James writes to a people whose hearts had grown divided — friends of the world reaching with one hand toward heaven while the other still clutched the dust of earth. Into that double-mindedness the Holy Ghost thunders a command and a promise: "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded." The altar of God is no place for soiled hands. Under the old covenant the priest could not approach the brazen altar nor the holy place until he had washed at the laver, lest he die. God has not lowered His standard in this dispensation; He has raised it. He calls not merely for clean hands but for a purified heart — a deep, inward work that no soap of human effort can ever accomplish.
Mark the order of the text, for it is the very order of grace. There is cleansing of the hands — the outward life, the deeds of the flesh, the open sins that defile the conscience. This is the work of repentance and the new birth, when a sinner casts himself upon the blood of Jesus Christ and is washed whiter than snow. But James does not stop at the hands. He presses on to the heart, the seat of the carnal nature, the root of bitterness, the inbred sin that remains in the believer after conversion. "Purify your hearts." This is sanctification — a second definite work of grace, wrought by the Holy Ghost through the same precious blood, "that he might sanctify the people with his own blood" (Hebrews 13:12). The double-minded man is not an unbeliever; he is a saved soul whose heart has not yet been made wholly God's.
How many trace their misery to this divided heart! They love the Lord, yet the carnal mind wars within, drawing them toward the world they were called out of. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers... come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" (2 Corinthians 6:14,17). God will not share His throne with the spirit of this age. He bids us purge out the old leaven and present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. The fear of the Lord that the world has cast off must burn again in His house — a holy trembling that hates sin and trembles at His word.
And when the heart is purified by faith, the Lord does not leave that cleansed temple empty. He fills it with the baptism of the Holy Ghost. As on the day of Pentecost, "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4). This is the enduement of power for which Jesus commanded His own to tarry — power to live free from sin, power to witness, power to overcome. The same fire that purges the heart also empowers the life. Clean hands and a pure heart are the doorway; the indwelling fullness of the Holy Ghost is the inheritance.
Beloved, the altar stands open this hour. Will you draw nigh? Cease the double-minded hesitation. Bring your soiled hands to the fountain filled with blood, and let the Spirit search out and burn away every root of the carnal nature. Repent of every secret reserve; consecrate the whole of your life upon the altar that sanctifies the gift; and tarry until the Holy Ghost falls in His fullness and power.
And let this drive you: the Lord is coming, and coming soon. "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" He returns for a church without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. No double-minded soul will be caught up to meet Him. Cleanse your hands. Purify your heart. Draw nigh now — before the trumpet sounds.
"Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded."
— James 4:8