So speak ye, and so act, as those that are to be judged by [the] law of liberty;
James has just closed every escape route: break the law at one point and you stand guilty of all. Now he names a different standard for how a believer speaks and acts. He calls it a law of liberty — two words that sound like they pull against each other.
Which law does James mean? One writer finds three laws in this letter. Only the last of them appears in this verse.
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.
A rule only feels like bondage when it cuts against what you want. The phrase holds together because God gives a nature that wants what He commands.
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.
Darby illustrates it with a child:
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.
One life shows what this nature looks like when it is lived out in full.
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.
The verse joins what we say to what we do.
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.
This law measures us by the life God has put within us. That removes a favourite excuse: the flesh made me do it.
"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.
The light we stand in is fuller, not dimmer. And it takes us back to the failure James opened the chapter with — how they treated a poor visitor.
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.
- New nature. The law of liberty is the path of the divine nature God has given. Revelation shows how perfect it is; the nature itself gives the delight in it.
- New delight. It is freedom because the command and the desire now run together. The heart goes with God's will instead of straining against it. Prayer and watchfulness are still needed.
- New pattern. Christ lived this nature out in full. So the obedience here is spontaneous and wholehearted, never grudging.
- New scope. Speech and action cover most of practical life. Both are to match an inner principle that people without faith cannot read.
- New test. That nature is our measure, so we judge ourselves first. The flesh is no excuse. And the mercy we received in Christ becomes mercy we show to the poor man.
for judgment [will be] without mercy to him that has shewn no mercy. Mercy glories over judgment.
James ends his rebuke of favouritism with two short sentences. They pull in opposite directions: a warning and a promise. Which one fits you? The answer shows up in how you treat other people.
The verse is not an isolated saying. It answers what James has just said about the poor man in shabby clothing.
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.
Why should God be so severe about a hard heart? Because mercy is the very thing His children claim to have received.
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.
Another writer tests the claim of being forgiven against Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant:
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.
The second half of the verse turns. Older translations read "mercy rejoices against judgment" or "mercy glories over judgment." One writer links that wording to the same expression in Exodus, quoted here from an older version:
"Mercy rejoices against judgment" — the same expression as in Exodus 8:9, "Glory over me."
Notice which word James used:
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's boast over judgment is not a floating idea. It has a place where God proved it once for all.
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?
How God Himself acts before judging sets the pattern for 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.
One writer applies this to those who profess faith:
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.
- Received. Mercy is the source of everything a believer professes. It reached us in Christ first.
- Reflected. Mercy received must show. Conduct proves whether grace has really penetrated the soul.
- Refused. Withhold mercy, and judgment comes back the same way: merciless to the merciless.
- Righteous. Mercy triumphs over judgment, not over justice. It walks hand in hand with righteousness, and it won at the cross.
- Restraining. God Himself uses every righteous way of showing mercy before He judges. That leaves the forgiven no seat as judge.