James Chapter 5 — Commentary and Notes on Verse 11

    As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.

    The drift of the context is to persuade people to be patient. In this verse many things are offered for that purpose.

    Asyouknow,weconsiderblessedthosewhohavepersevered. We may imply, first of all, the judgment of all people; mere humans are inclined to have high thoughts of those who can bear the brunt of afflictions.

    Note 1. Meek patience in afflictions is attractive even to human eyes. A double reason is implicit in the words thosewhohavepersevered—those who endure misery and show fortitude in misery. Misery works on pity, and fortitude calls for praises; miseries work on weak spirits, and constant miseries work on noble spirits. Those who are engaged in a good cause need not despair; we shall gain something with mere men. Resolute constancy and meek patience may recover those friends who have gone astray in prosperity; providence orders such things for good. But remember that you cannot take comfort from this unless it is in a good cause. Sometimes wicked ones are the oppressed party. They believe their sufferings entitle them to persecution, as the Donatists did in Augustine’s time.

    So although suffering is creditable, we must know that the persecuted cause is not always the best. Sarah was a type of the true church and Hagar of the false; Sarah corrected Hagar. There are people who when they suffer anything call it persecution when it is only just punishment. The Moabites, for example, when they saw the waters look red through the reflection of the morning sun thought they were mixed with blood. Many people claim persecution and martyrs’ blood in this way when they are just being corrected and restrained a little.

    Secondly, the word we may imply the judgment of the visible church. The whole Christian church acknowledges that the murdered prophets are happy, and we celebrate their memory. The word in the text (blessed) means to make or declare happy.

    Note2. God’s people often live envied and persecuted but die sainted. We call the murdered prophets happy and celebrate the memory of those who endure; the scribes and Pharisees decorated the tombs of the dead prophets but killed the living (Matthew 23:29-30). They claimed to honor the departed saints but were harming the living saints. In John 5 the Jews claimed to love Moses but showed hatred to Christ. This comes about partly by the providence of God, who after death makes clears the innocence and holy behavior of his servants; posterity acknowledges those the former age destroyed. And this partly comes about because living saints are an eyesore; by the severity of their lives and reproofs they trouble and torment the world. Dead saints do not stand in the way of men’s desires, for objects out of sight do not exasperate us.

    This may comfort God’s children today: “the Day will bring it to light” (1 Corinthians 3:13). When the heat of oppression is over, what is now called heresy will then be regarded as worship, and your sufferings will declare you not malefactors but martyrs. People cannot discern the present truth (2 Peter 2:12) because they are blinded with their own interests; but maybe truth itself will be the interest of the next age, and the bleak wind that now blows in our faces may then be on our backs. There are sometimes strange revolutions.

    Again, this may serve to warn us. Let us not be content with fond affection for departed saints and worthies. The memory of Judas is not so accursed to us as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were to the worldly Jews in Christ’s time; Moses was dear to them, just as Christ and the apostles are to us. The best affection is that which is expressed by sincerity; dead saints are out of our envy, but how do we feel about the living who walk in their ways? It is good to examine what relationship there is between people who are hated today and the case of Christ and his apostles in the early days.

    Thirdly, the word we may imply (and I think this is the chief implication) the judgment of the children of God, as opposed to the judgment of the world: weconsiderblessedthosewhohave persevered—we who are enlightened by the Spirit of God. I prefer this interpretation because this sentence refers to a passage of Scripture: “Blessed is the one who waits” (Daniel 12:12).

    Note3. The judgment of the saints and the judgment of the world about afflictions are very different: they have different principles—the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God; they have different standards—that of faith and that of sense. A worldly person judges by appearance, but a spiritual person looks within the veil; the world judges afflictions miserable, but believers think them happiness. It is notable that all the beatitudes in Matthew 5 are connected to unlikely conditions, to show that the judgment of the Word and the judgment of the world are contrary to one another. So then, do not listen to the judgment of the world about affliction but to the judgment of the Spirit; not to what sense feels, but to what faith expects. The people of the world are miserable in their happiness, but the children of God are happy in their misery. But you will say, “How?” I answer:

    (1)      Suffering for righteousness’ sake is a kind of grace that God gives us: “you are blessed” (1 Peter 3:14); “be glad” (Matthew 5:12); “rejoicing” (Acts 5:41). John Bradford said, “God forgive me this great unthankfulness for this exceeding great mercy, that he chooseth me for one in whom he will suffer.”

    (2)      You gain by afflictions, experience, hope, and grace (Romans 5:3-4; Hebrews 12:11) and by the wonderful sense of divine consolation (2 Corinthians 1:5).

    (3)      God has promised to reward it bountifully; there is a blessing in hand but more in hope (see 1:12).

    YouhaveheardofJob’sperseverance. James gives this example because Job was an eminent example of misery. From his giving this example we may learn that the book of Job was not a parable but a history of what really happened.

    Note4. Youhaveheard. We would never have heard of Job if he had not been brought so low. Affliction makes saints eminent; Job’s poverty made him rich in honor and esteem. Stars shine only in the night; the lower we are made by providence, the greater we are made. God’s children never gain so much honor as in their troubles. Many people whose names now breathe out a fresh perfume in the churches would have lived and died obscurely, with their bones thrown into some unknown charnel, undistinguished from other relics of mortality, if God had not drawn them to public notice by their eminent sufferings.

    Note5. Job’sperseverance. He showed much impatience and complaining, cursing the day of his birth, etc.; but here there is not a word of all this. Where the bent of the heart is right, the infirmities of God’s people are not mentioned. Thus in Hebrews 11:31 there is no mention of Rahab’s lie but only of her faith and her peaceable behavior towards the spies. Where God sees grace, he hides his eyes, as it were, from those circumstances that might seem to deface the glory of it. So in what Sarah says, though the whole sentence is full of distrust and unbelief, God takes notice of her reverence to her husband (see the notes on 2:25); she called Abraham “master” (1 Peter 3:6). Wicked people watch for our halting and feed their malice with our failings; they can overlook a great deal of good and fix only on what is evil. But the Lord pardons our defects when our heart is sincere. Job complained, but the Word says, YouhaveheardofJob’sperseverance. There was perseverance in the man. Job often submits to God, sometimes blesses God, dislikes the complaints extorted from him by the sense of his sufferings, and often corrects himself as soon as he has spoken any unbecoming word of God and providence; when he is reproved by God (chapters 38—41), he humbles himself (chapter 42).

    Note6. In our afflictions we should often think of Job’s example. He was famous for miseries of various kinds—now Chaldeans, then Sabeans, now wind, then fire, etc. When afflictions come like waves, one on the heels of another, and you are put through various trials, think of Job. They hit all his comforts, his goods—a life is no life without a livelihood—and his children, those dear pledges of affection. You may lose one, but Job lost many; and if you lose all, it is only as Job did. Then on his own body, he was covered with sores. God’s afflictions usually come closer and closer until they touch our very skins. You remember how Job’s body was affected by sores, and even his soul was exasperated with the censures of his friends; this is getting closer and closer.

    God’s immediate hand silences the spirit. We take injuries from people very unkindly, especially injuries from friends; these are stabs to the very heart. Perils among false brothers was Paul’s sorest trial; it is grievous to suffer from an enemy, but worse from a friend, and worst of all from godly friends. Yet this happened to Job; he complained that his friends were miserable comforters. Thus you see Job was famous for misery, but just as famous for perseverance. In all the expressions of this, two stand out, and they run through every vein of the whole book: his putting God forward and debasing himself; good thoughts of God and low thoughts of himself: “may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:21) and “I have sinned” (Job 7:20, KJV). So then, in all your afflictions look to this example of misery and perseverance.

    And have seen what the Lord finally brought about. This may be applied to Christ or to Job.

    Some people apply it to Christ for these reasons:

    (1)      Otherwise the main example of perseverance is left out.

    (2)      The change of the verb: “You have heard of Job, and you have seen what the Lord finally brought about in Christ.” Adding this new word seen seems to be done by way of contrast with heard.

    These reasons, when I first glanced at this text, inclined me to that opinion, especially when I afterwards saw the same reasons urged by the learned Paraeus. Many of the older commentators follow this line, such as Augustine, Beda, Lyra, and Aquinas, who makes more of it than I have seen anyone else do. Job and Christ, he says, the two famous examples, go well together: Job in the Old Testament, Christ in the New; in one we have a pledge of temporal reward, in the other a pledge of an eternal reward; you have heard of the one and seen the other; Job suffers but not to death; therefore, in order to give a complete pattern, James reminds them of the end of the Lord. That is what Aquinas says. If this were the sense, the point would be that Christ’s death is the great spectacle and mirror of perseverance. But modern theologians take a different line, and with good reason:

    (1)      The drift of the context (verses 6-7) is not only to give a perfect pattern of miseries but a happy outcome. James had spoken about Job’s perseverance, but if the previous sense were true he says nothing about his happy ending, which would be something very suitable to his purpose and most remarkable in the story.

    (2)      The apostle shows in the previous verse that he would give examples from some prophets and holy men of God, not in the Lord himself.

    (3)      The latter clause in the text cannot so easily be made to agree with the former sense—namely, that God has compassionandmercy; but it suits this latter sense well (whattheLordfinally brought about with Job, because he is of great mercy, etc.).

    The previous arguments may easily be answered:

    (1)      We must not teach the apostles how to reason or what examples to give. Possibly the example of Christ’s patience is purposely omitted because the main thing in question, in which their constancy was assaulted, was their belief in Christ, and therefore it was not so necessary to give his example but rather the example of other holy people who were afflicted. Then people would not take offense at the cross and doubt the faith they professed because of their great afflictions. To all this I may add that the sufferings of Christ are mentioned in verse 6, as we saw earlier.

    (2)      The words heard and seen both imply outward sense and mean knowing and understanding. The word seen, which is the clearer way of perception, is used in the latter clause because God’s reward was so great and far more visible than Job’sperseverance. And do not let the phrase seem too curt, for there is no special reason why the outcome of Job’s afflictions should be called what the Lord finally brought about.

    Note 7. We must not think about the nature and beginning of the afflictions of God’s children, but rather of their outcome and end: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful” (Hebrews 12:11). There are two emphatic expressions: “at the time” and “seems”; our bodies find them “painful,” but they are only painful “at the time.” It is childish to judge afflictions by present sense; it is always worst with Christians in the present time: see Romans 8:18; 1 Corinthians 15:19; 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. So then, do not measure afflictions by the pain but by their outcome; besides our everlasting hopes, usually the obvious end is glorious. When Israel was sent out of Egypt, she went with gold and ear-rings (Exodus 11); the Jews were sent out of Babylon with gifts, jewels, and all necessary utensils (Ezra 1); and “the LORD made [Job] prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before … and everyone who had known him before … gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring” (Job 42:10-11). Wait for the end, then. The beginning is usually Satan’s, but the end is the Lord’s; at the beginning the power of darkness may have a time, but in the end the Lord will be seen.

    Note 8. The Lord will give a happy end to all afflictions.

    (1)      A temporal end. Man may begin, but God must make an end. When man begins, the Lord will exercise his own dominion and sovereignty before the end comes.

    (2)      A gracious end: “this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin” (Isaiah 27:9). Now this is God’s work. God’s rod, as well as God’s Word, does nothing without his blessing; otherwise they would both be poor, dead, and useless means. “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you” (Isaiah 48:17)—by afflictions.

    (3)      A glorious end. It is the Lord’s gift, not by our merit. Let us do our duty, then, and God will not fail; let us wait upon him with Job’s perseverance, and he will give Job’s end.

    TheLordisfullofcompassionandmercy. This expresses partly the cause and partly the manner of God’s appearance in Job’s end.

    (1)      The reason Job had such a good end to his troubles was God’s mercy, not his own merit; his root of happiness was that he had to do with a compassionate and merciful God.

    (2)      You will find God merciful and compassionate, whatever the world says to the contrary. In the beginning you think him cruel, but in the end you find him merciful. Here are two expressions that express God’s goodness: the first is fullofcompassion, and the next is mercy. This is the word that is opposite to the hard heart, and therefore the KJV renders it, oftendermercy. The one word has to do with our miseries, the other with our sins—compassion for our miseries, mercy in pardoning our sins. One denotes feeling and the other appropriate action—inward and outward mercy.

    Note 9. Full of compassion and mercy. God’s mercy is seldom spoken of without some addition such as “much” or “great” or “tender.” Most commonly in the Old Testament it is found in the plural—“mercies” and “loving-kindnesses,” and very often “much” or “great” is added: “his mercy is great” (2 Samuel 24:14); “with him is full redemption” (Psalm 130:7); “in his great mercy” (1 Peter 1:3); “the incomparable riches of his grace” (Ephesians 2:7). God delights to reveal this attribute in its royalty and magnificence. Certainly there is more in God’s mercy than in our sins. Our container is full, but God’s mercy is overflowing; and there is enough in God to supply all our needs. When you can exhaust overflowing mercy, then you may complain; there is enough in God to supply each and every believer. We all drink from the same fountain, and yet we cannot empty it. When will we learn from our Heavenly Father not only to do good works but to abound in them more and more? He is rich in mercy; when will we be rich in good works?

    Note 10. God is very tender to his people in misery. Human reason only makes lies about God. When we listen to the voice of our own feelings, we are apt to say with Job, “You turn on me ruthlessly” (30:21); or at least like David, “I am cut off,” though at that very time God was looking graciously on him: “yet you heard my cry for mercy” (Psalm 31:22). Israel was castigated for saying, “My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God” (Isaiah 40:27); that is, God has left me off the list of those whom he is to look after—he does not take any notice of me. Just wait a little while, and you will see that the Lord is very compassionate and tender. God’s children have often at last been ashamed of their hasty words; and when providence has run its course, they can easily see that though the outside and bark was rough and harsh, yet it was lined with compassion and mercy.

    Note11. Compassionandmercy. God has provided for the comfort of his people in every way. He has compassion for their afflictions and pardon for their sins. He felt Job’s misery and Job’s weakness; his compassion might be discouraged by our complaints if he were not merciful as well as compassionate. Afflicted people may take comfort from this and answer the objections of their sad spirits; when you are harmed by other people, you will find compassion in God. You may say, “Yes, but I have sinned.” I answer, there is mercy in him as well as pity.

    Note12. Note from the order of the words compassion and mercy that there is in God, first, compassion and then bounty; it is the same in Exodus 34:6, “compassionate and gracious.” So let us learn from our Heavenly Father, when we do good, to do it with all our hearts; let the spring be within us. “Spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry” (Isaiah 58:10), and then satisfy the afflicted person.