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.