And as Peter tells us to lay aside inbred sin, as it exists in the form of malice, and guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and shows itself in evil speakings, so James tells us to lay apart “all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness,” or “overflowing of wickedness.” Ah, beloved, most truly did Jesus say that the heart of man is a fountain of wickedness, out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts and all actual sins; yes, there is by nature in each one of us a superfluity of naughtiness, an overflowing of wickedness, a natural depravity, an inbred sin, and this must be “laid apart,” it must be gotten rid of by bringing and subjecting the heart where it dwells to the fiery baptism with the Holy Ghost, and then shall we be in a position to receive, with meekness, the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls.
St. James speaks of the “law of liberty,” and of the “royal law,” the latter being, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” and both mean, I apprehend, just what we have already alluded to as the law of love. “Love,” says Paul, “is the fulfilling of the law,” and this is liberty, and this is royalty, the freedom to do God’s will because we love it, and to have all the antagonisms to that blessed will expelled from our hearts, and all lawful affections and passions subdued and subjected to Him who is our King, and who reigns without a rival in our hearts.
“I worship Thee, sweet will of God,
And all Thy ways adore;
And every day I live, I seem
To love Thee more and more.”
If this is not the true liberty and the true royalty, where shall we find them? Not on earth, at least.
James does not spend words in exhorting us to seek more religion, but he tersely defines pure religion. And that is what we want. It does not depend upon age, nor size, nor growth. A stalk of corn may be pure as soon as it raises itself above the surface of the ground. Another stalk may be impure and diseased when it is many feet in height. A Christian may seek and find pure religion and undefiled, very soon after he is born again. Another Christian may spend years and years in seeking more religion, and yet not become the possessor of purity of heart.
This pure religion, according to our author, consists in works of beneficence and love as to its outward manifestations, but its true inward principle is in keeping one’s self “unspotted from the world.” Oh, that all my readers with myself, may thus keep themselves unspotted from the world, which involves the idea of being sanctified wholly, and in the end “may be found of Him in peace without spot and blameless.”
But an objector here interposes with a quotation from James which is supposed to preclude the possibility of living without sin. “In many things we offend all.” But this expression is not to be thus interpreted. To make it mean that all Christians must continue in the commission of sin to the end of their lives, would not only be doing violence to that which is the very trend of our author’s teaching, namely, a spotless morality and a pure and holy life, but it would also prove too much. For a little further on we read, in reference to that unruly evil, the tongue, “Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men which are made after the similitude of God,” and again, “Behold, we put bits in the horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn about their whole body.” Surely no expositor would maintain from such language that James was a tamer of horses and a profane swearer. The truth is, that James, out of kindness and courtesy, includes himself among his hearers or readers, and means to show us how liable we are to give offence through rash and ill-advised words, and then, on the other hand, he does not fail to mention the man who does not offend in word, and who is able, by the grace of God, to bridle the whole body, that is, to live without sin, and whom, again, he styles a “perfect man.”
Our author further informs us that heavenly, divine wisdom is first pure, then peaceable. The carnal Christian, or babe in Christ, would often reverse this arrangement. He is clamorous for peace, often to the extent that he would have a wisdom that is first peaceable and then pure, but the Holy Ghost puts purity first, and He is always right. No compromise must be made with error in doctrine, or evil in practice, even for the sake of peace. But when we become possessors of a wisdom which is first pure, then, also, the other qualities follow in proper succession, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated and the rest.
Listen, again, to the stern moralist and preacher of holiness, “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” Here, again, we can but thankfully admire the perfect accuracy of the Holy Ghost, as regards the method of full salvation. To cleanse the hands is to obtain pardon and absolution for what we have done, and it is always the first work of the unsaved man to repent and seek the forgiveness of his sins. When this forgiveness has been obtained, then his hands are cleansed, but he may still be double-minded. He may still be unstable in all his ways. His spiritual course may still be zig-zag. His life may still be a series of sinning and repenting, and sinning again and repenting again, till he cries out in his misery, “O wretched man that I am, who (not what) shall deliver me from this body of death?” And then James’s prescription comes home to him, “Purify your hearts, ye double-minded.” Seek and obtain the blessing of entire sanctification, and, henceforth, with one mind and one purpose, run joyfully in the way of Christ’s commandments. Justification first and entire sanctification afterwards. First cleanse your hands, then purify your hearts. And with this agree the words of the Psalmist, “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place?” “He that hath clean hands,” that is, whose sins have been pardoned, “and a pure heart,” that is, who has been sanctified wholly. The teachings of the Holy Ghost are marvelously harmonious in the Old Testament and the New.
Finally, James assures us that the “prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” And not only physical but spiritual blessing may be received in the same way for “If he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” His conclusion is that “The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working,” R.V., but I prefer to regard the Greek participle in the original as in the passive voice, and then the meaning would be, as suggested by Dr. S.A. Keen in his Faith papers, “The prayer of a righteous man being energized” (by the Holy Ghost) “availeth much.”