In lesson 5 we looked at James’s exhortation to be doers of the Word and not hearers only. Now James gives an example to his readers of what that actually looks like. In this section of his letter he addresses an issue that he was hearing about his readers and brothers. This was the issue of showing favoritism or partiality to certain people.
Grab the study guide for this lesson from the James Study page and let’s get started.
Scripture
James 2:1-13 (CSB)
1 My brethren, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
2 For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in,
3 if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,”
4 haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
6 Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court?
7 Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?
8 Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.
9 If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
11 For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.
12 Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.
13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
We’re going to take this passage in two parts:
The Sin of Favoritism Specifically
What It Means To Keep the Law
The Sin of Favoritism Specifically
James 2:1-8 (CSB)
1 My brethren, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
2 For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in,
3 if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,”
4 haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5 Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
6 Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court?
7 Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?
Verse 1 is obviously the heart of this section. James tells his readers that they must not hold their faith in Jesus with or in partiality. And interesting side point is the high Christology in such an early letter. If James was the first New Testament writing, this shows that from the beginning believers understood the magnitude of Jesus’s person. The main statement is faith in our Lord. Lord is then further specified by the name Jesus, the title Messiah or Christ, and then another noun, the Glorious. One aspect of properly lived-out faith in the Glorious Lord is not showing favoritism.
The word here is προσωπολημψία (prosopolempsia). This is a compound of prosopon meaning “face” or “appearance” and lambano meaning “to receive”. If we take these literally, the compound means to receive a face. The idea of course being to receive someone specially over someone else. Why is this a command? Why are we not to show favoritism or partiality as we hold the faith? Because God Himself didn’t show favoritism toward us in choosing us in Christ Jesus. God didn’t choose the best or smartest or strongest for His Kingdom, he chose those who were weak, foolish, and ignorant according to the world. In fact, He never shows favoritism. God always gives everyone exactly what they deserve. He shows mercy, but that is purely based on His desire and will. There is nothing in us that would cause God to choose us over someone else.
James gives an example of what he’s talking about in verses 2-4:
2 For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in,
3 if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,”
4 haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Notice the source of their favoritism, it was on outward appearance. It was based on status, clothing, and wealth. It’s this superficial, surface-level thinking that is being condemned. Especially when it comes to fellow believers.
First, we are not to show partiality because at the cross all are on equal ground. Remember again Galatians 3:27-29:
27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.
28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave (slave) or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.
This doesn’t mean that those distinctions don’t exist, but at the cross, when it comes to the sacrifice and the salvation we have in Christ, we are all equal. No one is more or less deserving of grace. No one is better or worse than others. All of us, like sheep, have gone astray. All our works are like filthy rags before God. He saves us not because of works done, but out of His mercy he pours out grace on us.
Second, we don’t show partiality because our criteria for judgment is purely surface level while God sees the heart. God is able to judge correctly because we are fully exposed before His infinite knowledge. He created us, He knows our frame, He knows our deepest desires and thoughts. He knows more about us than even we know about ourselves. He’s able to judge perfectly. We cannot. Notice again James’s example. The people were showing favoritism based on appearance. Nice clothes, accessible jewelry, expressions of wealth. They were showing favoritism by giving the better seating spots to those people while the less desirable people were told to sit on the floor. In the synagogue, there was seating around the perimeter for the room for people to sit. Everyone else had to sit on the floor. The Pharisees always desired these better spots because they were given to those of honor and the Pharisees in their hypocrisy saw themselves as deserving high honor.
How would that look today? Perhaps a doctor, wealthy business honor, financial manager, or CEO comes into a church and we treat them special because of their status in the community or wealth. Because we’re far more concerned with the financial benefit they may give instead of their eternal soul. So because we want to keep their attention on our church, we cater to their wants. When we do that, we’re valuing temporary, worldly value for the eternal. This exposes our hypocrisy.
Verse 4 tells us that when we show favoritism, we “become judges with evil thoughts”. This isn’t a denunciation of judging generally, but the kind of judging we’re to do. Enemies of the Church often quote Matthew 7:1 which starts with “Do not judge”. But they fail to quote the whole thing:
Matthew 7:1–5 (CSB)
1 “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.
2 For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.
3 Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye?
4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye?
5 Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.
The point isn’t not to judge, but to judge rightly because the same standard with which we judge, will be used to judge ourselves. This means we need to be careful to know what God actually requires of people and what He has actually commanded. But it also means we need to be concerned with our own sin before pointing out the sins of others. Our judgement should be based on God’s law, and should not come from selfish motives.
God is able to judge perfectly. Remember 1 Samuel when the second king of Israel was being chosen. Samuel saw the elder sons of Jesse and thought that one of them must be the next king. They looked and talked the part, but God knew better. ! Sam. 16.7: “But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or his stature because I have rejected him. Humans do not see what God sees, for humans see what is visible, but Yahweh sees the heart.” We can only see so much of a person. It’s so easy to deceive others and put on a mask at the right moments. We can only judge partially and even then, we must be careful about casting judgment in all but the clearest of cases.
Verse 5 is similar to what we’ve seen previously in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29:
27 Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
28 God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something,
29 so that no one may boast in his presence.
God doesn’t work the way we work. We would think He’d want the best the world has to offer for His Kingdom. The problem is that what we think is the best, is actually the worst. God works in ways that are contrary to man’s ways. But He does it this way for a reason. He works this way so that in everything, He receives the glory.
James reminds his readers that the very people they’re trying to entice and find favor, are the ones who persecute and demean them. They’re the very people who bring them before the courts and blaspheme the God in whose name they were baptized. Still today there are too many Christians trying to be friends and find favor with those who are actually against God and His ways. Too many Christians try to be friends with the world and in doing so they diminish the power of the Gospel and make a mockery of the Christian life. It shouldn’t surprise us why the Christian faith has become a laughing stock to so many.
What It Means To Keep the Law
James 2:8-13 (CSB)
8 Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.
9 If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
11 For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.
12 Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.
13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
James then describes what it actually looks like to actually live the Law of God. Jesus said that all the Law and Prophets could be summed up in two laws: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. It’s this second commandment that James describes as the Royal Law. Royal because of He who gave it, God Himself.
Showing favoritism, like any other sin, is a transgression of God’s Law. It doesn’t matter which law we break, breaking even one law means we’ve broken the whole thing. James uses the examples of adultery and murder. Interestingly, these are the same commandments Jesus uses to illustrate what it really means to keep the law in His Sermon on the Mount. Jesus told His disciples that truly keeping the law wasn’t just about the physical, but the mental as well. It was about the heart of the person. He internalized the Law. It wasn’t just about physical adultery, but lusting after a woman, something that starts in the heart. It wasn’t about physical murder, but hatred for another, something that starts in the heart. James uses the same two commands to remind his readers that following one part of the law isn’t enough if you’re breaking another part. Breaking even one law makes us a law breaker. This is a common conversation starter by the evangelist Ray Comfort. He’ll go through the Ten Commandments and of course everyone has broken not just one, but multiple of them. The point is to show that no one is innocent. If we want to try to earn our righteousness, it requires keeping the whole law, which no one can. No one, except Jesus. He kept the whole law in our place. It was His active obedience that secured for us salvation because He was able to be the perfect sacrifice for His people.
We who are in Christ don’t work to earn, but because we have been saved. We follow a Law that gives freedom, not a Law that binds and strangles. We are to speak and act according to this Law. A Law that doesn’t show favoritism based on outward appearances. A Law that actually gives life because it’s rooted in the Gospel of Jesus.
Application
As we get into the application portion, it’s important to recognize that James isn’t forbidding the showing of honor generally. We’re told to honor our father and mother, we’re told to honor our local church elders, and those in public authority. The problem is when we show favoritism based on what we think we can get from a person. It’s based on selfishness.
So when we come together for worship, we come together as one people, undivided. We were baptized with the same baptism, into the same name, and we’re saved by the same Savior. We have the same Lord and the same God. We worship as one family without distinction to persons based on wealth or appearance.
We also need to remember that breaking any of God’s commandments is the same as breaking them all. Regardless of the number, we’re all lawbreakers. We’ve sinned against a thrice holy God. The only way we can be forgiven for such a grievous offense, is by faith in the Son of God made flesh, Jesus the Messiah. It’s only through Him, His death and resurrection, that we can live forever. Let us never forget the One through whom we’re saved.
