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CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY
of the Epistle of James

Message Five

Its Lacks

(2)

Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 2:11-15

OUTLINE

  1. Although James tells us that God brought us forth by the word of truth, he does not stress the divine life with which God has brought us forth in regeneration as the New Testament does:
    1. The Lord Jesus told us that He has come that we may have life and may have it abundantly and that He is life to us—John 10:10; 11:25; 14:6.
    2. God's salvation commences with His life through regeneration and consummates in the divine life through transformation—John 3:3, 15; Rom. 5:10; 12:2a.
    3. God has given the sinners repentance unto life—Acts 11:18.
    4. All the believers are God's heirs of the grace of life—1 Pet. 3:7b.
    5. God's divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness—2 Pet. 1:3.
    6. God's grace in Christ enables us to reign in life, ruling over all the negative things that are against God and His economy—Rom. 5:17, 21.
    7. The Lord promised that the overcomers will eat of the tree of life—Rev. 2:7.
    8. The Triune God flows as a river of water of life in which the tree of life grows for the supply to the entire city of the New Jerusalem—Rev. 22:1-2.
    9. The tree of life is a great blessing to the redeemed—Rev. 22:14, cf. v. 19.
    10. The Epistle of James, as a book stressing Christian perfection, only refers to the divine life in speaking of the crown of life as a reward promised by God to His lovers (1:12) but does not speak anything concerning the divine life to be the believers' life for their spiritual existence and the divine life's capacity and function. What a critical lack this is!
  2. James mentions the church only once, charging the sick members of the church to ask the elders of the church to pray for healing (5:14), but he does not speak a bit concerning the church as the organic Body of Christ as the organism of the Triune God (Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4-6), which is the center and goal of God's eternal economy (Eph. 3:9-11) and which will consummate in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21—22).
  3. In addition to its lack in the above six items, the Epistle of James does not tell us about the following items:
    1. The divine nature—2 Pet. 1:4.
    2. The hand of love of God the Father and the hand of grace of God the Son—John 10:28-29.
    3. The unlimited fullness of the Father—Col. 1:19.
    4. These are also elements of the tremendous lack in the Epistle of James.

    Note: Without seeing a clear vision of God's eternal economy, without the all-inclusive Christ, without the all-inclusive Spirit, without the divine life that enables us even to reign over the things which are against God, without the all-inclusive power of the resurrection of Christ, and without the all-terminating cross of Christ, there is no possibility for anyone to live out Christian perfection (Christian living). According to the entire teaching of the New Testament, Christian perfection is produced by the believers with the rich element of all that Christ is, by the bountiful supply of the all-inclusive consummated Spirit, and through the power of Christ's resurrection and the death of Christ's cross. Without the termination of our natural life by the cross, we may have a kind of perfection not by self-denial but by self-cultivation, which is considered by most Christians as the genuine Christian perfection. Such a Christian perfection is a pretense and is the product of the natural life endeavoring to develop the "bright virtue" in the man of God's old creation. It is hard to discern how much the Christian perfection stressed by James implies these all-inclusive items in the New Testament.

    According to the New Testament teaching, the Christian living should also eventually be for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:15-16), not merely for the believers' personal benefit and blessing, nor merely for them to glorify God in their excellent living and good conduct. The goal of God's New Testament economy is the Body of Christ (for the consummation of the New Jerusalem), at which the Christian living, Christian perfection, should be aimed.

  4. Besides the above lacks, the Epistle of James is devoid of the five following critical items concerning the believers' spiritual experiences in life, without which the New Testament becomes only a book of doctrine and no longer a book of experience in the divine life:
    1. The union and mingling of the believers with the Triune God—Matt. 28:19; Eph. 4:4-6.
    2. The believers being joined to the Lord as one spirit—1 Cor. 6:17.
    3. The believers' regenerated spirit—Rom. 8:16; 2 Tim. 4:22.
    4. The discernment of the believers' spirit from their soul—1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 4:12.
    5. Living by the Spirit and walking according to the spirit—Gal. 5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4b.

    Note: All the lacks and defects in the Epistle of James mentioned above are evidences that the Christian perfection stressed by James is not one up to the standard of the high level of the genuine Christian perfection as revealed in the New Testament, but one which is inadequate in fulfilling God's New Testament economy and which is even mistaken under the vague vision concerning God's eternal economy.


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Crystallization-Study of the Epistle of James   pg 34