What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (Proverbs 3:34) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded (James 4:4-8 ESV)

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labour, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians 4:25-32 ESV)

Two personified, devil in us, verses.

These two passages contain verses which in some ways are some of the most simple mentions of “the devil” in the New Testament. The linkage to the key passages about the devil in the Matthew 4 and Luke 4 temptation narratives is evident since the contact of James 4:4-8 and Ephesians 4:25-32 is so clearly about the “passions at war within you” (James 4:1) and emotions such as “anger” (Ephesians 4:26, 31). It is difficult to see how either could be about a real physical figure, and these two examples give support to the idea that the temptations accounts in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 are actually similar accounts of a parable Jesus told to his disciples drawing on the imagery of the two “devil” stories in the Old Testament (Job 1 and Zechariah 3).

“Flee” in James 4:7 certainly personifies the devil, just as the devil is a personification of sin in almost all New Testament incidences. The same imagery is used of death (also personified) in Revelation 9:6. The word for “opportunity” in Ephesians 4:27 is actually “give a place” which is perhaps a little more permanent than some translations suggest.

James’ strange “spirit” quote, which isn’t a quote:

As a side note here: a lot of energy has been expended looking for the source of “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”- in James 4:5 particularly since the quote of Proverbs 3:34 in James 4:6 is so clear. For this concept sources are cited including Genesis 6:3-7, Exodus 29:5, Deuteronomy 32:1-21, Job 5:12, Ecclesiastes 4:4, and Proverbs 27:4. 

Alternatively, and relevant to this question here, taking the view that James is personifying the devil in James 4:7 strengthens the possibility that “the spirit that he has made to dwell in us” in 4:5 is also a personification, a new one by James himself, of the new life. Among commentators who have suggested that it is not a quote at all is the Church of Christ writer James Burton Coffman.

There is a case for this, because what James says is actually an idea that does not have much precedent in the Old Testament and is very much a New Testament subject. The Greek text allows this to be read as two unrelated sentences. In which case James 4:5A “…. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture speaks?,” actually refers back to Old Testament history in 4:4. And that is where that sentence ends.

While the next sentence James 4:5B “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us … but he gives more grace” is not a quote at all, or even an allusion to the Old Testament, but James himself saying something new as part of teeing up his own new spirit vs devil point. In support of this is that the teaching of the spirit dwelling in us is something which the apostles learned from Jesus himself:

“even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:17 ESV)

Although there are indeed three mentions of “holy spirit” in the Old Testament (Psalm 51:11, Isaiah 63:10-11 “Where is he who put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit”), these are little more than foreshadows of the New Testament spirit subject and John 7:39 is clear that the Holy spirit “was not” (which most translations expand to “was not given”) until John 20:22 on the resurrection Sunday when Jesus breathed on the disciples in the upper room and said to them “Receive the Holy Spirit.”. 

Other than those three verses James’ idea of the spirit dwelling in people is largely foreign to the Old Testament. It is only in the New Testament – with John 14:17 followed by Romans 8:9-11, 1 Corinthians 3:16, Ephesians 2:22, and 2 Timothy 1:14 – that the James 4:5B idea is found.

If so then the quotation marks and question mark on James 4:5A can be removed. The passage then reads like this:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture speaks?

He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (Proverbs 3:34) Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded (James 4:4-8 ESV)

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