A stern, unbending figure, rigid in his adherence to the Law of Moses and a fervent upholder of the Covenant in all its detailed ritual, a Nazarite from his youth to the day of his death; that is James the Just, known and respected by all sincere God-fearing Jews in Jerusalem during the days of Jesus. In one respect he was like the Apostle Paul in that at first he rejected the teaching and ministry of Christ, but after the Resurrection became a convert and died a martyr for the faith. In another respect he differed from Paul in that whereas Paul gave his life to preaching the Gospel to all, whether Jews or Gentiles, travelling the world over in the endeavour to extend the faith, James limited his work and his outreach to Jews alone, Jews of the homeland and Jews of the Dispersion, and after his conversion probably never went outside Jerusalem and certainly never left the homeland of Judea and Galilee.

He was a natural brother of the Lord Jesus, the first born to Joseph and Mary after the birth of Jesus. There were three more brothers—Joses, Jude, Simon (in Hebrew Joseph, Judah, Simeon) and at least two sisters. There used to be all sorts of theories advanced to avoid the plain implication in the New Testament that Mary was the mother of these children, devised at a time when the idea of Mary having other children after Jesus was considered improper or God-dishonouring, a survival of the old theological conception of Mary as the Mother of God. So it was suggested, without a shadow of evidence, that these children were those of Joseph by a former marriage, ignoring the fact that were this so, James, as the firstborn of Joseph, and not Jesus, would have been the heir to the throne of David. Another supposition was that the reference to Jesus' brothers really means cousins and that they were the children of Mary and Cleophas, which contradicts plain Scripture statements. It might be noted here that the frequently repeated assertion to the effect that the same Greek word in the N.T. can mean either "brother" or "cousin" has no foundation in fact. "Adelphos" is used consistently for exactly the same purposes as English "brother". Where cousin or other kinsfolk are intended "suggenes" is used.

James, therefore, a few years younger than Jesus, grew up with him in the little home at Nazareth, sharing in all the joys and sorrows of the family life centred around Joseph's work as the village carpenter from the fruits of which he supported a growing family of at least seven children. Nothing is recorded of those early years but there is one vivid side-light which gives a clue to James' later character. Matt.1.19 says that Joseph was a "just man". This expression implies much more than it would normally denote in colloquial English. Spoken of a First Advent Jew, it means that Joseph was a whole-hearted and rigid devotee of all the minute ritual and ceremonial of the Mosaic Law. It means that in that humble Nazareth home every requirement of the Covenant was scrupulously observed; the feasts properly celebrated, the Sabbaths kept, synagogue obligations honoured, the Scriptures read and the children instructed in the same, all as commanded by Moses or hallowed by later tradition. In this domestic atmosphere both Jesus and James grew up; the one went through Jordan and preached a new message which took him to the Cross, the other became, as his father doubtless aspired that he would become, a pillar of orthodoxy and an example to all the village in his unyielding allegiance to the Law of Moses.

One wonders what kind of discussions took place between these two youths, fast approaching manhood, the one already reaching out in spirit to the wider understanding of God's purpose, and his own place in that purpose, which was so soon to lead him away from Judaism and make him the Light of the world, the other, steeped in the Rabbinic lore of the past and zealous, like Paul, for the salvation of his own people, not yet ready to receive the new light that was due to break upon Israel. Nothing is said of all that; James only figures in the story of Jesus' ministry twice. Once, soon after choosing the twelve disciples, Jesus' mother and his brothers came to him apparently in some alarm to take him home, saying "he is beside himself " (cp. Matt.12.46, Mark 3.21). Again, later on, the brothers cast doubts upon the validity of his mission and work; "for neither did his brothers believe on him" (John 7.3-5 ABU). There is not much doubt that James, as the eldest among them, took the lead in all this, and that right up to the Crucifixion he remained at best unconvinced by the ministry and teaching of his brother. It is significant that neither he nor his brothers were present at the Cross.

To the orthodox Jews he was a man to be admired and emulated. "James the Just" they called him because of his outstanding rigid virtue. He was a Nazarite, like Samuel and others of old, having taken the vows of that order in his youth, thereafter abstaining from wine or strong drink, never allowing razor to come upon his flowing locks, and dressing always in white robes in symbol of purity. Because of his Nazarite status he had the advantage of the priestly concession whereby members of that order were permitted certain privileges of entry into the Temple. He was also called the "camel-kneed" because, it was said, he had knees like those of camels from being so often alone in the Sanctuary in prayer for Divine forgiveness of the people for their sins. James the Lord's brother was an outstanding Judaist of his day.

But immediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus he became a Christian! No explanation for this sudden about face is given in the New Testament. The first intimation of the fact appears in Acts 1.14 where the brothers of Jesus are found gathered with their mother and with the Apostles in the "upper room" in that continuing fellowship which preceded the stirring events of the Day of Pentecost. An apocryphal work, the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" does offer an explanation but its historical accuracy is doubtful. It certainly represents a tradition current in the Early Church and there may be some basis of fact. It states in brief that Jesus, immediately after his resurrection, "went unto James and appeared to him, for James had sworn that he would not eat bread from that hour wherein he had drunk the Lord's cup until he should see him risen again from among them that sleep...He took bread and blessed and brake and gave it unto James the Just and said unto him, My brother, eat thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from among them that sleep." There is one obvious fault in this account; James the Just was not at the Last Supper. The account cannot be taken as true history, but it may well enshrine the conviction of the Early Church that the conversion of James did take place in consequence of the Resurrection. Paul says definitely, but without indicating the source of his information, that Jesus appeared to James at least soon afterwards. (1 Cor.15.7). The evidence, scanty but precise, is that James threw in his lot with the believers immediately after the death of Jesus, his life thereafter being bound up with the history of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

Paul met him, perhaps for the first time, five years later (Gal.1.19), but there is no indication of James' precise position in the Jerusalem Church then. By A.D.48, however, fifteen years after the Crucifixion, he was the acknowledged leader. By this time most of the Apostles were scattered over the Roman world fulfilling their commission of preaching the gospel to all the nations. It seems that home affairs were by common consent left in the hands of James. Some six years earlier the Apostle James, brother of John, had been killed by Herod. Now the Church was entering into a theological crisis, the gathering storm over the burning question whether Gentile converts were to be subject to the Law of Moses. The native Jewish Christians in Judea still observed the Mosaic Law; it had never occurred to them to do otherwise. But there were Gentile churches beginning to spring up; Paul and Barnabas with others had laboured mightily at Antioch and a zealous and missionary-minded assembly was the result. Now some of the brethren from Judea came to them with the demand that they take upon themselves the obligation of the Mosaic Law (Acts 15.1) and this they would not have. So a general council was called at Jerusalem, and Paul, Barnabas and others attended to plead the case of the Gentiles.

At this, the first Church Council called to discuss a major doctrinal controversy, James presided. He was still a Nazarite; he must have presented a striking figure with his flowing, uncut locks cascading over the shoulders of his snow-white robes. He must, too, have realised the momentous nature of the conference over which he was called to preside. On the one hand his eyes swept across the serried ranks of the converted Pharisees and others who, though having accepted Christ for themselves, retained their fanatical Jewishness which refused entry into the Christian fellowship to any Gentile who would not submit to the Mosaic Law and become, in effect, a proselyte to Israel. The wider outreach of God's purpose to all mankind meant nothing to them; Messiah had come, but Messiah was for Israel alone and those who became Israelites by adoption. On the other hand, he looked upon the representatives of the Antioch Church there present, and those of Jerusalem who had themselves begun to see that "God is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him", and he must have prayed silently for wisdom and grace to direct the issue aright. *

James' concluding judgment shows the progress he had made in that fifteen years of knowing Christ. His every instinct must have urged him to add his sympathy to the arguments of the Pharisees. His own life's training cried out Amen to all that they said. But he could not be blind to the fact that there were wider and longer vistas in the Divine revelation than he or his had ever dreamed of or could be contained within the framework of Judaism. He would have listened attentively as Peter, a native-born Jew like himself, adduced his own testimony to the manner in which God had used him to carry the faith to the Gentiles. There had been much "disputing" (Acts 15.7) which incidentally means orderly debate and argument, not acrimonious wrangling as the English word would imply to us. Then Paul and Barnabas held the assembly silent as they recounted the story and the success of their own extended missionary work among the Gentiles of Roman Asia.

James' summing up at the end reveals how clearly he had grasped the fundamentals of the Divine Plan as revealed by the life and death of Jesus. His knowledge of Old Testament prophecy and doctrine came into focus with all that Jesus had said, and with the logic of events as related to the missionary endeavour of those who had gone into the world with the Christian message. For the first time, perhaps, a clear and succinct expression of the three-fold purpose of Christ's Advent was enunciated and placed on record; he quoted the words of Amos of old to demonstrate his point. Israel must first be scattered ("sifted") among the nations and the word of God go to those nations that from them all God might find and take a "people for his Name", the Church of this Age, partly Jew and partly Gentile. Following the completion of that work the scattering of Israel would be reversed and the nation be restored and rebuilt in its own land, purified, converted and an instrument in God's hand for the future. Finally an opportunity for all of mankind who remain, the "residue", to call upon God and be reconciled. The twin purposes of this Christian Age and the forthcoming Messianic Age are well expressed in the words of James. The conviction with which his conclusions struck home, no less than the respect in which he was held by all present, ensured the unanimous acceptance of his judgment. The threat of a serious division in the Church was averted and the delegates from Antioch went home with, maybe, a new respect for the rigid Judaist who had until then stood before their minds as an immovable exponent of the old order which they knew was now in process of passing away.

This was James' greatest recorded achievement. He and Paul met once more, some ten years later, upon the occasion of Paul's final visit to Jerusalem. Even then it is obvious that elements of the Mosaic Law lingered within the practices of the Christian fellowship and it was through getting himself involved with these at the entreaty of James and others that Paul figured in the Temple riot which led to his arrest and eventual despatch to Rome and his first trial (Acts 21). It is probable that there was always a certain amount of more or less tolerant difference of viewpoint between these two. Paul's breadth of vision, his depth of doctrinal understanding, and the restless spirit which drove him ever on to conquer in fresh fields of service probably grated upon the other man with his essentially narrower outlook and quiet determination to serve the interests of the flock in the place where he himself found Christ. James on his part, try as he might and undoubtedly did, never really had much enthusiasm for the wider missionary outreach. Probably each man was best fitted for the particular function he was called upon to exercise.

The Epistle of James was most likely written after all these things had happened, when he was approaching sixty years of age. The Church at Jerusalem was well established by then and included a good proportion of "second generation" converts; the outward events in Judea and Galilee began to portend the fearful tragedy which was to befall the nation ten years later at the hands of Titus the Roman general. The Epistle reflects all this. First of all it breathes an atmosphere of the Mosaic Law with its insistence upon "works". Paul brought to light the doctrine of justification by faith but James still insisted upon the place of "works"; "faith without works is dead". His zeal for the Law, though, is tempered by his Christian interpretation. There are probably more references and allusions to the words of Christ in this epistle than in any other. He wrote to the Christians of the "twelve tribes scattered abroad"—this fact alone dates the epistle as late in James' life since there were no Christians in those lands until the missionary journeys of Paul and others—and the abuses such as "respect of persons" in the assemblies to which he refers show that some of these assemblies were already losing their first love. His strictures on the "rich men" in chap.5 might very well refer to the state of Jewish society generally at the time, just before the nation came to its end. In fact, it has been said that the Epistle of James is the final appeal to both Jews and Jewish Christians before the end of their existence as a nation. Although not of the twelve, James did, like Barnabus and Paul, rank as an Apostle, and it might be a fair appraisal to say that he exhibited at one and the same time the marks and characteristics of a Hebrew prophet and a Christian apostle. At the very end of the Jewish Age he stood before his fellows and his nation as representative both of the old dying covenant and the new one which came in with Christ.

He died, a martyr, in the year AD 63, seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem. During the few months' interval between the sudden death of the Roman governor Porcius Festus—the one who sent Paul to Rome—and the arrival in Judea of his successor Albinus, the High Priest Ananus took advantage of the absence of Roman authority to persuade his colleagues illegally to condemn James and murder him by throwing him from a pinnacle of the Temple. Thirty years of faithful service to the church founded by Peter and the eleven on the Day of Pentecost came to an end, and the first Bishop of the Church at Jerusalem sealed his testimony with his blood.

AOH