The Purity of Christ and Our Fallenness (James 3:17)

"But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere." (James 3:17)

Only Jesus fulfills these heavenly attributes of wisdom perfectly. Only by the grace of God that transforms us might we reflect these attributes that do not originate from our fallen selves.

Pure. Purity (blamelessness) is the primary virtue with all the rest stemming from purity. Jesus is the pure perfect soul. Even our purity as Christians fall short because of our spontaneous default to impure motivations. Even our best and purest of Christian acts are like filthy rags (Isa 66:4).

Peace-loving. Jesus is the Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6). Only Jesus promotes peace without any jealousy or selfish motivation or ambition (James 3:16).

Considerate. The ESV and NASB translates this as "gentle." Jesus was the most meek (Matt 5:5), "gentle and humble in heart" (Matt 11:29). Even at his very worst moment of life when he was led unjustly like a lamb to the slaughter, he did not open his mouth (Isa 53:7). Our best frail attempts at being gentle and considerate might be to be soft spoken, evasive or mute.

Submissive. Other translations are "open to reason" (ESV) and "reasonable" (NASB). Jesus was submissive unto death (Phil 2:6-8), even though this was most unreasonable. Our best attempts at submission might be to avoid the unpleasant repercussions of non-conformity.

Full of mercy and good fruit. How can any man be merciful toward one who seems to be unmerciful toward us? Only Jesus was merciful, when we were merciless toward him in our sins. Because of the mercy of Jesus, he bears the good fruit of our continued transformation (2 Cor 3:18; Gal 5:22-23).

Impartial and sincere. The NASB translates this as "unwavering and without hypocrisy." Try as we may, we default toward our own biases, preferences, prejudices and cultural identities. Thank God that he does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34; Rom 2:11). Otherwise, only the good guys go to heaven, and all the bad guys have no hope!

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