Page 27 - General Epistles (James through Jude) Textbook

“Be miserable, mourn, and weep.” The first (“tears for what you have done”) refers to deep distress and
misery induced by a terrible tragedy, here a tearful grief for the calamity of serious sin in your life. The
second (“sorrow”) is the period of public mourning for sin that reflects that tearful distress. The third
(“deep grief”) is the actual weeping caused by the mourning. All three are fairly synonymous and call for
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a serious sorrow for sin that is public, made known to all around.

Notice that James’ admonition to submit themselves to God, resisting the devil, coming near to God,
washing and purifying themselves, grieving mourning and wailing, changing their laughter to mourning,
and humbling themselves was in imperative format. The mood for those admonition is imperative. This
entails that James wanted them to act upon those virtues without fail.

Slandering and Judging One Another (Jas. 4:11-12).
James reiterates to them to not use bad speech among themselves. He also reminds them that they
were still his brothers and sisters regardless of the struggles they faced. But clearly, bad speech was still
being heard among themselves. Bad words were still being used against one another without any
justifiable reason to do so. James reminds them that those who did so and judged their own brothers
ultimately did so against the law but not their brothers and sisters in Christ. If James’ reference is to the
law of Moses, then, it is clear that these people continued to fail upholding it. That is, they continued to
exercise lack of love toward one another. Douglas J. Moo summarizes vv12-13 very well:

In a short paragraph, James turns once again to sins of speech. He condemns “slander,” a word used
elsewhere in Scripture to denote rebellion against God’s authority (Num. 21:5), slandering people in
secret (Ps. 101:5) and bringing false accusations against people (1 Pet. 2:12; 3:16). From the stress in
verse 12 on judging, it is probable that James has particularly in mind the judgmental criticism of
others that was doubtless accompanying the quarrels and arguments in the church. This kind of
criticism is wrong because it assumes that we are in a position to render ultimate verdicts over
people: a prerogative that is God’s alone (v. 12). By criticizing others, we do not fulfill the law of love
of neighbor (cf. 2:8) but break it.
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Now, James turned his attention to those Christians who did not regard
God’s sovereignty in their business plans and vacations (Jas. 4:13-17). He
notes that such approach to life is a result of failure to realize that no
creature owns the future. Next, he reminds them of the definition of
their lives, mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. So, in
James’ context, the lives of his audience did not need fatal war in order
for them to be vanished. They did not need to get sick for a long time.
Neither did they need a short illness. Just like mist that can disappear
without no human being knowing the cause, so were there lives (cf. Job
7:7, 9, 16; Psa. 39:5-6). Since our God is sovereign, who does not only know the day and hour when our
souls will vanish, but can also vanish them at any day and time (if that vanishing of the souls is in
accordance with His character), they needed (and we need to do that today) to involve God in their daily
endeavors. They needed to demonstrate that by saying “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or
that” (v15). Since they knew that the involvement of God in their daily endeavors was good, therefore,
their failure to involve God in their daily endeavors demonstrated already that they were sinning against
God. Douglas J. Moo notes that “Sin is not only doing what God forbids (sins of “commission”); it is also
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failing to do what God asks us to do (sins of “omission”).”

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