Lay aside all filthiness … and receive with meekness
Of preaching, hearing, and practising the Word of God
I.
THAT TO LAY APART ALL THE FILTHINESS AND SUPERFLUITY OF NAUGHTINESS HERE MENTIONED IS NECESSARY FOR EVERY ONE WHO
INTENDS TO BE A TRUE CHRISTIAN. Plain as this may seem to be, it is fit to be taken notice of.
1. Because there are some who, though they maintain no such principles in speculation, yet in their practice seem to compromise matters between their vicious inclinations and the Divine laws; and are by no means so holy, so free from all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, as the religion of Jesus requires them to be.
2. Because there are others professing Christianity who, even by their doctrines, would reconcile some sorts of impurity with it.
II. THAT THERE IS A PARTICULAR CONNECTION BETWEEN OUR CLEANSING OURSELVES FROM SUCH POLLUTIONS, AND OUR PROFITABLY HEARING, THE WORD OF GOD. It is self-evident that the better disposed the mind is, the more likely it must be to receive and retain the heavenly instructions. As a vessel which is empty, clean, and sound, is best fitted to receive and retain pure water, or any such liquor poured into it. Whereas, on the contrary, the foul exhalations of lust will be apt to exclude the Word.
III. THAT MEEKNESS, OR A FREEDOM FROM PASSION AND PREJUDICE, AND WHATEVER ELSE IS IMPLIED IN THAT WORD, IS MORE ESPECIALLY REQUISITE IN ORDER TO SUCH PROFITABLE HEARING. “As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby,” Receive it with the mature understandings of men, but with the unprejudiced wills of children; with the sweetness, innocence, and simplicity of infants.
IV. THAT THE WORD OF GOD HAS A MOST POWERFUL, NAY, A NEVERFAILING EFFICACY TO SAVE OUR SOULS (see 2Ti_2:15).
V. THAT IT IS A VAIN THING TO HEAR IT UNLESS WE PRACTISE IT; AND THAT WE DO BUT DECEIVE OURSELVES IF WE EXPECT ANY BENEFIT FROM THE FORMER WITHOUT THE LATTER. (Joseph Trapp, D. D.)
Reception of the gospel with meekness
I. THE OBJECT. By the ingrafted Word we are to understand the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, which began to be engrafted or planted in the hearts of men when our Lord and His apostles entered on the ministry.
II. THE PROPERTY ascribed to it.
III. THE QUALIFICATION, how it must be received.
1. Meekness is such a good disposition of mind as prepares men for the reception of the gospel. It is also such a disposition as may be under the influence of grace, acquired by prudential motives and considerations, such as the notions of God’s infinite power, justice, and truth; the presages of conscience that rewards and punishments must be distributed equally some time or other.
2. And as this good disposition may be acquired by these and the like considerations, for this reason we ought to distinguish it from some things that are thought to bear a resemblance to it.
(1) It ought to be distinguished from nature, which, being defiled by the first transgression, is the greatest obstacle of a ready obedience to God’s commands.
(2) This good disposition of spirit ought to be distinguished from what we call good nature, because this has a regard chiefly to civil conversation betwixt man and man, and discovers itself either by doing or receiving good offices, and that with a desire to please and oblige others.
(3) This good disposition ought to be more especially distinguished from a contemptible, abject spirit, which is a character profane men are wont to affix upon this excellent qualification.
(4) This tractable, meek spirit ought to be distinguished also from that mean, abject spirit that takes shelter in an implicit faith.
3. I proceed to show how necessary this qualification of meekness is to us in the state we are in, and that with reference only to the mysteries of faith. Which way soever the controversy turns, the mysteries of it continue still, and must continue till time shall be no more. In this case whatever assistance we crave from reason, reason rightly informed will tell us, first, that this is not a matter that lies properly within her verge and jurisdiction. (S. Estwick, B. D.)
How we may hear the Word with profit
I. By “THE WORD” I understand the Word of God; which Word of God may be considered either as it is written in the Scripture, or as it is preached by the ministers of Christ.
II. WE PROFIT by the Word when we get that good and spiritual advantage from it for which it was designed by God. Now, God hath appointed His Word--
1. For learning and instruction.
2. For conversion. The Word turns man unto God--
(1) As it discovers sin (1Co_14:24-25).
(2) As it brings people to the confession of sins (Mat_3:6; Act_19:18).
(3) As it works a kindly mourning and sorrow for sin (Act_2:37; Neh_8:9; Jer_3:21).
(4) As it works amendment and reformation (1Th_1:9; Col_1:5-6).
2. For the building up of those that are called, converted, and sanctified Act_20:32; Act_18:27; 1Ti_4:6).
4. For consolation (1Co_14:31; Act_8:5; Act_8:8). Now the Word comforts--
(1) As it opens God’s attributes, such as His mercy, wisdom, faithfulness, and power:
(2) As it discovers Christ, the promises and privileges of the saints.
(3) As it discovers and reveals the marks and characters of God’s children.
(4) As it answers the doubts and fears of saints.
III. How WE SHALL PROFIT by hearing the Word.
1. Hear it attentively (Mar_4:2-3 : Act_13:16; Rev_2:7).
2. With meekness.
3. With a good and honest heart.
(1) An understanding heart.
(2) A believing heart.
(3) A loving heart.
4. Keep what you hear of it (Luk_8:15; 1Th_5:21; 1Co_15:2).
(1) Repeat it in your families.
(2) Talk of it as you go from hearing.
(3) Pray to the Lord that He would preserve the Word in your heart by His Spirit. (Thos. Senior, B. D.)
Ways of treating the Word
There are two ways of treating the seed. The botanist splits it up, and discourses on its curious characteristics; the simple husbandman eats and sows, sows and eats. Similarly there are two ways of treating the gospel. A critic dissects it, raises a mountain of debate about the structure of the whole, and relation of its parts; and when he is done with his argument, he is done; to him the letter is dead; he neither lives on it himself, nor spreads it for the good of his neighbours; he neither eats nor sows. The disciple of Jesus, hungering for righteousness, takes the seed whole; it is bread for to-day’s hunger, and seed for to-morrow’s supply. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
Moral hindrance to the reception of the truth
As “filthiness” (which is the literal import of the original word--a word which occurs only here in the New Testament) of the outward person is offensive to the senses of one who is of cleanly and delicate taste and habits, so offensive is sin or moral evil to the spiritual sensibilities of the new man; of him who is “begotten of God,” and whose “seed remaineth in him”--the seed of the pure “Word of God.” The exhortation will thus correspond very closely with that of another apostle, which is also connected with the representation of believers as belonging to God’s family (2Co_7:1). Then--retaining the same view of the connection--the word rendered “naughtiness” will naturally be taken in its largest and most general acceptation as meaning “evil”--evil, that is, in principle, affection, and conduct. I am inclined, however, without being positive, to understand the connection of the words as more immediate with the preceding two verses; and as referring especially to the outward expression or utterance of that “wrath of man which worketh not the righteousness of God.” In this way, I would interpret “filthiness” of the vile abusive language in which that wrath is ever prone to indulge itself; of ribaldry--coarse and foul invective. And this corresponds well with the style of the writer, who dwells afterwards at such lengths on the evils of the tongue. The low abuse of a wrathful and misguided zeal was one description of the “filthy communication” which Paul, too, commands believers to “put off.” On the same principle, I take the word rendered here “naughtiness,” to have the sense of malice or maliciousness, rather than the more general sense of evil. These things they were to “lay apart” as hindrances to the reception and influence of God’s Word, as at variance with the temper of mind necessary to its right reception and its right operation. “Meekness” has here the distinctive sense of an humble, calm, childlike docile disposition. It is a state of mind unreservedly open to the instructions and directions of Divine wisdom and Divine authority; conscious of ignorance and of proneness to err. The Word is denominated “the engrafted Word,” or the implanted Word. The more usual figure is that of seed--seed sown in the heart. Hence it is a shoot--a shoot, as it were, from the tree of life--implanted in the same soil by the agency of God’s Spirit. It becomes the plant of grace in the heart; and, in the life, “brings forth fruit unto God.” And of that “implanted Word” it is here added, “which is able to save your souls.” There are two parts of the soul’s salvation, for both of which “the Word of the truth of the gospel” is alike adapted and sufficient. It reveals, in the first place, the ground of the pardon of sin, and of justification before God; and by faith in this ground we are pardoned and justified. That ground consists in the atonement and righteousness of the Divine Saviour--His mediatorial “obedience unto death.” The Word of the truth of the gospel, when believed, thus” saves the soul” from guilt and condemnation, and brings it into a state of life and acceptance with God. Then, secondly, it becomes the instrument of renewal and progressive sanctification--an equally important element of the soul’s salvation. It saves the soul by delivering it from the power and the love of sin. We are “saved by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” And this is by means of the Word. It is then, when brought to the possession of the “inheritance among them that are sanctified,” that the soul is fully and for ever “saved.” This latter part of the gospel salvation James was anxious to impress, in its indispensable necessity, on the minds of those to whom he wrote--the practical influence of the truth which he here exhorts them to receive, and to receive, in all its lessons, with meekly submissive docility--the vanity of all professions of having so received the truth if its practical efficacy was not apparent. This is an invariable characteristic of God’s Word. The doctrinal and the practical are inseparable. It follows here accordingly: “But be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” The great general principle, or truth, in this verse is, that all mere hearing of the Word, and all professed faith of it, are self-delusions, where there is not the experience of its inward holy influence manifested in its outward practical effects--that the hearing and the professing are worthless without the doing, as the required and necessary evidence of our being accepted of God in Christ. The “doing of the Word” is a proof of our being believers of the Word; of our having indeed “received it with meekness,” and of its being divinely and savingly implanted in our hearts. (R. Wardlaw, D. D.)
The engrafted Word
The engrafted Word
St. James is, by eminence, the apostle of practical Christianity. The keynote of his Epistle is, that the religion of Jesus is less a thing to talk about than a thing to act upon, that Christianity is nothing if it is not a life-controlling, life-moulding power.
I. Observe now THIS “WORD” IS HERE QUALIFIED. It is called “the engrafted Word.” It is a metaphor drawn from the vegetable world. The sacred metaphors of Scripture teach by pointing out real correspondences between one department of God’s works and another.
1. This metaphor implies that it is no part of the intellectual outfit of the human mind. The Divine Word came to the human mind from without, as a graft to be inserted.
2. It shows its assimilative power. There must be, in the vegetable world, a family likeness to start with, an organic affinity between the stock and the graft. There is a great deal in common between the Word of Jesus and the existing aspirations and beliefs of the human soul. Beneath every heathen superstition fragments of truth which have close fellowship with the one true faith lie buried.
3. In this metaphor we see its power of laying the nature into which it is inserted under contribution. The engrafted Word does not say to human nature that nothing can be done with it, and that it is fit only for destruction. It makes the most of it; it perfects and consecrates human nature by the gifts of grace.
II. THE MASTER BENEFIT THAT IT CONFERS. “Able to save your souls.” The apostle does not say “it will save them,” that it is a talisman which will operate irrespectively of your wills: Lo, you can check, you can refuse it. But it is able to save.
III. WE ARE TO RECEIVE THE WORD OF CHRIST IN A PARTICULAR MORAL TEMPER AND ATTITUDE “with meekness.” It is not meant to add fuel to your controversies, it is meant to govern your lives.
IV. THE DUTY INCUMBENT UPON EVERY CHRISTIAN PARENT OF TEACHING HIS CHILD THE FAITH OF CHRIST. Beyond a certain age the stock takes a graft only with difficulty. When all else has been parted with in later life, the early lessons of piety will rise before the soul as from the very grave and thrill it with a new and awful power. (Canon Liddon.)
The reception of the Divine Word
1. “Lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” The evil to be got rid of is represented as a foul garment or sore encumbrance. It is to be entirely apart. We are to deal thus with all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. None of it is to be spared. The least of it is vastly too much, and may not be tolerated. The whole of this Amalek is doomed, and woe to him who acts Saul’s part, and makes any exception when carrying on the work of destruction.
2. “And receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls.” This is the end to which the other is only the means. We are to “receive the Word,” that is, admit it into our souls, which we do by believing. Faith accepts it, appropriates it, makes it our own, lodges it within us as a real and abiding possession. This grace has not only a perceptive, but also a receptive power. This is to be done “with meekness,” gentleness, mildness--with a disposition the opposite of an angry, malicious spirit. No other can be suited to receiving the Word, which, in its very nature, is humbling to our pride, and, being all impregnated with love, cannot dwell where enmity continues to retain its seat. The one must make way for the other. And mark how he describes the Word which is to be thus received. Often is it spoken of under the emblem of seed sown, here it is the kindred one of a shoot planted or “engrafted.” The Word had already been lodged within the per, sons here directly addressed. They had been begotten by it, and hence, in their case, it was engrafted. It had been inserted into the old and wild stock of nature by the Spirit, and thus had changed the whole character of the tree and its productions. What they were now to do was to receive it more fully. We need ever to be appropriating afresh Divine truth, using it as the aliment of the spiritual life, drawing from it the motives to, and the materials for, holy living. “Which is able to save your souls.” “Your souls,” that is your whole persons, which are here designated by their principal part, that in which corruption chiefly dwells, and on which destruction chiefly falls. This is the Word’s highest excellence, its crowning distinction. It can do what is here ascribed to it, not efficiently, but only instrumentally. It reveals and offers salvation, spreads out the blessings of it, and commends them to our acceptance. (John Adam.)
Before sermon, at sermon, and after sermon
It is a good thing to be under the sound of the Word of God. Even if the very lowest motive should induce persons to come to hear the gospel, it is nevertheless a good thing that they should come. He that comes near to its fire, even with the intent to quench it, may find himself overcome by its heat. Master Hugh Latimer, in his quaint manner, when exhorting people to go to church, tells of a woman who could not sleep for many nights, notwithstanding that drugs had been given to her; but she said that if they would take her to her parish church she could sleep there, for she had often enjoyed a quiet slumber under the sermon; and he goes the length of saying that if people even come to the sermon to sleep, it is better than not to come at all; for, he adds, in his fine old Saxon, “they may be caught napping.” Yet it will strike you at once that though it be well to come to the hearing of the Word in any case, yet it is better to come in a better way. We should endeavour to gather the most we can from the means of grace, and not pluck at them at random. Let us not lose a grain of the blessing through our own fault. The Word of the Lord is precious in these days; let us not trifle with it.
I. Let us consider the fit and proper preparation for listening to the gospel, or what is to be done BEFORE HEARING. There should be no stumbling into the place of worship half-asleep, no roaming thither as if it were no more than going to a play-house. We cannot expect to profit much if we bring with us a swarm of idle thoughts and a heart crammed with vanity. If we are full of folly, we may shut out the truth of God from our minds. We should make ready to receive what God is so ready to bestow. When I think of our engagements throughout the week, who of us can feel fit to come into the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High? I mean not into these tabernacles made with hands, but into the inner spiritual temple of communion with God. How shall we come unto God until we are washed? After travelling so miry a road as that which runs through this foul world, can we come unto God without shaking the dust from off our feet? There is a common consent among mankind that there should be some preparedness for worship. In making this preparation our text tells us that there are some things to be laid aside. “All filthiness.” Now sin of every kind is filthiness. By faith in the precious blood of Jesus it must be washed out, for we cannot come before God with acceptance while iniquity is indulged. Filth, you know, is a debasing thing, meet only for beggars and thieves; and such is sin. Filth is offensive to all cleanly persons. However poor a man is he might be clean; and when he is not, he becomes a common nuisance to those who speak with him, or sit near him. If bodily filthiness is horrible to us, what must the filthiness of sin be to the pure and holy God? Moreover, sin is not only offensive, but it is dangerous. He who harbours filth is making a hot-bed for the germs of disease, and thus he is the enemy of his family and of his neighbourhood. The filthy man is a public poisoner, a suicide, and a murderer. Sin is the greatest conceivable danger to a man’s own soul: it makes a man to be dead while he lives, yea, corrupt before he is dead. There are three sins at least that are intended here, and one is covetousness. Hence the desire of unholy gain is called filthy lucre, because it leads men to do dirty deeds which else they would not think of. If the lust of wealth enters into the heart, it rots it to the core. Then, with peculiar correctness, lustfulness may be spoken of as filthiness. How should the thrice holy Spirit come and dwell in that heart which is a den of unclean desires? But in the connection of my text the filthiness meant is especially anger. How can you accept the Word of peace while you are at enmity with your brother? How can you hope to find forgiveness under the hearing of the Word when you forgive not those that have trespassed against you? The wrath of man is so filthy a thing, that it cannot work the righteousness of God; nor is it likely that the righteousness of God will be wrought in the heart that is hot like an oven with passion and malice. But it is added, “and superfluity of naughtiness.” The phrase here used differs not in meaning from the first epithet of the text: it gives another view of the same thing. You have seen a rose-tree which, perhaps was bearing very few roses, and you half wondered why. It was a good rose; and planted in good soil, but its flowers were scanty. You looked around it, and by and by you perceived that suckers were growing up from its roof. Now, these suckers come from the old, original briar, on which the rose had been grafted, and this rose had a superfluity of strength which it used in these suckers. These superfluities, or overflows, took away from the rose the life which it required, so that it could not produce the full amount of flowers which you expected from it. These superfluities of naughtiness that were coming up here and there were to the injury of the tree. Children of God, you cannot serve the Lord if you are giving your strength to any form of wrong; your naughtinesses are springing from the briar stock of your old nature, and the best thing to do is to cut off those suckers and stop them as much as possible, so that all the strength may return into the rose, and the lovely flowers of grace may abound. Oh, that God’s people, when they come up here on the Sabbath-day, may first have undergone that Divine priming which shall take away the superfluity of naughtiness, for there cannot be grafting without a measure of pruning. The gardener takes off from a certain part of the tree a shoot of the old stock, and then he inserts the graft. There must be a removal of superfluities in order that we may receive with meekness “the engrafted Word,” which is able to save our souls. Why is this? Why is a man as he comes to hear the gospel to see to this? I take it because all these evil things preoccupy the mind. If we come here with this filthiness about us, how can we expect that the pure and incorruptible Word shall be sweet to us? Moreover, sin prejudices against the gospel. A man says, “I do not enjoy the sermon.” How can you? What have you been enjoying during the week? What flavour did last night leave in your mouth?
II. Secondly, I will talk a little about DURING HEARING. How shall we act while listening to the Word?” Receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your souls.” The first thing, then, is receive. That word “receive” is a very instructive gospel word; it is the door through which God’s grace enters to us. We are not saved by working, but by receiving; not by what we give to God, but by what God gives to us, and we receive from Him. The preaching of the Word is as a shower from heaven; but what happens to the soil if the raindrops fall, but none are absorbed into the soil? Of what avail is the shower if none is drunk in by the thirsty furrows? A medicine may have great healing power, but if it is not received, then it does not purge the inward parts of the body. There must be a receiving of any good thing before the goodness of it can be ours. Then it is added, “receive with meekness.” We stand at the bar to be tried by God’s Word, and searched; but woe unto us if, rejecting every pretence of meekness, we ascend the tribunal, and summon God Himself before us. The spirit of critics ill becomes sinners when they seek mercy of the Lord. His message must be received with teachableness of mind. When you know it is God’s Word, it may upbraid you, but you must receive it with meekness. It may startle you with its denunciations: but receive it with meekness. It may be, there is something about the truth which at the first blush does not commend itself to your understanding; it is perhaps too high, too terrible, too deep; receive it with meekness. What is this which is to be received? “Receive with meekness the engrafted Word.” We are not bidden to receive with meekness men’s words, for they are many, and there is little in them: but receive with meekness God’s Word, for it is one, and there is power in each Word which proceedeth out of His mouth. It is called “the engrafted Word.” Engrafting implies theft the heart is wounded and opened, and then the living Word is laid in and received with meekness into the bleeding, wounded soul of the man. There is the gash, and there is the space opened thereby. Here comes the graft: the gardener must establish a union between the tree and the graft. This new life, this new branch, is inserted into the old stem, and they are to be livingly joined together. At first they are bound together by the gardener, and clay is placed about the points of junction; but soon they begin to grow into one another, and then only is the grafting effectual. This new cutting grows into the old, and it begins to suck up the life of the old, and change it so that it makes new fruit. That bough, though it be in the grafted tree, is altogether of another sort. Now we want the Word of God to be brought to us after a similar fashion: our heart must be cut and opened, and then the Word must be laid into the gash till the two adhere, and the heart begins to hold to the Word, to believe in it, to hope in it, to love it, to grow to it, to grow into it, and to bear fruit accordingly. Once more you are to receive it by faith, for you are to regard the Word as being able. Believe in the power of God’s Word, receive it as being fully able to save your souls from beginning to end. Two ways it does this: by putting away your sin as you accept the blood and righteousness of Christ, and by changing your nature as you accept the Lord Jesus to be your Master and your Lord, your life and your all.
III. Lastly, let us think of AFTER SERMON. “Be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” First, the command is positive--“Be ye doers of the Word.” Sirs, ye have heard about repentance and the putting away of filthiness: repent, then, and let your filthiness be put away. May God the Holy Ghost lead you to do so--not to hear about it, but do it. Ye have heard us preach continually concerning faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you know all about believing; but have you believed? We are to admonish you concerning all those blessed duties which spring out of that living faith which works by love; but it is nothing to hear about these virtues unless you possess them. Doing far surpasses hearing. I believe that with a very little knowledge and great doing of what we know, we may attain to a far higher degree of grace than with great knowledge and little doing of what we know. Observe that the command is put negatively: the text says,” not hearers only.” Those who are hearers only are wasters of the Word. What poor creatures hearers are, for they have long ears and no hands! Ye have heard of him who one day was discoursing eloquently of philosophy to a crowd, who greatly applauded him. He thought he had made many disciples, but suddenly the market-bell rang, and not a single person remained. Gain was to be made, and in their opinion no philosophy could be compared to personal profit. They were hearers till the market-bell rang, and then, as they had been hearers only, they quitted the hearing also. I fear it is so With our preachings: if the devil rings the bell for sin, for pleasure, for worldly amusement, or evil gain, our admirers quit us right speedily. The voice of the world drowns the voice of the Word. Those who are only hearers, are hearers but for a time. Remember, if any man will be lost, he will most surely be lost who heard the gospel and refused it. Over the cell of such a man write, “He knew his duty, but he did it not”; and that cell will be found to be built in the very centre of Gehenna; it is the innermost prison of hell. Wilful rejection of Christ ensures woful rejection from Christ. The text closes with this solemn word: “Deceiving your own selves.” Whereupon says Bishop Brownrig, “To deceive is bad, to deceive yourselves is worse, to deceive yourselves about your souls is worst of all.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The engrafted Word
I. THE GIFT TO BE BESTOWED.
1. The nature of the gift. The application of truths to the soul in practical activity. The will of God as imparted by revelation. The guidance of God.
2. The benefit of the gift. “Able to save the soul.” Preservation from sorrow, ruin, death.
II. THE METHOD BY WHICH IT IS TO BE IMPARTED.
1. NO meritorious deserving.
2. No heavy price.
III. THE WAY WHICH IT IS TO BE RECEIVED.
1. With thoroughness.
2. With meekness.
3. With docility.
IV. THE EFFECT IT WILL PRODUCE.
1. Transform the entire nature.
2. Enlighten the life.
3. Bestow salvation. (Homilist.)
The engrafted Word
Various images are given to us to set forth the manifold value of the Word of truth. It is compared to “gold and silver” Psa_119:72). By St. James in this passage it is called “the engrafted Word,” or “the implanted Word” (R.V.). It is as the graft put into the tree, which, when it takes and grows, changes its whole character and produce. So, when God’s truth enters the soul, it becomes as the germ and origin of a new and holy life. Or, the expression used by St. James may lead us to another view. It is like seed planted in the earth, as in the parable of the Luk_8:11). And, as seed, the Word has a mighty power and operation. We are told that in Mexico you come upon vast masses of masonry, once forming part of their heathen temples, but now utterly overthrown and broken up. But how has this been accomplished? It is by seeds carried by birds of the air, and lodged in the crevices, and these, by and by, have grown and grown until they have split into fragments walls and buildings which once seemed likely to abide for centuries. Thus, too, is there a power in the Word of God to cast down the strongholds of sin, superstition, error, and idolatry, and, whether in countries or in human hearts, utterly to destroy that which dishonours the Lord. We are reminded by St. James in this passage that this Word is “able to save your souls.”
1. It is God’s instrument for convincing men of the evil of their doings. It shows to them the peril of living in unpardoned sin. It leads them to seek the way of life, and, like the multitude on the day of Pentecost, to ask, “What must we do?”
2. The Word is “able to save the soul,” because it ever points to Him who is able to save, even to the uttermost.
3. The Word is able to save because it points out the path of true “holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” It gives us the holy law of God in all its breadth and fulness. It calls us to the loftiest standard of self-denial and consecration to God’s service. But to learn these lessons and obtain these benefits, the Word of God must be received into the heart. It may fall upon the ear, or be read by the eye, and yet fail to impart any true blessing. Hence we need to look for the aid of God’s Holy Spirit. Pray much that you may rightly understand what is revealed, and, above all, that you may love the truth and follow it. If you would receive the Word aright, there must be hearty renunciation of all past evil. Cast aside old habits of sloth, self-indulgence, worldliness, evil speaking, and all else that belongs to sin and the flesh. I know full well you cannot do this in your own strength. St. James adds another particular as to the reception of the “Word. It must be received “with meekness” and humility. All pride, prejudice, and self-wisdom must be cast to the winds. You must come to the Word to learn what God would teach you, and you must come in the spirit of a little child. Perhaps we can find no better example of the spirit in which we should hear or read than that of Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus and hearing His Word (Luk_10:39). Yeas there ever a better student in Divine knowledge? (G. Everard, M. A.)
The Bible and human souls
I. THE BIBLE.
1. It is the Word. Pure. Loving. Faithful. Conquering.
2. It is the engrafted Word. An incorruptible seed.
3. It is the Word to save from spiritual ignorance, prejudice, thraldom, selfishness, sensuality, guilt, &c.
II. THE HUMAN SOUL.
1. Its amazing capability.
2. Its moral obligations. Receive the Word in a humble, reverent, docile spirit. (Homilist.)
Receiving the Word
1. Before we come to the Word, there must be preparation. Many come to hear, but they do not consider the weight and importance of the duty. Christ saith (Luk_8:18).
(1) By way of caution.
(a) Do not exclude God out of your preparations. Usually men mistake in this matter, and hope by their own care to work themselves into a fitness of spirit.
(b) Though you cannot get your hearts into such a frame as you do desire, trust God, and that help which is absent to sense and feeling may be present to faith.
(2) By way of direction. I cannot go out into all the severals of preparations, how the heart must be purged, faith exercised, repentance renewed, wants and weaknesses reviewed, God’s glory considered, the nature, grounds, and ends of the ordinances weighed in our thoughts. Only, in the general, so much preparation there must be as will make the heart reverent. God will be served with a joy mixed with trembling (Gen_28:17). And again, such preparation as will settle the bent of the spirit heavenward. It is said somewhere, “They set themselves to seek the Lord” Psa_57:7).
2. Christian preparation consists most in laying aside and dispossessing evil frames. Weeds must be rooted out before the ground is fit to receive the Jer_4:3). There is an unsuitableness between a filthy spirit and the pure holy Word.
3. Put it off, as a rotten and filthy garment. Sin must be left with an utter detestation (Isa_30:22).
4. We must not lay aside sin in part only, but all sin (1Pe_2:1; Psa_119:104). The least sins may undo you.
5. Sin is filthiness; it sullies the glory and beauty of the soul, defaces the image of God (2Co_7:1; Job_14:4; Job_15:14).
6. From that “superfluity of wickedness.” That there is abundance of wickedness to be purged out of the heart of man. “All the imaginations of the heart are evil, only evil, and that continually”; it runneth out into every thought, into every desire, into every purpose. As there is saltness in every drop of the sea, and bitterness in every branch of wormwood, so sin in everything that is framed within the soul. Whatever an unclean person touched, though it were holy flesh, it was unclean; so all our actions are poisoned with it.
7. Our duty in hearing the Word is to receive it. In receiving there is an act of the understanding, in apprehending the truth and musing upon it Luk_9:44). And there is an act of faith, the crediting and believing faculty is stirred up to entertain it (Heb_4:2). And there is an act of the will and affections to embrace and lodge it in the soul, which is called “a receiving the truth in love,” when we make room for it, that carnal affections and prejudices may not vomit and throw it up again.
8. The Word must be received with all meekness. First, this excludes--
(1) A wrathful fierceness, by which men rise in a rage against the Word Jer_6:10).
(2) A proud stubbornness, when men are resolved to hold their own Jer_2:25).
(3) A contentions wrangling, which is found in men of an unsober wit, that scorn to captivate the pride of reason, and therefore stick to every shift Psa_25:8-9).
Secondly, it includes--
(1) Humility and brokenness of spirit. There must be insection before insition, meek ness before ingrafting.
(2) Teachableness and tractableness of spirit (Jam_3:17). The servants of God come with a mind to obey; they do but wait for the discovery of their duty (Act_10:33). Disputing against the Word, it is a judging yourselves; it is as if, in effect, you should say, “I care not for God, nor all the tenders of grace and glory that He maketh to me.”
9. The Word must not only be apprehended by us, but planted in us. It is God’s promise (Jer_31:33).
10. The Word in God’s hand is an instrument to save our souls.
11. That the main care of Christian should be to save his soul. This is propounded as an argument why we should hear the Word; it will save your souls. Usually our greatest care is to gratify the body. (T. Manton.)
The gospel
I. ITS CHARACTER
1. The distinctness of its existence. It is a “graft” taken from the tree of eternal thought. Christ brought it to the earth, and grafted it upon human souls.
2. The affinity of its nature.
3. The appropriateness of its force. The gospel, when it enters the human soul, lays under contribution all its reasoning, creative, and susceptible powers.
II. ITS CAPABILITY. AS the buds of a fruitful tree engrafted on some barren plant make the worthless valuable, the unfertile fruitful, so the gospel saves all the soul’s faculties, turns them all to a right use.
III. ITS RECEPTION.
1. Not with--
(1) Thoughtlessness.
(2) Servility.
2. With the meekness of--
(1) Docility.
(2) Devotion. (Homilist.)
The ingrafted Word
The man who supposes that all that is necessary is that he run over a passage of Scripture before leaving his bed-chamber, and another at family prayer, and give respectful attention to his clergyman in church, is greatly mistaken. He must work out in life what he reads and hears, as the sap of a tree works out fruit on the stem which is grafted thereon. It is the failure to do this which has so greatly retarded our religious life. Men have heard the Word with their outward ears, and have gone out of the church thinking that the sermon was done, whereas it had not begun in their practice, not even in their hearts. No; the moment I have learned anything from the Word, I must make a strenuous effort to reproduce it in my life. Then the next thing learned, then the rest; and so on, until my life be an incarnation of the Bible. If each hearer did this, how powerful our holy faith would be among men! Compared with this, what is success in controversy, although I could silence every theological opponent? What Biblical learning, although I could repeat every verse of the Bible in every tongue ever spoken among men? Neither of these would save me; but the truth, animated into fruitage by my spiritual vitality, would make me a tree worth a place in God’s orchard. (C. Deems, D. D.)
Preparation of heart
That the Word of God may have full power over us, there must be a preparation of heart for its reception. We must cease to do evil before we can learn to do well. We must lay aside everything which is offensive to the purity of God. By the term “filthiness” James seems to wish to arouse a sense of the loathsomeness of all sin. He does not simply mean that we shall lay aside those particular sins which are disgusting to us; but rather to impress us theft all sin has in it that which makes it disgusting to God. He may here be supposed to be thinking of sins of the flesh, the visible violations of the moral law. Then we are to lay aside all “superfluity of naughtiness.” The word occurs in Rom_5:15 and 2Co_8:2; it indicates that which goes out to others. Here it means the outflowing of malice. By the one phrase James may be supposed to refer to sins of the flesh, and by the other sins of the spirit. While indulging ourselves either in sins which others cannot see, or sins which show themselves in displays of evil temper, we cannot profit by the Word of God. Meekness, as well as purity, is essential to the proper hearing of the Word of God. One cannot in private approach the study of the Word in the pride of opinion or of scholarship, nor can one resort to the Word for the purpose of sustaining one’s own dogma, and while in that spirit find the Word profitable. You know that this is sometimes done. A man may take down the Bible to find proof passages, just as a lawyer may search the Reports of the Supreme Court to find only that which will sustain his theory of the case which he is to try. In such search he throws aside whatever does not make for his side. He is not learning laws, he is hunting helps. If the Bible be so studied, it will be unprofitable. We must approach it with the docility of little children (Mat_18:23). We must simply wish to learn what is the mind of the Spirit in the Word of God. (C. Deems, D. D.)
The engrafted Word
It is only in the apprehension of what we really are that the Word begins to be engrafted. We may have correct theories about the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the mischief that it works; but it is when we see ourselves in the mirror, and discern what sin has done for us, that God’s view of sin begins to be ours, and we shrink from it and long to be saved from it, as if it really were what “the Word” represents it as being--a terrible and fatal disease, a very plague-spot in the soul. You shall see two persons going out of the same church, after having listened to the same sermon. They are both, we will say, sinners, and unforgiven sinners; but the one is full of admiration of all that he has heard. “What a magnificent sermon! I never heard anything more scathing than his denunciation of sin. How he did show it up! I really think he is the most impressive preacher I ever listened to.” And the other slips away in silence like one ashamed; his whole life rises up in witness against him. The preacher’s voice has seemed to thunder in his ear, “Thou art the man!” His self-complacency is rent to shreds; he feels, like the publican, as though ha could not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven. He retreats into the solitude of his own chamber, and casts himself upon his knees with a cry of anguish, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” What is it that makes the two to differ? In the one case the Word has been heard, and only heard; and in the other case it has been implanted. In both cases the mirror has been presented; but in the one ease the man has been content with a glance, and then straightway has forgotten what manner of man he was; while the other has looked boldly and resolutely into the glass, until his inmost conscience has been roused and his very heart appalled by what he has seen there. The image still haunts him; he cannot escape from it. His self-esteem is levelled in the dust; he has seen his natural face in the glass, and he has really discovered what manner of man he is. (W. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
