The royal law forbids the partiality in church of which James has been speaking, this respect of persons. It is more than an error of judgment or a breach of etiquette. It is an act of sin, a slip in ethics, a missing of the mark that is fraught with grave consequences. It is bad enough to be convicted by the law as transgressors by this servile regard for the rich. It is worse to note the evil effect on the church and the community. A church of a clique is doomed. A church is only of use when it is open to the people who need the help of the gospel. The church opens its doors to let people in, does not put up bars to keep them out.
Stumbling in One Point (2:10 f.)
At first blush it seems that James has Draconian severity in these verses, but it is not the severe punishment of small crimes or venial offenses. The long list of capital crimes in ancient England shows how slowly men have learned to temper justice with mercy. Some of the Stoics said that the theft of a penny was as bad as parricide. The “blue laws” of Connecticut come to mind also. James does not say that all sins are equal, that one sin is as bad as another. As a matter of fact, each man discounts his own sins. The rake looks with scorn on the grafter. The man guilty of spiritual pride scouts the drunkard. It is a hard task to convince a man that he is guilty of his own sin.
The burden of the law was very heavy. The curse of the law (Gal. 3:13) was more than violation of particular precepts, though that was true to the last detail (Deut. 11:26, 28, 32; 27:26), as Jesus explained (Matt. 5:18 f.). The Jewish fathers put a hedge or fence about the law (Pirke Aboth i. 1) and made it very difficult to keep all of it (the law as a whole, hard enough as it was), plus the traditions of the elders, which often contradicted and set at naught the commandment of God (Mark 7:8 f.). Compare Sirach 27:12. Rabbi Hunnah, in a midrash on Numbers 5:14, taught that he who committed adultery broke all commandments, and some of the rabbis placed the sabbath above all else and held that if one profaned it, he had broken all the commandments. Mayor, per contra, quotes some of the rabbis as saying that to keep the law about fringes and phylacteries was to keep the whole law. There was a constant tendency to make the ceremonial cover up moral and spiritual lapses.
Augustine (Epistle to Jerome, 167) compares this teaching of James with the Stoic doctrine of the solidarity of virtues and vices as mentioned. But certainly James has a higher view than these hair-splitting punctilios. Paul saw that the essence of sin lies in the motive (Rom. 14:23) and that desire to glorify God should pervade all our acts (1 Cor. 10:31). It seems hard to hold someone who makes one slip to strict account and hold him guilty of all. That is true only in the sense that James proceeds to explain that any violation of law makes one a lawbreaker.[69]
One does not have to break all the laws to become a lawbreaker. One offense places him in that category. The matter is put with this sharp emphasis because of the complacent self-satisfaction of the perfunctory ceremonialist (James 1:26), who may yet commit the sin of partiality in church. James is seeking to convict such “pious” sinners of their guilt, to rouse them out of their smug self-satisfaction.
It is quite possible that those who were guilty of spiritual pride and other sins of the spirit boasted of their freedom from adultery and murder (Hort). At any rate, we must not forget that out of the heart are the issues of life, that murder springs out of hate and that all of God’s laws come from the same will (Mayor). It is disobedience to the will of God that constitutes the essence of sin. It is not a light matter to be guilty of any sin. Our only hope is in the grace and forgiveness of God. There is no room for pride on the part of sinners, setting up one sin against another sin.
A Law of Liberty (2:12 f.)
But James is not a pharisaic legalist nor a Judaizer. He adds these verses to make it plain that he does not have in mind the painful observance of separate rules and details. The spirit is greater than the letter. Our words and deeds are to be judged by “a law of liberty” (cf. 1:25), not of bondage. We are under grace, not the old law. We live in an atmosphere of love and liberty, not of repression and slavery. God watches the real motive in our conduct toward the rich and the poor as in all things. “Mercy glorieth against judgment”; mercy triumphs over judgment. God shows mercy to us in spite of our shortcomings, for Jesus is the pledge of our fidelity and our hope.
We make so many mistakes that we should have no heart to go on if we had to be held to strict account every time we stumbled in one point. Still, we must not overlook the fact that we did stumble. It is our duty not to stumble at that point again. So we go on our stumbling way toward that goal of perfection which is ever before us. It was Jesus who said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matt. 7:1). James seems to know this saying, as he lays emphasis on the spirit and motive in holy living.