As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
4Adulteresses!
Do you not know the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Therefore,
whoever chooses to be a friend of the world has become an enemy of God. 5Or
do you suppose that the Scripture says emptily the spirit dwelling in us lusts toward
envy? 6But He gives more grace, therefore it says, “God opposes
proud ones but gives grace to humble ones.” 7Therefore, submit
yourselves to God and resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse [your] hands, sinners, and
purify [your] hearts, double-minded. 9Be miserable and be sad and
cry tears. Let the laughter of yours be turned into sadness and the joy into
dejection. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you
up.
Verse 7 begins, “Therefore, submit yourselves to God …” I’m
pondering what these simple words mean. What does it really mean to “submit to
God?” As always, if we just throw Christian clichés at it, the answers are
easy. They just don’t mean anything. I’m battling that and also the realization
that we’re going for the jugular here and the devil and my pride are no doubt
working overtime to get me to think I “know” what it means and am doing it,
when in fact I’m not.
I want to say I think this is exactly the battle into which
James is laboring hard to engage us. At least as far back as 3:13, he has been
urging us to give our lives a very hard examination. And his whole point I
think is not to ask us what we believe, or what we think is the state of our
relationship with God – he is charging us to take a very hard look at our
actual lives, what we actually do, what is really true about who we are and
what is really going on in our hearts and how we really treat other people –
and to consider that again based not on what we think but rather on the evidence.
Back in 3:13 he asked, “Who is wise and understanding among
you?” Then he proceeded to tell us to get the answer to that question from our
lives – not from what we think. It is quite clear, he says, that God’s wisdom
produces peace. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace. But in 4:1 he
asks, “What about all these fightings and wars? You want me to believe you’re
good Christians, you think you are, and yet here you are being irritable and
angry with each other. What’s going on?”
That is the very question he wants us to ask ourselves. What’s
going on?
I would like to suggest we are not very good at answering
that question – and I’d like to record some thoughts why I think that is true
(and all of which lead me back – I hope – to my current pondering of what it
really means to submit ourselves to God).
James is actually writing to Jewish believers (1:1), not to
the Gentiles, like Paul usually was. James is writing to people who grew up in
religious homes, people who’ve “always gone to church,” whose religion has
always been based on the Bible itself. Religiously speaking, they’ve grown up
in a world where there’s them (the good people) and everyone else (all those
people who aren’t religious like us). In this context, I hope a red flag immediately
goes up, an alarm is going off – what we’re talking about here is a sure recipe
for the sin of pride. From the very
second we become “religious” or start attending church, we are mortally in
danger of this sin. Even the decision to follow Christ, to be born again, to
know God – is heinously accompanied by the sin of pride. As Manton said, “Christians
are not so much in danger of intemperance and sensual lust as pride; it groweth
by the decrease of other sins.” The very fact we “don’t do those things” is a
set up to see ourselves as better, to
feel we’ve achieved. And in many ways
it may be true – I don’t cheat on my wife. I get up in the morning and go to
work. I try to be nice to people. I study the Bible. And all those things are
good – but what is going on in the darkness of my heart? Am I getting “religiously
comfortable?”
Is that not a real danger? I’ve come so far. I truly am different.
So … I will say to myself, “Soul, thou art fat and increased with goods. You
have plenty of good things laid up for many years …” Religiously comfortable … but blind to my pride, blind to who I
really am, minimizing my sins of anger and irritability and envy – the sins
that are actually destroying everything good I try to be and do.
This problem was glaringly obvious in the Pharisees
(particularly since Jesus very specifically exposed it). I would suggest it was
underneath it all the sin that destroyed the Israelite people. And I’d like to
suggest it is perhaps the most destructive sin for us today who call ourselves
Christians. … to be “religiously comfortable.”
This is why James is hitting his readers so hard – they don’t
really believe they have a problem.
Twice he has warned them not to be deceived. He’s challenged them about hearing
the Word, but then not doing what it says. He’s warned them a person may “seem
religious” and yet “his religion is worthless.” He’s warned us against a faith
that claims to exist but doesn’t change our lives. He’s warned us our mouths
are set on fire by hell and that our “wisdom” may be demonic. He’s called us “adulteresses.”
And finally he’s warned us against the sin of pride and called us to submit to
God.
I’ve mentioned
earlier that it amazes me how many writers comment on these verses, write
polemically against those “worldly” believers out there, and then move on. Does
anyone else see what’s happening here? They don’t get it. They are the
religiously comfortable. They can’t even see that James is talking to them. And
so they miss the point.
I believe this is exactly what has been true of me over the
years. I’ve read these verses at least a thousand times, even taught through
them. But I’ve always kind of wondered at the negativity. Especially when he
goes on to say, “Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts, you
double minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep …” It’s always been hard to wrap
my brain around the ferocity with which he seems to be speaking.
But now I think I get it. He’s talking to me. He’s trying to
break through my pride, trying to break through this being “religiously
comfortable,” and help me to take stock of who I really am. He has to do this, this has to happen, if I’m really going to “humble myself in the
sight of the Lord,” if I’m really
going to “submit myself to God and resist the devil.” I have to see the battle.
I have to know it’s true. And I’ve got to stop letting the sin of pride leave
me “comfortable.”
Pride is my most mortal enemy. The devil feeds on it. But it
blinds me to itself. It hides in my heart. Like the most vile of all leeches,
even as I try to grow in my relationship with God, as I sincerely want to “do
better,” it sinks its evil teeth into my heart and sucks out the very life I
ought to be enjoying. “What a wretched man I am!!! Who shall deliver me from
this body of death???”
I know what I’ll do. I’ll run to God. I’ll fall at Jesus’ feet and wet them with my tears. I’ll
fall into the arms of the only One who can actually fix me, make me better, and
at the same time, protect me from me. I think I’ll submit myself to God and resist the devil!
I think I actually do see what it means now. I desperately
need God. Hard to see the dark side is, and I won’t see it. Only in His arms,
vigilant against my evil pride (and the devil who feeds on it), will I actually
be able to enjoy the fruit of the Spirit and not get “religiously comfortable.”
Wow. Heavy stuff. But right where I am. And right where I
think we all are today as Christians. The sin of pride has conquered us all. And
we don’t even see it.
God help us.
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