Sermon Tone Analysis

*22—Saving a Soul from Death (**5:19–20**)*

*My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth and one turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

*(5:19–20)

These two verses form a fitting conclusion to the book of James.

They express James’s primary objective in writing his epistle: to confront those in the assembly of believers who possessed false, dead faith.

As already noted, the epistle does have an evangelistic emphasis, but one that is mainly directed toward professing believers in the church.

James wrote, as did John in his first epistle, to call professed believers to examine their faith and make sure it is real.

He was deeply concerned that no one be deceived about his salvation.

That concern originated with the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 7:21–23 He warned,

Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.

Many will say to Me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?”

And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Echoing the words of Jesus, James called for true, genuine saving faith.

It is a frightening and tragic reality that throughout the church’s history there have always been tares among the wheat; rocky, shallow, thorny soils that produce no spiritual fruit; those who draw near to God with their words while their hearts are far from Him (Isa.

29:13); those for whom God is “near to their lips but far from their mind” (Jer.

12:2); those who are hearers of the Word, but not doers of it (James 1:22).

To help people avoid being deceived, James has given a series of tests by which one’s faith can be evaluated.

True saving faith is marked by its proper response to trials, temptations, the Word of God, and God’s standards for holy living (chapter 1); its response to people from various social classes and its manifestation of righteous deeds (chapter 2); by proper speech, wisdom, and by not being a friend of the world (chapter 3); by humility and submission to God’s will (chapter 4); by a proper view of money and by truthfulness (chapter 5).

Those tests form the benchmarks against which a person’s faith can be measured.

At the very core of the epistle is an evangelistic invitation to those whose faith has failed the test.

In 4:7–10 James exhorted those with false faith to

[s]ubmit therefore to God.

Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Those verses are a clear-cut evangelistic call to genuine salvation (cf.

chapter 15 of this volume).

As he closes his epistle, James has one last salvation appeal to make.

Unlike his appeal in 4:7–10, however, he is not here calling the unsaved to salvation.

Instead, he calls on believers to evangelize the unsaved.

The assumption throughout James’s epistle is that there will be those who identify with the church, but have dead, nonsaving faith.

Here the writer calls on those with true saving faith to pursue such people.

This is nothing less than a call to evangelism within the church.

These final verses provide four points to enable Christians to identify and help those in their midst who lack genuine saving faith: the evidence, the threat, the instrument, and the goal.

*The Evidence*

*My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth … he who turns a sinner from the error of his way *(5:19/a/; 5:20/b/)

James uses the phrase *my brethren* (or brethren) in a general sense throughout his epistle (cf.

1:2, 16, 19; 2:1, 5, 14; 3:1, 10, 12; 4:11; 5:7, 9, 10, 12).

His usage is broad enough to include Jews, with whom he shared a common racial heritage, as well as all those who identify with the church.

Here, as in 2:1 (where it also stands first in the sentence), the phrase *my brethren* refers to genuine believers and, as in 2:1, marks a sharp break in the flow of thought.

There is no connecting link with the previous section (5:13–18); rather James is now turning to a new and final concluding thought.

The concluding two verses describe a different group from the weary, weak, persecuted believers who need to be ministered to by the elders.

To the ministry of restoring struggling believers James adds the ministry of reconciling the unsaved in the church.

The phrase *if any among you* also introduces this third category of people.

In verse 13 this phrase described suffering Christians who needed to pray; in verse 14 it described weak, defeated Christians who needed the care of the elders.

Here it describes professed believers who need to be called to true salvation by the rest of the fellowship.

Sadly, such people are to be found in every church; Jesus promised as much in Matthew 13:20–23, 24–30, 37–43, 47–50.

*Among you* indicates they are in the believing church, professing salvation.

And every pastor knows the heartbreak caused by those who profess Christ yet turn their backs on Him, live in overt, blatant sin, or join a cult.

Even Jesus had His Judas and Paul his Demas.

Such people emerge last in James’s list because they have the greatest need and, as will be seen below, are in the gravest of all danger.

The Greek grammatical structure of the phrase *if any among you strays from the truth* indicates it is a possibility likely to happen.

*Strays* is from /planaō/, which means “to wander,” “to go astray,” “to apostatize.”

It is used to describe physical wandering, both in the Septuagint (e.g., Gen.

37:15; Ex.

14:3; 23:4; Deut.

22:1; 27:18; Job 38:41) and in the New Testament (e.g., Matt.

18:12–13; Heb.

11:38).

But it is often used of straying from spiritual truth, both in the Septuagint (e.g., Deut.

11:28; 30:17; Prov.

14:22; Isa.

9:15 [9:16 in the English text]; Ezek.

14:11), and in the New Testament (e.g., Luke 21:8; Heb.

3:10; 2 Pet.

2:15).

It frequently describes the condition of the unsaved.

In Matthew 22:29 Jesus said to the Sadducees who tried to trap Him, “You are mistaken [from /planaō/], not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.” “For we also once were foolish ourselves,” wrote Paul in Titus 3:3, “disobedient, deceived [from /planaō/], enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.”

Before we were saved, Peter noted, we were “continually straying [from /planaō/] like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (1 Pet.

2:25).

The *truth* refers to the Word of God, primarily the gospel of salvation (cf.

1:18; 3:14).

It is a sure mark of those whose faith is not genuine that they reject the *truth* of salvation and fall away doctrinally from “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3).

“Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?” wrote the apostle John.

“This is the antichrist [deceiver, false teacher], the one who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).

Later in his first epistle he added, “every spirit that does not confess [that] Jesus [has come in the flesh—v.

2] is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist” (4:3).

On the other hand, Jesus taught that the mark of true disciples of His is that they continue in the Word (John 8:31).

When the false believer strays from God’s saving truth, he enters *the error of his way* [lifestyle, pattern of living].

/Planē/ (*error*) is the noun form of the verb /planaō/, which is translated “strays” in verse 19; false faith results not only in an errant theology, but also an errant lifestyle.

Those who reject God’s Word also reject the principles of godly living it teaches and shun the only power for obedience.

Truth and virtue go together, as do falsehood and evil behavior.

Despite any outward profession of faith they might make, those who live in open defiance of God’s revelation in Scripture do not belong to Him.

In the poignant words of Jesus, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

If they do not repent, such people will one day hear from Jesus the shocking words “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt.

7:23).

James defines the wanderer from sound doctrine and godly living as a *sinner* (see comments on its use in 4:8)—a word used in Scripture of the unregenerate (cf.

Prov.

11:31; 13:6, 22; Matt.

9:13; Luke 7:37, 39; 15:7, 10; 18:13; Rom.

5:8; 1 Tim.

1:9, 15; 1 Pet.

4:18), not believers.

The term *sinner* frequently describes hardened unbelievers, those who openly, defiantly disregard God’s law; those whose evil character is apparent to everyone; those whose wickedness is common knowledge.

Genesis 13:13 described the men of Sodom as “wicked exceedingly and sinners against the Lord.”

The opening verse of Psalms declares, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!”

(Ps.

1:1).

Verse 5 of that same psalm adds, “The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”

Sinners are defined in Psalm 51:13 as those who need to be converted to God, while Proverbs 11:31 contrasts the wicked sinner with the righteous.

In the New Testament the term *sinner* invariably describes those outside the kingdom of God.

Jesus declared in Matthew 9:13, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sinners are those whose repentance causes joy in heaven (Luke 15:7, 10); it was when he cried out “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” that the tax collector “went to his house justified” (Luke 18:13–14).

It was “while we were yet sinners” that “Christ died for us” (Rom.

5:8); indeed, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim.