This highlights how we judge people based on what we see or have heard about them. The scholars are a few of them before we say a word to them. If we treat people based on such criteria, we cannot show the teachings of Jesus in the same breath. Jesus did not teach us to show partiality. He did not back down from talking to and spending time with anyone. The Pharisees thought it would be a bad reputation to say that He ate with tax collectors and sinners. Along with partiality, James will raise the issue being judges of others later in the section.

Christ did not show you partiality. What kind of free gift of salvation would that be? What if there was a certain criteria for salvation besides believing on Jesus Christ? What if there was a weight limit? Or even worse in my case, a height limit! What if you had to give so much money, or do so many certain ritual things, or do some quantifiable measure of your passion for Christ? Salvation in Christ does not work that way. It makes no distinction. So neither should we. That’s James’ point.

James 2:2. James further explained his point with an illustration, a hypothetical situation between a rich person and a poor person who come into their gathering. He gives a concrete hypothetical situation that could happen in the church.

In James’s example, he uses a conditional sentence that is possible, but has different to be true. He could see this situation happening in their church. He uses the word for “synagogue” here. This could have simply referred to the kind of meeting they had this early in church history.

A synagogue was not just a building. It was a way to worship. Synagogue said their own worship order. The other option is that this is a little synagogue where Jews meet. We know that. Peter and John were still going to the temple in the beginning of Acts (Acts 3:1). As the early church developed, they began using wealthy people’s homes to meet.

There’s also the question of whether or not a rich person would visit the synagogue were gathering for the Christians. Other Christians could have invited a rich person. There is much we do not know about early Christian gatherings. James presents this case as a possibility that they would treat each one as he presents. They definitely become judges with evil motives.

Look at how James describes these two people. First, you have the rich person with a gold ring on his finger and dressed in radiant (fine) clothing. He contrasts the rich person with the poor person who has dirty (filthy) clothing. He has no jewelry, highlighting how poor he is. The word for “gold ring on the figure” is used once in the New Testament. It is literally “goldfinger.”

These two people could not be any different for one another. A person immediately notices their differences. When you see it, you cannot see it. But you can’t decide how you will react. James is warning us of the danger of partiality between these two groups.

Can you think of other reasons for Christians to have partiality? James mentions the rich and poor, but today we could think of political rivals, royalty, business people in your community, homeless people, and racism. These are all worldly categories that would cause us to treat people with partiality.

James 2:3. James continues with his illustration. He asks if you see these differences and pay close attention to them. This results in you treating these people very differently. You tell the poor man to sit by your feet or stand over here, but the rich person you ask to take a seat of honor. Jesus had a parable about how the seats at a banqueting table show who is more important than others (Luke 14:7-11).

Sometimes partiality happens in our heart and we don’t even realize we’re doing it. We could say it is social conventions that we react the way we do to certain people. Let us remind ourselves that social conventions are the world’s distinctions and standards.

So the image is complete, this hypothetical situation that James presents. This happens in our culture today. It’s so easy for us to understand this preference based on status and appearance. Just go to any formal event and you will feel the tension as soon as you walk in the door. You immediately know you are underdressed for the occasion. It is one of the reasons I hate fancy restaurants.

James 2:4. James asks a rhetorical question of the believers reading his letter. Have they not made distinctions between people the moment they saw these people? They showed partiality for one person over the other. They become judges with evil thoughts and intentions. This rhetorical question expects a “yes” answer.

There are no distinctions among us as Christians. We have all been saved by Jesus’s grace and loved by Him we have all done wicked, sinful, and evil things before we knew Christ. Paul says there are no distinctions among us (Galatians 3:28).

Looking at external appearances and assigning value to people is not our job, James brings the fact that they have become judges of those people. Anytime that we make distinctions based on external appearance, we are violating God’s right to perfectly judge.

It never has been our place to judge others. That is why James says that such people who show partiality have become judges with evil motives. Judging and distinguishing others divides us into cliques and social orders. But the Kingdom comes without social price tags. That is not how Jesus sees us. It must not be how we see others.

The idea of becoming an evil judge over the poor occurs many places in the Old Testament (Exodus 22:21-24; Deuteronomy 24:14-15; 27:19; Proverbs 14:31; 17:5; 21:13; 22:22-23; Isaiah 10:1-2; Amos 2:6-7; 5:11-12). These are just a few of the many references to mistreating the poor.

Jesus teaches about judging others, and His teaching bears more nuance than maybe you have thought of before. Toward the end of His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us not to judge others (Matthew 7:1-5). This is a critical, backbreaking judgment. We do this to look good in front of others, to put someone else down before they put us down.

Jesus was not teaching us that we cannot judge another person at all. Later as Jesus is teaching, He teaches us to judge a tree by the fruit it bears (Matthew 7:16-20; Luke 6:43-45). The tree is the person and the fruit is their works. That judgment must not be critical. It is an observation.

James 2:5. James begins the second paragraph of our section with a command (imperative) to listen. This commandment calls his readers to pay attention to what will follow. He references brothers and sisters, the original audience of the letter. He asks another rhetorical question. This question expects an affirmative answer. It concerns the poor and how God sees them.

His question assumes that God chose the poor to be rich in faith and inherit the Kingdom. Where does he get these ideas? It all starts with Israel in the Old Testament. God chooses Israel not because it was magnificent, but because it was the fewest of all the nations (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). He acted defends and the weak and vulnerable of society (Deuteronomy 10: seventeen-eighteen; 1 Samuel 2:7-8; Psalm 146:7-8; Proverbs 14:31). God favors the poor in many Old Testament passages.

I believe, as many scholars do, that James may be focusing on a passage in the holiness code of Leviticus (Leviticus 19:15-18). Leviticus 19:15 lays out a command that exactly resembles James’s hypothetical situation of partiality. The New Testament also describes God has One who wants people to store up treasures (Luke 12:21); Revelation 2:9). Jesus also taught along these lines (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20).

Everyone who follows Jesus is an heir of God’s Kingdom. James uses the same phrase he has used earlier in his letter to signify a second good gift coming down from God. Earlier, James said that God has promised the crown of life “to those who love Him” (James 1:12). Now he says that the Kingdom is promised to those who love Him. The poor seem to be favored by God.

James 2:6. James introduces a contrast between God’s care for the poor and the way the hypothetical person is treating them. He says they dishonor the poor, because they want the poor person to stand “over there” away from them, or sit at their feet. He asks a third rhetorical question concerning the rich. It expects an affirmative answer also.

James’s question actually characterizes the bridge as oppressing the poor and personally dragging them into court. In our first statement on the rich and poor (James 1:9-11), I said that the rich could be Christians. However, I think the rich in this section are not Christians.

How can this be? It is because when a person subjects himself to the entire law of Moses, they must not break any of it. If they do, it doesn’t matter which law or principle they broke. They are guilty of breaking the whole law combined.

It’s not about percentage or maximum effort. God is wholly holy. The Law is a picture of His holiness and humanity’s inability to attain or maintain that same holiness. That’s the point of the Law, that we can’t do it.

We don’t think that way today. We only catch a person if they break a specific law. But according to the law, if you break one, you might as well have broken them all. The law is a terrible taskmaster. There is no grace or mercy if the person accusing you or the judge condemning you what’s to throw the book at you.

James 2:11. James continues to provide the rationale for his condemnation of the Christian who shows partiality. He makes the point that the whole law came from the mouth of God. He says, “He who said…” This refers to God. He gives two examples of what God has commanded.

He puts the commandment against adultery before the commandment against murder. In the Ten Commandments, murder comes before adultery (Exodus 20:13-14). James is pointing out that it does not matter which law you break. Each one can make you a lawbreaker. James shows us that the laws are not in order of penalty or severity. You are still offending God.

James 2:12. Instead of trying to follow all of the 613 laws of the Old Testament, James commands us to speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom. He has mentioned the law of freedom before (James 1:25). This is the law of Jesus’s teaching. It brings freedom because of the grace and mercy in it.

The Judge is God. We can live in His grace and trust in His law that Jesus has already fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-20). This is the royal law given by Jesus, the Judge. It brings freedom to those who would be condemned for breaking it. We act and speak according to the law of freedom, the Word of God.

It is this key of living under mercy and grace, not under the judgment of others based on external appearances, not under the Law of the Old Testament that demanded in impossible perfection of humanity, but under the grace of the Cross, the grace of Christ. With so much grace so freely given, yet so expensively gained on the Cross, how could the Christian settle for another law or another way of life? Live under grace.

James 2:13. James gives us a wisdom saying easy to remember. It applies to this whole matter of judging others with partiality. If you do not show mercy to others, you will not receive mercy. Jesus said that those who are merciful are blessed because they will receive mercy (Matthew 5:7).

The second part of the wisdom saying is that “mercy triumphs over judgment.” The word “triumph” could also mean to boast. The boast is that mercy is more powerful in God’s Kingdom than judgment.

Human judgment, either external or internal, is void of the perfect perspective God has and does not accomplish the mercy that God’s judgment always accomplishes. Mercy is the scale God uses while humans use the scale of empirical judgment or judgment from what we know or sense.

God is much bigger than us in his perspective and He can perceive what we cannot. Judgment is best left to Him. I am not the Judge. You are not the Judge. God looks on the heart of a person (1 Samuel 6:7). Mercy prevails in God’s Kingdom in His people. We show people mercy because Jesus showed it to us. Judgment can destroy a person but a person can rescue them and build them back up.