John Calvin Commentary James 4:8

"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded." — James 4:8 (ASV)

Draw near to God. He again reminds us that the aid of God will not be lacking for us, provided we yield to him. For when he instructs us to draw near to God, so that we may know him to be near to us, he implies that we are lacking his grace because we withdraw from him. But as God stands on our side, there is no reason to fear being overcome.

But if anyone concludes from this passage that the first part of the work belongs to us, and that afterwards the grace of God follows, the Apostle did not mean such a thing. For though we should do this, it does not immediately follow that we are able to. And the Spirit of God, in exhorting us to our duty, detracts nothing from himself or from his own power; but the very thing he instructs us to do, he himself accomplishes in us.

In short, James meant only that God is never unavailable to us, except when we distance ourselves from him. He is like one who brings the hungry to a table and the thirsty to a fountain. There is this difference: our steps must be guided and sustained by the Lord, for our feet fail us. But what some object to, saying that God’s grace is secondary to our preparation, and like a handmaiden, is simply frivolous. For we know that it is nothing new for him to add now to former graces and thus enrich more and more those to whom he has already given much.

Cleanse your hands. Here he addresses all those who were alienated from God, and he is not referring to two kinds of people, but calls the same individuals sinners and double-minded. Nor does he mean every kind of sinner, but the wicked and those whose lives are corrupt. It is said in John 9:3, God does not hear sinners; in the same sense a woman is called a sinner by Luke (Luke 7:39). It is said by the same and the other evangelists, He drinketh and eateth with sinners. Therefore, he does not call everyone indiscriminately to the kind of repentance mentioned here, but those who are wicked and corrupt in heart, and whose lives are base and flagrant, or at least wicked; it is from these that he requires purity of heart and outward cleanliness.

Thus we learn what is the true nature of repentance. It is not only an outward amendment of life, but its beginning is the cleansing of the heart. On the other hand, it is also necessary that the fruits of inward repentance should appear in the brightness of our works.