Month: April 2024

“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

—James 1:21

The problem is inside us. The solution is outside of us. We must put away and we must receive. This is the generic answer to all of our struggles in sanctification. We must put off the old man in Adam and we must put on the new man in Christ. We must mortify and we must vivify. We must kill and we must enliven. We must put sin to death and we must live in the Spirit.

In this post I aim simply to meditate on the command to put away. What are we to put away? All filthiness and rampant wickedness. James’ choice of the word “filthiness” aids you in putting away what you should put away. Sin is impure and defiling. It is not a thing to be kept near, but put away.

Put away wickedness. Do not call your sins by sweet names. It is wickedness. Ralph Venning is helpful in capturing something of the wickedness of sin when he first quotes and then expands on John Bunyan. 

“Sin is the dare of God’s justice, the rape of his mercy, the jeer of his patience, the slight of his power, the contempt of his love, as one writer prettily expresses this ugly thing. We may go on and say, it is the upbraiding of his providence (Psalm 50), the scoff of his promise (2 Peter 3:3–4), the reproach of his wisdom (Isaiah 29:16). And as is said of the Man of Sin (i.e. who is made up of sin) it opposes and exalts itself above all that is called God (and above all that God is called), so that it as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing itself as if it were God (2 Thessalonians 2:4).” 

That sin you cling to, realize its filth. That darling you treasure in your heart, realize its wickedness. These are not things to be kept dear but to be repulsed by.

And put them away, do not put them aside. When you clean up some putrid refuse, you don’t sit the dirty rag next to you to later admire it. You are forever done with it. Put away sin like a vomit soaked paper towel. If you have a child or a pet, then chances are good that you have that article of clothing or blanket that was soiled with something so nasty that you did not bother to wash it. Straight into the trash it goes and not soon enough. That is how we must think of our sin. Thomas Manton cautions,

“You can never part with sin soon enough; it is a cursed inmate, that will surely bring mischief upon the soul that harbours it. It will set its own dwelling on fire. If there be a mote in the eye, a thorn in the foot, we take them out without delay; and is not sin a greater mischief, and sooner to be looked into and parted with? Certainly the evil of sin is greater than all evil, and hereafter the trouble will be greater; therefore we can never soon enough part with it.”

And we must do this with all sin. Not some. All! Put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness. Tolerating some sin in your life is like tolerating some part of a house fire. John Owen warns, “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

Put away all sin.

Put away all sin.

Put away all sin.

“Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.”

—James 1:16

Do not be deceived, about what?!

Do not be deceived, the man who remains steadfast under trail will receive the crown of life? 

Do not be deceived, each person is tempted when they are lured and enticed by their own desire? 

Do not be deceived, sin when it has fully grown brings forth death?

There is truth in all these answers contrary to the lie of James’ concern. Still, none of them gets to the root. James has, what I believe we may say is the fundamental, basic and primitive deception in mind. The answer is found within v. 13. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.”

Do not be deceived—about God! Do not be deceived into thinking that temptation has its source in God. It is far more dangerous to be deceived that God is bad than that sin is good. Belief that God is bad is at the core of what makes sin, sin. It is the very sinfulness of sin. All sin is unbelief. All sin involves not believing God to be all that He is in all of His perfections. All sin is a willingly received deception about who God is. But it is less dangerous that the unbelief be indirect rather than direct. It is less dangerous to covet than it is to deceived that God cannot satisfy. It is less dangerous to believe that sin can please than to believe that God cannot. The first lie is an acorn. The second is a mature oak heavy with acorns. If you retain some belief that God is good, you have something with which to fight covetousness. If you believe that God is bad, you have nothing left with which to fight. You have a sin not contrary to covetousness, but one which births covetousness. If you do not believe God to be infinitely desirable, then you have nothing with which to fight sinful desires. You cannot fight envy as Asaph did saying, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Psalm 73:25). Do not be deceived about God! Such deceit is the sin of sin.

A.W. Tozer opened his classic The Knowledge of the Holy with this sentence, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (p. 1). Eve’s greatest deception was not that the fruit was good, but that God was bad. The serpent’s question sowed a seed of doubt in her mind—doubt of God’s Word and doubt of God’s goodness. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’” (Genesis 3:1). The serpent sowed doubt in God’s Word into order to sow doubt of God’s goodness. Eve knew she may eat of trees of the garden, but subtly a thought had been planted that God may be holding back.

Is it not just such a lie that we are prone to believe? We may trust that Jesus loves us and the Spirit abides in us, but how often do we doubt the Father’s love? Dear children, do not be deceived about God, the Father. Every good and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

—James 1:12

“Blessed” is a familiar yet distant term. We might occasionally speak of being blessed, but we don’t go around pronouncing beatitudes like “blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial.” Though prosperity preachers may speak much of being “blessed,”  I’m afraid it is not just they that have an impoverished idea of blessedness.

To understand blessedness we need to understand both the God of the covenants and the covenants of God. First then, the God of the covenants. 1 Timothy 1:11 might contain my favorite phrase in all the Bible. There Paul writes to Timothy of “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.” Paul writes of the good news of the radiance of the happy God. The reference point for what blessedness means is God Himself. He is the blessed God. Our God is eternally, unchangingly, and infinitely delighted in Himself. Father, Son, and Spirit are so joyful, that their happiness overflows into good news for man.

This leads us to our next consideration, the covenants of God. God’s blessedness overflows. God purposes for His blessedness to overflow onto man. These purposes are covenantal in structure. What is implicit in the covenant of creation made with Adam, is explicit in the Mosaic Covenant made with Israel. Moses explained that if Israel remained faithful (steadfast) to the covenant, blessedness would overtake them. 

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl” (Deuteronomy 28:1–5).

Inversely, if they failed to keep covenant, they would be cursed. 

“But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out” (Deuteronomy 28:15–19).

Blessedness and cursedness have to do with our relation to the Triune blessed God and that relation is covenantal.

What is the covenant context for the blessedness James speaks of here? What specific covenant is in view when James speaks of being blessed for remaining steadfast under trial? It is remaining steadfast to Christ in the New Covenant. Jesus spoke of this blessedness when He said, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11–12). Hear again the New Covenant connotations for blessedness to those who remain steadfast in Hebrews 12:1–2. “[L]et us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Oh how shallow is our conception of blessedness! Yes, many of us are richly blessed with many earthly joys for which God is due all praise and thanksgiving, but this is neither the foundation nor pinnacle of blessedness. Blessedness is covenantal union and communion with the blessed God and this blessedness comes to us as good news in Jesus Christ.

It is for our shallow conceptions of blessedness that we might have to think hard on Thomas Manton’s commentary on these verses.

“Afflictions do not make the people of God miserable. …Afflictions cannot diminish his happiness: a man is never miserable till he hath lost his happiness. Our comfort lieth much in the choice of our chiefest good. …they that say, ‘Happy is the people whose God is the Lord,’ that is, that count it their happiness to enjoy God, when they lose all, they may be happy, because they have not lost God. Our afflictions discover our choice and affections; when outward crosses are the greatest evil, it is a sign God was not the chiefest good.”

For those who love God, not only can trials not diminish our blessedness, James would have us understand, they can only serve to make it greater.