If indeed ye keep [the] royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well.
James has just described a rich visitor given the best seat while a poor man stands. Now he tests his readers by the rule they claim to honour, and the name he gives it — "the royal law" — raises a question: what makes this one command king over the rest?
The words come from the law of Moses, and they gather up the commandments that deal with how people treat each other. One writer explains why that manward half of the law earns the title "royal":
Verse 8 calls the Scripture "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" the royal law. It sums up the last six of the ten commandments. The first four are no doubt priestly rather than royal in character, for they are toward God. Royal character is the character that bears witness toward men. And real love for neighbors will seek their greatest good. It is impartial, and it wants the purest blessing for the one it loves. If it is only my rich neighbor I love, this is not proper love at all: I expose my selfish motives.
One writer weighs the possible reasons, then gives his own:
The question is — why does he describe it this way? Writers have given various answers. One is that it is the law of the supreme King. Another is that it is "the law which is the king of all laws". Yet another is that it points to the supremacy of love, which governs all in some form or other. But we judge it simpler to read the phrase as pointing to the kingdom of Christ. Under His blessed reign this royal law will be the standard for all, ruling how they treat one another.
Asked directly whether "royal" simply means the law of the kingdom, another writer allowed the connection but not the explanation:
No, and yet it would be that of the kingdom, but that is not the reason why he calls it so.
Whatever lies behind the title, this law reaches further than any other. One writer ties it to the two commands the Lord called first and greatest:
The royal law is the law of love. The Lord could say that to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" is the first and great commandment. He added that the second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." To love God and to love one's neighbour is to fulfil the whole law. No one who kept these two laws could break any other law. The law of love is the royal law that governs every other law. To fulfil this law is to do well.
Preferring the wealthy visitor fails the command at exactly the point where the command has no flexibility — the person is to be loved simply as a neighbour:
This was the royal law according to Scripture. In the second table of the commandments it was plainly supreme, the one command that gave the spirit of all the rest. So favouring one person over another was a sin against the law as well. The law required people to love the neighbour as neighbour, and here, plainly, no earthly distinctions could count.
The command was not new when James quoted it. That raises the harder question of ability rather than information:
The third book of Moses had stated that great moral principle for Israel from early days. But where was the heart to prize it? Where was the nature able to carry it out without ever slipping? It is certainly not in the mind of the flesh. That mind is enmity against God, and is really no better for man.
The difference lies not in the command but in the one hearing it:
It is all a question of the heart. The fleshly heart finds the law an insufferable burden. "A new heart" finds it a delight.
Loving a neighbour as yourself uses self as the yardstick. One writer calls that measure perfect in itself, but not fitted to a world of sin:
The law required us to love our neighbour as ourselves. That is a perfect rule where all is right, and it brings mutual and common blessing. But it does not suit a state of sin, and it cannot meet it. We are called to love as Christ loved, and to give ourselves, our lives if needed, for others. The first takes self as the measure, and fits a happy state of things. The second is the giving up of ourselves for need, misery, or want of any kind.
- Royal in reach. The command sums up the commandments about how we treat people. The first four face God and are priestly; loving your neighbour is the royal side of the law.
- Royal in rank. Writers give different reasons for the title. They agree on its weight: this law governs every other law, so keeping it keeps them all, and to fulfil it is to do well.
- Royal to all alike. The law says neighbour, not rich neighbour. Earthly rank counts for nothing, so seating the wealthy above the poor breaks the very rule you claim to keep.
- Royal needs a new heart. The principle stood in Moses from early days. What was missing was a nature able to keep it. The same law that crushes the fleshly heart delights a new one.
- Royal beyond self. Loving as you love yourself is a perfect rule where all is well. In a world of sin, the measure becomes Christ's own self-giving love.
But if ye have respect of persons, ye commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.
James has just described a meeting. The rich man gets the best seat, and the poor man gets the worst. Now James names that behaviour. The verse turns a social habit into a legal verdict. The very law these readers honoured is the law that convicts them.
Favouring the impressive person can look harmless. Commentators trace the habit to something deeper.
Favouritism is the instinct of self and the reflection of the world. But it denies Christ in practice. It also denies the reality of the close relationship which grace has formed between all who are His. The inspired writer picks out one case he had probably seen himself. He puts it here as if it were only a possibility.
The "if" of the verse does not soften the blow. His readers were already doing this, and the rich they favoured were the ones oppressing them.
In fact, the case the apostle puts is not just a theory. He has to press it on his readers: they have "despised" the poor... And this was all the worse in view of the well-known oppression by the rich. Loving your neighbour as yourself was the royal law of Scripture. Among the commands about our neighbour it stood supreme, and it gave the spirit of all the rest. So this favouritism was a sin against the law as well. The law told them to love the neighbour simply because he was a neighbour. Here it is plain that no distinction on earth could carry any weight.
James uses the word law in more than one way here. One writer sorts the uses out and names the law that convicts.
In this passage there are three descriptions of the law — the law simply, the royal law, and the law of liberty. The apostle points out with great solemnity: "if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors." His example of this sin is simple. The best seats in the meeting go to the rich and the worst to the poor. That custom is not unknown today! "The law" he speaks of as broken here is really the ten commandments.
Older translations say "convinced" here. The sense is "convicted", as in a courtroom.
Verse 8 has just called the command to love your neighbour a royal law. Verse 9 shows what that command does to favouritism.
That law sentences favouritism to death. The command to love your neighbour towers above any passing or artificial difference between people. Who or what are the rich, that they should wish it set aside in their favour? And what are poor believers, rich in faith, doing when they ignore it? It is a royal law, says our Epistle. Those who fix the eyes of their heart on our Lord Jesus will not fail to fulfil it. It would be a sad descent to look away from Him in glory, as He is, to the gold-ringed man of wealth.
This rule binds churches, not just single believers. One writer presses it on the Church as a whole.
God shows no partiality. (Acts 10:34.) And God's Word must govern the Church. She does not make that Word; she learns from it. It says, "If you show partiality, you are committing sin." (James 2:9.) Once people leave the right path and still claim to be right, they must give up part of God's Word, however much of the rest they keep.
Favouritism breaks the law of love. Poverty is no excuse for flattering the rich, and the cure lies in the One who moved the opposite way.
Favouritism breaks love, and it breaks the law that insists on love. Being poor gives a believer no reason to court the world's favour. It gives him no reason to look down on poor brothers, flatter the wealthy, or dishonour the Lord of glory. He has shown us the clear opposite. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich"... As our letter says, to show partiality is to commit sin and to stand convicted by the law as a transgressor. Another letter says that love does no wrong to a neighbour, so love is the fulfilment of the law.
- Instinct — Favouritism is no slip of manners. It is "the instinct of self, and the reflection of the world," and it denies Christ in practice.
- Indictment — James is not raising a possibility. His readers had despised the poor, and the law itself stands as witness against them.
- Verdict — The word is "convicted". The ten commandments put the person who plays favourites in the dock as a transgressor, not just as someone with poor manners.
- Impartial God — God shows no partiality. So no church may keep a practice that favours some people over others.
- Remedy — Look at the Lord of glory who became poor. Love fulfils the law that favouritism breaks.