life out of me. But it is made to kiss the stone until the cutler is satisfied. But now see! When all the heating and cooling and pounding and grinding is done you may bend it double, and yet it springs back straight as an arrow; it is as bright as polished silver, hard as a diamond, and will cut like a Damascus blade. It has been shaped, tempered, and polished, and is worth something. (R. V. Lawrence.)
Mercies travel along dark way.
Right back of Hackensack is a long railroad cut. In the dim twilight, when evening is far advanced, the cut is dark and gloomy. I was thinking of that one evening and I stopped to look into the entrance. I said to myself, No one would ever imagine, just to glance in there without knowledge, that anything good could come by a way so forbidding. While I was still talking thus to myself, I felt the ground tremble, I saw the darkness light up with a sudden crimson ray, I heard a roar of ever-increasing loudness, and the black entrance of the cut was filled with a shower of sparks and a mixed plume of black and white; a ball of round fire blinded my eyes, a sound of thunder startled my ears, the earth shook up and down as though set upon springs, and then it was gone--the train had rushed by--nothing to be seen in the gloom but the littlered lamp on the rear of the cars that rapidly diminished its lustre, blinked once or twice, and went out. Long after it was out of sight I heard the sound of the distant gong; and I realised that this unsightly cut had let some human happiness safely through. Some of our choicest mercies come in by way of some frowning trouble. The station where we receive them is a little further on, to be sure; but it is well to remember that if the dark way had not been traversed nothing so rich and good would have arrived. (J. W. Dally.)
Manifold temptations needed
The more varied are the moral difficulties of life, the more complete is the discipline. The strain must come upon one muscle after another, if there is to be a perfect development of moral vigour--if, as James puts it, we are to be lacking in nothing. The strength of every separate element of Christian righteousness must be tried, and tried by various tests. The courage which is unmoved by one form of danger maybe daunted by another. The patience which submits without a murmur to familiar suffering may be changed by a new sorrow into angry resentment. The Christian charity which has kept its sweetness through many cruel persecutions may at last be suddenly embittered by some fresh outrage. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Life a perpetual discipline
Life, from first to last, is a perpetual trial, and the trial is perpetually varied. In the school of God there are no vacations. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
The record of a dark day
We go to rest sometimes with an impression of guilt on our minds, because all day long we have been under trial, so that we feel as if evil had been with us continually. At other times night finds us calm and serene. All has gone smoothly, and we are pleased with ourselves and our neighbours. And yet there may be a better record for the dark day than for the bright one, in Gods book of remembrance. For temptation is not sin, nor its absence goodness.
Temptation may be a sign of grace
A brother in a religious meeting was suffering from severe temptation, and after a full account of his experience was advised to take courage, For, said Father Taylor, the devil was never known to chase a bag of chaff! You may be sure that there is the pure wheat in your heart, or he would not be after you so hard.
Joy amidst sorrow
Joy lives in the midst of the sorrow; the sorrow springs from the same root as the gladness. The two do not clash against each other, or reduce the emotion to a neutral indifference, but they blend into one another; just as, in the Arctic regions, deep down beneath the cold snow, with its white desolation and its barren death, you shall find the budding of the early spring flowers and the fresh green grass; just as some kinds of fire burn below the water; just as, in the midst of the barren and undrinkable sea, there may be welling up some little fountain of fresh water that comes from a deeper depth than the great ocean around it, and pours its sweet streams along the surface of the salt waste. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Joy in trial
When Richard Williams, of the Patagonian Mission, with his few companions, was stranded on the beach by a high tide, and at the beginning of the terrible privations which terminated his life, he wrote in his diary: I bless and praise God that this day has been, I think, the happiest of my life. The fire of Divine love has been burning on the mean altar of my breast, and the torch light of faith has been in full trim, so that I have only had to wave it to the right hand or left, in order to discern spiritual things in heavenly places. Later, when severe illness was added to circumstantial distress, he could say, Not a moment sits wearily upon me. Sweet is the presence of Jesus; and oh, I am happy in His love. Again, though held fast by fatal disease, he wrote: Ah, I am happy day and night, hour by hour. Asleep or awake, I am happy beyond the poor compass of language to tell. My joys are with Him whose delights have always been with the sons of men; and my heart and spirit are in heaven with the blessed.
The trying of your faith worketh patience--
Trial of faith works patience
1. The chief grace which is tried in persecution is faith. Partly because it is the radical grace in the life of a Christian (Heb_2:4); we work by love, but live by faith; partly because this is the grace most exercised, sometimes in keeping the soul from using ill means and unlawful courses Isa_28:16); sometimes in bringing the soul to live under gospel-comforts in the absence or want of worldly, and to make a Christian fetch water out of the rock when there is none in the fountain.
Use 1. You that have faith, or pretend to have it, must look for trials. Graces are not crowned till they are exercised; never any yet went to heaven without conflicts.
Use 2. You that are under trials, look to your faith (Luk_22:32).
(1) Hold fast your assurance in the midst of the saddest trials.
(2) Keep your hopes fresh and lively.
2. Many trials cause patience, that is, by the blessing of God upon them. Habits are strengthened by frequent acts; the more you act grace, the stronger; and often trial puts us upon frequent exercise (Heb_12:11).
(1) It showeth how careful you should be to exercise yourselves under every cross; by that means you come to get habits of grace and patience: neglect causeth decay, and God withdraweth His hand from such as are idle: in spirituals, as well as temporals, diligence maketh rich Pro_10:4).
(2) It showeth that if we murmur or miscarry in any providence, the fault is in our own hearts, not in our condition.
3. It is an excellent exchange to part with outward comforts for inward graces. Fiery trials are nothing, if yon gain patience; sickness, with patience, is better than health; loss, with patience, is better than gain.
4. Patience is a grace of excellent use and value. We cannot be Christians without it; we cannot be men without it: not Christians, for it is not only the ornament, but the conservatory of other graces. How else should we persist in well-doing when we meet with grievous crosses? You see we cannot be Christians without it; so, also, not men. Christ saith, In patience possess your souls (Luk_21:19). A man is a man, and doth enjoy himself and his life by patience: otherwise we shall but create needless troubles and disquiets to ourselves, and so be, as it were, dispessessed of our own lives and souls--that is, lose the comfort and the quiet of them. (T. Manton.)
Incentives to patience
I. The sufferer should look at THE HAND which sends the affliction. Patience springs out of faith.
II. The sufferer should look at THE PRESENT BENEFIT of affliction, which to a believer is unspeakably great.
III. The sufferer should look to THE END of his afflictions. God may perhaps see good not to bless us in this life, as He did His servant Job; but, oh, what glory will it be to hear it said of us at the last day, These are they which came out of great tribulation, &c. (W. Jowett, M. A.)
The advantage of temptation
An iron railway-bridge is no stronger after its strength has been tried by running a dozen heavy trains over it than it was before. A gunbarrel is no stronger when it comes from the proof-house, and has had its strength tried by being fired with four or five times its proper charge, than it was before. But according to James, the trials which test our faith strengthen it; the temptations which assault our integrity confirm it. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)
Patience and fortitude
People are always talking of perseverance and courage and fortitude, but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude and the rarest too. (John Ruskin.)
Christian pefection
A perfect machine fulfils the object for which it is made, and a perfect Christian is one of such a character that he fulfils the object for which he has been made a Christian. Entire, lacking in nothing, conveys the idea of being properly adjusted and arranged so that our avenues of temptation are properly guarded. A builder never thinks of putting a window in the floor or a door in the ceiling, and God would have our moral nature so adjusted that we may have everything in its place, and consequently Entire, lacking in nothing. (F. Montague Miller.)
Patience Godlike
It would be far easier, I apprehend, for nine men out of ten to join a storming party than to lie on a rack or to hang on a cross without repining. Yes, patience is a strength; and patience is not merely a strength, it is wisdom in exercising it. We, the creatures of a day, make one of the nearest approaches that is posssible for us to the life of God. Of God, St. Augustine has finely said, Patiens quia aeternus Because He lives for ever, He can afford to wait. (Canon Liddon.)
Patience waiting upon providence
Let your hope be patient, without tediousness of spirit, or hastiness of prefixing time. Make no limits or prescriptions to God, but let your prayers and endeavours go on still with a constant attendance on the periods of Gods providence. The men of Bethulia resolved to wait upon God but five days longer; but deliverance stayed seven days, and yet came at last. (Jeremy Taylor, D. D.)
The sphere of patience
It is said that the immortal astronomer, whose genius discovered the laws which govern the movement of the planets, saw his great labours despised by his contemporaries. Reduced to extreme misery, he was on his death-bed, when a friend asked him if he did not suffer intensely in dying thus without seeing his discoveries appreciated. My friend, replied Kepler, God waited five thousand years for one of His creatures to discover the admirable laws which He has given to the stars, and cannot I wait, also, until justice is done me? Take heed to these words you who are doing Gods work. Labour, if necessary, without result; speak, although not listened to; love, without being understood; cast your bread upon the waters; and to subdue the world to the truth, walk by faith and not by sight. (E. Bersier, D. D.)
Patience makes the burden lighter
Two little German girls, Brigitte and Wallburg, were on their way to the town, and each carried a heavy basket of fruit on her head. Brigitte murmured and sighed constantly; Wallbarg only laughed and joked. Brigitte said, What makes you laugh so? Your basket is quite as heavy as mine, and you are no stronger than I am. Wallburg said, I have a precious little herb on my load, which makes me hardly feel it at all. Put some of it on your load as well. Oh, cried Brigitte, it must indeed be a precious little herb! I should like to lighten my load with it; so tell me at once what it is called. Wallburg replied, The precious little herb that makes all burdens.light is called patience.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v2 Chapter 4
Chapter 4
THE PERSONS ADDRESSED IN THE EPISTLE: THE JEWS OF THE DISPERSION.
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"James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting." - Jam_1:2
THESE words appear to be both simple and plain. At first sight there would seem to be not much room for any serious difference of opinion as to their meaning. The writer of the letter writes as "a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ," i.e., as a Christian, "to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion," i.e., to the Jews who are living away from Palestine. Almost the only point which seems to be open to doubt is whether he addresses himself to all Jews, believing and unbelieving, or, as one might presume from his proclaiming himself at the outset to be a Christian, only to those of his fellow-countrymen who, like himself, have become "servants of the Lord Jesus Christ." And this is a question which cannot be determined without a careful examination of the contents of the Epistle.
And yet there has been very great difference of opinion as to the persons whom St. James had in his mind when he wrote these words. There is not only the triplet of opinions which easily grow out of the question just indicated, viz., that the letter is addressed to believing Jews only, to unbelieving Jews only, and to both: there are also the views of those who hold that it is addressed to Jewish and Gentile Christians regarded separately, or to the same regarded as one body, or to Jewish Christians primarily, with references to Gentile Christians and unconverted Jews, or finally to Gentile Christians primarily, seeing that they, since the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, are the true sons of Abraham and the rightful inheritors of the privileges of the twelve tribes.
In such a Babel of interpretations it will clear the ground somewhat if we adopt once more as a guiding principle the common-sense canon of interpretation laid down by Hooker ("Eccles. Pol.," 5. 59:2), that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst. A literal construction of the expression "the twelve tribes of the Dispersion" will not only stand, but make excellent sense. Had St. James meant to address all Christians, regarded in their position as exiles from their heavenly home, he would have found some much plainer way of expressing himself. There is nothing improbable, but something quite the reverse, in the supposition that the first overseer of the Church of Jerusalem, who, as we have seen, was "a Hebrew of Hebrews," wrote a letter to those of His fellow-countrymen who were far removed from personal intercourse with him. So devoted a Jew, so devout a Christian, as we know him to have been, could not but take the most intense interest in all who were of Jewish blood, wherever they might dwell, especially such as had learned to believe in Christ, above all when he knew that they were suffering from habitual oppression and ill-treatment. We may without hesitation decide that when St. James says "the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion" he means Jews away from their home in Palestine, and not Christians away from their home in heaven. For what possible point would the Dispersion (η διασπορα) have in such a metaphor? Separation from the heavenly home might be spoken of as banishment, or exile, or homelessness, but not as "dispersion." Even if we confined ourselves to the opening words we might safely adopt this conclusion, but we shall find that there are numerous features in the letter itself which abundantly confirm it.
It is quite out of place to quote such passages as the sealing of "the hundred and forty and four thousand out of every tribe of the children of Israel," {Rev_7:4-8} or the city with "twelve gates, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel". {Rev_21:12} These occur in a book which is symbolical from the first chapter to the last, and therefore we know that the literal construction cannot stand. The question throughout is not whether a given passage is to be taken literally or symbolically, but what the passage in question symbolizes. Nor, again, can St. Peters declaration that "ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for Gods own possession," {1Pe_2:9} be considered as at all parallel. There the combination of expressions plainly shows that the language is figurative; and there is no real analogy between an impassioned exhortation, modeled on the addresses of the Hebrew prophets, and the matter-of-fact opening words of a letter. The words have the clear ring of nationality, and there is nothing whatever added to them. to turn the simple note into the complex sound of a doubtful metaphor. As Davidson justly remarks, "The use of the phrase twelve tribes is inexplicable if the writer intended all believers without distinction. The author makes no allusion to Gentile converts, nor to the relation between Jew and Gentile incorporated into one spiritual body."
Let us look at some of the features which characterize the Epistle itself, and see whether they bear out the view which is here advocated, that the persons addressed are Israelites in the national sense, and not as having been admitted into the spiritual "Israel of God". {Gal_6:16}
(1) The writer speaks of Abraham as "our father," without a hint that this is to be understood in any but the literal sense. "Was not Abraham. our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son upon the altar?" {Jam_2:21} St. Paul, when he speaks of Abraham as "the father of all them that believe," clearly indicates this. {Rom_4:11}
(2) The writer speaks of his readers as worshipping in a "synagogue," {Jam_2:2} which may possibly mean that, just as St. James and the Apostles continued to attend the Temple services after the Ascension, so their readers are supposed to attend the synagogue services after their conversion. But at least it shows that the writer, in speaking of the public worship of those whom he addresses, naturally uses a word (συναγωγη) which had then, and continues to have, specially Jewish associations, rather than one (εκκλησια) which from the first beginnings of Christianity was promoted from its old political sphere to indicate the congregations, and even the very being, of the Christian Church.
(3) He assumes that his writers are familiar not only with the life of Abraham, {Jam_2:21; Jam_2:23} but of Rahab, {Jam_2:25} the prophets, {Jam_5:10} Job, {Jam_5:11} and Elijah. {Jam_5:17} These frequent appeals to the details of the Old Testament would be quite out of place in a letter addressed to Gentile converts.
(4) God is spoken of under the specially Hebrew title of "the lord of Sabaoth"; {Jam_5:4} and the frequent recurrence of "the Lord" throughout the Epistle {Jam_1:7; Jam_3:9; Jam_4:10; Jam_4:15; Jam_5:10; Jam_11:11; Jam_15:15} looks like the language of one who wished to recall the name Jehovah to his readers.
(5) In discountenancing swearing {Jam_5:12} Jewish forms of oaths are taken as illustrations.
(6) The vices which are condemned are such as were as common among the Jews as among the Gentiles - reckless language, rash swearing, oppression of the poor, covetousness. There is little or nothing said about the gross immorality which was rare among the Jews, but was almost a matter of course among the Gentiles. St. James denounces faults into which Jewish converts would be likely enough to lapse; he says nothing about the vices respecting which heathen converts, such as those at Corinth, are constantly warned by St. Paul.
(7) But what is perhaps the most decisive feature of all is that he assumes throughout that for those whom he addresses the Mosaic Law is a binding and final authority. "If ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. If thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law". {Jam_2:9-11} "He that speaketh against a brother, or judgeth his brother, speaketh against the law and judgeth the law". {Jam_4:11}
Scarcely any of these seven points, taken singly, would be at all decisive; but when we sum them up together, remembering in how short a letter they occur, and when we add them to the very plain and simple language of the address, we have an argument which will carry conviction to most persons who have no preconceived theory of their own to defend. And to this positive evidence derived from the presence of so much material that indicates Jewish circles as the destined recipients of the letter, we must add the strongly confirmatory negative evidence derived from the absence of anything which specially points either to Gentile converts or unconverted heathen. We may therefore read the letter as having been written by one who had been born and educated in a thoroughly Jewish atmosphere, who had accepted the Gospel, not as canceling the Law, but as raising it to a higher power; and we may read it also as addressed to men who, like the writer, are by birth and education Jews, and, like him, have acknowledged Jesus as their Lord and the Christ. The difference between writer and readers lies in this, that he is in Palestine, and they not; that he appears to be in a position of authority, whereas they seem for the most part to be a humble and suffering folk. All which fits in admirably with the hypothesis that we have before us an Epistle written by the austere and Judaic-minded James the Just, written from Jerusalem, to comfort and warn those Jewish Christians who lay remote from his personal influence.
That it is Jewish Christians, and not unbelieving Jews, or Jews whether believing or not, who are addressed, is not open to serious doubt. There is not only the fact that St. James at the outset proclaims himself to be a Christian, {Jam_1:1} but also the statement that the wealthy oppressors of his poor readers "blaspheme the honorable Name by which ye are called," or more literally "which was called upon you," viz., the Name of Christ. Again, the famous paragraph about faith and works assumes that the faith of the readers and the faith of the writer is identical. {Jam_2:7; Jam_2:14-20} Once more, he expressly claims them as believers when he writes, "My brethren, hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons." {Jam_2:1} And if more be required, we have it in the concluding exhortations: "Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of the Lord…Stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord is at hand." {Jam_5:7-8}
Whether or no there are passages which glance aside at unbelieving Jews, and perhaps even some which are directly addressed to them, cannot be decided with so much certainty; but the balance of probability appears to be. on the affirmative side in both cases. There probably are places in which St. James is thinking of unbelieving Israelites, and one or more passages in which he turns aside and sternly rebukes them, much in the same way as the Old Testament prophets sometimes turn aside to upbraid Tyre and Sidon and the heathen generally. "Do not the rich oppress you, and themselves drag you before the judgment-seats?," {Jam_2:6} seems to refer to rich unconverted Jews prosecuting their poor Christian brethren before the synagogue courts, just as St. Paul did when he was Saul the persecutor. {Act_9:2} And "Do not they blaspheme the honorable Name by which ye are called?" can scarcely be said of Christians. If the blasphemers were Christians they would be said rather to blaspheme the honorable Name by which they themselves were called. There would lie the enormity-that the name of Jesus Christ had been "called upon them," and yet they blasphemed it. And when we come to look at the matter in detail we shall find reason for believing that the stern words at the beginning of chap. 5. are addressed to unbelieving Jews. There is not one word of Christian, or even moral, exhortation in it; it consists entirely of accusation and threatening, and in this respect is in marked contrast to the equally stern words at the beginning of chap. 4, which are addressed to worldly and godless Christians.
To suppose that the rich oppressors so often alluded to in the Epistle are heathen, as Hilgenfeld does, confuses the whole picture, and brings no compensating advantage. The heathen among whom the Jews of the Dispersion dwelt in Syria, Egypt, Rome, and elsewhere, were of course, some of them rich, and some of them poor. But wealthy Pagans were not more apt to persecute Jews, whether Christians or not, than the needy Pagan populace. If there was any difference between heathen rich and poor in this matter, it was the fanatical and plunder-seeking mob, rather than the contemptuous and easy-going rich, who were likely to begin a persecution of the Jews, just as in Russia or Germany at the present time. And St. James would not be likely to talk of "the Lord of Sabaot" in {Jam_5:4} addressing wealthy Pagans. But the social antagonism so often alluded to in the Epistle, when interpreted to mean an antagonism between Jew and Jew, corresponds to a state of society which is known to have existed in Palestine and the neighboring countries during the half-century which preceded the Jewish war of A.D. 66-70. {Comp. Mat_11:5; Mat_19:23; Luk_1:53; Luk_6:20; Luk_6:24; Luk_16:19-20} During that period the wealthy Jews allied themselves with the Romans, in order more securely to oppress their poorer fellow-countrymen. And seeing that the Gospel in the first instance spread chiefly among the poor, this social antagonism between rich and poor Jews frequently became an antagonism between unbelieving and believing Jews. St. James, well aware of this state of things, from personal experience in Judea, and hearing similar things of the Jews of the Dispersion in Syria, reasonably supposes that this unnatural tyranny of Jew over Jew prevails elsewhere also, and addresses all "the twelve tribes which are of the Diaspora" on the subject. In any case his opportunities of knowing a very great deal respecting Jews in various parts of the world were large. Jews from all regions were constantly visiting Jerusalem. But the knowledge which he must have had respecting the condition of things in Palestine and Syria would be quite sufficient to explain what is said in this Epistle respecting the tyranny of the rich over the poor.
The Diaspora, or Dispersion of the Jews throughout the inhabited world, had been brought about in various ways, and had continued through many centuries. The two chief causes were forcible deportation and voluntary emigration. It was a common policy of Oriental conquerors to transport whole populations, in order more completely to subjugate them; and hence the Assyrian and Babylonian conquerors of Israel carried away great multitudes of Jews to the East, sending Eastern populations to take their place. Pompey on a much smaller scale transported Jewish captives to the West, carrying hundreds of Jews to Rome. But disturbances in Palestine, and opportunities of trade elsewhere, induced large multitudes of Jews to emigrate of their own accord, especially to the neighboring countries of Egypt and Syria: and the great commercial centers in Asia Minor, Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Miletus, Pergamus, Cyprus, and Rhodes contained large numbers of Jews. While Palestine was the battle-field of foreign armies, and while newly founded towns were trying to attract population by offering privileges to settlers, thousands of Jews preferred the advantages of a secure home in exile to the risks which attended residence in their native country.
At the time when this Epistle was written three chief divisions of the Dispersion were recognized the Babylonian, which ranked as the first, the Syrian, and the Egyptian. But the Diaspora was by no means confined to these three centers. About two hundred years before this time the composer of one of the so-called Sibylline Oracles could address the Jewish nation, and say, "But every land is full of thee, -aye and every ocean." And there is abundance of evidence, both in the Bible and outside it, especially in Josephus and Philo, that such language does not go beyond the limits of justifiable hyperbole. The list of peoples represented at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, "from every nation under heaven," tells one a great deal. {Act_2:5-11. Comp. Act_15:21, and RAPC 1Ma 15:15-24} Many passages from Josephus might be quoted ("Ant.," 11. 5:2; 14. 7:2; "Bell. Jud," 2 16:4 7 3:3), as stating in general terms the same fact. But perhaps no original authority gives us more information than Philo, in his famous treatise "On the Embassy to the Emperor Caius," which went to Rome (cir. A.D. 40) to obtain the revocation of a decree requiring the Jews to pay divine homage to the Emperors statue. In that treatise we read that "Jerusalem is the metropolis, not of the single country of Judea, but of most countries, because of the colonies which she has sent out, as opportunity offered, into the neighboring lands of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, and Coelesyria, and the more distant lands of Pamphylia and Cilicia, most of Asia, as far as Bithynia and the utmost corners of Pontus; likewise unto Europe, Thessaly, Boeotia, Macedonia, Aetolia, Attica, Argos, Corinth, with the most parts and best parts of Greece. And not only are the continents full of Jewish colonies, but also the most notable of the islands - Euboea, Cyprus, Crete-to say nothing of the lands beyond the Euphrates. For all, excepting a small part of Babylon and those satrapies which contain the excellent land around it, contain Jewish inhabitants. So that if my country were to obtain a share in thy clemency it would not be one city that would be benefited, but ten thousand others, situated in every part of the inhabited world-Europe, Asia, Libya, continental and insular, maritime and inland" ("De Legat. ad Caium," 36., Gelen., pp. 1031-32). It was therefore an enormous circle of readers that St. James addressed when he wrote "to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion," although it seems to have been a long time before his letter became known to the most important of the divisions of the Diaspora, viz., the Jewish settlement in Egypt, which had its chief center in Alexandria. We may reasonably suppose that it was the Syrian division which he had chiefly in view in writing, and it was to them, no doubt, that the letter in the first instance was sent. It is of this division that Josephus writes that, widely dispersed as the Jewish race is over the whole of the inhabited world, it is most largely mingled with Syria on account of its proximity, and especially in Antioch, where the kings since Antiochus had afforded them undisturbed tranquility and equal privileges with the heathen; so that they multiplied exceedingly, and made many proselytes. {"Belt. Jud," 7:3:3}
The enormous significance of the Dispersion as a preparation for Christianity must not be overlooked. It showed to both Jew and Gentile alike that the barriers which had hedged in and isolated the hermit nation had broken down, and that what had ceased to be thus isolated had changed its character. A kingdom had become a religion. What henceforth distinguished the Jews in the eyes of all the world was not their country or their government, but their creed, and through this they exercised upon those among whom they were scattered an influence which had been impossible under the old conditions of exclusiveness. They themselves also were forced to understand their own religion better. When the keeping of the letter of the Law became an impossibility, they were compelled to penetrate into its spirit; and what they exhibited to the heathen was not a mere code of burdensome rites and ceremonies, but a moral life and a worship in spirit and truth. The universality of the services of the synagogue taught the Jew that Gods worship was not confined to Jerusalem, and their simplicity attracted proselytes who might have turned away from the complex and bloody liturgies of the Temple. Even in matters of detail the services in the synagogue prepared the way for the services of the Christian Church. The regular lessons-read from two divisions of Scripture, the antiphonal singing, the turning towards the east, the general Amen of the whole congregation, the observance of the third, sixth, and ninth hours as hours of prayer, and of one day in seven as specially holy-all these things, together with some others which have since become obsolete, meet us in the synagogue worship, as St. James knew it, and in the liturgies of the Christian Church, which he and the Apostles and their successors helped to frame. Thus justice once more became mercy, and a punishment was turned into a blessing. The captivity of the Jew became the freedom of both Jew and Gentile, and the scattering of Israel was the gathering in of all nations unto God. "He hath scattered abroad; He hath given to the poor: His righteousness abideth forever". {Psa_112:9; 2Co_9:9}
Chapter 5
THE RELATION OF THIS EPISTLE TO THE WRITINGS OF ST. PAUL AND OF ST. PETER - THE DATE OF THE EPISTLE - THE DOCTRINE OF JOY IN TEMPTATION.
Jam_1:2-4
THIS passage at once raises the question of the relation of this Epistle to other writings in the New Testament. Did the writer of it know any of the writings of St. Paul or of St. Peter? It is contended in some quarters that the similarity of thought and expression in several passages is so great as to prove such knowledge, and it is argued that such knowledge tells against the genuineness of the Epistle. In any case the question of the date of the Epistle is involved in its relation to these other documents; it was written after them, if it can be established that the author of it was acquainted with them.
With Dr. Salmon we may dismiss the coincidences which have been pointed out by Davidson and others between expressions m this Epistle and the Epistles to the Thessalonians, Corinthians, and Philippians. Some critics seem to forget that a large number of words and phrases were part of the common language, not merely of Jews and early. Christians, but of those who were in the habit of mixing much with such persons. We can no more argue from such phrases as "be not deceived," {1Co_6:9, Gal_6:7, and Jam_1:16} "but some one will say," {1Co_15:35, and Jam_2:18} "a transgressor of the law," {Rom_2:25; Rom_2:27, and Jam_2:11} "fruit of righteousness," {Php_1:11, and Jam_3:18} or from such words as "entire," {1Th_5:23, and Jam_1:4} "transgressor" used absolutely, {Gal_2:18, and Jam_2:9} and the like, that when they occur in two writings the author of one must have read the other, than we can argue from such phrases as "natural selection," "survival of the fittest," and the like that the writer who uses them has read the works of Darwin. A certain amount of stereotyped phraseology is part of the intellectual atmosphere of each generation, and the writers in each generation make common use of it. In such cases even striking identity of expressions may prove nothing as to the dependence of one author upon another. The obligation is not of one writer to another, but of both to a common and indefinite source. In other words, both writers quite naturally make use of language which is current in the circles in which they live.
Some of the coincidences between the Epistle of James and the Epistle to the Romans are of a character to raise the question whether they can satisfactorily be explained by considerations of this kind, and one of these more remarkable coincidences occurs in the passage before us. St. James writes, "Knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience." St. Paul writes, "Knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, probation". {Rom_5:3} In this same chapter we have another instance. St. James says, "Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only." {Jam_1:22} St. Paul says, "Not the hearers of a law are just before God, but the doers of a law shall be justified". {Rom_2:13} There is yet a third such parallel. St. James asks, "Whence come fightings? Come they not hence, even of your pleasures which war in your members?" {Jam_4:1} St. Paul laments, "I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind". {Rom_7:23}
The effect of this evidence will be different upon different minds. But it may reasonably be doubted whether these passages, even when summed up together, are stronger than many other strange coincidences in literature, which are known to be accidental. The second instance, taken by itself, is of little weight; for the contrast between hearers and doers is one of the most hackneyed commonplaces of rhetoric. But assuming that a prima facie case has been established, and that one of the two writers has seen the Epistle of the other, no difficulty is created, whichever we assume to have written first. The Epistle to the Romans was written in A.D. 58, and might easily have become known to St. James before A.D. 62. On the other hand, the Epistle of St. James may be placed anywhere between A.D. 45 and 62, and in that case might easily have become known to St. Paul before A.D. 58. And of the two alternatives, this latter is perhaps the more probable. We shall find other reasons for placing the Epistle of St. James earlier than A.D. 58; and we may reasonably suppose that had he read the Epistle to the Romans, he would have expressed his meaning respecting justification somewhat differently. Had he wished (as some erroneously suppose) to oppose and correct the teaching of St. Paul, he would have done so much more unmistakably. And as he is really quite in harmony with St. Paul on the question, he would, if he had read him, have avoided words which look like a contradiction of St. Pauls words.
It remains to examine the relations between our Epistle and the First Epistle of St. Peter. Here, again, one of the coincidences occurs in the passage before us. St. James writes, "Count it all joy, when ye enter into manifold temptations; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience"; and St. Peter writes, "Ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold temptations, that the proof of your faith might be found". {1Pe_1:6-7} Here there is the thought of rejoicing in trials common to both passages, and the expressions for "manifold temptations" and "proof of your patience" are identical in the two places. This is remarkable, especially when taken with other coincidences. On the other hand, the fact that some of the language is common to all three Epistles (James, Peter, and Romans) suggests the possibility that we have here one of the "faithful sayings" of primitive Christianity, rather than one or two writers remembering the writings of a predecessor.
In three places St. James and St. Peter both quote the same passages from the Old Testament. In Jam_1:10-11, St. James has, "As the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun ariseth with the scorching wind, and withereth the grass; and the flower thereof falleth," where the words in italics are from Isa_40:6-8. St. Peter {1Pe_1:24} quotes the words of Isaiah much more completely and consecutively, and in their original sense; he does not merely make a free use of portions of them. Again, in Jam_4:6 St. James quotes from Pro_3:34, "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." In 1Pe_5:5, St. Peter quotes exactly the same words. Lastly, in Jam_5:20 St. James quotes from Pro_10:12 the expression "covereth sins." In 1Pe_4:8, St. Peter quotes a word more of the original, "love covereth sins." And it will be observed that both St. James and St. Peter change "covereth all sins" into "covereth a multitude of sins."
Once more we must be content to give a verdict of "Not proven." There is a certain amount of probability, but nothing that amounts to proof, that one of these writers had seen the others Epistle. Let us, however, assume that echoes of one Epistle are found in the other; then, whichever letter we put first, we have no chronological difficulty. The probable dates of death are, for St. James A.D. 62, for St. Peter A.D. 64-68. Either Epistle may be placed in the six or seven years immediately preceding A.D. 62, and one of the most recent critics places 1 Peter in the middle of the year A.D. 50, and the Epistle of James any time after that date. But there are good reasons for believing that 1 Peter contains references to the persecution under Nero, that "fiery trial" {1Pe_4:12} in which the mere being a Christian would lead to penal consequences, {1Pe_4:16} and in which, for conscience sake, men would have to "endure griefs, suffering wrongfully," {1Pe_2:19} thereby being "partakers of Christs sufferings". {1Pe_4:13} In which case 1 Peter cannot be placed earlier than A.D. 64, and the Epistle of James must be the earlier of the two. And it seems to be chiefly those who would make our Epistle a forgery of the second century (Bruckner, Holtzmann) who consider that it is James that echoes 1 Peter, rather than 1 Peter that reproduces James. There is a powerful consensus of opinion that if there is any influence of one writer upon the other, it is St. James who influences St. Peter, and not the other way.
We must not place the Epistle of St. James in or close after A.D. 50. The crisis respecting the treatment of Gentile converts was then at its height; {Acts 15} and it would be extraordinary if a letter written in the midst of the crisis, and by the person who took the leading part in dealing with it, should contain no allusion to it. The Epistle must be placed either before (A.D. 45-49) or some time after (A.D. 53-62) the so-called Council of Jerusalem. There is reason for believing that the controversy about compelling Gentiles to observe the Mosaic Law, although sharp and critical, was not very lasting. The modus vivendi decreed by the Apostles was on the whole, loyally accepted, and therefore a letter written a few years after it was promulgated would not of necessity take any notice of it. Indeed, to have revived the question again might have been impolitic, as implying either that there was still some doubt on the point, or that the Apostolic decision had proved futile.
In deciding between the two periods (A.D. 45-49 and 53-62) for the date of the Epistle of St. James, we have not much to guide us if we adopt the view that it is independent of the writings of St. Peter and of St. Paul. There is plenty in the letter to lead us to suppose that it was written before the war (A.D. 66-70) which put an end to the tyranny of the wealthy Sadducees over their poorer brethren, before controversies between Jewish and Gentile Christians such as we find at Corinth had arisen or become chronic, and before doctrinal controversies had sprung up in the Church; also that it was written at a time when the coming of Christ to judgment was still regarded as near at hand, {Jam_5:8} and by some one who could recollect the words of Christ independently of the Gospels, and who therefore must have stood in close relationship to Him. All this points to its having been written within the lifetime of James the Lords brother, and by such a person as he was; but it does not seem to be decisive as to the difference between cir. A.D. 49 and cir. A.D. 59. We must be content to leave this undecided. But it is worth while pointing out that if we place it earlier than A.D. 52 we make it the earliest book in the New Testament. The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written late in A.D. 52 or early in 53; and excepting our Epistle, and perhaps 1 Peter, there is no other writing in the New Testament that can reasonably be placed at so early a date as 52.
"Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations." "My brethren," with or without the epithet "beloved," is the regular form of address throughout the Epistle, {Jam_1:16; Jam_1:19; Jam_2:1; Jam_2:5; Jam_2:14; Jam_3:1; Jam_3:10; Jam_3:12; Jam_5:12} in one or two places the "my" being omitted. {Jam_4:11; Jam_5:7; Jam_5:9; Jam_5:19} The frequency of this brotherly address seems to indicate how strongly the writer feels, and wishes his readers to feel, the ties of race and of faith which bind them together.
In "Count it all joy," i.e., Consider it as nothing but matter for rejoicing," we miss a linguistic touch which is evident in the Greek, but cannot well be preserved in English. In saying "joy" (χαραν) St. James is apparently carrying on the idea just started in the address, "greeting" (χαιρειν), i.e., "wishing joy." "I wish you joy; and you must account as pure joy all the troubles into which you may fall." This carrying on a word or thought from one sentence into the next is characteristic of St. James, and reminds us somewhat of the style of St. John. Thus "The proof of your faith worketh patience. And let patience have its perfect work". {Jam_1:3-4} "Lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacketh wisdom" (Jam_1:4-5). "Nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea" (Jam_1:6). "The lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death" (Jam_1:15). "Slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" (Jam_1:19-20). "This mans religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this" (Jam_1:26-27). "In many things we all stumble. If any man stumbleth not in word." {Jam_3:2} "Behold, how much wood is kindled by how small a fire, And the tongue is a fire". {Jam_3:5-6} "Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not". {Jam_4:2-3} "Your gold and your silver are rusted; and their rust shall be for a testimony against you". {Jam_5:3} "We call them blessed which endured: ye have heard of the endurance of Jam_5:11.
It is just possible that "all joy" (πασαν χαραν) is meant exactly to balance "manifold temptations" (πειρασμοις ποικιλοις). Great diversity of troubles is to be considered as in reality every kind of joy. Nevertheless, the troubles are not to be of our own making or seeking. It is not when we inflict suffering on ourselves, but when we "fall into" it, and therefore may regard it as placed in our way by God, that we are to look upon it as a source of joy rather than of sorrow. The word for "fall into" (περιπιπτειν) implies not only that what one falls into is unwelcome, but also that it is unsought and unexpected. Moreover, it implies that this unforeseen misfortune is large enough to encircle or overwhelm one. It indicates a serious calamity. The word for "temptations" in this passage is the same as is used in the sixth petition of the Lords Prayer; but the word is not used in the same sense in both places. In the Lords Prayer all kinds of temptation are included, and especially the internal solicitations of the devil, as is shown by the next petition: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the tempter." In the passage before us internal temptations, if not actually excluded, are certainly quite in the background. What St. James has principally in his mind are external trials, such as poverty of intellect (Jam_1:5), or of substance (Jam_1:9), or persecution, {Jam_2:6-7} and the like; those worldly troubles which test our faith, loyalty, and obedience, and tempt us to abandon our trust in God, and to cease to strive to please Him. The trials by which Satan was allowed to tempt Job are the kind of temptations to be understood here. They are material for spiritual joy, because
(1) they are opportunities for practicing virtue, which cannot be learned without practice, nor practiced without opportunities;
(2) they teach us that we have here no abiding city, for a world in which such things are possible cannot be a lasting home;
(3) they make us more Christlike;
(4) we have the assurance of Divine support, and that no more will ever be laid upon us than we, relying upon that support, can bear;
(5) we have the assurance of abundant compensation here and hereafter.
St. James here is only echoing the teaching of his Brother: "Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven". {Mat_5:11-12} In the first days after Pentecost he had seen the Apostles acting in the very spirit which he here enjoins, and he had himself very probably taken part in doing so, "rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name." {Act_5:41. Comp. Act_4:23-30} And as we have already seen in comparing the parallel passages, St. Peter {1Pe_1:6} and St. Paul {Rom_5:3} teach the same doctrine of rejoicing in tribulation.
As St. Augustine long ago pointed out, in his letter to Anastasius ("Ep.," 145:7, 8), and Hooker also ("Eccl. Pol.," 5. 48:13), there is no inconsistency in teaching such doctrine, and yet praying, "Lead us not into temptation." Not only is there no sin in shrinking from both external trials and internal temptations, or in desiring to be freed from such things; but such is the weakness of the human will, that it is only reasonable humility to pray to God not to allow us to be subjected to severe trials. Nevertheless, when God, in His wisdom, has permitted such things to come upon us, the right course is, not to be cast down and sorrowful, as though something quite intolerable had overtaken us, but to rejoice that God has thought us capable of enduring something, for His sake, and has given us the opportunity of strengthening our patience and our trust in Him.
This doctrine of joy in suffering, which at first sight seems to be almost superhuman, is shown by experience to be less hard than the apparently more human doctrine of resignation and fortitude. The effort to be resigned, and to suffer without complaining, is not a very inspiriting effort. Its tendency is towards depression. It does not lift us out of ourselves or above our tribulations. On the contrary, it leads rather to self-contemplation and a brooding over miseries. Between mere resignation and thankful joy there is all the difference that there is between mere obedience and affectionate trust.
The one is submission; the other is love. It is in the long run easier to rejoice in tribulation, and be thankful for it, than to be merely resigned and submit patiently. And therefore this "hard saying" is really a merciful one, for it teaches us to endure trials in the spirit that will make us feel them least. It is not only "a good thing to sing praises unto our God"; it is also "a joyful and pleasant thing to be thankful". {Psa_147:1}
And here it may be noticed that St. James is no Cynic or Stoic. He does not tell us that we are to anticipate misfortune, and cut ourselves off from all those things the loss of which might involve suffering; or that we are to trample on our feelings, and act as if we had none, treating sufferings as if they were non-existent, or as if they in no way affected us. He does not teach us that as Christians we live in an atmosphere in which excruciating pain, whether of body or mind, is a matter of pure indifference, and that such emotions as fear or grief under the influence of adversity, and hope or joy under the influence of prosperity, are utterly unworthy and contemptible. There is not a hint of anything of the kind. He points out to us that temptations, and especially external trials, are really blessings, if we use them aright; and he teaches us to meet them in that conviction. And it is manifest that the spirit in which to welcome a blessing is the spirit of joy and thankfulness.
St. James does not bid us accept this doctrine of joy in tribulation upon his personal authority. It is no philosophers ipse dixit. He appeals to his readers own experience: "Knowing that the proof of your faith worketh patience." "Knowing" (γινωσκοντες) i.e., "in that ye are continually finding out and getting to know." The verb and the tense indicate progressive and continuous knowledge, as by the experience of daily life; and this teaches us that proving and testing not only bring to light, but bring into existence, patience. This patience (υπομονη) this abiding firm under attack or pressure, must be allowed full scope to regulate all our conduct; and then we shall see why trials are a matter for joy rather than sorrow, when we find ourselves moving onwards towards, not the barrenness of stoical "self-sufficiency" (αυταρκεια), but the fullness of Divine perfection. "That ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing," is perhaps one of the many reminiscences of Christs words which we shall find in this letter of the Lords brother. "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect". {Mat_5:48}
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv2–4 2. Count it all joy. Instead of murmuring over…
2. Count it all joy. Instead of murmuring over trials and temptations, rejoice in them.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v2 Jas_1:2. Temptations.—As so often in the New Testament, trials…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Jas_1:2. Temptations.—As so often in the New Testament, trials which take the form of suffering, and serve the purposes of Divine discipline.
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Jas_1:3. Trying.—Testing, proving. “The proof to which your faith is put works out endurance.” Patience.—ὑπομονήν; the perseverance which does not falter under suffering. Christian patience is much more than passive submission.
Jas_1:4. Entire.—Lacking no part essential to full and healthy spiritual life. The figure is taken from the animals, some of whose organs may be undeveloped, or may be mutilated.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jas_1:2-4
The Ministry of Trial to Christian Character.—It is necessary to keep in mind the persons who were directly addressed in this epistle. They were Jewish Christians who were placed in difficult circumstances, and called to bear various persecutions, on account of their faith in Christ. Their troubles were special to their religion. They were such as Hindoos still have to endure when they are baptised in the name of Christ. The trials were not merely the commonplace afflictions that come into every life; and so they were not merely disciplinary and educative. They were distinctly influences acting upon them as temptations to apostasy from Christ; and therefore they are properly called “temptations”: there was in them something of the element of incitement to evil. Distinguish afflictions from temptations; or rather, see under what conditions afflictions may become temptations. Many of the forms in which earthly trials come prove to be tempting forms. They may be testings; they may be temptings.
I. Right feeling concerning trials.—The feeling commended here certainly seems strange. “Count it all joy,” nought but joy. There cannot be joy in them; there can be joy in seeing into them. Is there any real ground for such joy? There is, if we can give due weight to these considerations.
1. No trial that ever comes to us is either an accident or the work of an enemy. If Satan brought calamity to Job, he was, for the time at least, God’s angel, doing a painful bit of Divine work.
2. The Christian has learned never to connect his trials with personal sin. It is the conscience of connection between personal sin and personal suffering that makes the bitterness of suffering. That bitterness the Christian should never know.
3. Trials assure us of God’s gracious interest in our higher, spiritual welfare. A purpose of grace is in them. A ministry of grace is in them. And it is far better for us to have the grace than to escape the trials that bring it to us.
4. Trial cultures all the finer elements of character, and in that issue of trial the Christian may, and should, unfeignedly rejoice. Could a Christian rightly apprehend what human life is, and leads towards, and rejoice in having been freed from trials? That question may be asked concerning both outward and inward trials. But if we “joy in tribulation,” it can only be with the joy of faith, with that faith-vision which can see within things, and discern meanings and issues.
II. Right thoughts concerning trials.—“Worketh patience.” They are not to be thought of as mere things, accidents, calamities. They work. And their work may be humbling, separating, arresting, proving, and culturing by proving. They work; but never self-willedly; always under the immediate presidency and direction of our Father-God. And they never get beyond His control. His mission is in every event that happens. The trials work out “peaceable fruits of righteousness.”
III. Right issues of the work of trials.—“Patience.” This we may see as
(1) self-mastery;
(2) endurance; or
(3) the waiting of expectancy; for in Christian patience there is always active faith. The energy that can do the work of the hour, while we patiently wait. Patience is not listlessness and indifference. It is a sign that patience, under trial, is Christianly-toned when a man keeps bravely on, carrying his burden while he fulfils his duties.
IV. Right anxieties concerning the issues of trial.—“Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire.” This is the proper anxiety, that the trial should fully do all that it was sent to do. Every plant that grows wants to reach its maturity, wants to flower and seed. So does every grace in us; and therefore we want every influence that bears on the maturing to get its perfect work, and help towards the perfect flowering. Because men cannot hope to become “perfect and entire,” lacking nothing, in Christian character, without the ministry upon them of earthly sufferings, therefore they may even respond to St. James, and “glory in tribulations also.”
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Jas_1:2-12. The Christian in Times of Suffering.
I. The suffering state of Christians in this world is represented.
1. Implied that troubles and afflictions may be the lot of the best Christians.
2. These outward afflictions and troubles are temptations to them.
3. These temptations may be numerous and various.
4. They are not created by the good man, nor sinfully drawn upon himself.
II. The graces and duties of a state of trial and affliction are here pointed out to us.
1. Joy.
2. Faith.
3. Patience.
4. Prayer.
(1) What to pray for;
(2) how to obtain it;
(3) encouragement to seeking;
(4) condition of success;
(5) steadiness of mind.
III. The holy, humble temper of a Christian, both in advancement and debasement, is described.—Matthew Henry.
Jas_1:2. Temptation and Sin.—Temptation is not sin. An old German divine says, “You cannot prevent the birds flying over your head; but you can prevent them from making nests in your hair.” An old English Divine says, “I cannot help it if the devil comes up to my door. I cannot help it if he lifts the latch and walks in. I can help it if I offer him a chair.”
The Manifoldness of Human Trials.—Diverse, manifold temptations. They touch on all its sides human character, and affect every form of human relation, because the approach to men is by such different avenues; the needs of men and society take such a variety of forms. Very striking is the versatility of human trial; the surprise of the forms it can take; and the adaptation of forms to occasions which can sooner or later be recognised. The angel of affliction is marvellously skilful in his adjustments. The expression “fall into” suggests an unlooked-for concurrence of adverse circumstances. Every possible trial to the child of God is a masterpiece of strategy of the Captain of his salvation for his good.
Jas_1:2-8. Christian Joy in Times of Trial.—The epistle was written to correct abuses which had already shown themselves in certain portions of the Church. Some of these arose from the influence of persecution, and from the peculiar trials and temptations which it brought along with it. Temptation never means affliction simply, but in every case conveys the idea of a moral trial, or a test of character. Had not popular usage lowered the meaning of our own word “trial,” as applied to providential changes, so that it now expresses little more than pain or privation, it would correspond exactly to the Greek term here used, and applied to sufferings or afflictions, not as such, or as mere chastisement or means of grace, but as tests or touchstones of the sufferer’s dispositions and affections, of his faith and patience and obedience. The difficulty of complying with the general injunction of the text may appear to be enhanced by the variety of outward forms and circumstances under which the work of providential trial may be carried on. Though it may be rational and right to rejoice in one variety of such temptations, it does not follow necessarily that it is possible or right in all. But the text has the term “divers,” manifold, multiform, diversified; so it must be meant that in the full sense we are to count our various providential trials “all joy.” As, however, “no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous,” it is not unreasonable to suppose that the joy required is not a joy to be experienced in the very article or stress of the temptation, but a joy to be engendered by a believing, grateful retrospection of the trial after it is past, or at least after the first shock is over, and the soul is able to reflect upon it. This distinction helps to explain the paradoxical aspect of the exhortation to rejoice in that which necessarily involves pain and suffering. Christians may reasonably have joy in thinking that they have suffered, and so have had occasions of attesting their fidelity, and patience, and submission to God’s will. But the joy is not merely retrospective; it is prospective also. It is founded on knowledge of the consequences which may be expected from a certain course of action or suffering. The trials or temptations of the Christian are the test or touchstone of his faith, both in the strict and comprehensive sense. They put to the proof his trust in God, his belief in what God says, of what God promises. But in so doing they afford the surest test of his religion, of his whole religious character. And providential trial or temptation produces a permanent effect upon the character. It generates a habit—that of patient endurance, that of steadfast perseverance in the way of God’s commandments. For of patience, as of faith, it may be said that it cannot stand alone, it cannot exist independently of other virtues, other graces, other traits of Christian character. He who will not do God’s will cannot endure it in a Christian spirit. Evangelical patience presupposes, includes, or carries with it evangelical obedience or activity. To say that it is fostered or matured by trial is to say that trial is an important means of grace, and to be thankfully submitted to, and even rejoiced in, as a gracious agency for securing spiritual health. The trial of our faith “worketh out,” elaborates, and as it were laboriously cultivates, a habit of persistent and unwavering obedience and submission to the will of God, both in the way of doing and suffering. It is implied that this Divine ὑπομονή, this principle and habit of patient continuance in doing and suffering the will of God, is not a mere superfluous embellishment of Christian character, a work of supererogation added to its necessary elements by way of doing more than man needs or God requires, but itself an element that cannot be dispensed with, and without which neither sufferers nor actors in God’s service can be “perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” And all this affords abundant room for wise discrimination and a sound discretion.—J. Addison Alexander, D.D.
Temptation, its Meaning and Uses.—The subject of temptation, as treated in the Bible, is more than a little perplexing, from the appearance of inconsistency or contradiction in the several statements. In this chapter, within the space of ten or twelve verses, we have these four apparently irreconcilable statements: that it is to be counted all joy when we fall into temptations; that the man who endures temptation is blessed; that temptations do not come from God; and that they do come from our lusts and passions. Now, how can that be joy and blessedness which does not come from God, but from the lowest part of our nature, left in a basely ungoverned condition? The difficulty is somewhat illumined by reflecting on one broad feature of human life and action. Everything that falls within human activity may be said to have two sides to it. On the one side there is a Divine providence in the course a frail thing takes; on the other, there may be the outrage of all good sense and propriety. It is universally impossible in a single instance to escape from this complex position. Take, then, any temptation that arises from our bodily senses; there is a Divine side even to these when they are obeying the holy will of God. And then they help, not mislead, the soul. But in man’s exercise of them there comes waywardness, folly. If men would only admit this double aspect of human things, to the fulness of its existence and influence, it would lessen, if it did not remove, many difficulties. It would be seen that temptation must necessarily fill human life, and can arise at any and every point from the action of man’s folly and error. With this explanation, can we say in any sense that it is the will of God, and justifiably so, that we, being what we are, should thus find temptations, with the risk of being betrayed by them? To answer this, we must consider a little more what man is, and what his position and calling in this life, possessed of these evil tendencies. Were he innocent and pure, and had he no knowledge of evil, there were then no evil tendencies. Were man either the creature of destiny, or a thing completely pliable to all surrounding influences, temptation would seem a very needless hardship. It is when we reflect that the thought of man most nearly adequate is of a being of great grandeur of nature, yet afflicted with evil tendencies—a being of unlimited though undeveloped capacities in all directions. The great meaning and use of temptation is to reveal the secret and unknown depths of the human soul, which may take three directions:
1. Very many things in human life, from the most startlingly terrible down even to the quite trivial, tell us how very little any one knows of the extent to which evil has invaded the nature of man. Who has not often observed in life a display of perversion that no one could have anticipated? No man knows himself, and no other man knows him, as to evil, until he is tried.
2. A more beautiful aspect of temptation is its power to develop the fortitude of virtue, the resolute moral earnestness of the man. To a being like man, knowing good and evil, and mysteriously allied to both, there would appear to be no other method of spiritual discipline.
3. The full force of these truths comes out to view as our perception becomes quite clear of the extreme opposite qualities—holiness and sin. Three truths are necessary to our search for the meaning of the difficult problems of life:
1. The paternal care of God.
2. The interpreting light of the future.
3. And the stupendous interests of morality. To him who sees in life no vast meaning to be unfolded, all these temptations may present only a tangled web. But when life emerges from this obscurity, as a God-given thing, with an infinitude of purpose, with a moral intensity that can be measured only by a heaven of ineffable bliss and a hell of unutterable gloom, then temptations are full of a sacred intent, come with the benediction of the all-wise and all-loving Father, it may be with sacred tears, to cast us on His everlasting arms of compassion and strength, and to fill our hearts with His pure joy.—Samuel Edger, B.A. (Auckland, N.Z.).
Jas_1:3. The Trial of Waiting Work.—Human trouble never takes on a more serious form, and never becomes a severer test, than when it makes effort and enterprise impossible, and compels us to do nothing, and wait. Estimate
(1) the pain of a condition of indecision;
(2) the restlessness of watching;
(3) the fear that the waiting will be in vain. It is a supreme difficulty to keep the heart rightly toned at such times, and to keep the life filled with right occupations. Difficult to be duly, but not unduly, anxious. Difficult to keep trust joined with prayer. “Watch and pray.” But it is precisely in dealing with these difficulties that our characters get their culture through temptations.
Patience Something to be Won.—“Worketh patience.” Do not think that the grace will come to its full beauty in an hour. It is a matter of culture through tending and discipline. A child is naturally impatient. A worldly man is naturally impatient. A Christian man is a man cultured unto letting “patience have her perfect work.” The agencies more especially employed in the cultivation of patience are:
1. The disappointments of life, which become temptations to heartlessness and hopelessness.
2. The delays of life, when hope deferred makes the heart sick, and men feel the temptation to force their own way, and hurry through their own schemes.
3. The afflictions of life which involve severe pain, or the nervous restlessness which seems to make patience impossible.
4. Daily contact with persons whose temper and disposition are specially trying to us, and with whom it is almost impossible to bear.
5. The little incidents of life, which are too small to make demand of any great effort to master ourselves, and consequently are done without self-restraint, and often very impatiently. Patience is the one virtue that is especially cultivated by the sanctifying of the common events and relations of life.
The Praise of Patience.—Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility. Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, restrains the hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates martyrdom. Patience produces unity in the Church, loyalty in the State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor, and moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the woman and approves the man; she is beautiful in either sex and every age. Behold her appearance and her attire. Her countenance is calm and serene as the face of heaven unspotted by the shadow of a cloud, and no wrinkle of grief or anger is seen on her forehead. Her eyes are as the eyes of doves for meekness, and on her eyebrows sit cheerfulness and joy. Her mouth is lovely in silence; her complexion and colour that of innocence and security; while, like the virgin, the daughter of Zion, she shakes her head at the adversary, despising and laughing him to scorn. She is clothed in the robes of the martyrs, and in her hands she holds a sceptre in the form of a cross. She rides not in the whirlwind and stormy tempest of passion, but her throne is the humble and contrite heart, and her kingdom is the kingdom of peace.—Bishop Horne.
Patient Bearing is Reasonable.—It is but reasonable to bear that accident patiently which God sends, since impatience does but entangle us, like the fluttering of a bird in a net, but cannot at all ease our trouble or prevent the accident. It must be run through, and therefore it were better that we compose ourselves to a patient, than to a troubled and miserable, suffering.—Jeremy Taylor.
Jas_1:4. Perfect and Entire.—There is both unity and distinctness in these terms. “Perfect” means that which fully attains its end. “Entire” means that which is complete, and harmoniously and healthily developed, in all the parts or regions of the spiritual life. The two words are wanted to express the full idea of a Christian.
Christian Character a Thing of Quiet Growth.—It is with the building up of Christian character as with the formation of crystals. In order that a crystal may be properly and perfectly formed, at least three things are necessary: there must be ample time in which all unnecessary fluid can be dissipated, and the component parts of the crystal come gradually together; there must be sufficient room for all the angles and planes of the crystal to attain their regular size; and there must be the absence of agitation, so that all the points and proportions of the crystal shall be evenly and symmetrically formed. Christian character, when it is what it ought to be, is more beautiful than any crystal that nature’s laboratory ever produced; and in order that it may reach its perfectness time is necessary. It is a thing of quiet growth; it has to rise gradually and by many stages into form and beauty; to hurry through religious processes will be to mar and spoil the result; we must “let patience have her perfect work.” And space is as needful as time. If we shut ourselves up in a narrow place, if we go away from the broad, open world, and confine ourselves to a monk’s seclusion, to a hermit’s solitude, we shall be cramped and restricted; and while some parts of our character may become finely and delicately developed, others will be stunted and dwarfed, and the character as a whole will be anything but perfect. The absence of agitation, too, is important. Whatever may be going on upon the surface of our life to interrupt its tranquillity, deep down in the depths of the spirit in which character has its beginnings, and from which it grows, there must be the unruffled calm which trust in the Father’s will and power and purposes never fails to inspire; otherwise our character will be built up by fits and starts, and so will lack the fulness of harmony, symmetry, majesty, which it ought to possess.—B. Wilkinson.
The Ideal of Christian Attainment.—“Perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” Perfection of character is the idea, the aim, to be kept in the soul of the Christian, there to work as a perpetual inspiration to the seeking of perfection in the life and conduct and relationships. St. Paul presents the distinction between full-grown men and little children: the full-grown men are the perfect; they have reached the fulness, the standard, of Christian manhood. St. John has a similar kind of expression: he addresses several classes—the fathers, the young men, the little children; viewing these as different stages on the way to the perfect, that perfect being kept as the thought and aim in the soul of each. The idea of “perfect” comes out more plainly when it is set beside another word, “perfect and entire.” A man “entire” is one who has preserved or regained a lost completeness; or one in whom no grace that ought to be in a Christian man is wanting. But a man “perfect” is one who has attained his moral end, the standard according to which, in view of which, he was made; or one in whom no grace that ought to be in a Christian is found imperfect or weak, but all have reached a certain ripeness and maturity. The idea of absolute perfection is to be cherished in a man’s soul, and that idea is to be sustained by constant communion with the great model of human perfection, Christ Jesus, and a suitable effort is to be made afresh every day to work out that thought of the perfect in the spirit and temper and conduct of the life. Get the thought of perfection within you, and let your whole history be the history of a struggle after the perfect in all the relations of life.
The Christ-model of the Perfect Life.—The perfect—which as merely a creation of our imagination could exert little moral influence upon our life—was to be realised before the actual vision of men, and amidst our common scenes, and so to become the very mightiest moral influence. Christ is the ideal perfection realised in humanity. Christ is God’s perfect thought of what man should be. Without the help of Christ’s perfect life we could not form the idea of a perfect man. It is a simple fact that men never have formed such an idea. In Christ we not only think of, we see, the perfect. He is perfect on every side: perfect in all the stages of childhood, youth, manhood; perfect in all the spheres of the spirit, temper, speech, relationship; perfect in all the claims of duty, devotion, charity; perfect in all the scenes of success, loss, suffering, death; perfect in all the exercises of will, affection, and desire. In Him perfection is proved to be, and seen to be, an attainable thing. The ideal of perfect goodness Christ came to preach, and He could preach it with no consciousness that He Himself fell short of it.
The Perfect Work of Patience.—The new life in Christ comes to persons having peculiarities of natural disposition and character. It has its work in moulding, restraining, altering, developing, and completing natural character. It perfects graces that may be existing—perhaps only in germ—in natural dispositions; and it brings them, plants them, cultivates them, when they are lacking. Patience is a grace; it is one of the fruits of the Spirit. It takes two forms:
1. It may be the state of our mind and feeling as we go about our duty.
2. It may be the spirit which tones our intercourse with others. What in Christian life is likely to call patience into exercise?
1. The characters and dispositions of those with whom we must associate. Different and difficult temperaments. Some very wilful and trying.
2. The afflictions and trials of life. These often come in a way that disturbs our plans and tries our patience.
3. The element of the “future” in our redemption. Our best things have to be waited for. “If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” Note the relation of patience to faith and hope. Faith strengthens patience. Patience tempers hope. For examples of patience see Job, Simeon, Paul, and our Divine Lord. The following things tend to support and nourish patience:
1. The sense of God’s presence with us.
2. A fitting apprehension of the holy purpose which God has in His dealings with us.
3. The necessarily gradual character of the work of our sanctification.
4. The strain involved in times of trouble.
5. The exceeding great and precious promises of future blessing.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv2–3 2. “My brethren, consider it all joy when ye…
2. “My brethren, consider it all joy when ye fall into many temptations.” How striking the contrast of Apostolic preaching with the puny, timorous, howling religion of the present day. Doubtless temptation is the grandest source of blessing this side of heaven, for it simply opens the way for a fight with the devil, in which we are sure to conquer if we are true to our Great Captain. The soldier that fights no battles wins no victories, lives and dies a coward, receiving no diadem. The terrible conflicts with the strong intellect of Satan constitute our grandest means of grace this side of heaven.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v4
James
PATIENCE AND HER WORK
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Jas 1:4
IT does not appear from the rest of this letter that the persons to whom it was addressed were under the pressure of any particular trouble or affliction. Seeing that they are ‘the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad,’ the width of that superscription makes it improbable that the recipients were undergoing any common experience. It is the more noteworthy, therefore, that at the very outset James gives this exhortation hearing upon trials and troubles. Clearly it is hot, as we often take it to be, a counsel only for the sorrowful, or an address only to a certain class of persons, hut it is a general exhortation applicable to all sorts of people in all conditions of life, and indispensable, as he goes on to say, for any progress in Christian character.
‘Let patience have her perfect work’ is an advice not only for sad hearts, or for those who may be bowed down under any special present trouble, but for us all. And it is the condition on which it is possible, and without which it is impossible, that any Christian man should be ‘perfect and entire, wanting nothing.’ So I want you to look with me, first at what is the scope of this counsel; and then at how it can be obtained; and then why it is so important: what - how - why.
I. First, then, what is the meaning of the counsel to ‘let patience have its perfect work’?
Notice that the very language of the text puts aside the common notion that patience is a passive grace. The ‘patience’ of my text does ‘work.’ It is an active thing, whether that work be the virtues that it produces, or, as is more probable, its own preservation, in unbroken activity. In any case, the patience that James would have us all cultivate is an intensely active energy, and not a mere passive endurance. Of course I know that it takes a great deal of active energy to endure passively. There is a terrible strain upon the nerves in lying still on the operating-table without wincing, and letting the surgeon’s knife cut deep without shrinking or screaming. There is much force that goes to standing motionless when the wind is blowing. But, for all that, the mere bearing of trouble by no means covers the whole ground of this royal and supreme virtue to which my text is here exhorting us. For, as I have often had occasion to say, the conception of ‘patience’ in the New Testament includes, indeed, that which is generally supposed to be its sole signification - viz., bearing unresistingly and unmurmuring, and with the full consent of a yielding will, whatever pains, sorrows, losses, troubles, or disappointments may come into our lives, but it includes more than that. It is the fixed determination to ‘bate not one jot of heart or hope, but still bear up, and steer right onwards,’ in spite of all hindrances and antagonisms which may storm against us. It is perseverance in the teeth of the wind, and not merely keeping our place in spite of it, that James exhorts us to here. The ship that lies at anchor, with a strong cable and a firm grip of the flukes in a good holding-ground, and rides out any storm without stirring one fathom’s length from its place, exhibits one form of this perseverance, that is patience. The ship with sails wisely set, and a firm hand at the tiller, and a keen eye on the compass, that uses the utmost blast to hear it nearer its desired haven, and never yaws one hairbreadth from the course that is marked out for it, exhibits the other and the higher form. And that is the kind of thing that the Apostle is here recommending to us - not merely passive endurance, but a brave, active perseverance in spite of antagonisms, in the course that conscience, illuminated by God, has bidden us to run.
And if you want instances of it I will give you two ‘He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.’ All through Christ’s life the shadow of the Cross closed His view; and, unfaltering, unswerving, unresting, unreluctant, He measured every step of the path, and was turned aside by nothing; because ‘for that hour He came into the world,’ and could not blench because He loved.
I will give you another, lower, and yet like, caught from and kindled by, the supreme example of persistence in duty. ‘None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear to myself, that I might finish my course with joy.’ The Apostle, who was warned on all sides by voices of prophets, and by tears and by supplications of friends, had his path clearly marked out for him, by his own conscience responsive to the will of God. And that path, whatsoever happened, he was resolved to tread. And that is the temper that my text commands us all to cultivate.
Beautiful and hard as bearing sorrows rightly may be, that is only a little corner o the grace that my text enjoins.
And so, dear friends, will you let me put the two or three words more that I have to say about this matter into the shape of counsel, not for the sake of dictating, but for the sake of giving point to my words? I would say, then, to every man, bear unmurmuring the burdens and sorrows that each of you have to bear. There are some of us, no doubt, who have some special grief lying at our hearts. There are many of us, I doubt not, who know what it is to have for all the rest of our lives a wound that never can be healed, to carry a weight that never can be lessened, and to walk in a darkness that never can be lightened. Irremediable losses and sorrows are the portion of some of my hearers. Let, patience have her ‘perfect work’; and bow, bow to that supreme and loving will.
But, beyond that, do not let all your effort and energy be swallowed up in rightly enduring what you may have to endure. There are many of us who make some disappointment, some loss, some grief, the excuse for shirking plain duty. There is nothing more selfish than sorrow, and there is nothing more absorbing, unless we guard against its tendency to monopolise.
Work! Work for others, work for God is our best comforter next to the presence of God’s Divine Spirit. There is nothing that so lightens the weight of a lifelong sorrow as to make it the stimulus to a lifelong devotion; and if our patience has its perfect work it will not make us sit with folded hands, weeping for the days that are no more, but it will drive us into heroic and energetic service, in the midst of which there will come some shadow of consolation or, at least, some blessed oblivion of sorrow.
Again, I weald say, on the wider view of the meaning of this great exhortation, let no antagonism or opposition of any sort come between us and the plain path of Christian service and duty. And remember that the patience of my text has to be applied, not only in reference to the unswerving prosecution of the course which God and our own consciences dictate to us in the face of dificulties, sorrows, and losses, but also to the unswerving prosecution of that same path in the face of the opposite things - earthly delights and pleasures, and the seductions of the world, as well as the darknesses and sorrows of the world. He that lets hie endurance have its perfect work will scorn delights as well as subdue sorrows. The clouds darken, but the sun dazzles. It is not only the rocks that threaten Ulysses and his crew, the sirens sit upon their island home, with their harps of gold, and trill their sweet songs, and no man understands what Christian endurance is who has not learned that he has to ‘endure’ in the face of joys as well as in the face of sorrows, and that persistence in the Christian course means that we shall spurn the one and turn our backs upon the other when either of them threaten to draw us aside from the path.
I might gather all that I have to say about this great queenly virtue of perseverance in the face of antagonisms into the one word of the Apostle, ‘I count them but dung that I may win Christ.’ ‘Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those that are before, I press toward the mark.’ ‘Let patience have her perfect work.’
II. And now, secondly, a word as to how this preset may best be carried out. It is a precept.
The perfecting of Christian endurance is not a thing that comes without effort. And so the Apostle puts it into the shape of an exhortation or an injunction. He does not specify methods, but I may venture to do so, in a few sentences.
And I put first and foremost here, as in all regions of Christian excellence and effort, the one specific which makes men like the Master - keeping near Him. As the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it, ‘consider’ {by way of comparison} Him that endured, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. ‘Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.’
Oh, brethren! there is nothing that sucks the brightness out of earthly joys when they threaten to interrupt our course, and dazzle our eyes, like turning our attention to Christ, and looking at Him. And there is nothing that takes the poison-sting, and the irritation consequent on it, out of earthly sorrows like remembering the’ Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’ Am I to grumble when I think of Him? Shall I make a moan and a mourning for my sorrows when I remember His? Am I to say, ‘O Lord! Thou hast given me as much as I can manage in bearing this terrible blow which Thou hast aimed at me, without repining against Thee. I cannot do any work because I have got so much to bear’? Are we to say that when we remember how He counted not His life dear to Himself, and bore all, and did all, that He might accomplish the Father’s will? Do not let us magnify our griefs, but measure them by the side of Christ’s. Do not let us yield to our impatience, but rather let us think of Him. Consider Him, and patience will have her perfect work.
Again, let me say, if we would possess in its highest degree this indispensable grace of persistent determination to pursue the Christian course in spite of all antagonisms, we must cultivate the habit of thinking of life, in all its vicissitudes, as mainly meant to make character. That is what the Apostle is saying in the context. He says, ‘Brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations.’ That is a paradox. It bids a man to be glad because he has trouble and is sad. It seems ridiculous, but the next verse solves the paradox: ‘Knowing this, that the trial of your faith worketh patience.’ That is to say - if I rightly understand the meaning of this world in its bearing on myself, the intention of my whole life to make me what God would have me to be, then I shall not measure things by their capacity to delight and please taste, ambitions, desires, or sense, but only by their power to mould me into His likeness. If I understand that the meanings of sorrow and joy are one, that God intends the same when He gives and when He withdraws, that the fervid suns of autumn and the biting blasts of November equally tend to the production of the harvest, that day and night come from the same cause - the revolution of the earth; if I understand that life is but the scaffolding for building character, and that, if I take out of this world, with all its fading sweets and its fleeting sadnesses, a soul enlarged, ennobled by difficulties and by gladnesses, then I shall welcome them both when they come, and neither the one nor the other will be able to deflect me from my course.
And so, lastly, about this matter, I would say bring the future into immediate connection with the present, and that will illuminate the dark places, will minimise the sorrows, will make the crooked things straight and the rough places plain, will prevent joy from being absorbing, and anxiety from being corroding, and sorrow from being monopolising, and will enable us to understand how all that is here is but preparatory and disciplinary for that great and serene future. And so the light affliction, which is but for a moment, will not be so very hard to bear; and the efforts at likeness to Jesus Christ, the consequences of which will last through eternity, will not be so very difficult to keep up; and patience, fed by contemplation of the suffering Christ, and nurtured further by consideration of the purpose of life, and stimulated by the vision of the future to which life here is but the vestibule, will have ‘her perfect work.’
III. And, lastly, Why is this grace so important? James says, with his favourite repetition of the same word, ‘Let her work be perfect, that ye may be perfect.’
Such endurance is indispensable to growth in Christian character.
I do not need to enter, at this stage of my sermon, on the differences between ‘perfect’ and ‘entire.’ The one describes the measure of the individual graces belonging to the man; the other describes the completeness of the assemblage of such graces. In each he is ‘perfect,’ and, having all that belongs to complete humanity, he is ‘entire.’ That is the ideal to which we have to press.
That is an ideal to which we may indefinitely approximate. There are people now - as there always have been - who are apt to substitute emotion and passivity for effort in the path of Christian perfection. I would take James’s teaching. Let your perseverance have her perfect work, and by toil and by protracted effort, and by setting your teeth against all seductions,and by curbing and ruling your sorrows, you will reach the goal. God makes no man perfect without that man’s diligent and continuous struggle and toil, toil, indeed, based upon faith; toil, indeed, which receives the blessing, but toil all the same.
Nor need I remind you, I suppose, how, in both the narrower and the wider sense of this word, the perseverance of my text is indispensable to Christian character.
I dare say we all of us know some chronic invalid say, on whose worn face there rests a gleam like that of the Lawgiver when He came down from the mount, caused by sorrow rightly borne. If your troubles, be they great or small, do not do you good they do you harm. There is such a thing as being made obstinate, hard, more clinging to earth than before by reason of griefs. And there is such a thing as a sorrow rightly borne being the very strength of a life, and delivering it from many a sin. The alabaster sheet which is intended to be fitted into the lamp is pared very thin that the light may shine through. And God pares away much of our lives in order that through what is left there may gleam more clearly and lambently the light of an indwelling God.
There is nothing to be won in the perfecting of Christian character without our setting ourselves to it persistently, doggedly, continuously all through our lives. Brethren, be sure of this, you will never grow like Christ by mere wishing, by mere emotion, but only by continual faith, rigid self-control, and by continual struggle. And be as sure of this, you will never miss the mark if, ‘forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those that are before,’ you ‘let patience have her perfect work,’ and press towards Him who is Himself the Author and Finisher of our patience and of our faith.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v4 mature and complete. (See Scofield "Mat 5:48").
perfect
mature and complete. (See Scofield "Mat 5:48").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v2 Temptation and prayer:
Temptation and prayer:
v. 2. My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations,
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v. 3. knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
v. 4. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
v. 5. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.
v. 6. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
v. 7. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.
Without any introduction or preliminary discussion, the apostle immediately plunges into his admonitions, taking up the question of temptation and prayer first: All joy consider it, my brethren, if you meet with various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. The picture used by the writer is that of a soldier when he meets face to face an opponent against whose attack he has been warned and whose mode of fighting he has studied. The suspense of waiting for the threatened onslaught is over; the Christian may close with his enemies. Just as a form of exultation takes hold of a soldier at such a time, because he can now go into action, so the Christian should rejoice that he may become engaged in the combat which the spiritual warfare in this world demands of him. For it is not in his own strength that he is battling, but in the might of the Lord communicated to him by faith. No matter what the temptation may therefore be, this thought serves for comfort, namely, that the testing of faith through the various temptations with which the Christians have to battle teaches them patient endurance, actually accomplishes, works this state of mind in them. Every confessing Christian, therefore, that stands firm in the midst of such trials, Eph 6:10-16, gives proof that his faith is sound, and this evidence in itself induces him to take courage, bear patiently, and persevere.
This patience is necessary in the life of the Christians, as the apostle says: But let patience have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, deficient in nothing. The patient endurance of Christians must not be a mere pretense, but should be real, true, the finished product, bearing the name with full propriety. For it is only then that believers themselves will be as they should be, fulfilling their lot in the world, fully equal to their high calling, not deficient or lacking in any essential of Christian sanctification. If a person calling himself a Christian yields to the very first attack of his enemies or does not hold out under their repeated onslaughts, proof is given that he does not yet possess the faith which is founded on the Lord’s power, a faith which overcomes the world with all its temptations.
Another thought is now introduced by the apostle concerning a factor which is just as essential in the life of the Christians: But if any one of you is lacking in wisdom, let him ask of God in sincerity and without reproach, and it will be given him. In view of man’s helplessness and lack of prudence and foresight in the various situations of life, this admonition with its assurance gives a great deal of comfort. It happens so often that Christians are at their wit’s end, being able to see neither what is the best policy under given circumstances nor how to attain to the end that is plainly to be reached. In every situation, however, no matter how complicated, we have the assurance of God’s help, and should therefore ask for it in simple trust, knowing that God distributes His gifts with all singleness of aim, without requiring anything in return. Nor does He resent it if our prayer seems childish, unworthy of His august attention. Neither our own essential unworthiness nor the majesty of the Lord should serve to keep us from asking Him for what we need to assist us in our own sanctification and in the work of His kingdom. See Heb 4:16. Here, as in other passages of Scriptures, we are definitely told that God will hear the prayer of those that believe in Him. See Mat 7:7; Mar 11:24; Luk 11:9; Joh 14:13.
But the apostle adds a word of warning: But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing; for he that doubts is like a billow of the sea agitated and swayed by the wind. For let that man not imagine that he will receive anything from God. Every true prayer is a fruit of faith by which the believer enters into the relation of a child toward God. As dear children ask their dear father, so should the faith of the Christians urge them to place their wants before their Father in heaven. To doubt is the very antithesis of faith, and is an insult to the kindness and goodness of the Lord. The doubter is fitly described as being like a wave, a billow of the great sea, which is driven and fanned by the wind, first in one direction and then in another, whence waves have always been used to describe instability of character and thought. The faith of a Christian has a firm foundation; the doubt of the timid, though he profess to be a Christian, has no foundation. And therefore such a person should not delude himself into thinking that he will receive anything from the Lord, for his very attitude shuts him out from the promises that have been given to faith and to the prayer of faith. Note that there is a ring of contempt in the passage at the idea of a man with halting faith expecting his prayer to be answered.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v4 Let endurance complete its work
Let endurance complete its work
Here endurance is spoken of as if it were a person at work. AT: "Learn to endure any hardship" (See: Personification)
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fully developed
able to trust in Christ and obey him in all circumstances
not lacking anything
This can be stated in the positive. AT: "having all that you need" or "being all that you need to be"
ask for it from God, the one who gives
"ask God for it. He is the one who gives"
gives generously and without rebuke to all
"gives generously and does not rebuke any"
he will give it
"God will do it" or "God will answer your prayer"
translationWords
endure
wise
God
rebuke
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v2 1:2-4 Enduring troubles and temptations is a recurring theme…
1:2-4 Enduring troubles and temptations is a recurring theme (1:12-15; 5:7-12). Failure to endure is “wandering from the truth” that requires being “saved from death” (5:19-20).
1:2 Dear brothers and sisters: See study note on 2:1. • James uses a wordplay: joy (Greek chara) here is related to greetings in 1:1.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.