Verses 7-9: Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.
James now addresses those who have been affected by the abuse of the self-indulgent wealthy (2:6; 5:4, 6), commanding them to be patient. Concerning the word patient, Bishop Trench prefers long-suffering and understands it to imply a “long holding out of the mind before it gives room to action or passion.”1 J.B. Lightfoot concurs, stating that the Greek word refers to “the self-restraint which does not hastily retaliate a wrong.”2 James desires that his brethren be proactive and not reactionaries, meaning, “With steady, unwavering patience endure all the wrongs that men may inflict upon you”3 (cf. 1 Peter 2:20).
They are to endure these trials until the second coming of our Lord. And since Jesus stated no one knows, except God the Father, the day and hour of His return (Matthew 24:36, 42, 44; cf. Luke 12:40), they must persevere and rely upon His sustaining ministry in the meantime. As James had instructed them at the outset of his epistle (1:3-4), the testing of their faith will produce endurance leading them to become perfect and complete in their spiritual development.
James provides an agricultural comparison of waiting with eager anticipation for the Lord’s return. The farmer waits “in readiness to receive”4 his precious fruit; we wait for our precious Savior. The farmer is patient, assured that all that is needed to nurture his crops will be attained; we wait with patience for the Lord, assured that all we need to achieve our spiritual growth will be provided.
In verse 8, James repeats his command that they be patient and adds another directive to strengthen your hearts. The heart is “the seat of physical, spiritual and mental life…the organ of natural and spiritual enlightenment”5—it is the very core of their spiritual being. The phrase the early and late rains, mentioned in verse 7, is a figurative example of the grace of God, providing the farmer’s crops their growth potential. The believers’ strengthening of their heart requires them to avail themselves to the spiritual skills provided for them by the grace of God contained in His Word. In this way, they are able to reach their spiritual growth potential and derive the benefit of God’s sustaining ministry in the midst of all trials and testing.
James concludes by providing them with the comforting hope of Jesus Christ’s imminent coming. The word coming is a technical term meaning “a royal visit,”6 and in its New Testament usage it refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ (cf. Matthew 24:3, 27, 37, 39; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:1, 8; 2 Peter 1:16; 3:4, 12; 1 John 2:28).
This should be their confident expectation: that their sufferings, trials and testing perpetrated by others are only temporal and will not last for all eternity. They need to have faith in the teaching of the Psalmist:
The Lord is for me; I will not fear;
What can man do to me? (Psalm 118:6; cf. Hebrews 13:6)
Doing this is not meant to be a psychological trick of the mind. It is a total assurance in the truth of God’s Word and reliance upon His promises. This is the result of the “strengthening your heart”—achieved by the renovation of one’s spiritual mentality (Romans 12:2), which relies on divine viewpoint instead of human viewpoint.
The command in verse 9, do not complain, is far stronger in the original Greek. It literally reads: Stop complaining. The Greek word for complain actually means “groaning because of an undesirable circumstance”7 or “of an inward, unexpressed feeling of sorrow.”8 James realizes that because they have suffered the ill-treatment of the wealthy, it has left them feeling sorry for themselves. And consequently they are directing their frustration against one another.
Regarding this subject of suffering, James has already instructed them to “consider it all joy” (1:2) when they encounter trials and testing. The Apostle Paul proclaimed that when he was “roughly treated” his response was “when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure” (1 Corinthians 4:11-12). This is the Christ-like example we need to imitate—the same as Jesus exhibited during His Passion. Peter explains:
And while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. (1 Peter 2:23)
The reason he wants them to stop groaning and complaining against the brethren is so they will not come under divine judgement—condemnation for their sinful activity of complaining. He warns them to take notice “behold, the Judge is standing right at the door.” Not a judge in the legal system, but the Judge. The One James referred to as “the one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and destroy” (4:12). God is the ultimate judge over all the living and the dead which means He will attend to those who defraud and treat us roughly. We are not to be reactive and take out our frustration on our brethren.
[1] Trench, Richard (1975). Synonyms of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, p.196.
[2] Lightfoot, J.B. (1999). St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, p.140.
[3] Lenski, R.C.H. (2001). Commentary on the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 10.653.
[4] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr. (1996). In Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 2.217.
[5] Arndt, W., Gingrich, F. W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (1957). A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 404.
[6] Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 21.66.
[7] Arndt, et.al., p. 773.
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