Toward Mercy and Impartiality
Toward Mercy and Impartiality
When we think of the attributes of God, His divine nature and characteristics, we usually think of such things as His holiness and righteousness and His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. We think of His immutability (changelessness), His eternality, His sovereignty, His justice, and His perfect grace, love, mercy, faithfulness, and goodness. But another attribute of God that is not thought or spoken of so often is His impartiality. Yet that is a serious and recurring theme throughout Scripture. God is absolutely impartial in His dealings with people.
The Principle
The phrase our glorious Lord Jesus Christ is, more literally, “our Lord Jesus Christ of the glory,” perhaps referring to God’s Shechinah glory (see Ex. 40:34; 1 Kings 8:11), the history of which James’s Jewish readers would have been very familiar. The idea is that we cannot hold the faith of Jesus Christ, who is the very presence and glory of God, and be partial.
In the Greek text, the phrase do not … with an attitude of favoritism is in the emphatic position, preceding hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ and thereby giving special force to the imperative admonition, which carries the idea of continuation, of not making a practice of favoritism, which has no place in the life of a faithful Christian. A few verses later (2:9), James makes clear that favoritism is not simply discourteous and disrespectful but is a serious sin.
The Example
The gospel is a great leveler, available with absolute equality to everyone who believes in the Savior it proclaims
An attitude of personal favoritism translates the single Greek word prosōpolēmpsia, which has the literal meaning of lifting up someone’s face, with the idea of judging by appearance and on that basis giving special favor and respect. It pertains to judging purely on a superficial level, without consideration of a person’s true merits, abilities, or character.
The Inconsistency
The Violation
Loving, godly impartiality does not relate to the highly popularized self-esteem and narcissistic self-admiration that are so much promoted today, allegedly in the name of biblical Christianity. The Christian who knows, understands, and fully accepts Scripture realizes that, in himself, he is a vile and wretched sinner who deserves only condemnation and hell, and that it is only by God’s immeasurable grace that he is saved, secured, blessed, and destined for an eternity in heaven with the Lord.
The Appeal
When a man lives without mercy to others in God’s world, he simply shows off the fact that he himself has never responded aright to the immeasurable mercy of God. The mercy a man has shown others as fruit of a life touched by God’s saving mercy will triumph over judgment. His own sins, worthy of judgment, are removed by God’s working in his life, dissolving all the charges strict justice might bring against him. Thus his showing of mercy is not a matter of heaping up personal merit to deserve salvation by his own good works. The mercy he shows is itself a work of God for which he can take no credit.
James brings us to the climax of his great argument. Partiality is inconsistent with the Christian faith because the Christian faith is consistent with the nature of God—and God is wholly impartial. Partiality is inconsistent with the purpose and the plan of God in choosing the poor of this world to be spiritually rich. Partiality is inconsistent with loving your neighbor as yourself. Even if it were the only sin a person ever committed, partiality, like all other sins, shatters the entire law of God and makes a person a transgressor, condemned to hell forever. If you come before the judgment seat of God and He sees that you have lived a life that is merciful to others, He will show mercy to you, because your mercy will testify to your saving faith. It will be true in your case that mercy triumphs over judgment. Contrarily, a person who has lived a life devoid of mercy to others will show himself to be without saving faith.
When a man lives without mercy to others in God’s world, he simply shows off the fact that he himself has never responded aright to the immeasurable mercy of God. The mercy a man has shown others as fruit of a life touched by God’s saving mercy will triumph over judgment. His own sins, worthy of judgment, are removed by God’s working in his life, dissolving all the charges strict justice might bring against him. Thus his showing of mercy is not a matter of heaping up personal merit to deserve salvation by his own good works. The mercy he shows is itself a work of God for which he can take no credit.
James brings us to the climax of his great argument. Partiality is inconsistent with the Christian faith because the Christian faith is consistent with the nature of God—and God is wholly impartial. Partiality is inconsistent with the purpose and the plan of God in choosing the poor of this world to be spiritually rich. Partiality is inconsistent with loving your neighbor as yourself. Even if it were the only sin a person ever committed, partiality, like all other sins, shatters the entire law of God and makes a person a transgressor, condemned to hell forever. If you come before the judgment seat of God and He sees that you have lived a life that is merciful to others, He will show mercy to you, because your mercy will testify to your saving faith. It will be true in your case that mercy triumphs over judgment. Contrarily, a person who has lived a life devoid of mercy to others will show himself to be without saving faith.