James 2:1-13

James 1:26-2:13

-----If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. [27] Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

-----[2:1] My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. [2] For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, [3] and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "You sit here in a good place," while you say to the poor man, "You stand over there," or, "Sit down at my feet," [4] have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? [5] Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? [6] But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? [7] Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?

-----[8] If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. [9] But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. [10] For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. [11] For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. [12] So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. [13] For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Two paragraphs: one topic.

----James turns from his description of “pure religion” in verse 27 of chapter 1 to a description of one way that his audience was violating pure religion by being unkind to the helpless because of worldly desires.

----Paragraph 1--verses 1-7--has almost unanimously been understood to be an instance of a poor man and a rich man coming into the worship gathering of a church. The problem then is that the Christians are treating the rich with greater kindness, as demonstrated by his preferential seating. James then shows that they are judging wickedly, based on earthly wisdom (see commentary on James 1:9-11), rather than God's wisdom. They did not esteem the poor as God does, but they esteemed the rich wrongly, based on his earthly riches.

-----Paragraph 2--verses 8-13--continues to talk about this partiality. James argues that one cannot fulfill the law in partiality. If a person says he is obedient to Christ and chooses to whom he will apply the law is in reality disobedient. This is because one God gave every command and any transgression of the law is a transgression of God. So those who think themselves obedient based on selective fulfillment of the law have transgressed God all the same. Based on what he has just said about the transgression of the law James then argues that we aught to “speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.” Calvin points out that “such a declaration might have smitten them with immoderate terror. To correct or mitigate what they might have thought severe, he adds, 'the law of liberty'.” Calvin shows how this law of liberty relates to the following two verses, “Except ye wish to undergo the rigor of the law, ye must be less rigid towards your neighbors; for the law of liberty is the same as the mercy of God, which delivers us from the curse of the law.”

What does mercy have to do with preferential seating?

-----Paragraph 1 is talking about being impartiality. Paragraph 2 is talking about the same thing. The interpretations do not fit together. Taken as one, James argues, don't be nicer to the poor than to the rich because it is inconsistent with God's wisdom. Then, in paragraph 2, he argues the law cannot be filled with by such impartiality. And so because God has been merciful to them they must be merciful. To distill it down further James says, “Don't be nicer to one person than another because if you aren't merciful you will be judged.” The question that everyone should be asking is, “What on earth does mercy have to do with preferential seating?” How can preferential seating be the same as being unmerciful? If James has had mercy in mind from verse 1 of chapter 2 then why would he use an example that shows nothing of judgment?

-----I wrestled with this question for quite a while. The only explanation I could see was that perhaps paragraph 1's context was not the assumed context. What if it was a context that has to do with judging? Then I thought, “What if it is an assembly of believers for the purpose of judging within the body, as God commands His people to do?” I searched for any clue in my commentaries for anyone who had dealt with the discrepancy between the two paragraphs. I finally found, in Douglass Moo's commentary on James a reference to a man who had argued that the passage was a judicial setting. So I followed that trail to the Harvard Theological Review from 1969. Moo referenced an article there by Row Bowen Ward entitled “Partiality in the Assembly: James 2:2-4”. I will now give some of Ward's evidence.

-----(The following quotes are from rabbinic texts.) R. Ishmael said in his commentary on Deuteronomy 16:19, “If before a judge two men appear for judgment, one rich and another poor, the judge should say to the rich man, “Either dress in the same manner as [the poor man] is dressed, or clothe him as you are clothed.” In Sifra, Kedoshim Perek 4,4 in reference to Leviticus 19:15 (the same passage that concludes with the royal law) instructions are given, “You must not let one litigant speak as much as he wants, and then say to the other, 'Shorten thy speech.' You must not let one stand and another sit.” R. Judah was quoted as saying, in the context of Leviticus 19:15, “I heard that if they please to seat the two, they may sit. What is forbidden? One shall not stand and the other sit.”

-----The Rabbis commanded that two who are judged should not dress differently lest partiality be showed to the rich. They also commanded that both litigants either both stand or both sit. Ward shows that common rabbinic judicial procedure was for the judge to sit and the litigants to stand. It is a clear sign of partiality if the rich sat as the judge does while the poor stand as a litigant commonly does. James also presents the possibility that the believers might keep the command that both litigants sit, but make the poor sit on the floor, thus degrading him.

-----If the setting is understood to be liturgical then the two men are shown their seat because they are strangers to the meeting, but then it would not make any sense for James to say you “have made distinctions among yourselves.” A liturgical explanation shows that the two are part of the congregation and must be seated in accordance with the Jewish congregation's judicial gathering. This explanation also makes verse 4 more literal as they really would be “judges with evil thoughts.”

Review

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your [judicial] assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in [because one has a grievance against the other], and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing [as is a danger when you allow one to dress filthily and another to dress regally] and say, "You sit here in a good place [as the judge does]," while you say to the poor man, "You stand over there [as the one on trial]," or [because you know that one should not sit and the other stand, you say], "Sit down at my feet" [thus degrading him further], have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man [as someone who judges by earthly appearances]. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called? [Should you then make riches the basis of your favor within the congregation?]

-----If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality [in judgment, as that passage in Leviticus 19 talks about], you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law [because the law is not divisible, but finds its unity in God's character]. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty [which will be merciful to God's children]. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy [because the unmerciful are not God's children]. Mercy triumphs over judgment [as Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.”]