In this message we want to begin to see the lacks in the Epistle of James.
The genuine Christian perfection is not only for living a pious life but mainly for fulfilling God's New Testament economy to make the believers God-men for the constitution of the Body of Christ that the New Jerusalem may be consummated as the eternal enlargement and expression of the consummated Triune God. Living a pious life has nothing to do with God's economy. When I was young in China, I saw some disciples of Confucius who were highly ethical in their living. They seemed to be more honest than the missionaries, but what they were was only for themselves. They did not know God and did nothing for God. The genuine Christian perfection is not for our interests. It is for fulfilling God's New Testament economy so that ultimately the New Jerusalem may be consummated to be God's enlargement.
In Genesis 1 God is only Elohim, but He planned to have Himself, the unlimited Triune God, enlarged to be the New Jerusalem as seen in Revelation 21 and 22. The length, breadth, and height of the New Jerusalem are twelve thousand stadia each (21:16). This is the size of the enlarged God for His expression in the whole universe of the new heaven and new earth. A stadion equals about six hundred feet. The New Jerusalem is a big cube, which can never fall or be shaken. The New Jerusalem is God Himself enlarged with His redeemed by the way of constituting, uniting, and mingling. The unlimited Triune God is constituted into His redeemed by being united and mingled together with them as one entity. James did not say anything about the fulfilling of God's New Testament economy to consummate the New Jerusalem.
Although James mentions God's begetting of the believers to make them the firstfruits of all His creatures (1:18) and the Spirit's indwelling of the believers (4:5), his application is only on the negative side for the resisting of temptations and for the dealing with pleasures, the world, and the devil. Regeneration, however, is mainly for the producing of many God-men to be constituted together as the church, the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem. The indwelling of the Spirit surely enables us to resist temptations, but that is not the main thing. The main purpose of the Spirit's indwelling is to enliven us, to germinate us, to sanctify us, to renew us, to transform us, and to dispense all that the Triune God is into our being to make us parts of God's enlargement.