Studies in the Epistle of James

by A. T. Robertson

James makes frequent use of the rhetorical question, as here when he boldly demands the origin of the strife among the churches of the Diaspora: “Whence come wars and whence come fightings among you?” This use of question gives life to style and is the mark of a good teacher. Note also the repetition of “whence,” which gives added piquancy. In the Epistle of Clement of Rome (xlvi) to the church at Corinth (about A.D. 97) he seems to refer to this passage in James, where he asks: “Wherefore are these strifes and wraths, and factions and divisions, and war among you?” Basically, ecclesiastical strife does not differ in origin and spirit from wars between nations. Sometimes there is even more bitterness. Certainly no wars have been fiercer than the so-called “religious” wars of history.

It does seem like irony that the two world wars should have come after so many years of growth of the peace sentiment in the world. But Christianity is on the side of peace, and Christians must keep up the fight for peace. Jesus left a legacy of peace for individuals and for nations who win it: “My peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). There has appeared one evidence of a better public opinion in the fact that in the war each nation sought to justify itself in the eyes of the world as not the aggressor but as being on the defensive. This apology is some concession, at least to enlightened Christian sentiment, which ultimately will banish war from the earth along with slavery, alcohol, the brothel, and other agencies of the devil.

Meanwhile, James occupies the standpoint of the Christian optimist, who fights for the highest and the best. So Simon Peter writes: “Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). We need not press the distinction between wars and fightings, though the first means a state of war and the lasting resentment connected with it, while the second refers to battles or outbursts of passion which occur during a state of war. James does not, of course, here refer to wars between nations but to the factional bickerings in the churches, the personal wrangles that embitter church life. “Among you,” he adds, to drive the question home.

James answers his first question by a second. “Come they not hence, even of your pleasures that war in your members?” James sees an intimate connection between strife and laxity of life. The case of the church at Corinth is a point where factional divisions and gross immorality flourished together. Plato (Phaedo 66) says: “Wars and factions, and fightings have no other source than the body and its lusts. For it is for the getting of wealth that all our wars arise, and we are compelled to get wealth because of our body, to whose service we are slaves.”

James and Plato agree therefore in finding the origin of war in the lusts of the body, but they differ in their opinion as to how to treat the body. Plato exhorts neglect and scorn of the body, while James urges the victory of the spirit over the body. “Plato has no idea that the body may be sanctified here and glorified hereafter; he regards it simply as a necessary evil, which may be minimized by watchfulness, but which can in no way be turned into a blessing” (Plummer).

The source of all war (private and public) is “the pleasures that war in your members.” The same word for “war” between the fleshly desires occurs in 1 Peter 2:11, and in Romans 7:23 Paul uses it of the conflict between the two laws of his nature. The word for “pleasure” does not necessarily mean sensual pleasures but that which is sweet and leads to sinful strife (like ambition, love of money or power). In Titus 3:3 Paul combines both words, “lusts and pleasures.”[84] “The potential pleasure seated in each member constitutes a hostile force, a foe lying in ambush against which we have continually to be on our guard” (Mayor).

In the Letter of Aristeas[85] the question is asked: “Why do not the majority of men receive virtue?” The answer is given: “Because all are naturally without self-control and are bent on pleasures.” It must be said that the philosophy of hedonism in this sense of the term has a powerful hold upon the average man. Buddha said trouble came of desire.

It is not an inspiring picture that James here draws, and one would like to believe that he has a wider outlook than the Christian community when he names his bill of particulars. “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and covet, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war.” Here Westcott and Hort make a full stop in their text, and this is probably correct.

The presence of “kill” before “covet” gives a great deal of trouble to the commentators, who find it an anticlimax. Mayor urges the substitution of “envy” for “kill,” but there is no manuscript authority for it, and the difficulty is not really mended. Hort has the most probable solution by this punctuation: “Ye covet, and have not: ye commit murder. And ye envy, and cannot attain: ye fight and war.” At any rate, the humiliating fact remains that lust, covetousness, envy, fighting, and murder are here charged against some of the readers of the epistle.

It looks as if some of them held to the view that they were entitled to all that they could grasp, that Providence was on the side of the heaviest battalions, that might constituted right. “Lust” is here used in the most general sense, like “covet.” The failure to find satisfaction leads to jealousy, fighting, war, and even murder. Covetousness leads to fights with individuals and nations. Lust in the narrow sense and murder are common partners. The fight is on in every man’s life against all that is low and mean. He can keep a pure life only by living the victorious life. There is also the common oppression of the poor by the greedy and grasping in all the ages. “No man shall take the mill or the upper millstone to pledge: for he taketh a man’s life to pledge” (Deut. 24:6). So Sirach (34:21 f.) says: “He that taketh away his neighbour’s living slayeth him; and he that defraudeth the labourer of his hire is a blood-shedder.” The opposite of all this pitiful business is seen in the nobility of love as portrayed in 1 Corinthians 13.