<p>4:5<em> Or do you think that the scripture says in vain: The Spirit that dwells in us yearns jealously</em>-This does not appear to be a verbatim quote from any manuscript- for a comment on the word &quot;scripture&quot; see notes on 2:23. James is effectively rebuking them for their lack of sensitivity to the word- by not recognizing the fundamentally lustful nature of our natural mind, they were effectively saying that the Scriptures' warnings about our evil human nature were &quot;vain&quot;. They thought that by reason of possessing the Spirit gifts the evils of the human heart were by-passed an error also made by evangelical theology today. There appears to be a reference back to the descriptions of man at Noah's time in Gen. 6:5 and 8:21 as having a fundamentally wicked heart. 2 Pet. 3, Jude and the Lord in His Olivet prophecy all interpret Noah's world as being a type of the Jewish system heading towards destruction in AD70. So again James is saying that the lustful attitude of mind within these Jewish believers equated them with the rest of the Jewish world, which was about to be destroyed as Noah's world was. The Greek for &quot;vain&quot; is often used about vain Jewish philosophy that affected the ecclesias (Eph.5:6; Col.2:8; 1 Tim.6:20; 2 Tim.2:16; and Acts 4:25); it also looks back to the description of the brethren James is writing to as &quot;vain&quot; in 2:20. This would imply that because of the influence of vain Jewish (Judaist?) reasoning, they had become vain in their minds, and therefore Scripture had also become vain to them. The Greek for &quot;dwelleth&quot; means 'to dwell as an integral part'; the same Greek word for 'dwell' occurs in Rom. 7:17,18,20, describing &quot;sin that dwelleth&quot; within our members; we have seen 4:1 is alluding to this same passage in Rom. 7 concerning the spiritual conflict in our members. The same word is also used in 1 Cor. 3:16 about the Holy Spirit dwelling in the early believers - maybe suggesting that James is reminding the Jewish ecclesial elders that the Spirit gifts dwelling in them did not mean that the evil human spirit of our own nature did not dwell in them.</p><p>The very word &quot;spirit&quot; can refer both to this human spirit and also to the spirit of Christ in our minds. Thus they had to have the Spirit truly in their heart by their response to the word as well as tabernacling in them by reason of their possession of the gifts. The effort to apply the word to the human heart is therefore not just something which began after the miraculous gifts were withdrawn, but which also had to be practiced by their early possessors. If even those with the gift of prophecy (i.e. chosen by God to speak forth His word under direct inspiration) had to make this effort; how much more must we? God <em>yearns</em> that we might have a spirit like His, that we might be spiritually minded: &quot;He yearns jealously over the spirit that He has made to dwell in us&quot; (James 4:5). He so wants us to accept His Spirit. And be sure that He will be ever working in our lives to try to get us to have this focus. The particular aspect of our inherent natural spirit that James draws attention to is its capacity to envy. We have suggested previously that their desire for wealth led these brethren to show a lack of love to the others in the ecclesia, although they justified this by misinterpreting parts of the Law. James is saying that they should not justify these envious feelings so quickly, but remember that Scripture generally warns that these feelings are part of our fallen nature, and they should not misapply odd passages to justify them as acceptable. The Greek for &quot;envy&quot; here is always used elsewhere concerning either the envying of the Jews against the believers, or about the envying generated within the ecclesia by Judaist-stimulated controversies.</p>