James 5:7–11

Archbishop Trench put the distinction like this: "makrothumia expresses patience toward people, hupomone patience toward things." The way Scripture uses the words seems to confirm it... Matthew 18:26, 29 and James 5:7, 8, 10 use the verb makrothumeo — "be patient," "have patience"... So it means "a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion." Scripture applies it to God, in His forbearance toward those who provoke Him.

If he is oppressed, he is not to fight or make what he considers righteous demands. He is to be patient. For how long? Until the coming of the Lord! This is the only real hope of the child of God. It is pointless to hope that people will willingly stop their oppression unless they are truly brought to God.

First, then, we ought not to resist evil; the Just One did not resist. We must wait with patience, as the farmer waits for the precious fruits of the earth until he has received the early and the latter rain. These rains are the means God uses to bring the fruit of harvest to perfection.

"Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord." This is not God's providential dealing with Jerusalem and the Jews. Nor is it death, which relieves sufferers from the troubles of this life. These are the misinterpretations of fallen Christendom. The truth is the hope of His own coming. It will act first on all the saints, dead or living, to give them completed blessedness. Then it will act on the land and people of Israel, and on all the earth.

He is speaking here to the believers, a small suffering group among the unbelieving crowds who attended the synagogue. They are to be patient and to suffer patiently, without resisting. The coming of the Lord is mentioned twice in these verses. It means His visible and glorious appearing, the same one our Lord speaks of in Matthew 24:30-31.

The farmer expects no crop until the seed has had time to sprout and grow. God designs this long waiting time as a picture of His own long patience in dealing with us. In the end that patience brings out the fruit He seeks. And we too are to have the same patient character. It is God who sends the rain, whether early or latter, at the time of proper need... We cannot either hasten or delay it, so it is our wisdom to act in both faith and patience.

Some have foolishly interpreted the latter rain that James speaks of as a spiritual latter rain, another Pentecost. This is one of the star arguments of present-day Pentecostalism, with its supposed revival of the gifts the apostles had. The former and latter rain that James speaks of has no such meaning; it is purely the rainfall in nature. In Palestine there are two distinct rainy seasons, one in the spring, the other in the autumn. (See Deuteronomy 11:14.)

God is not indifferent to the wrongs of His poor people, nor to the rejection of Christ by the world. At present God does not generally show by any public intervention His care for His people. When He does intervene, it will be in judgment on the world. At present He is acting in grace, not willing that any should perish. For His public intervention we must await the coming of the Lord... When He comes, His people will reap in heavenly blessings the precious fruit of their long patience.

If the believer is oppressed, he is not to fight or make what he considers righteous demands. He is to be patient. For how long? Until the coming of the Lord! This is the only real hope of the child of God. It is useless to hope that men will choose to stop oppressing others unless God truly brings them to Himself.

God is not indifferent to the wrongs of His poor people, nor to the rejection of Christ by the world. For now God does not usually show His care for His people by stepping in publicly. When He does intervene, it will be in judgment on the world. At present He is acting in grace, not willing that any should perish. For His public intervention we must wait for the coming of the Lord. When the Lord comes, it will be clear that God has not been indifferent to the sufferings and wrongs of His people. Trouble will overtake those who troubled them, and those who were troubled will be brought into "rest" (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).

Are we tested, our hearts weighed down with wrongs that no one has put right? "You also, be patient," is the word for us. Do we feel unsettled, as if everything around us and inside us were shaking and unsafe? The message comes to us, "Establish your hearts." Does it seem as if we sow and sow with no result? Do we plough and wait, and plough and wait, until we are tempted to think we are only ploughing sand?

But to those who love Him, His presence means more than all the rest. No truth has a stronger effect than this one, after faith in His person, His love, and His death. It pulls us away from the world and its traps. It holds us up under the world's hatred and persecution. … It is not God's providential dealing with Jerusalem and the Jews. Nor is it death, which rids sufferers of the troubles of this life. Those are the misreadings of a fallen Christendom. The truth is the hope of His own coming. It will act first on all the saints, dead or living, to give them complete blessedness, and then on the land and people of Israel, as well as on all the earth.

But God is full of longsuffering. He is "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). So He has slowed down the working of evil. It is a very long time coming to a head — as we count time. When the Apostles wrote, it was quite true that the next decisive move in the drama would be God's public intervention at the coming of the Lord. We are still waiting for that coming today. We shall not wait for it in vain!

The farmer waits for the good crop of the earth, until it gets the rain it needs from above, both early and later. Our hope is far better than his. How much more, then, should we establish our hearts in patience, until the last believer is called! For the coming of the Lord is at hand. Can we not trust Him Who gave us His Son, and with Him all things?

But this exhortation shows plainly that the hope was a present thing, woven through the whole thread of Christian life. It was not a theory in the head, a point of acquired knowledge, or a dogma of belief only. They expected the Lord in person. … Nothing produces separation from the world like waiting for the Lord — I do not say the doctrine of His coming, but true waiting for Him.

What is more common than grudges and complaints of believers against one another? And what does more damage to the spiritual health of all the saints? Are we suggesting there are no causes of complaint, nothing that might lead someone to nurse a grudge? There are probably more causes than we have any notion of, but let them not be turned into grudges. The One who will sit in judgment, and weigh everything — even matters between believers — in perfect righteousness, is standing with His hand on the door handle, ready to enter the court. And the one who is quickest to take up and nurse a grudge will probably be the first to be condemned himself.

Knowing that the Lord at His coming will put everything right, we are urged to go on in quietness of spirit, content with what we have. We are not to complain about our own lot, nor to condemn others who appear to be in easier circumstances than ourselves, for "the Judge is standing at the door." It is not for us to judge what is best for ourselves in our present circumstances. To complain is to condemn ourselves by calling His ways with us into question. We must allow that the Lord is the Judge and knows what is best for each one.

We are apt to murmur, or groan, one against another. How unwise, ungracious, and unbelieving! The measure we use will be measured back to us. To judge is to be judged. How much better to wait in patience, overcoming evil with good! Why should we judge?

But this is taking the place of judge. The only true Judge stands ready to judge all that is wrong, and we may find that our own judging exposes us to judgment. This is not eternal judgment, of course, but that here and now.

Notice the urgency, the nearness of the case. The Judge is ready; are we? He stands before the door! Do we have our hand on the latch to open to Him? Do we have everything ready for Him to give His own verdict on it?

It is not only that the Lord would come; it is the present expectation of His coming. They were not to grumble against one another, for "behold, the Judge is standing at the door."

It is not for us to seek our revenge, but to endure patiently. When we try to defend ourselves, we too often act in the flesh. That takes us out of the hands of the Judge and brings us under condemnation. It is well for us to endure silently, knowing that the Judge stands before the door. He is not indifferent to the wrongs of His people. He has perfect knowledge of all that takes place, and He is just and impartial in His judgment.

They are to avoid the fretfulness that so easily grows out of the very things that call for patience. Brothers in a common faith may even in this way grumble against one another. It may come from the better lot that some appear to have. But the Judge of all stands at the door. For suffering and patience they may take as examples the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Surely it was a most blessed thing to have been one, yet they are the very picture of those persecuted and wronged for that very speaking.

We need patience in every direction, and verse 10 points us back to prophets in the past, who spoke in the Name of the Lord. Almost none of them was without persecution and affliction, and the patience with which they bore it is certainly an example for us.

James 5:11 speaks of the "patience" (hupomone) of Job. James 5:10 holds up the prophets as an example of "long-suffering" (makrothumia), which the Authorized Version also renders "patience".

Archbishop Trench put the distinction this way: makrothumia expresses patience toward persons, hupomone patience toward things. And the way Scripture uses the words seems to confirm this.

In the prophets we see men who suffered wrongfully. Instead of insulting their persecutors, they bore their sufferings patiently, and so they were happy despite the wrong done to them. They are examples for us when we are called to suffer unjustly for the Name of Jesus and for confessing the truth. We are to follow in the steps of Him "who committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly" (1 Peter 2:22-23). "The Judge stands before the door", and we do well to leave the judgment with Him.

If we see someone suffering unjustly for the name of Jesus, and he is patient and meek, his heart drawn out on behalf of his persecutors rather than irritated against them, then we recognise the power of faith, and of confidence in the love and faithfulness of the Lord; he is calm and full of joy, and we say, See how grace makes that man happy! … But it is one thing to admire others whom the Spirit of Christ sustains. It is another to glory in troubles when we are in them ourselves. We need a broken will, confidence in God, and communion with Him who has suffered for us, so that we can glory in sufferings.

Nor is our Lord the only pattern for us. "Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord." We tread the same path with yet brighter hope, though in substance the same.

By the world this would be considered a terrible misfortune. But a Christian who has entered even a little into God's purposes for His people understands very well the happiness of tried and afflicted believers. He knows they are in the hands of the Lord, and there for rich and unspeakable blessing. God's thoughts are not like man's thoughts. So the people whose homes have lost their light, or who are passing through the harshest trials, are often the ones He specially favours.

Job's patience at the start was more admirable than it was later, when he complained bitterly. Yet he did endure, until God showed him what "the end of the Lord" was. That is the goal the Lord had in mind in allowing all his affliction. The end proved that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. So it will prove in every case.

"Curse God!" That would have meant giving up his God. Could he do that? Never. He could lose everything, but not his God. Many things may have seemed essential to him in earlier days. But he had now reached this point: he could do without everything except God... So Job endured, and this is where his patience showed. Satan is heard of no more in the story. He had nothing left to say. Job's faith in God silenced him, and Satan left him to the God he trusted — and "He is very pitiful and of tender mercy."

Satan was not permitted to take his life and so remove him from our observation. He was to live so that we might see "the end of the Lord" in his case. And what a wonderful end it was! We can see God's pity and tender mercy shining through all his disasters, once we look at them in the light of how his story ends.

Job gained a richer knowledge of God Himself. He said, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you." With those words he set his old knowledge, which came by report only, against what he had now gained by seeing for himself. He had, if we may put it this way, exchanged second-hand knowledge for first-hand knowledge. Before, he knew about Him. Now he knew Him.

The Job his friends knew had disappeared, replaced by a new Job formed in the character of the God he now knew first-hand. The hot feeling, the animosity, the sarcasm were gone. Prayer took their place. And it was not prayer for himself, not a cry to escape his boils and poverty. It was prayer for them, a warm stream of kindly intercession.

Yet God did not let the tide of blessing roll in on Job again until he had been deeply altered in spirit and character... Job, therefore, was not a loser but a gainer by God's dealings, even in material things.

"The end of the Lord" is not reached for us in this life. The New Testament has revealed to us a life beyond this, and as we realise this we shall be patient and endure.