When James told his readers to “humbly welcome the implanted word, which is able to save your lives,” he was telling them that Christ is planting seeds, not building libraries. A seed has innate knowledge that is not learned; it simply knows what to do and does it. A library holds what is ‘heard’ by the keys of a typewriter or the plates of a printing press, but it has no power in and of itself to “do” anything. The knowledge may be potentially powerful, but it has no power to leap from the page to actually achieve anything. It must be learned and applied by a reader. Not so, the seed. It produces what it was created to produce. So, too, is the Gospel. It is powerful to change lives (1Thessalonians 1:5; Hebrews 4:12), casting out all manner of uncleanness (Luke 4:32, 36). Therefore, when James told his readers to “prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (James 1:22), he was saying let the Spirit do its powerful work within your own hearts (James 1:3-4; cp. 1Corinthians 2:4; 4:20).
Being a “doer” of the word animates the spirit not the impulses of the flesh. There is a way which seems right to a man (Proverbs 14:12; 21:2; cp. 1Corinthians 2:11), but such things have nothing to do with God and, therefore, cannot save the man’s life. However, when believers are born of God, they have been given a new spirit (called the Spirit of God in Scripture), which is able to understand the spiritual things (1Corinthians 2:11-12). Moreover, doing those things is able to save a man’s life. To act like a library is to be a “hearer” only and one becomes deluded into thinking he has what is necessary to save himself. Nevertheless, Jesus tells us that not everyone who calls him Lord will enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 7:21). If a man does what he thinks is right, because of what he was told, that man is deluded, because he is a hearer only. Believers do what they know is right, because the Spirit within them teaches them all things they need to know (1Corinthians 2:13), just as the seed contains all the things it needs to ‘know’ to produce the plant it was created to be.
James describes a ‘hearer’ as one who beholds his own image in a mirror, but after leaving the mirror, he no longer knows or beholds the likeness of his image (James 1:23-24). On the other hand, the ‘doer’ of the word looks into the perfect law of liberty (loving others, loving God) and continues in the image he sees, i.e. he is always beholding that image (James 1:25). In other words, he is constantly being changed into that image of God (cp. 2Corinthians 3:18), not being a forgetful ‘hearer’ but a ‘doer,’ because his life reflects that image of Christ, and Jesus was always ‘doing’ something that expressed the love of God (John 3:16; 1John 3:16; cp. John 1:18; Hebrews 1:3).
James told his readers to be swift to hear, but slow to speak (James 1:19), so if a man seems to be religious and doesn’t curb his tongue, meaning he hears the word (the Gospel) and uses its power, not to change himself but to change others (viz. Matthew 7:22-23), that man’s religion is worthless (James 1:26). It has done nothing to bring him, i.e. his own heart, closer to the Lord.
On the other hand, pure or undefiled (clean) religion in the eyes of God, which is unsoiled or unspotted by the way of the world, is to visit the widow and the fatherless, i.e. a body of believers that has no spiritual leader (Ephesians 5:22-25, 32), during the days of their trouble or persecution (James 1:27). I believe that James is speaking to the faithful to reach out to those believers whose faith is failing, being overcome by the false teacher. Don’t judge them, but reach out to encourage them. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31), but David found mercy there, because, although the Lord is the Judge, he is also abundant in mercy (2Samuel 24:1, 10-15).
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