“And he shall exalt you.” This is the law of grace, as is often stated by Jesus: “Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11). But the man that humbles himself before the eye of the Lord must do so because of real apprehension of his own sin and need of forgiveness, not for the purpose of future exaltation to be obtained by momentary self-abnegation. The delicate balance of motives here is preserved. The promise will come true only if the person really turns to the Lord with sincerity of heart. Nothing is more needed today than this prostration before God. Captious Criticism (4:11 f.) Moffatt places these verses just after 2:13, since this seems to have been its original place. This is the position also given by Oesterley. And yet it is quite possible that James here merely recurs to the subject of the loose tongue, as he had already done once (cf. 1:26; 3:2 ff.). See also 5:12. He has one word more on this burning topic, a sort of postscript on the tongue, an extremely difficult subject to say the last word about. “Speak not one against another, brethren.” The tense of the verb (present durative) implies that some of them had been doing precisely this thing. It is so easy to “talk down on one,” to act as critic (cf. Matt. 7:1) of one’s brother in Christ. We cannot help forming opinions of each other, but we can avoid captious criticism, sharp and needless censure. The point made by James is that this habit assumes the right to judge the very law of God. It is far easier to play the part of critic of the law than to be a doer of the law. Destructive criticism is always the cheaper exercise and the more useless. Constructive criticism is more creative and much harder. There is one supreme Lawgiver and Judge, “he who is able to save and destroy.” This power belongs to God, the Creator (Matt. 10:28; Luke 6:9), not to man, the creature. The critic of the law prefers to find flaws in the law rather than to undertake to obey it. He assumes that he can enact a better law, but it is all assumption. James shows his impatience with such criticism by saying, “But who art thou that judgest thy neighbor?” See Romans 14:4. In common law we are to give every man the benefit of the doubt and to assume his innocence till his guilt is proven. But in current speech the sharp tongue follows no such rule of reason but creates suspicion and sows hate and strife at every turn. XI God and Business