Godly Purity
4:8-10 Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to sorrow, and your joy to gloom. Humble yourself before God and then he will exalt you.
In James' thought the ethical demand of Christianity is never far away. He has talked about the grace which God gives to the humble and which enables a man to meet his great demands. But James is sure that there is something needed beyond asking and passive receiving. He is sure that moral effort is a prime necessity.
His appeal is addressed to sinners. The word used for sinner is hamartolos ( Greek #268 ), which means the hardened sinner, the man whose sin is obvious and notorious. Suidas defines hamartoloi ( Greek #268 ) as "those who choose to live in company with disobedience to the law, and who love a corrupt life." From such people James demands a moral reform which will embrace both their outward conduct and their inner desires. He demands both clean hands and a pure heart ( Psalms 24:4 ).
The phrase cleanse your hands originally denoted nothing more than ceremonial cleansing, the ritual washing with water which made a man ceremonially fit to approach the worship of God. The priests must wash and bathe themselves before they entered on their service ( Exodus 30:19-21 ; Leviticus 16:4 ). The orthodox Jew must ceremonially wash his hands before he ate ( Mark 7:3 ). But men came to see that God required much more than an outward washing; and so the phrase came to stand for moral purity. "I wash my hands in innocence," says the Psalmist ( Psalms 26:6 ). It is Isaiah's demand that men should "wash yourselves; make yourselves clean," and that is equated with ceasing to do evil ( Isaiah 1:16 ). In the letter to Timothy men are urged to lift holy hands to God in prayer ( 1 Timothy 2:8 ). The history of the phrase shows a deepening consciousness of what God demanded. Men began by thinking in terms of an outward washing, a ritual thing; and ended by seeing that the demand of God was moral, not ritual.
Biblical thought demands a fourfold cleansing. It demands a cleansing of the lips ( Isaiah 6:5-6 ). It demands a cleansing of the hands ( Psalms 24:4 ). It demands a cleansing of the heart ( Psalms 73:13 ). It demands a cleansing of the mind ( James 4:8 ). That is to say, the ethical demand of the Bible is that a man's words and deeds and emotions and thoughts should all be purified. Inwardly and outwardly a man must be clean, for only the pure in heart shall see God ( Matthew 5:8 ).
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