“Stumble not in word”

“If any man stumbles not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also,” (James 3:2) writes the Apostle James. The word “perfect” in this passage, means “complete,” a complete man. The same word is used in Ephesians 4:13, Col. 1:28, Col. 4:12 and, finally in Phil. 3:15, where it is rendered, “grown to the ripeness of maturity” being the antithesis of “babe.”

According to the Apostle James then, stumbling not in word is the supreme mark of a “complete” spiritual man, completely “full-grown in Christ,” In short, being no longer a child, but able to speak the truth in love, in the full assurance of faith, and calm, ripe knowledge of maturity in Christ.

And to “stumble not in word” has much to do with our power in prayer and to be truly abiding within the veil. And why? “Does the fountain send forth from the same opening sweet water and bitter?” (James 3:11). Can we speak bitter words in one moment, and be a channel for the sweet, pure stream of the “river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the Throne of God and the Lamb” the next? Can we stand before God and hear what the Spirit says and then go into the arena of this world with the “strife of tongues”?

The “tongue,” says the Apostle, “sets on fire the wheel of nature (according to the Greek), and is set on fire by hell.” The “wheel of nature,” or life, which came to us from the first Adam, is always roused or “fired” by hell. And the serpent’s most effectual weapon is the tongue, for “firing” the “wheel of nature” in ourselves or others. Hence, the wondrous silence manifested by Christ, the second Adam, as the pattern of the Christ-life for His redeemed, when He was accused by the chief priests and elders. He answered nothing. “Then said Pilate to Him, do you not hear how many things they witness against You? And He gave him no answer, not even to one word: insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly.” Only when appealed to for truth did the Lord Christ speak, and bear witness to the truth. (see John 18:37). “Are You a King, then?” said Pilate. “You say that I am a King,” replied the Kingly Prisoner. The wheel or movement of the life must be kept continually in all quietness, under the power of the Cross of Christ, so that the life of the Last Adam may grow in us into ripeness of maturity. The soul who has thus been united to Christ in death knows how to “always” bear about the dying of Jesus. When the “deadly poison” of the serpent is transmitted by the tongue to rouse “the wheel of nature,” this must find the believer hidden deep in the death of the Cross, so that he becomes a channel for God to speak through him saving, blessed, life-giving words of love.