James Chapter 3 — Commentary on Verse 16

    For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

    James proves that such devilish wisdom as serves envy and selfish ambition cannot be good wisdom, for it brings about quite contrary effects—the one for holiness and meekness, the other for confusion and profanity. This sentence may be understood to apply either publicly or privately.

    (1)      If it is understood to refer to private individuals, the sense is that in whatever heart envy and selfish ambition reign, there is also great disorder and wickedness.

    (2)      If it is understood in a public sense, it means that in a society where envyandselfish ambition reign, there will be unrest and all licentiousness. Selfish ambition follows envy, and sedition follows selfish ambition, and all manner of wickedness is the fruit of sedition.

    Notes on Verse 16

    Note1. If the verse refers to private individuals, then note that a spirit of envyandselfishambition

    is an unquiet and wicked spirit.

    (1)      It is an unquiet and disorderly spirit; nothing unsettles the mind more. Other people’s contentment and happiness proves our sorrow. An envious person “brings himself harm” (Proverbs 11:17).

    (2)      An envious spirit is a wicked spirit; there is no wickedness such a person will not undertake and carry out. The devil works on nothing so much as envy and discontent; such a spirit is fit for Satan’s lure. So then, watch for the first stirrings of this, and check it as soon as the soul begins to look sour upon another person’s happiness and betterment; you do not know how far the devil may carry you. The first instances that we have of sin are Adam’s pride and Cain’s envy; the first man was undone by pride, and the second debauched by envy. The whole world, even if there were no other people in it, could not contain two brothers when one was envied. Pride gave us the first merit of death and envy the first instance of it; the one was the mother, the other the midwife of human ruin. Adam was a sinner, but Cain a murderer; there envy tasted blood, and ever since it has been glutted with it. Cain’s envy tasted the blood of Abel, but Saul’s thirsted for David’s, and Joab’s gorged itself with that of Abner and Amasa. And still, if the severity of laws restrain envy from blood, it pines if it is not fed with injury.

    Note2. If this verse refers to society, then note that where there is envyandselfishambition, there will be tumults and confusions. Disaffection divides as much as disagreement. Desire is the great breeder of strife. An envious and proud spirit may undo a commonwealth. Watch your hearts then. We also learn from this that religion is a friend to civil peace; it strikes not only at disorder in life but at desire in the heart, at envy and pride, the private roots of contention. Why should the world hate such religion? It represents a God who is “not a God of disorder but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). It holds out a Gospel that is “the good news of peace” (Acts 10:36). It establishes a wisdom that prescribes the ways of peace (Hebrews 12:14; Romans 12:18). It increases the number of godly people, who are best in any community; mortified spirits are the most peaceable. Pride, envy, and self-seeking hustle other people into unrest, and they move all to serve their own desires and interests.

    Note3. Through unrest and contention every evil work abounds. Wickedness then takes heart and acts without restraint. Today this Scripture is fulfilled before our eyes; we need no other comment but our own experience. Envy makes us quarrel with one another, and quarreling gives opportunity for all loose behavior.