The Illusion of Living Forever
We live in an age of remarkable technological advancement. At the touch of a keystroke, the world is at our fingertips via the World Wide Web. When we launch men and women into space, we hardly even pay attention because it has now become so commonplace. We live in a country with more wealth and greater prosperity than any nation the earth has ever known. On average, we live longer than our forebears; we are taller, stronger, and medical science can cure much of what ails us. We have cracked the human genome, and advances in DNA research hold out great hope for curing disease and extending life. As Americans, we are proud, confident, self-sufficient, and beholden to no one.
We live at a time when fifty is the new forty, youth culture dominates, and we act as though we will live forever. Yet behind the facade of life in modern America is the stark reality found at the end of the fourth chapter of James. As James dares to remind us, when viewed from the perspective of eternity, our lives are nothing but a mist (a vapor, he calls it). We appear for only a short time, and then we quickly disappear. While some may take James’s assertion as an expression of the futility of life, nothing could be further from the truth. James is poking a very large hole in sinful human pride and continuing his exhortation that Christians must humble themselves before God. None of us will seek grace unless and until we see our need for grace. This is James’s point in the final verses of chapter 4. The surest way to be humbled is to consider the precarious nature of human life and to be reminded that God determines our future, not we ourselves.
The Certainty of Death
As we continue our exposition of the Book of James, we conclude our time in chapter 4. In this exposition, we will cover verses 13–17, although this passage is actually part of a larger section that runs all the way to James 5:11. A good case can be made for treating this entire section of James at one time, but the point James makes about the fleeting nature of human life in the final verses of chapter 4 is especially important, given the fact that some reading this have recently lost loved ones, reminding us once again of just how short life can be. While we do not like to talk about it, all of this forces us to face our own mortality and to realize that the sovereign God controls our future. More to the point, it is good to be reminded that we must live each day in light of eternity. That is what James is doing here. He is giving us the best possible reason to humble ourselves—in light of eternity, our lives are very short. The truth is that we do not control our destinies; God does.
Even though there is great temptation for us to allow our technological advances and material prosperity to hide the fact that we will not live forever, James reminds us of the stark reality that life can be very short and that God holds our destinies in the palm of His eternal hand. People who think they control their own destinies will have a very hard time humbling themselves or seeing their need to draw near to God. To use James’s terminology, people who think they control their own future will very easily become friends with the world. They are well satisfied with the wisdom of this age. These are people who like to hear, but they never quite get around to doing. Such people do not seek grace from God and remain enslaved to their sinful passions. They see no need to change anything. They have heard, professed, and become remarkably self-sufficient. What more do they think they need to do?
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