James brackets his command towards humility in verses 6 and 10 with 10 commandments – the 10 commandments of James. He ties verses 7-10 to the previous passage with a "therefore," but not just verse 6, but all the sins that he lists starting with verse 13 of chapter 3 through chapter 4, verse 6. It is because of all these sins that he then issues these commands, starting with the injunction to submit to God, the true act of humility where we obey God's commands, our inward attitudes match our outward acts, and we take on the mind of Christ.
James then seems to swerve in a completely different direction with the injunction to resist, or withstand, Satan, but this is just another form of submission. If we are submitting to God, then we are not submitting to Satan
He then once again puts in our place – we are still his brothers, but now he admonishes us as sinners and double-minded, or double-souled, and calls on us to wash our hands and purify our hearts, echoing language of the Old Testament priests whose washings prefigured the New Testament washing of repentance.
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Kurt Snow serves as a ruling elder at Covenant Reformed Church of Sacramento (RCUS). He served as a member of the Board of Governors of City Seminary of Sacramento from 2000 to 2020.
