Perhaps the chief emphasis in this verse lies in the word “continueth.” The man remains by the side of the roll of the law spread out before him and unrolls page after page with the keenest interest and zest until he rightly grasps the meaning of God. Thus he puts the Word into practice. He has it stamped on his mind and heart. He is a Christian pragmatist. He, like Brother Lawrence, practices the presence of God. He translates the word of truth into his own life and becomes a living epistle. This is the Bible that the twentieth century loves to read. The man who does this is “happy in his doing,” “blessed in his activity” (Moffatt). He is happy in the doing, even if it falls far short of the ideal in the word of truth. He has tried, and he will keep on trying. He can sing the song of the shirt, the song of the plow, the song of the desk.
Complacent Religiosity (1:26)
Mere listening may be idle. Mere work may be perfunctory. One may be a worker only as well as a hearer only. The hearer only deceives himself by an error of reason (1:22). The worker only deceives his own heart by an error of conduct. He leads himself astray, out of the path, by the delusion that religion consists in the performance of religious duties, not in the attitude toward God in the heart or the ethical conduct. Paul uses the term for Pharisaism (Acts 26:5) and in Colossians 2:18 for the worship of the angels. It is the external aspect of public worship. Originally it had the meaning of reverence for the gods (Hort), but it soon came to be used for the ceremonial rites of worship. In 4 Maccabees 5:6 the word is used for the refusal of the Jews to eat pork.
In a word, it is applied to one who does faithfully the religious chores. The Pharisees form a striking illustration of this emphasis on the ceremonial side of public worship. The regular attendance at the hours of prayer, faithful observance of the rules of ritual purification, payment of the tithes—these things constituted worship. Finally, these alone constituted worship. Religion came to consist in the ceremony alone, the letter and not the spirit, the hull and not the kernel.
Most of the things done were good enough. It is good to have the outside of the cup clean but not so important as the inside or as clean water in the cup. Jesus exposed this failing of the Pharisees with great incisiveness and power. It is easy to mistake form for reality. So men have come to count their beads as prayer, to pray with prayer wheels. A person may attend church regularly, contribute liberally, come to prayer meeting, have family prayers, be a member of the church, and yet not be religious. He may have religiosity and not religion. One may mistake performance of religious functions for the possession of the spirit of religion. In the very act of working out the religious impulse men often fall into traps. So here the man considers that he is a religious man. He is content with his religious status, and yet he does not control his tongue. “He bridleth not his tongue”; this is the earliest known use of this striking figure, though Aristophanes speaks of an unbridled mouth.
The tongue is regarded as an unruly horse that needs bit and bridle held fast by the master to control it. The tongue is allowed to say whatever a spiteful heart prompts. The bitterest words are not felt to be inconsistent with personal piety. Such a man considers himself a pillar of the church in spite of his loose tongue and loose living. He performs religious duties on Sunday and is a shyster on Monday. He deceives himself, but no one else is deceived. Such a man’s religious service is empty of any value with God or man. It is vain and hollow mockery. His own complacency makes the matter worse. He is a stumbling block to those who judge religion by him, for he has divorced religion from life.
Unspotted from the World (1:27)
James does not give a definition of religion in this verse but an illustration of the right sort of religious exercise in contrast with the futile religiosity already noted. The absence of the article shows that he does not mean an inclusive description. “A religious exercise pure and undefiled” is here given quite the opposite meaning of the professional performances of the pharisaic pietists. There is pure religion, and the counterfeit is a tribute to it. This religion is free from pollution. There is in it no alloy of selfishness nor other sin. Moffatt renders it “unsoiled,” but it may have the notion of genuine metal.
This standard of purity and piety seems impossible, but God knows how to estimate the relation between listening and doing, between doing and loving, between loving and purity of life. The life must pass muster with God. At first sight one is perhaps depressed by the reflection that God’s standard of piety is so much higher than ours. What some men consider holy worship is to God hollow mockery. But then God is our Father. He planted the word of truth in our hearts. He has watched it grow. He knows the limitations of environment in which the tree of life has grown.
James gives two very practical tests of genuine religion. One is mercy toward the suffering. The widow and the orphan appeal to the hardest hearts. And yet men have been known to spend thousands of dollars upon palaces of worship while the poor perished in the alley behind the church. The social side of practical religion is receiving more attention these days than it once did. The very hospitals and asylums are an expression of that love for our common humanity taught by Jesus. James has no sympathy with that cold orthodoxy that is satisfied with singing psalms to Jehovah while the widow and the orphan suffer, with no help from the blind worshipers nearby.