What is true religion according to James 1:27?

Religion does not mean here the inner life, but the outward manifestation of it. The fatherless and the widows are God's special objects of love and care; to visit such in their affliction is Christlike. How often this is quoted by those who do not believe in the gospel of grace and in the cross of Christ, as if works of kindness were the true religion, by which man is saved and pleasing to God. The whole chapter shows how erroneous such an application is. And the other definition, "to keep himself unspotted from the world" — a true life of self-surrender and separation — is generally overlooked.

There is often an exaggeration lent to these wholesome words, as if such duties as are here enjoined, or even the first part without the second, made up the substance of "religion." The absence of the article here too is not without meaning, especially as it was attached to the same word only in the verse before. "The religion," or the religious service, of the man there described is vain. Here its absence indicates that this is only a part of it, however weighty and fitting.

The tongue is what makes the state of the soul known most quickly. When a man keeps himself in the presence of God, it does not happen that his word is evil or too plentiful. "But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him."

Not the visiting of the fatherless and the widow alone, and not the keeping of self unspotted from the world alone, but both going together. The first alone would be merely philanthropy without Christ; the second alone would be monasticism, also without Christ. The two together would show something of Christlikeness: holiness combined with self-sacrifice for the sake of all who have need on the earth.

Now pure and undefiled religion, which will stand in the presence of God, is of a kind that shuts self out. The man who visits the fatherless and the widows in their affliction will not find much there to serve his own importance or convenience. He will have to keep on giving instead of finding anything that serves him, if he moves among these afflicted and poor people. The world might serve self in him. Yes, but he keeps himself separate from the world so that he may not be spotted by its defilements.

It is a service pure and undefiled before Him who is God and Father, to look after the fatherless and widows. Compassionate love is drawn out in this way. It is indeed, in its measure, the reflection of God's own character.

True, the Spirit of God speaks to us of "pure religion and undefiled;" but the unregenerate man cannot share in it by any means — for how could he take part in anything that is "pure and undefiled"? This religion is from heaven, the source of all that is pure and lovely. It is exclusively before the eye of "God and the Father." It is for the exercise of that new name given to all who believe on the name of the Son of God. Finally, it falls under two broad headings: active benevolence and personal holiness.