4. THE CHRISTIAN AND PARTIALITY (2:1–13)
This section is divided into three subsections.1 James begins by describing the inconsistency of faith in the glorious Jesus Christ, who was himself poor, with treatment of the poor with contempt and the rich with partiality. Impartiality blocks the avalanche of grace that is designed to treat the poor with compassion (2:1–4). This is followed by a rhetorical interrogation of readers who have become partial in their treatment of others (2:5–7). James’s strategy is to examine this treatment, now in light of the pattern of God’s electing grace. Has not God persistently chosen the pattern of grace for the poor? The messianic community, however, has broken the pattern. Furthermore, they have not used their commonsense: Who is it that oppresses the messianic community? Is it the poor or the rich? Follow suit, he argues. Third, James provides instruction (2:8–13). First, he appeals to the ever-present Jesus version of the Shema. As Jesus amended the sacred creed of Judaism, the Shema, by adding Leviticus 19:18 to Deuteronomy 6:4–9, so now the brother of Jesus revitalizes the significance of that amendment. The essence of the Torah is to love your neighbor as yourself. That mitzvah, that commandment, is broken whenever the messianic community shows partiality.2 James’s reflection on breaking that commandment, now one of the two central mitzvoth for the messianic community, leads to a digression on breaking the Torah wherein he establishes that each breaking of the Torah incurs judgment. Breaking the Torah ought to lead the messianic community back to their knees and generate a repentance that leads to a life lived in obedience to “the law of liberty.” Such a life will triumph in the end (2:8–13).3
1My4 brothers and sisters, do5 you with your acts of favoritism6 really believe in our glorious7 Lord Jesus Christ?a 2For ifb a person with gold ringsc and in fine clothes comes into your8 assembly,d and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, 3and9 if you take noticee of the one wearing the fine clothes and say,10 “Have a seat here, please,f” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sitg at11 my feet,”12 4have you not made distinctionsh among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
How James 2:1–4 fits with 1:19–27 remains unclear and any strong claims to structural clarity outrun the evidence. In general, James’s concern with the marginalized, such as widows and orphans (1:27), and his overriding focus on critique of the oppressive wealthy, on God’s favor toward the oppressed poor (1:9–11),13 and on potential violence and injustice in the community (1:19–20; 2:14–17; 3:13–18; 4:1–10; 5:1–6) lead James to focus on a specific instantiation of systemic injustice: the messianic community is treating the poor unjustly and showing favoritism toward the wealthy in public settings. They are caving in to a way of the world that James knows is wrong and that he learned about from Jesus (e.g., Mark 10:35–45).
James begins with a prohibition (not a question) in 2:114 and then expounds that prohibition with a graphic and almost ridiculous example of injustice in the community (2:2–3) that ends with a question implicating the messianic community (2:4).15 2:1 is filled with exegetical questions, some of which could be partly or completely resolved if we knew more of the precise context.16
2:1 A pastoral theology rooted in fellowship and family routinely prompts instruction and exhortation: “My brothers [and sisters by implication].”17 The verb of the main clause in 2:1 is “have” (echete),18 and this imperative needs to be connected to 2:18, where the same verb occurs twice: “You have faith and I have works.” One need not think of possession here so much as simultaneous disposition: this messianic community “had” faith, that is, they were laying claim to redemption in Jesus Christ. Simultaneously they also “had,” or better yet “were exercising,” partiality. More importantly, the grammar shows that the object of echete is “faith.” Their dominant disposition was one of faith in Jesus Christ, but, contradictorily, while believing in Jesus Christ they were showing favoritism toward the wealthy. This social exigency, namely partiality, is the situation into which the words of 2:1–13 are sent on a mission to change behavior.
“Favoritism.”19 God, it has been laid down, “shows no partiality and accepts no bribes” (Deut 10:17; cf. James 1:17) so God’s people ought not to be partial. Though James has no need to offer a proof-text since the ethical code of impartiality had been worked so deeply into the Jewish conscience (Prov 18:5), he might have had this text in mind: “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor” (Lev. 19:15).20 James refers to Leviticus 19 several times in the letter; the following are the major instances: James 5:4 (Lev 19:13); 5:9 (Lev 19:18a); 5:12 (Lev 19:12); 5:20 (Lev 19:17b). Because of this clear use of Leviticus 19, it can be inferred with reasonable probability that the messianic community’s instantiations of “favoritism” are wrong because they are not in accordance with the Jesus Creed’s reformulation of the Shema in adding Leviticus 19:18 to the standard morning recitation of Deuteronomy 6:4–9. Thus, favoritism is unloving in that it does not treat the neighbor as oneself (cf. James 2:8 and 1:25).
The NRSV has chosen to translate our sentence as a question: “Do you … really believe … ?”21 This interrogative, along with the inserted word “really,” just might let readers off the hook. In fact, James wants them on the hook and, as his rhetoric will reveal, he wants them to be seen for all they are doing in order to shame them into reform. The logic of 2:1–4 requires that the messianic community has in reality resorted to deferring to the rich and prejudice against the poor. Hence, the TNIV’s translation “believers … must not show” is preferable.
Another translation decision concerns “believe” and “our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Greek syntax is a connection of genitives: echete tēn pistin tou kuriou hēmōn Iēsou Christou. Some today conclude that “faith of our Lord Jesus Christ” is a subjective genitive and translate “the faith that Jesus Christ himself had.”22 There are three insurmountable problems for this view, in spite of its rising popularity. First, while we cannot dismiss the observation often made that in James faith is directed to God (cf. 2:19, 23), when one calls Jesus Christ “Lord” and “Glorious” (2:1), faith in Jesus Christ is entailed at some level. A translation that sees here a reference to a person’s faith in Jesus Christ is therefore not at all impossible. Second, the actor in the “partiality” is a messianist who is doing two things simultaneously: holding faith and partiality in the same hand. This form of double-mindedness expects both faith and partiality to be performed by the same person. Third, we can develop this second point a little more completely. The overall picture must be observed: according to the simple Greek structure, we are to see that the “you” in the “you have faith”23 is the same “you” who has faith “in partiality.” It is much more difficult to suggest that this person holds “Jesus Christ’s own faith in partiality” than to think that he or she is holding two things at the same time: his or her own faith and own partiality.
The contradiction and hypocrisy James sees in the messianic community is an act of favoring the rich. The problem for James arises because the community claims it has faith “in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.” James, it is true, can envision a kind of “faith” that is not genuinely productive but, as he goes on to say, he believes good works will inevitably become manifest for the one with genuine faith (cf. 2:20–26).24 One could conclude that, since James knows of deficient faith, their faith still saves. But that logic would give them permission to ignore his words, and he does not surrender to them at all. Instead, James assumes both that their faith is genuine and that their praxis of favoritism contradicts genuine faith, and so he calls them to repent and be transformed.25
Even though the expression “believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” is unusual, leading some to suggest an interpolation, all the evidence of the surviving manuscripts suggests that this text is original.26 Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a thoroughly Christian expression, but the addition of “glorious” is unusual and could derive from early hymnic or creedal lines (e.g., 1 Tim 3:16) and it could be a combination of “our Lord Jesus Christ” with the “Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8).27 Several issues arise: Which word or words does “glorious” modify, or does it stand on its own? What does “glorious” mean in this context? Here are some options:
“faith in our Lord Jesus (glorious) Christ”
“faith in our glorious Lord, Jesus Christ”28
“faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ”29
“faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious one”30
“faith in the glorious one, the Lord Jesus Christ”31
The most decisive element of the evidence is word order: “glorious” is the last word and could be emphatic and so favor the last translation in our list, or “glorious” might stand on its own epexegetically since its fit with “Jesus Christ” would be so unusual. We cannot find confident ground, but I would favor “faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious one” if pressed to decide. We quote Mayor: “We may suppose that the reason why the word doxa stands here alone … is in order that it may be understood in its fullest and widest sense of Him who alone comprises all glory in Himself.”32
Of even more interest is what “glorious” in this context might mean.33 Glory (doxa) could be a translation of Hebrew kabod or perhaps hod, shekina, or tipʾeret. The term could be (1) incarnational or theophanic (e.g., 1 Cor 2:8) and suggest the very splendor and presence of God, which would render favoritism especially hypocritical.34 Or it could be (2) eschatological and suggest the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ after his humiliation and poverty (e.g., 2 Cor 8:9; cf. John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32), which would in turn put the behavior of the messianic community under the threat of judgment.35 In which case, the text of James echoes texts like Deuteronomy 10:17–18 and Sirach 35:10–15:
For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing (Deut 10:17–18).
Give to the Most High as he has given to you,
and as generously as you can afford.
For the Lord is the one who repays,
and he will repay you sevenfold.
Do not offer him a bribe, for he will not accept it;
and do not rely on a dishonest sacrifice;
for the Lord is the judge,
and with him there is no partiality.
He will not show partiality to the poor;
but he will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged.
He will not ignore the supplication of the orphan,
or the widow when she pours out her complaint
(Sir 35:10–15; cf. also 10:30–31; 11:1, 4, 12–13).
If one favors the suggestion of the previous paragraph and translates “the glorious one,” there is a slight tip of the hat toward the first interpretation since the weight of the expression is on an attribute of the Lord Jesus Christ—he is the glorious one and therefore the one deserving of honor. Nonetheless, that consideration does not compel either interpretation and can be made to fit with either the theophanic or eschatological view. Sophie Laws is right: “James is not here concerned with the definition of christology [which the theophanic view emphasizes] but with the relation between faith and behaviour.”36
Inasmuch as James has no other references to glory and no christology outside this passage, we are left with the option of leaving the two views in balance. If we take the theophanic view, contextually James could be emphasizing that the Lord Jesus Christ left the glorious presence of God, entered exemplarily into the impoverished state of the human condition, and has now returned to that glorious state of splendor: he is the poor and now exalted one. Therefore, the messianic community should be shamed in not identifying with the doubly glorious one who humbly identified with the poor. If we take the eschatological view, James could be exhorting the messianic community to recognize that they will have to render an account for their deference to the rich and their systemic mistreatment of the poor to the all-glorious Lord of the judgment, who, after his earthly ministry, was exalted to the right hand of God (cf. 5:7).
The grammar of 2:1 reveals the emphasis of James. A paraphrastic rendering would be “do not … in partiality … confess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious one.” By putting “in partiality” between “do not” and “confess” James shoves the community’s glaring problem to the fore: the utter incompatibility of faith in Jesus Christ and favoritism toward the rich at the expense of the poor. And the vocabulary of 2:1, with its suspension of doxa until the end of the sentence, scores a dramatic victory: the Old Testament/Hebrew backdrop in kabod evokes wealth and fame (e.g., Gen 31:1; 45:13; 1 Chron 29:25) bound together into the weighty presence of a person, but now all that resides in the Lord Jesus Christ. His weight, his wealthy glory, come after his impoverishment. One can easily understand why our minds are drawn back to the paradoxes of 1:9–11: wealth leads to humiliation and poverty to exaltation.
2:2–4 Having prohibited the stunning behavior of the messianic community and set forth the theme of this section, now James elucidates or illustrates37 the prohibition with a graphic instance of favoritism. Martin Dibelius famously suggested that this example of favoritism cannot be used to discern actual behaviors within the community, and he has been followed to some degree by both Sophie Laws and Peter Davids.38 But more believe it either is real or borders on the real.39 Both Laws and Davids suggest that the hypothetical example bears some relationship to actual events in the messianic community and could be an example with some caricature involved. Wall turns that view around and finds concrete realities at work in the community itself.40 What then, we are led to ask, might that actual situation be but something just like what is described in 2:2–4? That James uses indicatives in 2:4 suggests that he not only thinks the discrimination in 2:2–4 is a great rhetorical, hypothetical example but he also wants to depict it as an actuality so that the readers can see, hear, and sense the event. Touching up his example with some Flannery O’Connor-like caricature41 serves only to show the inconsistency in a Christian praxis that affirms the lordship of the poverty-stricken Jesus Christ and that includes their own poverty over against the glaring mistreatment of others who are poor. These verses contain a lengthy protasis (vv. 2–3) with five separable actions (eiselthē, eiselthē, epiblepsēte, eipēte, eipēte: “comes,” “comes,” “take notice,” “say,” “say”) spanning the sketch of the scene.42 This protasis is then followed hard by a question designed to denounce the behaviors previously sketched as inconsistent with faith in Jesus Christ, the glorious one who, like the readers, was poor.
2:2 Martin translates the opening of 2:2 with “To illustrate.”43 The inconsistency occurs in the readers’ “assembly.” The oddity of this expression is that here, and here alone, the word normally translated “synagogue” is used (synagōgē),44 pressing upon us all sorts of questions: Was the messianic community still in a synagogue? Was the “synagogue” mixed with both non-messianic and messianic Jews? Did the messianic Jews adopt the word “synagogue” for either their building or their gatherings? Was it a dedicated building or, which is far more likely, a home? We cannot answer each of these questions with any kind of conviction, but we can sort through what we do know.
The word synagōgē could refer to three things:
1. A place: a physical building like a house, in which case it could refer to a non-messianic Jewish building, to a building housing both messianic and non-messianic Jews, or to a building now used only by the messianic community. There is support for a building being called a “synagogue” by Josephus (B.J. 2.285, 289; 7:44) and Philo (Every Good Man Is Free 81) and apparently in the New Testament (Mark 12:39; Matt 23:6). We should not think of a synagogue always as a building constructed exclusively for public worship, instruction, and prayer.
2. A gathering of people: “assembling” or “gathering.”45 Again, this could refer to any of our three groups. Laws, for instance, sees this usage in Acts 6:9; 9:2; Revelation 2:9; 3:9.46 The evidence is not as clear as one might think. Inasmuch as the vast majority of New Testament uses of the word refer to a place of Jewish worship, and inasmuch as the second meaning is inherent to the first, it is most likely that it means “synagogue” in its expected sense of a place of worship and teaching.
3. Three other factors, however, lead me to think synagōgē here refers more narrowly to the messianic place of worship.47 First, James clearly borrows Jewish language in 1:1 to refer to the messianic community and this lends (potential) credibility to the view that he sees their meeting place in similar terms, as a (messianic) “synagogue.” Second, James knows the word “church” (ekklēsia) as is seen in 5:14; it is reasonable to think he can use either term for the messianic community. Third, in James 2:2 James calls the synagōgē “your” synagōgē. That “your” must refer to the messianic community.
So while the evidence is hardly compelling, it is reasonable to see “assembly” or “congregating place” (synagōgē) in 2:2 as a term referring to the messianic community’s worship and learning center, which for whatever reasons visitors sometimes attended.48 The stance taken here, however, does not mean that James belongs to an earlier stage of the growth of Christianity; it only means that he and the messianic community “borrowed” typical language to refer to their gathering place.
James sketches two persons entering into the assembly, a rich man and a poor man, and the impact of his teaching is to subvert an element of the honor-shame culture of that day. “Clothing,” Jerome Neyrey reminds us, “was not mere body covering, but indicated one’s role and status.”49 It could indicate gender (Deut 22:5; 1 Cor 11:14–15), nationality (2 Macc 4:12), and occupation (Eph 6:14–17). The rich man50 is stereotyped by his jewelry and clothing, both symbolizing his social rank and wealth. He is wearing “gold rings” or, better yet, is a “gold-fingered man.”51 When Jesus defended John and his clothing he described the clothing of the wealthy: “What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who put on fine clothing and live in luxury are in royal palaces” (Luke 7:25). One also thinks here of the opening of a parable of Jesus: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores” (Luke 16:19–21). And the Apocalypse excoriates Babylon’s sins by revealing what becomes, among other things, of her clothing when the day of doom comes on her: “And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves—and human lives” (Rev 18:11–13). Perhaps the rich man is wearing brilliant white clothing since en esthēti lampra (“fine clothes”) could refer to that, or perhaps it refers to the kind of cloth, like the flashiness of silk or satin. It could indicate the superiority a patron might feel toward those in need of his patronage. Specifics may remain unclear, but the rhetorical thrust is not: the man is wealthy and socially empowered through that wealth.
More importantly, is the gold-fingered man a Christian? Peter Davids, knowing well the evidence of 1:9–11 and 2:5–7, where “the rich” (plousios) are depicted as non-Christians, contends that both 2:2 and 4:13 use circumlocutions because in these two instances the well-to-do persons are Christian and James prefers not to call them “rich.”52 One might suggest that en heautois (“among yourselves”) in 2:4 favors his view since the gold-fingered man could be one “among yourselves.” However, since 1 Corinthians 14:23 reveals that visitors attended Christian assemblies, and assuming for the moment that our passage is describing a Christian assembly, one cannot assume that his presence means the gold-fingered man is part of the messianic movement. Later evidence from Sardis, where the “synagogue” was nearly an open-air meeting in the heart of the political and economic arena, also suggests that presence does not indicate commitment or membership; it could indicate curiosity and seeking.53 If “gold-fingered” is simply a rhetorical contrast with “poor” and thus equivalent to “rich” in 1:10–11, then the gold-fingered man could be a non-messianic Jew. Still, the evidence is not clear enough to render a confident verdict. I suspect James is casting into bold relief the behavior of Christians toward one another, but his emphasis is on the behavior of those who claim to have faith, not on the religious status of those to whom they are showing partiality.
While “gold-fingered” is a circumlocution for “rich,” the “poor man” is called just that. He is absent of any jewelry and has only “dirty” (rypara) clothing.54 The messianic community to which James writes is filled with the poor (1:9; 2:1–7, 14–16; 4:6; 5:1–6), giving to that term a certain dignity. Ironically, however, the poor messianic community treats one of their own with contempt while treating those who oppress them with respect—which is why James erupts as he does in 2:1, 5–7.
By the time we complete 2:1–4 it will be obvious that James has subverted the labels “poor” and “gold fingered,” as he did in 1:9–11. He turns them upside-down: the poor are God’s people and the rich are withering away, not simply because of their economic standing but because of what each of these labels represents. It is how the messianic community responds to each of these two men that reveals a preposterous inconsistency, and James will have none of it.
With the messianic community now gathered and with a rich man and a poor man assigned a status, we have to ask what the messianic community was assembled for, (1) worship, education, and formation or (2) to render a legal verdict about something?55 Typically, first-century local synagogues were used for public reading, study, and instruction in Scripture (Acts 15:21) and for prayer (16:13), but were also where judicial decisions (e.g., b Shebuot 30a, 31a)56 were rendered57 and funds and goods were distributed. A good description of synagogue life comes from Philo:58
Even now this practice is retained, and the Jews every seventh day occupy themselves with the philosophy of their fathers, dedicating that time to the acquiring of knowledge and the study of the truths of nature. For what are our places of prayer [proseuchtēria] throughout the cities but schools of prudence and courage and temperance and justice and also of piety, holiness and every virtue by which duties to God and men are discerned and rightly performed?
While traces of ancient evidence tease one into considering the event in James 2:2–4 as a judicial assembly, I wonder if we are not pressing James’s words well beyond their intent. If he has at all caricatured the situation, we are pressed to look more to rhetorical intent than to historical description. In other words, James is describing partiality in glowing colors and bold images. As Jesus used a rich man over against poor Lazarus in a parable without indicating a specific context (Luke 16:19–31), so perhaps James paints with similar bold, caricatured patterns. Suggestive parallels to judicial courts in other literature may have nothing to do with what James is describing. Furthermore, there is nothing in the synagogue assembly in James 2:2–4 that suggests the presence of a judge. The emphasis here is on the community’s prejudicial response to the gold-fingered man and the poor man. There is no sketch of a judge, defendants, and litigants. Had James been concerned with judicial “favoritism,” his words would focus on a judge rather than “distinctions among yourselves” (2:4).
Finally, the language of 2:6 suggests a setting other than the synagogue assembly in 2:2–4. In 2:6 the rich are using their power to drag poor members of the messianic community to what appears to be a new setting, a court (not to “synagogue”) where slander (2:7) occurs. Moreover, the rich are described in two different ways: in 2:2–4 the rich are treated with deferential respect and favoritism while in 2:6–7 they are seizing control. The greater the difference between 2:2–4 and 2:6–7, the less likely the former portrays a judicial setting.
2:3 James now continues to sketch the scene of how the messianic community responds to the gold-fingered man and the dirty-garbed man.59 The verb “take notice of” (epiblepsēte)60 is used only for how the messianic community views the man with fine clothing. The other two uses in the New Testament (Luke 1:48; 9:38) refer to a gaze upon a person in need that leads to an act of mercy and healing. The messianic community gazes upon the rich man but, whether star-struck, envious, manipulative, or hoping to gain something, it chooses to break down its essential commitment to showing mercy to the poor. Instead of treating a person according to his or her God-given eikonic status, the community chooses to honor the wealthy man for what his ostentatious attire represents. The elevation is found in these words: “Have a seat here, please.”61 One could translate this with “You, honorable one, belong in a prominent seat like this one!” Jesus’ words about the Pharisees and scribes are similar and just as comical and caricatured as those in James: “They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi” (Matt 23:6–7). Jesus subverted the social rank evident in some meals as unjust rigmarole in the Parable of the Banquet (Luke 14:7–14).62 The messianic community confessed this Jesus to be the Messiah, the glorious one, but they were not listening to his teachings or following his customs.
In addition,63 to the poor man they say:64 “Stand there” or “Sit at my feet.” The focus here is on the traditionally honorable location: a seat. The gold-fingered and finely-attired man gets a seat, the poor man gets to stand or sit at someone’s feet. Instead of honor and proximity, the poor man is assigned to a place of dishonor and distance.65
2:4 The scenario—all contained in the protasis from 2:2 through 2:3—is now sketched. In v. 4 (the apodosis) James pulls the rug hard and subverts everything the messianic community has been doing. Not only has the messianic community denied Jesus Messiah, the glorious one who was poor, but its actions have become divisive and sinful. In fact, as James will say in 4:11–12, they have usurped the prerogative of God.
James’s question in 2:4 is not simply a question: it comes loaded with an answer and that answer is “Yes, indeed.”66 The two-edged question is simultaneously a two-edged accusation:
(1) Have you not made distinctions among yourselves?
(2) [Have you not] become judges with evil thoughts?
Thus, the two accusations are: you have made distinctions among yourselves and you have become judges with evil thoughts.
These two accusations must be tied back to 2:1: What James has in mind with “acts of favoritism,” spelled out in 2:2–3, is an act of judgment that cuts the messianic community in two and is also an act of sin. We must not lose contact with the inconsistency of three things then: the inconsistency of their actions with faith in Jesus Christ; the act itself being favoritism toward the rich and prejudice against the poor; and it being captured by James as an act of judgment. Furthermore, it is wise to keep in mind the rest of James as we read 2:4.
First, the messianic community is divided by this public act of judgment against the poor and in favor of the rich (2:4a). The operative word is “made distinctions” (diekrithēte),67 a word with either the sense of doubt (cf. 1:6–7) or the sense of rendering a decision about something or someone.68 In the passive, as here, it would mean “become divided.”69 What James has in mind is at least the sundering of the community into the haves and have-nots by this one symbolic act. And surely we can extend this also to include using a standard for judgment that is at odds not only with the great prophetic tradition (e.g., Isaiah 58), but also with Jesus’ own teachings and practice (e.g., Luke 6:20–26; see also Luke 1:46–55). And, if we keep 2:1 in mind, James intends for his readers to know that Jesus himself was poor and was raised to glory and that faith in that Jesus as Messiah involves commitment to those like him—the poor.
James addresses other issues surrounding unity and division, including the need to watch how one speaks (1:19–21; 3:1–12; 4:11–12), how one treats the marginalized (1:26–27), how one treats the poor (2:14–17), and how one thinks about and relates to others in the messianic community (3:14–16, 18; 4:1–3; 5:8–9). 3:9 opens up another possible explanation for the seriousness of his words: “With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” Here James is appealing to Genesis 1:26–27 and the creation of all humans in God’s image. Recognizing the poor (and the rich) as made in God’s image ought to prohibit slanderous communications between brothers and sisters in the messianic community. To anticipate what comes at 2:8–9, the partiality James denounces in 2:1–4 contradicts the second half of the Jesus Creed (Mark 12:28–32), the command to love neighbor as self, which comes from Leviticus 19:18, which also prohibits prejudice against the poor: “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor” (Lev 19:15). In this emphasis, then, on unity in the community James is continuing the teachings of Jesus (John 15:12; 17:11, 21–23) and is in harmony with Paul’s great vision of a church formed into a unity by the Spirit’s indwelling (1 Cor 12–14; Eph 4:1–5).
Second, they have “become judges with evil thoughts” (2:4b).70 Again, the operative word is “judges” (kritai). The expression “evil thoughts” (dialogismōn ponēron) is abstract but is found in one or more forms in the New Testament:
Matt 15:19: “out of the heart come evil intentions” (cf. Mark 7:21)
Luke 2:35: “the inner thoughts of many will be revealed”
Luke 5:22: “when Jesus perceived their questionings”
Luke 9:47: “Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts”
Luke 24:38: “why do doubts arise in your hearts?”
Romans 1:21: “they became futile in their thinking”
Romans 14:1: “not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions”
1 Corinthians 3:20: “the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile”
Philippians 2:14: “do all things without murmuring and arguing”
1 Timothy 2:8: “lifting up holy hands without anger or argument”
What James has in mind with “evil thoughts,” then, is corrupt mental processes. Besides severing the unity of the messianic community, such processes include at least (1) usurping the place of God (4:11–12), (2) using a worldly standard that roots honor in wealth and status (2:2–3), and (3) corrupting the mind of Christians to render judgment on God’s will for the community.
The judge in James is God (4:11–12), and Jesus is the judge’s agent (5:7–9). James’s strong denunciation of favoritism is rooted in faith in Jesus Christ, the glorious one, who was poor and was glorified after his death and resurrection. Faith in this kind of Messiah implicates the messianic community in a life of advocacy for the poor, commits its members to live with one another in love, and summons the rich to generosity and justice. Sadly, the messianic community has become infected with favoritism. James will now appeal to a simple, pragmatic argument: experience.
5Listen, my beloveda brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in71 theb world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he72 has promised to those who love him? 6But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not73 the rich who oppressc you? Is it not they who drag you into court? 7Is it not74 they who blaspheme the excellentd name that was invoked75 over you?e
The inconsistency of the messianic community’s living out of its faith in Jesus Christ, the glorious one, seen in its overt favoritism toward the wealthy and casual dismissal of the eikonic status of the poor, now leads James to nothing less than a public interrogation. “Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters!” he exclaims. With little comment and with heavy assumptions, he asks four questions, each of which assumes an affirmative answer:
1. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?76
2. Is it not the rich who oppress you?
3. Is it not they who drag you into court?
4. Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?
Between the first and second questions, James utters a description that is simultaneously a denunciation clothed with kindness: “But you have dishonored the poor.” There is no time for answers; there is simply a barrage of questions. The “Yes” to each points out the readers’ inconsistency and instructs them to reconsider behaviors. The first question stands as the head and contrasts with the rest of the questions. God’s choice of the poor flies in the face of the rich, who despise the poor. Furthermore, God’s choice of the poor contrasts with the messianic community’s choice to favor the rich and disparage the poor. The second, third, and fourth questions form a crescendo: oppression leads to court injustice and to overt blasphemy of Jesus Christ, the glorious one.
2:5 The opening introduction contains the audience (“my beloved brothers and sisters”)77 and the imperative “Listen!” James customarily opens new sections or creates special rhetorical space for an urgent message by appealing to “brothers” as the community’s unique familial connection. Thus, “brothers [and sisters]” is found at 1:2, 16, 19; 2:1, 5, 14; 3:1, 10, 12; 4:11; 5:7, 9, 12, 19.
The community is addressed with the imperative “Listen!,” a word that emerges from Israel’s rich heritage of God speaking and God’s people needing to listen. The word also emerges from Israel’s literary and rhetorical traditions that intend to grab the listener’s attention to what is about to be said (Deut. 6:3–5; 9:1; Mic 1:2; Joel 1:2; Isa 7:13; Matt 13:18; 15:10; 21:33; Luke 8:18; 18:6).78 The apostles carried on the tradition (Acts 15:13; 22:1) even though James’s use of the imperative here in 2:5 is rare in the New Testament. The closest parallel is Acts 15:13, where Luke interestingly attributes the same word to James. At a fundamental level Israel believed that God, YHWH, actually spoke to Israel either directly or through God’s prophets like Moses. The most common disposition of God’s people to God’s speaking finds expression in the Hebrew word shema and the Greek word akouō. This conviction that God speaks makes the Bible—or Tanakh—not only sacred writings but the very words of God, creating the need for all reading to be listening in relationship to the God who speaks.79
The word “hear” or “listen” in the Bible operates at at least three levels: attention, absorption, and action. Attention refers to the ears being open and attentive to words, especially God’s words. Thus, 1 Corinthians 14:2: “For those who speak in a [spiritual] tongue do not speak to humans but to God. Humans do not attend to what they are saying [because they cannot understand it]; they are speaking mysteries by the Spirit.” A second, deeper level of meaning is absorption, when God’s people’s ears let God’s voice in so that it fills their being. This can be found in Solomon’s great prayer on becoming king: “So give your servant a hearing heart” (1 Kgs 3:9). And God did give Solomon a “wise and discerning heart” (3:12), a heart that fully absorbed what God was saying. The third level is action. As Jesus says: “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them” (Matt 7:24). Or when the Father says to the disciples of Jesus when he was transfigured: “Listen to him!” (17:5). Both Hebrew shema and Greek akouō move from attentiveness to concrete actions: to “listen” often means to “do.” In 2:5 James may be focusing on attentiveness, but absorption and action are close at hand.
The first question, “Has not God chosen the poor,” puts the rest of the questions in proper context: God’s perspective deconstructs the perspective of the rich in vv. 6b–7. God’s choice to elect the poor80 emerges from a deep, identity-forming tradition in the Hebrew Scriptures: God’s election of Israel.81 Fundamental statements include:
Deuteronomy 4:37–38: And because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants after them. He brought you out of Egypt with his own presence, by his great power, driving out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in, giving you their land for a possession, as it is still today.
Deuteronomy 7:7–8: It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the LORD set his heart on you and chose you—for you were the fewest of all peoples. It was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 14:2: For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; it is you the LORD has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.82
God’s election, clearly concerned mostly with choosing Israel as a nation and not individual Israelites, as emerges later in systematic theology, nonetheless can be spoken of both of individuals and of the designation of an individual—such as Peter—to carry out a specific mission. Peter was chosen to preach the gospel to Gentiles (Acts 15:7). Inasmuch as the earliest Christians were convinced that they were the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, they too become the chosen people (1 Pet 2:9; Eph 1:4).
But the circle narrows for James: God chose “the poor in this world.” God’s choice of the poor is prevalent in the Tanakh. It was anchored in God’s liberation of Israel from Egypt and became the touchstone for Israel’s treatment of the poor, resident aliens, and the marginalized. Furthermore, the messianic era becomes the day when justice for the poor is established. Thus,
Deuteronomy 26:7: we [Israel in Egypt] cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
Psalm 9:18: For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
Psalm 10:14: But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief,
that you may take it into your hands;
the helpless commit themselves to you;
you have been the helper of the orphan.
Psalm 18:27: For you deliver a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down.
Isaiah 11:3–4: He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
This theme is also central to the Magnificat of Mary (Luke 1:48, 52–53), the songs of Simeon and Anna (2:25–38), and Mary’s son’s famous Beatitudes (6:20–26) and praxis (7:22). Paul, in a passage not unlike this passage in James 2, knows the reality of the poor responding to the gospel (1 Cor 1:27–29):
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
The earliest messianic community in Jerusalem lived out this vision for a just economy (Acts 2:42–47; 4:32–35). All these passages tend to locate the messianic community to which James writes in the Anawim tradition (see James 1:9–11) where “poor” and “pious” become nearly synonymous.83 Thus, it is not simply that God loves the poor, though that is true, but that “poor” and “pious” (Anawim is the Hebrew term) combine to refer to one group of persons84—and the Anawim either became messianic or the messianic community chose this term as one way of self-identification.
Indeed, God has chosen the poor “to be rich in faith.” As in James 1:9–11; Luke 1:52–53; 6:20–26, reversal occurs in the messianic community. The poor (ptōchoi) become the rich (plousioi). But, reversal here is incongruent: they remain materially poor but they become rich “in faith.”85 And, since the messianic community lives by faith in the Messiah, the glorious one (2:1), they can rest in their richness-by-faith while their oppressors take comfort in their richness-in-the-world, which simultaneously becomes poverty-in-faith. Faith here contrasts with world.86 Why are they “rich” in faith? Because the poor messianic community will be “heirs of the kingdom.”87
This kingdom has been promised to those who love God, and it is they who will “inherit” it.88 That God has promised the kingdom leads many to think of Matthew 5:3 or Luke 6:20, which surely is in the background to James’s statement.89 Kingdom here refers to the society, the Davidic society, long promised and anticipated and now beginning to be present in the messianic community.90 What is perhaps least noted is that for James the poor are now defined as those who love God.91 To love God, which clearly echoes James 1:12—in fact, the words are identical in Greek—emerges from the daily recital of the Shema.92 Twice now James sums up the response of the messianic community to God—in Christ, in Torah, in morality—as love toward God, as Torah observance is best understood. To repeat what was said at 1:12, James practiced the Shema as taught by Jesus: every morning and every evening, and perhaps upon every entrance or exit from the home, Jews recited the Shema. Though we are not sure of the specifics of first-century Jewish liturgical customs, it is likely that Jews recited the Ten Commandments and other scriptural texts along with the Shema.93 Jesus amended the Jewish practice by adding Leviticus 19:18 (neighbor-love) to the customary recital (cf. Mark 12:28–32 par.).94 In practicing the Shema one was afforded the opportunity to reflect on one’s relationship with God as one of love, and it is likely that this enabled James to see love as the global response to God. In the Ten Commandments is a promise that God’s “steadfast love” (hesed) will be shown to those who “love me (leʾohavay) and keep my commandments” (Exod 20:6; cf. Deut 5:10).95 Instead of “steadfast love” (Exod 20:6) or “crown of life” (James 1:12), James now promises a substantial (Jesus-shaped) equivalent, the “kingdom,” to those who love God.
2:6 For reasons left unexplored, the Bible verse markers put the pointed observation of James—“But you have dishonored the poor” (2:6a)—in a new verse with the next question. Technically speaking, 2:6a belongs with 2:5 more than with 2:6b–7 because the observation is designed to contrast with God’s election of the poor—God chooses the poor but the messianic community, by favoring the rich and disparaging the poor, “dishonor” the poor.96 The messianic community thus steals the honor God has granted to the poor. The “you” is emphatic and in definite contrast to what God has chosen to do. James’s language draws again on the Bible (LXX):97
Proverbs 14:21: Those who despise [atimazōn] their neighbors are sinners,
but happy are those who are kind to the poor.
In fact, one could put this verse at the door to the messianic community, which needed to hear its words:
Proverbs 22:22: Do not rob the poor because they are poor,
or crush [atimasēs] the afflicted at the gate.
James has now made his point: God elects the poor but the messianic community has dishonored the poor—in public—by its contemptible mistreatment of the poor and inexplicable favoring of the rich. He now asks questions designed to bring them to clarity about the rich. His three questions assume three affirmations, and these three affirmations are that the rich oppress the messianic community, drag its members into court, and blaspheme the name of the glorious one (2:1).
With the second question, “Is it not the rich who oppress you?” James’s argument shifts now to the pragmatic.98 Not only was the glorious one poor, not only is God the final and only judge, not only does favoritism break down the command to love, and not only has God chosen the poor, but the messianic community’s own experiences with the powerful rich reveal that the rich (plousioi) have severely mistreated them. Again, we ask if the plousioi are believers and in the messianic community.99 The behaviors of the rich in 2:6–7 are both more intense than what we find in 2:2–3 and wholly inconsistent with following Jesus Christ. If James has a crescendo in mind in the actions of 2:6b–7, then injustice is bad enough but blaspheming the very name of Christ falls headlong over the edge. The plousioi of 2:6b–7 are not in the messianic community. In addition, there is no reason to identify the plousioi of 2:6b–7 with the gold-fingered man of 2:2–3.100 The word James uses for the actions of the plousioi against the poor messianic community, “oppress” (katadynasteuousin),101 implies overpowering physically, economically, socially, and legally. A good example comes from Habakkuk 1:4:
So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
Another passage (Mal 3:5) evokes not only James 2:6b but also 5:1–6:
Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.
It might be asked why the plousioi were oppressing the poor. Was it because they were poor or was it because they were messianic? Probably a combination of both. In 2:7 the plousioi blaspheme the name, a clear indicator of religious intolerance and persecution for messianic faith, while the accent of James falls on economic exploitation (see especially 5:1–6). What might also be asked is what James has in mind with the word “oppress.” The next question answers that question, at least in part.
Two particular instances of oppression now appear as questions—one about court injustice (2:6c) and the other about abuse of the messianic community’s most sacred name, that of Jesus the Messiah (2:7). Perhaps the best commentary on James 2:6c is the description of Paul’s actions in Acts 9:1–2:
Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem (see also 9:14).102
Opposition to the messianic community begins in its embryonic form already with Jesus (Matt 10:16–25; Mark 13:9–13; Luke 12:11–12). In addition, Jesus himself gave explanations for why persecution would arise, not the least of which was that prophets were persecuted (Matt 5:10–12), that following Jesus meant sharing his fate (Mark 8:34–9:1), and that public trials would benefit the spread of the gospel (Matt 10:19–20). Persecution and martyrdom characterized the church and still does.103
Oppression found expression in being “dragged” (helkousin) into court.104 As Peter and John were arrested and taken into custody (Acts 4:1–4), Paul and Barnabas driven out of Pisdian Antioch (13:50), Paul and Silas “dragged” into the marketplace (16:19), and Paul dragged out of the Temple (21:30), so the poor in the messianic community are being dragged into court (James 2:6c). Those using force against the poor messianists to prosecute are the plousioi, and this alone should give them pause about showing deference or preference to the rich. But it gets worse in James’s stunning depiction.
2:7 Oppression moves from the general (2:6a) to a specific legal action (2:6b) and now to a religious, covenantal action: “Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?” Once again, it is “they”—the plousioi—who are emphasized (with emphatic αὐτοί). Three expressions deserve attention: the act of blasphemy, the use of “the excellent name,” and the idea of invocation of a name over someone.105
To “blaspheme” means to speak contemptuously, irreligiously, or scurrilously of someone, some faith, or some sacred object. The rhetorical intent of such language is to slander, malign, discredit, and even destroy or deconstruct.106 The term is often narrowed to mean blasphemy of God, as in Mark 2:7 or Revelation 13:6 or blasphemy of Jesus as in Matthew 9:32–34 and 12:22–24. But the act of verbal violence can also be directed at humans, as in Matthew 27:39 or Acts 13:45 and 18:6. If successfully attached to a person, in this case Jesus, the person blasphemed will be labeled as a deviant and considered taboo. Blasphemy, then, is a social weapon designed for social control. The decision to haul the poor messianists into court fulfills what Jesus said would occur (Matt 10:16–25). Not only were the plousioi blaspheming Christ, but they involved the messianists in the same label, rendering them deviant and powerless.107
What the plousioi were blaspheming was “the excellent name.” Because the second commandment (Exod 20:7) was extended to include using the sacred name of God, ha-shem (Hebrew for “the Name”) was a customary way of referring to God in the first century (see also Exod 23:20–21).108 Without mentioning God’s name or the sacred name, the tetragrammaton (YHWH), the pious Israelite could speak of God by saying “the Name.” This is reflected in passages like Matthew 5:34–35 and in the Lord’s Prayer: “May your name be hallowed.” Jewish reverence before God prompted the proliferation of circumlocutions like “the Highest One” (Luke 6:35), “the Blessed One” (m Berakot 7:3; Mark 14:61), and “the Powerful One” (14:62), but the driving force for such linguistic moves was the sacredness of God’s very name. That name, not held in the same honor among contemporary Christians as among ancient Jews and current messianic Jews, was YHWH. Thus, Deuteronomy 28:10: “you are called by the name of the LORD [YHWH].” Those who follow the covenant YHWH made with Abraham are “called by my name,” says God (Isa 43:7). Gentiles are “not called by your name” (63:19). 2 Maccabees 8:15 manifests confidence in God’s protection “because he had called them by his holy and glorious name.” The earliest Christians picked up this same practice. When Ananias was summoned to incorporate Saul (Paul) into the church, God told him, “Go, for he [Paul] is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles” (Acts 9:15). But, there is a subtle shift among the earliest Christians, expressing no doubt their growing perception of christology,109 by which Jesus Christ gets connected to the sacred name. The one who holds the lampstands, none other than Christ, is the one who also says “yet you are holding fast to my name” (Rev 2:1, 13; see also Rom 10:13). “Just as ‘the name’ was a pious Jewish surrogate for God, so for the early Jewish Christians it became a designation for Jesus, the Lord’s Christ. And as in its earlier usage, so with the Christians it connoted the divine presence and power.”110
So, when James refers the “excellent name” to Jesus Christ (2:1),111 the glorious one, we gain a glimpse into the emerging high christology of the earliest messianic, Land-of-Israel, community. Jesus Christ is the name whereby they are named, giving the community its identity, and he is—to use the worship hymn Paul uses—given the name above all names (Phil 2:9–11):
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
The “name” Jesus is “invoked” upon early Christians at their baptism.112 If Matt 28:16–20 may indicate a trinitarian formula at baptism, other texts indicate a baptism “in the name of Jesus.” Thus, Acts 2:38: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”113 It is the only name by which one is saved (4:12). The word “invoked” either indicates that the baptisand calls upon Jesus for mercy or, which is more likely, the baptizer himself (or herself) invokes that name “upon” the person so that the newly baptized is now known by that name—as followers of Jesus, as “Christians.”114 James does not make this clear, but other early Christian evidence may, and we should not fail to stand before this development with clear eyes: never before had baptism led to the invocation of the divine name like this. Two texts come to mind: 1 Peter 4:14–16 and Hermas, Similitudes. Both deserve citation as connecting baptism and invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God:
If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, a criminal, or even as a mischief maker. Yet if any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name (1 Pet 4:14–16).
It will be of no use for you to receive the name alone without receiving the clothing [by the virgins] from them. For these virgins are the powers of the Son of God. If you bear the name but not his power, it will be in vain (Similitudes 9.13.2–3).
The one who bears these names and the name of the Son of God will be able to enter the kingdom of God (Similitudes 15.2).
And so these who had died received the seal of the Son of God.… For before a person bears the name of God … but when he receives the seal.… And so the seal is the water. They go down into the water dead, therefore, and rise up living (Similitudes 16.3–4).
To sum up: The plousioi oppressed the messianic community, dragged its poor into court, and in front of everyone blasphemed the name of Jesus Christ. The messianic community confessed this same Jesus as the Messiah, the glorious one, and had evidently transferred the sacredness of the name YHWH to the very name of Jesus. But, for inexplicable reasons, these same poor confessors of Jesus were favoring the rich and showing prejudice against the poor. James now calls them to what he learned from Jesus: the significance of Leviticus 19:18 for understanding the entirety of the Torah as either love of God or love of others. Love, James now will reveal to the messianic community, charts a path much different than the path of favoritism and prejudice.
8You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture,115 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”a 9But if you show partiality,b you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.c 10For116 whoever keeps117 the whole law but failsd118 in one point has become accountablee for all of it. 11For the one who said,119 “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become120 a transgressorc of the law. 12So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.f 13For judgment will be without mercy121 to anyone who has shown no mercy;122 mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:8–13 extends the teachings of 2:1–7 by exploring the significance of love as the central virtue through which all behaviors, including those involving the oppressing rich and the needy poor, are judged. The first two verses of this paragraph (2:8–9) form a double set of conditions, with the second in contrast to the first. The first condition sets out what James wants—a community shaped by the Jesus Creed (Lev 19:18) and already made visible in 1:25–27—and the second spells out the contrasting consequences of the messianic community’s recent glaring behaviors.
If you love, you are doing what is right.
But if you are partial, you become “transgressor.”
With this condition set up, James then explains why he can label such a person “transgressor” in 2:10–11. His explanation is twofold: first, the one who commits to the Torah becomes accountable to the whole Torah; second, the one who gave one law also gave the others. Which means, if you keep one law but break another, you are a “transgressor” in the eyes of the divine lawgiver. 2:11 then leads us back to the conclusion of 2:9.
James follows this strong language about becoming a “transgressor” by exhorting the messianic community to love (2:12), and thus he returns back to 2:8 (and to 1:25–27). But, instead of using the word “love,” in 2:12 James speaks of “the law of liberty,” drawing us back to 1:25. His final lines in this section (2:13), though, turn the exhortation of 2:12 into a threat of judgment if one does not live by mercy. Thus, we are prepared to see a variety of ways of looking at the proper way for the messianic community to shape its behaviors: love, the law of liberty, and mercy. These are distinguishable terms but inseparable in substance.
2:8–9 These two verses work in tandem to express the condition upon which James now builds toward an exhortation in order to get the messianic community beyond the sinful behaviors of 2:2–4: mentoi (translated as “really” in NRSV and TNIV) in 2:8 works with de (“but”) in v. 9. The first sketches proper behavior; the second improper. Furthermore, the quotation of Leviticus 19:18 in James 2:8b assumes the prohibition of partiality in Leviticus 19:15, which is what James brings up in 2:9 (repeating 2:1).123 James 2:9 essentially recapitulates 2:2–7, while 2:8 serves to provide the positive counterpart both to the behaviors of 2:2–4 and the strong critique of 2:5–7 while it also repeats the good behaviors seen in 1:25–27. Thus, 2:8–9 together pull together everything from 1:25 to 2:7 to form the condition that leads to the exhortation in 2:12–13. Between 2:8–9 and 2:12–13 comes an explanatory parenthesis (2:10–11). Skipping the explanatory parenthesis, we have this logic: if you love, you will do well; but if you are partial, you are “transgressor.” So, James exhorts in 2:12–13, live by the law of love (2:8, 12) and not by the law of partiality (2:9) because God’s judgment scrutinizes a person’s mercifulness (2:13) and sees the lack of mercy (= partiality) as cause for judgment.
2:8 A good translation of 2:8 can open with “If you really do fulfill the royal law.…”124 James both assumes that the messianic community really is following the royal law and also knows that it does not follow it consistently and that he is about to speak once again to their failures (in 2:9). Once we recognize that “really” in 2:8 belongs with the messianic community’s salutary practices in 1:25–27,125 where a very similar expression occurs (“the perfect law, the law of liberty”), we can see more clearly what James is saying. He wants to remind them of 1:25–27 in order to get them to move beyond what he has just described in 2:2–4. Thus, if they really do live as described in 1:25–27, they will be fine. But James knows better. This verse then sets up the messianic community for one more strong critique about their favoritism. 2:9 will begin that critique.
The use of present tenses in “you do well” and “if you really fulfill” paints a picture of an event occurring before our eyes, and that picture is found in the community’s benevolence toward orphans and widows (1:26–27).126 To “fulfill” means (1) to bring to completion (Matt 7:28; 11:1; Luke 2:39; 12:50; John 19:28, 30; 2 Cor 12:9), (2) to “pay” (Matt 17:24), or (3) to “observe” or “do” or “keep” (Rom 2:27; James 2:8).127 Here, “fulfill” is synonymous with “keeps” in 2:10.128 Even more it has the sense of doing the Torah completely, which helps set up the emphasis in 2:10–11 on doing all of the Torah. In fact, one might detect a tone of arrogance, not uncommon in this letter (cf. 1:19–21; 2:14–17; 3:1–12, 13–18; 4:1–4, 11–12, 13–17), in the descriptions of the community’s actions or claims to do the Torah.
What they were “fulfilling” was the “royal law.”129 We might be tempted to forget that James is referring here to the Torah, the law or laws of Moses. But even that is not without its own history and development, and the fulfillment of the Torah in Jesus Christ (Matt 5:17–20) feeds into what James is saying here. In what sense then is the law “royal”? Three components come into play and need not exclude one another. First, it could refer to the “capital” or “preeminent” of all the laws, which would suggest that the connection of “royal law” to Leviticus 19:18 in this verse (James 2:8) and that the law of loving others is that preeminent law.130 James would then be agreeing with Jesus (Mark 12:28–32), Paul (Rom 12:19; 13:9; Gal 5:14), John (1 John 3:11, 23; 4:17), and Peter (1 Pet 4:8). But there may be residual traces of christology here. Inasmuch as Jesus is the Messiah and the Messiah is the royal king and the Messiah’s rule is the kingdom, then, secondly, the Messiah’s law is royal and designed for his kingdom (2:1). We can extend this slightly to a third consideration: if the law is the Messiah’s (royal) law, then the law itself is the royal law for the king’s subjects as they live in the kingdom. It is unwise to dwell heavily on the second and third aspects of “royal law” for one primary reason: in James the focus of the evidence is not on the “royal” = kingly law but on the “preeminent” nature of this singular law found in Lev 19:18 and raised to prominence by Jesus Messiah (Mark 12:28–32). The only other passage of significance in James is 1:25, where we have “perfect” (teleion) as in 2:8 (“fulfill” comes from teleō) and where the Torah is connected to “freedom.”131 And, in that location “word” needed to be connected to “implanted word” in 1:18, 21 and perhaps to the Spirit of the new covenant. Furthermore, in 2:12 we find that 1:25’s sense of freedom has been brought into our passage: “So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.”
I suggest then that “royal law” refers (1) to Jesus’ highlighting of Lev 19:18 as the preeminent command of all commands, alongside loving God, (2) to this interpretation of the Torah bringing the Torah to its destined completion (1:25), (3) to this law of love actually creating freedom for the messianic community,132 and (4) to the empowering implanted presence of word and Spirit in the messianic community. James is Torah-observant. What we find in James does not lead us to think that he believes the messianic community has been set free from the works of the Torah as we see in Pauline theology in Galatians and Romans. What James implies might not be clear, but the significance of the Torah coming to a new expression in Jesus surely sets the groundwork for buildings to be constructed later by (Gentile) Christians.133
We need now to fill in some of the lines mapped in this discussion so far. The “royal law” of James 2:8, where James spells out what the messianic community is doing right, is “according to scripture.” Are we to see this as an introductory formula that sets up the quotation, or is this an adverbial expression134 that clarifies James’s major point? That is, should we translate as: “If you really fulfill the royal law, as found in Leviticus 19:18, as the Scripture intends you to live it, you will do well.”135 Since Leviticus 19:15 prohibits partiality and prejudice against the poor, this view has much in its favor because it would then be saying that the fully scriptural way of living out Leviticus 19:18 includes Leviticus 19:15. Which leads to 2:9 nicely.
Leviticus 19:18, a text not quoted in Jewish literature from the time of Leviticus until the time of Jesus, was raised a notch in importance when Jesus attached it to the daily recital of the Shema. Thus, Mark 12:28–34:136
One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.
Several New Testament writings, surprisingly, quote Leviticus 19:18 in such a manner that demonstrates their awareness of the elevation of Lev 19:18 by Jesus. Thus, Paul explicitly makes it the fundamental rule of life (Rom 12:19; 13:9; Gal 5:14), while Peter hedges in that direction (1 Pet 4:8) and John explodes into full focus on love (John 13:34–35; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:17). It is not without significance that James is the only person in the New Testament after Jesus who quotes both sides of the Jesus Creed: loving God in 1:12 and 2:5 and loving others as oneself here in 2:8.
Several observations about James’s use of Leviticus 19:18 are in order. First, it is exactly what is now printed in standard editions of the Septuagint. And this translation is a simple, clear, direct translation of the Hebrew.137 Second, the use of the future—“you shall love”—is a common way of translating the Hebrew imperfect. It can also be translated as an imperative: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Third, in context, it is more than likely that James has the poor (ptōchoi) in mind when he says “neighbor” (plēsion).138 Fourth, as we have already mentioned, Leviticus 19:18 implies conformity also to Leviticus 19:15: “You shall not render an unjust judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbor.” Thus, James’s reading of Leviticus 19:18 in this context could be rendered: “If you really live out the royal law of Jesus in its full intent, the law to love your neighbor as yourselves as the companion to loving God with everything you have, you will love the poor whom you have recently despised.”
James closes the positive side of this condition with this statement: “You do well.”139 The NRSV puts this clause first in its sentence, though in the Greek it finishes up the sentence. This statement, like that in 2:19, means that James sees living out the second half of the Jesus Creed is a noble, excellent, and proper rule of life for the messianic community. Such a way of life meets the high standards expected of the messianic community by James. The expression “do well” is similar to the word “blessing” (Deut 28; Lev 26–27; James 1:12, 25). James assumes the community lives like this—and some evidence suggests just that (1:25–27).
2:9 James turns now to the second half of the condition, which describes the messianic community’s negative behaviors. If 2:8 hearkens back to 1:25–27, 2:9 returns to the inappropriate behaviors described in 2:2–4.140 The focus of James in 2:8–13 is on the second half of this condition (2:9), on the messianic community’s acts of partiality. The consequences for the community’s behaviors are detailed: if living out Leviticus 19:18 means a life of blessing (2:8), living out partiality means becoming a “transgressor” (2:9).
Again, James’s use of the present tense is notable: “if you show partiality” and “you commit sin” and “are convicted.”141 It is not that James is describing something currently going on in the church but, as aspectual theory is now teaching us, the actions are depicted as incomplete and depicted as going on before our eyes.142 When this event occurs is not important to James; he wants us to see it going on. If the messianic community shows partiality, then consequences follow. The act of partiality effects sin.143 James uses the word “sin” (hamartia) six times. Sin is the perverse desire and choice not to do what one knows is good (1:14–15; 2:9; 4:17) and is an act against God’s will (2:11) and against relational love and mercy (2:8–13); upon confession and prayer, sin can be forgiven by God (5:15); sins are to be confessed to one another (5:16); sin leads to death (1:15), but the messianic community’s restoration of sinners leads to their sins being covered over (5:20).144 By using ergazomai (NRSV: “commit”), James draws us back to 1:14–15 and the mysterious, desirous forces of sin to lead humans from their eikonic design to the inevitability of destruction and death. The singular act of partiality unleashes the powers of sin in the messianic community.
Not only are sin’s powers turned loose, but the act of partiality leads to a status: “transgressors.” The term is plural. James’s concern is the community and not just an individual: the messianic community becomes complicit in the act of partiality and renders the entire community “transgressors.” Some translations mask the Greek construction as in the NRSV: “you commit sin and are convicted,” which translates a verb and a participle. The participle elenchomenoi could indicate, as in NRSV and TNIV, simply an attendant circumstance, translated virtually as an equivalent to the main verb “commit” by using “and convicted,” or it could extend the thought by defining what James means by “commit sin.” In such a case, a more accurate translation could be “commit sin, leading to your conviction as ‘transgressor’” or “commit sin, that is, be convicted as a transgressor.”145
Critical to James’s point is the word “convict” (elenchō),146 which suggests confrontation of a person or the community with the facts of the case in such a way that they are proven in the wrong.147 Partiality, when examined “by the law,”148 convicts the messianic community and renders the community “transgressors.” It might be tempting to see “by the law” as little more than a Torah-sweeping statement—“in general, the law would say such behavior is wrong.” But because the context so clearly focuses on Leviticus 19:18 and its companion law about partiality in 19:15, it is far more likely that with “by the law” James means “by this specific prohibition in the Torah of Moses,” that is, Leviticus 19:15 and 18. What this specific text in the Law says is that James’s readers are to live by the law of loving others as themselves, and that entails not treating the poor with contempt. Because they are not living up to Torah in this way, the Torah proves that they have behaved inadequately. Thus, the Torah labels them as “transgressors,”149 those who break or violate specific commands of God or cross over God’s established boundaries.
James has now set forth the condition of the messianic community: claiming to live up to the teachings of Jesus but demonstrating by action that they are transgressors. We expect an exhortation, and we will get it, but first James must explain what he means by “transgressor.” Vv. 10 and 11 are an explanatory gloss by James on that term. Once done with this explanation, James will proceed to the exhortation (2:12–13).
2:10–11 James’s point is perhaps more difficult to comprehend than a Protestant reader might suppose, and so his context needs to be sketched. Following the Reformation, which filtered Augustine’s anthropology into a bold set of categories, Protestants tend to read James 2:10–11 like this: God gave the Law to reveal his will and to reveal sin; humans listen to the Law but, instead of confessing their sins, use it to establish their own righteousness. James steps into this anthropological blindness and contends that, since God gave not only individual laws but the whole Law, anyone who transgresses any specific commandment is guilty of it all. Why? Because, whether one transgresses all of it or only one aspect of it, one is proven to be a transgressor. Since God demands either utter perfection or the alien righteousness that comes from Christ’s own obedience to the Law, any transgression puts one outside the bounds of redemption until one accepts alien righteousness. Something close to this is the common assumption by which many Protestants tend to read James 2:10–11. It is considered the way Paul dealt with the legalism of Judaism. So, a brief digression into these themes in Judaism will set up our comments on 2:10–11.
Many appeal to texts like Galatians 5:3150 to support the demand of perfection and the need for an alien righteousness as the very heart of the gospel. The distinct problem with this view is that, while the Jewish world clearly expected all Jews to follow all the Law, the Torah itself wrote into its very fabric a mechanism that released Israelites from the demand of total perfection: that mechanism was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In other words, while the Torah demands obedience it also provides forgiveness through confession and sacrifice. The scholar who argued this doggedly for more than a decade was E. P. Sanders.151 Sanders lays bare what many have taken to be the view of “normative” Judaism, and it is my view that this is at work in how many try to read James 2:10–11: “one must keep it [the Law] all; one cannot do so; there is no forgiveness of transgression; therefore accepting the law necessarily leads to being cursed.” But Sanders observes that “the middle terms of this thought-sequence are never stated by Paul, and this sequence of views cannot be found in contemporary Jewish literature.” “All the rabbis … took the position that all the law must be accepted,” but “No rabbi took the position that obedience must be perfect.” “It is equally un-Jewish to think that the law is too difficult to be fulfilled.” Thus, “It would, in short, be extraordinarily un-Pharisaic and even un-Jewish of Paul to insist that obedience of the law, once undertaken, must be perfect.” “[T]he law is not too difficult to be satisfactorily fulfilled; nevertheless more or less everybody sins at some time or other … ; but God has appointed means of atonement which are available to all.” “Paul may very well simply have been reminding his converts [Gentiles] that, if they accepted circumcision, the consequence would be that they would have to begin living their lives according to a new set of rules for daily living.” Such a conclusion for Gal 5:3 is similar to what needs to be seen in James 2:10–11.
Judaism did not tolerate a “pick and choose” mentality when it came to Torah observance.152 A commitment to observance meant (for some anyway) commitment to observe the whole Torah. A line from the later Babylonian Talmud, Horayot 8b, illustrates this conviction: “Ulla said: What is the reason of R. Jose the Galilean? Scripture said: And it shall be when he shall be guilty in one of these things [Lev 5:5]; whoever is subject to liability for every one of these is liable for any of them, and whosoever is not subject to liability for every one of these is not liable for any of them.” And in a discussion of Sabbath regulations, R. Johanan put it this way: “[It is to teach] that if one performs all of them in one state of unawareness he is liable for each separately” (Shabbath 70b). A text from a time closer to the New Testament, 4 Maccabees 5:16–34, records the conviction of Eleazar, a pious Jew, when it came to Torah observance, as he faced Antiochus, and this text embodies the ideals of the kind of Judaism that shaped the world of James:
We, O Antiochus, who have been persuaded to govern our lives by the divine law, think that there is no compulsion more powerful than our obedience to the law. Therefore we consider that we should not transgress it in any respect. Even if, as you suppose, our law were not truly divine and we had wrongly held it to be divine, not even so would it be right for us to invalidate our reputation for piety. Therefore do not suppose that it would be a petty sin if we were to eat defiling food; to transgress the law in matters either small or great is of equal seriousness, for in either case the law is equally despised. You scoff at our philosophy as though living by it were irrational, but it teaches us self-control, so that we master all pleasures and desires, and it also trains us in courage, so that we endure any suffering willingly; it instructs us in justice, so that in all our dealings we act impartially, and it teaches us piety, so that with proper reverence we worship the only living God.
Therefore we do not eat defiling food; for since we believe that the law was established by God, we know that in the nature of things the Creator of the world in giving us the law has shown sympathy toward us. He has permitted us to eat what will be most suitable for our lives, but he has forbidden us to eat meats that would be contrary to this. It would be tyrannical for you to compel us not only to transgress the law, but also to eat in such a way that you may deride us for eating defiling foods, which are most hateful to us. But you shall have no such occasion to laugh at me, nor will I transgress the sacred oaths of my ancestors concerning the keeping of the law, not even if you gouge out my eyes and burn my entrails. I am not so old and cowardly as not to be young in reason on behalf of piety. Therefore get your torture wheels ready and fan the fire more vehemently! I do not so pity my old age as to break the ancestral law by my own act. I will not play false to you, O law that trained me, nor will I renounce you, beloved self-control.
And prior to the writing of James the Qumran community famously expected each member to live completely according to its interpretation of the Torah. This text illustrates their rigor:
This means the expounding of the Law, decreed by God through Moses for obedience, that being defined by what has been revealed for each age, and by what the prophets have revealed by His holy spirit. No man belonging to the Covenant of the Community who flagrantly deviates from any commandment is to touch the pure food belonging to the holy men. Further, he is not to participate in any of their deliberations until all his works have been cleansed from evil, so that he is again able to walk blamelessly. They shall admit him into deliberations by the decision of the general membership; afterwards, he shall be enrolled at an appropriate rank. This is also the procedure for every initiate added to the Yahad (1QS 8).
If this sketch is anywhere near the world in which James wrote, namely a situation where obedience was expected and forgiveness granted but also where a firm commitment to doing all of the Torah was the expectation, it leads to some modifications of what some think is said in James 2:10–11. Once again, we need to remind ourselves that these verses are a digression that define the meaning of “transgressor” in 2:9. James has accused his community of being transgressors because it, a community convinced it is committed to the (whole) Torah, has broken the law of Leviticus 19:15, 18—the command to love others as oneself. The person who does not love others, as the community has failed to love the poor (2:2–4), has broken the law of love from Leviticus. This infraction of the Law makes them not observant but transgressors. If one keeps the whole Law (2:10a) but breaks just one commandment (2:10b), one is assigned to the category of a transgressor who has, in effect, broken the whole (2:10c). Why? Because there are only two options: one is either observant or a transgressor.153
James comes to this conclusion in 2:10–11 by converting his argument into concrete details: the God who gave the commandment not to commit adultery also prohibited murder. If one does not commit adultery, but one murders, one is judged as a “transgressor” by the commanding God. As we will seek to show, James has not just pulled two random commands from the Torah: he has chosen “murder” because he thinks the behavior of the messianic community with respect to the poor is murderous, or he knows of actual murders in the community. In 5:6 murder is again connected to the poor. The turbulence of the context of this letter cannot be left aside. What is more subtle is that James here assumes that the messianic community is committed to the Torah, is Torah-observant, and is proud of its observance. Either they are unaware that their behavior breaks the Torah of Leviticus 19:18 or, what is only is only remotely possible, they are persuaded that such a commandment is insignificant in the larger picture. Into that bubble of their pride of observance James now pokes a hole so that he can get them to realize how serious their mistreatment of the poor actually is. Calling them “transgressor” is potent rhetoric in a Torah-drenched and Torah-observant community. James is not simply labeling and classifying. His intent is to gain the attention of his community so that he can motivate them to end such unloving behaviors and move into a life of love. Therefore, following these two verses James will begin to make an appeal to live in light of God’s final judgment, when God will judge by a new law, the “law of liberty” (2:12).
2:10 At the level of specifics one is led to ask how v. 10 fits with what precedes. Does gar (“for”) indicate that v. 10 explains vv. 8–9, in that the “whole law” of 2:10 is the same as the “royal law” of 2:8–9? Or does gar indicate that v. 10 provides proof for what has been said in v. 9 by clarifying the meaning of “transgressors”? Since vv. 10 and 11 are concerned with the word “transgressor,” the second of these options makes most sense.154
James now contends something typical, though not unique,155 in the Jewish world: observance is an all or nothing approach to life. Thus, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” The one who commits herself or himself to the Torah, as his messianic community has, is obligated to all of it. But James’s point of view is stronger, if not extreme, in his world: he extends obligation to culpability. Anyone who is committed to Torah observance and “keeps”156 the whole Law but “fails157 in one point,”158 has become guilty159 as if he or she had broken every commandment and must appear before God. In other words, and this will be his conclusion at the end of the next verse, the person who trips up even over one commandment is a “transgressor” of God’s (whole) Law. James’s intent is to classify the messianic community as transgressors, and his rhetoric is focused to get them to see the gravity of what they are doing.
This verse is about more than “a forceful way of stating that every command is important.”160 To be sure, the importance of every command factors into James’s point, but he has extended importance into final culpability. Indeed, the messianic community may well be contending that they, after all, are thoroughly committed to the Torah and are observing it, and James’s words will be reinforcement of their commitment. But, to repeat our point, his language carries the point beyond the need to follow every commandment. He contends that transgression against even one command makes a person guilty for breaking every commandment. What we have in this passage, then, is something not unlike the radical conception of sin and sinfulness found in Paul’s theology—a kind of proto-Pauline anthropology or at least a parallel Pauline anthropology. James has argued here not for original sin, but instead for the final culpability for everyone and anyone who breaks even one commandment—and we are on sure grounds to think that James believed each person in the community he addresses had done that.
2:11 Here the logical connection provided by “for” (gar) is causal:161 that person who violates one command becomes guilty/accountable before God162 because the God who gives one command gives the others as well. So James now draws this argument into a personal theology: the Law is not just an impersonal document; it is God’s word and God’s will, and those who listen to it both enter into relationship with God and become accountable to God.
James now plays with two prohibitions—against adultery and against murder.163 A very important question is: Why these two?164 They could be randomly chosen, as one finds evidently in Romans 13:9. Or, what is more likely, James’s intent is more subtle and rhetorically potent: he gains agreement with his community over adultery—they are clean here. Then he turns agreement into critique by bringing up a sin they are guilty of: “murder.” Which leads to a second question: Are these commands figurative or literal? In light of 4:2–4 some have argued that James is concerned here with relational problems: the community is adulterous in the sense of unfaithful to God and the Torah, and the community is murderous in the sense that they are at war with one another.165 Before we can answer this question, though, we face this issue: James has chosen two odd commands if he is randomly choosing prohibitions. It is far more likely that either both or at least one of these commands is chosen because it (or they) emerges (or emerge) from his specific context in this chapter. In other words, there is something breathtakingly real about murder in this messianic community.
James sets up his readers with something they do not do (adultery) in order to accuse them of what they are doing (murder).166 Whatever one thinks “murder” means in James 2:11, the logic of vv. 10–11 only makes sense if murder is something the community is committing.167 Adultery means sexual congress with someone other than one’s spouse, of which (in the logic of James) the community is not guilty. But, when it comes to murder, they are guilty. Does “murder” here mean relational murder, as we see in Jesus’ redefinition (Matt 5:21–22),168 or does it refer to actual bloodshed? The former view fits the context well: the community’s treatment of the poor amounts to what Jesus calls murder in the Sermon on the Mount, which is like what has shaped the need for James to drive home the point that his community are transgressors. Another view is, in my judgment, reasonable even if it stretches the imagination of modern Christian sensitivities. If one factors into the word “murder” James 1:19–21; 4:1–2; and especially 5:6, one could infer that James has in mind actual murders and violence occurring in the community on the part of some hot-headed people who are seeking to establish justice through violence. I consider this interpretation just as likely as the figurative interpretation of “murder.”169 What must be noted is that 5:1–6 connects mistreatment of the poor with murder. Perhaps, and we are pressed to leave this as a suggestion, oppression was leading to the death of poor members of the messianic community, and complicity with the rich on the part of some was contributing to those deaths.
The logic now comes to its intended goal: as 2:9 accused the community of being “transgressors,” now James concludes that, if an individual is not an adulterer but is a murderer, that person has “become a transgressor of the law.” It is worth observing that, if taken simply at face value, James’s point is curiously weak: Does anyone doubt that a murderer is a transgressor of the Law? But he is saying more than what we find at face value. His rhetorical intent is to label the community with a genuine legal status; his goal is to show that they are transgressors of the Law so that he can move them from their current behaviors to another level. Labeling them as “transgressors” has been his intent since he digressed at 2:10. His intent clear and his point now made, James can move on to exhort the community to more circumspect Christian behavior in their treatment of the poor.
2:12–13 The logical flow of 2:1–13 now comes to its telos in an exhortation to change (2:12) and an eschatological warrant (2:13). The moral point of these two verses was made in negative form in 2:1, where James prohibited favoritism. What he meant by favoritism was then fleshed out in 2:2–4 in the graphic behaviors of the community: they were favoring the rich and abusing the poor. James then asked a series of questions that were designed to get the messianic community to see that mistreatment of the poor is inconsistent with faith in Jesus Christ. Following this James offered wisdom on how the messianic community was to live: by the “royal law” of loving one’s neighbor as oneself (2:8), which was blatantly at odds with prejudicial behaviors. Indeed, James says that violators of this law are “transgressors” (2:9). But he must now back up to explain how he can call a supposedly observant group of messianists “transgressors,” because they do see themselves as observant. So, James pulls out a standard definition of observance in Judaism: to observe Torah is to observe all of Torah. Anyone who avoids adultery but murders is a transgressor (2:10–11). Now James is ready to state again, this time a little more directly, what he has already indicated in this passage: the messianic community should live by the law of love (2:12–13). As such, 2:12–13 both makes a summary exhortation for the whole passage and draws a conclusion to the passage.
2:12 “So” in “So speak and so act”170 is more than a logical conclusion to 2:1–11; “so” (houtōs) also adverbially intensifies “speak” and “act” as it connects speaking-doing to the hōs (“as”) introducing the rest of the verse. Speaking and doing are shorthand for everything a human does (Acts 1:1; 7:22; 1 John 3:18). It might be tempting to ask which of the two is emphasized,171 but James is one book in the New Testament that emphasizes both speaking (3:1–12) and doing (1:19, 22–25).172 James’s concern here is with how one’s speech and behaviors impact the poor.
Not only does the Bible frequently bring up the theme of judgment, but the biblical sense of judgment is far more severe than what is commonly said in pulpits and in devotional books that focus on God’s unconditional grace and love. The final judgment for James, as for Jesus (e.g., Matt 12:36; 16:27; 25:31–46) and Paul (1 Cor 3:10–15; 2 Cor 5:1–10), will be established on the basis of both what the messianic community says (James 1:19, 26; 3:1–12; 4:11–16; 5:12) and what it does (1:27; 2:1–26; 4:1–10; 5:1–6).173 Another feature of the early Christian understanding of judgment was its seeming imminence (5:7–8; cf. also Matt 10:23; Mark 9:1; 13:30; 1 Thess 4:15, 17).174 That sense of imminence was more rooted in the uncertainty of the time and hence the need for readiness than in some kind of clear knowledge of the precise time and date of the parousia or, worse yet, in wishful thinking or grandiloquent disillusionment.175 So, when James uses the expression “to be judged,” which could be translated “about to be judged,”176 we are led to think in terms of confidence in a certain judgment rather than immediacy that has turned out to be temporary.
What perhaps surprises a Christian reader is James’s next expression: “by the law of liberty.” Judgment is based on the “law,” which of course refers to the Mosaic Torah, but James adds a modifier: “of liberty.”177 And, instead of using the more common “on the basis of” (kata), James uses “through/by” (dia), leading some to suggest that he is not saying that the community will be judged on the basis of the law of liberty but that the law of liberty is “the state or condition in which [the community’s action] is performed.”178 In other words, James means the community will be judged by whether or not it lives out the “law of liberty.” This is a difference with little distinction and that is why most commentators see “by” (dia) as equivalent to “on the basis of” (either kata or hypo—as in 2:9).179 By attaching “of liberty” to “law,” though, James changes the game of the yardstick by which one is judged. Yes, Torah observance is the yardstick, but James’s Torah has been clarified by Jesus. Several factors come into play in James’ expression: first, we are led to think of Jesus’ own interpretation of the Torah in terms of the Jesus Creed (Mark 12:28–32; Matt 5:17–48; 7:15–23); second, we are drawn back to James 1:25, where James similarly connects “law” to “liberty” and where the connotation is deeds of mercy to the poor and marginalized; third, the sense of “liberty” here may well have to do with the courage to break down boundaries between rich and poor or powerful and powerless as an act of Christian solidarity with all; and finally it is worthy of our attention to think of the “law of liberty” as the “implanted word” (1:21) and see this as James’s early sketch of the Spirit of God at work. Above all, though, we must let each of these considerations flow into the central theme for James: the law of liberty is the law of loving your neighbor as yourself (2:8). Now we can take note of what James teaches: the messianic community will someday face God, perhaps soon; soon or not, it will certainly face the God of judgment. God’s judgment will be based on the Torah. But that Torah is to be seen as the revelation from God that the messianic community is to live according to the teaching of Jesus to love others as themselves. There are no substantive differences, then, between James 2:12 and Matthew 25:31–46.
2:13 The warrant for James’s assertion that the messianic community needs to live in light of a judgment based on mercy and loving others is found in v. 13.180 Two statements are made, but how they are connected is not as clear as one might like:
Live in light of a judgment based on the “law of liberty” … because Judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Peter Davids contends that the shift from the second person to the third person (from “so speak” to “will be”), the proverbial pithiness of 2:13, and the change from “the law of liberty” (as love) to “mercy” in 2:13 indicate that 2:13 was a free-floating statement that James quotes at this point because it fits his argument.181 Several considerations slow down this conclusion for me. First, James thought the connection was tight enough that he used the word “For” (gar). Second, I am not so sure that the appearance of “mercy” expresses a change. While “love” is found in 2:8, it is not used elsewhere in James for how the messianic community is to relate to others or to the poor in particular. No particular words—other than perhaps “do”—rise to the surface as James’s favorite in 1:19–27, and that text addresses the same concerns as 2:1–13. Third, “mercy” appears not only twice in 2:13, but also in 3:17, where James provides words expressing specific Christian behaviors. To be sure, Davids and others recognize the pithiness of these two statements, but perhaps we should recognize the diversity of James’s vocabulary and enter the word “mercy” into the entire discussion of 2:1–13 and not wait for it until this verse. Perhaps what James has in mind in 2:2–4 is not just “love” but also “mercy.” Perhaps, too, he had the capacity to be pithy all on his own.
Which leads us now to the connection of 2:13 to 2:12. Even if we admit that 2:13’s statements could be “free-floating” proverbs, both the use of “for” and the appropriateness of “mercy” lead to the conclusion that 2:13 is the ground of the exhortation in 2:12. The messianic community is to speak and act toward the poor and marginalized in light of the judgment because the judgment will not show mercy to those who do not show mercy. This negative warrant is followed without a conjunction by the alternative, a glimmer of hope and optimism: “mercy triumphs over judgment.” That is, if they become merciful toward the poor, they will escape the judgment.
God’s judgment182 will be “without mercy” to those in the messianic community who persist in prejudice against the poor and marginalized.183 The Torah gave rise to a strong Jewish tradition of showing mercy, and when that mercy was not shown the prophets spoke on behalf of the poor and implored Israel to show mercy.184 Hence, even if Jesus is the one who brought into fresh light Leviticus 19:18, the essential behavior of mercy toward the marginalized is written into the fabric of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish tradition. A good example is found in Sirach 28:1–9,185 a book that here and elsewhere reflects the themes and language of James:
The vengeful will face the Lord’s vengeance,
for he keeps a strict account of their sins.
Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done,
and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.
Does anyone harbor anger against another,
and expect healing from the Lord?
If one has no mercy toward another like himself,
can he then seek pardon for his own sins?
If a mere mortal harbors wrath,
who will make an atoning sacrifice for his sins?
Remember the end of your life, and set enmity aside;
remember corruption and death, and be true to the commandments.
Remember the commandments, and do not be angry with your neighbor;
remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook faults.
Refrain from strife, and your sins will be fewer;
for the hot-tempered kindle strife,
and the sinner disrupts friendships
and sows discord among those who are at peace.
Jesus’ contribution to this discussion was the centralization of love of God and love of others as well as his prophetic critique of those who were not fulfilling the double commandment.186 These are not pious platitudes on James’s part: he has in mind the sort of incident mentioned in 2:2–4 and 2:9, and he expects both speaking and doing to be merciful (2:12).
Thus, James gives the messianic community two options: to experience the merciless judgment of God (2:13a) or to experience victory in the judgment through acting mercifully toward those in need (2:13b). Repentance from their prejudices will lead to God’s gracious forgiveness and atonement. The turnabout effected leads to a life of mercy toward the poor and, in the end, a life of mercy will hear the salutary blessing of God at the Last Judgment.
“Mercy” here refers to the behaviors of the messianic community with respect to the poor. One thinks of 1:26–27; 2:2–4; and 2:14–17. That is, one thinks of care for widows and orphans and of not asking the poor to sit subordinately but, like everyone else, to sit alongside the others. Mercy is both verbal, which concerns James at 3:1–12, 13 and 4:1–12, and behavioral, which concerns James especially at 1:19–27 and 2:14–17. Others think both “mercy” and “justice” are attributes of God, and that this saying refers to God’s own mercy triumphing over God’s own justice.187 Two factors weigh against this: first, the reason for God becoming (suddenly) merciful to those who are transgressors is omitted; if “mercy” refers to the messianic community’s repentance from prejudice and consequent change of behaviors, then that change of verdict is clarified. Second, “without mercy” in 2:13a referred to the behaviors of the messianic community and not to God, so an easier flow is established if both “without mercy” and “mercy” refer to behaviors by the same group (the messianic community). Furthermore, the entire focus in 2:1–13 has been on the need for the messianic community to show mercy toward those in need.
A strong word that needs comment is “triumphs.”188 It is translated in Romans 11:18 as “boast,” and the same word is used again in James 3:14, leading one to think that there is an assurance and confidence along with some figurative chest-pounding and fist-raising on the part of the personified mercy in the face of the personified justice. This word describes the posture of the victor, even the gladiator, as he or she stands over the defeated on the battlefield. Paradoxically, it is mercy that stands as the conquering victor in this battle. The image is breathtaking—and dropped suddenly. A new topic is in order.
James does not know it, but he is about to record a set of thoughts that would torment Luther and many in the Protestant movement that flowed from him. However difficult they might be to square with some ways Protestants frame faith and works, James’s words flow naturally from 2:1–13 and fit snugly in both a Jewish and a messianic Jewish world. If 2:1 asserted that faith in Jesus Christ was inconsistent with prejudice against the poor, 2:14–17 (and 18–26) will expound the meaning of “faith” as something that involves “works” of mercy.189 Professor Thorwald Lorenzen says what needs to be said: “It is very seldom that this text is taken seriously.” In fact, he observes, “Luther for example took this text seriously.” That is, Luther “let his [James’s] message stand, although he criticized it from his ‘Pauline’ perspective.”190 Augustine said it well: “I do not understand why the Lord said, ‘If you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments,’ and then mentioned the commandments relating to good behavior, if one is able to enter into eternal life without them.”191 And as everyone quotes his famous line, we will too: “Paul said that man is justified through faith without works of the law, but not without those works of which James speaks.”192