James 2:8-13 – “Mirrors and Windows”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸You (pl.) do well if you (pl.) really keep [the] royal law according to the Scripture, “You (sing.) shall love your neighbor as yourself,” ⁹but if you (pl.) are showing favoritism, you (pl.) are working sin, being ones convicted by that law as transgressors. ¹⁰For whoever keeps that whole law but stumbles in one [point] has become liable to all. ¹¹For the One saying, “Do not commit adultery,” also says, “Do not murder,” but, if you (sing.) do not commit adultery but do murder, you (sing.) have become a transgressor of [the] law. ¹²Thus speak and thus act as ones going to be judged through [the] law of freedom, ¹³for the judgment without mercy [will be given] to those not practicing mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

These verses are of course a continuation from vv1-7 and complete this discussion of the unjust usher and the problem of favoritism. Verses 8-11 are clear enough to me but I’m not 100% sure I yet understand vv12&13. Nevertheless I’m going to go ahead and record my thoughts -- sometimes it’s a good idea to at least record what I do think is clear and then, every once in a while, it all begins to make sense as I type and pull it all together. It’s also always possible that a particular truth is still beyond my current maturity and I’ll just need to be content with what I do learn and then expect to come back some (wiser) day and find that it makes perfect sense!

Along with many commentators, it appears to me that James is actually anticipating the argument that someone may say, “But honoring the rich man is being loving, isn’t it?” James responds that, if you really are doing something out of love, that is great; but what about the poor man? Your disdain for him rather exposes your motives as favoritism rather than love.

Here’s what I think is happening: James particularly refers to “the royal law found in Scripture.” It is the “love your neighbor as yourself” which is a quotation of Deut 19:18. Calling anything “the royal law” is a unique appellation in the Bible. What is he talking about? I personally think he’s talking very specifically about this command to love. He’s calling it, in particular, “the royal law” as it is the command which sums all else. It, in a sense, “reigns” over all the other laws.

Jesus of course said that on these two commands, to love God and love people, “hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 22:40). He had said in the Sermon on the Mount, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matt 7:12). In Romans 13:9,10, Paul says, “…and whatever other commandments there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.” In Galatians 5:6 he says, “…The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love” and then continues in verse 14, “The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Finally, Jesus specifically left us with, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).

James is acknowledging that, if in fact, their motive is to keep this “royal” law, then they are certainly doing well. We can take the same encouragement with us. Whatever we may be doing, if we can honestly say we’re trying to live God’s law of love, we’re doing well. We may find later that we could have done it better, could have done it wiser, etc., but at least we can be assured that, if we sincerely did it in love, we “did well.”

The problem of course is our amazing capacity for self-deception, to which James has already alluded three times in his book (1:16,22,&26). Then add to that the problem that even born-again people so easily revert to legalism when they’re judging their own motives. What I mean is that by the Spirit we’ve been freed to live not by “rules” but by the far greater standard of knowing God’s heart. When life is about the “rules” then we start thinking we can pick and choose, that as long as I can say I’m keeping a rule in one place, I can conveniently forget that I’m breaking it somewhere else. That was apparently a very standard approach for the Jewish religious community of James’ day and certainly hasn’t changed at all in 2000 years! It seems that is exactly what James thinks is happening in this passage. The usher can justify his behavior by emphasizing how loving he is being to the rich man, while conveniently disregarding how he’s treating the poor man.

Where verses 9-11 fit in, then, is James saying, So you want to talk about law? You want to talk about keeping rules? Okay, then here you go. If it’s about rules at all, then understand that all the law is an expression of the Law-giver. If you’re going to focus on the rules, then realize they all come from the same Person and hence, to break one, you might as well have broken them all. In breaking one, you offend the Law-giver and hence have become a transgressor and guilty of all. “For whosoever shall keep the whole law and offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (v10). This business of picking and choosing may seem like a convenient ruse to justify ourselves, but it simply doesn’t work. Approaching a relationship with God like a rule-book is a hopeless endeavor.

This is where I think verses 12&13 come in: “Thus speak and thus act as ones going to be judged through [the] law of freedom, for the judgment without mercy [will be given] to those not practicing mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

It seems obvious to me that these two verses are wrapping up the whole passage. As I said above, I’m not sure I totally understand what is going on here, but I’ll record what I think. He could have said, “Judge others by the law that gives freedom,” but he didn’t. He said, “Thus speak and thus act as ones going to be judged by the law of freedom.” Interesting that in a context about how we judge others, he calls us to evaluate how we judge ourselves! Rather than speaking and acting like ones going to be judged by the “do this, don’t do that” kind of rules, we must live our own lives as ones under grace. I myself am not going to be judged by “do this and live” legalism.

Instead, I myself will be judged under a law of freedom, which I am thinking is just another way to say I myself will be judged under grace. If I’m correct, then essentially what James is saying in verses 12&13 is that people who haven’t shown grace will themselves be judged without it. If I judge the world under law, then I myself will be judged under law. I think James is speaking from a purely practical perspective with the belief that people who are under grace, people who experience grace, who truly know the God of grace, will themselves live under it, judge themselves by it, and then that same grace becomes the window through which they see their world. They will be merciful to others because they themselves live under mercy. “They that have been forgiven much also love much.” When a person’s life is not marked by mercy and grace to others, the apparent conclusion is that they themselves do not know grace – regardless of their professions or religious involvements.

This understanding would even explain James’ concluding axiom, “Mercy triumphs over judgment!” I’m suggesting we could just the same say, “Grace triumphs over Law!” “Mercy” I would suggest is chosen by James because it is a practical expression of grace. As he said back in 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress …” As we noted back then, real religion will express itself in observable efforts to do good to others, particularly those who desperately need it. A heart that lives itself under the constant love and mercy of the God of grace cannot help but put away its own cruel legalistic judgmentalism toward others and offer mercy instead.

We see a classic example of this in Matthew 12 where the hungry disciples snatched up a few heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath, only immediately to be condemned by the Pharisees. Jesus responded, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I will have mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (v7). The graceless Pharisees could not see the world through grace. They (conveniently) judged themselves by law and therefore judged everyone else by law. Theirs was a completely impersonal relationship with God, in reality no relationship at all. To them God was nothing but a list of rules. That being said, they could read Hosea 6:6 (which Jesus quotes), even memorize it, and yet never understand that the God who gave the Sabbath gave it from a heart of love and grace. He intended it to be understood under love and grace. He never intended that its cold legalistic observance would trump merciful treatment of other people. “I will have mercy, not sacrifice,” He said. If only they had understood this, Jesus said, they would not be condemning the guiltless. Think about it! Jesus says they (the disciples) are guiltless! The Pharisees would retort, “Guiltless?? Hardly! They’re breaking the Law!” But in fact what they were breaking was a cold dead expression of what God really intended. If only the Pharisees knew the God of the Law, they would see it all through the eyes of grace.

So what does all this teach us? We said earlier that the problem of favoritism is something much deeper than simply how the usher treats two people. We said the problem is that we are expressing our values and favoritism reveals hearts that are judging the world not through God’s eyes but through our own lusts for pleasure, possessions, and applause. I believe James concludes by revealing the problem goes even deeper than that. The problem goes as deep as how we judge ourselves! The mirror into which we peer actually becomes the window through which we see other people! The more we embrace grace and enjoy God’s love, the more we’ll see others through the eyes of grace. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

So, the unjust usher’s shameful favoritism, as bad as that is, isn’t really the problem. Looking below the surface, we discovered that he had become a “judge with evil thoughts” – his values were twisted. But it goes deeper than that. Apparently, he doesn’t spend enough time peering into the mirror of grace, sitting like Mary at Jesus’ feet, seeing himself through Jesus’ eyes. Instead the mirror into which his heart peers (which is naturally legalistic and judgmental) has become the window through which he sees these two men, one rich and one poor. He “judges” them—finding value in one and not the other. He cannot see them both through the eyes of grace because he isn’t seeing himself through those eyes.

This all just leaves me marveling at the wonder of grace. It truly is amazing. It is a very good, good thing to spend the time in the Word and in prayer, seeing ourselves under grace, seeing ourselves as under a law that sets us free. That very mirror becomes the window through which we see everyone else. 

More about Jesus would I learn!