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THE TRUE LAW

James 1:25

He who looks into the perfect law, which is the law in the observance of which a man finds freedom, and who abides in it and shows himself not a forgetful hearer but an active doer of the word, will be blessed in all his action.

THIS is the kind of passage in James which Martin Luther disliked so much. He disliked the idea of law altogether, for with Paul he would have said: ‘Christ is the end of the law’ (Romans 10:4). ‘James’, said Luther, ‘drives us to law and works.’ And yet beyond all doubt there is a sense in which James is right. There is an ethical law which Christians must seek to put into action. That law is to be found first in the Ten Commandments and then in the teaching of Jesus.

James calls that law two things.

(1) He calls it the perfect law. There are three reasons why the law is perfect. (a) It is God’s law, given and revealed by him. The way of life which Jesus laid down for his followers is in accordance with the will of God. (b) It is perfect in that it cannot be bettered. The Christian law is the law of love, and the demand of love can never be satisfied. We know well, when we love someone, that even if we gave them all the world and served them for a lifetime, we still could not satisfy or deserve their love, (c) But there is still another sense in which the Christian law is perfect. The Greek word is teleios, which nearly always describes perfection towards some given end. Now, if men and women obey the law of Christ, they will fulfil the purpose for which God sent them into the world; they will be the people they ought to be and will make the contribution to the world they ought to make. They will be perfect in the sense that they will, by obeying the law of God, achieve their God-given destiny.

(2) He calls it the law of liberty; that is, the law in the keeping of which people find their true liberty. All the great philosophers and scholars have agreed that it is only in obeying the law of God that an individual becomes truly free. ‘To obey God’, said Seneca, ‘is liberty’ ‘The wise man alone is free,’ said the Stoics, ‘and every foolish man is a slave.’ Philo said: ‘All who are under the tyranny of anger or desire or any other passion are altogether slaves; all who live with the law are free.’ As long as human beings have to obey their own passions and emotions and desires, they are nothing less than slaves. It is when we accept the will of God that we become really free – for then we are free to be what we ought to be. God’s service is perfect freedom, and in doing his will is our peace.