This post is the third essay on spiritual warfare, the first two dealing with spiritual dungeons and the second dealing with whole armor of God (found in Ephesians 6:12ff.)  These two essays should be available on this website if anyone interested in reading them. The three posts deal with the constant struggle between good and evil in this world.

Even though the focus of this post is on James Chapter 4, verse 7, it is important to look at the first six verses of this chapter as well as the verses following in order to understand the context, because the quarrelsome, the hedonists the adulterers and the proud are not likely to enjoy the same victory in their resistance to Satan as those who are walking in the light (I John 1:7.)   This is a good place to mention that while many promises of God in the Bible have no strings attached and are available to all, some of the promises are conditional (i.e., they contain “if/then” statements or the syntax suggests certain important caveats.)

The Epistle of James may be one of the oldest epistles in the New Testament, and its author is James, the brother (likely step-brother) of Jesus.  There is no single, central theme, so instead it is a series of complementary comments about Christian behavior. Writes James in Chapter Four, Verse 1: What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?

The word here for “battle” is strateuomenōn, a military term. It refers to a “man of war,” or “to serve as a soldier.”  It can also refer to “spiritual conflict” (Vine.)  The “battle within you” (melesin) is possibly a reference to our old nature as it battles our new nature.

Choices and consequences

Verse 2: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.“

The term for “desire” (epithymeite) comes from the word thumos or “passion; to long for, lust after, or covet (whose Greek counterpart is zēloute.) Also, to “desire earnestly” according to Vine.

Verse 3: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.“

Asking wrongly (kakōs) means asking “amiss” here, though elsewhere is used to identify evil.

Verse 4: “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.“

The reference to adultery in this passage is likely to refer to spiritual adultery rather than physical adultery because of the word choice and the sentence structure.  Just as one who is married can commit physical adultery with another person, so one can be guilty of adulterous conduct with respect to God. There are several other important words in this verse.  Friendship is based on the word philia.   This word is one of the four words used in the New Testament to describe love (the others being storge, agape, and eros) and each will be covered in time.  The word for “world” is kosmou, or when used in English, “cosmos.”  Originally “the world, or the universe, as that which is divinely arranged,” according to Vine. But according to Kenneth Wuest, “Kosmos defines the world not as a neutral influence but as an ‘evil force.’ the inveterate, incorrigible, intractable, intransigent, irrevocable enemy of God and of every believer.

Richard Trench goes a step beyond when he defines the term kosmousas:

All that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, at any time current in the world, which it may be impossible to seize and accurately define, but which constitutes a most real and effective power, being the moral, or immoral atmosphere which at every moment of our lives we inhale, again inevitably to exhale.”

F.B. Hole concludes:

The apostle James is exceedingly definite on this point. The world is in a state of open rebellion against God. It was ever thus since man fell, but it’s terrible enmity only came fully to light when Christ was manifested. Then it was that the world both saw and hated Him and His Father. Then it was that the breach was irrevocably fixed. We are speaking, of course, of the world-system. If it be a question of the people in the world, then we read, ‘God so loved the world.’ The world-system is the point here, and it is in a state of deadly hostility to God; so much so that friendship with the one entails enmity as regards to the other. The language is very strong. Literally it would read, ‘Whoever therefore is minded to be the friend of the world is constituted enemy of God.’ It does not say that God is his enemy, but the breach is so complete on the world’s side that friendship with it is only possible on the basis of enmity against God. Let us never forget that!”

The phrase “friend of the world” means “enmity” (echthros of God.)  Vine defines this term referring to “the professing believer who would be a friend of the world, thus making himself an enemy of God.”

Verse 5: Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us?

Verse 6: But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the humble.’

“God opposes the proud. . .” (hyperēphanois) meaning arrogant or haughty.  It comes from two Greek words meaning “over” and “to appear.”  It may refer to instances when someone who considers himself superior to another person and arrogantly makes sport or fun of that person.

Resist the devil

Verse 7: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  “Resist” comes from the Greek word antistētewhich means literally “to stand against (from the prefix of the word “anti” as in “anti-abortion.”) Albert Barnes says

in Barnes Notes on the Bible: “You are to resist and oppose him in whatever way he may approach you, whether by allurements, by flattering promises, by the fascinations of the world, by temptation, or by threats.”  The Shepherd of Hermas says: “The devil has fear only, but his fear has no strength. Fear him not, then, and he will flee from you (Mandates, xii. 5, 2).” This book (The Shepherd) which is not part of the New Testament canon because it was not considered to be inspired by the early church goes on to say the enemy cannot “hold sway over the servants of God, who with all their heart place their hopes in Him. The devil can wrestle against these, [but] overthrow them he cannot. If, then, ye resist him, he will be conquered, and flee (pheugo) in disgrace from you.”  The word flee (pheugo) can be described as “to seek safety in flight” (Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich.)  However, this verse does not stand alone, because it begins with the word “therefore” in the best translations (or else it has the word “then” in the verse as here which closes the loop equally well), and the promise of a successful outcome in this verse is somewhat conditional on the believer’s response to the previous verses.

How does one resist the devil?  According to Martin Luther:

One does not gain much ground against the devil with a lengthy disputation but with brief words and replies, such as, ‘I am a Christian, of the same flesh and blood as is my Lord Christ, the Son of God. Settle your account with him.’ Then, the devil does not stay long.”

In fact, Luther is an authority on resisting the devil because the devil paid him many visits in physical form while Luther lived in a castle known as the Wartburg.  But you may not always win, or at least I don’t.  Yet, even though you may get bruised like the model in the teaser for this article, it is important to pick yourself up and continue to fight.  There will be another day and you will learn the sweet taste of victory as well as the bitter taste of defeat before long.

Paul says “Do not be overcome by evil (kakau), but overcome evil with good” Romans 12:21.  The word for “evil” in Romans 12:21 means “the lack in a person or thing of those qualities which should be possessed;” it means ‘bad in character’” according to Vine.  That seems to be milder than what our culture (e.g. our movies) represent evil as in terms of arch villains such as Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Krueger, et al. However, there are adjectives in Greek which, if present in a sentence containing Kakau, potentiate the word and make it closer to the evil portrayed by the horror genre of films we grew up with.

In I Peter 5:8 we find the admonition to “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy (antidikos) the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (katapiein), a word which often means “to swallow.”  Peter’s term for “be alert” (translated elsewhere as vigilance (grēgorēsate) means simply to watch.  However, the Greek word for enemy (antidikosin I Peter) refers to an opponent in a lawsuit in its most common use.   When you contrast this to the word used for the Holy Spirit (paráklētos) which refers to a defense attorney or advocate in a court of law, it suggests that the devil stakes certain legal claims over certain people (and over mankind in general) and at least as far as Christians are concerned, the Holy Spirit represents us while on “trial.”  However, the masses of unbelievers have no such representation.  Hebrews 7:25 suggest that Jesus has a role defending us as well as an intercessor.  Claims that the devil may have over us are usually the result of our sin, but perhaps generational sin as well.

Reconciliation

Verse 8: Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.

The word for “double-minded means literally two souls, and suggests—at least to me– that a person is divided within himself in terms of believe, and such houses that are divided can easily all.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Finally, some parting words from Martin Luther:

Experience is required, gathered in many kinds of bouts and temptations, to be able to meet the devil when he comes and enters into judgment with us, wants us pious, and, on the basis of the Law, argues with us about what it means to have done right or not. Before an untried and inexperienced Christian has learned his lesson, the devil has so disturbed him that he must fear and tremble and does not know which way to turn. Therefore, we must learn to cling to Christ’s Word and comfort alone and to permit the devil no argument about our own works or piety.”