In this chapter James gave direction to his readers to encourage and enable them to live at peace with God, others, and themselves. It ties in closely to chapter 1 (cf. 4:6 and 1:5, 21; 4:8b and 1:6-8, 15, 21, 27; 4:9-10 and 1:21).
"James 4 continues the same topic of strife, and addresses now not only the teachers of 3:14 but also the rest of the brotherhood who are in similar sin: strife springs from within (vv. 1-3) and is fostered by worldliness; love of the world and love of God cannot coexist (vv. 4-6); Christians must resist the devil and draw near to God (vv. 7-10)."151
As in the previous chapters, James began this one with a clear introduction of a practical problem his readers faced. He had just been referring to the importance of avoiding strife (3:14-16) and loving peace (3:13, 17-18). Now he attacked the problem of conflict within and among believers. The absence of the word "my brethren"(cf. 1:2; 2:1; 3:1) indicates the severity of this section and the one to follow (v. 13).
"The sudden transition from the beautiful picture in 3:17-18 of a life governed by heavenly wisdom to the appalling picture in the opening verses of chapter 4 is startling, but it demonstrates effectively the need for this vigorous rebuke now administered to the spirit of worldliness. . . .
"The spirit of worldliness has always been a problem for the church; it manifests itself in varied and often subtle ways. James discusses its manifestation in the lives of believers in four different areas. Worldliness reveals itself in their selfish strife (4:1-12), in an attitude of presumptuous self-sufficiency in business planning (4:13-17), in wrong reactions to experiences of injustice (5:1-11), and in the use of self-serving oaths (5:12)."152
"Quarrels"(Gr. polemoi, wars) could refer to disputes between several individuals whereas "conflicts"(Gr. machoi, battles) probably describes the tensions within one individual and between a few individuals. Both types of conflict, large and small, are the enemies of peace. James identified with a rhetorical question the source of both kinds of conflict as pleasures. "Pleasures"are satisfied desires (cf. Luke 8:14; Titus 3:3). James did not say they war against each other in the believer but that, as a besieging army, they inevitably assail him or her. The satisfaction of desire, which is what pleasure is, is something people spend vast quantities of time, money, and energy to obtain. Am I spending them to satisfy my personal desires or God's desires primarily? Our personal desires are part of our human nature, and we will never escape their pull as long as we live in our present bodies. Nevertheless they must not dominate our lives. God's desires must do that. Our culture glorifies the satisfaction of personal desire, and it is the primary pursuit of most people including Christians.
4:2 The ultimate end of lust, desire that a person may or may not satisfy, is murder. We can see this through human history all the way from Cain down to the present (cf. the case of Naboth; 1 Kings 21). James was probably not accusing his readers of murder.153He was reminding them of the serious ultimate consequences of living merely to satisfy personal desires.
"In the context of forceful words such as polemoi(wars') and machai(battles'), it seems better to take phoneuete(you kill') as hyperbole for hatred. This also resolves the problem of seeming anticlimactic word order. To say You hate and covet' is a much more natural order than to say You murder and covet.' Furthermore, Matthew 5:21-22 and 1 John 3:15 show that hatred is equal to murder."154
Likewise fights and arguments follow when we do not obtain our desires.
"There are indeed few evils in human life that cannot be traced to covetousness and envy in the sense in which we find these words used in this verse. Covetousness does not always lead to possession, envy does not always attain to the position of its rivals--and the inevitable result is conflict and strife."155
"This is the condition to which lust consigns it votaries; it disappoints them, and makes them mutual tormentors."156
"Unsatisfied desire leads to murder . . .; disappointed ambition leads to quarrelling [sic] and fighting."157
The only way to obtain satisfaction is to ask God to give it. We do not have what God wants us to have because we do not ask Him for these things.158This is one of the most important verses in the Bible concerning prayer. There are things we can have from God that we will not have unless we ask Him for them.
4:3 However, we often ask God for things to enable us to satisfy our own selfish desires. For example, we request more time, more money, more energy so we can do things we desire but God does not desire for us. What we need to ask Him to give us is more desire for what He promises and commands. We also need less desire for what is contrary to His will for us (cf. Matt. 7:7-11).
"If prayer is no more than a formula (saying the right words, believe hard enough, confess; it will happen), then Christians are back to a type of magic: They can manipulate God or impose their will on God, for he hasto answer. In contrast, New Testament prayer grows out of a trusting relationship with a father whose will is supreme."159
"In the life of a full-time Christian minister, some may devote themselves to the activist pursuits of endless caring for the sick and house-to-house ministry to the unsaved, and skimp sermon preparation. It may be called getting our priorities right', but it may simply be an exercise in self-pleasing. Others lock the study door behind them. When they descend the pulpit steps on one Sunday they are already mentally climbing the same steps next Sunday. They may say that the pulpit is the best place to exercise pastoral care, and that they are putting first things first--but they may in fact just be indulging a passion."160
4:4 The real issue is whom will I love, God or the world?
"In the simplest sense of the word, the world is each man's natural environment, that into which he enters at birth, and from which he departs in death. It is the immediate present, the seen and temporal, of which our senses bear witness, in contrast to the unseen and eternal . . ."161
The world urges us to love ourselves, to put our pleasures before God's pleasures. If we agree with that idea, we are unfaithful as the Lord's spiritual brides. We have deliberately chosen to follow the world's philosophy rather than God's will. We cannot be on friendly terms with God if we follow the world's philosophy (Matt. 6:24). The world wants us to exclude God from all aspects of life. God wants us to include Him in all of life because He is in all of life, and without Him we can do nothing (John 15:5).
". . . no man who makes worldly success his aim can be also a friend of God"162
4:5 In this verse James gave scriptural support for what he just asserted (v. 4). However, he did not quote a particular verse but evidently summarized the scriptural teaching on God's jealousy (cf. Exod. 20:5; 34:14; Ps. 42:1; 84:2; Zech. 8:2) in a new statement.163
It is very difficult to translate this statement, but the best rendering seems to be something such as the following. "God jealously longs for the spirit that He made to live in us."Another translations is, "the Spirit which he made to dwell in us jealously yearns for the entire devotion of the heart"(cf. Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; Gal. 4:6; Eph. 4:30; John 7:39; 16:7).164Both translations fit the preceding context well. God's people who love the world have committed spiritual adultery against Him (v. 4), but God (or His Spirit) jealously longs for their love (v. 5). Furthermore these translations accurately represents the Greek text. The phrase pros phthononliterally means "to envy,"but it is also an adverbial idiom meaning "jealously."165The verb epipotheimeans "to long for"or "to yearn for"rather than "to tend toward."
"Thus, in v. 4 James has accused his readers of spiritual unfaithfulness. If they are not willing to accept this indictment, he asks in v. 5 what they think about the OT passages dealing with God's jealous longing for his people. This is the significance of the introductory conjunction or.' Do they think Scripture speaks without reason' or emptily? Of course they don't think this. Consequently, it is necessary to believe that friendship with the world is enmity toward God, and thus it is spiritual unfaithfulness."166
4:6 God has set a high standard of wholehearted love and devotion for His people, but He gives grace that is greater than His rigorous demand. Proverbs 3:34, quoted here, reminds us that God opposes the proud, those who pursue their own pleasures. However, He gives grace to the humble, those who put God's desires first in their lives. He gives grace to withstand the onslaughts of the flesh within and the world without.
4:7 In view of God's certain supply of this grace we need to adopt a definite stance toward the people involved in this conflict. Ten aorist imperatives in verses 7-10 demand decisive action. They sound like military commands and reflect how seriously James viewed double-mindedness.167
Toward God we must submit in humility. This means making what is of importance to Him important to us, ordering our priorities in harmony with God's priorities. It means not living to fulfill our personal ambitions but using our lives to fulfill His desires. Submission is not identical to obedience. Submission involves the surrender of the will that results in obedience.
We must resist Satan strongly. When we do, he will flee from us. What is Satan trying to get us to do? The record of his temptations, including those of Eve and Jesus Christ, indicates that he wants to make us doubt, deny, and disobey God's Word (cf. Gen. 3; Matt. 4). We resist him by refusing to do these things.
4:8 While resisting Satan on the one hand we must also draw near to God on the other. When we do, He will draw near to us. To draw near to God we must go through a purification process reminiscent of what the priests in Israel underwent. We must wash our hands, symbolic of our outward actions, as well as our divided hearts, symbolic of our inner attitudes and motives. We clean them by confession and repentance. We must remove sin from our hands and duplicity from our hearts. Single-mindedness involves singleness of purpose, namely, living for the glory of God rather than for both God's glory and our own selfish desires (cf. 1:8).
4:9 James was calling readers who had compromised with the world by following hedonism to get right with God. There is laughter and joy in the pursuit of personal desires, but we must abandon these in the process of repenting. James was not saying Christians must be constantly miserable, mourning, weeping, and gloomy. These are only the evidences of repentance from a formerly sinful attitude and lifestyle (cf. Matt. 5:3-4).
4:10 In concluding this section of direct advice (vv. 7-10), James sounded the same note with which he began: submission to God in humility, putting Him before self. This always results in God lifting one up both immediately and eventually. Since this is the condition in which God can use us, He will proceed to do so for His glory (cf. Matt. 23:12; Luke 14:11; 18:14; 1 Pet. 5:6).
"Ralph Bell, an associate evangelist with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, is a godly man who tells of learning grace-reliance in a deeply personal way. Bell is a Canadian-born black man who lives and ministers in the United States. As a young man, he struggled with experiences of racial insults and discrimination. Being so treated by fellow Christians, who were disobeying James's instructions about impartiality, was especially hurtful. Bell shared his struggles with his mother, who counseled him to keep his eyes on Jesus, because Jesus would never disappoint him. As he sought to apply that advice, he began to find the grace to see others' racism as their problem. He further sought grace from God to purify his own life of hatred toward those who mistreated him. In James's terms, Ralph Bell humbled himself before the Lord, and he found himself being lifted up by the grace of God to be able to love his enemies. How does one love hostile and hurtful people? The answer is supernaturally, by relying on the grace that God gives to the humble."168
