An Exposition of The Epistle of Jacob

By; Tom Adcox

This epistle is called The Epistle of James in our English Bibles, but the Greek word is Iakobos, Jacob in English. I have tried to determine why the name James was used, but I have been unsuccessful. I prefer to stay with what the Greek says, so Jacob it is. This also applies to the disciples of the Lord, Jacob, the brother of John and Jacob the son of Alphaeus; the Lord’s brother Jacob; the father of Judas, who betrayed the Lord; and to the brother of the author of Jude (see Jude 1). There is also a Jacob who is not identified, but is widely thought to be the same as the brother of the Lord. The word James does not appear in the Greek Bible.

Jacob, slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the Disapora,

Jacob calls himself a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Many people object to the word “slave” because of the sordid history of slavery in this world, but “slave” is what the Greek word means. Paul says in Rom. 6.16-22 that we are all slaves, some to Satan and sin and some to God. Slavery to Satan is slavery indeed, and slavery to God is freedom indeed. Choose your slavery. Jacob chose slavery to God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

His letter is written to the twelve tribes in the Disapora. The diaspora is the scattering of the Jews to all parts of the world, beginning with their exile to Babylon in the Old Testament and continuing through exile throughout the world of that time when the Jews rebelled in the period A.D. 66-73. There was a further rebellion in A.D. 132-136, and many Jews were killed or exiled, and Jews were forbidden to be in Jerusalem except for one fast day in their religious calendar.

The word diaspora literally refers to the scattering of seed. The Jews were scattered throughout the world by God as a farmer scatters seed. Ezk. 12.15 says, “And they will know that I am I AM when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them through the lands.” Prophecy fulfilled.

But there is another prophecy. Is. 43.5-7 says,

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. I will bring your seed from the east and gather you from the west. ⁶I will say to the north, “Give up,” and to the south, “Do not keep back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, ⁷everyone who is called by my name and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yes, whom I have made.”

For thus says the Lord I AM, “Look, I will search for my sheep and will seek them out. ¹²As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. ¹³And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the lands and will bring them into their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams and in all the inhabited places of the land.”

Ezk. 36.24 says, “For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the lands and will bring you into your own land.” And Ezk. 37.21 says, “And say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord I AM: “Look, I will take the sons of Israel from the nations, where they have gone and will gather them on every side and bring them into their own land….”’”

God will bring his people back to their land, and I believe he is in the process of doing that now as we see the rebirth of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 and its continuance to this day despite apparently overwhelming odds. Nothing is overwhelming to God.

Greetings.

This word literally means “rejoice,” but is taken to mean “Greetings,” but I think it is of interest that the next verse begins with “Consider it all joy, my brothers.”

²Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you may fall into various trials,

It is as though Jacob is saying, “Rejoice. Consider it all joy when you fall into various trials.” We are not accustomed to rejoice when we fall into trials, but Paul says in 1 Thess. 5.18 to give thanks in everything, everything, and in Eph. 5.20, to give thanks for all things. Someone said that the Bible says to give thanks IN all things. It also says FOR all things. Nothing comes into the lives of God’s people that does not have purpose, and his purposes are all good: “All thing work together for good for those who love God and are called according to purpose” (Rom. 8.28). The ultimate good is set forth in Rom. 8.29: “… for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, for him to be firstborn among many brothers.” In our trials God is trying to conform us to the image of his Son, to prepare us for our place in his kingdom. Jacob goes on with the explanation of this:

³knowing that the testing of your faith works endurance. ⁴But let endurance have a perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

We need endurance. We cannot just fail or give up every time the going gets tough. Satan will attack us repeatedly. He never gives up. He has endurance. So must we. How do we get endurance? How does an athlete get endurance to be able to play the whole game and give it his all. He goes through difficult exercises and practices and gets a bit stronger each time. I remember being on the track and field team in high school. We had to run five miles every day. We got stronger doing it. So it is with God’s testing of us. We get a bit stronger every time we endure a trial.

And Jacob says to “let endurance have a perfect work.” We cannot perfect ourselves, but God has promised “that the one having begun in you a good work will be completing it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1.6). He can and he will, and his testing of us now through trials is his means of doing that. As we endure a trial we get a bit stronger and can endure greater trials. When Jacob writes, “that you may be perfect and complete,lacking in nothing,” he says that God’s work is perfect, but also that it is complete. The Greek word for “complete” is made up of two words. The first means “whole.” The second comes from a word meaning “lots” as in casting lots, and means “a portion assigned” and is related to the idea of the lot of land God promised to all the Jewish people when they entered the holy land. Every Jewish family had an inalienable lot. If a family became so poor that it had to sell its lot, God provided rules that required it to be returned at a certain time. The book of Ruth deals with this and the kinsman redeemer. What Jacob is saying in this verse by using the word “complete” is that we should endure trial to the point that we will gain the whole lot that we should have. Don’t give up and fail to endure. If you do, you may lose your lot or a part of it in the kingdom, the millennium and beyond. This does not mean that you might lose your salvation, but there are rewards in the kingdom and they can be lost (see 1 Cor. 3.11-15, Rev. 3.11). Endure. Gain your whole lot, your whole inheritance (see Rom. 8.17, 2 Tim. 2.12).

⁵But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, the one giving generously to all and not finding fault, and it will be given to him. ⁶But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing, for the one doubting is like a wave of the sea being blown and tossed by the wind. ⁷For let that man not think that he will receive anything from the Lord, ⁸a two-souled man unstable in all his ways.

Ps. 111.10 and Prov. 9.10 say that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Fear here does not mean being afraid of God, but having great reverence and respect for him, and fearing the results of failing to behave accordingly. Jacob is writing to people who have trusted in Christ and thereby have some fear of God. Knowledge is knowing facts. Wisdom is knowing what to do. There are many who have great knowledge, but have trouble knowing what to do. As Christians we often feel unsure as to what we should do, what the will of God is. There is a spiritual wisdom that does not come from inborn intelligence, but from the Lord. Before we are saved our spirits are dead toward God (Eph. 2.1). What actually takes place when we are first saved is that the Holy Spirit comes into our dead spirits and makes them alive with God’s life. That life can grow in us and give us a spiritual wisdom that goes beyond our brains. If we need wisdom, we should ask God for it in submission to his will and he will be pleased to give us such wisdom. He loves to give his people wisdom and he does so without finding fault with us.

But – we have to ask in faith. Faith goes beyond believing in God. Most people believe that God exists, but not all have actually put their trust in him for salvation and surrendered their lives to him to live for him. Faith is not works, but it results in works, and if there are no works there is no faith. We will see this more fully in Jacob chapter 2. Asking in faith is not just believing in God’s existence, but in believing and trusting that he will do what he says he will do (see Mk. 11.24). He says that he will give us wisdom if we ask for it, so trust him.

But ask without doubting. If we ask him while doubting, without faith, just hoping that we will get what we want, we are “like a wave of the sea being blown and tossed by the wind.” We do not have firm guidance, but are blown about by whatever may happen or what we may think in our own “wisdom.” Today I believe this and tomorrow I will think something else. What am I to do? Ask God in faith and then wait on him in faith. Waiting is a large part of faith in God. Waiting is an expression of faith in God. (I am appending a brief article on waiting on the Lord to the end of this work on the epistle of Jacob. I think it will be helpful in this regard.)

Then Jacob writes, “For let that man not think that he will receive anything from the Lord, a two-souled man unstable in all his ways.” The soul of people is the psychological aspect. Our spirits are our means of communicating God and our bodies are our means of communicating with the world. Our souls are us. The Greek word for “soul” is psyche, and from that word we get “psychology.” Our soul, our psychology, consists of mind, emotions, and will. Jacob says here that a person can be two-souled. That means, I believe, that we can have divided souls. We move back and forth between two, or more, feelings. We feel strong and brave, then fearful. We believe God, then we doubt. We are elated and we are depressed. Our lives can be like a rollercoaster. We are tossed two and fro by the winds of the world and our feelings. How can we receive from God in that condition? We must come to a point of settling our trust in God. Do I trust him or not? I believe there is such a thing as blind faith. There have been times in my life when I have not known what to believe, even wondering if God even existed. I had to make a decision. Will I cast my lot with the Lord or look elsewhere? One verse that helps me with that question is John 6.68: “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life….” If I decide against God, where will I go? To the world? It has no answers and is obviously in great confusion. To sin? Sin has its pleasures (Heb. 11.25), but they are temporary and the end is death. To trust in other people? We should do that with the right people, but some may betray us and we will be separated from all by death, theirs or ours. God is the only sure foundation (Matt. 24.35, 1 Cor. 3.11, Eph. 2.20). I had to make up my mind and I did. I trust God whether I feel anything or not. “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5.7).

So – don’t be two-souled. Put your trust in God. (See also Jacob 4.8.)

⁹But let the lowly brother boast in his high position, ¹⁰but the one rich in his low position, for as a flower of grass he will pass away. ¹¹For the sun rose with the burning heat and withered the grass and its flower fell and the beauty of its face perished; so also will the rich one in his pursuits wither away.

It is the way of the world to be proud and to revel in our high position if we are financially well off, and to mourn if we are poor, but the Bible teaches that true riches are spiritual and earthly wealth without the Lord is spiritual poverty. Eph. 1.3 says that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. The Lord Jesus tells us, “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on the earth where moth and rust ruin and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust ruins and where thieves don’t break in or steal” (Mt. 6.19-20). True wealth is in Heaven and will never run out or go away.

So – if you are rich in the Lord, whether you have earthly riches or not, boast in your high position with the Lord. And that does not mean to brag about yourself because you are high up with the Lord, as the two sons of Zebedee asked to be (see Mt. 20.21, Mk. 10.37), but brag on the Lord who has exalted us. If you are rich in the world, the one who is rich should be aware that his position on earth is temporary. Like everyone else he will pass away and leave his treasure behind, as flowers fall and lose their beauty. A low position in the world would be humility, and one can boast in that if he is truly humble.

¹²Blessed is a man who endures temptation, for having been approved he will receive the crown of life that he has promised to those loving him. ¹³Let no one being tempted say, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evils, but he himself tempts no one.

Temptations come to all of us. We all have a sin nature, what the Bible often calls the flesh, so we are born prone to sin. And we have a master tempter doing all he can to make sin attractive to us. God promises a crown of life to those who resist temptation and love him and walk in obedience to him. That life is eternal. Sometimes when we are tempted, we may want to think that God tempted us – blame it on him. The Greek word for “tempt” can also mean try or test. God does try and test us, but we cannot blame our temptations on him. Satan is the tempter. There are few things that God cannot do. One is to be tempted and another is to tempt. He also cannot lie.

¹⁴But each one is tempted by his own desire, being drawn away and lured. ¹⁵Then desire, having conceived, gives birth to sin, but sin, having become fully grown, gives birth to death.

We all have that sin nature, what the Bible often calls the flesh. We are prone to sin. Satan is the cleverest liar there is, and he knows how to appeal to our desires for sinful things. We referred above to Heb. 11.25 – there is pleasure in sin – and Satan knows how to arouse our desires for these things. He makes them look so good. There is a country song that begins, “Somebody’s knockin’. Should I let him in? It’s the devil. Would you look at him. I’ve heard about him, but I never dreamed he’d have blue eyes and blue jeans.” Satan will never say to you, “I’m the devil. I want you to go to hell. Do what I suggest and that is where you will go.” He will make sin look so good, so desirable. But it is like a nice juicy worm before a fish. Too late the fish finds out that it has a hook in it. That is Satan’s temptation. It looks wonderful, but it has a hook in it.

Jacob says here that we are drawn away and lured. It is Satan doing the drawing and luring, and he is luring us into hell. If we respond positively to that lure, it will conceive as a woman conceives, and it will give birth to sin, and sin, if unchecked, will give birth – to death. Rom. 6.23 says that “the wages of sin are death,” and Rom. 8.6, that “the mind set on the flesh is death,” and that does not mean the death of the body in this case, but the spiritual death of hell.

¹⁶Don’t be led astray, my beloved brothers. ¹⁷Every good act of giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no change or shadow of turning.

In contrast to Satan drawing away and luring, making sinful things look so good, everything that is good comes from God. What Satan makes to look good leads to death. What God gives is indeed good. Anything good is his gift to us. Satan is the father of darkness. There are many Scripture verses that equate Satan and evil with darkness. There are too many to quote here, but I will list several (see also Jn. 3.19, Rom. 13.12, 1 Cor. 4.5, Eph. 5.8, 11, and 1 Jn. 1.5-6):

Lk. 22.53: When the Lord Jesus was betrayed by Judas, the Lord Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple that “this is your hour and the authority of darkness.” This verse corresponds with Col.1.13, where Paul writes that God “delivered us from the authority of the darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love.” Satan is the authority of darkness. This means that while we were in sin, Satan had authority over us. He could do what he wished with us, subject to God’s sovereignty. When we came to the Lord we were placed in the kingdom of the Son of his love. We have that hedge of protection around us that Job had. Satan can tempt us, but he cannot do just anything he wants to us. This line of thought goes further with Acts 26.15-18: In this passage Paul is giving his testimony to King Agrippa and he says,

Then I said, “Who are you, Lord,” and the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ¹⁶But rise up and stand on your feet, because for this I appeared to you, to appoint you a servant and a witness of both that which you saw of me and of the things in which I will appear to you, ¹⁷delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you, ¹⁸to open their eyes, to turn from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those having been sanctified by faith that is in me.”

Again the Lord is turning people “from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God.” All of this is a perfect gift of God, a good act of giving.

We turn to 2 Cor. 4.6: “For God, the one having said, ‘Out of darkness light will shine,’ who shined in our hearts for the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” We read in 1 Thess. 5.4-5, “But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day should take you down you like a thief. ⁵For you all are sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night or of darkness.” And 1 Pt. 2.9 reads, “But you are ‘a chosen generation [Is. 43.20 LXX],a royal priesthood [Ex. 19.6, 23.22 LXX],a holy nation [Ex. 19.6, 23.22 LXX],a people for possession [Ex. 19.5, , 23.22 LXX, Dt. 4.20, 7.6, 14.2],that you may proclaim the excellencies’ [Is. 43.20 LXX] of the one having called you out of darkness into his marvelous light….” (LXX indicates the Greek translation of the Old Testament which sometimes differs from the Hebrew.)

All of these passages show that we are not left on our own, to try figure things out in our own knowledge and wisdom, to be left to Satan’s dark lies, but we have these blessings from the Father of lights who gives us light, reveals the truth to us, and guides us in his ways that lead to glory. With him there is no shadow of turning. He does not change. Immutable is the theological word. He does not cast a shadow of turning, that is, showing one thing and then turning to change the shadow, thus confusing us.

¹⁸Having willed it he brought us forth by a word of truth for us to be a kind of firstfruit of his creatures.

Having willed the truths of vs. 16 and 17, Jacob says that God, having willed this bringing people into light, God gave this light. Sin brought mankind into darkness. We were all born under the shadow of Adam’s sin. We are born with a sin nature. How do we escape this fallen condition? Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 5.17 that “if anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation.” When we receive Christ as our Savior, we are able to put off the old man and put on the new, and the Lord tells us in Eph. 4.22-24 and Col. 3.9-10 to do so. The old man is the sin nature, the flesh, and the new man is Christ living in us. We have been brought into this life. Live in it! We still have the old sin nature in us and we know temptation, but we can say no to it. The first Christians became a kind of firstfruit of these new creations, the born-again people. We are following in their footsteps. There was a feast of firstfruits in the Jewish calendar which celebrated the early harvest, and a feast of weeks which celebrated the later harvest (and came on the same day as Pentecost, by the way, on which there was a harvest of three thousand souls added to the church, Acts 2.41). The first Christians were an early harvest. We are of a later harvest.

¹⁹Know this, my beloved brothers: let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, ²⁰for man’s anger does not work God’s righteousness.

These first two verses need little comment. We are too prone to speak without thinking what its effect might be. Who might be hurt by what we say? We will see in Jacob 3.6 that “the tongue is a fire, the world of injustice” that can set ”on fire the course of creation.” Wars have killed millions of people because someone was angry and spoke in anger. A spoken word cannot be taken back. One may apologize, but the harm may have been done. An individual may be hurt deeply emotionally, or a nation may go to war. So instead of being quick to speak, be slow and think it over. And remember that you learn much more when you are listening than when you are speaking! And control anger. Take a deep breath, as they say, and think about it. What might the results be?

“For man’s anger does not work God’s righteousness.” The Lord himself said, “Vengeance is mine” [Hebrew Old Testament]. “I will repay” [Greek Old Testament] (quoted in Heb. 10.30).  A colossal amount of fighting and war has resulted from man trying to “get even,” to get revenge. God will work his own vengeance in his time. He is the only righteous judge. When someone wrongs someone, the proper response might be to talk it over and see if it can be worked out, but if it cannot, a Christian should not fight over it, but leave it to the Lord. One person gets angry and kills someone. Then a friend or relative of the one killed will kill the first man to get revenge. On it goes. Feuds have grown up from such that have lasted for years. I have often said, “If someone does me wrong, God will take care of me, but he will have to answer to him.“ Leave it to God. He knows what to do. And pray for the one who does you wrong. The Lord Jesus himself said, “… love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt. 5.44). The one who does you wrong needs the Lord. Don’t try to get even. Pray for him.

²¹Therefore having put aside all filth and abundance of inherent evil, with meekness receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

It is obvious that a Christian should put away filth, spiritual and behavioral filth. The word that I have translated “inherent evil” is usually translated just “evil,” but the Greek indicates that it is inherent evil. We all have inherent evil, our flesh, our old man, as we have already dealt with. As we saw, Eph. 4.22-24 and Col. 3.9-10 tell us to put off this old man. We will not be fully rid of him until the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8.23), but we can choose to put him off and turn ourselves over to the Lord. Life for a Christian in one way is a constant battle between the demands of our flesh and our desire to serve the Lord. Paul makes it quite clear that we are not slaves to sin and have a choice (Rom. 6.16-22, referred to earlier in our comment on Jacob 1.1). We are imperfect and sin sometimes, but we can ask forgiveness and move on with the Lord.

Jacob continues: “with meekness receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Having put aside filth and evil, we are to receive the implanted word. The word is the word of God, what he says in the Bible. It is vital that we as Christians read and study and pray over God’s word. It is his word that works in us by the operation of the Holy Spirit. In Luke 8.4-9 we have the parable of the sower, and in v. 11 the Lord Jesus tells us that the seed is the word of God. In 1 Cor. 3.6, Paul writes, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was giving the increase.” The word of God is like a seed. When it is implanted in a person and is watered by the work of the Holy Spirit (typified by water in the Bible), God gives an increase. A plant is produced. Jacob tells us that when we receive the implanted word and it is watered, it produces salvation in our souls. The word growing in us is healing in nature. We more and more have Christ formed in us.

When we talk about the salvation of the soul, we are usually referring to the belief that when we first trust Christ we are saved. But what actually takes place at what I call initial salvation when we first trust in Christ is that the Holy Spirit comes into our dead spirits (Eph. 2.1 – our bodies and psyches are not dead, but our spirits are dead toward God) and makes them alive toward God with the life of the Lord Jesus in us. At that point salvation begins, but it is not a one-time event. Salvation is lifelong process. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 1.18 that we are being saved. Are being saved. What does that mean?

In the New Testament the word for “save” can also mean “heal.” The salvation of the soul is actually the lifelong process of God healing our damaged souls. We all have soul damage, damage to our psychological being, mind, emotions, will. We have been damaged by our own sins, by possible mistreatment as children by parents or others or being picked on at school. Many feel unloved or that they do not belong or measure up. Many live in depression because of past mistreatment or disappointment. Many are full of anger or bitterness. Many find life so unfulfilling that they give up hope and live in despair, or die – at their own hands. Many live with fear or anxiety. We could go on, but you know what I am writing about. I hear that some have been instantly healed of these conditions when they came to the Lord, but I suspect that many struggle with these situations for years, even decades. God is at work to repair this damage, but it takes our cooperation.

The implanted word works to heal this damage. As we read the word and seek the Lord he will work with these issues. I cannot say that everyone will be fully healed in this life, probably not, but the word of God can give us comfort and direction.

In 1 Pt. 2.11 we read, “Beloved, I urge you as strangers and sojourners to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” One way we can fight against soul damage is “to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” I noted above that we are damaged by our own sins. The more we sin the more we damage ourselves. If we turn from sin the Lord will do a healing work in us. We need to cooperate with him and not work against ourselves.

Peter also says in 1 Pt. 1.5 and 9 tell us that there is “a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time,” and that salvation is “salvation of souls,” and it includes the essential point, that the salvation of souls is the result of faith. We said that salvation is a lifelong process. Here Peter confirms this statement. Salvation of the soul begins when we first trust
Christ. It is ongoing through life. And there is “a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Paul enlarges on this salvation in Rom. 8.23 where he mentions “the redemption of our body.” When we first trust Christ our spirits are redeemed. As we walk with the Lord through life our souls are being redeemed. But our bodies have not yet been redeemed. They will die barring the rapture or the return of Christ (1 Thess. 4.17). But when the Lord returns our bodies will be redeemed, changed into a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15.44). Phil. 3.20-21 speak of “… the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who will transform the body of our humiliation, conformed to the body of his glory….” Wow! Praise to God!

So – “receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

(See more on salvation in my booklet Aspects of Salvation on my website, www.tomadcox.com.)

²²But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves, ²³for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, this one is like a man considering the face of his birth in a mirror. ²⁴For he has considered himself and has gone away and has forgotten what he was like. ²⁵But the one having stooped to look into the perfect law, that of freedom, and having remained, not having been a hearer of forgetfulness, but a doer of work, this one will be blessed in his doing.

Jacob says to “receive the implanted word,” but he also says to “be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Many people receive the word, but do not abide by it. Such a one may have been born again, but does not live in that new life. Others may not have been born again at all. That is up to God, to say, not man. But the word will not do us a lot of good if we just hear it and go no further. It must be that implanted seed that takes root and grows. The one who just hears and does not do is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and then forgets what he looks like! I don’t know why Jacob speaks of the face of his birth. Perhaps he means that he has had the same face his whole life and still does not remember it. V. 25 speaks of stooping to look into the law. Stooping is an effort. Just glancing at a mirror does not take much effort. Whatever, Jacob is saying to make the effort to grasp the word. It is the pathway to freedom for the person who yields his life to God and lives by the word. Otherwise he is in bondage to his own abilities, which are of little help in the battle with Satan. If he makes the effort he will remain, remain in Christ (the Greek word for “remain” here is based on the word for “abide in Christ” in Jn. 15.4). If he does not hear and forget, but is a doer of the work assigned him by God, he will be blessed.

²⁶If anyone thinks himself to be observant, not controlling his tongue, but deceiving his heart, this one’s observance is vain. ²⁷Pure and undefiled observance before the God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Jacob gives an example of doing the work. He speaks of observance. Observance here refers to observing religious rites and practices. A legitimate example is seen in Acts 26.5 where Paul says that he lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest group of “our religion.” “Religion here is the same as “observant,” except that “observance” is an adjective and “religion” is a noun. A false example occurs in Col. 2.18 where Paul writes of worship of the angels. The word “worship” here is the same as “religion” in Acts 26.5. These are the only occurrences of these two words in the New Testament.

Jacob’s point here is that a person may observe the requirements of his religion by way of rites and practices, but he is deceiving himself if he does not control his tongue. True Christianity is not observing rites and ceremonies, but having a relationship with the Lord and walking in his will. I do not know of any place in the New Testament that sets forth ceremonies.

Then Jacob expands. He says that true observance of God’s requirements is “to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” He says that observing rites without controlling the tongue, helping the needy, and keeping unspotted from the world is vain, empty, worthless. Going to a church meeting every Sunday is worthless unless one lives it out. I would say, lives it out among Christians and in the world without becoming spotted by the world. As someone has said, we are in the world, but we do not want the world in us.

2. My brothers, do not hold with partialities the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory. ²For if a man should enter into your assembly wearing a gold ring, in splendid clothing, but a poor man also should enter in dirty clothing, ³and you should look on the one wearing the splendid clothing and should say, “You sit here honorably,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or “Sit under my footstool,” ⁴have you not judged among yourselves and become judges with evil reasonings?

Jacob deals with partiality. The Greek word is literally “receiving of a face” or “a receiver of a face,” indicating partiality toward a person who has position or wealth or so forth, as opposed to one who does not have those advantages. The word in the latter form, “a receiver of a face,”occurs once in the New Testament, Acts. 10.34, where Peter says, “Of a truth I understand that God is not one who shows partiality.” The form here in Jacob occurs in Rom. 2.11: “… for there is no partiality with God.” Eph. 6.9, where Paul deals with masters and slaves, reads, “And, masters, do the same things toward them, ceasing from threatening, knowing that both their Lord and yours is in the heavens, and there is no partiality with him.” Col. 3.25 adds, “For the one doing wrong will receive the wrong that he did, and there is no partiality.” All of these verses indicate that there is no partiality with God. He will judge the rich the same as the poor. We might say that your position cuts no ice with God. And Paul says in Rom. 14.10-12, “For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. ¹¹For it has been written, ‘I live,’ says the Lord, ‘that every knee will bow to me and every tongue will confess God’” [Is. 45.23]. ¹²So then each of us will give account to God concerning himself.” And Paul adds in 2 Cor. 5.10, “For it is necessary for all of us to appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive back the things done through the body, according to the things he did, whether good or bad.”

Jacob’s example here is giving a person of wealth a seat of honor while telling the poor man in dirty clothes to “stand there” or “sit under my footstool.” His response is, “… have you not judged among yourselves and become judges with evil reasonings?” It is not our place to judge whether a person deserves honor or dishonor according to his wealth or clothes or other such things. There have been many wealthy people who have been corrupt and many poor people who have been faithful servants of the Lord. Such judgment by us is evil. Only God sees the heart.

⁵Listen, my beloved brothers, did God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those loving him? ⁶But you dishonored the poor man.

Jacob continues with the matter of partiality. He begins with, “Listen, my beloved brothers, did God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those loving him?” Most of the first followers of the Lord Jesus were poor. Joseph of Arimathea, the man who buried the Lord in a tomb he had hewn, was rich and a member of the council or Sanhedrin, a kind of supreme court of the Jewish nation (Mt. 27.57-60, Mk. 15.42-46, Lk. 23.50-53, Jn. 19.38-42). I do not believe that Jacob believed that every poor person was “rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom.” The majority rejected him. I think he means that most of his followers were poor. In the example of the dishonoring of the poor man in vs. 1-4, the ones who dishonored him were judging with evil reasonings, probably reasoning that if they honored the rich man, they might have some gain for themselves from him.

Are not the rich oppressing you and they themselves dragging you into court? ⁷Are they not blaspheming the good name having been called over you?

He continues with the question about it being the rich oppressing and dragging into court and being the ones who blaspheme the Lord’s name. Again, not every rich person fits this description. Joseph of Arimathea was himself rich, but he was a believer in the Lord. But it is true that most of the oppression and dragging into court is done by the rich or well-off. In our day, of course, there are many frivolous lawsuits designed to get money from the rich by a settlement out of court to avoid the high cost of defending oneself. There can be good and evil by both rich and poor. And the truth is that most people, rich and poor and in between, are not followers of the Lord. Jacob is making a point. Don’t show partiality in the assembly of Christians, the church, v. 2 says. The world is a different matter, though we should not show partiality anywhere unless it is a particular situation that requires it.

⁸If indeed you keep the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Lev. 19.18], you are doing well.

I think these verses are at the heart of the Scriptures. In Rom. 13.8 Paul writes, “Owe no one anything but to love one another, for the one loving the other has fulfilled the law.” This theme is repeated in the New Testament. In Mt. 22.37-40 we read

And he answered him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul [Dt. 6.5] and with all your mind. ³⁸This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” [Lev. 19.18]. ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love is the answer to the question as to how we do what is right. One of the great problems in the world is enmity and hatred, or just not caring. We may make mistakes, but we will not deliberately hurt someone we love. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind….” And “love your neighbor as yourself”and you will do what is right without even thinking about the law.

Gal. 5.14 says, “For the whole law has been fulfilled in one word, in this, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself.’” Same thing. Love and you will fulfill the law.

Here Jacob says, “If indeed you are keeping the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well.” Don’t be concerned about the law, but about loving. If you do, “you are doing well.”

Paul continues in Rom. 8.9-10, “For, ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet’, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. ¹⁰Love does not do evil to the neighbor.” Love is the answer to all of these laws. Love and you will not break these laws.

⁹But if you show partiality, you are committing sin, being convicted by law as transgressors. ¹⁰For whoever should keep the whole law, but should stumble in one, has become guilty of all. ¹¹For the one having said, “You shall not commit adultery” [Ex. 20.14, Dt. 5.18], also said, “You shall not murder” [Ex. 20.13, Dt. 5.17]. But if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of law. ¹²So speak and so act as being about to be judged by a law of freedom.

Jacob makes the point that partiality is a sin just like adultery and murder. It does not matter which law you break, if you have committed one sin you have broken the law. The law is one. Even if you keep the whole law except for one you have still broken the law. If you have never broken any civil law except speeding in your car one time, you have broken the law. You must pay the penalty. So, Jacob says, speak and act as one knowing that he will be judged if he breaks the law, any law.

He adds the term “a law of freedom.” What does he mean by this? He mentions the law of freedom in 1.25. The law of freedom is the freedom we have from sin, as we saw in dealing with the first verse of this epistle: Rom. 6.16-22 says that we are all slaves, some to Satan and sin and some to God. Slavery to Satan is slavery indeed, and slavery to God is freedom indeed. The law of freedom is the love Jacob has been writing about. We are free from trying to remember every law and making sure we keep them all because we are fulfilling the royal law, the law of the King, loving one another. V. 8 of this chapter again: “If indeed you keep the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well.” We are free to love instead of trying to keep laws.

 ¹³For judgment is without mercy to the one not doing mercy. Mercy boasts over judgment.

But Jacob warns, “For judgment is without mercy to the one not doing mercy. Mercy boasts over judgment.” The very opposite of love is being merciless. We have all wronged someone and wanted mercy. We all want the mercy of God. How can we refuse mercy if we will not be merciful ourselves? If we do that then God will be merciless with us. But mercy boasts over judgment: if we are merciful we will not be so judged.

¹⁴What is the gain, my brothers, if anyone claims to have belief, but should have no works? Is the belief able to save him? No. ¹⁵If a brother or sister be without clothes and lacking of daily food, ¹⁶but someone of you should say to them, “Go in peace. Be warmed and be filled,” but should not give them the things needed for the body, what is the gain? ¹⁷So also belief, if it have no works, is dead, by itself.

There can be a great difference between belief and faith. See my notes on chapter 1, verses 5-7. I wrote there, “Faith is not works, but it results in works, and if there are no works there is no faith.” Just believing there is a God is no assurance of salvation. True faith in God puts the Holy Spirit into a person and the Spirit will prompt to do the works of salvation.

Even a Christian, someone who has trusted in Christ and been born again, can fail to walk in faith. Genuine faith in God would prompt someone to help the needy.

¹⁸But someone will say, “You have belief and I have works. Show me your belief without the works and I will show you by my works the belief.” ¹⁹You believe that God is one. You are doing well. The demons also believe and they tremble. ²⁰But are you willing to know, O empty man, that belief without works is idle? ²¹Was not Abraham our father justified by works, having offered Isaac his son on the alar? ²²You see that belief was working with his works and by the works the belief was completed. ²³And the Scripture was completed saying, “But Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” [Gen. 15.6], and he was called friend of God. ²⁴You see that man is justified by works and not by belief alone. ²⁵But likewise also was Rahab the prostitute not justified by works, having received the messengers and sent them by another way? ²⁶For as the body without spirit is dead, so also belief without works is dead.

Jacob continues this line of thought. This passage is one which causes some to say that Jacob disagrees with Paul about salvation by faith alone. Martin Luther, the discoverer in his day of salvation by faith alone and its champion, did not like this epistle and called it an “epistle of straw.” But there is no disagreement. Jacob would believe in salvation alone as surely as Paul did, but he is pointing out the difference between mere belief and genuine faith.

Probably most people believe that God is one, though there are many who do not believe in God all, not even his existence, or believe there are many gods. Jacob says that one does well to believe that God is one. But he says in essence, “So what? “Show me your belief without the works and I will show you by my works the belief.” How can a person show his belief without doing anything about it? That does not mean that if he does nothing he does not believe. Maybe he does, but how could anyone know it? Paul says, “… that if you should confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, ¹⁰for with the heart one has faith into righteousness, but with the mouth one confesses into salvation” (Rom. 10.9-10). Does that mean that if you do not confess Christ openly you will not be saved even if you do believe? I won’t argue that point, but you see the point. Jacob would say that he agrees with Paul that belief must be followed by action.

Then Jacob says, “The demons also believe and they tremble.” Yes, the demons and the devil himself believe, but are they saved? Of course not. Their deeds reveal the fact. So if we say we believe, but do not do anything about it, how is anyone to know?

Jacob then asks, “But are you willing to know, O empty man, that belief without works is idle?” If anyone thinks that belief without works saves, he is an empty man. This word empty is the basic meaning of the Greek word. It can also mean vain, foolish, worthless. What is the point of belief without works. Go back to Jacob 1.26-27.

Then Jacob turns to Abraham. The fact that “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15.6, quoted by Paul in Rom. 4.3, 20-22, Gal. 3.6, and here in Jacob) is the very basis of the belief in salvation by faith alone. Also, Hab. 2.4 says that “the righteous will live by his faith.” This is quoted by Paul in Rom. 1.17 and Gal. 3.11, and by the writer of Heb.10.38). Then Jacob uses Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac (Gen. 22) as evidence that Abraham was justified by works. I do not believe that Paul would put it that way, but I do not believe that Paul and Jacob are disagreeing. As quoted above, Paul said that with the mouth one confesses into salvation. The confessing is a work. And Jacob adds that Abraham was called the friend of God (2 Chron. 20.7, Is. 41.8), though the Bible does not specifically say why he was called the friend of God (2 Chron. 20.7, Is. 41.8).

Jacob concludes that “You see that man is justified by works and not by belief alone.” He adds another example, Rahab the harlot in the book of Joshua. She believed that God would use Israel to conquer Jericho, but that would have done her no good if she had not hidden the spies and helped them escape. Since she did, she and her family were saved. Belief, works. “Nuff said.”

Jacob closes, “For as the body without spirit is dead, so also belief without works is dead.” Just as a body without spirit is dead, so so-called belief or faith without works is dead.

I think the real point here is what I have said, that it is genuine heart faith, not just head belief, that saves. But – real faith issues in works. The one who is genuinely saved will confess it. He will feed and clothe the poor and hungry, or whatever God calls him to do. It is Paul again who wrote, “For you are his doing, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we may walk in them” (Eph. 2.10). But remember that there are also dead works. Those are works that someone does hoping they will save him. But remember that there are dead works. (Heb. 6.1, 9.14). Works will not save anyone (Rom. 3.20, Gal. 2.16, 3.2 and 5). Only faith saves. But faith issues in works. If you believe in God, but are doing nothing as a result, check your salvation. Good works, the will of God, come from genuine saving faith. Dead works will not get you saved.

3. Let not many become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive greater judgment.

I take this statement very seriously. What I am doing in writing this is teaching the Scriptures. I do not want to mislead anyone or misinterpret the word of God. It is indeed a holy book, given by God to his people and the world to reveal himself and tell us what he has done for us and what he wants of us, and every word of it is sacred. I know that if I deliberately distort the Scriptures or teach false doctrine, I will face judgment for that. It is my prayer that I will understand what God has said and communicate it faithfully.

There are disagreements about doctrine. I think certain doctrines, those having to do with God, the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, the divinity of Christ and his resurrection and return are indispensable. We read in 1 Cor. 15.19, “If in this life only we are having faith in Christ, we are more to be pitied than all men.” Most other doctrines seem to me to be matters of opinion, and I think some are generated by Satan to get Christians arguing among themselves instead of serving the Lord in whatever way he calls us. Theology can be one of Satan’s best tools. Why can we not just agree on the indispensables, serve the Lord, and leave the arguments to those who don’t have better things to do? Why do we have denominations? Because people cannot agree on matters that cannot be proven. There are no denominations in the Bible. There is only one church. Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and so forth are not churches. They are denominations. The Bible tells us to be unified (Eph. 4.1-6). I am not a member of any denomination. You cannot join a church, and nowhere in the Bible do I see anything says to join a church. The only way to get into the church is to be born into by the new birth, a spiritual birth (Jn. 3.3, 5, 8, 1 Pt. 1.3, 23). You can join a denomination, but you cannot join the church.

I believe a lot of people’s theology comes from what they learned in school, even seminaries, or what they heard a preacher say, instead of studying the Scriptures for themselves. Jn. 5.39 speaks of searching the Scriptures. That is what I do. If you think I am wrong about something, tell me in Scripture where I am wrong. If I am I will admit it and change my belief.

That is probably enough on this matter. I try to get my beliefs from the Bible, not what someone else says, but I will say that I have learned much from preachers, teachers, books, and others, but I compare that with the Bible. I thank God for them.

²For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in a word, this one is a perfect man able to bridle even the whole body.

I certainly do stumble, and if you will show me from Scripture where I am wrong, I will change. I am not a perfect man, probably not even a very good one, and the bridling of the whole body is a challenge to all of us. Our bodies have desires that are not right and we must deal with that with the help of the Lord. But my heart is with the Lord and his word and his calling.

³But if we put bits into the mouths of horses for them to obey us, we turn about even their whole body. ⁴Look, even the ships being so great and driven by strong winds are turned about by very small rudders where the will of the one steering wishes, ⁵so also the tongue is a small member and boasts great things.

Jacob points out that it is amazing that something very small can do such great things. Horses are big and strong, much more powerful than we are, but if we can get a bit into a horse’s mouth we can control him, at least after we have gone through the bucking horse period and broken the horse. Even great ships can be controlled by a comparatively tiny rudder. The best I can tell from the confusion of the internet is that the Icon of the Seas is the heaviest ship in the world. It weighs 250,800 tons. That is 501,600,000 pounds. Yet a little rudder (I can’t get the internet to tell me what a cruise ship rudder weighs. It tells me everything else in the world about rudders, but it cannot answer a simple question – what does a cruise ship rudder weigh!!!) can turn that ship any way the pilot  wants it to go.

Jacob uses these examples to set up what he really wants to write about, the tongue.

Look how small a fire kindles how great a forest. ⁶And the tongue is a fire, the world of injustice. The tongue is set among our members, the thing defiling the whole body and  being set on fire by hell. ⁷For all species of beasts and of birds, of creeping things and of sea creatures, are subdued and have been subdued by the human nature. ⁸But the tongue of men no one is able to subdue, an uncontrollable evil full of deadly poison. ⁹With it we bless the Lord and Father and with it we curse men, those having been made in the likeness of God. ¹⁰Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things ought not to be so, my brothers. ¹¹Does the spring out of the same opening bring sweet and bitter? No. ¹²Is a fig tree able, my brothers, to produce olives, or a grape vine, figs? No. Nor can a salty spring produce fresh water.

I don’t need to write much about this paragraph. All of us have hurt someone with our tongues, a hurtful word. All of us have been hurt by a tongue, a hurtful word. Well have many said that a word spoken cannot be taken back. There may be apologies, but the hurt remains. Our words can defile our whole bodies, spewing out filth. Matt. 15.18 says, “But the things going out of the mouth come out of the heart, and these defile the man.” Dictators have started wars that killed millions with a word. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” said Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839. How true that can be. The words we say can have great might. The tongue is such a terrible thing when used as a weapon that Jacob says that it is a fire, set on fire by hell. That is not a literal, physical truth, but it shows how evil and even damning the tongue can be.

Man can subdue any animal, but no one can subdue the tongue, at least totally. Even the “best Christians” have said things they would like to take back. It can be “an uncontrollable evil full of deadly poison.”

But it can also be so inconsistent. We bless God and curse men. “These things ought not to be so, my brothers.” A spring cannot bring sweet and bitter from the same opening. A fig tree cannot produce olives, or a grape vine figs. Asalty spring cannot produce fresh water.” But our tongues can produce blessings and curses, helpful words and hurtful words. Oh, how we need to guard our tongues.

¹³Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the meekness of wisdom.

Jacob wrote of wisdom in 1.5. Here he continues with that topic. A person who is wise and understanding will show that, not by bragging or showing off, but by his good deeds. The meekness of wisdom. In my comments on 1.5 I wrote, “Knowledge is knowing facts. Wisdom is knowing what to do. There are many who have great knowledge, but have trouble knowing what to do. As Christians we often feel unsure as to what we should do, what the will of God is. There is a spiritual wisdom that does not come from inborn intelligence, but from the Lord.” A part of genuine wisdom is meekness. This word is often understood as weakness. We think of a person who will not stand up for himself, and so forth. But meekness is not that. The Greek word refers to the inner strength which enables a person of strength to control his anger and desire to hit back which is wrought in him by the grace of God. Barclay calls it “strength under control” and says that “behind the gentleness there is the strength of steel.”

I think the Lord Jesus is the best of example of meekness. He says of himself in Mt. 11.29, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” He of all people had a right to lash out at people. He was totally innocent, but was accused of all sorts of evil and then nailed to a cross. Mk. 15.30 tells us that passersby told him to “come down from the cross and save yourself.” He could have and had every right to by human standards, but that was not the will of God. He was the mightiest man who ever lived, but he controlled himself and died because it was God’s will. That is meekness. That is strength under control.

The meekness of wisdom is the ability to know what is right and to do it whatever may come. That shows real wisdom.

¹⁴But if you have bitter jealously and selfish ambition in your heart, do not boast and lie against the truth.

A Christian may have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, but we must learn to yield such evil to the Lord and follow in his footsteps. That is putting to death the flesh, something we all have to do. If we are boasting and lying, that is hardly wisdom and meekness. This is not wisdom at all, but the world may think it is. So Jacob says,

¹⁵This is not the wisdom coming down from above, but is earthly, soulish, demonic.

There is earthly wisdom which says to look out for yourself and get all you can for yourself. But Jacob says that that is not the wisdom from Heaven. It is earthly, soulish, demonic. It characterizes the earthbound person who knows only the wisdom of the world.

It is soulish. This is a very interesting word. Most of the translations that I checked translate it as “unspiritual” or “sensual.” The version I normally use has “natural,” as do some others. But the Greek word is based on psyche, soul. I take the word to mean “soulish.” Look at 1 Cor. 2.14: “But the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him and he is unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” The Bible says that we are not just soul and body, but spirit, soul, and body (1 Thess. 5.23, Heb. 4.12). The body is obvious, our material self. The spirit is our means of communicating with God. Before we are converted our spirits are dead toward God (Eph. 2.1), but when we are born again it is the spirit that is born again, making us able to hear from God and understand spiritual things.

What about the soul? We saw in dealing with Jacob 1.8 that the soul is our psychological aspect, our mind, emotions, and will. The soulish man of 1 Cor. 2.14 is the man who has not been born again. He is dead toward God, having a dead spirit. Therefore he is unable to understand spiritual things. He does not have communication with the God who can teach him and direct him through the Holy Spirit. In relation to the world he does not have the direction of God, so he goes along with the world. His wisdom is earthly, worldly. And it is soulish, relying on the abilities of his soul. He does what the world does, not in meekness, but in lasing back, competing against others, trying to get what he wants for himself.

And such “wisdom” is demonic. We do not believe that Satan is omnipresent, present everywhere at once, but he has multitudes of demons (1 Cor. 15.24, Eph. 3.10, 6.12, Col. 2.15). They are in the heavenlies, the spiritual world. They study us. They know all about us, our strengths and weaknesses, and so forth. They know how to tempt us, to put thoughts into our minds that we think are our own, but are actually from them. That is what the world is dealing with without knowing it. But the spiritual man who studies the word of God knows about this and takes refuge in him. Do not let demonic wisdom lead you astray. That is not how we show good behavior in the meekness of wisdom.

¹⁶For where jealousy and selfish ambition are, there are instability and every vile thing.

This describes what is going on in our world. We are seeing great “instability and every vile thing” in the world.

¹⁷But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, forbearing, ready to obey, full of mercy and good fruits, without wavering, without hypocrisy. ¹⁸But the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those making peace.

Instead of being earthly, soulish, and demonic, the wisdom from above is first:

Pure. The Greek word for “pure” here is related to the word for “holy.” It has to do with being pure from any evil or defilement. There are other words for “pure. This is the emphasis here.

Peaceable. This word comes from the usual word for “peace.” It is not just the absence of conflict, but it has to do with wholeness as when all essential parts are joined together so there is no lack of rest because of something not being there that should be there.

Forbearing. The base of this word has to do with being equitable or fair. It is used here to indicate the wisdom of not insisting that someone be punished for each little thing. Rom. 3.25 says that God set forth the Lord Jesus as “a propitiation through faith in his blood, for a showing forth of his righteousness because of the passing over of the sins having taken place beforehand in the forbearance of God.” Instead of condemning us, God sent the Lord Jesus to die for our sins so that we would have his righteousness and therefore allow God to be forbearing to us. If God has forgiven us so much, should we not be forbearing with others? In the Old Testament there was a golden lid on the Ark of the Covenant where the blood of sacrifices was sprinkled to gain God’s forbearance. In the New Testament we have Rom. 3.25, quoted above, and Heb. 9.5, using the word “propitiation” or “mercy seat.” A propitiation is something that regains the favor or good will of someone offended. This is the sense in which the Lord Jesus is a propitiation. The Greek for propitiation is related to the word for mercy. For this reason the lid of the Ark of the Covenant is called a mercy seat in Heb. 9.5. God’s forbearance, his mercy, was gained by the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. Should that not gain our forbearance toward others?

Ready to obey. Heb. 13.17 says, “Obey those leading you and be submissive, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy and not groaning, for this would not be beneficial for you.” I do not believe that this means that we just blindly obey what a leader says. In 1 Jn. 4.1 we read, “Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” There are several warnings in the New Testament about false prophets, and they were in the Old Testament, too. We are to be submissive and obedient to those whom God has placed over us, not as rulers, but as those more mature in the Lord and called to a position of leadership. I would think this is like children obeying their parents, who know a lot more than children do. We all need to grow in the Lord (2 Pt. 3.18).

In addition, the New Testament is quite clear that there is not one man over the church, but a plurality of elders. In Acts 11.30 and 14.23 and in Titus 1.5 we read of elders, plural, being appointed in every church. The church is not a dictatorship. Also, Eph. 4.11-12 tells us that “he himself gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, ¹²for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for building up of the body of Christ….” There is no one man in charge who does everything. There is a plurality of ministries well as elders. And you will not find what we call a pastor in the New Testament.

Full of mercy and good fruits. We have seen in dealing with forbearance that God has set the example by being forbearing, merciful, to us. Should we not then be merciful to others. We are not judges. But we are to be fruit bearers. In Jn. 15 we read, “By this is my Father glorified, that you should bear much fruit and become my disciples.” Jn. 15.1-8 should be studied in this regard. We are not just to soak up all we can of the Lord and the word, but to bear fruit for the Lord. That fruit may be people that we lead to the Lord by witnessing to them. We saw that Paul says in Eph. 4 that there are evangelists. Not everyone is an evangelist, but all Christians are witnesses. The question is, are we giving a good witness or a bad one? Some of us are not in a position to be witnessing to many people because of health reasons or other matters, but we can all give to churches and ministries that do so. Some cannot give very much money, but we can all give at least a little. Think of the widow’s mite in Mk. 12.41-44 and Lk. 21.1-4.

One more word about fruit. I said that we are not judges, but I remember one of my favorite men that I have ever known saying that we are fruit inspectors. He got this from Mt. 7.15-16. We are not judges, but inspect the fruit. Is it good or bad?

Without wavering. The Greek word is used only here in the New Testament and has been translated all kinds of ways. It is very difficult to decide what the correct meaning is. It comes from the Greek words for “not” and “to judge,” which would lead us to believe that it means “not judgmental,” but we have already said that we are not judges, and therefore not judgmental. I think from what I have read that it harks back to Jacob 1.8, “a two-souled man unstable in all is ways.” He wavers between two thoughts, or maybe among more.  He cannot make up his mind about the things of God. He believes the good news, then doubts, back and forth. We are not to be two-souled, but firm in our faith in God through the Lord Jesus. Keep in mind that the current passage we are dealing with, Jacob 3.15-18, is about the wisdom from above, God’s wisdom, as is the passage where we find Jacob 1.8, vs. 5-8. Do not be unstable in all your ways. Do not waver in your faith in God. Stand firm.

Without hypocrisy. Hypocrisy was one of the Lord’s least favorite traits. Seven times in Mt. 23 he says, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,” and in v. 28 he says, “So also you appear righteous on the outside to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” In v. 33 he says to them, “Snakes, brood of vipers, how would you flee from the judgment of hell?” Hypocrisy is pretending to be something you are not or that you are not something you are. It is easy to pretend in the church that we are what we ought to be as Christians. That is spiritually deadly. Be honest about yourself. And it is very interesting to me that the Greek word for “hypocrite” means literally “under judgment.”

Jacob closes this paragraph with “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those making peace.” We are to be peaceable. If we are peaceable and sow the seed of making peace, we will see the fruit of righteousness. We saw in dealing with being fruit inspectors that there are both good and bad fruit. Some fruit is too sour to eat, at least to me, and I consider that to be bad fruit, though not evil of course. Some fruit is rotten. By that time it is bad. And there is evil fruit, that of the false prophets. Be peaceable. Sow the seed of making peace.

4. From where are wars and from where are fights among you? Are they not from here, from your pleasures waging war in your members? ²You desire and you do not have. You murder and are jealous and are not able to obtain. You fight and make war. You do not have because you do not ask. ³You ask and you do not receive because you ask evilly that you may spend it on your pleasures. ⁴Adulteresses, do you not know that friendship of the world is enmity of God? Or do you think the Scripture says in vain, “With jealousy he longs for the spirit that dwells in us”? ⁶But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” [Prov. 3.34 LXX, see also 1 Pt. 5.5].

Wars and fights come from one place: self. I want or we want something and we will do anything to get it, including fighting and killing. Most of us will not kill, but all or almost all of us fight to some degree to get what we want. Wars have killed many millions, or maybe billions, because someone wants something. It is all self.

It is interesting that Jacob says that our pleasures are waging war in our members. If we are Christians we want to do what is right, but we also have that pull of our sin nature that wants us to put what I want first, no matter what. We all have a civil war within ourselves.

Jacob says that the right way to get is to ask – ask God for it. That must be done in submission to his will because he will not give us just anything we want. Some things we want will hurt us and he knows that. It is possible to insist to the point that God says, “OK, but you will regret it.” That is not a safe way to go. What we should want ideally is the will of God, whatever it may be.

Or we want with evil intentions. I may ask God for something that I may know is wrong, but I think I can trick God into giving it. Ha! You cannot trick God. We are trying to get something that will satisfy our pleasures, not accomplish the will of God.

Then Jacob uses a rather strong way of calling us to do what is right. He calls us adulteresses if we are trying to get something that is worldly. Why would he call us adulteresses? About half of us are males. I think he is speaking to the church, which aspires to be the bride of Christ. If we are trying to be his bride, but are also in love with the world, we are committing adultery against God. We see this often in the Old Testament where God accuses Israel of harlotry because they go after other gods. If we do that we are enemies of God, and he is a fearful enemy. Don’t go there!

Then Jacob asks a question: “Or do you think the Scripture says in vain, ‘With jealousy he longs for the spirit that dwells in us?’” There are various explanations in the commentators, none of them certain. Let us be satisfied that Jacob knew what he was talking about. Second, the interpretation of this question is disputed. Most commentators that I am aware of take the word “spirit” as referring to the Holy Spirit. I confess that I do not see why God would be jealously longing for the Holy Spirit that is in us. It seems to me that he is longing for our human spirit. He wants it to be yielded to him and to be in touch with him. Just because our spirits have been made alive toward him by the new birth (Jn. 3.5-6), that does not mean that we are walking in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8.14, Gal. 5.25). We can be born again and still walk according to the flesh. This is what Paul calls a carnal or fleshly man in 1 Cor. 3.1-3. These people were born again, but they were not walking in the Spirit who gave them new birth. God longs for us who have had our human spirits made alive by his Spirit to walk with him.

He gives us grace, a greater grace, to do so. Let us turn away from the flesh, from wars and fights and seeking to please our pleasures. Let us turn away from the pride that shows itself in wars and fights. Jacob quotes a verse from Proverbs that is also quoted in 1 Peter, showing us its importance: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Pride is one of the most dangerous qualities. It causes wars and fights. It makes us adulteresses against God. It is spiritually deadly. Let us turn from our pride and selfishness and walk in the Spirit of God.

⁷Submit yourselves to God, but resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Keep in mind that Jacob is writing to Christians. In chapter 1 verse 2 he calls them brothers. He is exhorting his readers about their living out their faith. Perhaps some were not doing so, or perhaps he is just making sure. At any rate, he tells them to submit to God. Even though we are his, we can still disobey. Submit to God. Sometimes we do not like that word “submit.” It hurts our pride. Nobody is going to tell me what to do! But we have just seen what Jacob has to say about pride. And we have also seen that we are all slaves, to God or to sin and Satan. Submission to God is real freedom.

Many are afraid of the devil. We do not need to fear him because the Lord Jesus defeated him utterly at the cross (see Col. 2.15 – Satan disarmed, Heb. 2.14 – Satan made powerless, 1 Jn. 3.8 – his works destroyed). Rev. 12.8, properly translated, says, “… he was not strong….” My version says, “strong enough,” but “enough” is not there in the Greek text. Satan is not strong. But beware. Jn. 8.44 says, “That one was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth, for truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.” Satan’s weapon is deceit.  I wrote above in dealing with 1.13-15,

Satan is the cleverest liar there is, and he knows how to appeal to our desires for sinful things. We referred above to Heb. 11.25 – there is pleasure in sin – and Satan knows how to arouse our desires for these things…. Satan will never say to you, “I’m the devil. I want you to go to hell. Do what I suggest and that is where you will go.” He will make sin look so good, so desirable. But it is like a nice juicy worm before a fish. Too late the fish finds out that it has a hook in it. That is Satan’s temptations. It looks wonderful, but it has a hook in it.

Our defense against him is not to fear him and try to fight back. It is to submit ourselves to God and resist the devil. The Old Testament says more than once that God will fight for us. He is our refuge. Hold onto the truth and let God take care of Satan. “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.”

Cleanse hands, sinners, and purify hearts, you two-souled ones. ⁹Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and joy to dejection. ¹⁰Be humble before the Lord and he will exalt you.

This is the third time we have come to the two-souled man, in 1.8, in dealing with 3.15, soulish wisdom, and now. Jacob tells sinners, not lost people, but Christians who are sinning, to cleanse their hands, and tells the two-souled to purify the heart. We saw that the two-souled wavered between faith and doubt. The word for “purify” here has to do with holiness, as we saw in 3.17 about the wisdom from above being pure. Jacob says to the two-souled to make the whole heart holy, fully set apart for God, with no part left for the world and unbelief.

Have we ever been miserable and mourned and wept over our sins and let our laughter in the enjoyment of sinful things be turned to mourning and our enjoyment of sin to dejection? The word for “dejection” here comes from a word meaning “with downcast eyes.” Have we ever had downcast eyes over our sins? Sometimes people are proud of their sinfulness. “Be humble before the Lord and he will exalt you.” Let him do the exalting instead of trying to exalt ourselves.

This line of thought, though unstated here, has to do with rewards in the millennial kingdom of God. There are rewards and they can be lost. There are the crowns of life and righteousness waiting for those Christinas are faithful and obedient to God. Rev. 3.11 says, “I am coming quickly. Hold fast what you have, so that no one take your crown.” The second book of Samuel tells us of King Saul, “So I stood beside him and slew him because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen, and I took the crown that was on his head and the bracelet that was on his arm and have brought them here to my lord.” Saul was made king by God, but he was disobedient and lost his crown. Don’t go that way.

¹¹Do not speak down to one another, brothers. The one speaking down of a brother or judging his brother speaks down of law and judges law. But if you judge law, you are not a doer of law, but a judge. ¹²One is Lawgiver and Judge, the one being able to save and to destroy. But who are you, the one judging the neighbor?

Judgment has been a theme in this epistle. Jacob speaks of judgment in chapters 1-4, and in chapter 5 he says that “the Judge is standing before the doors.” The Judge is God, and he is the only righteous judge. Here Jacob says that talking down to or about a fellow Christian is taking the position of judge. We can inspect the fruit, as we have been saying, but it is not our job to judge. Only God knows the heart and all the factors that have made a person what he is.

Furthermore, if we speak down to or about a brother or sister, we are speaking down of law and judging the law. In trying to judge others we are putting ourselves above the law. We are the final arbiter. But that is God’s job and his alone. We did not give the law. God did, and he is the Judge. He is “able to save and to destroy.” “But who are you, the one judging the neighbor?” We would do better to follow Paul’s directive in 2 Cor. 13.5: examine yourselves. God can take care of the neighbor.

¹³Come now, those saying, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this city and spend a year there and trade and profit,” ¹⁴who do not know of tomorrow. Of what sort is your life? For you are vapor, appearing for a little, then also disappearing. ¹⁵Instead you ought to say, ”If the Lord should will we will both live and do this or that.” ¹⁶But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷Therefore to him knowing to do good and not doing it, it is sin to him.

In deciding how to live our lives we should seek to know the will of God. He has a plan for all of his children. One of the questions we often hear among young Christians is about how to find the will of God. I would say that what a person’s talents and interests and inclinations are is a good guide, but there have been many people who have started out in one way and then changed course. Sometimes God will interrupt a life and lead a person in a different direction. I think the best counsel is to pursue your interests, seek the counsel of godly people who will pray for you, and most of all to pray for God’s will and to live in obedience to him. As Jacob says here, we should not just take off in a direction we want without seeking the Lord.

He adds that we do not know what our lives will be. We do not know tomorrow. None of has any guarantee that we live another second. We are indeed a vapor. Especially when a person is young he does not have much perception of how fast life goes by. I can remember being a teenager and wanting to reach 16 so I could get a driver’s license. It seemed like thirty years before I got there. But now that I am almost 78, at this writing, it seems that life has gone past very rapidly. And the years go by faster every year. The right approach is, “If the Lord should will we will both live and do this or that.” I often think or say, “I will do so and so, if the Lord wills.” Boasting about all the great things I am going to do is evil, not taking God into account. Seek the will of God.

Jacob closes this chapter (though there are no chapters in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts; chapters and verses were added to make it easier to find a passage) with a telling statement: “Therefore to him knowing to do good and not doing it, it is sin to him.” It is not just that do not do sinful things. If we know to do good and do not do it, that is sin in itself. We are here to live for God and serve him. We serve God by worshipping him – that is why it is call a worship service – but also by serving others as God leads. When he shows us something good, he wants us to do it; if we do not, that is sin. Be sure to do good, not just keep from evil.

5. Come now, you rich ones, weep aloud, wailing over you miseries, the ones coming. ²Your riches have rotted and your clothes have become moth-eaten. ³Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be for a testimony against you and will eat your flesh as fire. You laid up treasure in the last days. ⁴Look, the wage of your workmen having harvested your fields, having been deprived by you, cries out, and the cries of those having harvested have entered into the ears of the Lord of armies. ⁵You lived in luxury on the earth and lived in self-indulgence. You fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. ⁶You condemned, you murdered, the righteous one. He does not resist you.

Jacob has a word for the rich who live in wealth and self-indulgence while refusing to pay their workers and condemning and murdering the righteous one. We would think these people would not be Christians, but Jacob does not say, and there are Christians who do not walk with the Lord and live for themselves. Whatever may be the truth here, Jacob has a strong warning for them. He tells them to weep and wail over their miseries, even though they are living in luxury. He says that the miseries are coming. They are God’s judgment on their way of life. Their riches will rot and their clothes will be moth-eaten. Their gold and silver will rust. Gold and silver do not rust, but God has his ways. He can rust gold and silver if he wants to. That rusted gold and silver will be a testimony against them and will eat their flesh like fire. They may be living in luxury now, but they need to sober up and realize what is coming if they do not repent and weep and wail over it, and repent indeed. That is the hell that is waiting for those who reject the Lord. The Bible also tells us in Rom. 14.10 that we will all stand before the judgment seat of God, and 2 Cor. 5.10, that Christians must appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive back what we have done in the body, whether good or bad, and to give account for what they have done in this life. Possibly Rom. 14.10 refers to all people, saved and lost, and 2 Cor. 5.10, just to Christians. As we have seen, there are rewards in the millennial kingdom for the saved, but they can be lost (1 Cor. 3.15, Rev. 3.11). In the same way, there are levels of judgment for the lost (Rev. 20.12 – “according to their works”).

⁷Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the presence of the Lord. Look, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient for it until it receives early and latter rain. ⁸You also be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the presence of the Lord has come near.

There are three words that are somewhat synonymous. Here in v. 7 and 8, I have translated as “patient.” The Greek words that make up this word mean “long” and “passion” or “extreme emotion.”  It depicts someone enduring under a long period of an unpleasant emotion, such as anger. It is sometimes translated as “longsuffering.” The one who suffers a long time under a trial without losing his temper and “blowing up,” we might say, is one who is patient. The second set of words has to do with endurance, which  occurred in Jacob 1.3, 4, and 12, and we will see in 5.11. It has more to do with bearing up under a difficulty. One of the bases of that word is the same as the word of the Lord Jesus, “abide in me” in Jn. 15.4-10. We abide with him under trial – we endure. The third word has more to do with bearing with something or someone that is tiresome and is not used in this epistle.

So – we take the statement here as “enduring under a long period of an unpleasant emotion, such as anger… without losing temper” – be patient. We are to be patient with all the troubles of life and the evil in the world until the Lord’s presence, his second coming. Just as a farmer waits for the crop to come in, so are we to wait patiently until the ingathering of the Jews to their land and the catching up of the Lord’s people to himself. The farmer puts up with drought, too much rain, crop diseases, and so forth, but keeps at it until he has a crop. He may lose his temper, but we are told not to, though I am sure we all have many times. Heaven help us!

Be patient. “Strengthen your hearts, for the presence of the Lord has come near.” I confess that I am not sure about how to deal with that last statement. People have been expecting the Lord to come soon for about 1990 years now. That does not seem near, but then with God a day is as thousand years and a thousand years are as a day (2 Pt. 3.8), and everything is present with him. Time will tell, as they say. Rest assured that he will come.

⁹Do not groan, brothers, against one another, so that you may not be condemned. Look, the Judge is standing before the doors. ¹⁰Take an example, brothers, of the suffering of evils and the longsuffering, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. ¹¹Look, we count blessed those having endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the goal of the Lord, that the Lord is much-compassioned and merciful.

Part of our patience is with each other. We probably all know people, fellow believers, who irritate us. Don’t jump to groan against such. We may irritate them! Jacob has already said not to speak down to one another (4.11). Here he says that we may be condemned. I do not think that means that we will lose our salvation and be condemned to hell, but God can condemn any wrong act, and we all know what it is to come under conviction. That is his condemnation of a wrong act or thought. The remedy is repentance.

“Look,” Jacob says, “the Judge is standing before the doors.” That is “judge” with a capital “J,” “THE JUDGE!” He is not just in Heaven or out in the universe somewhere. He is right here with all of us. Indeed, he is in us. You can’t get any closer than that. (Keep that in mind when you feel as though God is nowhere to be found.) If the Judge is at the doors, don’t do something wrong!

The prophets are a good example of longsuffering, the other word that has to do with endurance. Some of the prophets suffered for a long time – Elijah and Elisha, Isaac, Jeremiah, maybe all of them. They were hated and persecuted by many. But they stayed faithful to God and his word. How well would we put up with such? Would we suffer long or give up? They are an example indeed. We count them as blessed. Would we like to go through what they did to be counted blessed? Look what Job endured. I won’t go into a long exposition of Job, but he is an example of a righteous man who had not come to a mature understanding on God. At the end of the book he says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I reject myself and repent in dust and ashes.” He went from being a good man to a man who knew the Lord intimately. He learned that God was not just a God whom he could not understand in letting him go through what he did go through to understand that God is much-compassioned and merciful. He saw God’s goal in what he had to endure, really knowing the Lord and being fully his. He loves us so much that he will go to any length to bring us to this point. Job suffered long, but he endured and he reached the goal. God give us grace.

¹²But before all things, my brothers, do not swear, either by Heaven or the earth or any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no, no, so that you might not fall under judgment.

Jacob is simply saying to be an honest, truthful person. “Let your yes be yes and your no, no” so that people can trust you. I have heard people say, “I swear to God.” I think that is a terrible thing to say, but if you are always honest and true to your word, you do not have to swear by anything. If it gets around that you cannot be trusted, you might fall under judgment.

¹³Is anyone among you suffering evil? Let him pray.

What is the proper reaction to evil? If one is the Lord’s, it should be to pray for the evildoer. The Lord Jesus himself said, “… I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may become sons of your Father who is in the heavens….” We may need to defend ourselves or others if there is immediate danger, but trying to get even and so forth is not of the Lord. Paul says in Rom. 12.19-21,

… if possible on your part living in peace with all men, ¹⁹not avenging yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath, for it has been written, “Vengeance is mine. I will repay” [Dt. 32.35], says the Lord. ²⁰But “if your enemy should hunger, feed him. If he should thirst, give him a drink, for doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head” [Prov. 25.21-22]. ²¹Do not be overcome by the evil, but overcome the evil by the good.

I am not sure about the heaping of coals of fire on someone’s head. That sounds like hell and I have heard of people saying, “I hope he burns in hell.” We as Christians should not wish hell on anyone. That is up to the Lord. We should pray for even the worst people to be saved. He saved us. Did we deserve it?

Is anyone feeling well? Let him sing.

Be thankful for feeling well and give the glory to God. It is his doing. If you are not feeling well, don’t turn against God. He wants to use that for your good (Rom. 8.28-29). Trust in him.

¹⁴Is anyone among you without strength? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord, ¹⁵and the prayer of faith will heal the one being sick and the Lord will raise him up, and if he be one having committed sins it will be forgiven him.

This passage is taken by many to mean that God is obligated to heal anyone who follows it. I have been anointed and prayed for, I think more than once. First of all, oil in the Bible is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament priests and others were anointed with oil, signifying their equipping by the Spirit for their duties. The power of God can indeed heal, and I have seen at least one man get up and walk when we anointed him and prayed for him.

He had hurt his back and nothing could be done for him. He had excruciating pain. His doctor had told him that he would commit suicide. When we went to his home, he crawled into the room because he was unable to get up. Someone who knew him personally had asked us to come and pray for him, so we know it was genuine. After we had prayed for him, he got up. We were all praising the Lord. He walked us to the door as we were leaving. Suddenly he dropped back down in great pain. He was heaving like someone trying to throw up, but nothing came. Dry heaves. I thought, Oh no, we have killed him. But the Lord spoke to me (I don’t know why it was me. There were better people than I he could have spoken to.) The Lord told me that the heaves were whatever was wrong coming out of him. I told the group, and momentarily he got back up. He was healed. We followed him for years and he never had another problem in all that time.

I think the key to this is “the prayer of faith.” We have heard of many in these days who tell people just to believe that they would get something and they would get it, whether it was healing or a new car or something else. God was obligated to give it. I don’t doubt that many, probably most, were disappointed.

Paul writes in Rom. 10.17, “So faith is from hearing, but hearing through a speaking of Christ.” Faith is not just believing anything you want to believe. It is believing what God says. We can believe everything in the Bible because God said it. If God does genuinely speak to us something that is not Scripture, we can count on it. That is faith. Just wanting something and hoping for it is not faith. Just “believing for something” is not faith. Believing what God actually says is faith. In regard to this verse in Jacob, we should anoint all who ask for it and pray for them, but unless God actually speaks that a person will be healed, we do not have assurance that he will. We certainly hope that he will, but that is not faith. Has God spoken in the situation at hand? That is the key. Probably all us have heard God inwardly and we can rest assured that it will be done. We are also capable of thinking that he has spoken or trying to believe when he has not. This is holy ground on which we must be very careful and not just convince ourselves. I think that generally a committed Christian will know whether or not God has actually spoken. The best way to know in a case of praying for healing is that “the Lord will raise him up.” If he does not raise him up, it was not his will to do so. In addition, if he has committed sins, the Lord will forgive his sins. He will do this anyway if the person repents even if he is not healed.

¹⁶Therefore confess the sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The entreaty of a righteous one, being energized, is capable of much.

Jacob has just said that if the sick one praying for healing has sins they will be forgiven. Now he tells us to confess our sins “to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” I do not believe that every time we sin we need to get together and confess it, or that we are to tell about all of our individual sins. Some sins do need to be openly confessed, but if we confessed every time we sin it would take up a lot of our time and that of others! But we do need to be open about the sinful nature that we all have and pray for one another.

When Jacob says “that you may be healed,” he is using a Greek word that means literal, physical healing. The word that we often see in the gospels when the Lord Jesus says, “Your faith has saved you,” can mean either heal physically or save spiritually. In Mt. 9.22 the Lord says to the woman whom he had just healed, “Your faith has healed you,” or, “Your faith has saved you.” It could be either. I suspect that in this case it means both.

The point here is that Jacob is dealing only with physical healing. I think the essence of this statement is that you cannot expect God to heal you, and grant other prayers, too, I believe, while you are living in known sin. First confess your sins and be forgiven. I do think that God does not guarantee healing. We have all prayed for many people who nonetheless died, and the Bible tells us in Gen 2.17 that the day that we eat of the tree of life against his orders we will surely die. Adam and Eve died spiritually on that day and ultimately they died physically. We have all sinned and we all have died or will die physically, with two exceptions, except for rapture or being alive at the Lord’s return. The two exceptions, Enoch and Elijah, are another story.

¹⁷Elijah was a man of like feelings to us, and with prayer he prayed for it not to rain and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. ¹⁸And again he prayed and the sky gave rain and the earth produced its fruit.

Sometimes we put someone on a pedestal and think he is above all the rest of us. He has a special connection to God or something like that. We might think that about Elijah, who was indeed exceptional, but still he was just a human being like us. He was not a semi-god or some such. But God chose him to fulfill his role. His role was prophecy. Prophecy is a gift from God (1 Cor. 12.10, Eph. 4.11). We are not all prophets, but we all have a gift from God. The point is that Elijah was not some special being, but just a person like the rest of us. He, as an ordinary man, prayed for it not to rain and it did not rain for three years and six months. It was God’s doing, not Elijah’s. Then he prayed and the rain came.

The point is that we can all pray to God just as Elijah did and we can all see our prayers answered. The “secret” is that Elijah was praying the will of God. God told him to pray that way. Many of our prayers are selfish or just hoping for something we want. I think prayer should begin, usually, with worship and praise and thanksgiving, and move on to surrendering to him and seeking his will. If we pray in the will of God, it is likely we will see answers. There is nothing wrong with making our requests known to him (Phil. 4.6), but we need to do so with submission to his will. Paul’s word here in Philippians goes on to say, “… and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” It does not say that God will give us everything we want, but that he will give us peace. Prayer is not just asking for things, gimmie, gimmie, gimmie. It should be communication and fellowship with God.

¹⁹My brothers, if anyone among you should be caused to wander from the truth and someone should turn him back, ²⁰let him know that the one having turned a sinner from the wandering of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

It can be easy for a Christian to wander from the truth. It is not deliberate. The verb “wander” here is in the passive voice, indicating that the person wandering did not just do so on his own. Someone or something influenced him to do so. In 1 Cor. 15.33 we read that “bad associations corrupt good morals.” We are not to separate ourselves from the world. In 1 Cor. 5.9-10 Paul says that we are not to associate with the immoral, but he did not mean with the immoral of this world, but with immoral Christians: “for then you would have to depart from the world.” If we go out in public, work with non-Christians, do business with non-Christians, and so forth, we are associating with immoral people. We cannot separate ourselves from the world unless we are hermits. But if we deliberately associate with immoral people in more personal ways, we are subjecting ourselves to bad influence that might indeed cause us to wander.

Or perhaps we are not seeing to reading and studying our Bibles or to maintaining our prayer life. Possibly we are lackadaisical about meeting with the Lord’s people in worship. We just slowly drift away. Then Satan has an opportunity to steer us toward something we should not be involved in, not necessarily something evil, just something to keep us away from the Lord. Then it is possible for Satan to get us involved with something that is not true. He can try to move us on to something evil.

If we should see such a thing taking place, we should pray for the person and seek the Lord about how we may help turn him back to the truth and to serving the Lord. This should be done with caution so as not to stir up anger and self-defense. If we are able to succeed in this effort, we have turned “a sinner from the wandering of his way” and will “save his soul from death.” Some might think that saving a soul from death means that the person would be lost and headed for hell. It seems to me that the person who has drifted is a Christian and I do not believe that one can lose salvation. John says, “There is a sin unto death. I do not say that one should pray concerning that. ¹⁷All unrighteousness is sin and there is sin not unto death” (1 Jn. 5.16-17). This is a difficult passage to interpret. The Catholic interpretation is that a Christian who commits a sin unto death will lose salvation and be lost. We all sin even as Christians. If we confess our sins God will forgive us and cleanse us (1 Jn. 1.9). We will not be lost. Apparently this statement means that there is sin that is so grievous that the person will die for it physically. In Acts 5 we read of Ananias and Sapphira who dropped dead on the spot when they lied about giving the full amount from the sale of property. In addition, in 1 Cor. 11.29-30, “For the one eating and drinking judgment on himself eats and drinks not discerning the body. Because of this many among you are weak and sick, and many fall asleep,” fall asleep meaning die. It is obvious that drifting away from the Lord is dangerous business. We might indeed save a soul, a life, from death (the Greek word for “soul” can also mean “life”).

 I do believe that the real point of this passage is that we have a duty as the Lord’s people to try to turn a wandering Christian back to the Lord. If we do, we will “save his soul [or life] from death” and we “will cover a multitude of sins,” sins that he might commit if he were to continue turning from the truth. I have emphasized the matter of rewards in the kingdom that can be lost. Perhaps that fact has a bearing on this passage.

So we come to the end of the Epistle of Jacob.

Appendix

Wait on the Lord

As long as I can remember I have been a very impatient person. I don’t know if that is just my nature or something that happened to me when I was growing up or a combination, or something else. I have felt convicted about it and have tried to deal with it. I think I am better, but it is still a battle.

Some time ago I realized that I had been saying that wherever we are is where God wants us or he would move us. The Bible says to give thanks in everything (1 Thess. 5.18) and for everything (Eph. 5.20). That means that when I am impatient, I should give thanks. If I am where I am impatient, that is where God wants me. So I began to see that when I have to wait, one of my least favorite words, I should be waiting on the Lord. When I have to stop at a hated red light I am not waiting on the red light, but on the Lord. That sheds a whole new light on the problem.

There are several verses of Scripture that speak of waiting on the Lord. I will list them in the order in which they appear in the Bible.

Ps. 27.14: “Wait for I AM. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for I AM.”

Ps. 37.9: ““For evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for I AM will inherit the land.”

Ps. 37.34: “Wait for I AM and keep his way and he will exalt you to inherit the land.”

Ps. 40.1: “I waited patiently for I AM and he inclined to me and heard my cry.”

Ps. 130.5: “I wait for I AM. My soul waits and for his word do I hope.”

Prov. 20.22: “Do not say, ‘I will recompense evil.’ Wait for I AM and he will save you.”

Is. 40.31: “… those who wait for I AM will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings as eagles; they will run and not be weary; they will walk, and not faint.”

Is. 49.23: “And kings will be your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet, and you will know that I am I AM, and those who wait for me will not be put to shame.”

Lam. 3.25: “I AM is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.”

It seems to me that one lesson from these verses is that waiting on or for the Lord is an expression of faith. If I am where God wants me to be, and I am unless I am being disobedient, then I need to trust that he has me there for a purpose whether I know what it is or not. If I am having to wait for something, I need to trust and give thanks. God will bring it about in his time. He does know best. He has good reasons for making me wait. Maybe if I get what I want it will hurt me. Probably all of us have experienced that: God says, “OK. You may have it, but you will regret it.” Turns out to be true, doesn’t it?

There is another aspect. Phil. 2.14 says, “Do all things without complaints and arguments.” Impatience and complaining go together. I am complaining because I have to wait. All of that says that I don’t trust God. He is making a mistake. I don’t think God makes mistakes. So – trust him and wait in faith. Not only is his will perfect, but his timing is perfect, too.

Look at the rewards of waiting: “inherit the land.” In the Old Testament the land was everything to the Jews. That was their reward, their inheritance. It was inalienable. If someone lost his inheritance, the land, there were rules for his regaining it at some point, such as Jubilee. It is of great interest to me that the Jews have regained their land about 1900 years after losing it. That was a promise from God and it has come to pass after all these centuries.

We as Christians do not have the promise of land, but we do have the promise of a place in the millennial kingdom and on into eternity and of the greatest reward of all, being a part of the bride of Christ, but that reward can be lost. I do not mean that we will lose salvation, but there are rewards for those who are faithful and obedient and they can be lost (see 1 Cor. 3.11-15, Rev. 3.11). If we are faithful and obedient we will have such an inalienable inheritance.

If we wait God will hear our cry. Indeed he has already heard it and has known about it from eternity, but we must wait in faith for it to materialize.

Ps. 130 is especially meaningful to me. “Out of the depths I  have cried to you, I AM.” I know what it is to be in the depths. I know what it is to despair and not to want to live, but to be afraid to die. Verse 5 of that psalm says¸ ”My soul waits and for his word do I hope.” (My translation says “in his word,” but the Hebrew says “for his word.”) I know what it is to long for a word from God and to hear nothing for years, to the point of not knowing if he even exists. I cannot say I waited patiently, but he did hear my cry. Lam. 3.25 says, “I AM is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” As noted, I cannot say I waited patiently, but I did keep seeking the Lord in the depths. He did hear my cry.

Is. 40.31: “… those who wait for I AM will renew their strength; they will mount up with wings as eagles; they will run and not be weary; they will walk, and not faint.” Have you been weak, spiritually earthbound, worn out, fainting? Wait for the Lord and see what happens.

I don’t know that I can explain Is. 49.23 without going into too much detail for this writing, but if we wait for the Lord we will be greatly blessed and we will not be put to shame. I have done some shameful things in my life, but God forgives, and I will not be put to shame if I repent and wait for him in hope.

“Yes, wait for I AM.” He is faithful.

Copyright © 2023 by Tom Adcox. All rights reserved. You may share this work with others, provided you do not alter it and do not sell it or use it for any commercial purpose. “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10.8). Also, you must include this notice if you share it or any part of it.

Old Testament quotations are the author’s updates of the American Standard Version. Quotations from the New Testament are the author’s translations.