Let no man, being tempted, say, I am tempted of God. For God cannot be tempted by evil things, and himself tempts no one.
Verse 13 turns a corner: James has been speaking of trials that come from outside, and now he deals with the pull toward evil. He shuts down the excuse people reach for first — that God is behind it.
One word covers two experiences. One writer sets the earlier verses of the chapter against this one:
The Apostle passes on to warn us of another character of trial. He has been speaking of the trial of faith that comes from circumstances outside (verses 2, 3). Now he warns us not to confuse this kind of trial with the trials that come from the flesh within. God can try us with outward circumstances, but God cannot be tempted with evil, and He does not tempt anyone to do evil.
Another writer contrasts this use of the word with its use elsewhere in Scripture:
Temptations elsewhere mean trials, not inward pulls toward evil... Here, on the other hand, we find the common sense of temptation. Sadly, the fact that it is common shows where people are. They have little to do with God and much in common with the world.
The reason is not that God keeps away from evil. His nature makes evil impossible for Him. One writer draws this from the picture of God as light:
Light cannot change, and God cannot be corrupted or stained. No moral poison can come into His moral nature. No evil, no sin can ever originate or be in Him. What He is in moral nature and character He has always been and must always be. He cannot be deceived; He "cannot be tempted with evil."
This belongs with a short list of things Scripture says God cannot do:
While it is clear there can be no limit to His power, we know He is governed by His love, and, in the area of moral truth, there are certain things He cannot do. "He cannot deny Himself" (2 Timothy 2:13). "God cannot be tempted with evil" (James 1:13). "God is not unrighteous" (Hebrews 6:10).
Genesis says God tested Abraham, which sounds like a flat contradiction until the two senses are kept apart:
Yet we are also told in the same Scriptures that God tested Abraham when He told him to offer up Isaac (Genesis 22:1). This must have been a different kind of temptation from the one James speaks of. It was certainly not an enticement to do evil. It could not have been. It is as impossible for God to tempt a man that way as it is for Him to lie. It was a testing of what was in Abraham. His faith was put into the crucible, and it came out, as we know, as gold tried by the fire.
The next verse locates the real culprit. One writer separates what God permits from what a person supplies:
The devil tempts us with evil. But he finds in us what he counts on as ready to yield. In fact, anyone is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own lust. This is the only thing that makes him accessible. God is over all in permitting the outward pull, but the inward pull comes from man himself. There he is master of himself, and so responsible for the outcome always being against him.
Yet even the evil we meet is not outside God's control:
It is impossible for Him to tempt anyone with evil. But He may permit His people to be tempted with evil, and He knows well how to overrule even that for their ultimate good.
Why does James say this at all? Because when we fail, we look for somewhere to put the blame. One writer treats that move as no small fault:
There is no need for a child of God to fail, nor does God in any way tempt to evil. On the contrary, the one who has found Christ and yet fails by sinning is always without excuse. To allow the thought that God's providence has anything to do with this is little short of blasphemy. Even if we have gone wrong, let us beware of adding to it by throwing it on God and excusing ourselves at His cost.
The distinction also guards how we speak of the Lord:
The first of these passages speaks of temptation or trial coming from outside; the second, of desire or lust within. Our Lord faced the first kind throughout His whole life. He was absolutely incapable of the second.
- Two words in one. Trial comes from outside and can be counted joy. Enticement to evil comes from within. One English word, two different things.
- Two natures. Evil cannot reach God, because of what He is. It reaches us, because of what we still carry within.
- Two sources. God may permit the testing. The lust that answers it is ours, and that is where responsibility sits.
- Two responses. The excuse throws the fault on God. Faith owns the fault and leaves God's character untouched.
- Two hearts. In us the temptation finds something ready to yield. In Christ it found nothing — He knew every outward trial and none of the inward.
But every one is tempted, drawn away, and enticed by his own lust;
James traces temptation back to its starting point. The pull comes from inside the person, not from God. So what is this "desire" that drags a person away? And if it starts inside us, who is to blame?
James has already written about trials in the opening verses. Now the source of the trial changes.
He has been speaking of the trial of faith that comes from circumstances outside us (verses 2, 3). Now he warns us not to confuse that kind of trial with the trials that come from the flesh within. God can try us with outward circumstances, but God cannot be tempted with evil, and He tempts no one to do evil. We, though, can be tempted by evil through lust within, and so be enticed into doing evil. Judas was enticed by the lust for money in his heart. He fell into the devil's temptation and satisfied that lust by betraying the Lord.
The word behind "lust" is the same word the Bible uses for "desire." What makes it good or evil is what it reaches for.
"Desire" and "lust" are really the same word... The thing longed for is what gives the feeling its character. If the thing craved is good in God's sight, then it is a holy desire. The Lord Himself uses this same word when He says to His disciples, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15.) But when the thing longed for is evil, then the desire for it is "lust." ... "Lust," as James teaches, starts in ourselves (chapter 1:14), but holy "desire" is the fruit of the Spirit of God working in the believer.
The verse before rules out one excuse: God. This verse rules out the other: our circumstances.
The real root of all temptation lies within ourselves, in our own lusts. We may blame the enticing thing which from without was presented to us, but the trouble really lies in the desires of the flesh within.
Something offers itself from outside; something inside answers. That inner answer is what makes a person reachable at all.
The tempter does not throw suggestions at random. He fits them to what is already there.
If Satan were to suggest eating a handful of mud and dirt, would anyone be inclined to do it? If he succeeds in touching us, it is because there is a desire in the sinful nature to which he adapts himself. If we are full of Christ, he will not succeed. But if the suggestion wakes up in our hearts, sin wakes up into active desire, even though we may resist it as we should. If we look to Christ, we shall be victorious.
Temptation and hardship do not feel the same.
I know too well that when Satan tempts us there is an echo inside, an answer there. Instead of being suffering to us, it is pleasure.
If temptation of this kind needs an inward desire to work on, then it could not touch Christ.
The Lord was tempted in every way as we are, yet He could not be tempted like this. It would have denied and destroyed His moral glory... He did not have, and could not have, such evil temptations from a corrupt nature, because His nature was holy through and through. There was no lust of His own to draw Him away or attract Him. So He always rejected evil suggestions from outside with indignation.
Paul says elsewhere that sin produces lust; James says lust produces sin. Writers treat these as two angles, not a clash.
The difference between these two declarations is this: Paul keeps to the spiritual principles, while James looks at their effects. The one completes the other. The sin which is in the nature produces the lust (Rom. 7); and the lust produces the sin in the conduct of the man. (James 1.)
That leaves one place to look for strength.
No force of temptation would be enough to upset or draw away a soul that was finding its strength in God Himself. So a person is really "tempted" — that is, the temptation succeeds with him — when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. What exposes him to the evil is in himself, and not in his surroundings. A soul that fully knows its own helplessness and rests in God for help cannot be broken by any attack. Self-confidence, then, in some form, is the secret of all failure — the root of every sin we actually commit.
- Two words, one spelling. One word covers two things: trials God sends and enticements He never sends. This verse is the second kind — temptation from the flesh within.
- Desire named by its object. The word means longing. What it reaches for decides whether it is holy desire or lust.
- The hook needs a mouth. Bait from outside only works because something inside is ready to answer. That answer is what makes a person responsible.
- One exception. Christ had no lust of His own to draw Him away, so this verse describes every man but Him.
- Break it at the root. Judge the desire and the sin stops there. A soul that rests in God, not in itself, cannot be reached.
then lust, having conceived, gives birth to sin; but sin fully completed brings forth death.
James pictures sin as a family line: desire is a mother, and the child she bears grows up to have a child of its own. So who is to blame for that line, and where does it end?
The chain starts inside a person, not in the circumstances around them.
When we sin we tend to lay a great deal of the blame on our circumstances, or at least on things outside us. If only we are honest before God, we have no one and nothing to blame but ourselves. How important it is to be honest before God and judge ourselves rightly in His presence! That is the high road to recovery of soul. It will also help us to judge and refuse the lusts of our hearts, and so nip sin in the bud. Lust is the mother of sin. If it works it brings forth sin, and sin carried to completion brings forth death.
Elsewhere Paul puts the order the other way around. Commentators treat the two as fitting together rather than clashing.
Paul said the opposite in the Letter to the Romans (Rom. 7:8) — it is sin which produces every kind of lust. The difference is this: Paul keeps to the spiritual principles, while James looks at their effects. Each one completes the other. The sin that is in the nature produces the lust (Rom. 7); and the lust produces the sin in a man's conduct (James 1).
Because James starts his account at the birth of sin, some argue that desire itself is innocent. One writer asks where desire comes from.
Where does it come from? It is the fruit of the sinful nature: "sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness." Those who rest on the fruits in James find no sin until it has conceived and brought forth. Those who go to the root with the word of God know that there is sin in the flesh. If Satan were to suggest eating a handful of mud and dirt, would anyone be inclined to do it? If he succeeds in touching us, it is because there is a desire in the sinful nature to which he adapts himself.
Jesus was tempted, but not in this way. The process here needs something inside the person for the lure to catch on.
The Lord was tempted in all points in a similar way. But He could not be tempted like this. It would have denied and destroyed His moral glory, and it would have frustrated God's purpose in saving us to His glory... He had not and could not have such evil temptations from a corrupt nature, because His was expressly holy. There was no lust of His own to draw Him away or allure Him. So He uniformly rejected evil suggestion from outside with indignation.
One writer reads David's fall as this verse acted out step by step, in a man who had every reason to know better.
Had David always walked in the presence of the Lord he would have heeded the warning of His law. What a warning there is here for all believers! The flesh is the same today as it ever was; it does not change. We are told to "make no provision for the flesh" (Rom. 13:14). Put in other words, this means: do not feed the flesh by indulging it... "I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?" said Job (Job 31:1). David knew no such covenant. He looks where he should not have looked, and sin soon follows.
One writer takes the verse's last word further than the grave.
You commit sin. "And sin when it is fully grown brings forth death" (James 1:15). This is more than the death of the body. It is eternal death in the lake of fire.
Since the sequence completes itself, the only safe place to act is before conception.
Whether Satan or men tempt him, he himself is responsible for yielding to it. And once lust is indulged, it conceives and brings forth sin; then of course sin results in death. So judging the root of self-indulgence is the one way for the child of God to meet this: the temptation is to be refused.
Waiting until later is not an option, because the later stages carry their own momentum.
One sin leads to another. We cannot stop just when we choose in the path of sin. As one has said, "A man cannot stop his boat at will in the strong currents just above Niagara, though he might have avoided them altogether."
- Mother — Desire is not a bystander; it is the parent. Blaming your circumstances hides the real culprit.
- Child — The birth is sin in conduct. James traces the effects; Paul traces the source, and the two accounts complete each other.
- Bloodline — The lure only catches because something in our nature answers it. In Christ there was nothing to answer it, so the chain never started.
- Grandchild — Death is the end of the line, and some read it as reaching past the grave.
- Break it — Refuse the temptation and judge the root early. Further down, as David found, you cannot stop the boat where you please.
Do not err, my beloved brethren.
James has just traced temptation back to our own desire. Then he stops and makes a personal appeal to his beloved brothers. The warning sits at a turning point. What comes before it shows where evil comes from. What comes after shows where good comes from. Mixing up the two is the mistake he warns against.
The verse marks the turn from one source to the other. One writer sets out both halves and names what the warning protects.
Now we come to the other side. "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." We have traced the evil to its source. That source is the fallen nature of man, no doubt worked on by Satan. But he does not bring the enemy before us here... here he simply looks at man's nature, and then he raises his eyes to God... The first point in the mind of the Holy Spirit here is to vindicate God at all cost, and this entirely apart from us.
James does not treat this as obvious. The subject lies beyond the reach of human thinking, so Scripture is our safeguard.
Men's thoughts are so far from the truth, and this subject lies altogether beyond man's mind. So we are all the more bound to see that we are not misled, but stay subject to Scripture. Here there is no obscurity, but all is light; for God is light, and His love has communicated all that we need to know.
The specific mistake is to make God responsible for the pull toward evil. We also tend to blame the tempting thing instead of our own desire.
God Himself is above all evil. It is absolutely foreign to His nature. It is as impossible for Him to be tempted with evil as it is impossible for Him to lie. It is just as impossible for Him to tempt anyone with evil. He may allow His people to be tempted with evil, but He knows well how to overrule even that for their ultimate good. The real root of all temptation lies within ourselves, in our own lusts. We may blame the tempting thing that came to us from outside. But the trouble really lies in the desires of the flesh within.
Evil is inside us and temptation is all around us. Neither direction offers any good, so the warning points our eyes somewhere else.
"Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers," he says. Let nothing deceive you about this. Don't look around or within for good. The world and the devil and temptation are around you, and lust is within you. But LOOK UP. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above."
Being deceived about God is not only blaming Him for sin. We can also credit our better moments to anything but Him.
We must not question the goodness of God, though we may know the weakness and deceit of our own hearts. And there is this tendency in us. We are prone to suspect the sources of light or joy or strength that may be in us at times. Our reasoning will tell us that it is simple nature and not the Spirit of God in these things. We do what we can to take the praise for our blessings away from God. We reason that good gifts come down from sources short of the Father of lights. But this should not be. The heart is deceitful indeed, but God is good.
The greatest good that comes down from above is our new birth. It starts with God, not with anything in us.
He owns grace as the one divine source of the good that is in us. It is ours as born of God, and that through faith, since it comes by the word of truth. By it we are born again; it is a new life, and that by the will of God. We belong to the new creation; we are its first-fruits. Immense blessing! ... James does not speak of righteousness through grace, but of an entirely new nature, which comes from God.
- Source of evil — the pull toward sin starts in our own desire, not in God. He cannot be tempted with evil, and He tempts no one.
- Source of good — all the good in us traces back to grace, and the passage clears God of any share in evil.
- Guard — this subject lies beyond human thinking, so Scripture guards us from going wrong.
- Direction — do not look around or within for good. Look up: every good and perfect gift comes down.
- Result — the highest gift from above is new birth by the word of truth, a wholly new nature received by God's will.
Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, with whom is no variation nor shadow of turning.
James has just traced temptation to its real source — a man's own desire, not God — and now he turns the eyes of his readers in the opposite direction. The verse answers two questions at once. Where does every good thing come from? And does the Giver ever change?
James is guarding his readers against a real mistake. One commentator reads the chapter as a contrast. First James traces evil back to human nature. Then he lifts his eyes to God.
We have had the evil traced to its source, which is the fallen nature of man... but here he simply looks at man's nature, and then he raises his eyes to God... The first thing in the mind of the Holy Spirit here is to defend God's character at all costs, and to do it without any reference to us. As evil comes from us, so all that is good comes from God.
That makes the verse a practical instruction about where to look for good.
Let nothing deceive you about this. Don't look around you or inside you for good. The world, the devil and temptation are around you, and desire is inside you. LOOK UP.
The verse uses two different phrases. Writers note that this is not saying the same thing twice. One covers the act of giving, the other what is handed over.
The Greek word for "good gift" refers to the giving, the word for "perfect gift" to the thing given. All that is good both in the manner of giving as well as the thing given comes from God.
The title covers more than the lights in the sky. It reaches every light there is — and it shows how shaky the lights people make for themselves are.
He is the Source not only of every good and perfect gift, but of everything we can call light. The light of creation came from Him. Every ray of true light for the heart or conscience or intellect comes from Him... Human lights are very uncertain. The light of so-called "science" keeps changing. It burns bright, it dies down, it comes back, it flares up. In the end it goes out, put out by a rising generation that is sure it knows more than the one before it.
One writer hears the closing phrase as language borrowed from the sky. The very lights God made do shift and eclipse each other; He does not.
The heavenly bodies that give us light have what is called parallax. They seem to change position when you look at them from different points. They pull on one another, and as they turn they cast shadows on one another. That is what causes eclipses. But with God there is nothing of this kind... From whatever point we observe Him He is the same, and nothing that He has created can move Him from His purpose or cast a shadow over Him.
Kelly treats God's unchanging nature as comfort, not as a bare fact about Him. A great gift is only as secure as the one who gave it.
The greater the blessing, the greater the sorrow if it can be lost or changed. Now in our relationship with God we can be sure that the goodness He has shown never lessens and never suffers an eclipse... it is not so with the Father of lights. He never changes, and He is as perfect in this as He is in His goodness. And that goodness is toward us, who deserve it least — still weak, and still in a world of evil.
The next verse names the supreme instance of this giving: God brought us to birth by the word of truth. What comes down from above is not only help, but His own nature shared.
It is not only that God is good, but that He is a giver. He gives nothing that is not good, and everything that is good... God is active in His love, and out of this active, sovereign love He does not stop at blessing... We are ourselves born of Him: He communicates His nature to the believer. He does it without being asked, and without any deserving on our part.
Earlier in the chapter James told anyone lacking wisdom to ask God and not doubt. One writer links that command back to this verse.
Doesn't verse 5 of our chapter answer the question? "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." God is who He is, and His word is the word of truth. So there is no room for doubt about this... Why should he waver, since God is the unwavering God, and His word is the word of truth?
- Source. Evil traces back to us. Every good traces back to God. So stop looking around you or inside you — look up.
- Giving. The verse uses two words, one for the act and one for the thing given. God's way of giving is as good as what He gives.
- Light. He is the source of light in creation, and of every true ray for heart, conscience and mind. The lights people make for themselves flare up and go out.
- Unchanging. The stars shift and cast shadows on each other. The One who made them never does. His goodness can suffer no eclipse.
- Result. The best gift from above is His own nature, shared with those born of Him. And because the Giver never wavers, the one who asks Him need not waver either.
According to his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be a certain first-fruits of *his* creatures.
James has just traced where our own desire leads. Now he turns to a birth that runs the other way. This verse answers three questions at once: who started it, what He used, and what we are meant to become.
The phrase "of His own will" puts the source of the new birth outside us. One writer stresses how far it stands from anything a person would want:
He gives freely and fully to those who were evil and enemies. So we are here told that "every good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights." … So God, by His own will and purpose, gave us new birth. Nothing was further from man, or more opposed to his own will.
Our first birth was not our own doing either. Pollock turns that into a question:
Take our first birth. We were passive in that matter. God ordains the process by which we come into the world. That is sovereignty. Yet we do not object to the sovereignty of our first birth into this world. Why object to God's sovereignty in the second birth? The new birth is like a gardener preparing the soil and then dropping in the seed. God prepares the soil of our hearts, and the good seed of the word sprouts. "Of His own will", not ours.
James names the means: the word of truth. That word is not mere information. It carries life.
The word of God is living, for it produces life, and life can only come from life. … Under the hand of God, and by the working of His Holy Spirit, the Scriptures of truth have given new birth to millions of men and women all down the ages of the world's history. The word of God is living.
The word does not stop working once the new life begins. It shapes how we listen:
The word of truth is the good seed of life. Self-will is the cradle of our lusts. Its energy can never produce the fruits of the divine nature, and the wrath of man can never produce the righteousness of God. So we are called to be teachable: ready to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. We are to lay aside all filthiness of the flesh and all energy of wrongdoing, and to receive the word with meekness. That word is the word of God, and it makes itself one with the new nature that is in us. It is planted in us, and it forms and develops that nature according to its own perfection.
Which will is at work decides where a life ends up:
His will working by His word is the source of the everlasting gift, as our will issues in lust, sin, and death.
The new birth gives more than a new standing before God.
James points to grace as the only divine source of the good that is in us. That good is there because we are born of God, and it comes through faith, since it is by the word of truth. By it we are born again; it is a new life, and that by the will of God. We belong to the new creation; we are its firstfruits. Immense blessing! It is not only a new position, though it is that. It is also a new nature that makes us able to enjoy God. James does not speak of righteousness through grace. He speaks of a completely new nature that comes from God.
Firstfruits were the first sheaf of a harvest still to come. Believers are that sheaf, and the harvest is a creation set right:
God will reconcile all things to Himself: His creation and His chosen ones. We, born of the Father, are the firstfruits of that reconciled creation. In a sense, Adam after his sin was the firstfruits of fallen creation.
James guards the wording: we are only "a kind of" firstfruits — "a certain firstfruits" in the older translation Kelly uses. He explains the limit:
Of this we are a certain firstfruits already, for the word of truth gave us birth, and this nature is holy. But there is another nature we should never ignore. If we do not judge it, it breaks out into sins. So until Christ comes and changes us, we can only be called "a certain firstfruits."
- Will — The new birth starts in God's will, not ours. His will works by His word and gives life; our will runs out into lust, sin, and death.
- Word — The means is the word of truth, living seed that produces life because life only comes from life.
- Nature — He gives a new nature that can enjoy God. James's subject is that new life, not how a person is declared righteous.
- Welcome — The word that planted the new nature also forms it, so we take it in with meekness: quick to hear, slow to anger.
- Firstfruits — We are the first sheaf of a creation God will set right. We are only "a kind of" firstfruits, because the old nature stays until Christ comes.
So that, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath;
James has just said that God brought us to birth by the word of truth. These three commands come next. Why should hearing come first? Why hold back speech? And what is wrong with anger that feels justified?
One writer draws the line from creation to the new birth, and shows what went wrong in between:
Obedience to the Creator's voice marks every intelligent creature that has not fallen. Fallen man shuts his ear to God's voice and insists on talking. He would like to make the rules for himself and for everybody else. From this come the anger and strife that fill the earth. We were always creatures, but now, born of God, we are a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. What should mark all creatures should be especially characteristic of us. Hearing God's word should attract us. We should run eagerly to it as those who delight to listen to God.
Being quick to hear is the stance of someone who expects everything from God:
Hearing is exactly the attitude of dependence. Now one who is the servant of God looks up to God, trusts God, and expects from God. This is the place that suits the one who is born of God.
The same writer turns to Christ, and to a prophet's picture of a servant whose ear God opens each morning:
Christ Himself is the model of this, as of all else that is good. Though He was the Holy One of God, no one was ever so quick to hear God's word. So the prophet marked Him out: "The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward." It was no different when He faced the tempter. The word of God was His constant resource. That was even more true when Satan twisted it. "Again it is written" was His humble, God-honouring answer.
Slowness to speak has a reason. God's thoughts take time to sink in:
We only speak rightly when God controls our thoughts. If we think God's thoughts we shall be able to say things that are right. We may be quick to hear God's thoughts. But we shall only speak them after we have taken them in and made them our own. We take them in slowly, and so we should be slow to speak. A healthy sense of how little we have yet grasped of God's mind sets us free. It frees us from the self-confidence and shallow self-assertion that makes people ready to speak at once on any matter.
The two commands are linked. Both rest on what James has just said about God's giving and about the human heart:
The "ear" and the "tongue" are connected in more ways than one. But in moral and spiritual terms, if my ear is closed and my tongue is loose, I am certain to talk a great deal of folly... This warning comes at the right time. It rests on two facts. Everything good comes from above, and the heart is full to the brim with wickedness, ready to overflow.
Commentators do not treat all anger as sin. But they do call for it to be short and watched:
How often our anger is powerless, hasty self-will! We are now set apart to do His will, to obey as Christ obeyed. There is of course a right occasion for anger. So the Lord looked around at those who used the sabbath day to oppose God's grace in an evil world. But we are urged to be slow to anger, and to let it be over quickly. "Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4:26-27).
The next two verses show where our temper really belongs:
People sometimes feel their anger is for God's glory. Verse 20 makes that very doubtful: the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Instead, verse 21 links man's anger with filthiness and overflowing wickedness, something to put away. Losing your temper is plainly the overflow of wickedness.
The answer is not tighter restraint but something received:
We are to deal with the evil that lies behind the malicious words and the outbursts of anger. We will not do this by trying to keep an outward law, which only stirs up our sinful nature. It is done by laying aside every form of it, and receiving with meekness the implanted word of God. This is the word taken into the soul. We receive it not with arguments and questions, but in the meekness that submits to what God has to say.
- Born to listen. The command rests on the new birth. Obedience marks every creature that has not fallen, and those born of God should run to His word.
- Ear open. Being quick to hear is dependence: looking up to God, trusting Him, expecting from Him. Christ did the same, with an ear wakened morning by morning.
- Tongue slow. We take in God's mind slowly, so we speak slowly; a closed ear with a loose tongue guarantees folly.
- Temper last. There is a right occasion for anger, but it must be short. James groups anger claimed for God's glory with the wickedness we must put away.
- Word implanted. The remedy is not an outward rule, which only stirs up our sinful nature. It is the word received in meekness. That alone reaches the evil behind the harsh word and the flare of temper.