James chides his first-century Christian readers for boasting about tomorrow as though the providence of God didn’t exist. Afterwards he writes, “And so” or “Therefore,” indicating that there’s a result or consequence that follows his teaching. What’s that result? Here we find a doctrinal nugget, supported in other parts of Scripture, that all Christians understand though we don’t always act on this understanding. James writes, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (Jas. 4:17, ESV)

This is sinning against the light or against knowledge. There’s also the sin of ignorance, which is less serious, but still something for which we’ll have to answer. Huh? How is it that people will have to answer to God for sins they committed in ignorance? God is perfectly just. But arguably, there is no such thing as a sin of complete ignorance. All human beings made in the image of God inherently know there is a God and know there’s a difference between good and evil (Rom. 1:19–20).

But it’s the sin against knowledge that James refers to here. What is this knowledge? He just told them, in case they hadn’t known, or knew but hadn’t considered: disregarding God’s providence as shown by their actions. If they are Christians and hear and receive this teaching, then it is sin for them to continue acting as though they didn’t know it. But James’s teaching here doesn’t apply only to this particular missing of the mark, but to all instances of it that the Christian is aware of. And as a Christian, he or she is becoming more, not less, aware of the ways of God.

Consider David in Psalm 19. There, he asks God to keep him from willful or presumptuous sins—sins against knowledge. “Let them not have dominion over me,” he prays. “Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression” (v. 13). These are what theologians call sins of commission—direct actions taken against the will or law of God with full knowledge of doing just that. There are also sins of omission that are likewise sins of knowledge or presumption. In Proverbs 24, we are told, “Rescue those who are being taken away to death, [to] hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” (vv. 11–12). This is what God has to say to blind-eye syndrome, when we could have—indeed should have— done something but pretended we didn’t know about it.

No Fooling God

We may be able to fool some of the people some of the time, maybe even most of the people most of the time, including ourselves, but we cannot fool God. He knows our hearts. He also gives us the gracious means by which we can know our own hearts, and to go to him with them for forgiveness, cleansing, and strengthening unto the advancement in the world of the new creation in Christ.

“As it is said, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,’” the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote (3:15). “Therefore,” he continues, “while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any should seem to have failed to reach it” (4:1). Often, these verses are applied to people generally hearing the gospel, perhaps for the first time. There’s an appeal to them to receive what they hear, and rightly so. But the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews is addressing believers, Christians. His voice is heard for the first time, but also is to be heeded when it’s heard afterwards. If not, it is sin. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:25), who’s laid upon Christ our iniquities so that we may be able to stand in the day of judgment (Ps. 130:3)!

Now, you may be thinking, What’s all this talk about sin? Isn’t the Christian faith and life about freedom and joy in the Holy Spirit? Yes, of course it is! But how can Christian freedom and bondage to sin co-exist? Or how can there be true joy in the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ if there’s a continual return to the sin and to the old life that’s been crucified with Christ? The discomfort of conviction leads to the comfort of grace and assurance; we can’t expect that holy comfort unless we’re willing to deal with the holy discomfort first. James understood this. His readers didn’t, at least not entirely, which is why he wrote what he did. The question is, Do we understand this? Christians can’t live life at the fork in the road. We must move forward. Which way will it be?

Moving on, James does not have kind words for rich people. He tells them to “weep and howl for the miseries” that will come upon them (Jas. 5:1). The valuable things they prize, he writes, will deteriorate, corrode, and end in nothing. The luxury and self-indulgence that mark their lives will come to a bitter, even a violent, end.

A Different Voice

James’s voice here in this part of his letter seems prophetic: it rises high and awful above the petty, worldly concerns of his audience. It even rises above James’s previous instructional, bluntly pastoral voice that’s evident through most of the letter. It’s as though James stops writing and another voice, the voice of the Lord himself, is now heard in his missive.

Does God hate rich people? Many today assume so. When we look at what the Lord Jesus says in the Gospels, we note there’s a lot that’s not in their favor. The story of the rich man and Lazarus is hair-raising when we consider both their final lots. What about the rich young ruler, the Lord’s would-be disciple, who went away from Jesus downcast? Consider the Lord’s parable of the farmer who readies to build another barn for his surplus crop only to die before his plans materialize. Or the Lord saying, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:24). The Old Testament supports these observations in places like Psalm 73.

And yet there was Abraham, our father in faith, who was a wealthy man, as was Joseph, the second in command in Egypt, as was Job, a righteous man who underwent a test that involved the depletion of his great wealth, though it was not a judgment against him for his having acquired it. There’s also Lydia, a convert and a wealthy businesswoman in Acts who supported the early church, especially the Jerusalem church when it needed it most.

The Bible’s word on wealth is not definitive when it comes to possession of it or not. It’s definitive in terms of what attitudes people, especially people who claim to be interested in the God of the Bible, have toward the great wealth that they may possess, as well as what they may be doing with it. What one does with wealth indicates what one’s attitude toward it is. How does this help us understand James’s prophetic cry against the wealthy in his day, particularly those in the church?

Cases in Point

We need to note, first, that the examples provided about Jesus’ words and attitude toward the rich have a context. In the Lord’s story, Lazarus was a God-dependent, disabled beggar whereas the rich man was a heartless, self-righteous snob. The rich young ruler wanted to follow Jesus if Jesus made an exception for him, but one can’t follow Jesus with exceptions. It’s all or nothing. We must leave our nets and follow him, believing that ways and means for a livelihood is also something he provides.

The farmer building a second barn is not only about greed, but about a particular kind of greed that affects others by withholding product so prices rise before selling it. Greedy, wage-withholding farmers are also referenced by James (5:4) as well as in the Gospels and the Old Testament. The eye of a needle in Jesus’ Jerusalem, to which he was likely referring, was a particular alleyway in the city, one so tight and gnarly to get through that it was virtually impossible to do so with a camel—virtually impossible, but not definitively impossible, since with God all things are possible.

James is bewailing the rich’s investment in themselves, their businesses, their fancy possessions, and their financial security over and above their investment in the things of God in regard to their and others’ salvation and the kingdom of God. In our day, one doesn’t even have to be wealthy to do this. This is why James writes earlier to this flock that it’s not enough to be a hearer of the word, that even devils believe and tremble, in other words that he has their number: just as their forefathers, they pay lip service to the gospel but their hearts are in other places, as Isaiah said in Isaiah 29 and as Jesus repeats in Matthew 15.

A viable business, possessions, financial security—are having these things wrong? No, that’s not the problem. They’re blessings and part of taking dominion on the earth. It’s the place these things have in our lives that is the problem. Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, was a rich man. And yet he was likely Jesus’ closest friend. More next time.

Gerry Wisz is a writer, college instructor, and semiretired public relations professional who, with his family, is a member of Preakness Valley URC in Wayne, NJ.