Real Students of the Word (1:25)
The image of the mirror is carried on into the picture of the doer of the word, the “doer that worketh,” a doer of work, “an active agent” (Moffatt). The phrase is tautological but very emphatic. He is not only a doer of word but a doer of deeds. He has put the word into practice and has brought practical results. He has transmuted word into deed. This is what counts, the practice of the Word of God, not mere glancing at the mirror nor chatter about what one saw or picked up, not a hearer of forgetfulness. It is astonishing what poor memories men have for what God says. The Doctrine of Addai gives as an uncanonical saying of Jesus: “That which we preach before the people by word we should practise by deed in the sight of all.”
The sincere listener pauses long enough to become interested in the real meaning of the Word of God, which is now law to him, for he wishes to obey this Word of the Master. These listeners are the joy of the preacher’s heart, those who turn to the Scriptures, like the Bereans, to see if these things are so (Acts 17:11). The word in James suggests curiosity and eagerness, as in Sirach 14:23, of the one who looks through the door of wisdom, and in 1 Peter 1:12, the desire of the angels to peer into the problems of the mission of Christ to earth. The law of God is attractive and perfect to the doer of work, as the psalmist has it: “The law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19:7). But it is not a law of compulsion but of freedom. One is free to accept or to reject it. Certainly James does not have the view of the Judaizers, who made the law a yoke of bondage even for Gentiles, but rather that of Paul, who accented the freedom in Christ (Gal. 5:1). Jesus held out freedom as the great blessing of truth (John 8:32)—freedom to exercise one’s highest functions and faculties held in bondage by sin and mere legalism.
Perhaps the chief emphasis in this verse lies in the word “continueth.” The man remains by the side of the roll of the law spread out before him and unrolls page after page with the keenest interest and zest until he rightly grasps the meaning of God. Thus he puts the Word into practice. He has it stamped on his mind and heart. He is a Christian pragmatist. He, like Brother Lawrence, practices the presence of God. He translates the word of truth into his own life and becomes a living epistle. This is the Bible that the twentieth century loves to read. The man who does this is “happy in his doing,” “blessed in his activity” (Moffatt). He is happy in the doing, even if it falls far short of the ideal in the word of truth. He has tried, and he will keep on trying. He can sing the song of the shirt, the song of the plow, the song of the desk.