Looking to God's word and religion
James 1:25-27 · Andrew Molloy · Mar 26, 2023
James, No. 11
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926193043725

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're in James chapter 1, the ending verses. You know, last week, or maybe two weeks ago, during Roy's class, he had my verses on his presentation, but only verse 25, up to verse 25. And 26 and 27 were missing. And for a couple of weeks, I thought I had one verse. So it's sort of relaxing. Not so easy. Not so easy, yes. So anyway, sorry about that. Oh, that's OK. But 25 is the most important kind of thing. I was like, oh, there's two more verses in this chapter. OK. But however, the last two verses gets us into religion.

So I don't know what to do about that. Dirty word here So instead of reviewing What Roy did and what you did Roger last week and what it's been doing I'll do that next week because we have a review next week. Yes, we do. Okay, great So I'll just dive into it this morning. Okay, and if we let you out early to those donuts in the other room. Okay.

So verse 25, but the one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty and abides by it, not having become a forgetful here, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. Verse 26, if anyone thinks themselves to be religious, there's that word, and yet does not bridle his tongue, but he deceives his own heart. This man's religion is worthless.

27. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained by the world.

And sort of the only Easy thing in there, in those three verses, is the last phrase, which I don't really cover at the end. Keep oneself unstained by the world. Because that's a fairly common admonition, right, from Paul. We all know what that means. So I'm not even going to cover that this morning. But we have a lot to cover about bridling the tongue and being a forgetful hearer and being religious. you know, all that, all those things. So we'll dive right into it.

Here's verse 25. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. So this phrase, but one who looks intently, is the word, the phrase is, Paracupto. Paracupto. And it's different from Roger's Kataneo. Kataneo. Kataneo. K-A-T-A-N-O-E-O.

From verse 23 and 24. And Roger, you said last week that that's looking with careful attention. Right. And careful consideration. So we have this man who looks, and it's a straw man, it's any man. It's not necessarily us. He's posing a straw man argument here for argument purposes. And he looks at the word with this, and he looks carefully at it. And as you said, Roger, he's not penalized for doing so. But he walks away and forgets who he was, right? So that's the context of what we're looking at here.

And Roger, you said that Captain Na'o is fixing your mind on the word of God, which is a good thing. Right. It's a good thing to do. Good thing to do. So he does that. You just got to keep it with you and not. Right. Don't get distracted. Right. You're right.

So this parakupto word is different So this is an intense look. And what it is, it means to stoop down and look at, and actually bend your body sideways at the waist to observe a thing. And it has a lot more force than katana-eo. And so Vincent says it's a more forceful word.

It could not have been chosen by James to express the nature and ultimate object of the reflection and to enforce the necessity of really looking into the word of God here. And it's the same word as when Peter arrived at the tomb, and Jesus had been resurrected from the dead, and he stooped down per cupto, and he looked in, and he really studied the scene, but the light bulbs didn't go off yet.

So what I think this word is like is we've all seen TV detective movies, Columbo, you know, who arrives at a scene in someone's apartment where there's been a murder. They really study things. They stoop down and they look under the bed or under the table, and they might see something, a little hair, and they stoop down and they grab the bagging evidence. And that's, I think, what this word means.

So this is an intense look into the perfect law, law of liberty. The interlinear has the one who looks intently, and there's a double into. Interesting. There's into, into the law of liberty. And it's not at. You see in the New American Standard, it's at the perfect law. But the interlinear has looked into the law. Yeah. And it's a double. Because the phrase, the one who looks intently, has an into built into it. And then the interlinear also has ice, I think, right after it, which is into. So there's an into, into. To stress the depth of the gazing is what I have here.

So this perfect law, the law of liberty, I think it's better perfected law. It's telios, brought to its goal. It's finished. It's finished. Nothing is missing. Nothing can be added to this law. It's telios nomos. And the law of liberty, that's the perfect law. The law of liberty is Eleutheria. Eleutheria. You see it there.

It's the freedom from the yoke of bondage of the old law, freedom to cast off the sin nature and to serve God in positivity of spirit with our new nature, the law of liberty. And James is the only one who uses this term, the law of liberty. So let's look more. at that, and I asked myself the question, what is this law of liberty that James only uses? So here are some thoughts, but the thoughts are really other verses of scripture. Galatians 5, 1, it was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. So a law of liberty involves freedom.

Second Corinthians 3.17. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is liberty. Kelly has this about this law of liberty. It's freedom from the law of Moses. The law of Moses was in no way a law of liberty, but it was a law of bondage. It forbade and condemned the transgressions to which the flesh were prone.

The curb it applied to man's will provoked the old man. I like that word curb. It's like a speed bump. It provided a speed bump to the man's will, but it provoked the old man. And the offense consequently abounded instead of diminishing. And we know that from what Paul says. The law could, therefore, not but work out wrath as it was the strength of sin, as what Paul says, not holiness.

So that's the law of liberties, freedom from all that. Um, and then Paul's dissertation in Galatians four, where he explains that, uh, to the Galatians, you know, there's two women, there's Sarah born of the promise and there's a bond woman, Hagar. And she was born a slave, born out of the flesh. You know, Hagar and Abraham, they did that on their own. That was apart from God. But Sarah was all a promise, all a miracle from God. And we are children of the free woman and not the bond woman.

And that's the law of liberty right there. And Paul explains that in detail in Galatians 4. Paul also says in Romans 8, 2, this law of liberty is spirit given. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. So that's, I think, as best we can explain what this law of liberty is. But boiled down to, it's a lot of commentary. It's just the word of God, the plain word of God. the scripture.

So we'll also use that. So the one who abides by this perfect law, the law of liberty, or the word of God, and abides is not minnow, but paraminow, aorist tense, active voice. And I was questioning why that's in the aorist tense and not the present tense. That's interesting.

But it means to remain beside, to be continuously always near the perfected law of liberty. And then James goes on to say in chapter two, verse one, it's faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. He puts it right there in verse one of chapter two, parameno. is the word, therefore, abides. And not the one who looks into the perfect law and abides by it or in it, not having become a forgetful hearer.

And that phrase is, you see it there, genomai, eples, eplesmone, rotates, acroates, acroates. There it is. It's hard to say, but that's our word Dynami, again, you covered that last week, Roger, really well. It's the emphasis on the fact that one could come into the state of being, of being a forgetful hearer. And it's in the middle voice, so you're actively involved in that. And it involves you.

From last week, Roger's lesson said it's an out of sight out-of-mind hearing, one who hears, but there's no impact. The content, the hearing fades away. So we are not to be that, or not to become that guy, is what the scripture is saying here. So it's not as one who hears with his ear, Here's another definition of this forgetful here. He hears with his ear, but the content of what is heard passes into oblivion. And if you want an example of that, it's me, when Gene says something, I hear it. You're not the only one.

I heard what she said, but I didn't register. Well, one would say, Roger, I told you that. And I said, oh, OK. Just a couple of minutes ago. Yeah, because you hear, and it just doesn't register. And whoa, boy. So that's exactly what a frickin' failure is.

Husbands. Wives really don't, because wives listen to everything. You could be talking with your wife and you said this 15 years ago. I know. They also don't forget. Yeah, it's amazing. So, the forgetful here. Should be nailed. So is this gender specific? Yeah. Right, right. I looked at that, and it might be masculine. Yeah, because there's some feminine gender in here, and there's some masculine.

I don't think it's quite that level. The interlinear has a fear of forgetfulness. And the quality, they say, is on the quality of the hearing. And I thought that, well, this is not listening, is it? Akuwo is the word for listening. Right, exactly. And kupukuwo is listening under. And so this person, this straw man here, one, is not listening. He's hearing. Right. It's kind of cool how scripture is very specific with words, right? Yeah, well, that's what struck me last week about, he didn't use the kuo, he used this word. Yeah, right, yeah. You think he would say that, like, become a listener, you know, or listen under, but he doesn't. So, yeah.

So, one who, not having become a forgetful hearer, but having become, that Ginamay probably refers to this phrase, become an effectual doer, too, right? An effectual doer is aragon poetas. Poetas. You see that word there? And it's one who works, gets things done, produces and performs a thing. But the word poetas is poetry.

And I saw that in, you know, the online commentary, and I just threw that away, because, okay, so it's a word for poetry, so what? So I left it. Because I just, I focused on the producing and getting things done, an effectual doer. But then Merriman is cool.

He brought out this word, poetess, for poetry. He says, James could have used another Greek word, here, he could have used the word for practice. But he doesn't. He used poetas. And practice would be a good thing. Practice, you know, the word of God.

But he said poetas is not a rote practicing. It's a living production. So if you think about artistically, a movie director is a poem. A poetas is what they do, an artist. a writer, a creative production. That's sort of the force of this word. And it's very involved. But it's not rote. It's not doing things by rote.

Merriman has keep on becoming a word worker or a word producer. That's a word of God, a word of God worker, word of God producer. So as you see that movie producer, A director, a director of a movie really pours his heart and soul into creating a movie, right? They know the backstory, they've scripted all that stuff. So that's sort of that word, actual doer.

It's kind of cool. We are to be, and I'll get more on that. It's a really cool thing. So, but we'll look at it here in a bit. Yeah. Yeah, one of the commentators of Freebird, he says this is a occupation. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I think of producing music too, you know, musician, you know, you, you can practice your scales all you want. Um, but you're not really doing music when you practice. scale things. When you play the music, you're the one using it, right? But if you're the author of it, it's your occupation.

Right, yeah. Where you personally are involved. Right. And then I thought of what you said two weeks ago, Roy, you know, about that we are musicians in his orchestra, right? Exactly. Yeah. So this is music, or artistic. This is cool stuff when you just sort of... In that context, of course, a choir, every person is singing, right? But it's the group, and it's a production of God Himself.

Yeah, right. Especially if you put on the hand of the Messiah, and there's... What about this thought that since God is living His life through us, that's a production, right? We're living out his production in our lives, his will in our lives, so that fits very well. Yeah. And we're swinging along with him. Yeah, right, right.

So this, the last part of this, this man, if he's an effectual doer, not a forgetful hearer, this man will be blessed in what he does. And blessed is Makarios, It's just happy, or be happy, or spiritually prosperous, is what Wiest would say. So this doer of the work, who's continuing always near the word of God or the perfect law, the law of liberty, will be blessed, happy in what he does. Vincent says there's a connection between the doing of the word and the blessedness that comes from it. because of the preposition you see there, in what, in what he does.

There's an inner connection, he says, which is really cool. Kelly says, living faith produces living works. So that's, and that's at puentes, that's what we're getting at, this living works. The implanted word, and that's important from A couple of verses ago, verse 21, the implanted word, the word that's been engrafted in us is living and is in active operation day to day. To those who believe, this is what Kelly is saying, hence conscience is continually exercised for we have another nature, not only human, but not only a human nature, but a fallen and nature that's prone to evil.

And I was thinking about this, I didn't go into, I kind of left this thought, but you know, 2 Corinthians 3.18, we're taught to behold Christ in the mirror of the word of God. But we can also look into the word of God and the perfect law, the law of liberty, and learn about who we are, right? We're not beholding who we are, but we learn that we have another nature, a fallen nature. We learn about the two men, Adam and Christ. We learn all these things. So we learn what kind of people we are, which is kind of cool. And this is what James is getting at here. He says, we know this stuff and act on it, you know.

Oh, go ahead. Yeah, Andrew, in your opening words here, looking into is para. Yeah. And over here, the other word is abide also has para in front of it. Oh, right, right. The whole thing is the blessing is personal, isn't it? Yeah. But it's really because of where we are, where we're abiding, where we're at home. Yeah, right. We're at home in Christ. Yeah.

And James is saying all this in a different way than what we're used to, right? I'm very used to how Paul says it. It makes a lot of sense. But James brings in the perfect law, the law of liberty, and being forgetful here. And he's saying the same thing, but you have to unpack it a lot. But you're right. It's abiding in Christ. It boils down to that. And that's what Bob always says. If you're going to understand James, You've got to understand Paul, and then it makes a lot of sense, right?

Right. OK. My dad, several years ago, had this fact that James is still addressing some temptations here, even though he's left that subject on face value. But there's a temptation to be a here only. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, so there's a temptation to be a here only or in a couple verses ago there was a You know don't be prone be slow to anger. That's a temptation might be Quick to anger that's another temptation, so there's still temptations at play here in the end of this chapter 1 and And I like that, that forgetful hearing or hearing you're just auditing.

You can audit the Word of God. You can read it, but you know, you're just auditing the class. You're not really enrolled and tested on it, right? Like a student in college. And so that student can, it's just auditing. He's just there. or he or she is just there to hear and doesn't really take away a lot from it.

So there's a temptation here. The word of God, rather than letting the word's power produce Christ's will and work in us by beholding him and being transformed. There's a temptation not to do that. For we are his workmanship, Ephesians 2 10. created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. And this is kind of the sphere we're in, isn't it?

This verse in Ephesians 2.10, this is James is in that same place, isn't he? But he's saying it a lot differently than what Paul says it. Verse 26, if anyone thinks himself to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.

And so, yeah, we have the word religion here that comes in play. And it's the word that we know. And I didn't, I think it's Threskeia or something like that. I didn't look at the word too much in Greek. But we're going to look at this phrase, if any man thinks himself to be religious.

And if any man, that's another general, it's an interrogative part of speech. It's an indefinite pronoun. So there you have that. This is just a way for James to pose a question and put up a straw man. and to make a question. So it doesn't even really involve us unless we're there. So it's not so much personal to us, but it's a general phrase, you know. Or you think of an interrogation. Again, a detective and a criminal, when they get arrested, they put them into a little room and they get interrogated.

So it's just asking a question here. And the man's thought is not of himself. The man's thought is of himself. I'm sorry. Not as he appears to others. And when we get into James chapter two, we're going to see how others think of the one, but right now it's the man's thought of himself, right?

So, So that's how we unpack that phrase, if any man thinks himself to be religious. And Kelly says this word, I think it's threskia for religious. He insists that this is just service that is outwardly paid. And James isn't referring to piousness or godly, this religious service or ceremonial things like vestments, rights, performance, formal gatherings, et cetera.

Now, you could take it that way, because many people do. Vincent Macaulay, in his commentary, gives it that kind of definition that we always think of it. But Kelly says it's just these, this is just a work or an act. godly work, so he limits it to that.

Andrew, I have a note. I don't know where I got it from, but tremble at, that word means to tremble at. I don't know how I got where I got that at, but. Oh, really? OK. I don't know. Right. Yeah, yeah, because we don't see it. Well, this is the whole story. Well, I didn't look it up, so I can't.

Yeah, so it can mean either two things, a ceremonial form or an act, a one-off act, I think is what Kelly is thinking. And it makes sense because this bullet point I have here, the difference between whether it means ceremonial things or simply a service, a thing done outwardly, it seems to make sense that James, because in chapter two, he goes on to talk about doing things or acts, religious things, like the man who seats the rich man in the better place than the poor man, and things like that. It shows partiality.

So there, it's kind of hard to say, and I probably am not saying it without too much... I'm probably stating it poorly, but I'm trying to get at that, and I can't just say it, you know, to give it the weight it should have. But it's an interesting thing to consider. So if this man, if he thinks of himself, personally of himself, to be religious, yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his own heart.

And bridle is, um, uh, cholonogago, cholonogago, It's really hard to say. And that CH has that guttural, kind of Yiddish thing in it. But there it is. There's the word for bridal. It's a verb. And you're doing it in the present tense, active voice. You're doing it. And it's used only by James here in reference to the tongue.

And he also repeats it in James 3.2. And he talks about bridling the body, which we'll get to in chapter 3 in 3.2. So it means to hold and check or to restrain or to curb. And when we talk about it, of course, it's a horse bridle. And it can mean to be a bit leader, which kind of makes sense. You're leading the bit in a horse's mouth.

If this man thinks he's religious, but has this... I'm not going to go into the doctrine of the tongue here, because it's a big study, but it happens in chapter 3. So I'll save that. He talks about the tongue in verses 5, 6, and 8 of chapter 3. And we'll get more. I thought we'd save that for then. cover that subject in detail. But, you know, the tongue, it's a very small part of the body.

It's power. It can steer ships, James says. It sets force on fire. It's untamable. But we'll look at that in later studies. So I'll just, and I'll be, and we'll have fun with that then and not now. So I'll skip over that for now. So one doing religious works, yet having an unbridled wicked tongue is of course deceiving his own heart or his own conscience. So back to the content.

This man has the implanted word engrafted in him, which he should gaze intently into and see that he is a new man, a new man in Christ, enlivened by the spirit to produce Word to produce word produced works, right? That's what he should be doing but if he's got this evil tongue He's not reading at who he would Roy would say he's not living in the reality of who he is what the What the Word of God says he is I like that how Roy puts that often, you know, he's not living in reality And the context is back in verse 16. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Same words. Oh, yes. So he's doubling back on that. Uh-huh. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's really cool. Okay. And he doubles back on that.

So I say, so if his tongue is unbridled, And he is only given a casual glance, a cursory glance, to the word of God. It hasn't been the word of God or the implanted word or the perfect law, the law of liberty, hasn't been the supply spring of his actions. His tongue is controlled by his old source and not his new divine. Can you see that last part? I have something blocking it.

Divine... What does that say? Divine source. Divine source. Okay, thank you. My little... Oh, here it is. My tab is blocking it. Okay. Something on my computer is giving up a little... You know one of those little... menu bars. Yes, and it's right in my way. Who's in control? Right, the computer is in control.

So a related passage to this doctrine again is Ephesians 2.10.

For we are his workmanship, creating Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand so that we should walk in them. And what is really cool here, and this is maybe the best part of the lesson, is that workmanship word is poema. Poem. It's effectually the same root word as poetess that we have. We are God's creation.

So when you think workmanship, and I never thought of this before, but it's an expression of creation. It's a creative expression of beauty. And God didn't just wrote production like we're not widgets, right? He didn't create us as widgets. We're works of art, maybe. Can we say we're God's poetry, perhaps? created in Christ Jesus for word-inspired good works.

Word-inspired good works. Yeah. I'm trying to get rid of this menu. Hey, Andrew. Yeah. Kind of relates to that verse we talked about, 2 Corinthians 121. Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God. Right. God's work in us. He does it all. His work is pretty cool. Doing it all, yeah, yeah. That's great.

Let me move this up here. Okay, this phrase, this man's religion is worthless. Worthless is mataios, devoid of truth, devoid of success, devoid of purpose. And I'm just moving this again. OK. So here's verse 27. We'll kind of fly through this now. In the sight of our God is pyrrhus catharos, which means clean. It's the same word as Christ used in John 15 3. You are already clean by the word I've spoken to you. And isn't that interesting? The word cleanses you.

The word spoken by Christ, the vine to his branches, in John 15.3 there.

And then John 15.2, every branch that bears good fruit, he prunes. And that word is kathiro, related to cleaning, kathiros. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes so that it may bear more fruit. So that's this word for peer in undefiled religion. And how that works out is to visit orphans and widows in their distress, is how this verse 27 ends.

William Kelly said there's a lawyer of the law who once asked Jesus, who is my neighbor? But this lawyer didn't care really to ever meet one of his neighbors. He had no care to act. So he's a man who's a hearer of the law, but not an effectual doer. He didn't want to go out and help orphans and widows in their distress.

And to visit orphans and widows in their distress is epasceptomai. You have it there. It's a middle voice. So you're intensely involved in the action in the present tense. So you're invested in the results of actually going out and looking after and providing care for widows and orphans in their dire straits or their pressures. That word for distress is philippsis. Hey, Andrew?

Yeah? Joanne Shedler, when she translated the Bible and gave the folks in the Philippines this book, James, this verse where it is speaking about the man is pure by caring for widows in distress, one of the believers that read that believed it, went over to the former witch doctor lady who had become a believer and in the process lost everything and became destitute and was truly a widow, picked her up, carried her home, made her his grandmother for the rest of his life. Isn't that something? Just believe the word. Isn't that something?

Andrew, you got your mic muted. Thanks, Roy. Okay, how's that? Much better. I'm glad I have that little button up that's in my way. Great. The last thing is, yeah, the widows and the fatherless are at the complete mercy of the hospitality of society. There's no safety net in those days. Now, we kind of have a, you know, my mom's a widow, and she's doing well, and you know, so widows, we have it kind of, but back then, boy, now we're just at the mercy of others.

So, anyway, that's, yeah, so, I'll kind of wrap it up quickly. I have some points here, but I'll skip those in the interest of time. Some last thoughts, how about that? Because it's 9.49. Yeah, thanks, Andrew. Yeah. And then we can, you can, well, now the donuts are probably all taken. I'm sorry for that.

So, in closing prayer, our Heavenly Father, We thank you for this wonderful study in your word. And we pray that it sinks down into our soul and produces the desired result you would have us do, Lord. And thank you for your word and the privilege to study it in this free country of ours. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.