Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

Christ by grace through faith, and ... to add insult to injury, even faith is a
gift! The precious watchword of the Reformation, “Solo Christo, Sola Gratia,
Sola Fide,” covers much more than the doctrine of justification only. It is
universal in its scope, and covers all of biblical faith and all of biblical practice!
All this is detailed in what James proceeds to write as he builds up his
case in an ever crescendoing manner.
588
(2) Pitfall in Teachers (3:2)
As indicated by the conjunction “for” (gar in Greek; Burdick, 186), James
continues his argument by explaining his warning not to stampede into the
office of teacher. This explanation is twofold. First, James states that all men
must confess to a wide range of sins. The Greek (polla) indicates that they
stumble in many regards, in many things, and in many ways, and therefore
also in many words. In short, they stumble much, very much, too much (Zodhiates,
II, 83). This is immediately persuasive when it is placed against the
backdrop of both the benchmark of perfection espoused by James throughout
his Epistle (perfect endurance, perfect righteousness, perfect faith, perfect repentance,
perfect hope, and perfect self-denial) and the recognition that any
type of stumbling violates the whole law (Jam. 2:10) (Zodhiates, II, 87). In
general, a saint can be expected not to run after sin, but to run from sin (See
Zodhiates, II, 81). Still, even if this is a reality, stumblings will occur, not
only of a (relatively) minor or even inadvertent nature, such as slips of the
tongue and unintentional misrepresentations (Grosheide, 1955, 383; Moo,
1985, 120), but also of an unquestionably more serious nature, inclusive of,
but not restricted to, stumblings of the tongue, such as cutting speech, hurtful
words and grievous slander. 276
His insistence in James 1:21 that believers are covered with spiritual
filth, and are constantly oozing, indeed, spilling over with sin, whenever “indwelling
sin” is not “capped,” has laid the groundwork for this contention.
Further, if there is disagreement on this point, a simple reference to the spoken
word ought to cure that in a hurry. According to James, no one can claim
perfection in the use of the tongue. The utilization of the first person plural is
telling! We all go wrong. We all fall into error. We all commit sin, especially
in our speech, again and again. In short, as I already mentioned, in the final
analysis it is impossible for any of us to open our mouths. James fully includes
himself, and thereby everyone else.
It is a known contention that in biblical preaching the spokesman should
always address the audience in the second person singular or plural. The first
276 Only a swift perusal of James’ own Epistle already provides us with a whole catalog of
sins!