James Chapter 4 — Commentary on Verse 16

    As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.

    Here the apostle comes to charge their consciences more particularly with arrogantly presuming on outward success, especially as we aggravate it by acknowledging it quite openly despite the threatenings of the Word.

    Asitis,youboastandbrag. It is not easy to define what boasts the apostle means. The people he was writing to are charged in chapter 2 with glorying in their riches and afterwards with glorying in a mere profession of godliness; after that he charges them with glorying in their presumed wisdom, manifested in their crowing over other people’s failings (chapter 3); now, last of all, he charges them with glorying in their worldly hopes or foolish predictions of their own successful efforts, as if their lives and actions were in their own power and exempted them from the rule of providence.

    Allsuchboastingisevil. That is, you think this is brave confidence, but actually it is worldly complacency. He says that it is evil because they defended it as good; it is evil because it comes from an evil cause—pride and wretched complacency; it is evil in its own nature, being a defiance of the world; it is evil in its effects, hindering you from good and setting you on ambitious projects when you should be attending to humbling duties and grieving, mourning, and wailing (as he said in verse 9). I see this as the apostle’s thinking in this verse, which commentators usually pass over lightly without the necessary concern for the meaning of the context.

    Notes on Verse 16

    Note1. Such is the degeneration of human nature that it not only practices sins but glories in them. Fallen man is inverted man, man turned upside-down. His love is where his hatred should be, and his hatred is where his love should be; his glory is where his shame should be, and his shame is where his glory should be. Many people count strictness a disgrace, and sin admirable. The apostle says, “their glory is in their shame” (Philippians 3:19). This sometimes happens through ignorance; people mistake evil for good, and so call revenge valor or resolution, and prosperity in an evil way the blessing of providence on their zealous efforts, and presumptuous carelessness a well-founded confidence. God charged his people with making great feasts of rejoicing when they had more cause to mourn: “Can consecrated meat avert your punishment? When you engage in your wickedness, then you rejoice” (Jeremiah 11:15). Usually by our foolish mistakes we bless and praise God like this when we have more reason to humble and afflict our souls. Sometimes this is because our conscience is numbed; when people have worn out all honest restraints, then they rejoice in evil and delight in their perversities (Proverbs 2:14). The drunkards think it is clever to drink so much wine and boast of how many cups they can drink; the confirmed adulterer boasts of so many acts of uncleanness; the swearer thinks it the beauty of his speech that he mixes it with oaths; and proud people think conceited clothing is their best ornament. OgoodGod,howmanhas fallen! First we practice sin, then defend it, then boast of it. Sin is first our burden, then our custom, then our delight, then our excellence.

    Note2. We have no cause to rejoice or glory in our worldly confidence. It seems to come from a noble bravery, but actually it comes from lowness and baseness of spirit. It is just running away from evil, not mastering it. People dare not lay it to heart because they do not know how to fortify themselves against it. Faith (true confidence) always supposes and prepares for the worst but hopes for the best; it meets the adversary in the open and vanquishes it. The fool in the Gospel dared not think about his death that night (Luke 12:16-20). This is the baseness of worldly confidence, to put off trouble when it cannot put it away; and however it scorns the threat, it fears the judgment. Such people are so ill equipped to bear it that they dare not think about it.