James now has fewer maxims and a more argumentative style, like that of
Paul. He makes a passionate appeal for attention: “Hearken, my beloved
brethren.” He writes as an impassioned speaker speaks (cf. 1:16; 4:13).
God’s choice of the people of Israel seems to be in the background
(Deut. 14:1 f.). The Jews had come in many cases to look on earthly
prosperity as a mark of divine favor and poverty as a sign of God’s
disfavor (cf. Psalm 73).
The Pharisees were lovers of money (Luke 16:14). But the troubles of the
Jews, in spite of many wealthy Pharisees and Sadducees, had led many of
them to see a blessing in poverty. See Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs, Gad. vii. 6: “For the poor man, if, free from envy, he
pleaseth the Lord in all things, is blessed beyond all men.” Oesterley
(_in loco_) quotes _Chag._ 9_b_ as saying that poverty is the quality
that above all befits Israel as the Chosen People. Epictetus (bk. IV,
chap. i, 43) says: “Another (thinks the cause of his evils to be) that
he is poor.” Epictetus (Stob. 10) says further: “Riches are not among
the things that are good.” Luke 6:20 has: “Blessed are ye poor,” where
Matthew 5:3 has “poor in spirit.”
It is certain that the gospel made a powerful appeal to the poorer
classes of society among Jews and Gentiles. Jesus claimed it as part of
his messianic mission “to preach good tidings to the poor” (Luke 4:18),
as Isaiah (60:1 f.) had foretold. He asked the messengers of John the
Baptist to take back to Macherus the news that “the poor have the good
tidings preached to them” (Luke 7:22) as one proof of his messiahship.
Paul enlarges on the choice (1 Cor. 1:27 f.) by God of the foolish, the
weak, the despised classes to add to his own glory. The early churches
were gathered largely from the proletariat. Slaves and masters, rich and
poor, mingled together in fellowship and brotherly love.
The papyri discoveries have shown us the world of Jesus and of Paul “in
the workaday clothes of their calling.”[66] Deissmann adds: “We should
be sorry indeed not to have been told that Jesus came from an artisan’s
home in country surroundings.”[67] The fact that Jesus was a carpenter,
a workingman in the modern sense of that term, should enlist the
sympathy and the interest of all workingmen. They should heed the call
of the Carpenter.
Here James boldly champions the cause of the poor as against certain
rich Jews, probably not members of the church, who have oppressed the
Christians and dragged them before courts of justice. With their own
hand these rich Jews had dragged Christians before tribunals. Rich
Sadducees had done this with Peter and John (Acts 4:1). As one of these
potentates, yea, as a tyrant, Paul had once dragged men and women before
the Sanhedrin (Acts 8:3; 22:4). He had even tried to make them blaspheme
(Acts 26:11). It was not necessary to have special laws against the
Christians. As objects of dislike it was easy enough, as Paul found out,
to hale them into court. Paul came to know only too well how the tables
could be turned on him when he became a Christian. He had to take his
own medicine (Acts 13:50; 16:19). Jesus indeed had foretold that just
this fate would befall his disciples before the courts of Jews and
Gentiles (Matt. 10:17 f.; John 16:2).
The anger of these rich Jews against Jesus and Christians leads them
actually to blaspheme the name of Christ. The Sadducees will not even
call the name of Jesus when they discuss the case of Peter and John.
They refer with contempt to “this name” (Acts 4:17), though in the
threat they have to name Jesus (v. 18). The disciples rejoiced “that
they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name” (Acts 5:41).
So “the honorable name,” “the beautiful name,” “the noble Name”
(Moffatt) came to be the shibboleth of the believers in Jesus. His name
was to be “the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9 f.). It was
already the only name with power to save (Acts 4:12), as Peter boldly
informed the Sanhedrin. That was the meaning of the name Jesus (Matt.
1:21).
Here one sees afresh the Christology of James. The honorable name is the
name of Jesus, with a possible reference to the use of it in the
baptismal formula—“by which ye are called,” “which is called upon you.”
At any rate, they bear the name of Christian, given probably as a
reproach (Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Peter 4:14, 16). This name is now their
badge of honor and glory. When called upon to say, “Anathema be Jesus,”
they reply, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor. 12:3). Certainly the early Jewish
Christians had everything to make them fear the powerful rich who had
frowned upon Jesus and his cause.
And yet James dares to say to the Jewish Christians: “But ye have
dishonored the poor man,” “now you insult the poor” (Moffatt). They had
done it out of cringing fear of the rich Jews with all their power, or
out of anxiety to please the rich so as to win them with fawning
flattery. We are not to think that all the Jewish Christians had shown
such narrowness or such cowardice, but some instances had come to the
notice of James. Per contra note the case of Ananias and Sapphira, who
wished to gain credit for great liberality to the poor by the use of
part of the wealth, keeping back half though pretending to give all. All
the early Christians were not poor. The cases of Barnabas, Joseph of
Arimathea, and Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary occur to one at
once. Jesus did not denounce rich men per se, though he did point out
with great power the peril of wealth.
James is not to be understood as denouncing the rich in a wholesale
fashion. Consecration is what sanctifies riches—the use of money for the
glory of God and the blessing of mankind. A man is not a child of the
devil just because he is rich or poor. God deals with men in the raw
manhood. “A man’s a man for a’ that.” The distinction between the upper
and the lower classes is partly fictitious and is not a stable
condition. The slums are a dreadful fact and a disgrace to modern
civilization. People should have decent homes, good food, fresh air, and
clean clothes. Extreme poverty is a peril to a man’s soul, as is great
wealth. It is not a sin to be rich, but dangerous, though most of us are
willing to take the risk. Epictetus (Stob. 10) says: “It is difficult
for a rich person to be right-minded or a right-minded person rich.”
Riches and poverty are not essential criteria of character. Over against
the slums in our cities one may place the pious poor of Scotland, as
seen in “The Cotter’s Saturday Night.” Over against the wild and
reckless _nouveaux riches_ one may note the generous givers of millions
to missions and to education.
One must learn to be just to all classes and to do justice to all. A
person needs full knowledge of the social conditions about him and the
courage to apply the gospel of Christ to these conditions. But let no
one imagine that sociology can take the place of the gospel of Jesus.
Christianity is sociological, but sociology is not necessarily
Christian. We need intelligent sympathy, but most of all we need the
love and grace of God in the heart. But minister and man must be
independent of bondage to either rich or poor and stand in the freedom
of Christ.
Prof. H. C. Vedder makes a very serious charge against modern ministers:
“This attitude of the clergy can be explained only on the ground of
their economic dependence upon the privileged classes. They are the
hirelings of capitalism, and, to do them justice, they earn their
wages.”[68] This is a bitter attack upon the ministry for always
championing the cause of capital whenever labor and capital clash. The
charge is not always true, as anyone who observes should know. Organized
labor is sometimes in the wrong. Corporations that are unjust to labor
are often denounced in the pulpit. Let every case be met on its merits.
Certainly the minister of Christ should be on the side of manhood
against mere money. A man’s life is more than money.
James reminds his readers that God is not ashamed of the poor. In fact,
he often calls the poor, as the world regards them, to be rich in faith.
After all, the riches of the spirit and of fellowship with God are the
true riches. So often a turn in the wheel of life leaves a man poor
today who was rich yesterday. And death will separate one from all his
wealth, save what he has given away. The wicked rich man may scout the
poor saint here, but Lazarus will rest in Abraham’s bosom while the
wicked rich man is in torment in hades.
But even here the pious poor stand high with God, while the wicked rich
are despised. The poor may be heirs of the kingdom. Think of that—heirs
of the kingdom of God, the glorious messianic kingdom promised of old
and now begun, the fulness of which is in the future with God, the
heavenly kingdom. But even here and now the poor saint is a child of the
King and has riches untold. He has love and joy in his heart, a
superiority to adversity, an elevation of spirit, the peace of God that
passes all understanding; and that is worth more than all the gold of
Ophir.
It is not mere pious platitude on the part of James when he writes thus.
He is but interpreting the soul of mystic Christianity, real
Christianity, as set forth by Jesus in the Beatitudes, where those only
are felicitated who have the joy of the spirit independent of outward
condition or circumstance. After all, the piety of the poor is a
nation’s best asset. The poor will someday, many of them, be rich. May
they still be pious! The upper classes run down and run out, alas, and
have to be recruited constantly from the lower classes. It is the law of
life. If we save the masses, we may save the classes. At any rate, it is
a pitiful business to see a church of Jesus Christ ashamed of the poor,
as the world regards them, for Jesus our Lord was himself poor for our
sakes, voluntarily poor. “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he
became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor.
8:9)—rich in God’s mercy and grace, rich in character, in likeness to
Jesus.