In James 3 we are shown two kinds of wisdom. “This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.” Its works prove its nature and its source. There is confusion in every evil way, “but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable.” Never reverse this order; it is not only that this wisdom is pure and peaceable, but it is first pure, then peaceable. It first maintains the character and glory of God, and then it seeks the fruits of peace among men. But this is not all. It is gentle and easy to be entreated or yielding. Instead of ever giving battle for its rights supposed or real, there is clearly the yieldingness of grace about it. It is not the stubbornness of self-assertion or opinionativeness. This, on the contrary, stamps the sensual, aspiring wisdom of man, but what comes down from above is gentle, yielding, full of mercy and good fruits, uncontentious, and unfeigned. When a man is conscious that his wisdom is of a suspicious kind, one can understand him unwilling to have his mind or will disputed, but the truth is that there is nothing which so much marks the superiority of grace and truth and wisdom that God gives as patience and the absence of anxiety to push what one knows is right and true. It is an inherent and sure sign of weakness somewhere when a man is ever urgent in pressing the value of his own words and way, or caviling habitually at others. “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.” It is also “full of mercy and good fruits, without contention, and without hypocrisy.” It is characterized by the self-judgment which delights in and displays the ways of God. “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.” Thus if there is peace in the way, righteousness is alike the seed and the fruit. The seed, as ever, must produce its own proper fruit. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.” What an honor to be sons of peace in a world ever at war with God and those who are His!
W. Kelly