James 4:10

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.

This is an appeal for the unconverted to forsake the human pride, which more than any other impediment restrains men from obeying the word of the Lord; and, like most of this passage, it also has its abiding relevance for Christians themselves.

Jesus said, "Whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted" (Matthew 23:12), in the light of which Gibson saw here "a further parallel with our Lord's teachings."[23]

In the sight of the Lord ... There is no need to equate "Lord" here with Jehovah of the Old Testament, despite the Old Testament term for it (without the article) being the one thus used in the LXX; because, by the time James wrote, and even much earlier, "Lord" had been almost universally adopted in Christianity as a designation of our Lord Jesus Christ, as witnessed by all of the Pauline writings, in fact, by the whole New Testament. That it is Christ whom James had in view here is plain from his stressing the law of Christ in the very next two verses.

Whosoever shall humble himself ... In view of its connection in this passage, James may have been using this well-known teaching of the Master as a synecdoche for obeying the gospel of Christ.

And the Lord shall exalt you ... What is this exaltation? As it relates to conversion, when one in penitence submits to the initiatory rite of Christian baptism, he is immediately "raised to walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4). Beyond this, however, there is the exaltation that shall come to all the redeemed at the last day.

Having here concluded his abrupt, powerful exhortations to the unsaved, James returned to his admonishing the "brethren."