James: Faith That Works by Hughes R. Kent

Author:Hughes, R. Kent [Hughes, R. Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Religion, Biblical Commentary, New Testament
ISBN: 9780891076278
Google: ssnanQEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 314433
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 1991-01-15T08:00:00+00:00

19 The Gravity of Grace

James 4:7–10†

The “gravity of grace” works like the earth’s water system, which always flows from the highest to the lowest. Just as the waters of Niagara roll over the fall and plunge down to make a river below, and just as that river flows ever down to the even lower ranges of its course, then glides to still more low-lying areas where it brings life and growth, so it is with God’s grace. Grace’s gravity carries it to the lowly in heart, where it brings life and blessing. Grace goes to the humble.

This is the spiritual law behind Proverbs 3:34, which James has quoted in verse 6: “‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’” The unbowed soul standing proudly before God receives no benefit from God’s falling grace. It may descend upon him, but it does not penetrate, and drips away like rain from a statue. But the soul lying humbly before God is immersed—and even swims—in a sea of grace. So while there is always “more grace,” it is reserved for the lowly—the humble.

The problem, of course, is that authentic humility has never been in vogue and most certainly is not today. Our rebellious twentieth-century world has embraced “the illusion that the human species is the sole crown of the cosmos, generator of the good, touchstone of truth, fashioner and designer of destiny,”1 to use Carl Henry’s words. Our twentieth-century human icons are not religious figures, but those who have been strong enough to climb to the top of the pile—and it does not matter to us how they got there.

Even the church has not been immune to this disease. Despite recent disgraces, it appears that much of the church is under the sway of the proud—those who, to use Woodrow Wilson’s phrase, can “strut sitting down”2—hardly the posture in which to receive God’s grace! With examples like this, the predictable result is that there are multitudes in the pew who haven’t the foggiest idea of what God wants from them, and thus they live frustrated, graceless lives.

What is to be done? Fortunately God’s Word still speaks, just as it did in James’ day, for in verses 7–10 we find the antidote. This is a tidy unit consisting of a series of terse commands, beginning with the dominant call to submit to God and then giving three couplets of matching commands, and finally issuing a summary command.3 In the Greek the language is even more clipped, so that the commands come in a jackhammer burst. James wants to so fire the souls of his people that they will swim triumphantly in the river of grace. May it be so for us as well!

James’ opening command grates like fingernails across the chalkboard of contemporary culture: “Submit yourselves, then, to God” (v. 7a). Today people flood to classes on assertiveness and pay big money to learn the techniques of dominance. But can you imagine anyone attending a class on submissiveness? “Assert yourselves!”—that sounds better to the ear.

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