James 4:4 – “The Line”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

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.

Honestly, to me it is very difficult to see how to apply this passage. I think in explaining why I find it difficult to apply, I’ll actually move closer to seeing how. That being said, this is likely to be a long post. So here goes --

Once again practically every commentator reads this verse and then goes off on a harangue about “those bad people out there” who make themselves “friends of the world.” I’m sorry but I can’t buy that approach to Scripture. The Bible was written to change me. “These things were written for our admonition …” I have to read this and then say, “Lord, search me and try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me.”

I say all that just to put on paper that I can’t buy the broad-brush “bad ole people out there” interpretation of this passage. If you do, this is an easy passage to apply [to them.]

First of all, I think it is too easy to read this and immediately our mind goes to our list of “do’s and don’ts.” They equate “friendship with the world” with a list of practices of “the world.” In many peoples’ minds, “friendship with the world” = going to movies, dancing, tobacco, alcohol, and listening to “worldly” music. They smugly commend themselves that they are not “worldly” because they “don’t do those things.” They call themselves “separated” and think that makes them religious. A lot of people, I believe, build their entire sense of “righteousness” on this very thought. The Pharisees built their religion on their list of “do’s and don’ts,” on being “separated,” and where did it get them? They crucified the Messiah! They were “separated.” They were very “religious,” yet their “religion” actually made them Satan’s minions! They scrupulously avoided “worldly” practices and yet they were the very enemies of God!

So “friendship with the world” isn’t something cured by a list of do’s and don’ts. The lists won’t cure us of “worldliness.” The Pharisees championed that approach and you see where it got them.

The next thing that we might think is that we need to somehow minimize the time we spend with “lost” people, that they are “the world” and we just can’t get too “friendly” with them. In other words, “friendship with the world” means being too close to the people of this world, spending too much time with them.

But wait. If that is our conclusion, something is really wrong with our thinking. Jesus was a friend of sinners. He loved the tax collectors and the prostitutes and they knew it and loved Him in return. Jesus came to this world to live among us. He prayed not that the Father would “take us out of the world but that He would keep us from the evil one.” Johnstone said of Jesus: “… His life was pre-eminently one spent in the world, in constant and close contact with men. ‘Friendship with the world,’ then, does not mean simply presence in the midst of activities of the world, and taking part in its work … The question then, you observe, is strictly one in regard to the state of the affections.”

“The question then, you observe, is strictly one in regard to the state of the affections.” Johnstone is one of the (very) few writers who took the time to see there’s more going on here than just washing our hands of “worldly practices” or of avoiding time with “sinners.” Well then what is it? I would suggest when the Lord warns us here against “friendship with the world” and about making ourselves His enemies, we need to stop dead in our tracks and ask Him to open our eyes to see what He really means.

That is precisely where I am struggling. I can’t just dismiss a list of practices and I certainly can’t just isolate myself from people.

On the other hand, there are clearly practices of this world where I don’t belong and people I don’t necessarily want to be with.

As I live in this world and spend my time with the people of this world, where is the line between being like Jesus or simply becoming a “friend” of the world and thus an enemy of God?

As I have pondered and prayed over this, the only thing that makes sense to me is to say that line is defined by love. My mind goes back to Jesus’ words that the only thing that matters is to love God and love people. Can I safely say that the moment I stop loving God and people, I’ve crossed the line? Can I say this instead of looking for some line defined by “do’s and don’ts” or by certain people and their activities? I think I can. I John 2:15,16 says: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

Why would I ever not love God and people? Is it not because I am loving my lusts more? Is that not exactly what John is saying? I am either loving God (and therefore people) or I am loving something this world offers me – pleasures, possessions, or applause. And the problem is not the pleasures, possessions, or applauses in and of themselves. The problem is my love for them. This is also consistent with the context back again in James 4. This verse 4 we’re studying follows verses 1-3, where he’s been talking about our “desires that battle in our members.” That is what causes the wars and fightings among us. The problem is what is going on inside of us and it comes down to a question of what we’re desiring, what we’re loving.

So it is a love problem!

Doesn’t this explain how the Pharisees could be scrupulously religious and “separated” and yet be found the enemies of God? They did all of that but they didn’t love. They loved each other’s applause but they didn’t love God or people. And doesn’t this explain how Jesus could spend so much time with “sinners” and yet be “without sin” Himself? He loved God and He loved them. He just never loved what they loved.

I am thinking that is exactly what we should do with James’ admonitions here. We should be mindful what we love. In the context, when what we love causes us to war and fight, when it creates in us bitterness and selfish ambitions, then we can be sure we’re loving the wrong things and have made ourselves not the friends of God, but His enemies.

I have to say, putting all of this in the metaphor of “friendship with the world/enmity with God” is for me too obscure. Love God/love people makes sense to me. Then it is clear to me the problem is what is going on inside of me. When I try to see it through the “friendship of the world” metaphor, it is hard not to see the problem as practices and people. But they are not the problem. I am. So for myself, I certainly appreciate James calling my attention to the problem from a different angle but I think the only way I can apply this is to keep with the Love God/Love people approach.

One last thing before I close. The fact the problem is inside each of us is also supported by James using the vocative “Adulteresses!” He probably used the feminine form either because he is referring to us as the Church, the Bride of Christ, or simply to shock us men into listening to what he’s saying. What is really, really ugly here is to realize what he’s saying. It would be bad enough for a wife to have an affair with another man – but what if that other man was her husband’s worst most bitter enemy? How unspeakably evil would that be? But that is exactly what we’re doing when we give our hearts to this world’s pleasures, possessions, and applause. It is spiritual adultery, but worse than that, it is adultery immersed in betrayal.

But that is who we naturally are.

I wish my heart wasn’t like that. I don’t want to make myself the Lord’s enemy. God help me to mind my heart, to mind my desires, to love like Jesus. But most of all, as I ponder all of this, I am thankful for His grace. I am His enemy. My very existence is to betray Him, to go “a whoring” after whatever idol allures my heart today. And yet, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us!” “Behold what manner of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God!” The other day my mind was bludgeoning me with all my failures. I opened my Bible and the very first words my eyes fell on were in Isaiah 41:9: “I said, ‘You are My servant;’ I have chosen you and have not rejected you.”

He’s just like that. Kind to His bitter enemy. And that love melts my whoring heart. Makes me want to never again for one second do anything but love Him in return. To love people like He does. Makes me cry with the old song writer, “Adam’s image now efface; Stamp Thine image in its place! Second Adam, from above, reinstate us in Thy love!”

Wars and fightings. Bitterness and selfish ambition. Killing and coveting. Enemies of God. Loving what He hates. Adulteresses. Yep, that’s pretty much me.

Lover of my soul, make me different.