How you Resist the Devil; James 4:7b
It is always important to
remember context. One of the key principles of interpretation is that text
without a context is a pretext. If you take the text out of a context you are
left with a con! We always have to make sure we understand some things about
the context. This epistle has been built around three principles, three major
points that James is making: quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. Quick
to hear was covered from
Then we see the concept
expanded when we come to 4:4 where James says: NASB “You
adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility
toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself
an enemy of God.” Once again we see this set up in terms of opposites, one of
two positions: either in divine viewpoint or human viewpoint, you are either a
friend of the world in cosmic thinking or you are a friend of God. If you are a
friend of God you are in antagonism to cosmic thinking, if you are a friend to
cosmic thinking then at that point you are an enemy to God.
Then we see this taken to a
new level in verse 7. The problem that we see in the congregation James
addresses is the problem of carnality. This is a problem that often distracts
and destroys people’s because they get into thinking
that just because all our sins were paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross then
it doesn’t really matter what I do. It is called antinomianism. It is the idea
that the mandates of Scripture don’t really matter, the prohibitions, the
positive commands of the New Testament are not really that important to life,
because after all, if I sin all I have to do is confess it and then God wipes
the slate clean and I can go forward. Well it may be true, and it is true, that
of we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and at the moment of confession we are
forgiven and restored to fellowship and we can go forward in the spiritual
life. But there are still consequences to that sin, whatever it might be. There
are both consequences in terms of the natural repercussions that come from sin.
Grace does not mean you get off Scott free and you get to sin with impunity.
In 4:1-5 James is laying out
the problem: their reversionism. They are in reversionism because they are operating according to the
sin nature. The sin nature is the source of temptation,
it is not the source of sin. The source of sin is our volition. Once we are out
of fellowship it is the sin nature that is the primary influence in the life.
All of our righteousnesses are as filthy rages,
according to Isaiah 64:6, so even though we are doing many good things,
religious things, prayer, getting involved in church activities and all kinds
of things that we think somehow impress God with our sorrow and remorse over
our guilt, it still flows from human good because we have not yet confessed our
sins.
No matter how bad life is, no
matter how much you have messed up your life, no matter how many bad decisions
you have made, the promise of Scripture is that we all have the grace of God.
The grace of God means that if you are still alive recovery is possible. It
doesn’t mean that it is going to be easy or simple, but it does mean that
recovery is possible and that recovery is based upon two things: the filling of
God the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, and they work together. So you have to
spend as much time as possible in fellowship with the Lord under the filling of
the Holy Spirit, walking by mans of the Spirit, and then, according to Colossians
3:16, “letting the Word of Christ richly dwell within you”—Bible doctrine. The
Holy Spirit never operates apart from doctrine in the soul.
James 4:7 NASB
“Submit therefore to God. Resist
the devil and he will flee from you.” The point is that this is the mandate
given to us as believers: “Submit therefore to God.” It is a strong statement
that we need to recognize the authority of God on our life to dictate how we
think, what we think, what we do, how we do it. You are never going to get
anywhere in the Christian life if you don’t understand the authority of God.
Furthermore, you are never going to get anywhere in life if you don’t
understand authority orientation. Everywhere we are in life there is the
principle of authority. The issue here is on thinking. We have to orient
ourselves to what God says and we have to say, “As soon as He says do Y, and we
want to do X, we need to snap to and say ‘Yes, Sir,’” and move out. Authority
orientation is not demonstrated when what God wants us to do is also convenient
for us to do. The real test is when the CO wants us to do something we really hate to do. When
God wants us to do something that runs counter to where our sin nature is
driving us at that point, we discover the true issue of submission to authority.
Authority orientation is an
important aspect of recovery. Grace recovery was first introduced in verse 6
where James says, “But he gives a greater grace.” So the emphasis here is going
to be on God’s grace. The comparative “greater” was in contrast to the sin
nature in verse 5.
There are three enemies in
the spiritual life. So far in James we have specifically addressed the first
two. Number two is the cosmic system; number three is the internal enemy of the
sin nature. The first enemy is Satan, and that becomes the subject of verse 7.
So they are the three enemies of the Christian in life: Satan, the world system
which he is behind and which he oversees, and our own internal sin nature. What
verse 6 is saying is that God’s grace is sufficient. It is the same principle
that Paul stipulates in 2 Corinthians: “My grace is sufficient for you.” That
means we don’t need anything else, God’s grace is all we need to handle any and
every problem. God’s grace is greater than any problem, and difficulty, any
testing, any heartache that we will ever face in life, but in order to avail
ourselves of His grace we have to be submitted to His authority, and that is
humility. Humility is authority orientation in practice.
The whole issue underlying
this is that if you are going to advance in the spiritual life, if you are
going to handle the outside pressure of adversity in the soul, then one of the
first things you must master is grace orientation. Second, what goes hand-in-hand
with that is humility. Humility is in two categories: enforced humility and
genuine humility. Enforced humility is when you find yourself in a position
where you have a boss, you have parents, you have a coach, you
have an officer over you in the military that enforces authority over you.
There you learn humility. That produces in your soul the response of genuine
humility which then begins to characterize your life. A third characteristic of
grace orientation is a relaxed mental attitude, because you realize that God is
in control, that the issue is God’s plan and procedure and policy and not your
agenda. So you begin to relax in the plan of God. All of this is part of grace
orientation and it results in teachability. If you do not have authority orientation,
humility and a relaxed mental attitude, you will not be teachable. If you are
not teachable you will not advance in the spiritual life because we all have to
realize that our entire thinking process, not only what we think but how we
think, needs to be completely renovated by the Word of God. When this is all in
place, then we can learn doctrine and start renovating the thinking in our
souls. This is why James says that we are to “submit therefore to God.” This is
the recovery procedure. It starts off with recognition when we are out of
fellowship that we are in disobedience to the authority in our life, which is
God, and that we have to turn around and to submit to His authority.
There is a flip side to this.
On the sides of the coin we have on one side we have submission to God, on the
other side we have resisting the devil. How do we know that this is not just a
progressive list? Because there is a word in the Greek text
that is completely left out of the English text. The English text just
says, “Submit therefore to God.” The Greek text adds a conjunction. After the
command to resist, which is ANTHISTEMI [a(nqisthmi], it is followed in the postpositive position by the
conjunction DE [de] which means “and” or “and
then,” or it can even mean “but.” Here it is a conjunction and we have “Submit
to God and resist the devil.” They are two sides of the same coin. We see this
because throughout this section James has been emphasizing two spheres of
operation: the divine sphere and the human sphere. The human sphere is called
earthly, natural, and demonic. Paul in Galatians says it is the operation of
the law or legalism, it is walking according to the flesh, human viewpoint thinking,
demonic thinking, earthly thinking, cosmic thinking, the thinking of the world’s
system. In contrast there is divine viewpoint thinking which is based upon
grace, upon the power and the work of God the Holy Spirit, it is characterized
by divine viewpoint, God’s thinking as opposed to demonic thinking,
and it is based upon the categorical instruction of Bible doctrine. So we are
either operating in one of these two arenas, it is not a both-and. What James
is saying is that, on the one hand, if you submit to God you are resisting the
devil. How do we resist the devil? By submitting to God, by grace recovery,
getting in fellowship, being filled with the Spirit, and walking according to
the norms and standards of Bible doctrine.
The origin of the angelic conflict
1)
Angels were
created in eternity past, perfect and sinless.
2)
Each angel was
created individually, there is no angelic race. Angels are immaterial,
creatures of light. But each angel was created with volition, which is the
ability to choose for or against God. This was the only test the angels had in
relation to eternal salvation—whether or not they would consistently be
positive to God and obey God. Each angel was created with volition and at some
point one of these angels, the highest of all the angels, Lucifer became
arrogant and said he would make himself like the Most High. Satan’s goal is to
rule the universe as God. He thinks that he can do it on his agenda, his modus
operandi, just as good as God. But God is saying that
the modus operandi is grace ands is built on humility and the concept of being
a servant. In contrast Satan wants to operate on a works system, the essential
core motivation is arrogance, and instead of being servant he wants to rule and
exercise authority on his own terms. What this is showing is that Satan has an
entire modus operandi that God is going to demonstrate is a complete and total
failure. The only for success in life is to follow God’s grace policy and the
procedures built on humility and being a servant.