James 2:10–13

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He speaks of three laws, or of law in three ways. First, the law as such — here, if you are guilty in one point, you are guilty of all. We have despised the authority of the law God gave, at the very point where lust was active. We are wholly guilty. Second, the royal law of inward perfection: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." That is doing well. Third, the perfect law of liberty that I look into. It is the revelation of the path of the divine nature, which God has made me share in. Revelation shows me the perfection of it; the divine nature gives me the delight in it. I am blessed in the doing of it as a present thing.

This law stands in contrast with the law of Moses, the law of bondage. What God lays on His child is a law of liberty. How is this? Because the new nature desires above all things to do the will of God. So when He tells us what that will is, the heart goes fully with it. There is of course need of prayer, and of watchfulness against the flesh. Satan may raise as many hindrances as he can muster. But once we know what our Father lays upon us, we judge any reluctance as evil, and we treasure His will as a law of liberty.

If I command my child to go where he longs to go, and tell him the way, it is obedience — but it is the law of liberty.

The law of liberty is the ruling principle of a new nature, born from the word of God. Christ Himself is the perfect example of this nature. Its standard is a spontaneous, wholehearted, willing obedience.

This letter urges speaking and doing, and they cover a very large part of our practical life. But it defines both with care. Each was to suit people who are to be governed by a law of liberty. That law is a principle of the inner man. Those who have no faith cannot read it, for they have no new life from God and no knowledge of His grace.

"Judged by the law of liberty," that is, according to the nature which has been communicated to us. This nature is holy. We ought to speak and act in keeping with this nature, and also to judge ourselves. Woe to the man who says, to excuse evil, "I do what I do not want to do," for though the flesh is in us, we owe it nothing.

We stand before God and will be judged on the basis of the "law of liberty." That expression means the revelation of God's will that has reached us in Christ... We shall have to answer as being in the much fuller light which Christianity brings. Being in the light of the supreme display of God's mercy in Christ, we are responsible to show mercy ourselves... Their treatment of "the poor man in shabby clothing" had not been according to the mercy displayed in the Gospel.

We stand before God, and He will judge us on the basis of the "law of liberty." That phrase means God's will as it has now reached us in Christ. We must answer in the much fuller light that Christianity brings. Standing in the light of God's mercy shown at its highest in Christ, we are responsible to show mercy ourselves. Their treatment of "the poor man in shabby clothing" had not matched the mercy displayed in the Gospel. They set themselves up as "judges with evil thoughts," but they would find themselves under judgment.

Mercy is the source of everything we profess as God's children. So God is angry when it is missing in people who, by grace, claim to belong to His family. Of all people, they are responsible to delight in mercy and to show it in word and action. They live under a law of liberty, not of slavery, and they will be judged by it.

Huge numbers of people claim to have received His pardon. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins" is what crowds say every day. But conduct alone proves whether the grace of God has really penetrated the soul. Where it has, the forgiven person walks thankfully in the spirit of grace towards everyone... People who settle for saying "Lord, Lord," while not doing what He says, will end up in the place of the wicked servant in that parable... Our God will be satisfied with nothing less than reality in those who have to do with Him.

"Mercy rejoices against judgment" — the same expression as in Exodus 8:9, "Glory over me."

Notice that the last phrase of verse 13 is not, "Mercy rejoices against justice," but, "against judgment." Divine mercy goes hand in hand with righteousness, and thereby it triumphs against the judgment that otherwise had been our due.

Mercy is God's usual work, the work that suits Him. Judgment is His strange work, though completely righteous, against those who need mercy most and yet despise it — above all when it comes in the Lord of glory. Yet He has shown and proved that mercy in its richest and most moving form: emptying Himself, yes, the true God humbling Himself, to save His ungodly enemies... Beyond doubt "mercy glories over judgment" in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. But are not we who bear His name responsible to have it bright within us?

Even God does not judge until He has used every way by which He can righteously show mercy. If that is so, what about us? We are given no position as judges at all, and we have received the immeasurably wonderful mercy of God, though we deserved nothing of the kind.

God delights to show mercy. If we profess the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ and show no mercy, we are not acting in line with the new nature, which delights to show mercy rather than judgment. Failing in mercy may bring God's discipline on us in the way He governs our lives.