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James 5:2-3
2 Your [humon] riches [ploutos] are corrupted [sepo], and [kai] your [humon] garments [himation] are [ginomai] motheaten [setobrotos].
3 Your [humon] gold [chrusos] and [kai] silver [arguros] is cankered [katioo]; and [kai] the rust [ios] of them [autos] shall be [esomai] a witness [marturion] against [eis] you [humin], and [kai] shall eat [phago] your [humon] flesh [sarx] as it were [hos] fire [pur]. Ye have heaped treasure together [thesaurizo] for [en] the last [eschatos] days [hemera]. KJV-Interlinear
2 Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! NASB
Everyone has access to money or wealth in one way or another. Obviously some have greater access than others. But either by manual labor, innovation and invention, inheritance, investments, settlements, or just plain luck of one sort or another, you can and do accumulate possessions for yourself.
In this universe, there are two types of possessions – worldly and spiritual.
Worldly possessions are temporary and last only while you are alive. They do not go off into the next life with you, when you make your grand departure.
Spiritual possessions are eternal. Spiritual possessions are formed within your soul, and do not exist as tangible things. Spiritual possessions are a function of your spiritual life, and their growth is directly related to the function of your spiritual life.
Spiritual possessions when acquired, become incorporated within the very fabric of your soul and cannot be separated, by someone else, from you, either in time or in eternity. They are the only real possession that you can have now, take with you, and retain forever.
The word for corruption, moth eaten, and rusted, refer to a state of lack of use, or lack of value, or to something that when not used simply goes to ruin. They also refer to the nature of the wearing out of things. And in this case they refer to things that have value or use for a limited time, and then are of no use.
In the ancient world, anyone who stored grain, or food, would have trouble with varmints, weather, and time. In the course of time their grain or crop stores, would go bad. So hoarding up such things turned into a loss.
Storing up clothing brought you nothing better, because the wear and tear of time, moths, and such, would make your clothes go from new to old.
The same destiny of things occurs today. How many garage sales are there on any given weekend? How long do your laundry or kitchen appliances last? How long does your car last? Everything you own will wear out sooner or later, and such is the nature of all possessions that exist in history.
Whether stocks, real estate, jewelry, or the clothes on your back, all things will wear out. And the final wearing out of them is at the moment of your death. At that moment, they have no value to you. Maybe they have value to your heirs, but only while they are alive, but certainly not to you immediately after your death.
People who look to things in life, are in effect substituting ‘things’ in place of their spiritual opportunities.
They are investing in worldly things, as their nest egg for eternity, like holding on to water as it falls through your fingers.
And that is where James tells us all, that the things of this world, even the gold, the wealth, the silver, the prosperity, and so forth will not follow people into the next life.
And the ultimate wearing out of ‘things’ will occur at the end of the Millennium when Christ destroys this entire universe, and creates a brand new one. All of the old will be gone. None of the old will go into eternity.
So, whatever dynasties you are building, will eventually be destroyed with no residue, as though they had never existed.
