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Scripture Reading: James 1:1
I. Its vague vision concerning God’s dispensation:
А. Calling the Jewish believers “the twelve tribes” — James 1:1:
1. The Lord Jesus told His Jewish disciples that the kingdom of God would be taken from the Jews and given to the church — Matt. 21:43.
2. According to God’s economy in His New Testament dispensation, the church is separate from the Jews — 1 Cor. 10:32.
B. Calling the meeting place of the Jewish believers a “synagogue” — James 2:2:
1. Synagogue is a particular designation used for the meeting place of the scattered Jews — Acts 6:9.
2. The synagogue was the place where the Jews persecuted the believers — Matt. 10:17; 23:34.
3. The synagogue was called by the Lord Jesus the “synagogue of Satan” — Rev. 2:9.
C. Teaching the Jewish believers to keep the law of the Old Testament — James 1:25; 2:8-12; 4:11-12:
1. This is confirmed by James’s word in Acts 15:21 and 21:20-25.
2. James appreciated the law, calling it the “perfect law, the law of freedom” and the “royal law,” as the psalmists did in the Old Testament — Psa. 1:1-2; 19:7-11; 119:10-11, 43, 142, 151.
3. But in God’s New Testament dispensation Christ has ended (terminated and taken away) the law — Rom. 10:4; Heb. 10:9.
4. According to God’s New Testament dispensation, the believers are not under the law but under grace — Rom. 6:14.
5. In the New Testament economy the believers have been freed by Christ from the law’s yoke of slavery, no longer indebted to the law; if they will still keep the law, Christ will profit them nothing, they will be separated from Christ, and they will fall from grace — Gal. 5:1-4.
6. Hence, Paul says that the believers have died to law — 2:19.
II. The side effects of James’s teaching under his vague vision concerning God’s economy:
А. A mixture of God’s New Testament dispensation with God’s Old Testament dispensation:
1. James uses the terms of the Old Testament Jews, such as the twelve tribes, synagogue, and the Lord of hosts [Jehovah of hosts] in 1:1; 2:2; 5:4.
2. Its words in 1:27 and 4:14 bear the element and flavor of the Old Testament.
3. The examples it uses are only of the Old Testament, such as Abraham and Rahab in 2:23, 25 and the prophets, Job, and Elijah in 5:10-11, 17.
B. A mixture of God’s New Testament chosen people — the believers — with God’s Old Testament elect — the Jews.
C. A mixture of the church practice with the Jews’ way of meeting to worship God in the synagogues.
D. In his teaching of the Jewish believers concerning the virtues of Christian perfection, James did not warn them, as Paul did in dealing with the Corinthian believers (1 Cor. 2:14), that the virtues of Christian perfection should be produced and carried out only by the regenerated persons and not by the natural persons. Here a hidden mixture is implied: a mixture of the regenerated persons in their regenerated humanity mingled with divinity, with the natural persons in their fallen humanity, in the producing and carrying out of the virtues of Christian perfection. In the church as the organic Body of Christ everything must be done by the regenerated persons, in whom is God’s delight, and nothing should be done by the natural persons, for whom is God’s condemnation.
III. The tragic issues of James’s mistake:
А. The blinding of thousands of believers:
1. From James’s time to today.
2. From seeing the clear view concerning the economy of God that they may participate in the producing and building up of the Body of Christ as a precursor of the New Jerusalem.
3. The divine revelation in the Scriptures is progressive in different degrees, and its progression is according to the four different ages of the Scriptures:
а. Job’s perfection (Job 1:1, 8) was according to the divine revelation of the age before the law, which was Job’s goal in seeking after God and replaced God in Job’s satisfaction; thus, Job was stripped by God of his perfection.
b. Saul of Tarsus’s perfection (Phil. 3:6) before his salvation was according to the divine revelation in the age of law, which was opposing God’s New Testament economy and was rejected by him after his salvation by receiving the vision of the divine revelation of the age of grace.
c. The perfection stressed by James was according to his vague view of God’s divine revelation and was a mixture of the divine revelation according to the age of the law with the divine revelation according to the age of grace.
d. The genuine perfection is according to the pure vision of God’s highest divine revelation of the age of grace and is brought forth by the fullness of the riches of the consummated Triune God and through the crucifixion of the cross of Christ for the bringing forth of the Body of Christ to consummate in the New Jerusalem as God’s eternal enlargement and expression.
B. The snaring of the top apostle:
1. Paul, according to the pure vision of the divine revelation concerning God’s eternal economy, rejected the law in Galatians 2:16, 19; 3:2, 5, 10-13; 5:1-4, 18 and condemned the Jewish believers who sinned willfully by going back to Judaism and offering the sacrifices of cattle in Hebrews 10:18, 26.
2. James persuaded Paul to go back to the law, even to enter into the temple and wait to offer sacrifices for the completion of others’ Nazarite vow.
3. But the Lord did not tolerate it and came into the situation to blow away the whole deal.
4. However, that snare caused Paul to be arrested and eventually transferred to the prison of Caesar in Rome — Acts 21:18-36; 25:10-12.
IV. The wiping out by God:
А. By the thorough destruction of the city of Jerusalem with its temple in A.D. 70, God terminated the Jewish religious service to Him, symbolized by the temple, and the nation of the Jews, symbolized by the city of Jerusalem.
B. By the destruction of Jerusalem God also wiped out all the vague situation and mixtures among the believers caused by James’s vague vision and mistake and separated the believers from the Jewish people and anything Jewish.
Stanza 3 of Hymns, #541 says, “Not philosophy nor / Any element / Can to Christ conform us / As His complement; / But ’tis Christ Himself who / All our nature takes / And in resurrection / Us His members makes.” No philosophy, regardless of how good or high it is, can produce the Body of Christ as the complement to Christ. Ethical teaching, such as James’s mixed teaching, can never make members of Christ. The members of Christ can be produced only by the teaching according to God’s New Testament economy. Stanza 4 says, “Not religion, even / Christianity, / Can fulfill God’s purpose / Or economy; / But ’tis Christ within us / As our all in all / Satisfies God’s wishes, / And His plan withal.”
In this chapter we want to see four main items: (1) the vague vision in the Epistle of James, (2) the side effects of James’s teaching, (3) the tragic issues of James’s mistake, and (4) the wiping out by God. Certain medicines have side effects. James’s teaching is a kind of medicine that heals you to some extent in some sense, but the side effects are greater. Because of James’s vague vision and his teaching that produced side effects and issued in tragedies, God came in to wipe out the vague situation and mixture in Jerusalem.
The word dispensation is a subsidiary word to economy. A dispensation is a part of the economy. For God to carry out His economy as a whole in the Old Testament and the New Testament, He needs four dispensations. Dispensation means the way to deal with something. To carry out anything, you need a way to deal with things. God uses at least four ways to deal with His people in four ages in order to carry out His economy. The first age is the age before the law, or the age of the fathers, from Adam to Moses. The second is the age of the law, from Moses to Christ’s first coming. The third is the age of grace, from Christ’s first coming to His second coming. The fourth is the age of the kingdom. Every age has its own dispensation. In the dispensation before the law, God dealt with His people in a particular way. In the age of the law, the way God used to deal with His people was by the law. In the age of grace, God’s dispensation to deal with His people is by grace. Then in the age of the kingdom, God’s dispensation will be to deal with people according to His kingdom.
In God’s way to deal with people, James was very vague. He was not clear. James was born and reborn in the age of grace, but he carried out God’s work in two ways, in two dispensations, that is, in the way of the dispensation of the law and in the way of the dispensation of grace. In James’s short Epistle of five chapters, these two ways in which God deals with His people are mixed up. James says that we have been brought forth, or born, of God by the word of truth, the law, from the Old Testament (1:18). This is a mixture of two ways. James speaks of regeneration, but there was no regeneration in the Old Testament. He also says that the Spirit of God indwells us (4:5), but the Spirit’s indwelling was not the way God dealt with His people in the Old Testament. It is the way with which God deals with His people in the New Testament. Not only so, James’s opinion was that God regenerated people to keep the law. Regeneration, however, is in the new dispensation, and to keep the law is in the old dispensation.
James calls the Jewish believers of the New Testament “the twelve tribes” (1:1). The twelve tribes belong to the Old Testament. This is like putting the hat of one person on another person’s head. It is a mixture. James puts the “hat” of Israel on the “head” of believers.
The Lord Jesus told His Jewish disciples that the kingdom of God would be taken from the Jews and given to the church. In Matthew 21:43 the Lord told the Pharisees that from that day God would take His kingdom away from Israel. Israel became no longer the kingdom of God. God took the kingdom away from Israel and gave it to another people, the church.
According to God’s economy in His New Testament dispensation, the church is separate from the Jews and also from the Gentiles. In 1 Corinthians 10:32 Paul speaks of the Jews, the Greeks, and the church of God, showing that there are three kinds of people today on earth. The Greeks represent the Gentiles. Those in the church are God’s new people in the New Testament, but James mixes them with the Jews.
James calls the meeting place of the Jewish believers a “synagogue” (2:2).
Synagogue is a particular designation used for the meeting place of the scattered Jews (Acts 6:9). This shows again that James lacked a clear vision of the distinction between God’s chosen people of the Old Testament and the believers in Christ of the New Testament.
The synagogue was the place where the Jews persecuted the believers (Matt. 10:17; 23:34).
Also, the synagogue was called by the Lord Jesus the “synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9).
James taught the Jewish believers to keep the law of the Old Testament (James 1:25; 2:8-12; 4:11-12). What a mixture this is! Keeping the law was the responsibility of the Jews, not of the believers.
This is confirmed by James’s word in Acts 15:21 and 21:20-25. In Acts 21 we are told that James and his co-elders in Jerusalem told the apostle Paul that thousands of believers in Jerusalem were zealous for the law. Based upon this, they asked Paul to show the Jews that he was not against the law but keeping the law. They proposed, according to the Jewish custom, that Paul make a Nazarite vow with God. This vow was completed with the offering of sacrifices. Paul went to the temple and waited for the last day of his vow to offer the sacrifices. He carried out this vow to such an extent, but God would not tolerate his offering the sacrifices and came in to disrupt it. Paul was arrested and eventually sent to Caesar’s prison in Rome. God would not allow Paul to participate in carrying out the Nazarite vow, a strict Judaic practice.
James appreciated the law, calling it the “perfect law, the law of freedom” and the “royal law,” as the psalmists did in the Old Testament (Psa. 1:1-2; 19:7-11; 119:10-11, 43, 142, 151). No doubt, these words were quoted by James from the Psalms to describe the law. He uplifted the law to the uttermost.
But in God’s New Testament dispensation Christ has ended (terminated and taken away) the law (Rom. 10:4; Heb. 10:9). The law was the way by which God dealt with His people in the Old Testament, but James is in the New Testament. In the New Testament the way God takes to deal with His people is no longer by the law but by grace. Actually, the law was ended and taken away by Christ on the cross. Colossians 2:14 reveals that the ordinances of the law were crucified on the cross. Christ brought many things to the cross to be crucified with Him. He terminated you and me, the old man, Satan, sin, the world, and the ordinances of the law.
According to God’s New Testament dispensation, the believers are not under the law but under grace (Rom. 6:14). The law was the way God dealt with His Old Testament saints, and grace is the new way in which God deals with His New Testament saints. Thus, we, the New Testament people, are not under the law anymore; we are under grace.
In the New Testament economy the believers have been freed by Christ from the law’s yoke of slavery, no longer indebted to the law; if they will still keep the law, Christ will profit them nothing, they will be separated from Christ, and they will fall from grace (Gal. 5:1-4). The law is not to release people but to yoke them, and that yoke is the yoke of slavery. The law puts us into a situation of slavery, which Paul says is the yoke of the law.
Hence, Paul says that the believers have died to law (2:19). We were crucified with Christ on the cross (v. 20) and died to law there. James taught the believers, who were dead to the law, to keep the law.
Now we want to point out the side effects of James’s teaching.
First, James is a mixture of God’s New Testament dispensation with God’s Old Testament dispensation.
James uses the terms of the Old Testament Jews, such as the twelve tribes, synagogue, and the Lord of hosts [Jehovah of hosts] in 1:1; 2:2; 5:4.
In 1:27 James says to take care of the orphans and widows, and in 4:14 he says not to have confidence in what we will do in the future, since we are a vapor and do not know what the future will bring. This is an idea of the Old Testament, especially in Psalm 90 where Moses speaks of the brevity of human life (vv. 3-10).
Also, the examples James uses are only of the Old Testament, such as Abraham and Rahab in 2:23 and 25 and the prophets, Job, and Elijah in 5:10-11 and 17.
James’s teaching was a mixture of God’s New Testament chosen people — the believers — with God’s Old Testament elect — the Jews.
James brought in a mixture of the church practice with the Jews’ way of meeting to worship God in the synagogues.
In his teaching of the Jewish believers concerning the virtues of Christian perfection, James did not warn them, as Paul did in dealing with the Corinthian believers (1 Cor. 2:14), that the virtues of Christian perfection should be produced and carried out only by the regenerated persons and not by the natural persons. Here a hidden mixture is implied: a mixture of the regenerated persons, in their regenerated humanity mingled with divinity, with the natural persons in their fallen humanity, in the producing and carrying out of the virtues of Christian perfection. In the church as the organic Body of Christ, everything must be done by the regenerated persons, in whom is God’s delight, and nothing should be done by the natural persons, for whom is God’s condemnation.
First Corinthians 2:14 says, “A soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually.” The spiritual things can be understood only by the spiritual, regenerated persons. A regenerated person in his regenerated humanity mingled with divinity is a spiritual person. There is also a natural person in his fallen humanity.
Among men, there are three kinds of persons: the ethical, moral person; the natural person; and the regenerated person. Paul says that before he was saved, when he was Saul, he was blameless, perfect, according to the righteousness of the law (Phil. 3:6). Even before Paul was saved, he was a very ethical, moral person. But after he received God’s life and God’s Spirit through regeneration, he lived no more as an ethical person but as a spiritual person. He was a regenerated person in his regenerated humanity, and this humanity was mingled with divinity because God lived in him.
James, however, was a mixed person. In his Epistle he speaks of regeneration and the Spirit’s indwelling, but he also talks about perfection in the realm of self-cultivation. This is a hidden mixture. Many of us Christians today are like James in this respect. We are mixed persons. We still act and live by trying to be perfect in our natural man. We may say that we love the Lord and that we are good brothers and sisters. We may be good and ethical but not spiritual. We may be spiritual to a certain extent, but we are still natural in our humanity, which is a mixture. We are ethical persons in our humanity mingled with divinity. This is a mixture of the regenerated persons, in their regenerated humanity mingled with divinity, with the natural persons in their fallen humanity.
The first tragic issue of James’s mistake is the blinding of thousands of believers from James’s time to today.
Thousands and thousands of real believers have been blinded by James’s vague teaching from seeing the clear view concerning the economy of God in order that they may participate in the producing and building up of the Body of Christ as a precursor of the New Jerusalem.
The divine revelation in the Scriptures is progressive in different degrees, and its progression is according to the four different ages of the Scriptures.
Job’s perfection (Job 1:1, 8) was according to the divine revelation of the age before the law, which was Job’s goal in seeking after God and replaced God in Job’s satisfaction; thus, Job was stripped by God of his perfection. Job’s perfection was a replacement of God. God wants His people to be satisfied with Him, with God Himself. But Job was satisfied with his perfection, so God came in to take away Job’s perfection.
Saul of Tarsus’s perfection (Phil. 3:6) before his salvation was according to the divine revelation in the age of law, which was opposing God’s New Testament economy and was rejected by him after his salvation by receiving the vision of the divine revelation of the age of grace.
The perfection stressed by James was according to his vague view of God’s divine revelation and was a mixture of the divine revelation according to the age of the law with the divine revelation according to the age of grace.
The genuine perfection is according to the pure vision of God’s highest divine revelation of the age of grace and is brought forth by the fullness of the riches of the consummated Triune God and through the crucifixion of the cross of Christ for the bringing forth of the Body of Christ to consummate in the New Jerusalem as God’s eternal enlargement and expression.
Paul, according to the pure vision of the divine revelation concerning God’s eternal economy, rejected the law in Galatians 2:16, 19; 3:2, 5, 10-13; 5:1-4, 18 and condemned the Jewish believers who sinned willfully by going back to Judaism and offering the sacrifices of cattle in Hebrews 10:18 and 26.
James persuaded Paul to go back to the law, even to enter into the temple and wait to offer sacrifices for the completion of others’ Nazarite vow.
But the Lord did not tolerate it and came into the situation to blow away the whole deal.
However, that snare caused Paul to be arrested and eventually transferred to the prison of Caesar in Rome (Acts 21:18-36; 25:10-12).
By the thorough destruction of the city of Jerusalem with its temple in A.D. 70, God terminated the Jewish religious service to Him, symbolized by the temple, and the nation of the Jews, symbolized by the city of Jerusalem. The nation of the Jews and their religion were wiped out by the destruction of the Roman prince Titus. This was prophesied by the Lord Jesus. One day the Lord Jesus was lamenting over Jerusalem, and He told the disciples that not long from that time the temple would be torn down, leaving no stone upon another stone (Matt. 23:37—24:2).
By the destruction of Jerusalem God also wiped out all the vague situation and mixtures among the believers caused by James’s vague vision and mistake and separated the believers from the Jewish people and anything Jewish.
