James 2:8-10

2:8-10

Read 2:1-7 8-13

James in 8-13 answers or gives an explanation on why showing partiality, from verses 1-7 are a sin. James goes back to the law and how Jesus summed up the law, love your neighbor as yourself. Showing partiality is not loving our neighbor as God has loved us, without regard to what we have or what we have done, because all of our works apart from Christ are filthy rags. He uses two words, sin and transgressor. The word translated as sin holds the meaning that one has fallen short of the law, we have not done what God has commanded. The other, transgressor, implies that we have overstepped, or gone beyond what has been commanded of us, gone beyond not in a good way like overachieving though. By showing favor to one and not the other based on what the world values causes us to fall short of loving our neighbor and also overstepping. To further impart on us the seriousness of partiality, James reminds us that breaking one of the commandments breaks them all, he also uses two of the “worst”, socially speaking, of the commandments to break, as both called for death as their punishment, Adultery and Murder as a comparison. There were some Jews who thought of the law as individual components and as long as they kept one of the commandments they were not in violation, but the law is not 10 individual things, they are 10 components that make a whole and breaking one is not like breaking one plate out of a 10 piece set, its one plate. James ends with saying that those without mercy, the unrepentant, will be judged by a Holy God without mercy, but for the saved mercy triumphs over judgement through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

8

Comment:

James opens verse 8 with If, however, which could also be translated “since” or “because” and stars an If/Then statement. If, since, or because you are doing this then you are also doing that. If you are are fulfilling the law of God according to the scriptures, then you will love your neighbor as yourself, and you are doing well or excellently. James uses the word Royal, which also could be translated as sovereign and inflects the meaning that they are the Kings law, and are of the highest authority with no court of appeals or any arbitration available.

Question:

How often do we in our unperfect understanding of God’s holiness and the perfection of the Law add our own moral interpenetration of the “severity” of different sins?

9

Comment:

James pulls no punches and clearly states that partiality is a sin and in doing so we have broken the law. Also the if in this If/Then statement may be better translated as since and infers that this was an issue with the Christian Jews that James was writing this letter to. So it could be translated as “Since you show partiality, you are sinning and breaking law of God” James also uses in this verse two words for sin, Harmartia, translated as sin and means missing the mark or falling short of God’s standard of righteousness, and parabates, translated as transgressors, which refers to someone who willfully goes beyond God’s limits. One meaning coming short of and the other going to far, but both sinful.

Question:

Does everyone understand the difference between the two uses of sin in this verse, sin and transgression?

10

Comment:

Here we have the root of the oneness of the Law. If you break one of the commandments, either in thought or deed, you have broken all of them. They are not individual items, they are a set that make up a whole. So then we can take this back to what James has been talking about, showing partiality is a sin, in that we are not loving our neighbors as ourselves and God has loved us, so we are failing in or breaking the whole law. Any sin in this way is the same, any sin causes us to fail and be guilty of breaking the whole law.

Question:

Doesn’t this aspect of God’s law, that all of the commandments are one and breaking one is breaking them all, also show the aspect of impartiality on God’s part in dealing with sin?