James 4:1–3
From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
Historians estimate that 200 million people died in war or oppression in the twentieth century alone.¹ Thousands of U.S. military personnel have died in the War on Terror, launched by President George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Nearly 1.1 million violent crimes were committed in the United States in 2013.² Tragically, wars and fighting have been part of human history ever since Cain murdered Abel as recorded in Genesis 4.
James has already portrayed the devastating results of human wisdom among God’s people (James 3:14–16). Now he explains that the dissension in this early church stemmed from the same evil that is the source of all human conflict. Where do wars and fights come from? This question has plagued humanity down through the ages. Before the time of Christ, Herodotus—the “Father of History” (484–425 BC)—wrote a book called Histories. In this work, he conducted a historical investigation into the cause of war, concluding that wars were caused by the relentless drive for power or imperialism. Thucydides (460–395 BC) followed Herodotus as a historian. When speaking of war and human suffering, Thucydides said they “always will occur as long as the nature of mankind remains the same … the cause of all these evils [is] the lust for power arising from greed and ambition.”³ Not surprisingly, James gives similar answers alongside these famous historians as to the cause of conflict; the difference is that his answer is divinely inspired. James observes the symptom of conflict and diagnoses what causes it.
The Root Issue
James 4:1
From whence come wars and fightings among you?
WORD STUDY
From whence — from where; what is the source or cause?
Wars — conflicts; quarrels; struggles; continuing enmity; a series of disputes
Fightings — battles; quarrels; disputes; the reference is to a specific, intense outburst
First of all, James observes that human conflicts are rooted in the sinful desires that arise within our evil, corrupt hearts. James’ rhetorical question literally reads, “From where wars? From where fightings?” His direct answer is also in the form of a question: “Come they not hence: from your lusts that war in your members?” (James 4:1). The hence is pointing the finger at the source of the conflicts. It is found in the inner cravings of the human heart. These are pleasure-oriented desires for personal satisfaction and sensual indulgence.
God created the human body with innate desires. It is natural for a thirteen-year-old boy to be hungry, often! It is natural for a young adult man and woman to desire an intimate physical relationship with one another. It is natural for an outdoorsman to want to climb the Rocky Mountain summit. God made us with desires strong enough to pursue life-sustaining nourishment and procreative relationships and awe-inspiring physical challenges. The problem is not that we desire things that bring pleasure. The problem is that we pursue pleasure for the wrong purposes or in the wrong ways. We go far beyond nourishment to gluttony. We choose immoral intimacy over God’s beautiful design for marriage. We make physical accomplishments about ourselves instead of God. And these misplaced desires are so pervasive that the New Testament never uses this term pleasures (ēdonōn)—from which we derive our term hedonism—in a positive light.
How then do things go so wrong if what God made is so good? James uses the metaphor of a war to describe the way in which these desires operate. Lusts are like soldiers who use the various parts of the human body as their weapons. These desires fight for their own gratification, and they create multiple problems for believers. There is an inner spiritual conflict between the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit of God (Gal. 5:17). The believer’s conscience sounds off like an alarm system against these evil desires. Inevitably, outer conflicts will arise among believers because of these carnal appetites. James has already stated that controversies, quarrels, animosities and bad feelings come from envy and selfish ambition. The source of tension comes from these self-centered lusts that have not been subdued and reengineered by the grace of God.
The Progression
James 4:1
… come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
WORD STUDY
Hence — from this; from this source
Lusts — desires for pleasure; cravings; appetites; passions
War — to make war; to wage war; to be at war; to battle; to be in conflict; to campaign (refers to a continuing action)
Members — parts of your body; your own selves
Secondly, James reveals the process that leads from inner frustration to outward conflict (James 4:2). The word hence carries forward the thought of the preceding question from whence and points the way to the answer by emphasizing the source. This process begins with inner sinful desires. James uses two words to describe them: “You lust” and “You are envious.” Lust simply means strong desires. Envy is the passionate desire within a person to obtain (literally “to attach itself to”) what he doesn’t possess. These are ongoing, present lusts that are not being fulfilled and that are producing a sense of inner frustration. Four different times James expresses the disappointment of thwarted desires: “have not,” “desire to have, and cannot obtain,” “have not,” and “receive not” (James 4:2–3). The result of these frustrated desires is a pursuit of satisfaction at all costs, leading in the end to relational conflicts: fighting, killing and war. These words could be literal, but more likely James is using them metaphorically to describe the emotional and verbal quarrels that splinter the people of God. James takes our seemingly minor squabbles to another level by showing us how horrible these things look in the eyes of God. This also falls in line with what Jesus says in Matthew 5:21–22 when He quotes the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” as a cause for judgment. James then interprets the heart of the law by declaring that even anger and derogatory name-calling are worthy of God’s judgment. But ultimately, he is depicting the process of human conflicts with this purpose in mind: to reveal that change in our relationships can come only through a change of our hearts.
Failed Opportunities
James 4:2–3
Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
WORD STUDY
Lust — to desire greatly; to continually want or long for
Have — to possess; to acquire; to have satisfaction
Kill — to commit murder; to resort to murder
Desire — to be filled with jealousy; to be envious; to be zealous or have an ambition to fulfill desires
Obtain — acquire; satisfy one’s desire
Fight — to battle by force; to quarrel, dispute, engage in disputes; to clash severely
War — to engage in conflicts; to strive
Ask not — fail to ask for oneself; do not pray
Amiss — with wrong motives; in the wrong spirit; incorrectly
That — for the purpose of
Consume — spend completely; waste; squander; indulge
Lusts — desires; passions
Finally, James declares that these conflicts are due to spiritual shortcomings. Remember the preceding points. Our desires are strong and, by nature, misaligned with God’s purposes. We want to fulfill our flesh as we see fit. And when this drive for pleasure becomes thwarted, frustration builds up and explodes into conflict with others. It’s a seemingly hopeless situation. If such problems cropped up in the early church, before the advent of online photos and videos, YouTube and Instagram, what hope do we have of combatting these temptations? There is hope, of course (for example, 1 Cor. 10:13), but we cannot overlook the spiritual advantages that these believers failed to utilize.
James mentions two defects. First of all, we are ripe for conflict when we fail to come to God with sanctified desires: “Ye have not, because ye ask not” (James 4:2). All prayer requires a submission of one’s desires to the will of God (1 John 5:14–15). Therefore, if you do not pray, you are either trusting in your own self-sufficiency, or you simply do not want to yield your desires to God. He has told us to come boldly to His throne of grace for mercy and help in time of need (Heb. 4:16). The power to overcome fleshly desires is available in Jesus Christ. If we are fighting instead of peacemaking, one reason may be that we are not submitting ourselves to God and asking for wisdom.
There is a second defect. Sometimes we ask, but we do not receive because of wrong motives: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (James 4:3). We may seem to pray sincerely, but we actually intend to spend the answer to our prayers on gratifying self-centered appetites. God doesn’t give things that are contrary to His revealed will. Nor does He give us things that are not in line with His directive will for our lives. Prayer includes both submitting our desires to God and trusting that He knows what is best for us. It means soberly evaluating why we want what we want. F. J. A. Hort wrote,
God bestows not gifts only, but the enjoyment of them: but the enjoyment which contributes to nothing beyond itself is not what He gives in answer to prayer; and petitions to him which have no better end in view are not prayers.4
Human conflicts, including those inside the church, can be resolved if believers will fully yield themselves to God with a single-minded, wholehearted purpose to love Him supremely and honor Him with their lives. Otherwise, the genetic defect of sinful desires and the lack of exercise in humble prayer will consistently result in conflict.
¹ http://necrometrics.com/all20c.htm
³ Robert B. Strassler, The Landmark Thucydides (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 427.
4 Fenton Hort, ed., The Epistle of St. James (London: Macmillan & Co., 1909), 91. Emphasis added.
This post is from Wisdom from Above: A Study in James by Steve Pettit. Copyright 2015 by BJU Press. Printed by permission of BJU Press.
This post is part of the study designed to correspond with the 2020 Spring Chapel Series. Watch the chapel message below:
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