Bible Commentaries

James 3:17

I. Revealed truth—the wisdom that is from above—is "first pure, then peaceable." These two constitute a pair; they are connected by a link of peculiar significance and power. God preserves His own purity, and yet lifts the lost into His bosom; the guilty get a tree pardon, and yet the motives which bind them to obedience, instead of being relaxed, are indefinitely strengthened. Revelation is first pure and then peaceable; the Revealer is a just God and Saviour.

II. Revealed truth is gentle and easy to be entreated. This is not the view which springs in nature and prevails in the world. The wisdom that bids an anxious inquirer turn from the Son of God, our Saviour, and pour his confession into a more tender heart, is earthly, sensual, devilish.

III. Revealed truth is full of mercy and good fruits. So far from being in all cases united, these two, in their full dimensions, meet only in the Gospel.

IV. Revealed truth is without partiality and without hypocrisy. It is (1) offered alike to all, and (2) truly offered to each.

W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits, p. 141.

Consider the "wisdom that is from above" in its secondary and subjective aspect, as a lesson printed on the life of believing men by the type of revealed truth, as the image left on human hearts by the seal which came from heaven and pressed them.

I. The new creature, the work of the Spirit in believers, is first pure, then peaceable—(1) in relation to God; (2) in relation to ourselves; (3) in relation to the world around.

II. The new creature is gentle and easy to be entreated. Receiving out of His fulness grace for grace, Christians obtain, among other things, some of the gentleness of Christ. Those who possess any of it long for more. They speak of virtue being its own reward, and this is eminently true of gentleness.

III. The new creature is full of mercy and good fruits. It is a principle of the Gospel that he who gets mercy shows mercy. When a man is full of mercy in this sinning, suffering world, a stream of benevolence will be found flowing in his track all through the wilderness. If the reservoir within his heart be kept constantly charged by union with the upper spring, there need be neither ebbing nor intermission of the current all his days, for opening opportunities everywhere abound.

IV. The new creature is "without partiality and without hypocrisy." (1) Without partiality. It is not the impartiality of indifference, but the impartiality of love. Some people practically discover that to be impartial is an easy attainment. They contrive to care equally for all by caring nothing for any. This is the equality of the grave. Our text describes the impartiality, not of withholding, but of giving. No partiality for persons, peoples, sins. (2) Without hypocrisy. (a) In our intercourse with God; (b) in our intercourse with men. In Christians a likeness to Christ's sincerity has been begun; it is their business to hold fast and press on; it is His prerogative to make the likeness perfect in His own time and by His own power.

W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits, p. 155.

References: James 3:17.—Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 35. James 4:1-3.—Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 86. James 4:1-14.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 340. James 4:2, James 4:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1682. James 4:4-12.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 451. James 4:5.—Ibid., vol. iv., p. 332. James 4:7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii., No. 1276. James 4:7-10.—Ibid., vol. xxiv., No. 1408; Clergyman's Magazine, vol. x., p. 82.