This is not speaking of the results of personal
sanctification causing outbreaks of sin in the body of an individual member,
but rather the outbreaks of sin in individual members that affect the entire
membership of a local body of that catholic body of Christ which comprises
membership in the New Covenant.
Notice what James does say: These sins are quarrels and conflicts; these sins are the result
of the wrongful lusts, or desires or passions, of individual members that are causing schisms, or divisions, to the point of the apostle calling them quarrels and
conflicts. The sins described are plural, as is the damage to the body local.
Quarrels are rightly described as wars in the KJV: These are serious and protracted conflict(s), often
involving a series of attacks
(Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A. (1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon
of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains (electronic ed. of the 2nd
edition.) (495). New York:
United Bible Societies), while conflicts
are serious
conflicts, either physical or non-physical, but clearly intensive and bitter (Louw, J. P., & Nida, E. A.
(1996). Vol. 1: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: Based on semantic domains
(electronic ed. of the 2nd edition.) (494). New York: United Bible Societies).
The foundation of these things are
the pleasures of those members who are causing the corporate strife, and so
damaging the other members of the local body of Christ, both of those other
members who are under attack and the corporate body as a whole; the testimony
of Christ among the body and in the world are also damaged by these pleasures.
This points to so many of the
problems in so many modern versions of Christianity that deny the Scriptural
and historical Christianity that the Bible proclaims and verifies, but what is
sad is that those members causing the
problems actually get real and true pleasure out of causing such discord and
active enmity among the local body of Christ. This is the source: the
perverted passions of the flesh which always love evil and do anything to cause
pain and suffering to others, knowingly; the Greek word is where we get out
English words hedonist and hedonistic.
Even worse, this pleasure in
causing pain for others is set actively
against the Head of the body, Jesus Christ. This is knowingly crucifying
the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame, for to treat the
members of His body in this way is to treat the Lord, Savior and King in the
same manner (Matthew 25:41-45). Such is
the emptiness of these members’ profession of Christ, that they are taking
opportunity to do Him damage at every turn by hurting those for whom He died. Their end is destruction, their appetite is
their god is their belly (physical
satiation of carnal desires) and they glory
(jubilantly exult in) their shame (those things they are doing which should result in disgrace and disgust – Philippians
3:18-19). Such are enemies
of the cross of Christ, and following the old human adage misery loves company, they gladly, with
a vicious joyousness, spread their misery among the body with abandon, as the
arrows of their apparent hatred for the Lord they falsely profess are shot
against His body again and again.
James calls these members murderers, by stating the fact that what
they are doing, in word and dead, is murder.
If our Lord were to arrive in the flesh before them (sans His fearsome glory, which will not happen until His second advent),
they would be among those crying “Crucify
Him!” They fire their deadly bullets of strife at His body’s members to
show what which they truly think of the Lord and Head of that body.
They justify doing these things
because they ask and do not receive.
They do not receive because they ask to spend that which they would like to
receive on the same carnal, hedonistic pleasures that they feed by actively
working to hurt the body of Christ of which they are supposedly members.
In summation of the above, those
James is speaking about are what is often called (wrongly, I might add) carnal
Christians in many of today’s modernistic churches. This is to say that they are not Christians at all; their
view of God and God’s covenant people is shaped by their own selfish desires,
which they never find fulfilled, and consequently, they attack the members of
Christ’s body, which we have seen is the same as to attack the Lord Himself.
Nevertheless, as we close, we
must remember this: even those who have not yet tasted and seen the goodness of
the Lord are admonished to repentance within this very chapter (James
4:6-10), for it is always the intention of the Lord that those
who experience the riches of His good kindness, forbearing, kind mercy and patient
endurance be led, by such kindness, to repentance (Romans
2:4). The attacks of these may yet be turned to worship of the
true God, and His Son, Jesus Christ, if He, in His great mercy, grants them
that new heart of faith and repentance that turns to Him. The ministry will
echo God’s will in these matters, as will the entire assembly of the saints (Philippians
2:1-3; 2 Timothy 2:24-26); however, while they
are attacking, they are to be shunned, and not allowed to foment strife and
division within the body of our blessed Lord (Romans
16:17-18), for our Lord has ordained these means to protect
His sheep for His name’s sake.
SDG - Bill
SDG - Bill
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