On Judgement and Future Plans
Have you ever found yourself judging someone according to the law? Are you so obsessed with future plans that you aren’t focused on your present actions? This is what the last six verses of the fourth chapter of James discusses; and true to form, James causes us to reflect upon our own actions in light of what the Word of God describes.
Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. The one who speaks against a brother or sister, or judges his brother or sister, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you, judging your neighbor?
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.
We have already seen in the previous sections of this chapter that James warns against lusting after what other Christians have, causing strife with other Christians, and seeking after the world. In verse eleven, we see that James is continuing to discuss actions of Christians towards other Christians. Here we see James turning to the topic of speaking against fellow believers as well as judging them. James makes it clear that we should not speak against one another, this I believe connects back to James 4:1-2a, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is the source not your pleasures that wage war in your body’s parts? 2 You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.” James has already established that the source of conflict comes from our own desires and so when we speak against another Christian, James he points out that we do so to again fulfill our own desires. We need to keep in mind what James states about the tongue, that the smallest part of the body directs our ways. Our words needs to reflect Christ.
James is pointing out here that we should not be speaking against or judging another believer who does not follow the “law”. I placed the law in quotations on purpose and that is because many believers will judge another based on their own interpretation of how a Christian should behave. And so we see James pointing out that those who judge a believer based on their own interpretations of how a Christian should act, are not doers of the law but judges. James continues to point out that there is only One who is able to Judge. Jesus Christ. When we judge others, Christians based on our own interpretation of how they should behave, we place ourselves as the ultimate judge.
This is not to say that we should not inspect a person’s fruit. After all, it is by a person’s actions that we will know if they are a born-again believer. “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? 17 So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” Matthew 7:16-18. What James is discussing, is that we should not be based on our own ideals but rather through what the Scriptures, the Words of the true judge, states.
James then ends this chapter with a remark towards the future. Often times, we believe that we have all the time in the world to complete tasks that we want to do. We forget that our lives are ultimately fleeting. I think the final verse of James chapter four is the ultimate key for when we think of the future. “17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.” If we know that God is calling us to do something, following what His scripture states, and we do not do it then we are resulting back to what is discussed in James 4:4. “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”. We have the Word of God as our ultimate authority, if we ignore what the Word states then we are practicing sin. We must continually reflect upon the scriptures and our actions to ensure that we are following the authority of the One who has the right to judge us all!
Seek the truth and encourage one another,
Alex