James has a problem: his readers are being corrupted by bitter envy and selfish ambition leading to fights and quarrels. He has a goal: to help them learn to live in love and at peace with each other. Therefore he has a prescription for them: repentance. That is what his ten imperatives provide—a forceful call to repentance as the requisite to love and peace in the community.

There is a clear structure to this paragraph. Submit yourselves to God states the theme, which is indicated by the insertion of then to be an application drawn immediately from the preceding Proverbs 3:34. Humble yourselves before the Lord is also drawn from Proverbs 3:34 by repetition of the term for humble in verb form. These first and last of the ten imperatives are intended to be synonymous, the former introducing and the latter summarizing the theme. In between, the imperatives flow in three couplets.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Come near to God and he will come near to you.

Wash your hands, you sinners,
and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Grieve, mourn and wail.
Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

James's description of becoming humble or submissive before God, then, begins with a willful rejection of and opposition to the devil, complemented by a deliberate choosing of God instead of the devil. It reflects the biblical worldview of God's enmity with evil and the choice this requires of us. God opposes or resists (antitasso) the proud in 4:6; now in 4:7 we are to oppose or resist (anthistemi) the devil. The verb anthistemi has the middle sense of "set oneself against" and so emphasizes the Christian's deliberately chosen personal stance. The contrasting action that we are to take toward God is to come near. Thus James has put this entire section in terms of knowing the choice to be made: friendship with the world or friendship with God, opposing the devil or opposing God.

Along with the presentation of this choice comes a pair of promises to encourage James's readers. The devil . . . will flee from you. Meanwhile, God . . . will come near to you. Just as there is a continuity between God's stance toward the devil and our own (opposing him), so now there is a continuity between our reverse action toward God and his action toward us (drawing near). The same verb engizo identifies our act and God's act of drawing near, to make definite that God will not give himself to us any less than we give ourselves to him. This is an assurance of God's readiness and availability.

The middle couplet requires a sincere purifying of one's life, since both verbs (katharizo and hagnizo) emphasize a moral and ceremonial cleansing, and since the two objects (your hands . . . your hearts) complement each other for external and internal cleansing. The essential connection between external washing and inward purifying is already an Old Testament theme in James's background (Deut 10:16; Is 1:15-17). James may also be prompted by Jesus' own teaching on washing of hands and purification within (Mk 7). An evidence of the unity of thought in James's letter is his reference to the double-minded in 4:8. It is the same term as in 1:8, where the double-minded man is condemned as "unstable," akatastatos. This is the evil James abhors in 3:16 as the "disorder," akatastasia, resulting from selfish ambition. From the very beginning of the epistle, James is giving a consistent picture of authentic Christian faith in practice.

The third couplet describes deep and acute sorrow—not merely regret over mistakes but actual grieving, mourning and wailing over one's sin. The three verbs, in order, make vivid impressions: talaiporeo, a state of being miserable or wretched; pentheo, the great sadness of mourning; and klaio, a vehement or bitter weeping. Again James is calling for what Jesus prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:4, using a participle of the verb pentheo). The seriousness of sin is unmistakable here, and Christians today who lack that sense of seriousness about sin are weakened and corrupted. Tasker sees the importance of this application: "When the Christian compromises with the world and is double minded, it is a sure sign that his sense of the gravity of sin has become blunted" (1983:95). James is unapologetic and authoritative in his command to such a person: Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. We should not be afraid today to call for such deeply felt repentance.

The whole paragraph (not just the third couplet, as in Davids 1982:167) is a portrait of repentance. Repentance is an act of humble submission to God which includes a choice to resist the devil and to draw near to God, a commitment to moral purity both externally and internally, and a genuine remorse for one's sin.

I would love to know how James's message was received in his day. James is properly described as a "prophet-pastor" (Webster 1991:22), and I wonder whether he sounded too much like the Old Testament prophets to be very popular. He may be recalling passages like Amos's prophecies of wailing and mourning (5:16; 8:10). Amos was ordered to go away and stop prophesying. James's message is not the kind of spiritual direction most people want to hear today; the church is being pressured to rely on counsel that is only affirming, programs that are merely entertaining and music that is always upbeat. Yet the problems James has addressed require a submission that is humbling, a resistance that is demanding, an attitude that is sorrowful and life changes that are radical.

At the same time, these steps are reinforced with encouraging promises: the devil . . . will flee from you, God . . . will come near to you, and the Lord . . . will lift you up. Such promises certainly direct us to a reliance on God rather than our good works. The assurance that God will lift you up is not explicitly defined. However, since submit yourselves, then, to God is the direct application from Proverbs 3:34, and since humble yourselves before the Lord restates that first imperative to summarize the paragraph, the promise of being lifted up probably refers back to the promise of grace in 4:6. From the context of the intervening imperatives, James would be telling us to expect that God will come near to forgive sin, to restore joy and to strengthen the repentant sinner to live in purity and righteousness. Seeing the requirement of radical life changes in 4:710 expands our appreciation for that preceding promise in 4:6—he gives us more grace. Motyer comments, "What comfort there is in this verse! It tells us that God is tirelessly on our side. He never falters in respect of our needs, he always has more grace at hand for us. He is never less than sufficient, he always has more and yet more to give" (1985:150).

It would be accurate to say that James's entire letter is instructing us to live in reliance on God's grace. That sounded tame enough until James applied it to actual practice, such as ending hatred and fights. Now we see just how radical this proposition of grace-reliance really is. How do we manage not to curse people who treat us with such hostility and injustice that cursing them is exactly what we want to do? The answer is the course James has described: examination of one's own desires, choice to want God instead of the world, repentance for sin and reliance on God's grace.

Ralph Bell, an associate evangelist with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, is a godly man who tells of learning grace-reliance in a deeply personal way. Bell is a Canadian-born black man who lives and ministers in the United States. As a young man, he struggled with experiences of racial insults and discrimination. Being so treated by fellow Christians, who were disobeying James's instructions about impartiality, was especially hurtful. Bell shared his struggles with his mother, who counseled him to keep his eyes on Jesus, because Jesus would never disappoint him. As he sought to apply that advice, he began to find the grace to see others' racism as their problem. He further sought grace from God to purify his own life of hatred toward those who mistreated him. In James's terms, Ralph Bell humbled himself before the Lord, and he found himself being lifted up by the grace of God to be able to love his enemies. How does one love hostile and hurtful people? The answer is supernaturally, by relying on the grace that God gives to the humble.

10 expands our appreciation for that preceding promise in 4:6—he gives us more grace. Motyer comments, "What comfort there is in this verse! It tells us that God is tirelessly on our side. He never falters in respect of our needs, he always has more grace at hand for us. He is never less than sufficient, he always has more and yet more to give" (1985:150).

It would be accurate to say that James's entire letter is instructing us to live in reliance on God's grace. That sounded tame enough until James applied it to actual practice, such as ending hatred and fights. Now we see just how radical this proposition of grace-reliance really is. How do we manage not to curse people who treat us with such hostility and injustice that cursing them is exactly what we want to do? The answer is the course James has described: examination of one's own desires, choice to want God instead of the world, repentance for sin and reliance on God's grace.

Ralph Bell, an associate evangelist with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, is a godly man who tells of learning grace-reliance in a deeply personal way. Bell is a Canadian-born black man who lives and ministers in the United States. As a young man, he struggled with experiences of racial insults and discrimination. Being so treated by fellow Christians, who were disobeying James's instructions about impartiality, was especially hurtful. Bell shared his struggles with his mother, who counseled him to keep his eyes on Jesus, because Jesus would never disappoint him. As he sought to apply that advice, he began to find the grace to see others' racism as their problem. He further sought grace from God to purify his own life of hatred toward those who mistreated him. In James's terms, Ralph Bell humbled himself before the Lord, and he found himself being lifted up by the grace of God to be able to love his enemies. How does one love hostile and hurtful people? The answer is supernaturally, by relying on the grace that God gives to the humble.