(Warning to the Rich)
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days.
Wealth in this world is very popular. It seems that most people strive for some level of wealth. There doesn’t seem to be a ceiling on it, either. The more you have the more ways you find to spend it and therefore the more you need to accumulate. Our status in life is most often measured by what we have gained in life regarding possessions. The possessions speak of wealth. A person could be completely in debt and not really “own” anything and, yet, be viewed as as a wealthy person. Our country tends to confuse debt with wealth when many possessions are in view. Mostly, our loaning institutions are wealthy. We just get to carry the perks. This is what James is talking about in the above passage. We are not wealthy because we have the world’s gold and silver. Nor are we wealthy because our closets are full of clothes and shoes. We must remember that in the days of James any set of clothes more than the cloak on your back was considered wealthy (rich). If you had gold and silver you were rich. The fascinating aspect of James’ words are that their gold and silver have corroded. We can certainly understand that garments can be moth-eaten. Garments can be eaten by moths. But, gold and silver don’t corrode. That is the point of owning them. They are a staple of perfection. Yet, James is telling these rich people in the church that their very possessions that make them “appear” wealthy are going to corrode. This Greek word carries the meaning of “rusted.” We know that gold and silver can become tarnished. But, that is what they make polish for. It will remove the tarnish. But, James is telling them that their gold and silver will rust. How is the possible? He also tells them that this corrosion will be the witness against them in the last day. What? It is possible that God, in the last days of judgement, will make gold and silver tarnish to the point of rust. But, what it might be saying is that the “trust” the rich have in their wealth will corrupt and rust. And that “corrupted trust” will be a witness agains them in the last days. When they stand before God and must answer for their sins, they won’t be able to point to their faith in Christ to cover their sins. In fact, God will point to their trust in accumulation of possessions and those accumulations will cry out against them in condemnation. It is not that they have “riches” or “wealth.” It is the trust they have in them. We are not told that money is the root of all evil. We are told that the “love of money” is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). Later in this section James will talk about how the rich are oppressing the poor by keeping back some or all of their wages and, in truth, creating slaves, He wants them to know that his behavior is noticed by God and they will pay for this. But, he is writing to believers, remember. He wants them to know that those who put their trust in Christ do not live this way and do not trust this way and do not rely upon garments, gold and silver. He wants them to “weep and howl for the miseries that will come upon” them. They need to run from this uncertainty of trust in material goods and turn toward Christ in faith. The previous chapter of James had talked about “worldliness.” As he begins this chapter, James is simply drawing worldliness to is most likely conclusion. If we act like the world we will attempt to accumulate wealth. We then will put our trust in that wealth. And that trust will rust and cry out against us in the last days.
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