James 3:15

This wisdom descendeth not from above St James returns to the thought of chap. James 1:5, that true wisdom was the gift of God, coming, like every other good and perfect gift, from above (ch. James 1:17). But this was not "the wisdom" of which the "many teachers" of the party of the Circumcision were boasting. It was, however, that of the Proverbs of Solomon, and of the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, on which so much of St James's teaching was modelled. (Comp. Sir 1:1-10.) It was that which had been manifested to mankind in all its fulness in Christ.

earthly, sensual, devilish Each word is full of meaning. (1) The counterfeit wisdom is "earthly" in its nature and origin as contrasted with that which cometh from above. (Comp. St Paul's "who mind earthlythings," Philippians 3:19). (2) It is "sensual." The word is used by classical writers for that which belongs to the "soul" as contrasted with the "body." This rested on the twofold division of man's nature. The psychology of the New Testament, however, assumes generally the threefold division of body, soul, and spirit, the second element answering to the animal, emotional life, and the third being that which includes reason and will, the capacity for immortality and for knowing God. Hence the adjective formed from "soul" acquired a lower meaning, almost the very opposite of that which it once had, and expresses man's state as left to lower impulses without the control of the spirit. So St Paul contrasts the naturalman with the spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:14), the naturaland the spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44; 1 Corinthians 15:46). So St Jude describes the false teachers, whom he condemns as "sensual, having not the Spirit." What St James says then of the false wisdom is that it belongs to the lower, not the higher, element in man's nature. It does not come from the Spirit of God, and therefore is not spiritual. (3) In "devilish" we have yet a darker condemnation. Our English use of the same word, "devil," for the two Greek words diabolosand dœmonion, tends, however, to obscure St James's meaning. The epithet does not state that the false wisdom which he condemns came from thedevil, or was like his nature, but that it was demon-like, as partaking of the nature of the "demons" or "unclean spirits," who, as in the Gospels, are represented as possessing the souls of men, and reducing them to the level of madness. Such, St James says, is the character of the spurious wisdom of the "many masters" of James 3:1. Met together in debate, wrangling, cursing, swearing, one would take them for an assembly of demoniacs. Their disputes were marked by the ferocity, the egotism, the boasting, the malignant cunning of the insane. St Paul's account of the "doctrines of devils," i. e. proceeding from demons (1 Timothy 4:1), not from the Spirit of God, presents a striking parallel. St James's previous allusion to "demons" (see note on ch. James 2:19) confirms the interpretation thus given, as shewing how much his thoughts had been directed to the phænomena of possession.