For whoever shall keep the whole law and shall offend in one [point], he has come under the guilt of [breaking] all.
James is writing to people who favoured the rich and brushed the poor aside. To show how serious that is, he refuses to treat God's law as a list of items, where a good score on most of them covers one failure.
James has just called one command "royal" — love your neighbour as yourself. One writer explains what makes a command royal.
Verse 8 calls the Scripture "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" the royal law. This summarizes the last six of the ten commandments. The first four are no doubt priestly in character rather than royal, since they are toward God. But royal character is what bears testimony toward men. Genuine love for neighbors will seek their greatest good: it is impartial, and concerned for the purest blessing of the one it loves. If it is only my rich neighbour I love, this is not proper love at all — I expose my selfish motives.
So favouritism is not a lapse in manners. It breaks the one command that sums up how we treat people.
The sweeping claim of this verse makes sense once you see the law as one whole. One writer shows the difference with a picture.
Nothing could be more sweeping than the statement in verse 10. At first sight some of us might question whether it is right. But we have to remember that the law is one whole, and cannot be divided. An errand boy carrying a basket of bottles may slip and break one bottle in his fall. His employer cannot fairly accuse him of breaking all of them, because every bottle is separate and distinct from the others. But suppose the boy carried the basket hung from his shoulder by a chain. If in falling he also broke one link of the chain, his master could fairly tell him that he had broken the chain.
Why should one failure count against everything? The same God speaks in every command, so each one carries His authority.
Here the law is what crushes self-righteousness. The law is of God, so it cannot be anything but unbending, and it resents every attempt of men to dodge it... If there were true obedience, one claim of God would be as binding as another, and violence would be as hateful to us as corruption. To offend in one point violates God's authority and brings us under the guilt of breaking all... For sinful man to try to gain righteousness by the law, and to stand before God on that ground, is fatal ignorance of self as well as of God.
Verse 11 is James' proof — the One who said "Do not commit adultery" also said "Do not murder."
Many people lean on the hope that a mostly decent record will hold up. This verse closes that door.
The law knew nothing of mercy. Its demands were so strict that it held an offender in one point guilty of all (James 2:10). Some people shelter under the idea that they are not aware of having broken all of God's laws, so they are not exposed to His just condemnation. That hope is empty and deceptive. It is not even reasonable. Think how a man judges his fellow man. Whoever breaks one of the laws of his country has committed an act of rebellion, and so deserves punishment. A man does not need to rob twenty times before a court calls him guilty. If he is proved to have robbed even once, he faces punishment as a lawbreaker. And is God less just than man?
If nothing partial can stand, the verse points us away from ourselves.
Is this not the only obedience that can be acceptable with God? "Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." True righteousness must be complete. Everything else is partial, and only "filthy rags." That holds even for giving away all one's goods to feed the poor, or giving one's body to be burned. Here, as everywhere, everything calls aloud for Christ. He is the only One who could undertake such obedience and glorify God.
- One chain. The law is one whole, not a list of separate items. Break one link and you have broken the chain.
- One voice. One Lawgiver stands behind every command. The same God forbade adultery and murder, so offending in one point defies His authority.
- One failure. You need not break every command to stand condemned. No one has to rob twenty times before we call him a thief.
- One target. James aims this at favouritism. Showing special favour to the rich is not a small slip. It breaks the royal law of love.
- One remedy. Only complete righteousness can stand, so the verse leaves us with Christ. He alone could render that obedience.
For he who said, Thou shalt not commit adultery, said also, Thou shalt not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become transgressor of [the] law.
James has just said that a person who keeps the whole law but trips on one point is guilty of all. This verse is his proof. The ban on adultery and the ban on murder came from the same mouth. So why does keeping one of them earn no credit when you break the other?
The weight of the argument sits in three words: "he who said." Both commands come from one authority, not two. So the man who avoids the first sin and commits the second has still defied the same God.
The law is one, though of course expressed in ten commandments: if one link of a chain is broken, then the chain is broken. It is the same God who forbids both adultery and murder. A man may not be guilty of one of these. But if he is guilty of the other, he is guilty of disobedience to the same God: he has broken the law.
Our instinct is to keep a score sheet, item by item. That treats the commandments as separate objects, not as one connected whole.
We have to remember however that the law is treated as a whole, one and indivisible. An errand boy carrying a basket of bottles may slip and break one bottle in his fall. His employer cannot fairly accuse him of breaking all of them, because every bottle is separate from the others. But suppose the boy carried the basket hung from his shoulder by a chain. If in his fall he also broke one link of that chain, his master could fairly tell him he had broken the chain.
A person may avoid most sins because he never wanted them or never had the chance. The one sin he does commit shows where his will stands.
The authority of God is attached to His law. So when God's authority meets the desires of man, and man breaks that law in one thing, he has overthrown the claim of God's authority, and so has broken the whole law… Suppose you had forbidden your child to do three things. He was not inclined to do two of them, or had no chance to. Would his not having done those two make you hold him guiltless? No. You would say he was not inclined to do them, or he would have done them had he found the occasion.
James pairs two very different sins. One is a sin of corrupt desire, the other a sin of violence. True obedience would hate both alike.
Here it is the law that crushes self-righteousness. The law is God's own law, so it must be inflexible, and it refuses every excuse men make… If there were true obedience, one claim of God would be as binding as another, and violence would be as hateful to us as corruption.
Behind the argument lies a comfortable hope that many men carry about the God who gave the law at Mount Sinai.
They imagine that a little sin here and there, now and then, will meet with mild dealing, so that there is no need to be over-righteous… No idea was more insulting to the authority of Him who had spoken at Sinai. None was more destructive of the law itself, which must be inflexible. If it is broken in a single point, righteousness under it is gone, and the honour of the whole is compromised.
If no one passes this test, what standard will we face at the judgment? James answers in the next verse. His answer turns back to the poor man at the start of the passage.
We stand before God and will be judged on the basis of the "law of liberty." That phrase means the revelation of God's will which has reached us in Christ… We stand in the light of the supreme display of God's mercy in Christ, so we are responsible to show mercy ourselves. This brings us back to the matter the paragraph started with. Their treatment of "the poor man in shabby clothing" had not been according to the mercy shown in the Gospel.
- One Speaker. Both commands come from the same God. Keep one and break the other, and you have still defied Him.
- One law. The commandments are links in a chain, not bottles in a basket; snap one link and the chain itself is broken.
- One breach. The sin a person commits shows his will. Where God's authority crosses his desire, he pushes that authority aside, and the whole law with it.
- One standard. God weighs violence and corruption alike. The law will not bend, so the hope of mild treatment for small sins collapses.
- One mercy. We are judged by the law of liberty — God's will made known in Christ. Those who stand in the light of such mercy must show mercy, starting with the poor man in shabby clothing.