MERCY ME!
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 22, 2024 under AM Bible Study |
AM Bible Study Group: May 22, 2024 from James 2:8-13
Theme: As those who hope to be judged on the basis of God’s mercy, we should never judge one another with the unmerciful attitude of outward favoritism.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
I’d ask that we imagine something together … although I must ask that we imagine it carefully. It has to do with the day of our own personal review before our Lord on the great day of accounting. The Bible teaches that we must all one day give an account to the Lord for what we’ve done with the grace He has shown us—not to determine our salvation, but to determine our rewards. That’s a sacred subject to be treated carefully. But let’s just—very carefully—imagine a hypothetical situation regarding that day.
Suppose you stood before your Lord. And the books of your works were opened. And then, you’re told that the record shows that you’ve sinned in many, many ways. You are a violator of God’s holy law, and you stand guilty. But the books also show that you have placed your faith in Jesus, and have been washed clean by His redeeming blood. Though you have broken God’s law, you are nevertheless declared ‘not guilty’ because the righteousness of Jesus has been reckoned to you. Praise God for His mercy! That part is not hypothetical.
But then; suppose that you’re told that—even though you have been declared righteous in God’s sight—you still will not receive the heavenly rewards that others would have received. And the reason was because your financial portfolio had been examined and it was shown that you just didn’t have an impressive enough amount of money. You were, in fact, definitely in the lower bracket. And what’s more, a photo history was carefully reviewed and it was shown that you just simply weren’t impressive enough in appearance. You were rather average, actually … and your style of dress was a bit dated. And what’s more still, the records of your abilities and activities were reviewed and it was shown that you just weren’t as talented as others. And even though you’d have to admit that all of those things were true, you’d probably protest that those weren’t things you could have done anything about. You would hope that you might be shown mercy in the areas of human standards … just as you had been shown in the areas of sin against God’s law.
Now; praise God that when we stand before the Lord Jesus on that great day of review—if we have placed our faith in Him—we have nothing to fear. His blood has not only atoned for all of our sins and has made us righteous in the Father’s sight, but He will also show us mercy in every other way as well. Even though we may not seem like much in the sight of this world, He accepts us and loves us fully in His own sight. He doesn’t judge us by the transient standards of this world. That kind of mercy is what we all hope for; and that is what—by God’s grace—we will all receive.
But that underscores the seriousness of what Pastor James had spoken about in James 2:1-7. In those verses—as we saw last week—James wrote;
My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,” have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? (James 2:1-7).
In those words, James was showing us how inappropriate such favoritism is within the household of faith. In a sense, he was showing us the unjustness of such favoritism on a horizontal level. But in verses 8-11, he went on to show us the true sinful nature of such favoritism on the vertical level—and why it’s so terribly wrong in the sight of God. He wrote;
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law (vv. 11-12).
As Christians and as members of the community of faith in Jesus Christ—even though we must confess that we are sinners who are utterly unworthy of any of God’s rich blessings toward us—isn’t it our confidence that we will nevertheless be received by God on the basis of His mercy through Jesus Christ? Don’t we—each one of us—live in the expectation of that mercy every single day? Don’t we hope to live by it all the way through eternity? And so; God having shown us such mercy, just think then of how sinful a thing it would be for us to then treat each other in the household of faith in any other way than in the very mercy we’ve been shown by God! That’s why James closes his words by urging us;
So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment (vv. 11-12).
And that’s the thrust of James’ exhortation to us in this passage. It teaches us that, as those who hope to be judged on the basis of God’s mercy, we should never judge one another with the unmerciful attitude of outward favoritism.
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Let’s look at this passage in greater detail. Let’s begin by looking at verse 8; and at how it shows us …
1. THE GOOD OF PRACTICING THE LAW OF LOVE (v. 8).
James wrote, “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well …” And notice first of all that James doesn’t assume that all of his readers were sinning in the area of personal favoritism. In the original language, James uses a word that means something like “nevertheless” or “however”. It’s as if he is saying, “Now, I admit that not all of you are showing partiality. In fact, I take it for granted that some are treating each other exactly the way that you should. If that’s true of you, then keep up the good work.” In that respect, James is doing what a good pastor should do. He’s assuming the best thing he can about the believers who are under his pastoral care.
And also notice the standard for ‘treatment of one another’ that James points to. He points to what he calls ‘the royal law according to Scripture’. And that law is what’s found in Leviticus 19:18; which says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself …” This is a very important and basic commandment. It’s mentioned quite a surprising number of times in the New Testament; and that’s because it’s a summation of God’s moral instruction to His people. In the Sermon on The Mount, our Lord made reference to this commandment when—in Matthew 7:12—He said,
“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
Our Lord also quoted that Old Testament commandment directly on a few occasions. For example, when a wealthy man came to Him once and asked what ‘good thing’ he needed to do in order to have eternal life, our Lord told him about the commandments. And when he asked ‘which ones’; the Lord told him;
“‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 19:18-19).
You can see that our Lord cited those words as a summary of the commandments. He did a similar thing in Matthew 22:37-40. He was asked which was the greatest of the commandments; and He said,
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-39).
The apostle Paul also echoed the words of our Lord. In Romans 13:8-10, he wrote;
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:8-10).
And in Galatians 5:13-14, he wrote;
For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:13-14).
James referred to this commandment as ‘the royal law’. And by that, he meant that it’s the ruling principle of the second tablet of the law given to Moses—the summation of the laws that govern our relationship with our fellow man. Hence, as James said, we do well if we ‘really fulfill’ it within the household of faith and in our relationships with one another.
But this then highlights …
2. THE SINFULNESS OF SHOWING FAVORITISM (vv. 9-11).
As James went on to say in verse 9; “… but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.” These are strong words, and they may come as a surprise to us. After all, it’s a very natural experience among people to make evaluations and judgments on the basis of what we see in others. We’re naturally drawn to those who are beautiful, or talented, or intelligent, or wealthy. We would, of course, admit that it’s not necessarily a commendable practice. But to say we commit sin because of it, and are convicted by the law as transgressors—? Isn’t James being a bit rigid?
No; James is actually speaking the truth in a way that is consistent with the intent of God’s law. He goes on to explain why this is so. In verses 10-11, he wrote, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery’ [see Exodus 20:14], also said, ‘Do not commit murder’ [see Exodus 20:13]. Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.” What James is telling us, then, is that if we show partiality to others (as such partiality was described to us in verses 1-7), then—in defiant violation of the ‘royal law according to the Scripture’—we have become condemned as guilty lawbreakers before God.
The reason that such partiality is—by nature—a truly dreadful sin is shown in the fact that James identifies it as a form of murder. That also may seem strange at first glance. We tend to think of murder in the strictest definition; that is, as the act of taking someone’s physical life. But our Lord once explained the larger intent of the commandment against murder in His Sermon on The Mount in Matthew 5:21-22; when He said,
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).
Our Lord—the righteous Judge of all—expounded the true intent of the commandment against murder to mean that we commit murder anytime we diminish the personhood of another human being and reduce their value in some way. We can do it with our words, or with our attitude, or with our actions. We can do it through insults, or slander, or gossip, or character assassinations, or even by judging them through partiality and favoritism on the basis of temporal human values and outward social standards.
Bound up in this is the important principle of “the unity of God’s law”. God’s law is not a set of disconnected commandments; but rather a unified whole. If we keep nine of His ten commandments, and yet break one, we stand as guilty a lawbreaker before God as if we had broken all of them. It would be as if we hung over a cliff by a chain of ten links. If one link on the chain broke, we wouldn’t fall only a tenth of the way down—but all the way down. We may shun adultery, and boast that we’ve never committed that dreadful sin. But James shows us in the example he gives that, if we diminish someone’s personhood by showing partiality, we’re guilty of murder and are just as much a lawbreaker before God as if we had committed adultery.
So; as Paul once wrote,
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:19-20).
We have all been guilty of showing partiality toward others in some way. And this therefore makes guilty sinners out of us all. But that’s when James goes on to show us …
3. THE CURE THAT COMES THROUGH THE TRIUMPH OF MERCY (vv. 11-12).
If we are all equally sinners before God, then we are all equally in need of God’s grace and mercy. We certainly trust in God’s mercy shown to us at the cross. And it would therefore follow that we should also show the same mercy toward one another as we would hope to be shown toward us. James shows us this in the words of verse 12; “So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty” (v. 12).
What is ‘the law of liberty’? We’ve already encountered the phrase in James 1:25. James spoke of God’s holy word—the Scriptures—and called it “the perfect law of liberty”. This phrase means that, when we look into the flawless law of God, (1) we see by its revelation to us that we are sinners; which (2) causes us to then flee to the cross of Jesus for forgiveness; and thus, (3) by God’s grace, we become pardoned of our guilt and set at liberty from the condemning power of the law through in Christ. As the apostle Paul once wrote,
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Galatians 3:24).
And as our Lord testified,
“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
And knowing this should change our conduct toward one another. We are to so act and so speak as those who hope to be judged by God’s law in such a way as for it to truly be a “law of liberty” to us. We are to do unto others as we would have done unto us. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.
James emphasizes this point to his readers by declaring that judgment will be merciless to the one who ignores this principle and does not show mercy. In verse 13, he says, “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy” (v. 13a). Jesus taught this same principle in His parable of the pardoning king and the unforgiving servant—at the conclusion of which, He said,
“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses” (Matthew 18:35).
It’s a principle that’s also expressed in God’s words through Moses; who wrote,
“You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any way, and they cry at all to Me, I will surely hear their cry; and My wrath will become hot, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless” (Exodus 22:21-24).
But James also encouraged his readers by reminding them that, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” This means that mercy ‘assumes the place of superiority’ or ‘glories over’ judgment. Two dynamics are involved: judgment and mercy. And when they are pitted against one another, mercy is always the one that wins out. Praise God that this is true in our case! We are to make sure, though, it is true also with respect to our attitude toward others. As our Lord has taught us;
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
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Praise God that—on the day of our Lord’s great review of us—He won’t judge us on the basis of whether we were wealthy enough in this world’s eyes, or impressive enough to look at, or talented enough to stand out above others. He will only look at our faithfulness to Him with what He gave us. And where we have fallen short, His own standard toward us will be that His mercy will triumph over judgment.
May God help us, then to treat one another in the way that we hope to be treated with respect to our standing before God. We are all equally sinners in need of God’s grace—and are all equally recipients of it. Let’s show the same mercy to each other the grace we hope for—and “not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.”
AE
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