Friendship with the World is James’s name for a divided heart that wants God and the world’s alliance at once.
You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
The word is covenant language. It is not a ban on kindness to neighbors. It is a ban on sharing the world’s loves as if they were a second Lord.
James writes to people who quarrel, covet, and pray amiss that they may spend it on their passions. He does not call them uninformed. He calls them adulterous. In the prophets, Israel’s treaties with idols were adultery against the Husband. James takes that knife into the church. Friendship here is philia: chosen loyalty, shared taste, a bond. The world in view is the rebel order—desire of the flesh, desire of the eyes, pride of life—not the soil or the lost. To wish that friendship is already to take a side. God yearns jealously over the spirit He has made to dwell in us. He gives more grace. Therefore submit. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Friendship with the world and nearness to God cannot sit in the same chair. Jesus had already said the world would love its own, and that He chose them out of the world. Abraham was called a friend of God. That friendship cost him a country. James will not let the church keep both friendships. One will eat the other.
- Adultery is James’s word because the bond with God is a marriage, not a club.
- Wishing to be the world’s friend is already the turn. The wish is the verdict.
- Enmity with God is not a feeling He happens to have. It is the state the choice creates.
- Neighbor-love and world-friendship are not the same thing.
- Double-mindedness is the inner shape of this friendship.
- Grace is greater than the passion, and it trains the hands and the heart.
- A friend of God will look like a stranger to the age that hated His Son.
- Chosen Loyalty – Not accidental contact; a wished alliance.
- Spiritual Adultery – Two husbands in the heart.
- Passions – Quarrels and prayers aimed at spending on self.
- Double Mind – God on the lips; the world on the will.
- Jealous Grace – He yearns over us and gives more grace.
- Opposite Friendship – Abraham, friend of God; the world, friend of its own.
- Nearness as Cure – Submit, resist, draw near, cleanse, purify.
- James 4:4-8 – “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves 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.”
- James 4:1-3 – “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?… You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
- 1 John 2:15-17 – “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him… And the world is passing away along with its desires.”
- John 15:18-19 – “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
- Romans 12:2 – “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…”
- 2 Timothy 4:10 – “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me…”
- Matthew 6:24 – “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
- James 2:23 – “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God.”
- 2 Chronicles 20:7 – Abraham “your friend.”
- Isaiah 41:8 – “But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend.”
- Hosea 3:1 – “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods…”
- Ezekiel 16:32 – “Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!”
- 1 Corinthians 10:21 – “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”
- 2 Corinthians 6:14-15 – “What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?”
- Luke 16:13 – “No servant can serve two masters…”
- Revelation 18:4 – “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins.”
- Psalm 139:21-22 – “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?… I count them my enemies.”
- Proverbs 13:20 – “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”
Friendship with the world is enmity with God.
Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
He yearns jealously over the spirit He has made to dwell in us. He gives more grace.
Submit to God. Resist the devil. Draw near to God. He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Abraham believed God and was called a friend of God. That friendship costs the other one.
The world loves its own. You were chosen out of it. Do not wish your way back.
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