Studies in the Epistle of James

by A. T. Robertson

Prejudice Against the Poor (2:5-7)

James now has fewer maxims and a more argumentative style, like that of Paul. He makes a passionate appeal for attention: “Hearken, my beloved brethren.” He writes as an impassioned speaker speaks (cf. 1:16; 4:13). God’s choice of the people of Israel seems to be in the background (Deut. 14:1 f.). The Jews had come in many cases to look on earthly prosperity as a mark of divine favor and poverty as a sign of God’s disfavor (cf. Psalm 73).

The Pharisees were lovers of money (Luke 16:14). But the troubles of the Jews, in spite of many wealthy Pharisees and Sadducees, had led many of them to see a blessing in poverty. See Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Gad. vii. 6: “For the poor man, if, free from envy, he pleaseth the Lord in all things, is blessed beyond all men.” Oesterley (in loco) quotes Chag. 9b as saying that poverty is the quality that above all befits Israel as the Chosen People. Epictetus (bk. IV, chap. i, 43) says: “Another (thinks the cause of his evils to be) that he is poor.” Epictetus (Stob. 10) says further: “Riches are not among the things that are good.” Luke 6:20 has: “Blessed are ye poor,” where Matthew 5:3 has “poor in spirit.”

It is certain that the gospel made a powerful appeal to the poorer classes of society among Jews and Gentiles. Jesus claimed it as part of his messianic mission “to preach good tidings to the poor” (Luke 4:18), as Isaiah (60:1 f.) had foretold. He asked the messengers of John the Baptist to take back to Macherus the news that “the poor have the good tidings preached to them” (Luke 7:22) as one proof of his messiahship. Paul enlarges on the choice (1 Cor. 1:27 f.) by God of the foolish, the weak, the despised classes to add to his own glory. The early churches were gathered largely from the proletariat. Slaves and masters, rich and poor, mingled together in fellowship and brotherly love.

The papyri discoveries have shown us the world of Jesus and of Paul “in the workaday clothes of their calling.”[66] Deissmann adds: “We should be sorry indeed not to have been told that Jesus came from an artisan’s home in country surroundings.”[67] The fact that Jesus was a carpenter, a workingman in the modern sense of that term, should enlist the sympathy and the interest of all workingmen. They should heed the call of the Carpenter.

Here James boldly champions the cause of the poor as against certain rich Jews, probably not members of the church, who have oppressed the Christians and dragged them before courts of justice. With their own hand these rich Jews had dragged Christians before tribunals. Rich Sadducees had done this with Peter and John (Acts 4:1). As one of these potentates, yea, as a tyrant, Paul had once dragged men and women before the Sanhedrin (Acts 8:3; 22:4). He had even tried to make them blaspheme (Acts 26:11). It was not necessary to have special laws against the Christians. As objects of dislike it was easy enough, as Paul found out, to hale them into court. Paul came to know only too well how the tables could be turned on him when he became a Christian. He had to take his own medicine (Acts 13:50; 16:19). Jesus indeed had foretold that just this fate would befall his disciples before the courts of Jews and Gentiles (Matt. 10:17 f.; John 16:2).

The anger of these rich Jews against Jesus and Christians leads them actually to blaspheme the name of Christ. The Sadducees will not even call the name of Jesus when they discuss the case of Peter and John. They refer with contempt to “this name” (Acts 4:17), though in the threat they have to name Jesus (v. 18). The disciples rejoiced “that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name” (Acts 5:41). So “the honorable name,” “the beautiful name,” “the noble Name” (Moffatt) came to be the shibboleth of the believers in Jesus. His name was to be “the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9 f.). It was already the only name with power to save (Acts 4:12), as Peter boldly informed the Sanhedrin. That was the meaning of the name Jesus (Matt. 1:21).

Here one sees afresh the Christology of James. The honorable name is the name of Jesus, with a possible reference to the use of it in the baptismal formula—“by which ye are called,” “which is called upon you.” At any rate, they bear the name of Christian, given probably as a reproach (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Peter 4:14, 16). This name is now their badge of honor and glory. When called upon to say, “Anathema be Jesus,” they reply, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3). Certainly the early Jewish Christians had everything to make them fear the powerful rich who had frowned upon Jesus and his cause.

And yet James dares to say to the Jewish Christians: “But ye have dishonored the poor man,” “now you insult the poor” (Moffatt). They had done it out of cringing fear of the rich Jews with all their power, or out of anxiety to please the rich so as to win them with fawning flattery. We are not to think that all the Jewish Christians had shown such narrowness or such cowardice, but some instances had come to the notice of James. Per contra note the case of Ananias and Sapphira, who wished to gain credit for great liberality to the poor by the use of part of the wealth, keeping back half though pretending to give all. All the early Christians were not poor. The cases of Barnabas, Joseph of Arimathea, and Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary occur to one at once. Jesus did not denounce rich men per se, though he did point out with great power the peril of wealth.

James is not to be understood as denouncing the rich in a wholesale fashion. Consecration is what sanctifies riches—the use of money for the glory of God and the blessing of mankind. A man is not a child of the devil just because he is rich or poor. God deals with men in the raw manhood. “A man’s a man for a’ that.” The distinction between the upper and the lower classes is partly fictitious and is not a stable condition. The slums are a dreadful fact and a disgrace to modern civilization. People should have decent homes, good food, fresh air, and clean clothes. Extreme poverty is a peril to a man’s soul, as is great wealth. It is not a sin to be rich, but dangerous, though most of us are willing to take the risk. Epictetus (Stob. 10) says: “It is difficult for a rich person to be right-minded or a right-minded person rich.” Riches and poverty are not essential criteria of character. Over against the slums in our cities one may place the pious poor of Scotland, as seen in “The Cotter’s Saturday Night.” Over against the wild and reckless nouveaux riches one may note the generous givers of millions to missions and to education.

One must learn to be just to all classes and to do justice to all. A person needs full knowledge of the social conditions about him and the courage to apply the gospel of Christ to these conditions. But let no one imagine that sociology can take the place of the gospel of Jesus. Christianity is sociological, but sociology is not necessarily Christian. We need intelligent sympathy, but most of all we need the love and grace of God in the heart. But minister and man must be independent of bondage to either rich or poor and stand in the freedom of Christ.

Prof. H. C. Vedder makes a very serious charge against modern ministers: “This attitude of the clergy can be explained only on the ground of their economic dependence upon the privileged classes. They are the hirelings of capitalism, and, to do them justice, they earn their wages.”[68] This is a bitter attack upon the ministry for always championing the cause of capital whenever labor and capital clash. The charge is not always true, as anyone who observes should know. Organized labor is sometimes in the wrong. Corporations that are unjust to labor are often denounced in the pulpit. Let every case be met on its merits. Certainly the minister of Christ should be on the side of manhood against mere money. A man’s life is more than money.

James reminds his readers that God is not ashamed of the poor. In fact, he often calls the poor, as the world regards them, to be rich in faith. After all, the riches of the spirit and of fellowship with God are the true riches. So often a turn in the wheel of life leaves a man poor today who was rich yesterday. And death will separate one from all his wealth, save what he has given away. The wicked rich man may scout the poor saint here, but Lazarus will rest in Abraham’s bosom while the wicked rich man is in torment in hades.

But even here the pious poor stand high with God, while the wicked rich are despised. The poor may be heirs of the kingdom. Think of that—heirs of the kingdom of God, the glorious messianic kingdom promised of old and now begun, the fulness of which is in the future with God, the heavenly kingdom. But even here and now the poor saint is a child of the King and has riches untold. He has love and joy in his heart, a superiority to adversity, an elevation of spirit, the peace of God that passes all understanding; and that is worth more than all the gold of Ophir.

It is not mere pious platitude on the part of James when he writes thus. He is but interpreting the soul of mystic Christianity, real Christianity, as set forth by Jesus in the Beatitudes, where those only are felicitated who have the joy of the spirit independent of outward condition or circumstance. After all, the piety of the poor is a nation’s best asset. The poor will someday, many of them, be rich. May they still be pious! The upper classes run down and run out, alas, and have to be recruited constantly from the lower classes. It is the law of life. If we save the masses, we may save the classes. At any rate, it is a pitiful business to see a church of Jesus Christ ashamed of the poor, as the world regards them, for Jesus our Lord was himself poor for our sakes, voluntarily poor. “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9)—rich in God’s mercy and grace, rich in character, in likeness to Jesus.