John MacArthur
16—The Blasphemous Sin of Defaming Others (4:11–12)
Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor? (4:11–12)
When medieval monks compiled a list of the seven deadly sins, they included pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and laziness. Conspicuously absent from that list was the sin of slandering others. Nor, in all likelihood, would slander rank very high on any contemporary list of serious sins. It is so widespread we scarcely seem to notice it.
Despite our seemingly casual attitude toward it, slander is a particularly destructive sin. Writing in the 1828 edition of his dictionary, Noah Webster defined slander as “a false tale or report maliciously uttered, and tending to injure the reputation of another by lessening him in the esteem of his fellow citizens, by exposing him to impeachment and punishment, or by impairing his means of living.” Slander strikes at people’s dignity, defames their character, and destroys their reputation—their most priceless worldly asset (Prov. 22:1; Eccles. 7:1). Human society recognizes the gravity of slander and passes laws allowing those whose good name is slandered to sue for defamation of character.
Not only is slander a devastating sin, it is also a ubiquitous one. While other sins require a particular set of circumstances before they can be committed, slander needs only a malicious tongue driven by hatred (cf. Pss. 41:7–8; 109:3). Because it is easy to commit, slander is widespread, almost inescapable. As Hamlet warned Ophelia, “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny [slander]” (Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, scene 1).
The Bible has much to say about slander. The Old Testament denounces the sin of slandering God or men more often than it does any other sin. In Leviticus 19:16, God commands His people, “You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people.” It is the mark of a godly man that “he does not slander with his tongue” (Ps. 15:3); it is the mark of the wicked that they do slander others (Ps. 50:19–20; Jer. 6:28; 9:4; Rom. 1:30). The seriousness of slander caused David to vow, “Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy” (Ps. 101:5), and to pray, “May a slanderer not be established in the earth” (Ps. 140:11). Solomon wisely counseled against associating with a slanderer (Prov. 20:19).
The New Testament also condemns slander. The Lord Jesus Christ identified its source as an evil heart (Matt. 15:19) and taught that it defiles a person (Matt. 15:20). Paul feared that he would find slander among the Corinthians when he visited them (2 Cor. 12:20), and he commanded the Ephesians (Eph. 4:31) and the Colossians (Col. 3:8) to avoid it. Peter also exhorted his readers not to slander others (1 Pet. 2:1).
The Scriptures chronicle the devastating effects of slander. Proverbs 16:28 and 17:9 note that it destroys friendships. Proverbs 18:8 and 26:22 speak of the deep wounds inflicted on the one slandered, while Proverbs 11:9 and Isaiah 32:7 warn that slander can ultimately destroy people. Slanderers stir up contention (Prov. 26:20), spread strife (6:19), and become fools (10:18).
The Bible gives many illustrations of slander. Laban’s sons slandered Jacob, saying of him, “Jacob has taken away all that was our father’s, and from what belonged to our father he has made all this wealth” (Gen. 31:1). Saul’s conniving servant Ziba slandered Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth to David, falsely accusing him of plotting to usurp David’s throne (2 Sam. 16:3)—a charge Mephibosheth vehemently denied (2 Sam. 19:25–27). At the instigation of the wicked queen Jezebel, two worthless men slandered righteous Naboth, bringing about his execution (1 Kings 21:13). The enemies of those Jews who returned from exile slandered them to their Persian overlords (Ezra 4:6–16), causing the work of rebuilding Jerusalem to be halted (Ezra 4:17–24). The Arabian king Gashmu slandered the returned exiles and Nehemiah, claiming they plotted to rebel and make Nehemiah their king (Neh. 6:5–7). Haman, that genocidal foe of the Jews, slandered them to the Persian king Ahasuerus (Esther 3:8). David (1 Sam. 24:9; Ps. 31:13), John the Baptist (Matt. 11:18), our Lord (Matt. 11:19; 26:59; John 8:41, 48), and the apostle Paul (Rom. 3:8) were also targets of slander.
One of the most striking illustrations of the catastrophic damage the sin of slander can cause is found in David’s war with the Ammonites and their Aramean allies. The story unfolds in 2 Samuel 10:
Now it happened afterwards that the king of the Ammonites died, and Hanun his son became king in his place. Then David said, “I will show kindness to Hanun the son of Nahash, just as his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent some of his servants to console him concerning his father. (vv. 1–2a)
Seeking to show kindness to the Ammonite king whose father had shown him kindness (perhaps when David had been a fugitive from Saul in nearby Moab; cf. 1 Sam. 22:3–4), David sent a delegation to console him. Hanun’s advisors, however, poisoned his mind against David:
But when David’s servants came to the land of the Ammonites, the princes of the Ammonites said to Hanun their lord, “Do you think that David is honoring your father because he has sent consolers to you? Has David not sent his servants to you in order to search the city, to spy it out and overthrow it?” So Hanun took David’s servants and shaved off half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle as far as their hips, and sent them away. When they told it to David, he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly humiliated. And the king said, “Stay at Jericho until your beards grow, and then return.” (vv. 2b-5)
Realizing that their public humiliation of David’s envoys would inevitably result in war with Israel, the Ammonites hired mercenaries (v. 6). Hearing of the Ammonites’ mobilization, David sent his army, led by Joab, to meet them in battle (v. 7). The ensuing war ended in a disastrous defeat for the Ammonites and their allies:
The sons of Ammon came out and drew up in battle array at the entrance of the city, while the Arameans of Zobah and of Rehob and the men of Tob and Maacah were by themselves in the field. Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him in front and in the rear, he selected from all the choice men of Israel, and arrayed them against the Arameans. But the remainder of the people he placed in the hand of Abishai his brother, and he arrayed them against the sons of Ammon. He said, “If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the sons of Ammon are too strong for you, then I will come to help you. Be strong, and let us show ourselves courageous for the sake of our people and for the cities of our God; and may the Lord do what is good in His sight.” So Joab and the people who were with him drew near to the battle against the Arameans, and they fled before him. When the sons of Ammon saw that the Arameans fled, they also fled before Abishai and entered the city. Then Joab returned from fighting against the sons of Ammon and came to Jerusalem. When the Arameans saw that they had been defeated by Israel, they gathered themselves together. And Hadadezer sent and brought out the Arameans who were beyond the River, and they came to Helam; and Shobach the commander of the army of Hadadezer led them. Now when it was told David, he gathered all Israel together and crossed the Jordan, and came to Helam. And the Arameans arrayed themselves to meet David and fought against him. But the Arameans fled before Israel, and David killed 700 charioteers of the Arameans and 40,000 horsemen and struck down Shobach the commander of their army, and he died there. When all the kings, servants of Hadadezer, saw that they were defeated by Israel, they made peace with Israel and served them. So the Arameans feared to help the sons of Ammon anymore. Then it happened in the spring, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. (10:8–11:1)
A war involving several nations, resulting in more than forty thousand deaths on the losing side alone (including the commander of the Aramean forces), as well as the loss of Ammon’s capital city (2 Sam. 12:26–29), was brought about by the the Ammonite princes’ slanderous lies about David’s motives (2 Sam. 10:3).
Slander originated in the Garden of Eden, perpetrated by Satan (whose other common title, “devil,” fittingly means “slanderer”; cf. Rev. 12:10). Key to his successful temptation of Eve were his slanderous misrepresentations of God’s character and motives:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Gen. 3:1–6)
In verse 1 Satan slandered God’s integrity (“Indeed, has God said …”); in verse 5 he slandered God’s motives (“God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God …”), implying God was selfishly withholding something good from Adam and Eve. Thus, the first act of slander in human history led directly to the first sin. Slander is a very serious sin which God both hates (Prov. 6:16–19) and will judge (Ps. 52:1–5).
Before approaching the text of James 4:11–12, a common misconception needs to be dealt with. The biblical injunctions against slander do not, as many in the church today erroneously believe, prohibit rebuking those who persist in unrepentant sin. On the contrary, such public exposure of sin is commanded in Scripture. In Matthew 18:15–17, Jesus set forth the parameters for dealing with sinning Christians:
If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
Those who refuse to repent after private warnings are to be rebuked publicly before the church. Paul repeated the Lord’s command in Titus 3:10, telling Titus to “reject a factious man after a first and second warning,” and he himself publicly rebuked such a person (1 Cor. 5:1–5). Thus, James’s words do not speak against one another do not forbid exposing sin with righteous intent, but rather lying with malicious intent. Katalaleō (speak against) appears only here and in 1 Peter 2:12 and 3:16. Along with the related nouns katalalia (“slander”; 2 Cor. 12:20; 1 Pet. 2:1) and katalalous (“slanderers”; Rom. 1:30), it refers to mindless, thoughtless, careless, critical, derogatory, untrue speech directed against others.
As noted throughout this commentary, James wrote his epistle to present tests of a living, genuine, saving faith. Having just shown that the mark of a true believer is humility (James 4:10), he then reveals one practical way in which humility is violated and pride revealed, through defaming others. A person whose life is characterized by habitual slander and condemnation of others betrays an evil, unloving, unregenerate heart (1 John 2:9–10; 4:20). Their mouths become tunnels through which depravity exits their hearts. On the other hand, sanctified speech marks believers (Eph. 4:25, 29; Col. 4:6). The issue of slander, then, becomes a test of genuine salvation, and for believers, a measure of spiritual maturity.
To help believers control their tongues and avoid slander, James exhorts us to examine four areas of our thinking: what we think of others, the law, God, and ourselves.
What We Think of Others
Do not speak against one another, brethren. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, (4:11a)
The threefold repetition brethren … brother … brother reminds us of the family relationship we share with other Christians. Slander is the antithesis of what is expected and acceptable in a family, whose members are to love, support, and protect each other. While Christians are to expect slander from outside the church (1 Pet. 2:12; 3:16), slander within the church is unacceptable. “But if you bite and devour one another,” Paul warned the Galatians, “take care that you are not consumed by one another” (Gal. 5:15).
Our Lord’s sobering warning recorded in Matthew 18:6 reflects the seriousness of slandering other believers: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” Better to suffer a horrifying death, Jesus said, than to offend another believer. Christians should take drastic action to avoid giving such offense (vv. 8–9), knowing that the Father is concerned about how His children are treated (v. 10).
Closely associated with the sin of slander is that of being judgmental. Thus, after cautioning his readers not to speak against one another, James commandingly warns the one who is judging his brother to stop. Krinō (judges) does not refer to evaluation, but to condemnation. His warning reflects that of our Lord:
Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matt. 7:1–5)
If fellow believers are viewed as those chosen by God before the foundation of the world, for whom Christ died, who are loved and honored by God, and with whom we will spend eternity in heaven, we will seek to honor, love, and protect them. The first step in avoiding the sin of slander is not keeping one’s lips sealed, but keeping one’s thoughts about others right.
What We Think of the Law
speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. (4:11b)
This is the next logical step in James’s flow of thought. Since loving others is the quintessence of the law (Rom. 13:8; James 2:8), and slander is failing to love others, slander therefore is a violation of the law. The law is love codified; it is the expression of how to love others.
An examination of the Ten Commandments reveals them to be ten features of love verbalized. The first commandment, “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3), shows that love is not fickle, but single-minded, devoted, loyal. The second commandment, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth” (v. 4), further describes love’s faithfulness. Love is not only loyal in attitude, but also faithful in practice. The third command, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain” (v. 7), reveals love to be respectful toward its object. The fourth commandment, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (v. 8), describes love’s intimacy with or devotion to its object. The fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you” (v. 12), reveals love to be submissive to authority, here represented by parental authority. Believers are, of course, to submit to God. They are also, as Paul wrote, to “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ” (Eph. 5:21). The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Ex. 20:13), expresses the value love places on others. In the New Testament, Jesus revealed that the true intent of this commandment was not merely to prohibit actual murder, but also the anger that can lead to murder (Matt. 5:21–22). The seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery” (Ex. 20:14), shows love both to be pure, and to desire purity in its object. Love would never defile another person. The eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (v. 15), manifests the unselfish nature of love. Love seeks to give, not to take. The ninth commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (v. 16), demonstrates love’s truthfulness. Love would never lie about its object, but rather seeks that truth be known. Finally, the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor” (v. 17), expresses love’s unselfish contentment. Love is content with what it has and wishes only the best for others.
Because the law is an articulation of the principles of love, Jesus, when asked to name the greatest commandment in the law, replied, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40). God gave His law to regulate people’s love for Him and their fellow human beings. James, then, does not condemn slander only as a violation of personal affection, or of basic human kindness, but of God’s holy law.
Since slander is a violation of the law of love, a slanderer speaks against the law and condemns the law, thus showing utter disregard for the divine standard. And if you place yourself above God’s law, warns James, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. The unimaginable implication of that is that the one who disregards God’s law in effect claims to be superior to the law of God, not to be bound by it or to be subject to its authority. By such fearful disrespect the sinner judges the law as unworthy of his attention, affection, obedience, submission—all of which is blasphemy against God.
Experiencing victory over slander requires us to take our proper place under the law’s authority.
What We Think of God
There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; (4:12a)
By placing himself above the law, the slanderer also attempts to place himself above the only true Lawgiver and Judge—God Himself. Such folly places the sinner on a par with Satan, who sought unsuccessfully to usurp God’s throne. His five “I wills” in Isaiah 14:13–14 expressed his desire for the place of supremacy: “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
The desire to usurp the place of God has been the essence of every sin ever committed. Sin seeks to dethrone God, to remove Him as supreme Lawgiver and Judge and rule in His place. Because it asserts that the sinner is above God’s law, as noted in the previous point, sin strikes a murderous blow at the very person of God Himself.
The Scriptures teach that all sin is ultimately against God. The Israelite who sinned under the Mosaic Law was to offer a guilt offering because “he was certainly guilty before the Lord” (Lev. 5:19). Those who defrauded others, for example, were considered to have acted “unfaithfully against the Lord” (Lev. 6:2). After his terrible sins of adultery with Bathsheba and the subsequent murder of her husband, David cried out to God, “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Ps. 51:4). Nathan the prophet confirmed that David’s sin had been against the Lord, asking him, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight?” (2 Sam. 12:9). Every sin is ultimately against God because every sin in effect belittles and condemns His law, as well as usurps His authority.
James points out the blasphemy and folly of the sinner’s seeking to usurp God’s place, noting that there is only one Lawgiver and Judge. The Greek text literally reads “one is the lawgiver and judge,” stressing that God alone is the sovereign ruler and judge of the universe. Nomothetēs (Lawgiver) appears only here in the New Testament. It refers to one who puts the law into place. Kritēs (Judge) refers to one who applies the law. God, and God alone, insists James, is both lawgiver and law-applier (cf. Isa. 33:22); He gave the law and will judge men by His law. Only He, because He knows the hearts and motives of men (1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Kings 8:39; Prov. 15:11), can perfectly apply the law He has given.
God, James continues, is able both to save those who place their faith in Christ and to destroy unrepentant sinners; that is how He applies His law (cf. Deut. 32:39; 1 Cor. 1:18). The angel told Joseph that Jesus would “save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21), while Jesus Himself described His mission as “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Paul wrote that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16). The writer of Hebrews declares of the Lord Jesus Christ, “He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). Those who refuse to repent, however, God will destroy. Destroy is from apollumi, and does not refer to annihilation, but to eternal destruction in hell (cf. Matt. 10:28; 25:46; 2 Thess. 1:9).
The sin of slander, James warns, is no trivial matter. It is brazen, reckless treason against the Sovereign lawgiver and judge of the universe. No one has expressed the seriousness of sin any more clearly than the seventeenth-century English Puritan Ralph Venning, who wrote the following sobering words in his book The Sinfulness of Sin:
The sinfulness of sin not only appears from, but consists in this, that it is contrary to God. Indeed, it is contrariety and enmity itself. Carnal men, or sinners are called by the name of enemies to God (Romans 5:8 with 10; Colossians 1:21); but the carnal mind or sin is called enmity itself (Romans 8:7). Accordingly, it and its acts are expressed by names of enmity and acts of hostility, such as, walking contrary to God (Leviticus 26:21), rebelling against God (Isaiah 1:2), rising up against him as an enemy (Micah 2:8), striving and contending with God (Isaiah 45:9), and despising God (Numbers 11:20). It makes men haters of God (Romans 1:30), resisters of God (Acts 7:51), fighters against God (Acts 5:39 and 23:9), even blasphemers of God, and in short very atheists, who say there is no God (Psalm 14:1). It goes about to ungod God, and is by some of the ancients called Deicidium, God-murder or God-killing. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1993; 29–30)
To control the sin of slandering others we must recognize the seriousness of sinning against the supreme lawgiver and judge.
What We Think of Ourselves
but who are you who judge your neighbor? (4:12b)
Those who slander others betray an exaggerated view of their own importance. In a stinging rebuke to them, James demands, who are you who judge your neighbor? In our contemporary speech James would be saying, “Who in the world do you think you are, sitting in condemnation on someone else?” In Romans 12:3, Paul exhorted the Roman believers, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think”; while in Romans 14:4 he demanded in words reminiscent of James’s, “Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.”
Judging or slandering others is the antithesis of the humility James commanded his readers to manifest (4:10). Those who habitually engage in such behavior cast doubt on the genuineness of their faith.
The havoc a slanderous tongue can cause is graphically illustrated by the following tragic story:
They were a happy little family, living in a small town in North Dakota, even though the young mother had not been entirely well since the birth of her second baby.
But each evening the neighbors were aware of a warmth in their hearts when they would see the husband and father being met at the gate by his wife and two small children. There was laughter in the evening too, and when the weather was nice Father and children would romp together on the back lawn while Mother looked on with happy smiles.
Then one day a village gossip started a story, saying that [the father] was being unfaithful to his wife, a story entirely without foundation. But it eventually came to the ears of the young wife, and it was more than she could bear.
Reason left its throne, and that night when her husband came home there was no one to meet him at the gate, no laughter in the house, no fragrant aroma coming from the kitchen—only coldness and something that chilled his heart with fear.
And down in the basement he found the three of them hanging from a beam. Sick and in despair, the young mother had taken the lives of her two children, and then her own.
In the days that followed, the truth of what had happened came out—a gossip’s tongue, an untrue story, a terrible tragedy.
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