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Jam_2:5. With this verse the proof of the reprehensibleness of the conduct found fault with commences: James showing that the conduct toward the poor is in contradiction with the mercy of God directed to the poor, and that the conduct toward the rich is in contradiction with their conduct toward Christians. The impressive exhortation to attention precedes ἀκούσατε with the address ἀδελφοί μου ἀγαπητοί ; see chap. Jam_1:16; Jam_1:19. The proof itself (as in Jam_2:4) is expressed in a lively manner in the form of a question: Has not God chosen those who are the poor of the world (i.e. accounted as such) to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him?
The verb ἐξελέξατο is to be retained in its usual acceptation, in that which it has in 1Co_1:27. Wiesinger, without sufficient reason, will understand it here as equivalent to “God has so highly honoured the poor;” and Lange incorrectly maintains that “the word here rather signifies calling with reference to ethical good behaviour to the divine revelation.”
The correct reading: τοὺς πτωχοὺς τῷ κόσμῳ , is to be explained in the same manner as the expressions ἀστεῖος τῷ Θεῷ , Act_7:20, and δυνατὰ τῷ Θεῷ , 2Co_10:4 (see Meyer on these passages, and Winer, p. 190 [E. T. 265]; Al. Buttmann, p. 156 [E. T. 179]). The world esteems those as poor who possess no visible earthly riches. Wiesinger prefers to explain the dative as the dative of reference, thus “poor in respect of the world;” yet the former explanation, which also Brückner and Lange adopt, in which ὁ Θεός and τῷ κόσμῳ form a sharp contrast, is more appropriate, and more in correspondence with the meaning of the word κόσμος with James. In the Receptus πτωχοὺς τοῦ κόσμου the genitive is to be understood as in the expression τὰ μωρὰ τοῦ κόσμου , etc., 1Co_1:27; see Meyer in loco.
πλουσίους ἐν πίστει ] is not in apposition with τοὺς πτωχοὺς (Luther, Baumgarten, Semler, Hottinger, Gebser, Bouman, Lange, and others),[114] but the completion of ἐξελέξατο , stating to what God has chosen the poor (Beza, Wolf, Morus, Knapp, Storr, Schneckenburger, Kern, Theile, de Wette, Wiesinger, and others); see 2Co_3:6.
By ἐν πίστει , as in the expression πλούσιος ἐν ἐλέει , Eph_2:4 (see 1Co_1:5; 2Co_9:11; 1Ti_6:18), the object is not stated wherein they are rich (Luther: “who are rich in the faith”), but the sphere within which riches is imparted to them; similarly Wiesinger explains it: “rich in their position as believers.” James wished primarily to mark the contrast that the poor are appointed to be rich, namely, so far as they are believers; the context gives the more exact statement of their riches: riches in the possessions of the heavenly kingdom is meant; this the following clause indicates.
Calvin: non qui fidei magnitudine abundant, sed quos Deus variis Spiritus sui donis locupletavit, quae fide percipimus.[115]
The expression ἡ βασιλεία occurs also elsewhere, without the addition of ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ or similar terms, as a designation of the kingdom of God, e.g. Mat_13:38. No stress rests on the article τῆς (= ἘΚΕΊΝΗς ), as the relative Ἧς referred to it. The relative clause serves not for a more definite statement of the idea ΒΑΣΙΛΕΊΑ , as if by it this βασιλεία was to be distinguished from another, but the statement ἘΞΕΛ .… ΚΛΗΡΟΝΌΜΟΥς Τ . ΒΑΣΙΛΕΊΑς is confirmed, as a kingdom founded on the promise of God.
From the expressions ΚΛΗΡΟΝΌΜΟς and ἘΠΗΓΓΕΊΛΑΤΟ of the relative clause, it is evident that James considered here ΒΑΣΙΛΕΊΑ as the future perfected kingdom of God, not “the joint participation in the ΥἹΟΘΕΣΊΑ of the Jews” (Lange). On Ἧς ἘΠΗΓΓΕΊΛΑΤΟ Κ . Τ . Λ . see the remark on Jam_1:12. The addition of this clause shows that with James faith and love to God are most closely connected.
James puts ΤΟῪς ΠΤΏΧΟΥς , to whom ΟἹ ΠΛΟΎΣΙΟΙ are opposed, as the object of ἘΞΕΛΈΞΑΤΟ . He accordingly (the article is not to be overlooked) divides men into these two classes, the poor and the rich, and designates, not the latter, but the former, as those whom God has chosen and appointed to be rich in faith,[116] namely, to be heirs of the kingdom; not as if all the poor received the κληρονομία , but his meaning is that those whom God has chosen belong to this class, whereas those belonging to the class of the rich had not been chosen. James did not require to point out the truth of this statement; the Christians, to whom he wrote, were a living testimony of it, for they all belonged to that class; and although some among them were πλούσιοι , yet, on the one hand, what Christ says in Mat_19:23-26 holds good, and, on the other hand, 1Co_1:26-28 is to be compared.
With this divine choice the conduct of his readers stood in direct contradiction when they treated a poor man—thus one who belonged to the class of those chosen by God—contemptuously, and that on account of his poverty. What directly follows expresses this contradiction.
[114] If πλουσίους is taken as in apposition, then here riches in faith forms the reason of the choice; but by this the keenness of the thought contained in the oxymorum is entirely blunted: it is also arbitrary to separate the two ideas πλουσίους and κληρονόμους united by καί .
[115] Kern: ἐν πίστει indicates that it is faith itself which makes the Christian inwardly rich.
[116] It is to be observed that ἐξελέξατο does not here refer only to πλουσίους , as if πίστις were to be considered as the condition on which the πτωχοί were chosen to be rich, but to the combined expression πλουσίους ἐν πίστει , so that also πίστις is to be considered as an effect of the divine choice. The same view lies at the foundation of what Paul in 1Co_1:30 (see Meyer in loco) and elsewhere often expresses.