Revival or Reformation?

A short unfolding of the Book of James

(All citations are to the Book or James and, unless specified, to the ESV translation).

James writes to a group of brothers marked by bad behavior:

Many brothers show partiality among those who come into their fellowship.  Cursing marks many of them (3:10), as does speaking evil against one another (4:11-12).  Quarrels and fights infest the church (4:1).  Many live for the riches of the age which rot their own flesh away (5:1-6).  And more than this, they aren’t standing steadfastly faithful to God in a world that says pursue pleasure, riches, and approval (5:7-11).  They are marked by the same sins as their persecutors, and actually want to be friends with them (2:6-7).  And they boast in themselves and not in God (4:16).  Why is there so much bad behavior?  James also answers this. 

The bad behavior is the symptom of a deeper disease:

I think James is pointing out what is and must be at the bottom of all the visible bad behavior: filthiness and rampant wickedness (1:21).  Bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in their hearts (3:14).  Why does James take so much time pointing this out?  And why would this not be apparent and clear?  Because they are being “false to the truth” (3:14).  “Where there is disorder and every vile practice,” says James, there will be underneath that “jealousy and selfish ambition” (3:16).  They aren’t living life in the light of “the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (1:17).  They are living in another wisdom, not from God (which would be good and perfect 1:17), an “earthly, unspiritual, and demonic” wisdom. 

Underneath this, there is more; an enmity with God:

All their bad behavior and evil of heart shows a deeper reality: adultery against God (4:4).  They say they love Him, but when they pray to Him for help with trials and temptations, they ask doubtingly, being double-minded (literally, “two-souled”), wanting good gifts and yet wanting his sin (1:5-8).  They are marked by genuine prayerfulness, one which looks to Christ the righteous as their plea before the Father (5:13-20).  They say they want to live in the light, but really they want to revel in the darkness (4:3).  They say that they believe and are looking to God for their salvation, but they have no interest in living that out (2:14-26).  They hear the Word, but do not want to let it take hold of their lives (1:21-22).  They refuse to hear and therefore they speak what they shouldn’t and they grow hot with anger against one another (1:19).  Why?  Because many have deceived themselves (1:16, 22, 26).  They say they love God, but they don’t want to remain steadfast for Him (1:12).  They are carried away and enticed by their own evil desires, but instead of admitting it to God, they blame Him for it (1:13-14). 

Why does James write like this? 

Why is James writing to them?  James is writing to them to call them back to the Father.  They want to prove that they themselves are good and right.  In reality, though, they aren’t.  Instead of arrogant boasting, they need the meekness of the wisdom from above, which is pure, peaceable, considerate, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without doubting, without hypocrisy (3:17 LSB).  They need humility from the Spirit by grace (5:5-6).  They need to be confronted with the truth they so desperately suppress by their evil deeds, that friendship with the evil world is enmity and active hostility to God.  That whoever would stand steadfastly with the world in the desire of his heart makes himself an enemy of God (5:4).  James calls them back to humility, resistance of the devil, reliant relationship with God, the putting away of evil deeds, purity of heart, and exposure of their double-mindedness (5:8).  They need to be brought back to the truth that they are “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (4:14).  They need to rely on God again (4:15).  They need to submit to the one Judge and Lawgiver again, and build up on another in what is true and right by Him (4:11-12).  In short, they need to be brought back to all in Christianity. 

Application:

I wonder if our focus on revival in America today shouldn’t rather be a focus on reformation.  For those brothers to whom James wrote, underneath all the backstabbing and vileness there existed backwards theology and a hatred of God in His goodness—a dislike of heart reformation.  I wonder if it is true in our own day?  Maybe a better question is whether it is true of ourselves.  Brothers is a word that brings out the individual nature of the united church.  James uses it everywhere.  The church must do this, but only individual brothers and sisters can “receive the implanted Word” (1:21).  They must be restored to God as individual souls before they can be restored as a church (1:21).  They need to stop pointing their fingers at God; and they need to stop hating each other when they are both doing the same evil, both living in the same deception, and both living in the theological wisdom of the demons and the world.  And they need brothers, loving brothers who, though no less in need of God’s grace, by His grace have better footing to call them back from their wanderings and to the truth of the Gospel (5:19-20).  I believe we can see in the church today the symptoms of many theological diseases.  May I humbly submit that we don’t need revival today; we need reformation at a deep theological level.