James 1:9-18

Notes

1. Distinctions are built up among men, based upon differences of circumstances or condition in life. But in the light of Christianity all such distinctions are shown to be fictitious. The true value of a man is shown to consist in his moral worth, and the possibilities of eternal life which are set before him. It is for what man may become in these respects that Christ died for him. But these advantages are open to the low as well as the high, to the poor as well as the rich. Christ did not die simply for the great, the talented, the wealthy of this world; but he died equally for those who are in the humblest and most destitute circumstances. Thus the "brother of low degree" need not sink down, crushed in spirit, under his circumstances, esteeming himself of no value, and harboring no high and noble aspirations; but he may read the great interest Heaven takes in him, in the infinite sacrifice made by Christ in his behalf; and thus he is "exalted" to the true plane of life, and enabled to take correct views of his privileges, both for the present and for the future; and in this he may rejoice. The rich man may also rejoice that he is brought to see himself and his life in the true light, and no longer to pride himself on circumstances which are of no value. Thus he is "brought low" in being enabled to discard the false exaltation of wealth, and estimate human worth by the true and Bible standard. The rich is brought low only as judged by the world's standard; but it is really an exaltation to him to become free from the world's low and false standard, and see himself in that light which cometh from above. It is sometimes said that "Christianity brings all down on the same level." This is just the opposite of the truth; it brings all up on the same level.

2. On verses 13-16 J. P. Thompson, D. D., has the following excellent remarks: "The philosophy of sin is given in verses 13-16 in terms that answer exactly to our own experience. God is not the author of sin. God does not subject us to temptation, that, through sinning, we may illustrate his grace. Trials as tests of our choice of good or evil, of our faith in himself, of our love and devotion, he does appoint for our moral discipline and culture; but temptations that look toward sin, and lead to sin, are the promptings of our own desires when these are loosed from the control of reason and conscience. The sin does not lie in the fact of temptation, nor in the susceptibility to temptation; but when we suffer our susceptibilities to natural good to be wrought upon to such a degree that they entice us to forget reason, conscience, duty to God, when these overstimulated desires come to a head in the decision of the will to gratify them—then do they bring forth sin. The counteractive to such temptation is a just conception of our highest good as in God, and from him; a patient, prayerful, unwavering trust in him, and the keeping his word in our hearts as our law and guide."

3. In 1 Cor. 15:20, 23 Christ is declared to be the "first-fruits;" and he alone is the first-fruits so far as his being the antitype of the wave-sheaf (Lev. 23:10, 11) is concerned, and also as related to "them that sleep." But Rev. 14:4 says that the 144,000 (of whom that passage speaks) are the first-fruits; and this at first sight appears like a contradiction. But now the passage before us in James comes in to explain, by showing that the word "first-fruits" is also used in another sense,—we are a kind of, or in a certain sense, first-fruits unto God. The 144,000 are those who are redeemed from among the living at the coming of Christ; and if James, as we have seen, also speaks particularly of the last generation, when the Lord is at the door, the relation between the two passages very strikingly appears.