James 1:17

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. — This beautiful sentence, more musical still in the Greek, is thought to be the fragment of some Christian hymn. Two words are translated by our one “gift”; the first is rather the act of giving, the second the gift itself, and the effect of both together is a climax to the statement of God’s benevolence. The difference between the two is observed in the Genevan version of 1557. “There are diversities of gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:4), even as “one star differeth from another star in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:41), but “the same Spirit” is the giver of all. Where in St. John’s Gospel (John 3:1) we read, “Except a man be born again,” the most probable meaning is “from above,” expressed exactly as in the present case; and thus we know whence is the true birth of the soul.

Cometh down from the Father of lights. — Great difference of opinion is found concerning these “lights,” whether the term be figurative, as of goodness or wisdom; or a reference to the mysterious Urim (Exodus 28:30, et seq.) which flamed on the breast of Aaron; or spiritual, as of grace and glory; or material, viz., the “lights” set “in the firmament of heaven” (Genesis 1:14) “when the morning stars sang together” (Job 38:7). It were not amiss to take the whole of these interpretations, for they, and perhaps others, the purport of which we as yet can barely guess, are included in this Scripture. “God,” remarks Bishop Wordsworth, “is the Father of all lights — the light of the natural world, the sun, the moon, and stars, shining in the heavens; the light of reason and conscience; the light of His Law; the light of prophecy, shining in a dark place; the light of the gospel shining throughout the world; the light of apostles, confessors, martyrs, bishops, and priests, preaching that gospel to all nations; the light of the Holy Ghost shining in our hearts; the light of the heavenly city; God is the Father of them all. He is the everlasting Father of the everlasting Son, who is the Light of the world.” But that the mind of the sacred writer was mainly on the lights of the material universe may be seen from his next thought.

With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. — The phraseology is almost scientific. There are changes, literally “parallaxes,” of the heavenly bodies themselves, and eclipses one of another by shadows projected through space, but no such variableness with God, nor changing of faintest shade. And even further, the greatest and most marvellous of His works on high “must be dissolved” (2 Peter 3:11), “the sun darkened, the moon not give her light, the stars fall from heaven” (Matthew 24:29), and the heavens themselves “be rolled together as a scroll” (Isaiah 34:4). But if “the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). “I am the Lord,” is the burden of His latest prophet; “I change not” (Malachi 3:6).