Books of James & Jude - Favoritism, royal law, and law of liberty - part 1 -...

Okay, so let's go ahead and just read the first three verses here, or all three verses that we'll be looking at today. You just want to read along with me here. If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.

So some pretty heavy verses there. Start looking at it from the perspective of some of the classes that we've been through in the past. Think about the Law and Grace series and definitely some key terms start popping out and some questions start being arise in our minds as to what is this royal law, and what about the church and their involvement with these kinds of things, and how is James seeing this and teaching this, and we're going to try to address some of those things today. I think we've definitely crossed these boundaries before in 1 John. We've talked about keeping commands and doing and the law obviously has come up already in the book of James, but we're going to hit that pretty heavy today. I think that it's going to be interesting to see some of the perspective that James has on these things and how that might relate to other teachings in the scripture. A little context, having looked at the issue of favoritism last week, in the previous lesson, Roger pointed out that there's no place for that way of thinking in the believer's mindset, and we'll see today that the Royal Law has the very opposite reality for the believer, that is love for others, not partiality. So that's what we're going to be looking at today.

First phrase there, if you are fulfilling, if, being a first class, soon to be true, for argument's sake, and likely was true. Obviously, based on the previous verses, James was dealing with a particular issue that this group of Jewish believers had, and that was showing partiality to those that had more money or were more well-off in many ways. And so, James was hitting this particular issue very hard. And he brings up a larger perspective of the law in order to deal with this one particular issue.

This is assumed to be true for argument's sake, and he's obviously talking to believers here, carrying on with the first several verses that have to do with this issue. And then we get to this word fulfilling, this idea of fulfilling a law. And so here we have the idea of accomplishing it, executing it fully, keeping the law.

In Romans 2.27, we see that same word being used there for keep the law. And then another instance in Romans, the exact same word, translated, pay your taxes. So this is rendering what is due, right? Fulfilling something based on the knowledge of what is needed.

And so we have this same word also being used in a Pauline perspective in Galatians 5.16, but I say walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out or fulfill the desire of the flesh. And so Here, James is using this term to fulfill the law. In Galatians, Paul uses the same word in reference to carrying out the desires of the flesh. So it's based on context as to how one fulfills and based on what the object of that fulfillment has in mind.

In this case, it has to do with the law and one of the things that I think is really helpful to keep in mind, we looked at this a few weeks ago, I brought this slide out. Do you remember seeing this one? Were you there for that one? I think this was really helpful.

This is a conversation I had with with Vern about James versus Paul, and a lot of times that conversation is focused on the idea of salvation by works. Is James teaching salvation by works and Paul's teaching salvation by grace? And that's not what we're talking about in this particular slide, but what I did want to do is compare the ways that James focuses on teaching versus the way that Paul focuses on teaching.

And this is really a big perspective, and a big way of looking at a larger context of scripture, and it's very helpful for me. So James focuses on the applying and doing of what one reads, so he's a reality guy. He thinks in reality, much like John did in the book of 1st, 2nd, 3rd John. We talked a lot about, you know, he had in mind what it looks like when you're walking with the Lord. In this case, James is talking about what it looks like for a believer to not show partiality. And he carries that out in a very earthly sense of the terms that he uses. And so he focuses on how things look to others. So James is about doing.

Yes, Al. Your comments about fulfilling and about this comparison make me think of the idea of bringing to a completion, bringing about something, whereas theologians many times get wrapped up in their theological discourses. it doesn't produce any fruit in the life. I can have a very good theology and not be accomplishing God's will for me. And it seems to me that this, that you're pointing out here, is the difference between my recognizing my position in Christ, good old Paul, hammering away, who I am in Christ and here at this church, a strong emphasis on our position in Christ. But if you just emphasize your position in Christ, it's easy to get a holier-than-thou and a superior kind of perspective on your neighbor and everybody else who isn't so theologically... Yeah. No, that's right. I think there's definitely a...

And James talks about hearing and doing, right? Not just being a hearer, but a doer. Which is, you know... And none but the hungry heart had a devotional that spoke to that exact issue of not just having perspective of our position in Christ, but letting God work through us to bring about His will. As we recognize our position in Christ, things will happen and we will do things. That's right.

I think one of the things that I have come away with studying the book of James, I'm going to talk about here in a little bit. I don't think that a lot of times we teach James in a way to get down to the practical realities of doing. And we almost kind of tack it on to, well Paul explained how it works in the mind, James explains what it looks like in the life. But there's some observations that I'm going to make today that might shed a little bit further light on that way of looking at it.

Paul definitely has a lot more to teach with regards to position and identification. And it largely had to do with the time that God revealed certain truths. And it also has to do with the audience that Paul was talking to versus the audience that James was talking to. But for now, we'll hold on to that thought and we'll keep moving on. As far as Paul, like we were saying there, Paul would point out how. So he's getting very practical about what's happening under the hood, mentally speaking, with regards to the life of the believer.

And so, James about doing, Paul about beholding, and yes they coincide with one another, but there's some other interesting observations that I think will help us better understand the book of James, and particularly this term, royal law. Here, the idea of royal, noble, excellent, preeminent, referring to law. In the previous verses there, we talked about the kingdom, right? James brought up the issue of the kingdom and those that would inherit it and how that works a little bit. So, there's definitely a kingdom mindset here.

But this word could actually be translated in a couple different ways, or we could see it being understood in a couple different ways. One of them, a law befitting a king. So this law that James is talking about could be seen as one befitting a king, and that would definitely make sense.

Another translation might be understood as a law surpassing all others. And we get that word preeminent from that. That word could be translated a preeminent law versus a royal law. And based on the way that James is going to, first of all, quote the book of Leviticus here in a moment, but based on the future context that we're about to get into, I've chosen to actually understand this as more as a preeminent law, so one that surpasses all others with regards to how we deal with human relationships. Yes, it fits the king, and yes, it's kingly, but here I think James is really driving home the issue of relationships with people and not showing partiality. And this one particular law that he is going to bring up, as he refers to it, is a supreme law with regards to that issue.

So we've already looked at the word nomos quite a number of times. It could be translated law. In other instances, it could be translated principle. Actually, what I wanted to do is introduce four different ways that the word law could be understood. And I think that this is something that Verne has really established a great deal throughout the Law and Grace series. And this is one of those teachings that has helped me a great deal with regards to New Testament understanding of law. We can see this word being used in multiple ways by Paul. So in a particular letter that Paul writes, he might use the word law to refer to one of these four different definitions. and he might use them interchangeably.

So in one case he might be referring to the Law of Moses, literally the 613 individual laws that were given to Israel. In other instances he might use it to refer to the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah. In other instances, Paul and James as well, John would use the word to refer to the entire Old Testament, so all the scripture that had been revealed up until the time of James. And then fourthly, and this is the way that Paul uses it in many instances, especially in the book of Galatians and so forth, a principle being a fundamental truth or a key point of influence or guidance. So we might translate in some of Paul's writings, principle versus law.

And that's very helpful for those verses that we've looked at in that series with Verne. In this case, I believe that based on the context of what James is talking about and the fact that he will quote Leviticus and then also Christ himself from the book of Matthew, I think that the law here refers to the entire Old Testament. So he's looking at all the scripture that they have in writing, because he later on says, the royal law according to the scriptures.

So he's referring to the larger context of commands that are found in the Old Testament up until the point, and even including Christ's teaching and the Sermon on the Mount, we've noticed in other classes that there is a very significant parallel. I think you brought that up at one point. The Sermon on the Mount, I can't remember the verse we were looking at, but there's a lot of parallel passages with the book of James and the Sermon on the Mount.

And James had a very close relationship with what Christ said at that particular point in time. And so we see that going back and forth. But that would have been included potentially and obviously in James' mind as well. But what was not in James' mind is very interesting.

And I want to get to that here in a moment. I just wanted to also really quickly cover on this, according to the scriptures. So, this is a law surpassing all others that is according to the scriptures. So, it's definitely in accordance with, in Matthew 16, 27, that same word, according, repay every man according to his deeds.

So, this is rendering what is, I'm sorry, not rendering, but a relationship involving something similar to. So, this is not just what James is saying out of thin air. He's not communicating something that is new at this point. This has already been revealed as according to the actual infallible, inerrant Word of God that James and the Jewish believers held as the body of truth and useful for teaching and training in doctrine. And so he's referring to that body of writing And the word scriptures there itself, like I said, I believe refers back to the Old Testament in a larger sense. So this law, surpassing all others, was recorded in accordance with the scripture that James had available at the time, namely the Old Testament. So he's not saying anything that's new to these Jewish believers.

They would have heard this numerous amounts of times growing up. What's the law that he's referring to? He quotes Leviticus 19.18. So that's where this royal law first was heard by Israel.

And then additionally, it's repeated numerous times throughout the scripture, but particularly Matthew 7, 12, and Matthew 22, 39, and everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets. So there he's referring to a portion of the scripture that is a larger larger than just the 613 commands. I mean, the Law and the Prophets refer to a bigger portion of Scripture, and Christ himself is making that connection. And then in Matthew 22-39, the second is like it, you shall love your neighbors yourself.

So this issue of loving the neighbor was very appropriate for what these believers were dealing with, because they were struggling with partiality. And that was the very thing that James hits right on the head with this royal law, and it would have reminded them that this is a very significant issue. This isn't small in comparison, because it goes to the very top of the food chain with regards to the law, a law surpassing all others.

When it comes to the way that relationships are governed between a believer and other believers, or even unbelievers, this is the law or the teaching that James wanted to remind them of. So, remember that James has in mind the way believers treat one another.

The reason I say that is I don't want to use this passage as a proof text for everything. Definitely it covers many different things, but in James' mind he was wanting to help solve for them, a mental challenge with showing partiality. And so that's what he's doing here. When we're talking about law, yes it's a bigger context, and yes we want to solve for some of those things and try to understand them, but he was talking to a group of Jewish believers that were struggling with this. And it seems clear that James did not want to be misunderstood, so he clarifies how all men, both rich and poor, ought to be treated.

Because, based on what he said in previous verses, you might think to yourself, well, then the rich man, who was not chosen by God to inherit the kingdom and so forth, he does not deserve the love that I have. James thought, well, there might be some misunderstanding potentially there. And he's saying, no, that's not it at all. He's saying that you should partiality towards the rich man and not to the poor man, but all men should be loved as yourself.

So there's a self-sacrificial love that comes up. And he's connecting these believers back to a supreme law, that which governs all other laws dealing with human relationships. And that is, ultimately, this issue has to do with sacrificial love. Simply put, believers are governed by the scripture as it relates to how they deal with others.

And that's what he wanted to point. And it's interesting that he gets them back to the word. He points them back to the word. If they've got an issue, James' approach was, let's go back to the scriptures. Here's what we need to be thinking. This is where our mindset needs to be. It was a doctrinal thing, and he wanted to correct the doctrine. So some things, we just mentioned earlier, in just a few minutes earlier, that James writes to the what, the doing, and Paul writes to the how, the beholding. So we have this law, this royal law, and how do we kind of deal with that?

So I wanted to talk a little bit about the transitional period of the book of James, and this is something that has come to light to me more recently, and it's very much been helpful to me in understanding this book. But James is writing to a group of Jewish believers. As a rule, Paul's Gentiles epistles were written to Gentiles, and James is written to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. So, think about where this is written in time. It's probably the earliest of the New Testament epistles to be written, and we've talked about this, but it's important to remember when we get to some of these key issues. It's written early in the transition from the gospel of the kingdom to the gospel of substitution. James is coming from the standpoint of a Jewish gospel. That's how he's thinking. He's thinking like a Jew, and he is still speaking like a Jew. Because why? the Gentile ministry hasn't been initiated fully yet, right? It was in a transitional period. Paul's ministry hadn't begun in its fullest sense. And so, you know, James was limited with the amount of information that he had.

And so he's speaking from a very Jewish perspective, having just experienced, you know, within potentially less than a decade, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And so, you know, this whole understanding of the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of substitution, you know, they're different sets of good news, right?

We've talked about that in the Law and the Grace series. And it's interesting when you start looking at the way James is thinking. I mean, what was he talking about in previous verses? Was he talking about substitution or was he talking about kingdom? have a look at, you know, James 1, I'm sorry, chapter 2, verse 6, 7, and 8. What's the flavor of that, the terminology that he uses there?

This is kingdom stuff. There's some kingdom stuff going on here, and yes, there's some salvation issues throughout the book of James, But he is still in a period where the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of substitution is being taught at the same time. We see that all through the book, not all through, but very much through a large portion of the book of Acts. The apostles were teaching both of these things alongside one another.

It's not until later on years later that Paul receives revelation concerning the identification truths and the operating principles of grace, all of those things were not yet evident to James. And so, it's interesting to think about this, that Christ had not revealed all of this to James at that particular point. In fact, in the book of James 5, he talks about the Lord's return and his coming, his second coming. And so James is of the mindset that, you know, he's ascended, but he's coming right back. And he's not seeing this huge period of time where grace is the ruling principle for the church. He hasn't seen all of that yet. He thinks death, burial, resurrection, Old Testament, Christ's return. I mean, that's how that's what his mind is like.

And he's speaking to Jews who already understand who they are in Yahweh, you know, they don't know who they are in Christ, because Paul, that was Paul's job to explain that. But they already understand who they are in relationship to the to God. And so their position so far as they understood it, was we are saved, and they understood grace as it related to salvation, because James does talk about salvation being granted by faith to Abraham. So he understood salvation by faith, but he understood it in the context of Abraham.

He doesn't understand it in the context of Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, and so forth. He doesn't have that way of thinking yet. And so this issue of progressive revelation is a really key point to understanding the book of James. Back in Acts 15, that you make reference to there in your slide, he spoke, James that is, spoke and recommended that they not pursue making the Gentiles be circumcised, but would they refrain from eating blood and he has several things still he was struggling wondering over as it were to keep peace in the church to make it one because the Jews have strongly believed that they were doing the right thing by keeping all the law. That's right. And you had the Gentiles who didn't know anything about the law. And they were looking for a common ground there. Yeah, that's right.

And James just was not focused on the Gentiles, was he? We see that there's discourse back and forth between other apostles with regards to the ministry of the Gentiles. He's in Jerusalem. James is a Jew, right? He's a Jewish guy. He's very Jewish in his way of thinking. And he's speaking to Jews. And that's what's going on here.

I brought up this slide from Vern's series there, the Gospel of Substitution being in parallel. They all have a chronological trace throughout Scripture, but James knew far more about the Gospel of the Kingdom than he did about the gospel of substitution in its full Pauline understanding. So that's where James is coming from.

And I think what, you know, we're not going to go through this necessarily, but it's just there for reference to remind us that we can't look at scripture as being flat. And that's the problem with teachers like myself, and I've taught the book of James in an incorrect way at times. And I think a lot of even teachers in our own camp are struggling to make James fit because they don't understand where it fits with regards to progressive revelation. They look at it very flat.

It's like, open up your Bible, whatever you read applies to me right then and right there. It's that kind of instantly teach me something because everything is something that I should obey and do right away. So I can open it up and just read it and then boom. I don't know if you've ever done that. I have. I have a past where I was like, Lord, just, you know, and you open it up and all of a sudden you're reading things to Israel and you're like, I don't know how in the world that's supposed to work.

I mean, that's how you start. You think scripture is just flat, and everything applies to you, and you don't recognize that God did not reveal everything to every person all at once. And so, different people have a different amount of information at a given point in time. We call that progressive revelation.

And we talked, Vern's talked about how Paul, you know, Paul was given very much with regards to identification. In fact, that was, you know, largely a part of his ministry to the Gentiles was to explain who we are in Christ, our position. It was not given to James to do that. Paul was also given a peek into paradise and then told not to speak of it. Why? It wasn't his job. And that didn't happen until later where John gives many chapters to the heavenly scene, whereas Paul would have seen and understood certain things, but it was not given to him to even communicate those things.

And so, the Lord has chosen, and it's evident throughout scripture, he's chosen to reveal things to certain people at certain times in certain ways. Just like you train a child, you don't tell them everything they need to know right up front. You tell them just enough so that they can start to grow mentally into the next stage of learning. Calculus and kindergarten. That's right. And you know what? Jane's is not a calculus book when it comes to church. church truths and church doctrine. It's not a book, it's more like arithmetic.

You know, this is the very, very start of the church, within a decade of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and we don't see all of these truths, and this is hard to read, but you can refer to it in your handout, and I'll just kind of explain what's going on here, but you know, here's the timeline.

AD to 65 AD, and around 30 we have Christ crucified, buried, raised, ascended, and seated, and that happened historically there, but the teachings of it did not come out for another 20 years later. And what was going on during this transitional period? Notice, this is where the book of James is. Here we've got Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans, and then we've got Ephesians.

All of this stuff that we refer to as such rich truths for us in identification and operating principles of grace, this doesn't happen until the last 15 years of this time segment. And look at some of these other issues, like tongues. We use a transitional way of thinking about that particular doctrine. We understand tongues as being given in order to make clear the judgment that was directed toward Israel, and that was the specific use of tongues. And it had a particular time when it was very effective. Well, after the destruction of Israel in 70 AD, we won't see anything like that ever again. Why? Because it had a particular purpose.

And so this transitional period governs our understanding of certain doctrines like tongues. And it also helps us understand what James is not able to clearly explain and what he is. And here we've got this identification and seeding and ascension, resurrection, burial, crucifixion, this idea of baptized into Christ. If you were to say and tell James that you were baptized into Christ, he probably would have said, huh?

I don't know what you mean. I don't get that. I don't understand what you're saying there. I mean, he would understand what baptism meant, but he wouldn't fully understand the kinds of things that Paul later explained because he's looking at things from a Jewish perspective and that information had not been fully revealed yet.

So that was really helpful to me to understand that when James is talking about fulfilling and obeying and keeping the law, he was explaining it without regards to the full operating system of grace that Paul was going to help reveal. And we benefit in having this ability to look back and understand these things, but the problem with James is that a lot of times we run right in and we start trying to make it fit really practically. Well, it does fit. It fits in a particular time and to a particular audience and in a particular way. And there are still a great deal of truths that we can understand from the book of James, but we can actually further understand them.

In greater ways, when we go on to see how Paul teaches that same thing, love your neighbor as yourself, Paul dealt with that in Galatians. Okay, he dealt with that. And with regards to the law, if we don't have the book of Romans, we have no idea that we're dead to it. We don't fully understand that yet.

So it says here, and just carrying out the final understanding of verse 8 there, that if you Fulfill the royal law that is love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. Again, this is an outward behavioral analysis that James is giving. You love your neighbor as yourself, you're going to do good. You'll find yourself in a good situation. To make, form, produce, bring about, cause, you know, these are just definitions here, but the idea of doing well has to do with an external manner, something that can be observed and seen in a person. And that's how Paul, I mean, sorry, James is looking at this stuff.

We might say if you want to do well from an external character perspective, don't choose favoritism. but choose to obey a supreme command of the Old Testament, love others as yourself." Is there any reason why we as New Testament believers having the full understanding, or available rather, available teaching of Paul with regards to how one obeys, is there any problem saying that there are commands to follow in the New Testament or in the Old Testament? There's not. I mean, there's many, many instances where we have a directive in scripture.

And even Paul has directives. But Paul goes on to explain how those directives are carried out for the life of the believer. And James just talks about carrying them out. Partiality, you've looked at this word in the last class here, but the idea is unjust distinctions between people. We're just choosing favorites, you know, back to the way that kids do, you know. I mean, it's just the same attitude.

And the supreme law directs us right to the wrong attitude of favoritism and corrects us to the right attitude of self-sacrificial love, ultimately seen by Christ on the cross. So the type of preferential treatment James dealt with in this section, that is the previous verses 1-13, that violates this royal law. He wanted them to know that you're violating this royal law because it treats some as inferior and others as sources of special favor. and also violates specific commands found in God's Word that reveal God's will in interpersonal dealings." Does that make sense?

He's correcting an issue, just like we would correct a child. You're showing favoritism. God's Word says this, if you do this, you'll do well. And that's exactly what he said, and that's how he said it. And if we read any more into it or try to make it say something beyond that, I think we're losing the point of what James was driving home.

These guys knew a great deal about the scripture. They weren't Gentiles. They'd grown up understanding God's word from the beginning to that particular point in time very richly, very deeply. They understood where they were in relationship to God as Israel. and now as a believing Israel or believing not Israel but believing Jews. Believing Israel doesn't happen for future times yet. This partiality idea can be a little bit sneaky because they considered rich people to having been blessed by God. And therefore, when Jesus said, it's hard for the rich to enter the kingdom, the disciples immediately said, who then can be saved?

You bring up a good point there. Even though you're not showing the partiality in this physical manner that James is talking about, you're still making these mental decisions. You are. It's very easy for me to do that kind of thing when I look at some rich people who have no regard for God. Remember, these are Jews, but they are believing Jews. So, a Jew, if James was speaking to strictly a Jew, a Pharisee, they would have a huge amount of trouble believing that the rich were not favored by God. They wouldn't believe it.

It wasn't until you have the ministry of Christ, which these believers believed, right? That's what made them believers. It was Christ who clarified a lot of the heart of the law, right? And it struck at the heart of the Pharisees because they were misunderstanding the very law itself that they were trying to keep. And so you think about the rich man, you know, and the rich young ruler, and the idea of selling his possessions and so forth. I mean, this was unheard of to a Pharisee. I mean, this doesn't make sense.

But for James' audience, they believe what Christ said. So they were differentiated from Jews in that they were believing, and they believed that Christ was the Messiah, and that his words were not only in unison with the law, but he made clearer the heart of the law through his person. And they believed in him and what he did. So when we say that he's writing to a Jewish audience, we are differentiating them from purely or simply Jew to Jewish believers.

We have to keep that in mind too. Committing sin, practicing sin. If partiality is a part of your behavior, then it is what it is. It's sin. And the purpose of the law is to make known a person's sin and this law, the supreme law, would have been like a mirror to this Jewish believing group that they've got a sin problem. You're offending God and there's a guilt factor with regards to it. He goes on to say, and you're convicted. you're proven to be a lawbreaker or a transgressor. So we might say, but if you choose to show partiality towards certain people, that is sin and it's an offense to God.

He's making that very clear. And the Old Testament scripture will show you to be wrong, resulting in a denial of truth and being found a lawbreaker. Is this the case with our sin too? It is kind of a trick question. Are we breaking the law? When you phrase it that way, we're not under the law, we're under grace. But we still are violating God's principle of operation. So why does James say this to believers who are not under the law? Remember, transitional period. He didn't have all of Romans, Galatians, Ephesians. It was simple because that's as much as he had at that particular point in time.

Whoever keeps the whole law, we've used this verse in a lot of different ways, whoever keeps the whole law Reference to an indefinite entity, so this applies to believers and unbelievers alike. The point is to say that regardless of how much you attempt to keep, if you fail in one particular point, you stumble, the word stumble there, then you're guilty of it all. I like the illustration that Macaulay uses. He says, the law issues only two grades, pass or fail.

And that's how James understood things still, even as a believer, it was pass, fail. Why? Well, he's not wrong. He just doesn't have the full operating principle of grace in mind yet. James is attacking the kind of thinking that believes that obedience in one area will somehow compensate for disobedience in another.

Jews thought that way. And they would struggle with this. It's obvious by the fact that he's dealing with the partiality thing. They thought it was okay to have certain views like this and that somehow they would get kind of a B-. Yeah, it's the shifting scale. Yeah, the weighted grading system, right? And the thing is, even in grace, God does not have a weighted grading system. It's still pass-fail.

It's just that we have a substitute satisfy those things on our behalf. And we're never seen as ever failing to keep the law as a believer because it has been fulfilled and we're not under it. So, it's past for us. And James was in a transition period of understanding those things, and so far as their moral issues, he wanted to make sure it's a past-Valfeyne, guys. That's all it is.

You stumble at one point, you're guilty of it all. He's not talking about salvation so much as he's talking about their sin of partiality. You don't get to have a B-minus performance in this area of favoritism. You're guilty. If you're guilty, you're guilty. Done. You're a lawbreaker with regards to this.

And the law is like a pane of glass, when any part is broken, it is all broken. And that's his point. Knock out the corner of a piece of glass, it shatters the whole thing. This characteristic of the law is why attempting to obey it cannot bring salvation, but only condemnation.

Why do we know that? Fully because Galatians 5, 1-4 explains that, and a number of other places as well. Here's where we can go on to a further clarification. I thought this would be a good quote and reference to some verses that we could go and hang our hat on the truth of what James is saying here, but also further clarify for ourselves what the scripture says with regards to this law stuff. Now, Stanford says, as for the New Testament law of Christ, we could also say royal law here, because law of Christ is used in a few verses later, and it also is referring, I think, to the Old Testament law, not the 613, but the larger context of commands and exhortations and so forth.

But as for the New Testament law of Christ and the commands and exhortations that apply to the believer, his reliance is upon the Holy Spirit for the fulfillment of his life. See, James didn't understand that fully. He knew that the Holy Spirit would come and it would enable them to do a ministry that he was involved with in Jerusalem to the Jews. He understood that the Holy Spirit would enable him to communicate the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, but he didn't understand how the Holy Spirit was going to be the minister in his life to literally bring Christ's life to a reality in moral issues. He didn't fully get that.

But we do. All the law is fulfilled in one word. Notice that it's the exact same supreme law that Paul uses in Galatians 5.14. All the law is fulfilled in one word. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. See, Paul didn't have a different perspective. It's just that this fulfillment is done as empowered, energized, and made possible by the Holy Spirit in Christ's life through you.

The love of God, in Romans 5.5, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Our love for others is energized and enabled through the Holy Spirit in us.

So Galatians 5.14 and Romans 5.5 are very helpful in understanding this royal law issue that James was bringing to the Jews.

We understand that the same principle or exhortation or command, if you will, to love your neighbor as yourself, it still applies. It hasn't been dismissed. It's not overlooked by Paul or dismissed. It's there. It's just further explained by being carried out by the Holy Spirit in you, as opposed to you somehow performing a moral duty on your own. The Word guides and instructs him as to what he is to depend upon the Holy Spirit for his life. So we see commands and exhortations all throughout the New Testament, but we see them as what the Holy Spirit is going to do through us as we trust Him. As we walk by faith, these are the kinds of things that we're going to do.

So looking back on the book of James, showing partiality is not something that we can do by ourselves. You can't tell your children, don't do that. If they're believers, they need to understand the Holy Spirit will enable you to obey and not do whatever that is when you trust Him. It's not that, hey, don't do that. Stop that. See, that's not Paul's perspective on morality. It's the Holy Spirit will enable you to do this, but only as you trust the Lord to do that. be a moral child of the faith or a child by age, we can't teach one another from the scripture or teach our children to obey something without also talking about the means that obedience is carried out.

It's critical. Otherwise you're simply looking at things from a very flat perspective. It has everything to do for us with our position, because we need to understand who we are in Christ before we can understand what Christ's life does. And that's where all the commands and exhortations in the New Testament are fulfilled, not by us fulfilling them out of our own ability or motive, but by the Holy Spirit fulfilling it through us, bringing about the life of Christ. So we think of the Word No different than James, we just see our ability to obey in a fuller sense that Paul explains to us. The word guides and instructs him as to what he is to depend upon the Holy Spirit for in his life.

You read something in the scriptures, it says, wow, that's a tall order. You know what? That's the Holy Spirit's job to carry that out in my life as I trust him to do so. The whole triunity of God is involved in your obedience. You're not on a solo effort to just pull up your bootstraps and get her done.

That's not what the scriptures say. The growing believer realizes that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for the sinners. It was to show them sin. James uses it to show them the sin of partiality. That's what he used it for. It's a mirror.

And we still use the Word of God, even in the New Testament, to show us where we're sin, where we have sin. And 1 John, you know, talks about what happens when you do find yourself convicted of sin. Right? But the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners.

That's what the law is for, and we get that because Timothy explained that to us. James didn't fully have that in mind yet. The believer learns to abide above in Christ, far beyond the Law's dominion. His life, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, is manifested by the fruit of the Spirit, not by the works of the Law. So I bring this out, just as a final thought, to say this is not what James is teaching us. This is what Paul, Timothy, John, and other instances, others in scripture have taught us.

But it's still in, it is very much in line with what James is saying. It's just James is not meant to fully answer all of these questions. And so that's why, you know, how you mentioned, you know, James being a do-book and us hearing but not being doers. The thing is that if we just stuck in the book of James, we would still be confused potentially about how it gets done.

We'd probably be doing a little bit of bootstrapping. We'd be trusting the Lord, but we wouldn't fully understand what we would be trusting. We wouldn't understand the law's relationship to us anymore. We wouldn't understand how the purpose is not of the law for a righteous man, it's for the lawless, and the disobedient, and the ungodly, and the sinners. That's Timothy.

So, James is an inerrant portion of Scripture, and everything that we see there is in line with other Scripture, but it's not meant to fully explain our relationship to these laws and how the Holy Spirit fulfills them in our life through the fruits of the Spirit.

Does that make sense? Does that help? It helped me quite a bit. It encourages me because this whole progressive understanding of Revelation and understanding transitional periods, James was learning still too. It doesn't make the book Like I say, it doesn't make it any less than any other scripture, is what I mean.

But it does mean that it's not meant to fully understand the issues that we start asking ourselves, having the hindsight 20-20. We can go back and look and see it. the believers were hearing what James was saying, all they recognized was, hey, we're convicted, partiality wrong, not what God says. That's what they thought. We look back and we're like, well, man, are we under law again?

Or, you know, because we know we've read things like 1 Timothy 1.9. It's like, well, now James is saying this. And how do I reconcile this? Well, It's because your view of Scripture is flat. And that's a danger in understanding the Word.

I think it's a privilege to be able to rightly divide it. as Timothy says, and to be able to go back and understand things culturally, historically, be able to get into the language and identify some of these things so that we can be more careful with how we utilize some of these commands and these different ideas that we see in James. So, any questions or thoughts to kind of wrap up?

I like how you keep bringing in, you know, how you're training your children to do this or that. I mean, sometimes with our kids, there's not time to give a full explanation about why you should run in front of that car. It's just like, don't run in front of the car! Just a quickie, just to, you know.

And I like also how you say that each book is important, and it just makes me think how every book in the Bible is inspired by God, and it's all a packaged deal. You have to look at the whole thing. It just makes sense when you look at all of it together. It's all inspired for teaching, reproof, the whole word of God is God. That's right. And that's a really good point.

I've had a teacher use the illustration of when bombers World War II, I believe it was, they'd go into battle, they were told to stay in formation. If one of the planes got out of formation, it would increase the risk of it being shot down individually. But if they stayed together, they could support one another. And the scripture is very much the same way, and that illustration has been helpful for me over the years. all of the scripture flies together.

You take one piece and you start looking at it with disregard for other parts of scripture and it gets shot down. And a lot of what we deal with in terms of apologetics and so forth is we attempt to utilize things from say general revelation or just particular parts and pieces of the Bible without regarding the whole. And one of the things that's so unique about our faith and the body of Scripture that we hold as being literally God-breathed is that God designed it to stick together. He didn't design one book to be a stand-alone principle for one people and a stand-alone book for another people or another time.

It's a full revelation and it's complete as it is in its totality, not individually. And, you know, when we talk about defending the faith, when we talk about understanding the faith, and so forth, it's important to see it as a whole. And the more we are able to identify how these pieces work together, the stronger our faith is going to be as we grow in sanctification, and the greater ability we're going to have to explain to unbelievers the uniqueness of God's revelation because it is, in its totality, God's Word, not specifically and individually alone. He has a full revelation, and then that's what we hold true, and that's exciting because when you see it together, it protects itself. Each piece protects the other piece, and that's how God designed the Word, to support one another.

So if you find yourself kind of out on a limb with someone on the Word, one of the first things I always remind myself is, okay, I've got to reign this back in. I'm talking about the fullness of God's revelation, not one particular individual instance of truth. Although that might be the issue for someone or for myself, it is the totality, the big picture of the entire Word of God. that will help me understand this individual problem that I'm having. So, it's full counsel, right?

Well, let's pray. Father, I thank you so much that you have chosen to give us your word, that you want us to understand you. remain distant or dark and quiet, Lord, but you've come out in the right time and in the right way and to the right people, explained your will for us, who you are, what you've done, and who we are and how you desire the fruit of the Spirit to be manifest in our lives. And Lord, I thank you that we have the fullness of even what Paul has said with regards to the law, and that we can truly understand that we are not under law but under grace and that we have the life of Christ enabled and energized by the Holy Spirit to be made known to others and to ourselves as we trust you and we thank you that your life is something that we can experience as reality. In your name that we pray, Amen.