Bird's-eye view
James here turns his attention from internal conflicts within the church to the root of those conflicts, which is a heart that lives and plans as though God were not there. This is the sin of practical atheism. The passage addresses a particular kind of worldly arrogance, the kind that bustles about making business plans without any reference to the sovereign Lord of the universe. James is not condemning business or planning; he is condemning the proud autonomy that forgets our complete and utter dependence on God for our very next breath. He exposes the foolishness of such presumption by reminding us of the brevity of life, rebukes the wickedness of arrogant boasting, and concludes with a sharp warning about the sin of omission. This is a profoundly practical text that calls us to live every moment with a conscious, spoken, and heartfelt submission to the will of God.
The central contrast is between two ways of approaching the future. The first is the way of the worldling, who sees his life as his own, his time as his own, and his profits as the result of his own cleverness. The second is the way of the Christian, who acknowledges that he is a creature, a vapor, and that every good thing, from life itself to the success of any enterprise, is a gift from the hand of a sovereign God. To say, "If the Lord wills," is therefore not some quaint pious phrase to be tacked onto our plans, but rather the fundamental orientation of a creature who knows his Creator.
Outline
- 1. The Arrogance of Godless Planning (v. 13)
- 2. The Reality of Human Frailty (v. 14)
- a. The Uncertainty of Tomorrow
- b. The Brevity of Life
- 3. The Corrective of Godly Submission (v. 15)
- 4. The Evil of Arrogant Boasting (v. 16)
- 5. The Concluding Principle: Sins of Omission (v. 17)
Context In James
This passage flows directly from James's earlier rebukes. He has just condemned worldliness, strife, and pride (James 4:1-12). The kind of man who makes the plans described in verse 13 is the very man who is a friend of the world and therefore an enemy of God (James 4:4). His plans are born from the same self-centered desires that cause quarrels and fights. The issue is not commerce, but the covetousness and pride that fuel godless commerce. James is applying his general diagnosis of worldliness to a very specific, everyday example: making plans for the future. He is showing his readers what it looks like to live as though you have not truly humbled yourself before the Lord (James 4:10).
Key Issues
- Practical Atheism
- The Sovereignty of God in Planning
- The Doctrine of Providence
- The Nature of Arrogance and Boasting
- Sins of Omission
Clause-by-Clause Commentary
v. 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.”
James begins with a sharp summons: "Come now." It's like a man grabbing you by the lapels to get your attention. He is addressing a certain kind of person, the bustling, confident, business-planning type. Notice the specificity of their plans. They have the timeframe down ("Today or tomorrow"), the destination ("such and such a city"), the duration ("spend a year there"), the activity ("engage in business"), and the goal ("make a profit"). There is nothing inherently sinful in any of these details. The sin is not in the planning, but in the saying. The sin is in the entire orientation of the heart that makes these plans with a spirit of complete self-sufficiency. God is nowhere in their equation. They are acting as the masters of their own fate, the captains of their own ship. This is practical atheism. They may not deny God with their lips on the Sabbath, but they deny Him with their day-planners Monday through Friday.
v. 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.
Here James punctures their balloon of self-confidence with two sharp truths. First, he points out their ignorance. "You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow." All their detailed planning is built on the sand of presumption. They don't control the variables. They don't know if there will be an economic downturn, a sudden illness, a political upheaval, or a thousand other things that could derail their enterprise. More fundamentally, they don't even know if they will have a tomorrow.
This leads to his second point: their frailty. "You are a vapor." The word here is atmis, which means smoke or steam. It's there one moment, and gone the next. Think of the steam from a kettle, or your breath on a cold morning. It appears substantial for a moment, and then it is simply gone, dissipated into the air. This is what our lives are in the grand scheme of things. David says our days are like a handbreadth (Psalm 39:5). This is not meant to drive us to despair, but to drive us to reality. The man who thinks he can guarantee a year of profitable business is a fool because he cannot even guarantee his next heartbeat. His arrogance is directly proportional to his ignorance of his own creaturely status.
v. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”
James now provides the divine corrective. The word "instead" shows the stark contrast. Instead of your autonomous, God-ignoring declarations, you ought to adopt a posture of complete submission. The phrase "If the Lord wills" (Deo volente in the Latin) is the pivot upon which a godly life turns. It is the verbal and mental acknowledgement of God's absolute sovereignty over every aspect of our existence. Notice the two things that are subject to His will: our very life ("we will live") and our actions ("and also do this or that"). We are dependent on Him for our being and for our doing. Paul modeled this constantly (Acts 18:21; 1 Cor. 4:19). This is not a magic incantation. Simply muttering the words is not enough. It must be the genuine confession of a heart that knows it is not in charge. It is the recognition that we are characters in a story that God is writing, and He is the author, not us.
v. 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
James returns to the indictment. "But as it is" points back to their current, uncorrected behavior. He gives their sin its proper name: they "boast in [their] arrogance." The word for arrogance here has the sense of pretentious, swaggering pride. It's the attitude of the self-made man who worships his creator. He is proud of his plans, his foresight, his business acumen. But what is he really doing? He is taking credit for what is not his. He is boasting about a future he does not control and a life he did not create. James then lays down a universal principle: "All such boasting is evil." It is not just misguided or foolish; it is positively wicked (poneros). Why? Because it is idolatry. It puts the self on the throne that belongs to God alone. It is a direct assault on the glory of God, attempting to steal for man what belongs wholly to Him.
v. 17 Therefore, to one who knows to do the right thing and does not do it, to him it is sin.
This final verse is a weighty conclusion that broadens the principle. The "therefore" connects it directly to what has just been said. You know you ought to submit your plans to God. You know you ought to acknowledge His sovereignty. You know you ought to speak and live in dependence upon Him. If you have received this instruction and you fail to apply it, that failure is sin. This is the classic definition of a sin of omission. Sin is not just the commission of evil acts, but also the omission of righteous ones. To know the good, in this case, the good of acknowledging God's will, and to fail to do it, is to stand in rebellion. It is a sober warning. The Christian life is not a matter of passively avoiding a list of "don'ts." It is an active, moment-by-moment life of doing the "do's," the chief of which is to honor God as God in every thought, word, and deed.
Application
The application here is as direct as a punch in the nose. First, we must repent of all practical atheism in our own lives. We must examine our calendars, our financial plans, and our five-year goals. Is the phrase "If the Lord wills" the genuine attitude of our hearts, or is it an afterthought? Do we live as though our success depends on our hustle, or on His sovereign pleasure?
Second, we must cultivate a deep and abiding sense of our own frailty. We are a vapor. This truth should not make us morose, but rather joyful in our dependence. A creature that knows its place is a happy creature. The pressure is off. We are not in control; God is. This frees us to work diligently, plan wisely, and invest shrewdly, but to do it all with an open hand, entrusting the results to Him.
Finally, we must take sins of omission seriously. It is a sin to know that you should pray over your plans and then fail to do so. It is a sin to know you should give thanks for your life and then live as though you were owed it. We are called to an active righteousness, a righteousness that constantly and consciously defers to the good and perfect will of our sovereign God. Let us therefore live and plan and work, and do it all with this glad submission: Lord willing.