Then Elkanah went home to Ramah. And the boy was ministering to the LORD in the presence of Eli the priest.
Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the LORD.
—1 Samuel 2:11–12
As a general rule, I’d never recommend listening to music while reading, but you must come to this narrative with a song in your head in order to read it rightly. The song is not a distraction, but the key to interpretation. If you try to read the narrative without the song, then you cannot understand it. Hannah’s song leaves you longing for redemptive reversal. A reversal that is to come by judgment. A judgment that comes with the king.
Our passage alternates between short descriptions of Samuel and extended treatments of Eli’s sons. Drawn out dark descriptions are offset by brief glimpses of light. Yet the small hope somehow dominates these dismal days. The little light is secretly bigger than the great darkness.
It’s Hannah’s song that teaches you to read this dark narrative with bright eyes.
“Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble bind on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry have ceased to hunger. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The LORD kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1 Samuel 2:3–6).
The light is so small. The darkness is so great. But this is precisely why we have hope. This is why we expect the light to prevail. Because we are expecting redemptive reversal.
This is the way our God works. “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29).
Ours is the God who brings resurrection light out of crucifixion darkness.
"My heart exults in the LORD; my horn is exalted in the LORD. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation" (1 Samuel 2:1).
Hannah’s prayer of praise opens with exclamation for personal reversal. Many a song has been ruined by a predominance of “my” and “I.” But “my” and “I” are not necessarily poisonous to every song. If you are to rejoice in redemptive reversal, it must be personal. David sang, “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me” (Psalm 13:5–6). If you cannot sing “my” and “I,” you have no reason to sing.
What separates the bad “my and I” songs and prayers from the good ones? Much of it can be seen in this: Hannah’s song is as theological as it is personal. Matthew Henry well expresses what it is that makes this song beautiful instead of ugly.
“What great things she says of God. She takes little notice of the particular mercy she was now rejoicing in, does not commend Samuel for the prettiest child, the most toward and sensible for his age that she ever saw, as fond parents are apt to do. No, she overlooks the gift, and praises the giver, whereas most forget the giver and fasten only on the gift. Every stream should lead us to the fountain; and favors we receive from God should raise our admiration of the infinite perfections there are in God.”
"There is none holy like the LORD: for there is none besides you; there is no rock like our God" (1 Samuel 2:2)
The gift was good, but Yahweh is peerless. Our God is not only incomprehensible; He is incomparable. He is incomprehensible. We cannot comprehensively master His infinite glory. He is incomprehensible, but one thing we may comprehend about Him, is that He is incomparable. “There is none holy like Yahweh.” When Moses asked God what he should say when the people ask the name of the God of their fathers, God answers “I AM.” Names define. God alone can define Himself. There is no other. “There is none besides you.” God always wins His class because He is the only one in His class. His position is uncontested. This is not because His class is low and insignificant. It is the highest and most esteemed.
“There is no rock like our God.” After the Red Sea swallowed the Egyptian forces, Moses sang, “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). The understood answer—no one! As Israel prepared to take Canaan, Moses gathered all the people and sang to them of this Rock. “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. …their rock is not as our Rock; our enemies are by themselves” (Deuteronomy 32:4, 31).
With Hannah we may rejoice that the incomparable Lord is our God. He is our Rock. We are not by ourselves. It’s personal. It’s theological. Such is the stuff of true praise and prayer.
Samuel opens with a birth narrative, a nativity. Though the Bible is filled with such stories, they are not told recklessly. The Bible is not littered with nativities. Select nativities are set within the narrative. God does not toss nativities like trash out of a window. He sets them like gems in jewelry. When God tells a birth story, He is preparing us for a bigger story.
God made man and blessed him saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:28). A multitude of births followed, but the hope of man looks for just one—the promised Seed of the Woman who will crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). When God tells a birth story, it is pregnant with this hope.
Genesis is structured around genealogies. The story of the patriarchs is a story of births. God promised Abraham that “in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 26:4). When God tells a birth story, He is telling the story of the Offspring in which all the nations are blessed. When God tells a birth story, pay attention, because something big is about to happen, something God-sized.
To tell any birth story, some introductions must be made. Ours opens telling us that “there was a certain man.” Before God has told us the man’s name, he has told us much. Samuel opens during the time of the judges and transitions us to the kings. The birth story of the most well known judge opens in this way, “There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children” (Judges 13:2).
Do you remember the rest?
“And the angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said to her, ‘Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines’” (Judges 13:3–5).
This is the birth story of Sampson. When God tells us a birth story, He is telling us He is about to do something.
Later in Samuel we will encounter this phrase again. “There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth” (1 Samuel 9:1). This is how we are introduced to Saul. When God tells us a birth story, He is telling us He is about to do something.
Yes, this nativity anticipates the nativity, but it foreshadows Elizabeth more than it does Mary. Elizabeth was barren. Her husband Zechariah receives a vision in the temple. The child is to be dedicated to the Lord. He is not the Seed, but he will introduce Him. Neither of these nativities tell of the King, but in both of them, we are introduced to the introducer. God is about to do something.
To understand 1 & 2 Samuel you must understand Judges. To understand Judges you must understand Joshua. To understand Joshua you must understand Deuteronomy. To understand Deuteronomy you must understand Exodus. To understand Exodus you must understand Genesis.
You must read the Bible in order to read the Bible. Every time you read through the Bible, you are better equipped to read the Bible. You begin, more and more, to read the Bible in light of the Bible. You bring less of yourself and less of your culture to it. You begin to read yourself and the world in light of the Bible.
To understand Samuel, you must understand Judges.Through the latter half of Judges, one repeatedly encounters this haunting line, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). The morality of Israel is linked to her king. Think how often in Kings you read something like this, “Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the LORD his God, as his father David had done, but he walked in the way of the kings of Israel. He even burned his son as an offering, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel. And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree” (2 Kings 16:2–4). The King leads the people in worship or idolatry.
To understand this aspect of Samuel and Judges, you must understand Joshua. Joshua closes with Joshua charging the people to remain faithful to the covenant that God has made with them. This means driving out the remnant of the nations, not intermarrying with them, and not being like them.
Joshua recalls God’s faithfulness to His promise in bringing them to the land and warns them not to go and serve other gods, lest God drive them from the land (Joshua 23). It was their disobedience to this command and this threat of judgment that looms large over Judges.
To understand Joshua you must understand Deuteronomy. During the time of the judges, two promises had not yet been fulfilled, that of a king and a place. Again and again in Deuteronomy we find language like this, “But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, then to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you” (Deuteronomy 12:10–11).
Also, the people’s plea for a king to Samuel was not altogether evil. It was their demand and their desire therein that were wicked. But God had promises them in His covenant saying, “When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you” (Deuteronomy 17:14–15).
To understand Deuteronomy you must understand the Torah. This means you must understand Exodus, where Yahweh redeems His people out of Egypt, that they might be His people and He might be their God. He does this to bring them into a land of milk and honey where He will dwell in their midst.
This means you must understand Genesis and the promises to the patriarchs. God promised Abraham land, children, and blessedness. Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob. God renamed Jacob Israel. Israel had twelve sons. Among them was Judah, whom Israel blessed saying, “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he has washed his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes. His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk” (Genesis 49:8–12).
To understand that promise, we must go all the way way back to the beginning. God created man in His image, giving him dominion and placing him in the garden. Adam was a king. He was blessed. God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule—this was blessedness. This was how things were meant to be.
When Adam sinned, this was lost. But God gave the promise of a seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. This is the promise of a warrior king who would set creation right, putting the serpent back under the foot of man, a King who would reestablish God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule.
From this point forward, in your reading of Scripture, you are looking to every peculiar birth of a son with this hope. And so it is that we come to this book that opens with a woman desperate for a child that she then dedicates to the Lord. A child who grows up to anoint a king. A king who defeats the enemies of the people of the Lord, but who is to have a greater Son who will enjoy rest and build a house for Yahweh.
Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise up against me; deliver me from those who work evil, and save me from bloodthirsty men.
—Psalm 59:1–2
The rejected ruler seeks the life of God’s chosen one while the chosen one seeks refuge in His God. Again, we have the king in a state of humiliation, crying out to God for deliverance. This is God’s King. This is not how we expect to find him. He has been anointed, but not exalted. In his victory over the giant and his triumphs over the Philistines, something of his might has been seen, but it is this that provokes the jealousy of Saul and sends the shepherd boy back into the hills, but this time as a vagabond.
As we read through the gospels, this is how we find God’s King. He is anointed but not yet exalted. Something of His glory is manifest, but these wonders provoke the jealousy of the powers that be. He wanders, with no place to lay His head. And in this state, the King laments. Isaiah wrote of Him, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:3). This is God’s way. He brings His King to exaltation through humiliation.
God’s innocent King laments for what He is certain of. Through lament comes this expression of confidence. Often I’ve said that lament is weak faith crying out towards the strength of confidence and assurance. But when we look to the King crying out, we know His faith was perfect. He poured out His soul in faith, and having poured out His soul, He took faith in the God He poured His heart out to.
Even for He who had perfect faith, lament was the way towards confidence. Saints, because God’s King prayed this prayer, you may too.
O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress. My God in his steadfast love will meet me; God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.
—Psalm 59:9–10
Here is your confidence. God has heard your King. God’s unfailing steadfast covenant love is plain in this, Jesus has looked in triumph on His enemies. Lament. But learn to lament like the King. Lament not only seeking strong faith. Lament with strong faith. Do not just grow strong in faith through lament. Grow in lamenting with strong faith.
I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!
My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!
—Psalm 57:2–5, 9–11
The deliverance of David from his enemies and the exaltation of God among the nations are intertwined.
To God Most High David cries and from the Most High he receives salvation. David cries and God sends and saves. The Most High sends from heaven. This sending means salvation for David and shame for his enemies. What is it that God Most High sends that saves and shames? It is His steadfast love and faithfulness. These are the attributes God used to define His name in Exodus 34. “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…” (Exodus 34:6). God sends His name. God sends Himself.
David is a king to whom God sent His steadfast love and faithfulness. Jesus is the King whom God sendsas His steadfast love and faithfulness. God the Father sent God the Son to save His people and shame His enemies. Jesus is the name of God. Jesus is the steadfast love and faithfulness of God. Jesus is God Himself, sent to save.
The King is the answer to a king’s prayer. But Jesus is not only the salvation sent to a king. He is also the King to whom salvation is sent. Jesus’ deliverance through resurrection results in God’s glory. Paul tells us that though Jesus “was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6–11).
Because the King has been delivered in His resurrection, God is exalted in all the earth. God is exalted above the heavens in the salvation of His King such that His glory is over all the earth!
Hear the King lament:
“‘Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’” (John 12:27–32).
Hear the King exclaim:
“And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:18–20).
Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy! Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, and in anger they bear a grudge against me.
—Psalm 55:1–3
A lament is a cry, and this lament is a cry to be heard. I mean that in three ways.
First, this is a cry to be heard in that we are meant to hear it. This is the word of God, given to us by the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ. God has spoken. Let us listen. David’s cry is a cry you are meant to hear. The King’s lament is meant to welcome your own (v. 22). This is a cry to be heard.
Second, this is a cry to be heard in that being heard is what David is crying out for (vv. 1–2a). David cries out to God asking to be heard. This speaks to the fervency and intensity with which David laments. This is a cry to be heard.
Third, this is a cry to be heard in that, it is the kind of cry that must be heard. This is the kind of cry that demands a hearing. It is the kind of cry that cannot but be heard. It is like the cry of a sick toddler sleeping near to a loving mother. Such a cry is a cry to be heard. There are many cries a toddler makes which a mother knows need not be heard. These are cries to be ignored. But then, there is the cry to be heard. It must be heard. Such is this cry. Still, the analogy falls short. This cry must be heard not because our misery demands it, but because God’s mercy demands it. For God to be God, this cry must be heard. His covenant faithfulness demands it. This is a cry to be heard.
It is one thing to cry out “I must be heard.” It is another to cry out a prayer that God must hear. David does both. Jesus does them better. Hebrews 5:7 tells us that “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” With Jesus, the intensity with which He prayed was matched by the intensity with which He must be answered.
Never so perfectly, but assuredly, you too may cry out “you must hear this” when you reverently understand that for God to be God, He must hear such prayers. Such prayers are rooted in who God has revealed Himself to be in Christ Jesus for us.
This is a cry to be heard. It is God’s Word. You must hear it. And if you hear it, may you learn this two-fold mustness. Not just the mustness of your desperation, but the mustness of God’s declaration.
God’s declaration speaks to our desperation. If such prayers are not heard we may lose our lives, but God will lose His glory. Pray with this kind of mustness: “God if you do not hear my cry, I will perish. God if you do not hear my cry, you are not faithful. My life is a small thing, but your glory is the biggest thing. So have mercy and do not hide yourself from my plea.”
“O God, save me by your name, and vindicate me by your might…
Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.”
Psalm 54:1, 4
This psalm can feel very familiar and yet very distant. It can feel distant because it is familiar. Here we encounter that which is native to the psalms. This is why it is familiar. And, this is why is seems distant, for what is native to the psalms often feels foreign to us. It’s like having a pocket full of foreign currency in a strange land. We know we’ve got money, but we don’t know how much we’ve got.
This foreign familiarity is frequently so because we try to relate to the psalms in the wrong way. We can’t take them up like a pop song. One can’t come to the psalter as though it were karaoke night, seeking a sad song to express their recent heartache. We cherry pick the psalms for emotional feels while avoiding them intellectually. There are many psalms, that when honestly examined, many think, “I could never pray that!”
Here we have a prayer for deliverance. Most everyone is comfortable with that. When we’re in a real pickle, we will all pray for deliverance. But David also prays for vindication. He prays against his enemies. This is where we get uncomfortable. Here is where this psalm feels foreign to our Christianity. “Vindication? I’m a sinner. Enemies? Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies?”
When we experience such discomfort with the psalter we must begin here: if this psalm feels foreign, it is foreign to me, not to Christianity. When I can’t seem to square it with the New Testament, this is because I’m out of harmony, I’m out of balance, I’ve emphasized some truth such that I cannot understand another truth. So instead of discarding such a psalm off or treating it like a salvage project, picking the good parts, lets recognize that it is truth and then let us seek to recognize the truth that it is.
To begin this, I think our biggest help comes in verse 4. The psalmist turns from prayer to address those listening in on his prayer. Before you pray this prayer, you are meant to listen in to this prayer. You are meant to hear God’s King praying for vindication. How can you sing this psalm? You are meant to sing it with the King.
The reader through the psalms might here experience something of déjà vu? If that’s you, know there is an explanation for the feeling.
Psalm 14
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.
The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the LORD?
There they are in great terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous. You would shame the plans of the poor, but the LORD is his refuge.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
Psalm 53
The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.
God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.
They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
Have those who work evil no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon God?
There they are, in great terror, where there is no terror! For God scatters the bones of him who encamps against you; you put them to shame, for God has rejected them.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores the fortunes of his people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad.
The similarity is unavoidable, but the differences are not insignificant. Charles Spurgeon comments, “It is not a copy of the fourteenth psalm, emended and revised by a foreign hand; it is another edition by the same author, emphasized in certain parts, and rewritten for another purpose.”
There are differences not only in content, but in context. Psalm 14 appears in Book I of the Psalms (1–42) while Psalm 53 is in Book II (42–72). Books II and III together make up what is known as the Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42–83). These psalms show a preference for speaking of the the God of Israel as Elohim (God) instead of Yahweh (the LORD). In the first book, Yahweh is used 272 times while Elohim is used only 15 times, whereas in Book II, Elohim is used 164 times while Yahweh is used only 30 times. Psalm 14 uses Yahweh four times, while Psalm 53 doesn’t use it at all.
Also, within Book II, Psalms 51–70 form a sub-collection of Davidic psalms. All these Psalms, with the exception of Psalms 66 and 67, are attributed to David. Further, Psalms 52–55 are all Maskils. This stands out even more when you observe that Psalms 56–60 are all Miktams. All this to point that these psalms are where they are for a reason. There is purpose.
Additionally, Davidic psalms with historical settings aren’t extremely common. There are only 14 of them in the Psalter. They are more rare in the first book of the Psalms than in the second. The first book has only five, whereas the second has eight. The third psalm is the first psalm with a historical superscription, “A Psalm of David, When He Fled from Absalom His Son.” Because of the rarity of historical settings, when read through the first book of the psalms, any time we read about any opposition to David, Absalom is on the mind. The 14th Psalm gives us no setting. When we think of the fool there, Absalom naturally comes to mind.
Whereas when we come to Psalm 53, a different character is suggested. There is an unusual concentration of psalms with headings here and most all of them are relate to a specific time in David’s life, that period when he was fleeing from Saul. Psalm 52 was occasioned by Doeg’s wickedness. Psalm 54 when the Ziphites betrayed David. Psalm 56 was written when David was with the Philistines hiding from Saul. Psalm 57 was written when he fled from Saul and hid in a cave. Psalm 52 relates to events from 1 Samuel 22. Psalm 54 relates to events from 1 Samuel 23.
Though the superscription of Psalm 53 has no historical setting, there is something in Psalm 53 that relates to 1 Samuel 25. In 1 Samuel 25 we encounter Nabal, who refused to aid David. His wife Abigail was praised as being both discerning and beautiful. Hearing of her husband’s insolence, she comes before David saying, “Let not my lord regard this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly is with him” (1 Samuel 25:25). This psalm speaks to “nabal.” Nabal’s name is the Hebrew word for “fool.” “The nabal says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” And the chief way Nabal does this, is by saying “No” to God’s King. The supreme way men say “There is no God!” is by saying “There is no eternally begotten Son of God, incarnate of the virgin, Jesus the Christ, Son of David, King of Israel.”
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
—James 1:26–27
If you grew up in a typical evangelical church, you probably heard or even said something like this: “Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship.” Christianity certainly is a relationship, but it is just as certainly a religious relationship.
The Redeemer of Israel declared from the fire, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery [here is the relationship]. You shall have no other gods before me [here is the religion]” (Deuteronomy 20:2–3). Our Redeemer tells us, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Our relationship with God is covenantal. A covenantal relationship with God means religion. It means commands. It means worshipping Him the way He has told us to.
What is religion? We rarely encounter the word in the New Testament. Outside of these three references in James 1, we find it once in Acts and once in Colossians. By “religion” we could mean those various religions which we find in the world of which one is true and all others are false. This is near the sense of the word when Paul said, “…according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee” (Acts 26:5).
With this, there is a sense in which we can say that Christianity is not a religion. When we study world religions, we take up the study of man’s quest for “god”—an idolatrous god of his own making. Christianity, in contrast, is a revelation. It speaks not of man’s pursuit of God, but God’s pursuit of man. Nevertheless, the revelation given to man is, we will see, undeniably religious.
Religion more basically refers to our worship, devotion, piety, and obedience. Specifically, the word refers to the outward expression of our worship. You can see this when Paul uses the same word in reference to the “worship of angels” in Colossians 2:18. Paul was not referring to the “religion of angels” but to man’s worship of angels.
Here, James writes to us not concerning true and false religion, as in Christianity versus Hinduism, but religion, true and false, as in the religion of the Pharisees versus that of the disciples. James assumes his listeners are in the true religion. He’s asking if their religion is true. They profess Christianity, but do they posses Christ?—that is his question. Christianity is a religious relationship. Or we might better say it is a relational religion. James is essentially asking if their religion has that relationship.
What is religion? T.J. Crawford provides an excellent definition: “What is religion? So far as regards the intellect, religion is the knowledge of God; and so far as regards the heart and the life, religion is the love, and trust, and worship, and submission, and obedience which we owe to God. It is the intercourse of the creature with the Creator,—of the weak, short-sighted, fallible, and perishing creature, with the almighty, all-seeing, infallible, and eternal God, whose counsels are unsearchable, and whose ways are past finding out.”
Do you see how relational that definition of religion is? Do you see how religious your relationship to God is meant to be? I pray that when you read and reflect on a passage like this, you sense that your “relationship” is is lacking, is less that to be desired, yea, is worthless, if it is not religious. James does not tell us that religion is worthless. He speaks of a kind of religion that is worthless. And opposite of that worthless religion is not a vague spirituality or nebulous relationship. Opposite worthless religion is religion pure and undefiled.
No Other Boast 