The Law of Love | James 2:8-13
It has a way of surfacing when children are still quite young. Perhaps it has not yet come up in your home. But I still remember childhood conversations when someone would say, “She likes me better than you.” Or, “He’s my best friend.” And though, those comments may not have been directed to me, I can still see the downcast look on the face of the one who was learning that they had not “made the cut.” I know I was a sensitive child, but I can still feel the sting on behalf of the one who just received the straight, unvarnished news that they did not possess preferred status.
It is remarkable how favoritism, relational competition, or, what James calls, “partiality” are deeply imbedded into our fallen nature. And, if not taken seriously, the problem of partiality, manifest in a multitude of ways, may remain an impediment to relational health into our adult years. To this day, my one sibling and I have opposing memories of which one of us got by with more, or was most spoiled, or who never seemed to get in trouble. I never felt like my parents preferred one of us over the other. But my sister did. And in some families, these aren’t just the object of light-hearted stories we tell. In some, these are a painful source of enduring bitterness.
And then there is the potential impact of “partiality” on a gospel community. Try answering this question: “What kind of people do you enjoy being around? Who are you drawn to?” And “Why?” Isn’t the honest answer that there are some folks who energize us, lift us, and seem to be life-giving to us? While others aren’t.
And then rotate this idea in your imagination, and consider what it’s like to be aware it’s your physical, or your financial, or your emotional neediness are what, more than likely, are generating some degree of a relational force field around you. If you’ve ever walked through a difficult season, a dark chapter of depression, or a particularly traumatic hurt, you know the power of shame and self-preservation to produce all manner of social awkwardness, or silence, or distance. Relational partiality and favoritism and discrimination are much more pervasive than we might, at first, acknowledge. And listen. If that seems like an uncomfortable question/topic/issue to consider, then you are beginning to understand James’ pastoral burden in the second chapter of his letter to the 12 tribes in the dispersion. This is no small matter.
It’s important for us to remember that the letter of James was not merely addressed to individuals. It was a circular letter addressed to churches. And as such, James’ purpose is to cultivate wise and Biblical faithfulness among the people who belonged to these Gospel Communities. His aim is maturity. His aim is healthy, consistent, enduring spiritual community. And so, in chapter 2, he lingers, in particular, on this theme of partiality. And he does so on account of the unsettledness such attitudes and words and actions can introduce into a group of Jesus’ disciples. But he also does so, in order to engender hope and confidence that there is, in fact, abundant and overflowing grace from God for sinners like us to love one another like saints. Our text is James 2:8-13.
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, 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 guilty of 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.
So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
—James 2:8-13
James is good pastor. He bears on his heart the weight of his people’s eternal well-being. Look at vv. 12-13 again.
So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
—James 2:12-13
This good shepherd knows that someday, his flock, the people God has called him to serve will stand before the holy judge and give an account for every word they’ve spoken and every deed they’ve done. And he knows that someday he will give an account for the care and attentiveness he has provided for their spiritual well-being. And further, James knows that “sinful partiality” – the act of making sinful distinctions that separate people from one another in a gospel community - is a particular pathology that does great harm to a church. Sinclair Ferguson writes,
“Few things are more dangerous for a church than this attitude of favoritism becoming endemic in its life.”
—Sinclair Ferguson
And I think that is illustrated in the letter of James when he does NOT say, in 2:6, “you have treated the poor man as a poor man.” Rather James writes,
You have dishonored the poor man.
—James 2:6
If someone is needy, then care for them, don’t dishonor them. Few things are more dangerous for a church than when a culture of dishonor becomes “endemic” – constant, characteristic. Therefore, I would summarize the claim of 2:8-13 like this:
Protect Yourselves From Sinful Partiality With the Law of Love
And to support that claim, there are two questions we need to answer. 1) What is the “law of love?” And 2) how does the “law of love” protect us from sinful partiality? First,
What is the “Law of Love?”
James uses the word “law” a lot. In 1:25 he refers to the “perfect law” as well as the “law of liberty.” In 2:8 he refers to the “royal law.” In 2:10 it’s the “whole law.” And then in 2:12 he circles back again and calls it the “law of liberty.” Biblical exegetes agree that these are not references to different laws. They are different ways of referring to one law, namely God’s Word.
However, the clearest summary statement is found in 2:8.
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
—James 2:8
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself” is law because it is the summary of the fifth through the tenth of the Ten Commandments. It’s a synthesis of the human relational focus of the decalogue. And it’s the “royal law” because Jesus, our king has confirmed it, and it describes, in one sentence, the lifestyle of those who are citizens of Christ’s kingdom. But what does it mean? How are we to understand the substance of this summary command? “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
It is necessary, then, to consider it in its original context. Which Jesus does in Matthew 22 where he is being challenged by an expert in the law. The lawyer says,
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And he said to him, “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 first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
—Matthew 22:36-40
In other words, you can sum up the entirety of Scripture in these two commands. And the way to understand the difference between the “great and first commandment” and the second which “is like it,” is to recognize they represent two fundamentally different ways by which we love.
One way we love is by the experience and expression of pleasure. We love through delight.
The first kind of love is the way I express my pleasure in the taste of a thick ribeye steak dripping with au poivre – that creamy, peppery awesomeness. The first kind of love is the delight I feel seeing a sunset over the prairie, or seeing snowy mountain peaks, or landing a 5 lb large mouth bass. I’m ok with fishing. But I love, I delight in catching!
The other way we love is experienced and expressed through the meeting of needs. We love through serving. If my wife is sick, I love her by making her chicken noodle soup. I love her by sacrificing my time and energy so she can do what she needs to do. I love my sons and my daughters-in-law by baby-sitting so they can have time alone together. I love my Gospel Community by praying for them, by listening to them, by expressing sincere interest in them, by walking alongside them when they’re experiencing challenges. And they love me by praying for me, asking me questions, giving me rides to the airport, or taking in a tire to be fixed while I’m out of town for a few days. We express love by meeting one another’s needs.
We love the first way by delight. We love the second way by meeting needs.
Now, the way we love God with our whole being, is the same way I love au poivre or root beer floats or majestic mountain peaks. We love Him through finding and feeling pleasure, wonder and joy and awe and reverence in Him. I don’t love God by meeting His needs any more than I love a sunset or a ribeye steak by meeting their needs. God has no needs. I love Him by delighting in Him.
The way we express love to our neighbors is different. We love our neighbors the way we love ourselves. And the main way we love ourselves is by meeting our needs. So, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, means to be as committed to meeting our neighbors needs as we are already committed to meeting our own needs.
And further, the only way we are fully free to love our neighbors with generous-hearted need-meeting love, is if and when our hearts are fully satisfied – delighted – with all that God is for us. If I am relying on anything else, or anyone else to satisfy my heart-hunger except God and all He is for me in Christ, then my desires will be easily lured and enticed by other things that don’t satisfy. And I will be tempted to look for that heart-hunger to be satisfied by people, and things, and circumstances that I cannot control. And I will be vulnerable to sinful partiality – favoritism based on what I can get.
The law of love, on the other hand, is perfect. It’s perfect in the sense that as I enjoy the glory and the fulness and the completeness of God and His wisdom and His greatness and His power and His mind-boggling mercy toward me, my heart and soul are satisfied. And when my heart, which by nature is always hungering and thirsting for something, is satisfied with all that God is for me in Christ, and I sense that I am lacking nothing, well, then I am inclined to love and serve and care for and meet the needs of others. That’s just the way it works. For that is the law of love.
Question two.
How Does the “Law of Love” Protect Us From Sinful Partiality?
How does “need-meeting” neighbor love rising from the spring of overflowing “pleasure in God love” work to deliver me from sinful partiality? And the “law of love” protects us, first, by pinpointing the problem. It pinpoints the problem. It identifies the root. Or as we say, it helps us trace the fruit down to the root.
The “Law of Love” Pinpoints the Problem
You want to know what sinful partiality looks like, then first of all, consider carefully the law of love. Look again at vv. 8-9.
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, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
—James 2:8-9
Do you see how James contrasts the “Law of Love” with sinful partiality? Loving your neighbor as yourself – or meeting your neighbor’s needs as you would meet your own needs – that’s doing well. Showing partiality, on the other hand – that is sin. Showing partiality is, in effect, violating the command to love our neighbor as ourselves. How so?
Let’s go back to the case James refers to in 2:2-3. A dude enters the worship gathering. And he’s dressed like a dude. He's rocking some nice clothes, and some gold bling. But then another fellow walks through the door, whose wardrobe shouts “Good Will!” And people are lining up to get acquainted with Dude Perfect. While the reception for Mr. Salvation Army is chilly at best. How is this a violation of loving ones’ neighbor as ones’ self?
Think about it. If loving one’s neighbor as one’s self means being as committed to meeting one’s neighbors needs as one is committed to meeting his own needs, then it’s not that hard to see what’s happening here. If I’m looking at the well-to-do brother, I might be thinking, “This is a relationship with some potential. Here’s somebody I need to get to know. Here’s someone who’s likely to be resourceful. Here’s a person who could be an asset. Here’s someone who looks, who appears they could meet my needs.” In other words, the interest here is not in how one might serve the well-dressed brother. The interest is in how the well-dressed brother might serve me. To say it another way, I am not loving this brother as I love myself. I’m just loving myself. I’m thinking mainly about my needs and how his resources can serve me. And at the heart level, that is a violation of the law of love.
On the other hand, the lowly, shabby fellow, he just looks needy. He appears to be in want of, at least, a laundry mat, or maybe a garage sale. Maybe what he really need is some basic social awareness. “Take a bath, man.” Whatever. But compare the two visitors, and one man’s appearance spells “needy” and the other spells “someone I could benefit from.”
Which one of these individuals would you prefer to have sit down next to you? Which one of these individuals would your invite to your Gospel Community this next week? I think a lot of us would be leaning toward “low maintenance.” “Low need, and potentially, life-giving. That’s who I’m looking for.”
When partiality, or selectivity, regarding who we express “need-love” to is based on something other than their need, but instead is based on meeting our need, then the law of love has revealed to us our point of sinful vulnerability. Let me say that again.
When partiality regarding who we give “need-love” to is based on something other than their need, but instead is based on meeting our need, then the law of love has revealed to us our point of sinful vulnerability.
Ask yourself, “Am I meeting this person’s need for their sake or for mine?” “Am I acting in a way that is serving their well-being, or furthering mine?” The law of love, in this way, is protecting us. It’s protecting us from sinful partiality. It searches out motives. And that’s a good thing. Because now we know – NOW WE KNOW. We’ve traced the fruit to the root. And once we know the root we can repent and believe the Gospel for our deliverance.
A second way that the law of love protects us from sinful partiality is that it frees us from enslavement to sinful partiality.
The “Law of Love” Frees us from Enslavement to Sinful Partiality
Twice James refers to God’s Word as a law of liberty. In 1:25 he writes,
The one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed.
—James 1:25
And then in 2:12 he writes,
Speak and act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.
—James 2:12
This is what makes the law of love the foundation for all gospel community. We can obey. We are no longer enslaved to sin and disobedience. Romans 6:17-18 says,
Thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
—Romans 6:17-18
How are set free from enslavement to sinning? The fulfillment of the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah 31:33.
This is the covenant that I will make . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
—Jeremiah 31:33
Through Christ, our sinful souls are set free. By the grace of the new covenant in Jesus, which, in a few moments we will exult it, we are able to love without sinful partiality. But like our freedom to drive safely on the roads depends on obeying the rules of the road, and other drivers doing the same, liberty is no liberty that has no boundaries. The apostle Paul writes,
You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
—Galatians 5:13-14
If you are trusting Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins, and for meeting every need you have in order to fulfill His purpose for you, then the law of liberty has set you free. Sinful partiality is no longer necessary.
Third, the law of love protects us from sinful partiality by reminding us that we shall all be judged.
The “Law of Love” Reminds Us We Shall All be Judged
God’s Word works to preserve us by holding out both promises and threats.
Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of 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.
So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.
—James 2:10-12
V. 12 may well be translated “as those who are about to be judged” rather than just “those who are going to be judged” - one day. So there’s a sense of urgency. Why is that? I believe it’s because James is aiming to shape a Gospel community which is not only ready for judgment eventually, but whose members have taken the implications of that judgment so seriously that they live in the light of it right now. And what is the basis of the judgment that we will all one day face? On the last day we will be judged according to the law of liberty – the LAW OF LIBERTY! We will be judged according to the Word of Christ. We will be judged according to the Gospel – the Gospel of God’s justification of sinners through the perfect life, and sin-atoning death of Jesus on the cross in our place. We will be judged according to God’s mercy displayed to sinners IN Christ. We will be judged according to God’s mercy poured out on sinners who are joined to Christ. It’s this law – this law of God’s need-meeting love displayed at the cross that meets our greatest need, and proclaims that our sins of partiality have been punished in the body of another. It’s this law of love that proclaims that the threat of hell and eternal death have been removed from us by the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are safe. And nothing can undo it. Isn’t that what James means in the last half of v. 13?
Mercy triumphs over judgment.
—James 2:13b
Whose mercy triumphs? It can’t be ours. Our acts of need-meeting love are hardly sufficient to remove the wrath of God from us. Our conformity to the Lord’s royal law will never be perfect. So, it must certainly be God’s mercy, revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ that triumphs over his otherwise negative judgement on our lives.
Finally, the “Law of Love” protects us from sinful partiality by producing mercy.
The “Law of Love” Makes Us Merciful
One of the earliest church fathers makes this observation,
“Mercy is the highest art and the shield of those who practice it. It is the friend of God, standing always next to him and freely blessing whatever he wishes. It must not be despised by us.
For in its purity, it grants liberty to those who respond to it in kind. It must be shown to those who have quarreled with us, as well as those who have sinned against us, so great is its power.
It breaks chains, dispels darkness, extinguishes fire, kills the worm and takes away the gnashing of teeth. By it, gates of heaven are open with the greatest of ease. In short, mercy is a queen which makes men like God.”
—John Chrysostom
When God shows mercy to us, and meets our countless needs, including our greatest need, the forgiveness of our countless sins, it is not shore up some deficiency in Himself, or to meet some need He has. Rather it is to display the fulness of joy and satisfaction He has in Himself. And as we position ourselves now in the way of His unfathomable kindness, it is to the end that we might be merciful, just as our Father in heaven is merciful.