James 1:21

Which can save your souls. Even if you suffer temptations in body, or are consumed by death from the unfaithful.

Hereby we are taught, as Christians, to watch against, and lay aside, not only those more gross and fleshly dispositions and affections which denominate a person filthy, but all the disorders of a corrupt heart, which would prejudice it against the word and ways of God. Sin is a defiling thing; it is called filthiness itself.

It is the design of the word of God to make us wise to salvation; and those who propose any meaner or lower ends to themselves in attending upon it dishonour the gospel and disappoint their souls. We should come to the word of God (both to read it and hear it), as those who know it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, Rom. i.

The word - Of the gospel. Ingrafted - In believers, by regeneration, ver. 18 and by habit, Heb. v, 14. Which is able to save your souls - The hope of salvation nourishes meekness.

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And every perfect gift - Whatever tends to glory. Descendeth from the Father of lights - The appellation of Father is here used with peculiar propriety. It follows, "he begat us." He is the Father of all light, material or spiritual, in the kingdom of grace and of glory.

Wherefore lay apart all filthiness,....

The character by which our author desires to be known: James, a servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was a prime-minister in Christ's kingdom, yet he styles himself only a servant. Note hence, Those who are highest in office or attainments in the church of Christ are but servants.

Superfluous excess in speaking is also reprobated as "coming of evil" (the Greek is akin to the word for "naughtiness" here) in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:37), with which James' Epistle is so connected. with meekness--in mildness towards one another [ALFORD], the opposite to "wrath" (Jas 1:20): answering to "as new-born babes" (1Pe 2:2).

BRETHREN, 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. We have heard of some who have even come to steal—and yet the Word of God has stolen into their hearts.

BRETHREN, 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. We have heard of some who have even come to steal—and yet the Word of God has stolen into their hearts. In many cases, in olden times, spies were sent to hear the Protestant divines who preached the Gospel—and these took notes of all that was said, with a view to accuse them of false doctrine that they might be punished—yet in several cases, the spies, themselves, were converted! Such is the power of the Gospel of Christ, that it woos and wins, even, its greatest enemies. 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. 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." It is even so. A sick man does well to live where there are physicians, for one day he may be healed. If men are in the heat of a battle, they may be wounded—if they come where Gospel arrows are shot, they may fall under them. Plants that grow in the open are likely to be watered when the shower falls. We dare not say to any man who wills to enter the House of Prayer, "You must not come because your motive is gross and low." No, you are welcome, anyway! Who knows but that, being in the way, God may meet with you.

All filthiness - Πασαν ῥυπαριαν. This word signifies any impurity that cleaves to the body; but applied to the mind, it implies all impure and unholy affections, such as those spoken of Jas 1:15, which pollute the soul; in this sense it is used by the best Greek writers. Superfluity of naughtiness - Περισσειαν κακιας· The overflowing of wickedness. Perhaps there is an allusion here to the part cut off in circumcision, which was the emblem of impure desire; and to lessen that propensity, God, in his mercy, enacted this rite. Put all these evil dispositions aside, for they blind the soul, and render it incapable of receiving any good, even from that ingrafted word of God which otherwise would have saved their souls. The ingrafted word - That doctrine which has already been planted among you, which has brought forth fruit in all them that have meekly and humbly received it, and is as powerful to save your souls as the souls of those who have already believed. I think this to be the meaning of εμφυτον λογον, the ingrafted word or doctrine. The seed of life had been sown in the land; many of them had received it to their salvation; others had partially credited it, but not so as to produce in them any saving effects. Besides, they appear to have taken up with other doctrines, from which they had got no salvation; he therefore exhorts them to receive the doctrine of Christ, which would be the means of saving them unto eternal life. And when those who were Jews, and who had been originally planted by God as altogether a right vine, received the faith of the Gospel, it is represented as being ingrafted on that right stock, the pure knowledge of the true God and his holy moral law. This indeed was a good stock on which to implant Christianity. This appears to be what the apostle means by the ingrafted word, which is able to save the soul.