Trailblazin Ministries

Favoritism: Part 7 - James 2:5c

Written by LaRosa Johnson
Friday, 21 September 2007

In our last devotion, we looked very intently at the first half of James' question concerning how God views those who are financially and economically poor. In short, God doesn't treat them as second class citizens, but instead makes provision for them, and even has provisioned the riches of faith to be theirs. Today we are going to look at the final portion of verse 5, which is the second half to James' question to his Jewish readers. This second part falls right in line with the first part of the question, so let's go ahead and get right into it.

James 2:5c (NASB95) - and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?

Yesterday we saw that God had specifically chosen the poor to be rich in faith, but things just don't stop there; indeed, God has much more in store for them, as witnessed in the latter portion of James 2:5. Here we see that God also calls the poor to be heirs of the kingdom, which is promised to all hose who love Him. This ties directly into being made rich in faith, which is made plain when you understand what it means to become an heir to the kingdom. For us to understand what that means, let us take a bit of a walk through Scripture; let's begin by examining the key passage of Matthew 5:3 that speaks of both being poor and having the kingdom, of which we made mention last time. These are the words of Jesus, God in the flesh, so let us look together:

Matthew 5:3 (NASB95) - "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

First things first, when we were looking at James 2:5b, we made note that James was speaking of those who were physically or materially poor, but this is a passage that speaks of spiritual poverty. Here, Jesus is saying those who are poor in spirit are able to receive the kingdom of heaven. That's nice, but that doesn't tell us what "poor in spirit" means. To answer that question, we must go to the Greek and see which word is being used (as there are many words in Greek that may receive the same English translation), and then find the definition for that particular Greek word. In this case, the word for poor is ptōchos (Strong's #G4434) and generally relates to one who is very poor and to the point where they are completely unable to help themselves; in other words, these are the begging poor. This is opposed to those who are penichros (Strong's #3998) poor, which means that they have at least some resources on which to survive (aka the widow in Luke 21). Now, Jesus is not saying that those who are this poor are the ones who receive the kingdom; instead, He is using this in a spiritual context. It is in this spiritual context that Jesus is saying that those who are "begging poor" and completely unable to help themselves spiritually are the ones that will receive the kingdom of heaven; in other words, they have no choice but to depend upon God for their spiritual vitality, instead of depending upon their own resources or innate goodness. To make it all the more plain, these are the people who are humble and truly have a sense for their spiritual depravity.

The next thing that we need to do in looking at James 2:5c and Matthew 5:3 is answer the question, "what is the kingdom of heaven?" In plain terms, the kingdom of heaven is salvation, at least in the sense that is spoken of in this context. There are many synonymous terms for salvation that are used throughout Scripture, and many of them also coincide with the terminology of "kingdom of heaven" or "kingdom of God." This is made clear to us in the account of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 who came to Jesus asking what he needed to do in order to receive eternal life (salvation). Given that context, Jesus answers him using the phrase "enter into life," and then later on when explaining things to His disciples (verses 23-30) He uses the phrases "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God" interchangeably in reference to why this rich man would not receive salvation or eternal life. It is with that understanding that we can see a harmony between the three.

When we tie this in with what we learned in part b of James 2:5, we realize it is those who love God and become poor spiritually that are the ones who receive eternal life, thus becoming heirs to the kingdom. And it is God who provides the faith necessary in order to receive this blessed gift of salvation. Bringing back in Matthew 5:3, we realize that only those who truly humble themselves and realize that they have no other means but God, are the only ones who are even able to have this faith (which is easier for the physically poor to have) that leads to salvation. Even going back to James 1:12 we see this put into work, as this crown of life also refers to salvation, which brings us to another very important distinction. Very briefly, this salvation is in a "now" context or a present sphere of salvation (i.e. knowing you're saved and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit) as opposed to the future sense of the term which is when we actually get to heaven and are no longer bound by time or the influence of sin.

It is in all of this that we can truly see the grace of God and His impartiality towards us. He doesn't play favorites in any way, and offers faith and salvation to all, especially the poor, if we would simply humble ourselves and recognize our spiritual poorness. Salvation isn't for the rich, nor is it for the poor, it's for everyone who is to pick up their cross and follow after Him. We just have to love Him more than anything else (read: sin); and when we do, we become heirs of His glorious kingdom. How much more impartial can you really get? You can't; yet, this is the same kind of character that God requires of His people, and something that we all need to strive towards each and every day. Next time, we will dig into this more as we look at verse 6.