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JAMES

GREETINGS

James 1:1

James, the slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, sends greetings to the twelve tribes who are scattered throughout the world.

AT the very beginning of his letter, James describes himself by the title in which lies his only honour and his only glory, the slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. With the exception of Jude, he is the only New Testament writer to describe himself by that term (doulos) without any qualification. Paul describes himself as the slave of Jesus Christ and his apostle (cf. Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1). But James will go no further than to call himself the slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are at least four implications in this title.

(1) It implies absolute obedience. Slaves know no law but their master’s word; they have no rights of their own; they are the absolute possessions of their master; and they are bound to give their master unquestioning obedience.

(2) It implies absolute humility. It is the word of someone who thinks not of privileges but of duties, not of rights but of obligations. It is the word of someone who has lost all sense of self in the service of God.

(3) It implies absolute loyalty. It is the word of someone who has no self-interest, because whatever is done is done for God. Personal gain and preference do not enter into the calculations; all loyalty is to God.

(4) Yet, at the back of it, this word implies a certain pride. Far from being a title of dishonour, it was the title by which the greatest ones of the Old Testament were known. Moses was the doulos of God (1 Kings 8:53; Daniel 9:11; Malachi 4:4); so were Joshua and Caleb (Joshua 24:29; Numbers 14:24); so were the great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Deuteronomy 9:27); so was Job (Job 1:8); so was Isaiah (Isaiah 20:3); and doulos is distinctively the title by which the prophets were known (Amos 3:7; Zechariah 1:6; Jeremiah 7:25). By taking the title doulos, James sets himself in the great succession of those who found their freedom and their peace and their glory in perfect submission to the will of God. The only greatness to which the Christian can ever aspire is that of being the slave of God.

There is one unusual thing about this opening salutation. James sends greetings to his readers, using the word chairein, which is the regular opening word of salutation in secular Greek letters. Paul never uses it. He always uses the distinctively Christian greeting, ‘Grace and peace’ (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; Philippians 1:2; Colossians 1:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:2; Philemon 3). This secular greeting occurs only twice in the rest of the New Testament, in the letter which Claudius Lysias, the Roman officer, wrote to Felix to ensure the safe journeying of Paul (Acts 23:26), and in the general letter issued after the decision of the Council of Jerusalem to allow the Gentiles into the Church (Acts 15:23). This is interesting, because it was James who presided over that Council (Acts 15:13). It may be that he used the most general greeting that he could find because his letter was going out to the widest public.