James 1:22-25 But be you doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.… A capacity for self-knowledge is one of our distinctive endowments. We have no reason to suppose that other creatures are capable of knowing themselves. This distinctive capacity implies a duty. "Know thyself," we are told, is a precept that descended from Heaven. But, whatever its origin, it speaks with the highest authority. It is self-commended. And this duty is a great privilege. "The study of mankind is man." Oar own nature is necessarily central to all our studies. For this self-knowledge we are furnished with abundant means. The universe, as a revelation of God, is a mirror for man. Nature, as in a book, presents us with a picture of ourselves. But how strange it is that, possessing such a mirror, we make so little use of it! With all our self-love, how is it that we are not only indifferent to, but even shrink from a genuine self-knowledge? We seek to know how we appear; we turn away from the knowledge of what we are. Against the consequences of this ignorance of ourselves, God warns us and urges upon us the duty of a genuine self-knowledge. In the text we are cautioned against the fatal temptation of paying a merely outward homage to the "Word of God without any practical intent, as though hearing it were a lawful pastime, or could be pleasing to God, or of any avail to us apart from its embodiment in our will, our words, and our works. In a spirit becoming those who have received such an exhortation, let us hear and look into this "living Word," that "with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, as of the Lord, the Spirit," that it may become to us "the perfect law of liberty," "the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ." For "the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." I. FIRST OF ALL WE DIRECT OUR ATTENTION TO THE WORD WE ARE EXHORTED TO HEAR AND DO. It is emphatically called "the Word," "the Word of God," or, as in the connection of the text, "the Word of the Truth," or, in another scripture, "the Word of the Truth of the Gospel," as "Truth is in Jesus." Words are wonderful — as expressions of thought and feeling, reason and will. The Word of God brings God to us. In His Word we have the mind of His Spirit clothed in forms apprehensible by our senses. It is the record of His Mind and Will concerning us. The Word of God is the outward form of an abiding spiritual force; once uttered, it remains a spiritual power always, and everywhere working according to tits will. "The Word of God," is the name of His only-begotten Son, who, at "the fulness of time," came out from God, and came into the world." to reveal to us the Father, and make known to us in words of "spirit and life," His will. This final revelation of the Will of God bus its verbal embodiment in the words of the gospel, its incarnation in Jesus, its abiding spiritual power in the Holy Spirit. As heard it addresses the ear, as seen it appeals to the eye, as felt it moves in the heart. II. THIS WORD OF GOD IS SPOKEN OF IN OUR TEXT AS A MIRROR, OR GLASS, IN WHICH WE MAY SEE WHAT MANNER OF MEN WE ARE. All words should mirror the mind of the speaker. God is revealed in His Word. He makes Himself known in all His words, and ways, and works. In the Son of Man we "behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord." In Him, the Incarnate Word, man's nature is complete, its idea satisfactorily embodied, the Divine image fully expressed, and God glorified in the world. God is "well-pleased" to see again His own image and likeness in the face of man; and men are called to behold in Jesus, the Word made flesh, "the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." The revelations of God are means of self-knowledge for man. The Word presents a mirrored face of what man ought to be, and not only the ideal of what he ought to be, but also the image of what he really is. It discerns and reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart. The shadow of the beholder, as he is, is thrown upon the bright image of what he ought to be. The true form in the Word, as a glass, reflects the false form of the beholder, which it judges and condemns. The mirror of the Word judges the shadow of what we are by receiving it upon the fair image of what we ought to be. III. THE WORD OF GOD IS NOT ONLY A MIRROR, BUT ALSO A LAW. The law commands, presents obligation, awakens conviction, points to its sanction, but does not enforce compliance. Force belongs not to the moral sphere. The capacity to obey is a capacity to suffer for disobedience, but one which is intolerant of force. Obedience is of the heart which is the very seat and soul of liberty. The discovery of our defects by the law which judges them, awakens a feeling of culpability, self-condemnation and exposure to punishment. We feel that defect and disobedience with respect to this law are not misfortunes but sins, hence a sense of blameworthiness. Now, of all laws, "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus," as law, is the most burdensome and oppressive, and for this reason, that it is perfect and pertains to the whole life — allowing no thought, no desire, for a single moment, to be withdrawn from its universal empire. IV. LET US NOW INQUIRE WHAT IS MEANT BY THIS EXPRESSION, "THE PERFECT LAW," AS APPLIED TO THE GOSPEL. Are not all laws perfect? There are many forms of law, all of which have their pre-supposition in goodness, and have also this in common, that their action is uniform under the same circumstances. Law is the regulative controlling power of that to which it belongs. As an idea, it is necessary to the conception of anything; and, as such, it is the same for the same creature under the same conditions. 1. Natural law is this governing idea in the form of necessity, and operative as force. Such are all the laws of inorganic matter; such, too, are the laws of vegetable and animal life, at least, for the most part. 2. But the law of intelligent creatures is presented for reception, not imposed; is a law which coin-man(is, but does not necessitate obedience. It pre-supposes freedom and the possibility of obedience being refused. 3. Then there is what Paul terms "the law of the spirit of life," which is a free, spontaneous, eager, intense spirit of obedience, not acting within a sphere it is required to fill by the imperative of an outward law, but from a central fire of love which anticipates all commands and outstrips all requirements. This was the service Christ rendered and required. "If any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." There is yet another form of law, which is determined, as to its form, by the circumstances, state, and condition of its subjects, in view of the end proposed. You may call it the law of the end. Let me illustrate. A gardener wishes to train a tree in a certain direction, and sees that it will require a certain number of stakes and a given strength of cordage to fold its branches in the required position; in other words, to be a law to it. These requirement,, imposed by the purpose, are the law of the end. Their wisdom and value can only be judged of when looked at in relation to the end which they are intended to serve. In like manner, certain forms of ritual and ceremonial, among the Jews, owe their existence, form, and place in their history to the circumstances and condition of the nation, in view of the purposes of God concerning mankind. But, in addition to these, the text speaks of "the perfect law" in a sense somewhat different from any of them. By the perfect law is meant the Old Testament in its final, completed development — in its purposed, perfect outcome — in "the law of the spirit of life." What is meant is "the word of the truth of the gospel," as the norm of Christian life. It is "perfect" because it attains the end of the law — liberty. For "the word of the truth," as "is truth in Jesus," carries "the law of the spirit of His life," which makes free from "the law of sin and death." And further, the law of the spirit of His life is "the perfect law" as being final, complete, and possessed of the power and the purpose of all law at the height of its excellency — the power of the obedience of life. It pre-supposes other laws, and is spoken of as perfect in the sense of its being final. There is no other Jaw to come after it. It is also perfect in this sense — that all the requirements of God are reduced to simplicity and unity of principle. "Love God," says this perfect law, "and you will not fail to do His will," for "love is the fulfilling of the law." This is the new and final commandment, the perfect law in a single word" Love." And this one principle is, in "the perfect law of liberty," embodied in life. The Jaw is fulfilled in Christ, lives in Him, is the spirit of His life, and capable of being given to us. In His Spirit the law of life is lost in liberty, and its freedom is the blessedness of a chosen necessity. V. WE NEED SCARCELY ADD THAT THIS "PERFECT LAW," HIDDEN IN THE HEART AS THE VERY SPIRIT OF THE AFFECTIONS, GIVES LIBERTY TO THE LIFE. Law and liberty do but express opposite relations to the same ideal of our nature. When we are dead we are under it as law, but when we live our life is free in the restful, self-satisfied experience of its true and just-proportioned powers. The ideal has become real and enjoys its living fulfilment. And the life which fulfils it loves the measurements and limits of its sphere and is free. And when we are free we are so disposed to the governing law of our nature that we are sweetly drawn to all its requirements and instinctively observe all its limitations. The law of liberty is a power of love in the heart, the love of the creature to the Creator, of the child to the Father, of the saved to the Saviour. This is the freedom enjoyed under "the perfect law of liberty," or, as it is termed in another place, "the royal law." The law is perfect because it is embodied in its own life; it is a law of liberty, because the life in which it is presented is a spirit of love to the Law-giver; and it is a "royal law," because it proceeds from the royalty of the Father's heart, and lives in the loyalty of the child's affections, as a power of "bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." It thus liberates from every bondage by a Divine captivation, in which the liberty is a necessity hidden in the heart. (W. Pulsford, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.WEB: But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. |
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