Commentary: James 4:11-17

God is the One Lawgiver and the One Judge

¹¹Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks evil against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if judge the law you are not a doer of the law but a judge. ¹²There is only one lawgiver and one judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor.”

The crucial statement in the quote above comes in verse 12. It is important for us to understand where we exist in relationship to God. We are very tiny and powerless compared to the immensity of God and His authority. The pivotal lesson here is not “we shouldn’t judge other people”, but rather the imperative lesson is that God is the one who possesses absolute authority and it is only He who understands how to exercise that authority in a fashion that is both righteous and just. Therefore, he is the only being anywhere who is perfectly righteous and perfectly just which thereby makes him the only true giver of law and judgment. This is the same God who is able to bring salvation through the grace of Christ. This is the same God who is also perfectly justified in pouring out his wrath against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of the world. Before we can really appreciate a statement like “who are you to judge your neighbor” we must first feel the density of the knowledge that God, who is able to both save and destroy, is the only lawgiver and the only judge. With that realization firmly locked in your mind you can now look back at verse 11 to see what it demands of us who call one another brothers and sisters in Christ.

We may have often thought, “Is there any real harm in speaking against another person? Is there really any harm done if I’m upset and say terrible things against another?” The answer to both is a big loud, thunderous, resounding yes and double yes. You don’t even have to be mad to speak evil against another. You could just be plain jealous and speak evil against another. There is an array of ways that we speak evil against others. Each one of these has the same damaging affect. When we speak evil against the law we put ourselves in a position. That position is one of judging the law. There is a contradiction in this. We cannot be judges of the law and do the law for the law says do not judge the law. The law is from God and is therefore holy and righteous and good (see Romans 7:12). When we speak evil against the law or judge the law we imbue ourselves, rather foolishly, with a wanton desire to possess the kind of authority that only God is capable of wielding. So when we speak evil against another, thereby speaking evil against the law and judging the same, we essentially say this of ourselves: “We are not only capable, but perfectly justified in executing law and judgment. We can say this because we are perfectly righteous as Christ was perfectly righteous. Therefore, we exercise sovereign authority as gods of our own little worlds when and how we see fit.” Now if this doesn’t sound like a scathingly heretical statement I don’t know what does. You might be thinking, “Yeah but that’s not how I feel when I speak against someone.” The simple fact of the matter is that whether you feel that way or not is completely beside the point. Speaking evil against another or judging another is a pure violation of biblical principle. When you choose to violate this principle you actively defy God in his sovereignty and basically say, “I can do anything you can do God.”

The standing question now is, “How do we avoid speaking evil against another and judging others?” As is the case with many things, the answer is surprisingly simple yet difficult at the same time because sin is so powerful and pervasive. The simple answer is: Be a doer of the word. If the word says don’t do “fill in the blank” then don’t do it. If the word says do “fill in the blank” then do it. Here some would be tempted to say, “Yeah but the problem with that is….” WAIT!!!! Stop those words right there. Take the rest of what you were about to say, wrap your hands around its sinful intentions, and choke it until it stops kicking. Far too many Christians, myself included, have become too adept at talking ourselves out of doing the word and adhering to the demands of it. We look at something and we say to ourselves, “Yeah that all sounds well and good but the reality of it is that it’s just not that easy.” Really? Why is that? What begins here is a myriad excuses. Yes I said excuses.  The brutal reality that most would rather not face is that almost every “reason” that we could come up with to not do what the Word says is really just a cover for selfish intentions. I know this to be true in my own life. I know it to be true in the lives of many of my closest friends, and they would admit to that.

What drives you to speak evil against someone else? Did someone call your wife a whore? She either is or she isn’t so why get upset with the person who said it. They were either stating fact or lie. If it’s a lie then what’s there to get in a twist about. “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.” (Romans 12:17) If it’s truth then the problem is not with the one saying it but rather with your wife. The same could be said in the case of an adulterous husband. In any case, regardless of circumstance, Romans 12:17-21 holds true. This really stretches us because our gut reactions and the appropriate biblical response doesn’t often line up when we’re in a state of spiritual immaturity regarding things like anger and slander. It’s moments like these when we most need to trust in the sovereignty of God and hide his word in our hearts (see Psalm 119:11) so that we would not fail in honoring him as we ought. We get the same advice from Psalm 119:10, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” There again is the simple answer. Guard your way in life according to the word that God has given you. Become doers of the word. This does not happen passively or without effort. Be prepared to struggle against the current. Be prepared to read, think, pray, and live steadfastly in what you have been taught by God’s infinite wisdom. Remember, we are not God. Therefore, who are we to judge anything at all?

We Are But A Vanishing Mist

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” – ¹⁴yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶As it is you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷So whoever know the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

When you read the subject heading to this section you may have thought to yourself, “Isn’t that a little bleak?” I don’t think it’s bleak at all. When James says that we “are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” I find it to be the exact kind of wisdom that the Disneyland of self-obsessed America needs to hear. Please don’t miss the heart of what James is trying to spell out for us. James is reminding us that our lives are short, barely visible, and passing by very quickly in the grand stage of time. This may be a very discouraging thought for some of you reading this. I would imagine it would be if that was your only focus. It’s true that our lives are short, some shorter than others. It is true that our lives are passing by quickly, as many of us are all too acutely aware. Yet if we fixate only on those things, if we hover our minds over those truths and nothing else, we will easily miss the will of God and the wisdom of his word. Let us not boast in our self-assurances. Our certainties, our carefully laid plans, our well thought out courses of action, if rooted in the desire to spend them on our own passions, will certainly come to dust in the end. We must be ever mindful of God’s will. We must be in constant submission to it every day. If we are not then we are busy boasting in our own arrogance by the example of our lives. James reminds us, “All such boasting is evil.”

So can we boast in anything at all in our lives? Sure. Galatians 6:14 says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” What an odd statement is here in Galatians 6. Boast in the cross. Have you ever stopped to really think about that? Boast in the cross. Why not say boast in lynching? Is Paul saying that we should boast in torture and forms of cruelty? That would be very odd if that’s what he meant. But that’s not what he means. When Paul said that “be it far from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” he wasn’t saying boast in the horrors of the imagination of humanity. Rather, he was saying, “Boast in the riches of the grace of God which he displayed through his Son on the cross so that the sin of the world would be crucified and overcome in the flesh, so that God’s chosen would die to the things of the world and be raised with Christ in God’s favor.” In other words, boast only in what God has accomplished. You can’t do that if you’ve raised yourself in honor and praise. When James says that we are a vanishing mist, he does this only to remind us of the proper perspective that we should have of God. He is reminding us yet one more time that there is only one lawgiver and one judge. We can, in no way elevate ourselves to the status of authority which belongs only to God. To do so would be boasting in arrogance, which would therefore make us guilty of evil, which in turn would make us guilty of sin.

Know the right thing to do and then do it so that you would become a doer of the word and not just a hearer of the word who is deceiving himself or herself. Instead, pray for the steadfastness of God’s word to wrap you up in an undeniable hold. Seek only righteousness. Seek only to do what you have been instructed to do by God, the one true lawgiver and the one true judge.