“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.
No Other Boast 