Understanding

1st, 2nd & 3rd John: Who Was this Man, John?

Who was John, and what does that have to do with reading his letters? Isn’t our understanding of Scripture all about the words of the text, and not the guy who wrote them?

Why it Matters - All scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit did not merely dictate the words as if to a channeling robot. If that were so, God could simply have skipped the man and written the words down by Himself, such as He did in the case of Moses and the Ten Commandments. God could have handed the completed documents to the Church, without any middlemen. Instead He used real people and real circumstances to reveal Himself and His truth to us, and the Apostle John was one of those people.

Those in the 1st century Church in Asia Minor (especially Ephesus and surrounding cities), who heard John’s writing (Gospel of John, 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd John, and Revelation) as it was read aloud in their assemblies, knew John up close and personally. They had seen him, eaten with him, prayed with him, and talked with him. They had heard him teach. They knew his facial expressions, and they had heard his stories about Jesus and the other eleven apostles.

They knew John’s heart – the way he thought about things, and the things he talked about. In fact, most all of the New Testament letters were read and heard by believers who were personally acquainted with the authors or with men and women who were closely acquainted with the authors. Thus, the believers were in a position to not only receive the bare text (words on scrolls) but also the underlying personality, heart and mindset of the writers.

We can say that the person and personality of John himself formed a “subtext” to his letters.

As John’s letters were read aloud, many listeners undoubtedly superimposed John’s voice and inflections. This is a large reason why the early, original recipients would never have thought to break down the letters into verses and phrases, and then study each individual verse or passage to “discover” its meaning. We do that sort of thing only because of the great historical and personal distance between us and the times and circumstances in which the Scriptures were written.

We can greatly improve our own study, understanding and “connection” to the word of God by prayerfully seeking knowledge of the authors, cultures, history and times in which the scriptures were written. “Meaning” is closely attached and related to these important factors, so the quality of our understanding and application of the word of God is also closely attached.

So Who Was John? - John was born around 10-15 AD in Galilee (the northern “country” part of Israel), and he lived and worked in the fishing trade with his brother James and their father Zebedee, in and near the town of Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. That is where John encountered Jesus and became His disciple (Mark 5:37).

We have no reason to believe that John was educated in any formal way before meeting Jesus, who named John and his brother James “Boanerges” meaning "sons of thunder" in the Aramaic language (Mark 3:17.) This nickname was a reference to their aggressive, youthful attitudes. John was probably around 18 years old at the time, and thus was very likely the youngest disciple of Christ. These were “men’s men,” rugged and tough, used to dealing with the elements and with people in the fishing trades and in the up-country hillsides and villages of Galilee. These were no soft, effeminate intellectuals weaklings.

The two brothers (James and John), along with Peter, are portrayed in scripture as the closest to Jesus of all the disciples. They were with Jesus to witness the Transfiguration and saw Moses and Elijah talk with the Lord. John was especially close to Jesus, referring to himself in the Gospel of John as “the one Jesus loved” (John 20:2), and being the disciple who sat next to Jesus, leaning back against Him to ask a question at the last supper (John 13:25.) In case this image seems a little soft and strange to us, we need only give place to the differences between our cultural norms and expressions, and theirs.

John was also the disciple who remained with Jesus during His crucifixion, and to whom Jesus entrusted care of His mother, Mary (John 19:26.) If we stop a moment and meditate upon just these observations about John, we gain valuable insight into John’s writing and where he was coming from.

Sometime after the resurrection of Christ, and probably before AD 70, John relocated to the large city of Ephesus in western Asia Minor, and it is held by tradition and by early Church history that he took the aging Mary with him to live out her days there. Today, in the ruins of Ephesus, one can visit the place where Mary is believed to have lived. One also can visit the traditional site of John’s burial. John led the Church as an elder (2nd John 1:1, 3rd John 1:1), and he was considered its beloved pastor for many years. He was also regarded as “elder at large” in the other six churches in western Asia Minor, which - along with the church in Ephesus – were the seven to whom Jesus addressed Himself (and John wrote) in the early portion of the Revelation.

Imagine how it would be if today we had a pastor or elder in your church who had personally spent over three years with Jesus, who was an original Apostle of Christ, and who had been essentially Jesus’ best friend, along with the other points mentioned above. How do you think we would feel about such a man, and is it likely we would pay attention to him and want to be with him? Now imagine he is away and sends us a letter. How would that letter be received?

John is the author of the Gospel of John, and of 1st, 2nd and 3rd John, as well as the Revelation. During his life and ministry, John discipled many others including several of the early Church fathers, who would themselves become elders, leaders and martyrs in the late 1st and 2nd century Church. The original Church was established by Christ through the Lord’s direct disciples, including John, and those who stood on their shoulders to subsequently spread the Gospel and the Church around the globe. 

In the late 1st century, during the reign of the anti-Christian tyrant and self-proclaimed god, Emperor Domitian, John was convicted and sentenced (essentially for being a Christian) and banished to the convict Island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor not far from Ephesus. There John received the Revelation of Jesus Christ and the messages of Christ to the seven churches. We can easily surmise that the Revelation, with Jesus’ messages to the seven churches, was given in part as an answer to the prayers of John for His beloved in the seven churches. We must not fail to read John’s NT writings with these personal relationships in mind.

Throughout his writings, John emphasized the theme of love, especially focusing upon Christ-centered love among believers. He also strongly and repeatedly emphasized adherence to true and correct doctrines of the faith, teaching and warning over and over against the false teachings of heretics and apostates.

Imagine once again that we had such an elder among us – that he had walked, ate, slept, talked, and learned with and from Jesus Himself, and he knew first-hand the truths that would soon be preserved in the scriptures. Now imagine some false teacher came along and started spreading some counterfeit message that subverts the Gospel of Christ. What would our elder do? He would do the same thing John did – he would come hard against such a thing, and he would do it from a very strong position of knowledge and confidence. To put it another way, he would speak (and write) with Apostolic authority.

Since we have apostolic truth preserved in the Holy Scriptures, we also can defend it against false doctrine and teaching.  

It is believed and held by tradition and early Church history that John was the only one of the twelve disciples not martyred for his faith, and it is also believed John lived to the end of the 1st century ( to possibly AD 105 or so)and to a very advanced age. There is a story in early Church history and tradition that when John was very old, the brothers in Ephesus would carry their aged, frail teacher and pastor into the assembly, asking him if he had a word for the believers there. John reportedly answered repeatedly, simply and softly: “Children, love one another.”

Wrapping it Up - If we were to summarize John as best we can, we might say he was extremely committed to truth, totally committed and unwaveringly loyal to His Lord and close friend Jesus Christ, completely sold out to loving, serving and leading believers entrusted to his care, passionate about protecting them from false teachers and from false doctrines, dedicated without reservation to advancing and preserving the apostolic (now biblical) teaching entrusted to him by Christ, and fully and totally convinced of the deity, sovereignty, omnipotence, incarnation, resurrection and ultimate victory and reign of His Lord.

Hey, that’s not a bad list of aspirations for any Church pastor, elder or believer!

In reading the NT writings of John, we may well ask ourselves: What was John passionately concerned about, and what did he consider important for the Church to believe, to do, and to think about? How do these things compare to what we believe and passionately affirm as the Church today? Can we imagine that John, if he visited our churches today, would be pleased? Would he be impressed? What things about churches today might trouble John? Are we addressing ourselves to the same passions and concerns as he did? If not, why not?

2nd John: Text, Subtext & Context

In his trio of letters, John repeatedly refers to “the truth” of the Gospel of Christ, and the importance of holding to it. He continues to refer to the “deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John v.6) who “does not have God” (v. 9) and who engages in “wicked work” (v. 11). The error of these deceivers is that they “do not acknowledge Jesus Messiah as coming in the flesh.” (v. 7)

Text - John is truly a pastor here, warning believers to reject false doctrines and teachings, and to keep themselves safe from heretical predators who would steer them off their course of sanctification and fellowship with Christ. John writes that such deceivers have “gone out into the world,” indicating these are very likely the same ones described in 1 John, who had once been connected with the believers but who departed, having never truly “belonged to them.” (1 John 2:19)

That is the text.

Subtext - There is also a “subtext” – something “under” the text, an underlying theme or set of facts which amplifies the meaning of text. As we have seen, these heretics and false teachers whom John repeatedly mentions and warns against were none other than the early Gnostics.

To gain a working understanding of the general nature of the false teachings John warned about in his letters, it is necessary to do some side research on early Gnosticism. This can be done using a Google search or two and reading a few well-chosen articles. Once this is done, the subtext is better understood, and the text itself gathers fuller meaning and significance.

For those interested, the following may be helpful. The second one references 1^st John but could also have referenced 2^nd John.

http://www.letusreason.org/Current48.htm

http://sunestauromai.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/notes-on-1-john-the-background/

More Subtext - We notice that John mentions “truth,” “teaching,” “commands,” “the message we have heard” and other such phrases over and over in his letters. What is especially challenging is that he does not write for the purpose of laying out these teachings and truths in a systematic way but assumes that he and his readers already have a common understanding of them based upon earlier instruction and experience. If we expect to find a complete, systematic teaching of doctrinal truth here in John’s letters, we will be disappointed.

Again, it is necessary to find the subtext - the doctrines of Christ, the incarnation, sin and redemption, justification, sanctification, salvation through faith in Christ, etc. These truths are mostly assumed just underneath the text of John’s letters, and it is necessary to incorporate them in order to follow John’s line of thought, and to appreciate the profound differences between the truth of Christ on one hand, and false Gnostic teaching on the other. 

This is one of the factors which can make it difficult to draw sound doctrines and dogma from short passages, verses or even chapters of Scripture. We can, of course, draw valid meaning from the text alone, but if a more complete understanding is desired, some grasp of the subtext is often vital.

 

Imagine three close friends attend a football game then discuss it in detail on the long ride home. The next day, one friend writes a quick email to the others two concerning a particular aspect of the game which they had discussed in depth. He would certainly not recount all the details, because both friends were there in person and already know very well what happened and what was discussed. A third party, who was not at the game and didn’t see it, would have a very hard time understanding the note at all, without going to the newspaper accounts, checking game commentaries, reviewing the stats, talking to one or more of the individuals who saw the game, and perhaps watching the game video. In other words, understanding the note would, for anyone besides the three friends who were “there,” would take a significant amount of extra work.

This extra work and investigation would supply the subtext of the email, so its meaning might be more fully understood. Unfortunately, this is not how many approach reading and studying the Bible. Not many are interested in investing that much time and effort, and many are unaware of its importance.

We are used to handy sound bites, snap opinions, surface treatments, trendy statements, familiar bromides, short attention spans, and moving quickly to the next subject. By contrast, more serious learning and reflection require careful observations, premises and conclusions, and they take time and effort to develop; mere opinions require little of us and are a dime a dozen. In our world, we major in under-informed opinions. Tip-offs are statements like “I just feel that…” and “I’ve always believed…” and “Obviously…” and “Experts say…” and “Everybody knows …” and “Don’t you just feel…”

Context – In addition to text and subtext, there is context. This has to do with the historical, cultural and grammatical setting of the particular piece of writing. John’s letters were probably written from Ephesus, where the elderly John was the Pastor or Bishop, to believers in Corinth and perhaps others. The letters were likely written in the vicinity of 85-90 CE, when itinerant proto-Gnostic false teachers sought to refute the truth of Christ and lead believers astray. John wrote to assure Christians concerning their fellowship with God and one another, and to warn them against false teachers and heretics (whom John referred to as “antichrists”), who were trying to lure believers away from the true faith and from proper community and fellowship in Christ.

Here is a helpful article which combines an analysis of context (relating to 2^nd John), along with commentary of the subtext of Gnostic false teachings:

http://www.equip.org/articles/2-john-10/#christian-books-2

If we can train ourselves to examine the subtext and the context along with the text of Scripture, and if we can learn to “read large” for broad meaning and Biblical connectivity before narrowing our study down to shorter passages and sections, then we will find a vast treasury of Biblical truth and meaning which lies just below and around the surface of the explicit Biblical text.

Of course, to train ourselves in these ways requires the empowerment and illumination of the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth. Our prayers are crucial, as we ask God for wisdom and for clarity of mind in interacting with His inspired word of revelation. 

1st John 5: Overcoming and Loving

We overcome the world, as John writes, because we believe Jesus is "The Christ" (v.1,4). That is, we believe Jesus is Eternal God who became man ("incarnate") to live a perfectly righteous and holy life, thus satisfying (fulfilling) the Law, the Prophets, the Covenant of Works which God made with Adam and which Adam ( and each of us) violated, and the Covenant of Moses, which no one else ever kept faithfully. We believe Jesus also dies a sacrificial, atoning death in payment of our punishment for sin, and that He rose from the dead and ascended to the Father, where He is our Mediator and Advocate. When we sin, He stands between us and the Holy Father God, as the righteousness of Christ is imputed those who come to believe Jesus is "The Christ."

John says that in believing (having faith) that Jesus is The Christ, one becomes "born of God" (v.1). He is "born again" from death to life, in Christ. The faith in which we live and grow is faith in Christ, by whom and by which we are justified (declared and viewed as righteous) before God. We were dead in our sins, and now our sins are forgiven. We were condemned by our own sin, and we were consequently and hopelessly separated from a Holy God, but our estrangement has been reversed by the work of Christ, and not by any works of our own.

So, says John, we have become "children of God" (v.1,2) by way of faith in Christ, and as children of God we are members of the family of God, in which we have many brothers and sisters who also are His "adopted" children by way of faith in Christ. If there is no sense of our being members of the family of God through our faith in Christ, then we do not have faith in Christ, though many fool themselves in this regard by claiming to be "Christians" yet despising God's family.

John goes on to say that we can know if we love (if we have love, if we are taking actions of love, if we are expressing love) to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We can know this by examining our lives to see whether we are loving the Father (God), and we are doing that if we are carrying out His commands (v.3). His commands, addressed throughout the New testament, have a lot to do with abiding in Christ, which in turn has a lot to do with abiding in and with the Family of Christ, that is, with those who are the children of God by way of our common faith in Christ.

This is the foundation and the necessity for our life in and as the Church.

Of course, we do not carry out God's commands perfectly in this life. None of us loves God or one another anything close to perfectly. But having believed that Jesus is "The Christ," we have been changed, reborn, and raised to new life in Christ - and thus we have taken on a new outlook and worldview which holds God and His commands in high esteem. To hold His commands in the high esteem necessarily includes holding His children, our brothers and sisters in Christ, in high esteem. And that means placing a very high priority on life in the Church.

So it seems clear that if we say we love Christ but do not love His children, we fool ourselves and are deceived. If we say we love His children but do not follow through with that declaration by obeying His commands to do so in our practical lives, and in the Church, we are also deluding ourselves. To Pastor Gary's point, this professed love for God and for His people is not something which is confined to warm feelings within our hearts. Such love cannot be confined but must and does express itself in outward actions, as we grow in Christ and as we live as disciples of His.

The victory that "overcomes the world" is not our works of righteousness, or even our actions of Christian love, but our faith (v.4) in Christ and in HIS victory. It is our faith in Christ through which we are saved, and through which we overcome the world with its sin, condemnation, death, and separation from God. It is by grace we overcome, then, through faith and not works. If we could have overcome the world with out own righteousness, we would not have needed a Savior in the first place.

But having been justified by grace through faith in Christ, we now have new life in which we grow in Christ without condemnation. We are free to grow, and to exercise and strengthen faith without fear of "blowing it" and losing our place as brothers and sisters in Christ. His victory provides us with that freedom. Our personal "victories" do not. Rather they are His gifts to us, creditable entirely to Him.

As John previously explained in this letter (1st John 2:19), those who dabble for awhile among the family of God, then choose to abandon that family, are proven not to have been "of" the family of Christ in the first place (1st John 2:19). That is a most chilling truth, and I think it gets very close to the heart of John's letter and his message.

1st John 4: In Context

John wrote instructing, warning and encouraging believers in the aftermath, and perhaps even in the vortex, of a church split. Some had already embraced the Gnostic heresy and departed from the community of faith in Christ (1^st John 2:19, 4:1; see also 2^nd John 1:7), and they sought to influence (pervert) the remaining believers and recruit them away from their faith in the true Gospel of Christ. These imposters, whom John referred to as “antichrists” (2:18) and “false prophets” (4:1), were extending anything but the love of Christ to their former brothers and sisters.

The Gnostics (or “proto-Gnostics”) asserted that Jesus was not “God in the flesh,” because flesh was inherently evil, and God could not possibly inhabit flesh. They denied the reality of sin, except to say that the only true sin is ignorance, of which they accused the believers. They held also that Christ did not shed His blood for sins, and that the idea of redemption by blood was preposterous. They also claimed to have secret, crucial, mystical knowledge which – of course – they also claimed the other, less enlightened believers did not have.

Under these circumstances, imagine the kind of a letter you would write if you were the Apostle John. I expect any of us would write a letter of reassurance and instruction with considerable urgency and intensity, reminding believers emphatically of what they had been taught, and warning them against falling away from truth into false belief, and how to tell the difference.

 John refutes the Gnostics by emphasizing the reality of sin, the importance of living a life that is “in Christ” and thus free from sin and its condemnation, and the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for all of the past, present and future sins of believers in Christ. John encourages and exhorts believers to hold to the truth, how to know whether they or someone else is “in Christ,” and to refuse all false teaching, false theology, and false Christology.

John writes these things with emphasis and repetition, emphatic and passionate in his delivery. John is the only writer of New Testament scripture to use the word “antichrist,” and here in chapter four (v. 3) he uses it to describe the Gnostic heretics.

In verse 4, John says of those having the spirit of antichrist: “They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.” He also writes that those who say “I love God,” yet show contempt for their fellows (describing the apostate Gnostics) is a liar (1 John 4:19). For the Apostle John in particular, this is strong language indeed.

Who overcomes the world? Not those with errant, non-scriptural, apostate ideas about God, Christ, sin and redemption, but those who believe deeply that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, came not only “by water” (physical birth) but also “by blood” to redeem us from sin’s curse (1 John 4:4, 8 and 5:4-5). These, according to John, are the ones who obey Christ’s commands, who live in Christ, who remain in close fellowship with other believers, and in whom the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ resides.

We cannot read John or Paul and fail to catch the importance of holding to the true Gospel of Christ, and to true, apostolic (Biblical) teaching. We do well to seek through diligent study of the Scriptures understanding of the true faith, that we may live day by day in the light of Christ, and that we may both be and make true disciples and not spread false teaching.

Lord, thank you for your amazing grace. Please grant us understanding, and teach us to use our minds, hearts and actions to live faithfully in your light and in your Kingdom.

Amen.

1st John 3: A profound Change in Direction

SCRIPTURE: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:9-10).

Note: 1^st John is a terrible book in which to read passages or chapters out of context. The book is short enough that when reading any chapter, it is best to read the entire book, otherwise it is extremely difficult NOT to supply our own meanings and intentions to the words of the author.

OBSERVATION: John refers to a great change in the direction of a believer’s life, in which the true believer perseveres. This recalls the epistle of James, in which is written: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (James 1:14) In other words, can he be “born again” and not practice (care about, grow in) righteousness? Can he continue to accept and embrace (be dedicated, committed to, and complacent about) habitual sin? Would not the regenerate person despise the sin and strive to grow in righteousness?

UNDERSTANDING: There is a faith through which a person is saved. James asserted that “faith” followed by no changes in behavior (“works”) cannot be said to have saved anyone. John certainly agrees. However, it is crucially important to understand that neither John nor James, nor anyone else proclaiming truth, would entertain for a second the false notion that works play any causal role in conversion or in justification. John makes the point that those who failed to persevere in the faith and in the fellowship “were not [were never] of us” (1^st John 2:19). Their abandonment of their former, apparent love for the brethren proved that their “love,” and thus their faith, were disingenuous from the beginning.

It is vital for us here to understand the meaning of “justification” as well as that of “sanctification,” and the differences between the two. Justification by grace through faith is the declarative pronouncement by God of a permanent verdict of “not guilty,” whereby the righteousness of Christ is credited to the one justified, by grace through saving faith alone and not by any works. The sins of the believer are paid for in full.

Something so important must be repeated: one is “justified” through faith (belief, assent, agreement, trust, acceptance) in the Christ of the Biblical Gospel, the Promised One who is God incarnate, who died for our sins and was resurrected for our justification (Romans 4:25). Justification (what we usually refer to as “salvation”) is the gift of God, and it is not attained by any works on our part (Titus 3:4-6, Galatians 2:15-16, and many others).

“Sanctification” is another thing. It is what John addressed in 1st John 3:9-10 and James also addressed in his letter. Sanctification is the process whereby those who are justified by grace through faith - converted, born again, freed from condemnation, and released from the penalty of sin - subsequently grow in Christ. This sanctification follows justification and is a result of it. The one who is justified WILL BE sanctified. He or she WILL persevere in love and in confessional grace and growth in Christ. Sanctification (growing in Christ with accompanying works of faith) does not bring about justification. If it did, we would be saved (justified) by our works, which cannot be.

A permanent absence of any progressive sanctification following a supposed conversion, is evidence of a lack of saving faith. James said that such supposed “faith” is “dead,” or nonexistent. It isn’t real but rather the stuff of false confession. Sanctification, unlike justification, is part of the incredible gift of God, yet it is not merely receptive - we participate in sanctification by God’s grace, as we act upon the faith which He has granted to us, if indeed we have received saving faith. Acts of faith in the process of progressive sanctification are empowered by the Holy Spirit and motivated by means of the freedom and gratitude for what has been given to us, namely justification along with new birth, adoption, and the blessed Holy Spirit.

A life of constant guilt, shame and self-flagellation, and a legalistic, self-condemning worldview without any meaningful growth, is a life in which understanding of the Gospel of Christ (and active belief in it) is not in evidence. Such condemnation (and self-condemnation) is counter to the Gospel, though sadly this brand of religion has appeared in and around the Church throughout history (see Galatians chap. 3, among others).

“Condemnation” in this regard is not the same thing as “conviction.” The believer is surely convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit, but the believer is just as surely not condemned. (Romans 8:1) Any believer who says he commits no sin, or who claims to only sin “occasionally,” is either dishonest or delusional. A believer who is honest about it will admit to sinning all the time, especially if we define sin the way Jesus did in Matthew 5 and elsewhere. The one who admits to his or her sin will be in closer touch with the amazing grace of God, whereby sins are covered and forgiven. (1^st John 1:8-10, 2:1-2, etc.)

LIFE APPLICATION: Those justified by grace through faith in Christ live in the Spirit, secure in His pardon from sin, and not in the flesh under tyranny of Law or works. A large mark of living in security and freedom is having a profound, awestruck sense of gratitude for having been forgiven, made clean, saved from death and hell, and admitted into God’s everlasting Kingdom.

Note that the reverse is preposterous: No one achieves or acquires justification by mustering up some “good works” and spending some time with believers so as to appear to be part of the fellowship of faith. Such will not persevere, though some may appear to hang on for a significant period of time. Those who do hang on for a while will often take on a terrible air of religious pride and self-righteousness. How could it be otherwise, when they build their entire [false] sense of security on their own supposedly good performance?

This approach might be called “whistling past the graveyard.”   

So, in the process of authentic Christian sanctification, founded on saving, persevering faith, we take regular inventory of our habits and motivations: Are we practicing righteousness, or are we comfortable and settled into practicing our favorite sins? Are we actively growing in ways we know are pleasing to God? Or are we full of self-righteousness or self-condemnation, for which we would have no legitimate use as justified people (Rom. 8:1)?

Or are we motivated by the presence and power of the Spirit of Christ Himself, in whom we are both justified and sanctified, and in whom we are convicted of sin as we grow securely in Christ?

It is our joy and our “reasonable, rational service” as believers (Romans 12:1) to regularly take such an inventory and to embrace adjustment and growth (repentance & continuing sanctification) by the power of the Spirit and in the freedom of our justification.  

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for doing all it takes to justify and sanctify us! Thank you for the terrible and great price you paid for our redemption, and for the gift of your Spirit. Remind us to live in the reality of your grace and your Gospel, remembering always that without any merit of our own, and without paying the price ourselves, we stand in the constant life-giving shower of your mercy and forgiveness. May we continue to grow in you and in profound gratitude for your amazing grace! As for those who are not yet converted to faith and belief in you and the Gospel, please grant the gift of faith by your grace, and cause them to become your grateful, growing disciples.

James 4: More Grace

Most of the so-called "news" these days is bad news. Politicians are accused of incompetence, failure, mistaken judgment, wrong ideology, duplicity, outright fabrications, poor leadership - you name it. We hear constantly about trillion dollar deficits, more taxes and a “fiscal cliff.” Congress is called “do nothing.” And those with enough stomach to tolerate nightly news broadcasts are treated to one horrific crime after another, punctuated by various complaints, injustices and calamities.

So, how about some good news?

Here it is:

“But He gives more grace.” (James 4:6)

It is rather easy to miss, but we should be careful not to skip over these words, for they comprise what may be the most important sentence in the entire Book of James. Just let this soak in a moment - after pointing out and condemning sins of covetousness, greed, idolatry, self-centeredness, spiritual adultery, loving the world more than God, double-mindedness and more, James writes, “But He gives more grace.”

Just how much grace is “more grace?”

“More grace” is enough grace to cleanse us from the entire list of sins James mentions here, and then some! What good news this is! In fact, it is great news, because all of us are guilty of every sin in the book! To put it even more succinctly, we are sinners, through and through. As such, our depravity infects every part of us – from our wills, emotions and attitudes to our minds and physical bodies.

“More grace” is more than enough to save us from sin and depravity. It is completely sufficient, no matter how deep or dark or extensive our sin may be. All have sinned and all are sinners, but those who hear the Gospel and receive it, who by faith agree with the Scriptures and humble themselves under the authority and grace of God, find mercy sufficient to cleanse them from all sins and give them new life and wholeness in Christ.

But what if we have already come to Christ in faith and then find ourselves falling short?

There is no “what if?” to it, for our absolute failure to measure up to the righteous standards of God is guaranteed! If we think we do not fall constantly short, then we have sinned all the more by thinking in such a delusional and self-inflated way.

ALL sin and fall short of the glory of God, and whoever says otherwise is either mistaken or lying. Yet for those in Christ, who have put away self-righteousness as the measure of their standing before God and instead humbly and continuously receive Christ and His work as their all-sufficiency, God’s grace is always enough.

None of this suggests that we are to be complacent about our sins. It does mean, however, that the only two choices which had previously been available to us are now replaced by God’s all-sufficient grace. These former choices were (1) complete despair and hopelessness over the fact we were lost in sin, or (2) fooling ourselves into thinking we could be good enough to establish our own righteousness.

God’s grace eliminates these choices entirely, replacing them with freedom to grow in Christ as we learn to obey His commands without fear of condemnation.

This is what Christ has accomplished for us! This is truly Good News!

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P.S. Rather than instill false pride in us, this awesome grace of God should cause us to humble ourselves (James 4:10) before God who “exalts” us by covering our sins and remembering them no more. Here, from James 4:11 through the end of chapter 5, we find numerous practical examples of what “humbling ourselves” before God looks like.

James – Background and History

The writer of the Book of James, “James the Just,” was the half-brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem. Converted after Christ’s resurrection (see John 7:5 and 1 Cor. 15:7), he was numbered with Peter and John as a “pillar” of the Church (Galatians 2:9). A Jew himself, James wrote this letter to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1), that is, to Jewish believers who lived outside of Jerusalem and around the region of Palestine.

 “The nations” here did not refer to the whole world, but to the fact that believing Jews had been dispersed and were living in exile outside of Jerusalem, in lands of the Gentiles. In Acts 8:1-3, we see that following Stephen’s martyrdom (a few years before James wrote) believing Jews were scattered “throughout Judea and Samaria” (in Palestine) and beyond there as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. 

Note that James wrote his letter to the “tribes” or people, collectively, and not to individuals. We might apply James’ teaching at an individual level, but this should logically be secondary to collective application, given James’ audience and frame of reference.

It is important to note that James was writing to Jews who were under persecution from the Jewish establishment. Some were being martyred, and many were economically and financially oppressed by well-healed Jews and others who severely disapproved of these Jewish converts to Christ. Believing Jews who had been dispersed in the persecutions had lost businesses, relationships, and livelihoods. Many of them were separated from their extended families, a scandalous condition at that time and in that culture.  

Themes

The main theme of James’ letter is that authentic faith, through which believers are justified and which brings the Spirit of God into their lives, results in allegiance to God and commensurate Godly behavior or “works” of faith, including perseverance through persecutions and through continuing economic and social oppression. James urged allegiance to Christ and to His commands, exhorting Jewish believers notto kid themselves that they could “merely” hear the word of God, profess having saving faith in Christ, but not have any outworking of that supposed faith in their outward lives, including especially perseverance in living faith through persecution and oppression. James did not invoke Jewish Law as a requirement for believers, but he did acknowledge “the Law that brings freedom,” that is, the Law of righteousness as taught by Christ, specifically invoking the primary command of love that Jesus taught above all others (James 2:8).

Timing of the Letter

James wrote his letter between AD 44 and48, making this one of the oldest, if not THE oldest book of the New Testament. This is important and pertinent to understanding the context and meaning of the book, for James wrote the letter BEFORE the first church council in Jerusalem, which was held in AD 50. This was the famous meeting in which Peter, Paul, James and other “apostles and elders” (Acts 15:1-31) conferred as to whether Gentile converts (a newly developing phenomenon) must be circumcised and required to obey the Mosaic Law. They agreed - James himself pronouncing the council’s judgment - that the answer was “no,” converts should not be under the requirements of the Law. This decision was carried to the new church in Galatia and beyond to all the churches, and it became the Biblical standard of faith and understanding to this day, though it is astonishingly ignored in many modern churches.

James wrote before there was a New Testament. There was no set of inspired writings setting forth God’s comprehensive truth concerning the roles of faith and works in salvation and in living the Christian life. The teachings of Jesus were delivered in person by apostles and eyewitnesses, and the very early Church’s understanding of those teachings would be worked out and deepened as the Church expanded and grew numerically, geographically, and culturally. Over time, this “apostolic” understanding would put into writing, canonized and collected as the “New Testament.” As mentioned,  this letter of James is perhaps the New Testament’s earliest entry.

James and Paul – Faith and Works

Throughout Church history there has been the thought - held by a surprising number who should know better - that James’ comments on faith and works contradicted Paul, who clearly taught salvation by grace through faith, and not by any works.

To start with, Kames could not have contradicted Paul, because James wrote before Paul did. Thus, if there had been any contradicting going on, it would have been Paul contradicting James. Since the early Church seems to have had no problem whatsoever with Paul’s teaching, nor with James’, there seems to have been no concern over any contradiction.

Paul, most famously in Romans, I Corinthians and Galatians, teaches heavily on “justification,” that is, on being converted and “saved” from sins by grace through faith in Christ and not by “works.” James, on the other hand, is not writing specifically about justification, nor about conversion, but he writes from a perspective of life AFTER a believer has been converted and justified. He is not writing at all about how to BECOME a Christian, but how a Christian who has been authentically and actually saved by faith behaves and lives. He reasons and teaches that if one does not behave in any way as a Christian, then the authenticity and efficacy of his or her faith is questionable to begin with.

If one’s faith is questionable, then because we are justified through faithin Christ, justification is also in question. This reasoning is completely consistent and in no sense contradictory with the subsequent teaching of Paul that we are justified by faith alone.

Paul is heavily evangelical in much of his writing, while James’ letter is heavily oriented towards post-conversion discipleship, especially perseverance under persecution. James asserts, in effect, that if there are no outward actions consistent with saving faith, then there is no real evidence of any saving faith to begin with. James is not suggesting that we are justified by our own works. Such a teaching would be antithetical not only to Paul’s later teaching, but also to the sweep of the entire Old Testament, which existed at the time and taught that the great men of old were saved by their faith and not by Law-keeping.

Some Biblical historians think there may have been Jewish believers who were drifting into a philosophy called “antinomianism,” the belief that through faith in Christ a person is free from all consideration of Laws, including Old Testament laws, secular (civil) laws, and all moral codes of society and the Commandments. Antinomians, for example, could freely and cheerfully practice adultery, theft, false witness, etc., with no though that they were violating their faith, and no thought that their faith might not be authentic saving faith to start with. It seems possible that James was, in some measure, writing in opposition to such heretical nonsense, pointing out that antinomian “faith” is not saving faith at all.

Paul and James do not contradict one another, but in fact are highly complementary, together providing great insight into the role of faith in salvation, and the role of works as proceeding from saving faith. We should be careful, therefore, NOT to extract short verses or fragments out of James (or any other portion of scripture) and attempt to build or extrapolate from them any legalistic doctrine or belief – to do so would be to lift scripture out of context, misinterpret it, misapply it, and do violence to it.  

Applying James’ Teaching Today

We easily observe that there are many self-professing Christians – both inside and outside of the Church in America - whose lives and behavior are indistinguishable from those of unbelievers. These are self-described “born-agains” or “evangelicals” or “Charismatics” or Roman Catholics or… take your pick, whose lives are in no way consistent with the authentic faith of their professed Christianity, but they would tell a pollster (or the person next to them in church) that they are Christians. They very often assume they are Christians, yet often without any real knowledge of what that means, and without any real particular evidence of life as a Christian. Though they CLAIM to be Christians, their faith produces nothing consistent with their profession, and is therefore in serious doubt as James describes.

There are also those who work like crazy to establish their own righteousness and not as a result of saving faith in Christ. We can join the Rotary Club and do that.

James would ask, “Can the so-called ‘faith’ of such people be ‘saving faith’ to begin with? Or are they imposters and pretenders?”

If one is saved through faith in Christ, then by definition that believer knows he was lost and bound for hell with no hope of salvation until Jesus Christ paid the ultimate penalty and was resurrected for his sin and justification. If a person actually believes this (that is, has faith in Christ as God and resurrected Savior), then his faith will bring - naturally and by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit - behavior that is different (more upright, loving and serving) than it would otherwise have been. This behavior will manifest, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, through the course of a believer’s life.

If we think we see “faith without any works” in someone, our reaction should not be to tell them they had better get busy and start doing some “works” in order to secure and “prove” their salvation. That wopuld be tantamount to telling them they are saved by their works. It would misapply James’ teaching. Instead we carefully should consider the possibility that their “faith” may be quite possibly “dead” (not real, non-saving, non-existent) and share the Gospel of Christ with them so they can hopefully receive it by faith through which they must be justified and saved. Only then will the outworking of faith described by James be possible and relevant.

Keeping the Gospel “Front and Center”

These are all reasons why it is important to keep the Gospel “front and center” in everyday life, not assuming that everyone has it “under their belts” and therefore has no need to keep on hearing it. Another good reason for this is that despite the process of sanctification, or growing more Christ-like over time, we are all sinners who continue to fail, so the Good News is relevant to us every day. In other words, we must continually reflect on Paul’s message of justification by faith AND James’ message of life as a Christian who has been saved, as we press on in Christ. Otherwise, we are apt to slip into either the heresy of antinomianism (opposed by James) or its opposite, legalism (opposed by Paul).