Doctrine of Sins of the Tongue; James
3:4-12
We all go through testings of
all kinds and all varieties, and whenever we do it brings with it the
temptation to try to solve the problem, to try to deal with the adversity, in
ways that depend on our own wisdom, our own flesh. Yet the Bible says that true
victory comes only from the Lord. As we go through these situations of either
prosperity or adversity, if we are not using the Word of God then we are going
to transfer that into stress in our souls. Adversity and prosperity are
inevitable. We will encounter one or the other, or both at the same time; it is
inevitable. Stress is optional. Stress is what you do to yourself; adversity is
what circumstances do to you. The issue is always and ultimately your volition
and how you respond to these circumstances. One of the most obviously ways many
times in which we reveal how we are handling those circumstances is what we do
with our mouth. That is why James shifts in chapter three from talking about
the priority of hearing the Word and applying it to talking about the sins of
the tongue.
James 3:7 NASB
“For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea,
is tamed and has been tamed by the human race.” It does mean every single
“species”, it is talking about ever category. This is
not a statement that is true about every single animal but it is true about
ever category of species. [8] “But no one can tame the tongue; {it is} a
restless evil {and} full of deadly poison.” Three times we see the word “tame”
and this is not a good translation. The Greek is DAMAZO [damazw], and it means to control, to subdue, to restrain; it doesn’t mean to tame. Just about every kind
of animal at one time or another has been subdued, not domesticated. “But no
one” is a gnomic present tense of the verb. It is a present active indicative
and a gnomic present. This means that it is a present tense used to state a
universal truth. James did this back in verse 2 when he said that we all sin in
many ways and he is using a gnomic present again in v. 8 saying no one can tame
the tongue. From the moment we are saved until the moment we die we are going
to have a problem with this in our life. We are freed at the moment of
salvation positionally from the power of the sin
nature, but we will always struggle with the sin nature, we will never reach
sinless perfection and at some point we will always struggle with sins of the
tongue. Even if that is not our area of weakness we will never have complete control
of the tongue. Nevertheless, the goal of the Christian life is to advance
spiritually and to have as much control of the sin nature as possible. Remember
that Romans chapter 6 says that we are to put to death the deeds of the sin
nature.
“…{it is} a restless evil {and} full of deadly poison.”
As we read through these passages we see the tremendous imagery that James is
using in order to grab our attention so that we start paying attention to what
we say. It is so easy for us to slip into various categories of gossip,
slander, and to use our tongue to run people down. When we get mad at somebody
we immediately say something cutting or insulting. We do that with people we
love as well as people we don’t care too much about.
Then in the next verses James
is going to show how the tongue operates in terms of revealing what is
happening in the soul. If we are not looking at life from divine viewpoint, and
you can’t as an unbeliever, then your only alternative is human viewpoint. That
is why the process of sanctification is portrayed as renovating your thinking.
That is a very strong word in Romans 12:1, 2 that we are to completely renovate
and reshape our thinking. We have to go in and we have to do a major overhaul of
everything, including the foundation. What is hard is that that foundation has
to do with a lot of unstated assumptions and presuppositions
about life, things that people very rarely pull out into the open and think
about and talk about. Yet that is the process of the spiritual life. We live in
an era today when people’s general thinking is shaped by emotionalism,
pragmatism and mysticism. This characterises the average man on the street.
That doesn’t mean that he understands these words or that he can even pronounce
these words. He may never have heard of men like Kierkegaard, Friedrich Schliermacher or Karl Barth, yet he exemplifies their
philosophical and theological positions by every choice that he makes. In
emotionalism we determine what is right by what makes us feel good. That
becomes the ultimate criterion. In pragmatism we determine what is right by
what works, and in mysticism the ultimate authority in life is our own internal
sense of what is right or wrong, which is intuition. That is the average
person.
Now
that person gets saved. But rather than challenging all of his unstated presuppositions about emotionalism, pragmatism and
mysticism, he just goes to a church where all of this is going to be there. He
goes there and he hears this wonderful glowing sermon and they sing music that
has a great beat to it, and there is what everyone is buying into today called
the “Christian choruses.” Everybody feels good and they think, “I must have
worshipped God.” Not only that, but everybody seems to like this so the church
is growing. They have fifty people, they keep doing tuis and a year later they
have 200 people. So it is growing, “So God must be blessing us”! Of course, they’re
not teaching the doctrine of the Trinity, the hypostatic union, substitutionary
atonement. In fact, they’re teaching Lordship salvation and nobody is getting saved.
It has nothing to do with doctrine; it has everything to do with their human viewpoint
systems of thought. Then you ask them, “Well how do you know this is really
right?” “Well I just know it is.” Well have you taken the time to study the
Scriptures?” This is what we are saying. The average person has his thinking under
girded by a lot of philosophical concepts. That doesn’t mean that he knows what
they are called, that he knows how they are related to one another. It doesn’t
even mean that he is consistent. The thing about mysticism is that it says that
the worst thing in the world is rigorous logic, so the best thing in the world
is to be inconsistent. So hey, isn’t it great? We are just going to have a
wonderful time and just feel good about it!
So
this guy gets saved and he doesn’t have to renovate his thinking because he can
go to a hundred different churches and can feel quite comfortable without ever
changing the basic assumptions of life. But if we want to get anywhere in the
spiritual life and really learn to think correctly about reality we have to
renovate our thinking. We have to learn some things, and part of that is
learning what some terms mean, and we have to learn what their characteristics
are so that we can then take some tome to go home and take our own thinking and
put it under the microscope of Bible doctrine. Then we begin to look and see
how these various modes of thinking have infiltrated our life from day one. How
we think is more important than anything else we do in life because the
Scripture says that everything starts from our thinking. That is why the
apostle Paul uses words over and over again like thinking and mind and
mentality to describe the essence of the Christian life.
What
James is saying is that as a believer we are going to produce one of two
things, and our tongue is going to show which of these is dominating the
mentality of our soul.
James 3:9 NASB “With
it [the tongue] we bless {our} Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who
have been made in the likeness of God.” Right here we understand that one of
the basic issue underlying the prohibition to slander,
to gossip, etc., is the fact that everybody, whether they are believer or
unbeliever, is made in the image and likeness of God. With the fall, sin, the
image was tarnished. It wasn’t destroyed, removed, it was tarnished. Because
every human being, even though fallen, is in the image of God we are to treat
them with honor and respect. That is the fundamental principle
underlying respect for human life in all legislation in that arena. [10] “from the same mouth come {both} blessing and cursing. My
brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” Mandate of prohibition;
imperative of prohibition: it ought not to be this way. Then there are two illustration, one from a fountain and one from a fig tree.
James
The doctrine of the sins of the tongue
Proverbs
Proverbs
1) Sins of the tongue is one of
three categories of sins which emanate from the sin nature. The other two are
overt sins such as murder, adultery, thievery, and mental attitude sins such as
bitterness, jealousy, envy, hatred, anger, fear, worry, anxiety, guilt,
self-pity. Verbal sins [of the tongue] include gossip, maligning, slander,
lying, false witness, whining and complaining. Psalm
34:13 NASB “Keep your tongue from evil And
your lips from speaking deceit.” Cf. James 3:6. Philippians
2)
The sins of the tongue
are sponsored and motivated by mental attitude sins, especially pride,
jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, revenge motivation, and hatred. Psalm 5:9
NASB “There is nothing reliable in what they say; Their
inward part is destruction {itself.} Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue.”
3)
Out of the list of the
seven worst sins, the seven sins that God abominates, three are sins of the tongue.
Proverbs 6:16 NASB “There are six things which the LORD
hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
4)
The sins of the tongue produce
triple-compound divine discipline. Matthew 7:1 NASB “Do not judge so
that you will not be judged.
5)
Judging incurs such
harsh discipline because the self-righteous believer is putting himself in the
place of God—that is arrogance—and judges the actions, motives and thoughts of
others without knowing all the facts. The don’t know all the facts, they have a
false system of standards, usually they are very self-righteous, and therefore
they justify engaging in character assassination and destroying reputations
because, “after all, this person has done this horrible sin.” Romans 2:1 NASB
“Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that
which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the
same things. [2] And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those
who practice such things.” Romans 14:4 NASB “Who are you to judge
the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will
stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand… [10] But you, why do you judge
your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For
we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”
6)
Continuation of the sins
of the tongue or the habitual function of the sins of the tongue is a sign of
extended carnality and rejection of doctrine in the life of a believer. Psalm
12:3 NASB “May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, The tongue that speaks great things.”
7)
God protects and blesses
the believer who is victimized by the sins of the tongue. Job
8)
Control of the tongue is
a sign of the possession of maturity in terms of the soul fortress and
spiritual maturity. Proverbs 13:3 NASB “The one who guards his mouth
preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips
comes to ruin.” Proverbs
9)
The tongue of the carnal
believer can produce enough slander, gossip, maligning and judging to destroy
an entire congregation. 2 Timothy 2:14-17 NASB “Remind {them} of
these things, and solemnly charge {them} in the presence of God not to wrangle
about words, which is useless {and leads} to the ruin of the hearers.
10) Troublemakers
are always characterized by sins of the tongue. Believers are specifically
commanded to avoid such troublemakers and to separate from them. Romans 16:17 NASB
“Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and
hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.
11) The believer can actually lengthen his life and find
great inner happiness by avoiding the sins of the tongue. Psalm 34:12 NASB
“Who is the man who desires life And loves {length of}
days that he may see good?
12) Deceit and lying can be by commission or omission. Proverbs
13) Slander and gossip, which is running down others and
telling unfavourable stories about them which harm their reputation, are to
have no part in the believer’s life. It is not the veracity of the stories that
is the issue, it is telling stories that you are not involved with. Proverbs
14) Whining and complaining reveal a complete lack of
gratitude, failure to appreciate the blessings of God in our lives, and failure
to appreciate the vast extent of our salvation and spiritual life blessings. It
is what the children of
15) Believers are warned against talkativeness, especially
during times of adversity or testing. Proverbs 13:3 NASB “The one
who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who
opens wide his lips comes to ruin.” Ecclesiastes
16) Taking the Lord’s name in vain is often at the top of
the list of the sins of the tongue. Yet, that is based on a poorly understood
and mistranslated passage in the Old Testament. In the Ten Commandments it
says, “Do not take the Lord’s name in vain.” But everybody immediately thinks
that means prefacing some comment with “God,” “Jesus Christ,” and something like
that. What the Ten Commandments is saying is something
completely different. That is not what God put in the Ten Commandments. The
Hebrew there for taking the Lord’s name in vain is the word shua. What this means is to treat
something lightly, insignificantly, to use God’s name in an illegitimate,
deceitful or false manner. Basically the application in