Dealing with others without favoritism
2
📚My brethren, having faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory 📖, do not show favoritism. 2 📚For if a man with a gold ring and fine clothes comes to your meeting, and a poor man in dirty clothes also comes, 3 📚and you show respect to the one who wears the fine clothes, and say to him, “You sit here in a good place”, and say to the poor man, “You stand over there, or sit here by my footstool”, 4 📚are you not showing partiality among yourselves, and becoming judges with evil thoughts? 2:1-4 God does not show favoritism or partiality. As believers in Christ we must follow Him in this (Rom 2:11; 1 Cor 12:13; Eph 6:9; Col 3:11, 25; 1 Tim 5:21; 1 Pet 1:17). It is a sad truth that this instruction is often ignored and disobeyed in churches. James (and God’s Spirit speaking through James) plainly tells us that favoritism comes from “evil thoughts” (v 4). In Christ we are to accept all men alike, and honor and respect all alike – Rom 12:10, 16. Looking down on fellow believers because they are poor, or uneducated, or poorly dressed, or from a different class or group or caste, or for any other reason, must have no place among Christ’s people.⚜
5 📚Listen, my dear brethren, has not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs 📖 of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him 📖?
2:5 Compare Luke 6:20. See also Matt 11:5; Luke 4:18; 1 Cor 1:26. It is far, far better to be rich in faith than to be rich in material things.⚜
6 📚But you have treated the poor with contempt. Do not rich men oppress you, and drag you to court? 7 📚Do they not blaspheme that worthy name 📖 by which you are called?
8 📚If you fulfil the royal law 📖 according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself 📖”, you do well. 9 📚But if you show favoritism 📖, you commit sin and are convicted by the Law as transgressors. 10 📚For whoever keeps the whole Law, and yet goes wrong 📖 in one point, he is guilty of breaking the whole Law.
2:10 A person is a lawbreaker if he keeps all the law and disobeys only one command. And if he disobeys the command to love he is breaking a very great command and so is a very great sinner. So we see that showing favoritism is not at all a small matter. We should see also that every one of us in some way or other is guilty of breaking God’s law. And we are worthy of the whole condemnation of the law (Col 3:10). Everyone of us needs forgiveness through Christ (Rom 3:9, 19, 23).⚜
11 📚For he who said, “Do not commit adultery”, said also, “Do not commit murder”. Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the Law.
2:11 Ex 20:13-14. Observe how he joins adultery, murder, and showing favoritism together in one brief passage. In this way he shows the seriousness of the sin of showing partiality or favoritism, of exalting some and looking down on others.⚜
12 📚So speak and act as those who will be judged 📖 by the law of liberty 📖. 13 📚For the one who has not shown mercy will have judgment without mercy. And mercy rejoices against judgment.
Dead faith
14 📚What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, and does not have works? Can such faith save him 📖? 15 📚If a brother or sister is without clothing, and destitute of daily food, 16 📚and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled”, but you do not give them those things which are needful to the body, what is the use? 17 📚Even so faith, if it is without works, is dead, being alone.
2:15-17 All words and no action is a mark of spiritual death. Compare 1 John 3:17-18. A person who behaves in this way shows he does not have God’s love in him. If he does not have love he does not know God (1 John 4:8). In other words, the faith he claims to have is not real (note and references on giving at 2 Cor 9:15). What is “dead” faith? A faith that does not produce what God wants to see – mercy, love, kindness, etc (Gal 5:22-23). A dead faith may be very orthodox. It may believe the right doctrines. It may persuade itself that it has a firm belief in God and His Word. But it has not laid hold of the Lord Jesus in a saving, life-giving way. Compare John 5:39-40.⚜
18 📚Yes, a man may say, “You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works”.
2:18 Someone may object to James’ teaching and say, “some people have faith, others have deeds. They are both an important part of religion. But the one can exist without the other”. James denies this. He insists that if there are no good deeds there is no faith. It is quite impossible to show faith without deeds.⚜
19 📚You believe that there is one God. You do well to believe it, but the devils also believe it, and tremble.
2:19 Demons know the truth about God and Christ. See also Mark 5:2-7. They “believe”, but they are not saved. They believe, but they are without good works. They do not have a living faith that changes them. It is a sad and terrible truth that many very religious people, including many Christians, have no more of a living faith than demons. They believe there is one God, but they are merciless, unloving, selfish and hard-hearted. And what good will the faith of demons do them?⚜
20 📚But do you want to know, O foolish 📖 man, that faith without works is dead 📖? 21 📚Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 📚Do you see how faith was working with his deeds, and that faith was made perfect by works?
2:22 If faith and actions do not work together they will not work apart. Actions are the evidence of faith, the fulfillment of faith, faith itself revealed to view.⚜
23 📚And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”, and he was called “the friend of God 📖”.
2:23 See Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3. Both James and his readers knew that this event took place many years before Abraham offered Isaac. God had already counted Abraham righteous through faith. But Abraham’s faith was living and proved itself when he offered Isaac. We might even say that the offering of Isaac was inherent in Abraham’s faith long before he actually offered him.⚜
24 📚You see then that a man is justified by deeds, and not by faith only.
2:24 He is speaking this way for the sake of emphasis. He means that God justifies men through the kind of faith that will produce good deeds, the kind of faith that has good deeds inherent in it.⚜
25 📚In the same way was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
2:25 Josh 2:1-21; Heb 11:31. If Rahab had not had faith she would not have acted as she did. Her actions came out of her faith, were the proof of her faith.⚜
26 📚For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.
2:21-26 James is not at all contradicting the teachings of the apostle Paul in Rom 1:16-17; 3:22-28; 4:5; 10:9-10; Eph 2:8-9. He is giving the opposite side of the same truth. He is showing that true faith and good works are inseparable – so united that what can be said of one may be said of both together. He is teaching what Paul himself taught in Rom 2:7-10; Gal 5:6; Eph 2:10; Titus 2:14. And what the Lord Jesus taught in Matt 7:21, 24-27; 25:35-43.
Faith that does not express itself through love is useless, dead faith. James’ language suggests that since good works come out of faith, they may be considered a part of faith. James is not contradicting Paul. He is opposing those who said that bare faith is sufficient even if it never results in good actions.⚜
2:26 Faith that does not produce good works, that does not have good works inherent in it, is like a corpse. It is lifeless, inactive, and will soon begin to stink. Is our faith active? Is it producing fruit for God? If not, let us shudder and tremble as demons do (v 19), and let us repent and turn to God with all our hearts.⚜