Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

82:1, 8; Is. 33:22; Mt. 10:28; John 5:22-23, 30; Heb. 5:7; 12:23), and this is
God! 345 He is the only one who is able to save (soosai) and to destroy (apolesai),
to rescue from destruction or to assign to destruction.” 346 The Greek
tense used in the case of either verb indicates “the finality of God’s verdict”
(Keddie, 145). If you let your law prevail against God’s law, you elevate
yourself above God. If you make your own judgment ultimate, you make
yourself the lawgiver. You claim “finality” for yourself, and in the process
(seek to) dwarf God by definition! The implication is more than serious. It is
grim! Since God’s law always entails curses or blessings, man implicitly
claims the right to save and destroy. However, that is God’s sovereign prerogative,
and no one else’s. “There is no god besides me: I kill and I make
alive. I wound, and I heal. Nor is there anyone that can deliver out of my
hand" (Deut. 32:39; see also 1 Sam. 2:6-7; 2 Ki. 5:7; Ps. 75:6-7; Mt. 10:28;
Lk. 12:5). After all, God alone has the keys of heaven and hell (Rev. 1:18).
To speak against the brother and sister in Christ is clearly a stupendous and
staggering undertaking! It usurps the right to speak the final word, to be the
final Lawgiver, and sovereignly to determine someone’s final destiny. No
wonder that James in concluding this passage hurls a potent, and possibly indignant,
challenge at the culprit, which can best be translated as, “Who do
you think you are” (Brosend, 119)?
In short, James’ word constitutes more than a mild warning against
“flirtation with the world” and some gentle “knuckle rapping.” No, it sets off
an alarm, and amounts to an implicit threat. To be sure, this is not fully expressed,
but it is there! Do you, o man, intend to take on God? His ability to
save and destroy at His own good pleasure can “cut both ways.” You continue
on your path, and you can expect destruction (1 Cor. 3:17). This is
surely an effective way to produce humility, to break a proud spirit that for all
practical purposes claims ultimacy! It also amounts to an implicit call to repentance
vis-à-vis a readership that is too often blind to the nature of their
condition, thoughts, words and actions, as well as to the divine diagnosis and
cure (Jer. 8:6) (Manton, 386).
b. Facing the Future (4:13-17)
(13) Come on now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall
go to this or that city and spend a year there and do business
and make a profit,” (14) while you do not know what tomorrow
will bring. For what is your life? You are a vapor that appears
345 Any skirting of it or protest against it receives a withering reply (Job 38-42; Rom. 9:20).
346 Zodhiates, II, 316, goes to great length to emphasize that “to destroy” is not to be equated
with “to annihilate,” as some seek to explain. Apolesai implies complete loss or estrangement,
but not cessation of existence.
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