Devotional Series: James: More Grace
James 2:8-11 | 8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing right. 9 But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11 For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery, also said, “You shall not murder. If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Lev. 19:18).
King Jesus quoted this Old Testament command and so James calls it here ‘the royal law’. Jesus taught that this command summed up all God’s laws about how we should treat one other (Matt. 22:37–39), for of course, if you love your neighbor you will not take his life or his wife.
It may be that James’ religious readers thought they were doing well at keeping this law. After all, they probably weren’t guilty of murdering anyone or committing adultery. But James wants these Christians to see that they are deceiving themselves. They are not keeping this ‘royal law’ as they should and this is serious. Loving your neighbor isn’t just about avoiding lying, stealing, murder and adultery.
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- How else might someone be breaking this law (v. 9)?
James’ message is that when you treat rich and poor differently and favor the rich, the law declares you to be a law- breaker. So, if you show favouritism, don’t think you are doing fine in your Christian life, for you are a spiritual criminal! When you judge others, you are failing to love them as Jesus commands. His law convicts you and finds you guilty. Judge others and you will find yourself judged!
James’ readers might think this verdict is a bit harsh. After all, there are probably lots of God’s laws they haven’t broken.
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- How does James explain why the law’s verdict on favoritism is so serious (vv. 10–11)?
When we open our Bibles, we find lots of different laws. But James talks here about ‘the whole law’, as if there is actually just one big law. It seems that there is a unity to God’s law which means that breaking it anywhere breaks the whole of it.
The unity of God’s law flows from the unity of God himself. Yes, there are individual commands, but these are not like separate, unconnected items on a list. Each one is spoken by the same God and together they reflect the whole picture of his character. So there is a ‘whole law’ which is shattered like a pane of mirror glass when any individual command is broken.
James’ readers may have thought that how they treated rich and poor didn’t matter much. But James wants his readers to see that showing favouritism breaks the ‘royal’ summary law (v. 8): to love one’s neighbor. We cannot just pick some of the ways God wants us to love and dismiss others. Favouritism, adultery and murder all break God’s law of love, and being guilty of any one of these commands makes us a law- breaker. How we treat each other in seemingly small matters is not a small matter to God.
Pray: Ask God to help you see the ways you fail to love your neighbor as yourself and to see again how much you need his mercy and forgiveness.