How to Speak Against the Law, and Judge the Law--a Lesson in How to Sin
James 4:11-12
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to James 4:11-12. The epistle of James is a wonderful sermon manuscript where God has been speaking to us about relating to one another as the body of Christ, in the body of Christ, to the body of Christ. Let us think about some of the important avenues of ground that have overlapped and proceeded together in this road to right relationships. In 1:19-20 we are prompted to recognize that godly relationships require us to be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Why? Because the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. It is the love life of the Spirit filled life. It is anger management 101, and I hope we have been meditating on this directive from God and have been making it our ambition to put it into practice--especially in respect to the love connection.
We Christians recognize the substance of godly relationships. The substance of godly relationships is our salvation, and it is the person of the Holy Spirit in our salvation, and our practice of God's word. We know this from the Bible, which gives us James. The Bible is our key informer. It is the foundation center for us of the whole counsel of God where we find our revelation for righteous relationships. If you and I come up with our own standards of how to have right relationships with others, we will fail. So, the substance of godly relationships is our salvation, and it is the person of the Holy Spirit in our salvation, and our practice of God's word. James quickly puts our minds there to that subject. Like a mature stable mentor, (in love that doesn't mince a whole lot of words) James walks alongside of us, and he explains that if anyone is a hearer of God's word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. We are told that once such a man has looked at himself and he walks off, he immediately forgets what kind of person he is. And James' point is that we must not do this same kind of thing with God's word--not if we are going to properly maintain a righteous relationship with our Father and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We must be different, and we must be different with one another in a way that is different than the way the world treats its own. And so, my hope in this sermon series through James is that James has had its effect in guiding us in our difference from the world as new creations that are joined to one another who have supernatural love coming out of us. We must be like one who looks intently, deeply, piercingly at the perfect law, the law of liberty, which is the royal law of love, and we must abide by it, not having become a forgetful hearer of the love commands, but an effectual doer of love as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. That is what I have been wanting us to really grasp. The love mandate is more than a tactic. Sure, we know it is a commanded, but it is commanded as a fruit of the Holy Spirit. When you and I do this love, because love is something to be done, then what happens is, you we will be blessed in what you do, 1:23-25. And one huge thing that this means is that doing the word, which is to do the perfect law, the law of liberty, which is the royal law of love, means that we can not hold our faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism among the members of the body of Christ. I hope we have been thinking and acting this way as well. If we show financial distinctions; fame, personality, and appearance distinctions of honor between our fellow members of the body of Christ, then James says in 2:4,
"4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?" James 2:4
It is horrible unrighteousness. It is not love, and unfortunately, it can be found in relationships of God's children. How many of us become judges with evil motives when we aren't walking in the Spirit? When we are not walking in the Spirit, then the answer is, all of us. It is walking according to the flesh. It is the sin of becoming judges who have misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misplaced, the real law. James says, that to do such a thing is to dishonor the poor man, 2:6. But then James says something that exposes the judicial treason,
8 If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law [If you really fulfill the royal law--ESV] according to the Scripture,
[Not according to what you think in your own preferences, and your own philosophy and all of that personal law stuff that you have made up, but if you really fulfill the royal law of love according to the word of God,]
"YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 2:8-9
So, we know that whenever any Christian becomes a judge with evil motives, ironically, they are acting like outlaws. They are corrupted officials who are in the body but are conspiring against the body of Christ. How?-- by legislating unrighteousness from the bench of their own weak-love-lives. Showing unrighteous partiality is to be committing sin, and it is to be convicted as the true criminal who transgresses God's law of love. The Spirit is warning us through James, and these warnings hit home in stark, piercing ways. We may think we are not the ones sitting on the judge's bench. We may think we are practicing pure and undefiled religion. We may even think we are attorneys who are legal experts in the great perfect law, the law of liberty as the royal law of love. We may think we preach it, teach it, and abide by it. We might think we are doing it, but all of a sudden James points out something that leaves us staring at the words of our prophet, James, in intense self examination. He reminds us of our tongues; Remember that? Let us not forget that little rebel of unrighteousness. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, and women, and children who have been made in the likeness of God; 3:9. And so, with this tiny little hammer, called the tongue, the Law of Christ's imperial kingdom is broken (Love is shattered with our mouths). This means that there is no such thing as constitutional rights of freedom of speech in Christ's kingdom. But there is more. Breaking the law with the mouth comes from the heart. To stop it, we must be humble, honest, and thirsty for allegiance to our King. We must love our neighbor as Christ loves us. It is a high demand. It is a must, and you can not do it on your own. You need the power of Christ, and yet, in your salvation, you are commanded to do it, because God has already empowered you to do it. We must look deep within ourselves. If you find bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and lie against the truth. This law breaking wisdom is not the wisdom which comes down from above, where Christ sits as King at the right hand of the Father, but it is earthly, natural, unspiritual, soulish demonic 3:14-15. In respect to all of this, James has given the practical benchmark for daily living. Instead of being judges, we need to consider that we are the ones under the jurisdiction of the perfect law, which is the law of liberty as the the royal law of love, and so the huge life application command is 2:12-13,
"12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by [ESV--under] the law of liberty. For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment."
But do we believe it? Belief backed by believer's behavior in the beautiful love of God--obeying the beautiful love of God. This is the essential teaching that we have laid out before us for relationships that are righteous. Keeping all of this teaching of James in mind, let us read our passage,
"11 Do not speak against [ESV--evil against] one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?" James 4:11-12
Please prepare your hearts to go through 4:11 and 12 with me in this sermon titled,
How to Speak Against the Law, and Judge the Law--a Lesson in How to Sin
The theme of this sermon may seem odd. After all, we typically don't think we need a lesson in how to sin, especially from a sermon. Nobody had to teach us how to sin, and we certainly have no problem figuring out how to sin. But, there is a reason why I am approaching this sermon in this manner, and I think it is a good one for my specific application. What I mean is that we, who are in Christ, and who are seeking to be obedient to God because that is what He tells us to do, are seeking to separate ourselves from worldliness and sin by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. It is where let go and let God, really means let go and go and do what God says to do. This is good. We should be seeking to separate ourselves from worldliness and sin, and in fact this is an area that we all need teaching from God's word. With that said, I want us to think about a trend in contemporary Christianity that we need to be very aware of. It is a problem today. It was also a problem in the days of James. The trend is to raise up a kind of abbreviated standard for godliness in our hearts. It is a kind of Christian code that is somewhat invisible as an actual thing, but it is very real, and the outworking of this code can be identified. Let me put it another way by saying that this kind of standard is invisible, but only in a certain sense. It is invisible in a certain sense because it is there in the mind. You can not hold it in your hand. You can not exactly read it. You can not really point to it in those ways. In fact, often times it is kind of fuzzy, but it is there. It is invisible in a certain sense, but in another sense this code is made very evident. It is the sense that it becomes manifest to some degree as our made up religious template that we live our lives by. It is a kind of short list. And the short list does not simply pop into existence randomly. It is created by the Christian who has it. The trend in making this list occurs when one sets up a standard of godliness and sanctification that is based on only a few subjects that we think are the big ones. They are the subjects that we think are the important ones. They are the subjects that we think are the ones that matter. And so here is what happens: When we are doing those particular things, then we think we are doing just fine in our Christian walk. Even carnal acting Christians who like to label other Biblical Christians with the nebulous term legalist, are guilty themselves. They are list keepers too. They just don't see it yet. The reason why this happens is because they look to that little grouping of things and think,
Yeah, I'm doing all right. I'm doing some good things. I pray. I go to church, etc. etc.
When confronted with sinful attitudes and actions, the people I am talking about will say things, like one Christian man I confronted actually said to me when I approached him with one particular fellowship damaging area of sin that he was committing. I sat there in disbelief as he looked right at me and said,
I don't see how any of this really matters.
This is the curse of the short list. The list becomes the standard of what matters and what doesn't. The thing about this is that oftentimes it is unconscious. Nevertheless, there is a conscious part, and the conscious part is self satisfaction with one's Christian walk, (no matter how deficient and immature it is), and it is satisfaction that is recognizably there; and this kind of list is there as the standard. It hides in the religious library of the heart, and so each person is the only one who knows whether they think they are fulfilling it. The important thing about this kind of code that I want to bring out, (because I want everyone to follow what I am saying) is that these kinds of lists are not typically as long as the full counsel of God. They are much shorter. This is my point. Further they aren't typically longer than the full counsel of God either. The Pharisees had their lists, and their lists were actually longer than God's actual Old Covenant counsel, but that is not what I am talking about. The list I am talking about is shorter than the full counsel of God in the New Testament, though it is based upon it. Maybe some of us here this morning have this kind of little short list. It is our standard that we judge everything by, but it is not complete, and so our judgment is skewed and wrong. And so what happens is that this little list exists, and while it exists, it really isn't very little at all. As people live by it, it looms as the huge blinder. It keeps us from looking at the rest of our actions according to the rest of God's word and seeing that there is more that God wants from us, which is what James is preaching. This is unfortunate on many fronts. One of which is that the law of love which we fulfill as fruits of the Holy Spirit Who is at work in us, is God's ordained short list. God also gave us the whole canon of Scripture to define to us how to fulfill it. We are to love our God with all of our heart, and we are to love our neighbor as Christ loves us. But it takes all of God's word, breathed forth by His Holy Spirit, to completely explain what this means to us Holy Spirit led Christians.
Let me share with you some of the more popular elements found in some short lists so that you will more readily understand my point. For example, one big one I have seen is to put honesty on the short list. Honesty is good. Honest is God's will. But honesty is one of many, many facets of the Christian walk according to God's word. Please stay with my explanation, because I am building to a particular point. People who have this as the main substance of their short list, will say that a man is as good as his word, and so they check off that item on their list and when they do, (no matter what else happens) they think, at least I am honest. They may be into what is called soft-pornography as a misnomer. In other words, they may love watching the erotic commercials during foot ball games, or looking at the bathing suit catalogs. It's called soft, but it is really the sinful sensuality of lasciviousness. Lasciviousness is a word that identifies sexual sin. It literally means: purposeful and intentional erotic sensuality aside from God's design for the marital relationship. Or they may treat their employees unfairly in lack of love, or they may despise their boss out of lack of love, but because they have a short list, and the all important honesty box is checked off, they are satisfied with their Christian walk. They may slander people, (which is something James mentions in our passage under study) but they consider that they are honest and so they don't see the slander as a real problem that they have. A husband may treat his wife like a dog. A wife may treat her husband like a donkey, but they are honest. So, their legal standard is telling them that they are doing just fine. What has happened is that their short list of religion has become a blinder to all the various elements that the Holy Spirit has ministered to us from His word concerning the big spotlight. The spotlight is:
Love our God with all of our heart, and love our neighbor as Christ loves us.
Are you seeing how the list starts to take shape? Another key short list item that I have seen involves sexual activity. It is a popular area because it seems to sum up so much of the Christian life, but it really is not the sum of the Christian life. It's only part of it. Essentially, how we see this worked out, is that when it comes to living out the life of Christ in you, what that typically means to the people who have this as one of the main items of the few items on their short list, is for their sons or daughters or for themselves to express godliness by protecting their virginity before marriage. Now, we all agree that this is a good goal isn't it? But on the short list, this is the pinnacle fulfillment. Again, we all know that protecting one's virginity before marriage is something that God wants us to do in living out the life of Christ. But, you see, for a lot of Christians in our contemporary culture, this is the height of spiritual living. You say,
But, wait a minute. You are right when you say that protecting one's virginity before marriage is something that God wants us to do. So, what is wrong with having that in your mind as something to be ambitiously following?
Nobody said that this is wrong, which is part of my point. Once again, I am saying it is good, and the reason why it is good is because God says that this is something we should do as we fulfill the law of love. It is, after all, one area of fulfilling the law of God in loving Him with all of our heart, and loving our neighbor as Christ loves us. But, let me push my point some more so that there will be a complete understanding of what I am getting at, which has to do with our passage of James 4:11-12. For a lot of Christians, protecting one's virginity is one of only a few things that they seemingly demonstrate is truly necessary for living out the life of Christ that has been given to them. You see, this particular area falls into the trend of setting up a standard of godliness and sanctification that is based on a few subjects that we think are the big ones, and then becoming satisfied because we check off those boxes. They are the few subjects that we think are the important ones. They are the few subjects that we think are the ones that matter. Protecting virginity is one example. So here is what often happens; such people that I am talking about, can dress immodestly--they can dress lasciviously, and while doing so, they think that they are doing okay. Why?, because that is not on the list. Dressing immodestly, sensually, lasciviously, tempts others to consider helping the person lose their virginity through their visual seduction, but since the immodest one has not actually been with someone, then they think everything is okay. What has happened is that contrary to God's word, dressing immodestly, sensually, and lasciviously, is not considered an important enough item to be a list item. It is not a, so-called, necessary one. It is not something that matters. And remember, what doesn't matter, doesn't end up on the invisible list. After all, they are abstaining from fornication and that is the standard that they have in their secret legalism that is written somewhere in their heart as their short list. Flirting is the same way. Male and female Christians flirt with one another all the time. It happens in person, but it also happens by phone, in text messages, on internet sites. The definition of flirting is: Playful behavior intended to arouse interest of a sexual nature. This is the same definition of playful lasciviousness. It happens because it is not on the short list of reflecting love for God and love for your neighbor. The same trend is found in the area of watching other people be immoral in a movie. For some odd reason it is okay to be voyeurs who are entertaining themselves by watching someone lose their virginity, or fornicate, in a movie, because after all, the short listers are not actually the ones being immoral and losing their virginity by watching the movie. Using cuss words and foul language is the same way. Folks, all I am doing is pointing out the inherent problem with the short list, of which any of us can be guilty of keeping in our hearts. But James reaches into our hearts and yanks the short list out of it and tears it to little pieces. James goes straight to the need to start all over. We start by being doers of the comprehensive word, and not merely hearers of little tiny select portions who delude ourselves. And so James shows us some important things that are on God's huge agenda that may have been missing from our short list. Looking at verse 11, he says,
"11 Do not speak against [evil against, slander] one another, "
We have really got to be careful because this particular thing is missing from way too many so called Christian short lists. James is talking about verbal attacks that you and I can make upon you and I. Do you know what I mean when I say that you and I make verbal attacks upon you and I? In other words we are all in the same boat. More specifically, we are all in the same body of Christ. We are His people. We are His church. And so we may be thinking we are following God's list. We may even be thinking we are following the law of love, but it is so easy for us to speak against one another and not even realize that we are sinning. Why?-- Because it's not on our list. Paul states something in Galatians that explains this perfectly. He says,
"14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." 15 But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." Galatians 5:14-16
To speak against one another is to bite and devour one another with hurtful, wicked words. And in so doing, what does Paul say is really going on?--He is saying that this is the way we transgress the royal law to love our neighbor as ourselves. And even further, you demonstrate that you are not walking by the Spirit. This is what James means. He says, don't speak against one another. What is interesting about this word that means speak against, or speak evil of, is that what is spoken may be true according to the facts. In other words, you are perfectly correct in what you are saying. So, if honesty is the big banner on your short little list, then you've reached the goal of the prize of your own upward call. But here's the problem: The motive is wrong according to the heart, and so the message is wrong according to the mouth. The words are unkind. It doesn't matter how honest the words are. The words are meant to destroy. This is speech that is not meant to build up your brothers and sisters in love. It is malicious speech that is simply meant to criticize a brother or sister. James is making a strong rebuke that is like a spiritual slap in the religious faces of guilty Christians. The reason why I say that this is like a spiritual slap in the face of Christians is because this is the same word that Paul and Peter use to describe the verbal attacks that the unsaved make upon people in lack of love. Paul uses this word in Romans 1:30, where Paul describes those who God turned over to depraved minds as slanderers who speak evil against others. Often we find the same word translated as slander. Slander is to attack someone with your words in contempt that is the exact opposite of fulfilling the law of love. Amazingly, Peter uses the exact same word to describe the attacks of unsaved people against Christians. In 1 Peter 2:12 he says,
"12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you [same Greek word] as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God ... 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which they speak against you [same Greek word] as evil-doers, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame." 1 Peter 2:12 & 16
This is a horrible malady to have afflict the church, and it is even more horrible when we consider Christians speaking this way toward someone, and while they do it, they act like there is nothing wrong with what they are doing. In other words, this important item is not on their short list, but it is on God's list. To speak evil against a brother or sister is to act the exact opposite of the way Christ loves us. Christ is continuously making intercession to the Father for you. The words that Christ speaks on our behalf are not words of slander. He is not condemning you. He is not tearing you down with His words, and He expects you not to tear Him down with your words. You say,
I would never tear Christ down.
Really? Would you tear the body of Christ down? Would you tear a member of the body of Christ down? Short listers do this all the time and they don't think they are doing anything wrong. Yet, the body of Christ is the church that Jesus bought for Himself in His sacrifice. In the resurrection, Christ Jesus always speaks love-words of edification to the Father on our behalf. But what speech is Christ looking upon when He looks upon us? What kind of heart is producing these unkind, malicious, slanderous, hurtful words? What would Paul the apostle say about you if he was alive in our time? Would he say,
"20 For I am afraid that perhaps when I come I may find you to be not what I wish... that perhaps there will be strife, jealousy, angry tempers, disputes, slanders, [same Greek word] gossip, arrogance, disturbances;" 2 Corinthians 12:20
This isn't the law of love. This is a list that is absent of God's list. What Christ wants to see when He looks upon us, and what we want Christ to see when He looks upon us, is not making strife, and calling it love; is not being jealous of one another, and calling it love, and not having angry tempers, and calling it love, and not having disputes, or gossiping, or being arrogant, or causing disturbances, and not speaking against one another in slanderous sin, in so-called arbitrary short list love. And so what James is doing is very important for our spiritual growth and welfare. He is warning you and me not to speak evil against one another. Our intention should be to shower each other with grace words of love and godly wisdom from above, rather than passing judgment on a person by attacking his character, which is why James goes on and says to the Christian brothers,
"He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law;" James 4:11
Notice that James has a pattern to what he says. He connects it all together in an intentional manner:
1) A brother who speaks against a brother speaks against the law.
2) A brother who judges his brother judges the law.
The law that James is talking about is the same one he has always talked about in his epistle, which is the perfect law, the law of liberty, which is the royal law of love. Here is the point: the royal law is to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might, and also to love your neighbor as Christ loves you. Whenever one of God's children speaks slanderous evil against another child of God, then that Christian is speaking against loving their neighbor as Christ loves them, which is to speak against the law. In like manner, whenever one of God's children judges another child of God in an unrighteous manner, then that Christian is judging the law, which is to demonstrate that they think that part of the law does not matter in what they are doing. They are also demonstrating through their actions that in reality, what they are actually doing according to the real royal law is sinning. So, here is the point--Instead of judging the law, we are to speak and act as if the law of love is judging us. This is what James meant back in chapter 2 when he touched upon these same kinds of things we should be doing,
"4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? ... 8 If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law [If you really fulfill the royal law--ESV] according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ... 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by [under--ESV] the law of liberty. 13 For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment." James 2:4; 8-9; 12-13
James 4:11-12 is a parallel. Mercy, grace, and love, which are fruits of the Spirit, triumph over the kind of judgment that is unrighteous judgment that is according to the flesh. There is an important distinction here. In other words, God wants us to discern, and we are supposed to make judgments, but they are supposed to be righteous judgments based upon love, truth, and the wisdom of God. Jesus recognized that He was being judged unrighteously in lack of love. He, as the Messiah, was doing miracles. He was doing miracles, but He was doing them on the Sabbath day, which is the day according to the Old Covenant Mosaic Law that was to be a day of rest that was to be kept Holy. The unrighteous, judgmental Pharisees who hated Jesus, did not think that when Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, (the writer of the Old Covenant Law) was doing miracles on the Sabbath, that Jesus was keeping the Sabbath Holy. They were slandering Jesus by speaking evil against Him. They did not love Jesus. They were judging Him, yet wrongly, so they were bringing judgment upon themselves. Jesus responds, but Jesus does not teach that we should never judge. Rather Jesus teaches that we should not judge wrongly but judge rightly, where He says,
"24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." John 7:24
So God does want his children to judge, but He wants us to judge with righteous judgment. One chapter later Jesus speaks to Pharisees about their carnal judgment where he states plainly how they judge;
"15 You judge according to the flesh; ..." John 8:15
Judgment according to the flesh, is not according to God's Spirit. Taking this over to what James is saying, it is really very simple;
Don't judge according to the flesh, but judge according to the Spirit, in love.
Whenever a Christian attacks another Christian in fleshly slander, they are not demonstrating the Holy Spirit attribute of love towards that other Christian. Therefor they are attacking Christ's law and saying it is not acceptable. Legislating from their sinful, carnal bench, they have overruled it, and so this is why James goes on to say,
"but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it." James 4:11
In other words, in our flesh, we can look at others and what we see are imperfect people. After all, according to the flesh, everyone is imperfect. Every single one of us is a mess. The grace of Christ cleans us, but we are still a mess in so many areas of our lives. We are all flawed. So in our flaws, something can always be identified, and pointed out in judgment that demeans and holds another Christian in contempt. Our eyesight according to the flesh is also flawed. When we look at others and we are doing it according to a short list that ignores the law of love, then we look for the flaws. How many of you realize that one of the biggest problems facing the church today is not liberalism, but it is the problem of a function of the body where Christians look at other Christians, but they aren't looking for the Holy Spirit in their brothers and sisters. They aren't looking for how to love them. The problem is that they are looking for the problem with their brothers and sisters. We don't even care to see the cleanness that is Christ, because we aren't looking for the cross of Christ. We are looking for the opportunity to put that person on the cross we have made. When we look according to the flesh, all we see is the flesh. Paul said that we no longer know anyone according to the flesh, but the question is;
Are we living like we are supposed to be knowing our brothers and sisters according to the Spirit?
So, here is what happens when we judge according to the flesh and we see the flaws that bolster our self justification in what we are doing--we are judging the very law itself. We are arguing with it when it tells us to love one another as Christ loves us. This argument is the sin, because whenever we judge the law as not being necessary for us to follow, then we are not operating according to the Spirit. In the flesh we are not doers of the law but unrighteous judges of it. So, we should not be foolish fellows, as James says in 2:20. Works of love, which are fruits of the Spirit, need to accompany our faith, and so we should not be foolish and judge the law by judging other Christians out of lack of love. Rather we should be doers of the law. Either you are doing love, or you are not. That is God's short list. James, again, is stating what he has said earlier, but in different terms,
"25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." James 1:25
This takes humbleness. It takes taking the back seat to Christ, and it takes leaving the old self where it was left in our atonement. Where was your old self left? It was left crucified with Christ back there on the cross. Now that we are saved, we have the life of Christ in us that Christ has given us. It is not just where we don't know other Christians after the flesh any longer, but we also do not know our own selves after the flesh any longer. We are no longer to be unrighteous judges. Rather we humbly bow before the One true righteous Judge. And so James finishes this point by pointing to the great Judge,
"12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?" James 4:12
Jesus is the royal ruler who is the Lord over His royal Law. He is the King of kings, and Lord of lords. Jesus is both the Lawgiver, and Judge, and He is the great lover. Jesus stated His love law in the sermon on the mount by saying,
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," Matthew 5:44
In John we read Jesus saying,
"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." John 15:12
I say to you is the decree of the Lawgiver giving His royal law. This is My commandment, is the proclamation of His authority and His giving of His great law of love. So our Lord is the great Law giver, and He is also the great judge. He declares it in John 5:22,
"For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son." John 5:22
In Matthew 7, Jesus says of His judgment of those who are lawless,
"23 ... I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.'" Matthew 7:23
Brothers and sisters listen to me: We must be careful not to speak evil against other believers. Attacking the body is contrary to the love that God demands we demonstrate toward one another. Even if you have faith to remove mountains, without love you are nothing, 1 Corinthians 13:2. But when you judge the law, you are trying to make your carnal self into something, and the something you become is what you shouldn't be. I urge you to be recognizing that the tendency of our sinful flesh when we act like little loveless nothings is to attack and destroy. When we do this, we exalt self and destroy people made in God's image in the process. Who are we to judge our neighbor? Who are we to judge God's law? Let's leave judgment to the One who has the job of doing this. Lets' leave it to Jesus to have both His grace, and to have His judgment. In the meantime, let's show that the law judges us while we love our neighbors as Christ loves us. This morning we are going to partake in communion. Let's keep these things in mind as we do.
