For unbelievers, humility is perhaps the most irritating concept in Christianity. How it is caricatured: as weakness, lack of will, passivity, slavish submission... Is that right? After all, Christ says...
For unbelievers, humility is perhaps the most irritating concept in Christianity. How it is caricatured: as weakness, lack of will, passivity, slavish submission... Is that right? After all, Christ says of Himself, "I am gentle and lowly in heart" (Matt. 11:29), and He is not weak, not lacking in will, not passive; and if He is submissive, then not as a slave, but as a Son, that is, obedient rather than submissive.
This word irritates because it is the opposite of pride, the main driving force of every sin. Pride seeks strength, power, self-assertion; a person possessed by it places himself above everything and everyone and is incapable of real love. Humility, by contrast, is the path to love, because for the one who loves, the other, the beloved, is always more important than himself.
Christ's work on the Cross brings all of us out of slavery to sin, redeems our guilt before God, and gives us reconciliation with the Heavenly Father. But there is a step no one will take for us: recognizing God's rule in our own life, opening our heart to God's voice and will. And this is humility. The Apostle James says that in this case God will be able to take responsibility for our "fate," our life, and it will become an ascent into eternal life, full of love.
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4:1 From whence come wars and fightings - Quarrels and wars among you, quite opposite to this peace? Is it not from your pleasures - Your desires of earthly pleasures. Which war - Against your souls. In your members - Here is the first seat of the war.Hence proceeds the war of man with man, king with king, nation with nation.
4:2 Ye kill - In your heart, for "he that hateth his brother is a murderer." Ye fight and war - That is, furiously strive and contend. Ye ask not - And no marvel; for a man full of evil desire, of envy or hatred, cannot pray.
4:3 But if ye do ask, ye receive not, because ye ask amiss - That is, from a wrong motive.
4:4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses - Who have broken your faith with God, your rightful spouse. Know ye not that the friendship or love of the world - The desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life, or courting the favour of worldly men, is enmity against God? Whosoever desireth to be a friend of the world - Whosoever seeks either the happiness or favour of it, does thereby constitute himself an enemy of God; and can he expect to obtain anything of him?
4:5 Do you think that the scripture saith in vain - Without good ground. St. James seems to refer to many, not any one particular scripture. The spirit of love that dwelleth in all believers lusteth against envy - Gal 5:17; is directly opposite to all those unloving temperswhich necessarily flow from the friendship of the world.
4:6 But he giveth greater grace - To all who shun those tempers. Therefore it - The scripture. Saith, God resisteth the proud - And pride is the great root of all unkind affections. Pro 3:34
4:7 Therefore by humbly submitting yourselves to God, resist the devil - The father of pride and envy.
4:8 Then draw nigh to God in prayer, and he will draw nigh unto you, will hear you; which that nothing may hinder, cleanse your hands - Cease from doing evil. And purify your hearts - From all spiritual adultery. Be no more double minded, vainly endeavouring to serve both God and mammon.
4:9 Be afflicted - For your past unfaithfulness to God.
4:11 Speak not evil one of another - This is a grand hinderance of peace. O who is sufficiently aware of it!He that speaketh evil of another does in effect speak evil of the law, which so strongly prohibits it. Thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge - Of it; thou settest thyself above, and as it were condemnest, it.
4:12 There is one lawgiver that is able - To execute the sentence he denounces. But who art thou - A poor, weak, dying worm.
4:13 Come now, ye that say - As peremptorily as if your life were in your own hands.
4:15 Instead of your saying - That is, whereas ye ought to say.
4:17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not - That knows what is right, and does not practise it.To him it is sin - This knowledge does not prevent, but increase, his condemnation.