To Encourage You

James 4:11-12 “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers.  The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?”

When you read the Bible, what is your attitude toward it? Maybe you’re a skeptic. Perhaps you doubt much of what it says, like its many miracles. Or perhaps you just don’t believe it at all. You think it’s full of errors since it was written by men so many years ago and you see very little relevance for your life today. Perhaps you have no interest in it, because you can’t understand it. You’re not religious, so why would you read a religious book? Another view might be that it’s a good book that you respect, just like you respect the books of other faiths, like the Koran. You put it on par with them. Or, as some people I’ve heard say, maybe you believe the Bible actually contains the Word of God. It’s in there somewhere, but it’s up to you to determine exactly which parts. 

Above all these perspectives, yet related to them, is how you view yourself in relation to it. Do you place yourself above it, i.e., you see its importance as something that is up to you to determine, or do you place yourself below it, and you view it as infallible words coming from an infallible God?

The first perspective is the one that James is talking about in the passage above. He talks about those who, whether they think of themselves this way or not, are “judges of the Law.” They place themselves above it in one way or another. One of the ways this is demonstrated in their lives is how they speak about other people. If they see themselves as above the law of God, they will view their own judgments of other people very highly, for how they see others and speak about them matters more to them than anything the Bible says to them about such things. They see themselves as worthy judges of what is ultimately evil and what is good – more than that, they see themselves as worthy judges of WHO is evil and WHO is good and they’re happy to let others know about it. But James, in effect, asks such a person, “Who do you think you are?! Do you know enough about another person’s life and thoughts to act as that person’s judge?” He tells us that there is only one ultimate lawgiver and judge, and that is God.

The Bible tells us that we don’t even know our own hearts very well. It says so with the following rhetorical question: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).  And then it tells us that NO ONE knows the inner thoughts and motives of any other person outside of themselves in these words: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him?” (1 Corinthians 2:11).  So, if we don’t know such things, how can we make proper judgments about them? Of course, the answer is, “We cannot.” God, however, does know such things, and He can therefore, make perfect judgments about every person on the face of the earth. Furthermore, His sentencing is just, and He alone has the power to ultimately carry out that sentencing (as the verse above says, “to save and to destroy” for all eternity. God has told us that His Law has the power to convict the heart with holy perfection. He has told us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:12-13). That’s why the focus of our preaching and teaching should be to simply share what God has said in His Word and leave the effects of that preaching and teaching up to Him. Of course, we may think we are better judges than this. We may think we can pass judgment on His Word. But if we think that, if we see ourselves as higher than God’s perfect Law, that Law would simply ask us, “Who do you think we are?! Who are YOU to judge your neighbor?”