I cannot leave the fourth chapter without looking carefully at the last verse. Let me give an expanded translation of what James is saying here. "Whosoever
knows how to live a moral and good life, and chooses not to do so, is a sinner". The verses preceding this statement condemn those who boast that they are going to do what pleases them, and nothing can stop them. (That is the behavioral pattern James is addressing.) In other words, they are ignoring God, and boasting that they can do as they please. James is calling them presumptuous sinners, for they know how they ought to live, but choose not to do so.
I grew up hearing preachers condemn the title of this essay. However, your conscience is that part of your mind which says, "Do what you think is right". You can have no better guide. In the years I taught at San Quentin Prison, I had many brilliant men in my classes. With high IQs, they knew quite well the difference in right and wrong. They were not in prison for a lack of knowledge. The problem was that they did not have a strong drive to do what was right. With a stronger conscience they would not have been in my class. We can teach our children right from wrong, but if we do not give them the motivation and character to do what is right, we have left them moral cripples, and ill-suited to be successful in the things that really count in life.
Paul, in the Roman letter, condemns men who, as he says, should realize that they are the products of a moral God, and respond to Him. He emphasizes that simple observation of their own nature should tell them that there is a standard of right and wrong, and they should choose to do right, but they, instead, choose to "not have God in their knowledge", and so stand condemned.
God does not require the impossible of anyone, and therefore ignorance is not the reason mankind stands condemned. None of us can claim ignorance as an
excuse for our misbehavior. We are creatures of choice, and when we listen to our earth-man, our animal nature, our ego-centered selfishness, in making
our decisions, we choose to do evil. We are without excuse. Having faith in God means allowing Him to be the standard by which we order our behavior.
Faith, then, is a matter of choice. I choose to have faith in His way, or I choose to place my faith in my own way. It is not ignorance that condemns
us. It is our own conscious choices.
(We are going to skip the first twelve verses of chapter five. In that culture there were two classes, the rich and the very poor, no middle class as we have. This was a problem, the oppression of the poor by the rich, which James takes time out to discuss, but which has little effect on us today. So we will proceed to verse thirteen, where James continues his formula for dealing with temptation.)
There are three times when we are most vulnerable to temptation, or when the earth-man is strongest in his demand for attention:
1. when we are in trouble,
2. when we are happy and successful, and
3. when we are sick.
James says that we should seriously turn to the spiritual-man in all of these situations. Next week, in our last essay in this series, we will discuss each of these problems in detail, and examine the solution James offers for each.
