Not Just What but Why
James 1:26–2:13 is an argument rooted in the understanding of reality that makes the royal law—life in step with the gospel—understandable. I see seven reasons that James gives for why we should not show partiality. God is good to us not merely to tell us what to do, as if he were only an authority, but also to tell us why. He has reasons. He wants us not only to submit to his commands but to submit with some understanding. He wants us to see the beauty and the wisdom and the goodness of his commands. So he gives us reasons to do what he says.
1. Partiality reveals a judging heart and behind it evil thinking.
For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:2–4)
The last words in verse 4 are the nub of the argument: “Have you not . . . become judges with evil thoughts?” James obviously thinks they have. The essence of the sin here is pride, that is, a desire to be seen as superior. They have acted as “judges.” But they are, in fact, not in the exalted place behind the bench in the courtroom with these other people. They are in the dock with all the other sinners. Only God is behind the bench.
They are taking to themselves a role that only one can have. “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:12).
That is one sign of pride. The other is the “evil thoughts” they were having as they told the poor to sit in a lowly place and the rich to sit in an exalted place. Why would they do this? Because if the poor are prominent, your church may not look as important and powerful and attractive to rich people. But if the rich are prominent then your church might look important and influential. James says those are “evil thoughts.” And the essence of them is pride. And pride is the opposite of what the gospel produces and what sustains the royal law of love.
Piper guides us through the difficulties of racial sin, turning us to the gospel as our source of a common bloodline. Through Christ’s blood, race and ethnicity become secondary for a common people of God.
2. Partiality to the rich contradicts God’s heart, because he has chosen many of the poor for himself.
The belittling of the poor by seating them inconspicuously, or in an inferior place (“Sit down at my feet”), is not just about the sin of pride but about the belittling of God. James says in James 2:5, “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” If we are ashamed of the poor, we are ashamed of God, because God is not ashamed to choose the poor. God leans toward the poor, not away. Therefore, if we lean away, we lean against God.
3. Partiality dishonors people created in the image of God.
When the church is ashamed of the poor and seats them in an out-of-theway place, not only is God indicted for his choosing the poor, but the poor themselves are dishonored. James says in James 2:6, “But you have dishonored the poor man.” Even though the poor and the rich are all sinners, there are two problems with dishonoring the poor. One is that since I am a sinner, I have no business acting as though I am worthy of exaltation and the poor man is not. Neither of us is.
And if God has shown me grace that I don’t deserve, I should treat the poor that way.
The other problem with dishonoring the poor is that, even though the poor man is a sinner, he is also created in the likeness of God. We know this matters to James because he laments in James 3:9, “We curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” Whether we curse men or seat them in lowly places, we do wrong against them and against God. They are not to be despised as humans, and they are to be pursued as possible fellow heirs of mercy—which is what God has done in the gospel.
4. Partiality to the rich backfires and becomes your downfall.
James points out an irony in the sin of treating the rich with favoritism: “Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?” (James 2:6–7). James gives an example of this behavior of the rich. The point is not that all rich people act this way. But at least in the experience of James and the churches he was writing to, riches were seen as corrupting. It was mainly the rich who made life miserable for the righteous.
Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. (James 5:4–6)
So James is pointing out in James 2:6–7 that the church is not only “evil” in her thoughts when she shows favoritism to the rich but also self-defeating. Why favor those who bring you down? Such a partiality would make it look like money is more valuable to you than Christ.
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5. Partiality makes you a transgressor of the law of liberty.
James says that partiality is law breaking. And law breaking is serious, not mainly because of the law but because of the lawgiver. Whatever point of the law we break, what makes it serious is that God spoke it, and we are in rebellion against him. But the sum of the law—the royal center of the law—is the command to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the law that covers the sin of partiality. So realize what you are doing when you show partiality: you are breaking the royal law, the sum of the law, the center of the law, and you are assaulting God, who is the lawgiver. Here is the way James says it:
If you really fulfill 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 but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. (James 2:8–12)
His conclusion is “speak and act” with the expectation of divine judgment. And realize that it is not the Old Testament law per se that will be the final standard of judgment but the center of that law—loving your neighbor as yourself. This law will be used in the judgment not as a “law of bondage” but as a “law of liberty.”
This means that James is not taking us back again to a yoke of slavery where we lived under law as the means of setting ourselves right with God. Rather the “royal law” (James 2:8)—love your neighbor—has become a “law of liberty” because it can only be fulfilled by those who have been liberated from having to fulfill it as the way to get right with God.
By believing in Christ to put us right with God because of his death and righteousness, we are set at “liberty” from law keeping as a way of getting right with God. Now the way we relate to the law is as a “law of liberty.” In our liberty from the law as the ground of justification, we are enabled by the Spirit to walk in the law of Christ as confirmation that we are loved and forgiven and accepted by God.
So we will be “judged under the law of liberty.” But the point of our final judgment will not be to determine if we kept the law to get right with God, but to determine if we loved our neighbor because we had already been put right with God by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. The record of our love—our not showing partiality because of race and riches—will be brought out in the courtroom of heaven. It will not be the ground of our final vindication. Only Christ will be that. It will be the public evidence that we were united to Christ by faith, so that his righteousness counts as ours.
So walking in love and showing grace to the poor and the rich and every ethnic group is not the way God becomes 100 percent for us. That happens when we trust Christ, who is 100 percent of the perfection God demands for justification. Rather, walking in love and overcoming the racism and ethnocentrism of our hearts is possible precisely because by grace alone God is 100 percent for us in Christ. Our walking in love is not the foundation but the confirmation that God is for us.
Our walking in love is not the foundation but the confirmation that God is for us.
6. Partiality is not merciful, and if you don’t show mercy, you will perish.
This is an extension of argument 5. There we were warned that we will be judged under the law of liberty, and here James describes how that judgment works: “For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). The meaning here is plain. It’s based on the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7). If we don’t show mercy, we have not known Christ in a saving way. We have not drunk his mercy down into our souls (see Matt. 18:23–34).
A Christian is a person who has seen and tasted, and lives on, the mercy of Christ. If there is no mercy in our lives—if we show partiality because of riches or race, and come to no remorse and no repentance because of it—we don’t know him, and we will perish (1 John 2:3–4). But if we have tasted his mercy and treasure it, and live in the liberty of his love, then we will show mercy, and that mercy will be the evidence of our faith in Christ, whose life and death in our place carries us through the judgment.
7. Partiality contradicts faith in Jesus Christ as the Lord of glory.
James begins his arguments with faith in Christ, the Lord of glory. He says in James 2:1: “My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.”
The key emphasis here is on the word “glory.” James chose to accent that Christians trust Christ, the Lord of glory. Why? Because the origin of partiality is either craving for human glory or fear of danger. When the craving for human glory controls us, we show partiality to the rich and powerful. When we are governed by fear, we show partiality to whomever we think will make us safer.
But James’s point is this: if you know Christ as the Lord of glory—if you trust him as the one who is gloriously gracious and gloriously merciful and gloriously forgiving and gloriously strong and gloriously wise and gloriously loving—then you won’t be controlled by this craving for human glory or by this fear that uses partiality to be safe. Christ will be your glory—all the glory you need. And Christ will be your security—all the security you need.
So the issue of partiality—because of riches or race—is a huge issue for the way we live as Christians. Are we partial in our attitudes or actions? Or are we trusting Jesus as the Lord of glory? If we are trusting Jesus, then his glory will put us in our rightfully humble place, and it will make us safe. And from that lowly and safe place will flow love, not partiality. Mercy, not racial disrespect.
This article is adapted from Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian by John Piper.
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