Come Near

James has just called his readers adulterous people, told them that friendship with the world is enmity with God, and quoted a proverb to the effect that God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. It is the harshest stretch of the letter. And then, without changing tone, he says this. Come near to God and he will come near to you.

The sentence is surrounded by commands. Submit to God. Resist the devil. Wash your hands, purify your hearts. Grieve, mourn, wail. Humble yourselves before the Lord. It reads like a list of demands. But the promise at the center is the reason for all of them. God is not waiting at a distance for you to earn your way to him. He is near, and he draws nearer to anyone who takes a step in his direction. The commands are the shape of the step.

This matters because rebuke without invitation produces despair. If James had only said that they were adulterous and proud and worldly, the honest reader would have nowhere to go. Instead he gives them a door. You have been friends with the world. Come near to God. You have been proud. Humble yourselves, and he will lift you up. The severity is real, but it is in service of the invitation.

Notice, too, the order in the last line. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. We tend to seek the lifting first. We want to be raised, honored, restored, and then we might consider humility. James puts the humbling first and makes the lifting God's business. This is the pattern of the gospel itself. Christ humbled himself to death on a cross, and God exalted him. The way up is down.

So the turn today is simple and hard. Wherever you have drifted toward the world this summer, in your wants, your spending, your ambitions, your fights, come near. Do not wait to feel worthy. Do not clean up first. Come with dirty hands and a divided heart, and wash them in his presence, because that is where they get clean. He will come near to you. James is not guessing. He is telling you what God does.