James 2:8-13 Explained: Mercy, Judgment, and the Royal Law (Session 7)

This episode is a verse-by-verse Bible study of James 2:8-13, exploring the historical context, meaning, and faithful application of the passage within the Christian faith.

In this episode of Reasoning Through the Bible, the discussion centers on the movement from legalism to love and what it means to live under the Law of Christ. Drawing from James chapter 2 as the central passage, this study explores the Royal Law, the Law of Liberty, and the difference between outward rule-keeping and the deeper righteousness that flows from a transformed heart.

The episode also considers the tension faced by the early church in relating Old Testament law, faith, and Christian freedom, with attention given to themes found in Acts 15 and in Jesus’ teaching on the heart. Rather than presenting good works as a burden or a means of proving righteousness, the New Testament calls believers to a life where love, mercy, and obedience grow naturally out of genuine faith.

This conversation is especially helpful for anyone wanting to better understand James chapter 2, Christian legalism, the Law of Christ, faith and works, mercy, holiness, and Christian freedom. At the center of the episode is a clear reminder: the Christian life is not meant to be defined by legalistic rule-keeping, but by the love of Christ lived out in action.

Transcript

Glenn 0:15

On today's session of Reasoning Through the Bible we're going to talk about how does the Old Testament Mosaic Law compare with the New Testament's Law of Christ? The Old Testament Law had a lot of commands, but what are we held to here in the New Testament? Are we held to those same commands or do we have a new law that we're faced with in Jesus Christ and James? He's very much focused on how to live in the world. Today we're going to learn a little more about how to live in a righteous way in a very dark world. Hi, my name's Glenn and I'm here with Steve. We reason through the Bible. We do a verse by verse, bible study through the Word of God. Today we're in James, chapter two, where it contrasts and compares the Old Testament Law with this New Testament Law. Steve, there's a lot of people that don't believe there's a law in the New Testament, or at least they don't realize that. So we're going to learn some interesting comparisons today.

Steve 1:09

James is building started back in chapter one. He's building up and building a case up. Dealing with or communicating should probably a better word to these Jewish Christian believers, these Jewish believers that have thrown their faith behind Jesus Christ. So this is adding up to the layers of the foundation and the wall that James is building.

Glenn 1:34

James is again speaking to Jewish people that are followers of Jesus Christ. The book was written early, before a lot of the doctrinal controversies started that you might see in some of the Apostle Paul's writings. Here in James he's writing to people that are dealing with how do I live on a daily basis. The Jewish people's traditions were taught to them from the time they were small children. It was a part of their fathers and their forefathers, going all the way back to Abraham. If Jews are anything, they're traditional. They have this ingrained in them that you're Jewish.

Glenn 2:10

So the people that were following Jesus now were how do we do this and how do we live on a daily basis? Jesus fulfilled the law of righteousness, the need for righteousness. So, as Edmund taught, we're no longer measuring our righteousness by the Old Testament law. We're measuring our righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ and his righteousness gets credited to our account. Tells us that directly in the book of Philippians. Here in James we're going to learn a little bit more, because today in James, chapter two, he contrasts the Old Testament law with the New Testament law. Steve, can you read in James two, starting in verse eight and go down to verse 13?

Steve 2:58

If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said do not commit adultery also said do not commit murder. Now, if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act, as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty, for judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy.

Glenn 3:38

mercy triumphs over judgment In this passage he's got two phrases here, two terms that he uses. He says in verse eight the royal law, if you are fulfilling the royal law, and then down to verse 12, he uses a phrase called the law of liberty, or the law that gives freedom. The royal law, literally in the original Greek, says the kingly law or law of the king. These terms, steve, tell us some things. He says again in verse eight if, the, if there is means since or because you are fulfilling the royal law. So what is this royal law that he's talking about? What's he talking?

Steve 4:22

about here. Well, the first thing to note is who is our king? Our king is Jesus Christ. So that's the king that's referenced here on this royal law, the royal law, the law of Jesus Christ. It's embodied in this you shall love your neighbor as yourself. When Jesus taught, it was embodied in his sermon on the Mount and the things that he taught about there. A little bit later, in the verses we read, it talked about committing adultery and committing murder. Well, what did Jesus do on his sermon on the Mount? He expanded on that and said you've heard that it says don't commit adultery, but if you have lust for someone in your heart, you've already committed adultery. He said the law says don't commit murder, but if you hate somebody, you've already committed murder. Those are the things that James is talking about. Those are the laws of our King Jesus, and those are the things that we need to adhere to in the New Testament of following Jesus Christ.

Glenn 5:22

The Old Testament, mosaic Law, covered a lot of things. The people that James is writing to were very familiar with that. They'd grown up in it. To give a little bit of a flavor of the context here that would be going through these people's minds, the Old Testament law, of course, dealt with a lot of things on how to be fair to people you mentioned earlier, steve don't murder, don't commit adultery, things like this. But it also had rules for every part of life.

Glenn 5:52

When Jesus came along, he accused the Jewish leaders of carrying these laws to a greater extent and tying up heavy burdens and laying on men's shoulders. To give an idea, one of the Old Testament commands in the Mosaic Law was to not work on the Sabbath. The idea was to have a day of rest so that you could focus on God and your body could rest and your mind could rest and your spirit could rest, that you could learn from God's things. So don't work on the Sabbath. God was very serious about it and one of the things you weren't supposed to do was to start a fire, because back in those days rub two sticks together. There was a lot of work to start fires. Well, even today, if you look at people that are very concerned about Sabbath keeping, they'll say well, we're not supposed to start a fire and of course, today, you hit a button on the stove and the fire starts. It's not work. And these people that tell you how they take a good principle and turn it into legalism. Today, any electrical circuit is considered starting a fire.

Glenn 6:53

Now, according to some of these Sabbath keepers, they spend time thinking up rules that other people are not supposed to do. Now, you're not supposed to press an elevator button on a Sabbath day, because that starts an electrical circuit, which means starting a fire. You're not supposed to open packages by tearing the letters on the packages, because that's work. This is to an absurd extent, and even in Jewish day the leaders were doing this. They made keeping law burdensome. It was an increasing amount of rules and regulations that people had to do. It was very burdensome when Jesus come along and said look, jewish leaders, you're missing the point. We weren't created to make the Sabbath a burden.

Glenn 7:36

The Sabbath was supposed to be to our benefit. We're supposed to be able to rest, not worry about all these. Am I violating these rules or not? On top of that, jesus was saying you're trying so hard to meet the letter of the law. You missed the spirit of the law because you're not taking care of widows and your parents and you're not doing this in love. So Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount and other places said you're not even keeping the spirit of the law that was given. Therefore, I'm going to give you a new one, which is the greatest commandment is to love. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.

Glenn 8:17

Steve, you rightfully pointed out the royal law is the one that the king gave, which is this law of liberty. We're free from the Mosaic law, but we're not lawless. We have a law. It's the royal law, it's the law of love. We're not supposed to do things that would impugn the name of our Lord or be burdensome to somebody else or hurt anybody else. Now I'm not going to steal simply because it would give a bad name to my Lord.

Law of Liberty and Good Works

Steve 8:47

Therefore, that's the royal law in the prior verse that we talked about in our last session James was talking about by showing favoritism to rich people, he's saying is hey, you're sullying, you're blaspheming the name of who you're following, who you say you have expressed faith in Jesus Christ. You are sullying his name by showing favoritism, these different things that you point out of this burdensome law. We could go into many, many details of the keeping of the Sabbath and the things that they go through with it. That's why Jesus said take on my yoke. He was talking about that. The yoke of the law, the mosaic law that the Pharisees in the ruling class had put onto the people, was a heavy yoke, but the yoke of Jesus, he said take on my yoke because my burden is light, and so it goes directly to what you were just pointing about as far as this royal law, this law of liberty that Jesus talked about.

Glenn 9:50

In the Book of Acts, chapter 15, the question came up in the church about whether or not the Gentiles were required to keep the law. Peter says something in Acts 15 that's very profound. He called the law a yoke, a yoke of bondage that, he says, neither our fathers nor we were able to bear. They viewed it as this heavy burden of trying to obey all these things and trying to prove righteousness. He said we couldn't even keep it. Our fathers couldn't keep it. Why should we lay this on other people? Jesus said the same thing. He said if you love me, keep my commandments. He had a law keep my commandments. What were his commandments? In John 15-12, this is my commandment that you love one another. That's his commandment.

Glenn 10:39

This royal law is a law based in love. It's a law based in freedom. Our righteousness is no longer measured by which chapter and verse out of the Mosaic law am I keeping or violating. Just because I do this list of things in the Old Testament law doesn't mean I'm a righteous person, because where's the love ethic, where's the greater ethic? That's this royal law he's talking about. The law of liberty frees us from all that, steve.

Glenn 11:08

We have Christians today that some of them are trying to get us back under the Mosaic law. I remember I knew a post-millennial guy at one point and he was the post-millennial big on trying to say that well, the ceremonial part of the Old Testament law was fulfilled in Jesus, but we're still obligated to do all these others. It's this burden that we're still obligated to do here. My post-millennial friend would say you're denying, you have to keep the Mosaic law, you're anti-nomine, you're lawless. My response is to people that think like that we're not lawless. We have a royal law, we have a higher law, we have a much more rigorous law in one sense of the word. Simply because now I can't find a loophole out of this. The Pharisees knew the Old Testament law backwards and forwards. They had memorized it. They found loopholes right and left. I can't find one, because now I have to do what glorifies my Lord and doesn't hurt my neighbor. I have to do what's loving.

Steve 12:11

James brings out here, in these verses, the point that if you break one of the laws, you've broken the whole body of the law. Guess how many laws there were? There were 603. Plus the 10 commandments was a total of 613 laws that were put down for the people to do. James is saying if you broken one, you've broken all of them. Well, it's very simple to see that nobody was going to be able to keep all of those laws. And to your friend that was pressing you on keeping this mosaic law, it's a burden, because nobody can keep all of those laws. If you break one, you've broken the body of it, so it is liberating. That's why James talks about it. It's a law of liberty because we know, and the people knew, that they weren't going to be able to keep these laws either. To me, it's a very apt name the law of liberty that frees us up in order to love one another and follow the commands of our King, jesus Christ.

Glenn 13:20

There's also well-meaning Christians that, I think, violate this, because we are called to holiness and we are called to avoid sin and to avoid looking like the world. But Christians, just like the ancient Jews, we take it too far. I mean, there's plenty of conservative churches that have laid heavy burdens on people Don't drink, don't smoke, don't go out dancing, don't play cards, don't go to the theater. They lay these burdens on people while at the same time, they're the ones out gossiping, they're the ones out with the greed. This is what Jesus was saying is don't be hypocritical about these things.

Glenn 14:01

We are called to a law, but it's a royal law. It's a law of love. We're not supposed to go around creating rules for other people to keep to prove to us that they're righteous. Whether or not they go to the theater or do some of these other things is between them and God. Now here's the next question, steve, because he says we have this law of liberty. It's a law of love. We're not tied to a set of commands back in the Old Testament, but yet, nevertheless, this same book, james, is full of very practical instructions about doing good works. I mean, if James talks about anything, it's about doing good works. How can he, in one breath, talk about a law of liberty that we're free from being measured by our behavior, on the other hand, talk so much about we're obligated to do these good works? What's the balance here?

Steve 14:53

Because James is calling us back to, or calling his recipients back to, the spirit of the law.

Steve 15:01

What you pointed out, that Jesus was trying to get over to the ruling class and to the people about missing the spirit of the law by coming very strict in what they should do and putting up all these fences and extra rules in order to keep the basic rules.

Steve 15:18

James is calling them back to that to keep that spirit of the rule. As we go through here and he's talking about these works we're going to be seeing that James isn't using the works as a measure of somebody's salvation, but it's a measure of whether or not that person has actually expressed a true faith. We'll see that when we get into these other verses that are coming up here right after this. But I say once again, james is building up, he's building a case, point after point. When he gets to these points and he's actually saying by the end of chapter two, if you have true faith, you're going to be compelled by this faith in order to show love, to show compassion, to not show favoritism, to go out and serve Jesus Christ. That all to me, is wrapped up in embodiment of doing good works. So to speak.

Glenn 16:17

There's a very important concept mentioned here, verse 10. Let's reread verse 10 for a second and subject that we should not miss. Verse 10 says this For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said do not commit adultery also said don't commit murder. Now, if you don't commit adultery but do commit murder, you've become a transgressor of the law. Well, here's Steve. How many sins do we have to commit to be separated from God? One One is all it takes. What he's saying here is that if we break A commandment, we've broken the law.

Glenn 16:59

Think of it this way if you break a corner of the window pane, you've broken the window. You can't say, well, look at all this other glass over here, not broken, no, you broke the window. Here's another way of looking at it. If I'm driving down the street and the policeman pulls me over and says you're speeding, you're driving too fast, I turn around and say, well, golly, gee, whiz, I didn't rob a bank and I didn't murder anybody All day yesterday I drove around and I didn't speed. And look at all the laws, I did keep the policeman's going to say that's nice, let's talk about this speeding violation or same with any other law.

Glenn 17:33

Any criminal gets charged with a crime. Let's say he gets charged with murder and goes before the trial judge and the defendant says well, I never defrauded anybody and I never stole anything. I never robbed a bank. Let's talk about this murder. If you've broken a law, you've broken the law. That's what he's talking about. What we can't do is say well, god, I know I had a couple of discretions, but I'm not as bad as all these other people because look at the laws they're breaking. My law is not as bad. No, you've broken a law. What does the Bible tell us about sin? How many people have sinned?

Steve 18:09

We have all sinned and kind of fallen short of the glory of God. It says over in Romans.

Glenn 18:14

Even one sin, you've broken the law. People don't have any ground, as James says here, just because I committed adultery and didn't murder, or the other way around. I have no righteous ground to stand on. We're all guilty. Let's look at verse 13, because verse 13 should scare every Christian to death. Verse 13 says for judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. So it says there, steve, the one who has shown no mercy will receive no mercy. That scares me. That scares me. Why should it scare me?

Steve 18:48

Well, because there's probably been parts times in your life like there's times in mind whenever we maybe not have shown mercy, maybe before we became a Christian. It's all fits into this theme of James where he's talking about hold your tongue, be slow, to anger. He's talking about all of this and again he's building a case that's here. It's hard sometimes for us, because we're still connected with this flesh to the world, to not be vengeful for people or to not show favoritism. James again is calling these recipients of his letter here in order to go to a higher standard, because they have expressed a faith in Jesus Christ, which is the name above all names.

Glenn 19:36

And all of us should realize that as we go through life. If I don't show mercy to people, then I shouldn't go before God and expect him to show mercy to me. If I go through life acting harshly towards those around me, then why should I get to God and expect him to be loving towards me? The law of sowing and reaping is one of those principles in the Bible that is like an iron vice. None of us are going to get out of it. If I go through life forgiving other people, then the great judge will recognize that and show life to me. If I have mercy on others, then he'll have mercy on me. That's a high standard. That's a high standard. Of course it all assumes.

Glenn 20:19

Again, this is for the very first verse. He's speaking to Christians just because I may be good to my friends. If I don't follow Jesus Christ, then it's all boot because I won't be in heaven worshiping him. That's a good spot to stop for today. Next time we're going to get into one of the parts of Scripture that has created quite a bit of controversy, which is a relationship between faith and works. We're going to see whether or not James aligns with Paul or not, and we're going to conclude that he does. We're also going to work out this issue of faith and works and what it has to do with everyday living, and does it deal with salvation, one of those passages that's been batted around like a ping pong ball for many centuries, but we're going to solve it right here next time.

Steve 21:04

I can't wait to get into it, Glenn.

Glenn 21:05

We'll see you next time on Reasoning Through the Bible.

Steve 21:08

Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you.