James 2: 8-11

Essentially, at least to the modern day reader, the wording in James 2:8-11 is clear and unambiguous, making it imperative to search for the most important words within the passage, i.e. the words “keep”, “law,” and “commit.”

While the overarching theme of the passage is to love one’s neighbor as oneself, James is speaking about the “law.” Ordinarily, laws are “kept;” and if they are not kept, sins are “committed.” Webster’s defines commit as “to carry into action deliberately;” keep as to “take notice of by appropriate conduct;” and law as, “the revelation of the will of God set forth in the Old Testament; the first part of the Jewish scriptures.”

Researching those words via the Greek of Biblical times reveals many meanings for the word law, but, as James used it in Chapter 2:8-11, it is the rule of action prescribed by reason and approved by God; or the moral instruction given by Christ, especially the precept of love. (G 3551). In James’ time,

We must remember this passage is in the New Testament after Jesus came and “filled” the law with further meaning. (The Commandments, 1978). In this passage James quotes OT law, Leviticus 19:18, while referencing the “royal law,” the law of love. By means of the cautionary “but,” he contrasts that royal love with favoritism, which he tells us is a sin; just as the “so” connector points out that the result of failing to keep one portion of the law, while keeping another, is to be a lawbreaker. Eerdmans notes that “In the world of the Bible, the basis of law was not philosophy, but crisis.” (Matthews, 2000). James is responding to a time of crisis, a time when rather than loving one another, people were judging the sins of others while committing sins themselves. It is only James who refers to the “law of freedom,” i.e., not the law of Moses, but the law of love written on people’s hearts by the Holy Spirit, the essence of the entire passage. (Wiersbe,