The feeling is religion, the expression of it is worship. The feeling is one thing, the expression of it is another. If James meant by ‘religion’ here what we now mean by it, to say that benevolence and personal purity are religion would be just equivalent to and as absurd as saying that a mother’s love is washing and feeding her child, or that anger is a flushed face and a loud voice. Now, it is obvious that that is the meaning of the expression in my text, because otherwise you would have a patently absurd saying. But when our translation was made the word meant rather worship than religion, or, to use an expression which has been recently naturalised among us, it meant the ‘cult’ of a God, and that mainly, though not exclusively, by ceremonials, or by oral and verbal praise and petition. When we speak of an individual’s religion we generally mean, not that which he grasps, but the act, on his part, of grasping the consciousness of dependence, the attitude of reverence and aspiration and love and its consequences within. For instance, when we speak of the Mohammedan or the Brahminical religion we mean the body of beliefs, principles, and ceremonies which go to make up an objective whole. The word ‘religion’ has somewhat shifted its meaning from that which it bore at the time of our translation. THIS is a text which is more often quoted and used than understood. Blessed be the ears attuned to catch the golden cadence, for it rings in angel voices round the soothers of the sick and sorrow-laden even now! “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me” ( Matthew 25:40). What an eternal caution may be learned here against cold reliance upon ritual! What an instance, ever, under all varieties and forms, to be applied to themselves by the erring persecuting, and deceitful sons of men! while, on the other hand, from these words of the wise Apostle we may be sure what is truest, nay, the only true service, acceptable and accepted, of the Most High-“To visit the fatherless and the widow,” beholding in them a new image of Christ, the Man of Sorrows, is to show pity verily to Him and at the last such “pure religion” will receive His own approval. But He whom there they cruelly sought to slay had told them before, though in vain, “that which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man” ( Mark 7:20), and “nothing from without can defile him” ( James 1:15). Scrupulous indeed were the “religious” contemporaries of James they would not enter where the image of Divus Cæsar had its votive flame, while they were ceremonially clean for the keeping of their passover-“they went not into the judgment hall lest they should be defiled” ( John 18:28). Deeds of benevolence may be and are often done by those who are not His but all who truly belong to Him must live a life which praises Him continually in good works not, it is hardly needful to say, as a cause-but rather the natural and inevitable result of love for Him, warming the heart within. And the help afforded to the helpless, put thus in the first place of the two requirements, will often bring about the second-namely, that spotless condition of unworldliness which marks, and will ever mark, the true servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. To visit the fatherless (or, orphans) and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.-Here is the double proof of the perfect life of holiness, the savour whereof is as perpetual incense before the throne of God.
![book of james commentary book of james commentary](https://app.thebookpatch.com/PublishedBooks/ba2b0f19-8180-4ac5-bb0c-537a33101338/ba2b0f19-8180-4ac5-bb0c-537a33101338_C.jpg)
![book of james commentary book of james commentary](https://store.biblesoft.com/23-large_default/the-book-of-james-exegetical-commentary-series-faith-love-and-hope.jpg)
Real worship, we may say, pure and undefiled, beheld and acknowledged as such in the presence of God, even the Father-mark the tender pathos of His divine relationship-is this: No one word can express this obvious interpretation of the original, taken as it must be in completion of the verse before and certainly “religion” in its ordinary sense will not convey the right idea. It will be observed that by religion here is meant religious service. Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(27) Pure religion.