The judgments coming upon the wicked rich.
This apostrophe is so dreadful that we cannot imagine it to have been addressed to professing Christians. It would rather seem that the apostle here turns aside to glance at the godless rich Jews of his time, who were in the habit of persecuting the Church and defrauding the poor (James 2:6, James 2:7). His words regarding them are words of stern denunciation. Like one of the old Hebrew prophets, he curses them in the name of the Lord. Its design in doing so, however, must have been in unison with his life-work as a Christian apostle, laboring in "the acceptable time;" he sought, by proclaiming the terrors of the Lord, to persuade to repentance and a holy life. The paragraph breaks naturally into three sections. James 5:1 refers to the future; James 5:2, James 5:3 to the present; James 5:4-6 mainly to the past. We shall consider these three sections in the inverse order.
I. THE CAUSES OF JUDGMENT IN THE PAST. (James 5:4-6) James mentions three.
1. Heartless injustice. (Verse 4) The humane Law of Moses forbade that the wages of the hired laborer be kept back even for a single night (Deuteronomy 24:14, Deuteronomy 24:15); but these wicked men had paid no heed to that Law. They had grown rich by defrauding the poor. Instead of relieving the needy by a liberal charity, they had not even paid the lawful debts which they owed them. And does not this sin linger in the heart of Christendom? What was American slavery but just a crushing of the poor? What was villeinage in our own country but a defrauding of the laborers? It is net yet a century since the Scotch collier was attached by law to the coal-work where he had been born—the right to his services being bought and sold with the mine itself. In more recent times our poets have once and again given voice to great social wrongs in weeds that have rung like a tocsin through the land (e.g. Mrs. Browning's 'Cry of the Children,' and Hood's 'Song of the Shirt'). Or, to take the form of labor referred to in verse 4, we may ask—Is the condition of the English ploughman even yet what it ought to be, and what our rich landlords ought to help to make it? James says that the robbing of the poor is a "crying" sin. The victims themselves cry; and even their wages, fraudulently withheld, "cry out" also from the coffers of the rich. But there is One who has ears to ear, and a heart to resent, the injustice. "The Lord of hosts" will avenge the poor of the people who trust in him.
2. Lavish luxuriousness. (Verse 5) The wealthy, wicked Jews sinned, not only against righteousness, but against temperance. They were luxurious in their living, and prodigal in their expenditure. And this wasteful life of theirs was largely maintained at the expense of the poor whom they defrauded. It was "the hire of the laborers" that had built their magnificent palaces, and bought the beds of ivory upon which they lay. They did all this "on the earth," and as if they "should still live forever" (Psalms 49:9) here. They forgot that in their godless self-indulgence they were acting like "mere animals, born to be taken and destroyed" (2 Peter 2:12). Unconscious of impending ruin, they were still living voluptuously; like the fat ox, which continues to revel among the rich pastures on the very morning of the "day of slaughter."
3. Murderous cruelty. (Verse 6) By "the righteous," or "just," many understand the Lord Jesus Christ; this statement being a historic allusion to the scenes of Gabbatha and Calvary. And it is very probable that the murder of our Lord was in the apostle's mind. But we judge that the words are rather to be regarded as describing a prevalent practice of the wicked rich in every age. They apply to the death of Jesus Christ, but also to that of Stephen, and to that of James the brother of John; and they were soon to be illustrated again in the martyrdom of the writer himself. For our apostle, by reason of his integrity and purity, was surnamed "the Righteous;" and he was by-and-by condemned and killed by the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem. But why all this oppression of "the righteous"? It is inflicted simply because they are righteous. Every holy life is an offence to evil men. Because Christ was holy, he was crucified. Because Stephen was "full of faith and of the Holy Spirit," he was stoned. Because James was truly righteous, he was thrown from the battlements of the temple, and killed with a fuller's club. Finally, the apostle adds, "He doth not resist you." The righteous man submits patiently to your persecuting violence. He endures your murderous cruelty with holy meekness. Jesus did so (Isaiah 53:7). Stephen did so (Acts 7:60). James presently would do so: he is said to have offered the very prayer for his murderers which his crucified Master had done. Such patient endurance, however, only increases the guilt of the persecutors, and shall make their doom more awful.
II. THE FIRST DROPPINGS OF JUDGMENT IN THE PRESENT. (Verses 2, 3) The material for their punishment was being prepared, in accordance with the law of retribution, out of the very wealth on which they doted. "Of our pleasant vices" Divine Providence makes "instruments to plague us." "Your riches are corrupted;" that is, their treasures of grain and fruits were already rotting in the storehouses. Since these were not being used to feed the hungry, God's curse was upon them all. "Your garments are moth-eaten;" because these rich men did not clothe the naked out of their costly wardrobes, the moth was cutting up these with his remorseless little tooth. "Your gold and your silver are rusted;" that is, their money, not being used for doing good, lay in their treasure-chests morally cankered by the base avarice which kept it there. And that rust shall not only eat up the wealth itself; it shall also gnaw the conscience of its faithless possessor. It shall be a witness-bearer to his sin, and an executioner of it, is punishment, By-and-by, the remorseful thought of his unused riches shall torture his soul as with the touch of burning fire. These men had "laid up their treasure in the last days;" that is, immediately before the coming of the Lord in judgment to make an end of the entire Hebrew polity. And their wealth would avail them nothing in the presence of that great catastrophe. These corrupting treasures of theirs would corrupt still further into treasures of wrath. After the first droppings would come the deluge.
III. THE FULL FLOOD OF JUDGMENT IN THE FUTURE. (Vex. 1) The "miseries" spoken of refer primarily to the sorrows connected with the impending siege and ruin of Jerusalem. These were to fall with especial severity upon the influential classes; and the Hebrews of the Dispersion, in whatsoever land they might be, were to share them. The wealthy men among the unbelieving Jews had sinned most; so they were to suffer most. Well, therefore, might they "weep" at the prospect, as only Orientals can weep; and "howl" as only brute beasts can do. But these words point onward further in history than to the destruction of Jerusalem. The full flood of "miseries" which providence is preparing shall overtake the ungodly rich only at the Lord's second coming, when he shall appear to judge the whole world. The ruin of Jerusalem was but a faint foreshadowing of the" eternal destruction" of the wicked which shall begin at that day (Matthew 24:1-51). These "miseries" suggest solemn thoughts of the doom of eternity.
LESSONS.
1. To remember the moral government of God, and to make ready to meet him in the judgment (verses 1-6).
2. The sin of the wicked prepares its own punishment (verses 2, 3).
3. One of the greatest social wants of our time is that of mutual sympathy between the capitalist and the laborer (verse 4).
4. A Christian should avoid debt as he would avoid the devil (verse 4).
5. The right use of wealth is not to spend it upon self-indulgence, but to do good with it (verse 5).
6. A man has reason to suspect the purity of his own character, if no one ever persecutes him (verse 6).—C. J.
Long-suffering in view of Christ's coming.
These words strike one of the leading chords of the Epistle. There is no grace which its readers are more earnestly exhorted to cultivate than that of patience. In the preceding verses James has been denouncing the rich ungodly Jews. The Epistle was not addressed to them, however, but to the Christian Jews who were suffering from their oppression and cruelty. So, the apostle here resumes the ordinary tenor of his letter. He exhorts the Church to continue patient and unresisting, like the ideal "righteous one" of verse 6. He suggests the thought that the Lord's coming, while it would usher in the doom of the wicked rich, would also bring deliverance to his own people. The same event which their oppressors should contemplate with weeping and howling (verse 1) would be to the righteous a joyful jubilee.
I. THE EXHORTATION. (Verses 7, 8, first parts) To wait constitutes a large portion of religious duty. Indeed, patience is not a segment merely of the Christian character; it is a spirit which is to pervade every fiber of it. In all ages spiritual wants and trials are the same; and believers, therefore, have always the same "need of patience." To "wait upon God" is a frequent exhortation of Scripture. The cultivation of this patience is perfectly consistent with holy activity. It springs from the same root of faith from which good works spring. We show our faith not only by our active "works," but also when we "endure, as seeing him who is invisible." Again, Christian patience is to coexist along with the fullest sensibility of suffering. "Long-suffering" necessarily involves the consciousness of suffering; and so does "patience," as the etymology of the word reminds us. Christian comfort does not come to us in connection with any incapability of sorrow; it comes as the result of the subjugation of the passions, and the cultivation of complete acquiescence in the Divine will. The apostle indicates the limit of this long-suffering—"until the coming of the Lord." What advent does this mean? To the early Hebrew Christians it meant mediately the impending destruction of Jerusalem. To us it means in like manner any interposition of Providence to deliver us from trouble, including our removal by death. But the ultimate reference, both for the early Church and for us, is doubtless to the Lord's final advent at the close of time. Then the Savior shall appear as the Judge of all, and shall forever put an end to tyranny and wrong. The thought of that great event is surely well fitted to "stablish our hearts," i.e. to strengthen them for patient endurance.
II. THE EXAMPLE. (Verse 7, second part) As an illustration of his subject, and in order to excite the grace of patience within the hearts of his readers, James introduces an allusion to the pursuits of husbandry. Think, he says, of the long-suffering of the farmer. His is a life of arduous toils and of anxious delays. He must wait for the "early rain" in the late autumn before he can sow his seed; and for the "latter rain" in April, upon which his crops depend for the filling of the ear before the harvest ripens. This patience is necessary. Although sometimes sorely tried, it is reasonable. The "fruit ' which the farmer desires is "precious;" it is worth waiting for. And his long-suffering is also full of hope. It has been rewarded by the bounty of Providence in former years; and besides, if he be a pious man, he remembers the Divine assurance that "seed-time and harvest shall not cease." Now, says the apostle, afflicted Christians are to learn from this example a lesson of long-suffering. Trial and persecution are designed to yield an infinitely more "precious" harvest than that for which the husbandman waits. This harvest is "the fruit of righteousness"—"the fruit of the Spirit." And spiritual fruit takes far longer time to mellow than the natural harvest does. So "it is good for a man quietly to wait" for it. We have the assurance that in spiritual husbandry the ultimate reward is never disappointing. "In due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
III. THE ENCOURAGEMENT. (Verse 8, second part) "The coming of the Lord is at hand." This implies, first of all, that the Lord is sure to come. While no farmer possesses an absolute certainty in reference to the harvest on his own particular farm, every one who in the spiritual sphere "sows to the Spirit" may rest assured that the day of an abundant and blessed ingathering will arrive. The Lord Jesus, who came to our world nearly nineteen centuries ago, is to come again, His second coming is the greatest event in the future of the Church. It is the pole-star of her hopes. When he appears, the spiritual harvest shall be reaped. We, accordingly, shall cherish the true spirit of long-suffering, only in so far as we "love his appearing," and realize that the purpose of it is to reward his people and take vengeance upon their enemies. It is a sign that our faith is weak, if we meditate seldom, and pray little, about our Lord's second coming. How different was it in this respect with the apostles and the early Church! But, if the final advent was near in the first century, it is still nearer now; and in the interval what arrears of vengeance have been accumulating! It should be our comfort in the time of trouble to reflect that "the coming of the Lord is at hand." The whole New Testament Church lies under the shadow of the second advent. It will be an event of infinite moment, and therefore it is never far away. To the view of God, with whom "one day is as a thousand years," this event is nigh; and the men of faith learn to see it from God's point of view. Compared, also, with the great eternity on the other side, the second advent seems "at hand." What an encouragement does this thought supply, in the direction of devout patience, both in working and in suffering! It should be at once a spur and an anodyne, to know that the Lord is already on his way. For, when he comes, he will reward all service, and right every wrong, and take his people home to himself.—C. J.