Charles Ellicott Commentary James 1

James, a servant (or slave, or bond-servant) of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.—Bound to Him, that is, in devotion and love. In a similar way, St. Paul (Romans 1:1 and following), St. Peter (2 Peter 1:1), and St. Jude, brother of James (Jude 1:1), begin their Letters. The writer of this has been identified (see Introduction, p. 352) with James the Just, first bishop of Jerusalem, the brother of our Lord.

To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.—Or, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. To these remnants of the house of Israel, whose casting away (Romans 11:15) was leading to the reconciling of the world; whose fall had been the cause of its riches; and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles (Romans 11:12).

Scattered abroad indeed they were, a by-word among all nations (Deuteronomy 28:37), a curse and an astonishment (Jeremiah 29:18) wherever the Lord had driven them.

But there is something figurative, and perhaps prophetic, in the number twelve. Strictly speaking, at the time this Epistle was written, Judah and Benjamin, in great measure, had returned to the Holy Land from their captivity, though many of both tribes were living in various parts of the world, chiefly engaged, as at the present day, in commerce.

The remaining ten had lost their tribal distinctions and have now perished from all historical record. This is so, even though it is still one of the fancies of certain writers—more pious than learned—to discover traces of them in the indigenous peoples of America, Polynesia, and almost everywhere else; most ethnologically improbable of all, in the Teutonic nations, and our own families among them.

But long before the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and even before the preaching of Christianity, Jewish colonists were found in Europe as well as Asia.

“Even where they suffered most, through their own turbulent disposition, or the enmity of their neighbors, they sprang again from the same undying stock, however it might be hewn by the sword or seared by the fire. Massacre seemed to have no effect in thinning their ranks, and, like their forefathers in Egypt, they still multiplied under the most cruel oppression.” (See Milman’s History of the Jews, vol. i, p. 449 and following). While the Temple stood, these scattered settlements were colonies of a nation, bound together by varied ties and sympathies, but ruled in the East by a Rabbi called the Prince of the Captivity, and in the West by the Patriarch of Tiberias, who, curiously, had his seat in that Gentile city of Palestine.

The fall of Jerusalem, and with it, the end of national existence, rather added to than detracted from the authority of these strange governments; the latter ceased only in the reign of the Emperor Theodosius, while the former continued, it is said, in the royal line of David, until the close of the eleventh century. After this, the dominion passed wholly into the hands of the Rabbinical aristocracy, from whom it has come down to the present day.

The phrase “in the dispersion” was common in the time of our Lord; the Jews wondered whether He would go unto the dispersion amongst the Gentiles (John 7:35, and see Note there).

Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations (James 1:2).—Better, Account it all joy whenever you fall into divers temptations—that is, trials; but even with this more exact rendering of the text, how can we, poor frail creatures of earth, it may well be asked, feel any joy under such? Do we not pray in our Savior’s words, Lead us not into temptation? (See Matthew 6:13, and the note there.) Yet a little consideration will reveal the teaching of Holy Scripture very plainly.

The Apostle here is following the same line of thought as that expressed in Hebrews 5:14. By use (or habit, more properly) our senses may be exercised to the discernment of good and evil. The grace of God given to the soul is capable of growth and enlargement, like the powers of body and mind. If either is unemployed, weakness must follow, and eventually decay and death. And just as the veteran who has proved his armor well, and learned to face habitual danger as a duty, is more trustworthy than a raw recruit, however large of limb and stout of heart, so it is with the Christian soldier.

He must learn to endure hardness (2 Timothy 2:3), and bear meekly and even gladly all the trials which are to strengthen him for the holy war. Innocence is a grace indeed, and yet there is a higher stage of the same virtue, namely, the purity which has been won by long and often bitter conflict with the thousand suggestions of evil from without, stirring up the natural impurity within. Temptation is not sin. “You cannot,” says the old German divine, “prevent the birds flying over your head, but you can from making nests in your hair;” and the soul victorious over some such trying onset is by that very triumph stronger and better able to undergo the next assault. The act of virtue has, in truth, helped to build up the habit, from which, when it is perfected, a happy life cannot fail to spring.

The interpretation of our Lord’s prayer is rather the cry for help to God our Father in the trial, than for actual escape from it: Lead us not, that is, where we in our free will may choose the wrong and perish. And there is a strangely sweet joy to be snatched from the most grievous temptation in the remembrance that God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

On verses 2-27:

Immediately after the salutation, and with more or less a play upon the word which we translate “greeting” (rejoice,James 1:1; count it all joy,James 1:2) there follow appeals on behalf of patience, endurance, and meekness.

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience.—And this verse confirms our view of the preceding one; the habit of patience is to be the blessed result of all the weary effort under God’s probation. James the Wise had learned it long and painfully, and he returns to his exhortation of it again, especially in James 5:7-11 (see these verses).

Let patience have her perfect work.—Do not think the grace will come to its full beauty in an hour. Emotion and sentiment may have their place in the beginning of a Christian career, but its end is not yet. Until the soul is quite unmoved by any attack of Satan, the work cannot be considered “perfect.” The doctrine is not mere quietism, much less one of apathy. Rather, it is this: that the conscious strength of patient trust in God is able to say at all times ()—

“My soul has followed hard on You;
Your right hand has upheld me.”

And if in this patience we can learn to possess our souls (Luke 21:19), the perfect work of God will be worked within us.

That you may be perfect and entire (or, complete).—A special proof in this for religious people may be taken with regard to temper. Few trials are harder; and sweetness of disposition often melts away from physical causes, such as ill-health or fatigue. But the great test remains, and it is one which the world will always apply with scorn to the nominally Christian, refusing to admit the claims of saintliness on the part of any whose religion is not lived out in the household as well as in the Church. The entirety and completeness of the life hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3) are manifested most by self-restraint.

Wanting nothing.—The older version, “lacking,” found in Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Genevan Bible, seems decidedly better. This is not a wish that the faithful should be free from care, heeding nothing. Rather, it is a wish that their whole lives might be without fault or flaw: a perfect sacrifice, as it were, offered up to God. And this idea is confirmed by reflecting on the original meaning of the word translated “entire” above in the Authorized Version (which translates it as “complete”), i.e., as an offering, with no blemish.

If any of you lack wisdom.—The Apostle moves on to the thought of heavenly wisdom; not the knowledge of the deep things of God, but that which is able to make us wise for our latter end (Proverbs 19:20). Few may be able, except in self-conceit, to say with Isaiah (Isaiah 50:4), The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned; and, on the other hand, the wisest and most gifted of men may truly be lacking in the wisdom descending from above.

Let him ask of God.—But whoever, learned or unlearned, feels in his heart the need of the knowledge of God, since to know Him is eternal life (John 17:3), let him ask for it in all purity of intention, simply, that is, for His honour and service, and it shall be given him.

That giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.—“Liberally” should perhaps be changed to simply—that is, God gives fully and directly, and does not reproach (or “upbraid”) the utterance of such a prayer, in no way detracting from the graciousness of His gifts. How wide the difference from any generosity of man! “Yea,” wrote Dante, in exile at Verona,

“. . . you shall learn how salt his food, who fares
Upon another’s bread—how steep his path,
Who treads up and down another’s stairs.”

The fool, said the wise son of Sirach, giveth little, and upbraideth much . . ., and is hated of God and man .