James 1:25, commentary and pictures

The perfect law of liberty is God's holy moral law, the Ten Commandments, which remains binding and acts as a mirror showing each person his true character, faults, and guilt before God. To look into it is to study it carefully and prayerfully, compare life with it, and remember what is seen, and to continue therein is to abide in its teaching and obey it fully in every particular. Hearing alone brings no benefit, for the forgetful hearer soon loses the impression and remains unprepared, while the doer who acts on the light is blessed in his deed with present and eternal good. The law can reveal sin and condemn the transgressor but cannot pardon or save, so the guilty must repent toward God and believe in Christ whose death vindicates the law and whose righteousness is imputed and whose grace enables obedience. That obedience is the practical test of pure religion in bridling the tongue, loving neighbor, and keeping unspotted from the world, and by it character is built to stand in the judgment when all are tested by this standard.

Perfect Law of Liberty

The perfect law of liberty is God's holy moral law, the Ten Commandments, distinct from the ceremonial law of sacrificial offerings. That ceremonial system was done away when type met antitype in Christ's death, while the Ten Commandments were established by the crucifixion. The commandments include the true Sabbath of Jehovah. The law is spiritual, reaching thoughts, purposes and motives, and it requires love to God supremely and to the neighbor as self, loving one another as Christ has loved, not merely outward compliance. Life is found in doing its precepts, and obedience forms the doer in God's character which His holy law expresses.

The law is perfect, changeless, holy, just and good, the standard of righteousness, which is right-doing, through all the ages. God highly honored it by making the ark of the testament containing the law engraved on tables of stone the symbol of His presence with His people. It is the royal law, the standard by which character is measured, the detector that exposes sin and gives the knowledge of sin. It is the representation and transcript of His character, seen in Christ. Given as a perfect guide to conduct, its glories are to be made known to others and shown as valuable through cheerful service.

Its liberty is not freedom from the law's requirements, for Christ's death did not abolish it and it remains binding after His death. To the disobedient and unrepentant transgressor it holds in bondage, while those who obey its principles are free. It is not a yoke of bondage to those who keep it, but brings them life, joy, peace and happiness. To those who have repented, believed and been forgiven through faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice and reliance on His keeping power, it becomes liberty, the freedom of sonship, freeing the mind from Satan's slavery. Within duty there is felt no restriction, for perfect love casts out all fear of what others will say, binds the soul to Christ and expels selfishness from the heart, and continuing in that law leads upward step by step into the liberty of heaven with full, large and abundant freedom and room by Christ's side.

The Bible, the Word of God and the gospel are also the perfect law of liberty, the guide Book to be studied for the soul's sake. As a mirror it reveals God's character and the divine attributes and the perfect character of Christ in love, honor, perfection, justice, goodness and benevolence. It is to be meditated upon, prayed over, hung in memory, and brought into daily life and continued in life practice, influencing the entire man. The living and the dead are to be judged according to deeds done in the body, and this law is the standard by which they are to be tested, so its claims must be revealed with simple, elevated piety and its truth carried as warning. Taken into the life, God's word prepares for eternal life.

Mirror Revealing Character

God's law and Word are a faithful, true, moral looking glass given for earnest self-examination to discover defects, faults, errors, imperfections and selfishness in character. Looking into it shows what manner of person one is as Christ and God see, revealing the true spiritual condition, guilt before a holy God, and the motives of the heart even when outward acts appear blameless to men. Comparing life and character with its holy requirements exposes how far a person falls short, and this requires honest, continued looking rather than hearing and then going away to forget what was revealed. Temperance in all things, especially in eating, gives clear moral discernment and strong memory to retain what is seen, while overeating, eating to repletion, and eating at irregular hours enfeeble the mind, disease the memory, and cause forgetting. The one who looks must study defective traits and seek grace to make character conform to the pattern in God's Word, continuing in obedience rather than refusing to look deeply and remaining willingly ignorant of guilt.

The mirror gives the knowledge of sin, for sin is transgression of the law; it displays the perfection of a righteous character, convicts of guilt, and enables the sinner to test character, see guilt, and discern defects. It shows the exceeding sinfulness of sin in its true hideousness, removes self-esteem and claims to goodness and self-righteousness, warns against temptation, and gives keen discrimination between right and wrong. This conviction is the first step toward reconciliation to God, because it reveals the need for pardon, thorough conversion, reform, and a purer life through repentance toward God whose law has been transgressed and faith in Jesus Christ and His blood as the only hope. The law reveals sins but provides no remedy; while it promises life to the obedient it declares death as the portion of the transgressor, so the convicted sinner must be freed from condemnation and defilement by the gospel of Christ and not treat grace as permission to keep transgressing. Blessing is not measured by favorable feelings or passing emotional excitement, but by faith and by acting on what the law shows in putting away sin and living out what it requires.

Seeing defects must lead to alarm, contrition before God, confession, putting away sin, and earnest effort to correct faults and remove moral defects through a transformed heart and renewed moral nature, not to rejecting or breaking the law because it exposes them. It must not lead to turning away and forgetting, trampling the law underfoot, misusing Scripture to excuse sin and avoid needed repentance and purity, or erecting a human standard or standard of one's own devising by which one looks perfect, admires self, and claims holiness without sin while unaware of the true condition of the heart. Looking means examining self to find and remove one's own defects, not looking to see a neighbor's faults reflected or watching whether others meet the standard, since each must give an account of himself to God. Continuing therein means more than knowledge: following the light received fully and obeying in every particular rather than obeying what is agreeable and disobeying when convenient, because obedience is better than sacrifice, while following the inclinations of the natural heart brings bondage. Remaining ignorant of its claims does not remove the penalty, and refusing to look leaves guilt unknown, inconsistencies uncorrected, and the soul in constant danger.

Doer Not Hearer Blessed

Looking into the perfect law of liberty means careful, prayerful, attentive study of God's law with meditation, searching of heart, and prayerful comparison of words, spirit, actions, thoughts and works with the Word. It requires keeping what is seen in mind and receiving the engrafted word with meekness after laying aside all filthiness, taking heed to self and to doctrine and applying the instruction personally to clear the King's highway. Those who are to be judged by it must be earnest students for themselves and not take knowledge from men's opinions, reading the first chapter of James for light and encouragement and trusting God to direct the way. Satan works to divert the mind from this searching and studying by careless influences and impressions that draw away from truth, religion, peace and happiness, and against his wiles there must be no floating carelessly along but stern battle against hereditary and cultivated faults left unfought. Vanity shows the same neglect, for idolatry of dress consumes precious hours that should be devoted to looking into the moral mirror, and those inclined to it have little inclination for what keeps what is humble, meek and lovely in character.

Continuing therein means remaining faithful and abiding in its teaching under all circumstances, remembering and not forgetting what was shown and acting on the Word continually. It is following the light fully rather than obeying what is agreeable and disobeying when convenient, with obedience required in every particular because obedience is better than sacrifice. It is bringing the truth into daily life and practice with patience, submission, cleansing of passion from the soul temple, love, good works, self-denial, sacrifice and service by which others may be brought to the truth and uplifted. Those who hear and obey build on the rock while those who hear and do not practice build on sand and will fall when everything that can be shaken is shaken, and hearing without putting into practice leaves God-given ability unused and leads to spiritual decline.

Hearing alone deceives the hearer, brings no moral or spiritual benefit, and leaves many unprepared to meet Christ. The forgetful hearer beholds himself and straightway forgets what manner of man he was, with sacred impressions wearing away because the truth has not exerted its sanctifying influence to transform conduct. Understanding, will and affections must yield to the Word so that through the Holy Spirit its precepts become principles of life, and inattention and carelessness that forget what is heard must give place to listening for needed reproof and instruction in order to practice it. Guilt is measured by light not practiced, so loving to listen while yielding to unbelief, pressure and trials leaves one overcome, ruined and made a stumbling block, with corrupt habits and harmful influence proving the needed reformation has not been done.

The doer of the work acts on the light, does justice and judgment, and works with Christ so that fruit reveals character, with divine power united with human effort working out Christ's righteousness in life. This man shall be blessed in his deed, with light shining forth in good works and with present and eternal good and experienced knowledge of truth that leads to salvation. The practical test is pure and undefiled religion before God: bridling the tongue rather than vain religion, visiting the fatherless and widows in affliction, and keeping oneself unspotted and unstained from the world. The work must not be neglected day by day, for neglect puts the soul at peril, while bringing the instruction into daily life is God's great remedy for diseases of body and soul and those who heed it will triumph at last with the overcomers. Doing under all circumstances includes listening attentively to preached truth, submitting to one another, waiting patiently without hasty difference, irritation, anger or criticism of the Lord's workers when their plans are not understood, and departing from all iniquity with no enmity against brethren and no unruly tongue.

Law Christ and Salvation

The law as a mirror reveals sin but provides no remedy in itself, for it has no power to pardon the transgressor, to cleanse, to set right, to help, or to save. While it promises life to the obedient, it declares death as the portion of the transgressor, and its penalty must still be exacted. God does not save sinners by abolishing the law, which is the foundation of His government in heaven and earth, but by laying the punishment upon the sinner's Substitute. In the councils of heaven before the world was created the Father and the Son covenanted that if man proved disloyal Christ, one with the Father, would take the place of the transgressor and suffer the penalty of justice, so that Christ's death on Calvary exalts and vindicates the law and keeps the throne of God without stain of crime or taint of sin. Looking into the mirror therefore drives the convicted sinner to Christ rather than away from the standard, for conviction of sin is made an agent in every genuine conversion and the first step toward reconciliation.

The one condemned by the law must come with humble penitent heart to God for pardon and wash in the fountain of the Redeemer's blood. He must exercise repentance toward God whose law has been transgressed and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ as his atoning sacrifice, claiming His merits and looking to the crucified and risen Saviour. Pardon comes through Christ's atoning sacrifice and is received by faith in God's promise of full forgiveness, resting on the atoning blood rather than on passing emotional excitement. Then Jesus as Advocate takes the sins and imputes His own righteousness, healing the wounds sin has made, and is made unto the believer sanctification and righteousness and redemption, saving not in sins but from sins. Through the new birth and thorough conversion the heart and affections are transformed, the moral nature renewed by grace, and the heart brought into harmony with the law in faith and love, with peace and power to obey given to the penitent and with defects put away in reform unto a purer life through strength from the Saviour.

Divine grace then enables obedience, for diligent effort to overcome sin is joined by divine help as Christ works in the believer to do God's will. Christ kept the Father's commandments and lived the law, keeping every precept and passing over the ground where Adam fell, and by perfect obedience redeemed Adam's transgression, leaving an open door through which every sinner can approach God and leaving a Pattern to copy. Looking into the law and continuing therein means receiving the engrafted word with meekness and being a doer from the heart, seeking to be like Christ by asking how Jesus would act under similar circumstances and conforming conduct to His example in obedience to the commandments. As branches connected to the vine believers remain united with Him, enlist every part of themselves in His service, and bear the same fruit, with faith exercised and growing in the One who redeemed them. Faith works through love and purifies the soul, true obedience grows from a renewed heart and enduring inward principles rather than outward appearance or passing feeling, and this active doing changes the beholder into His image, gives holiness, clothes the soul in His righteousness, and enables the pure in heart to see God and to delight in beholding God in Christ.

Satan sought to lead men to believe God abolished that moral standard so they would have no mirror in which to see what manner of person they are. He works to divert the mind from searching study of the law by careless influences and impressions, and works through popular ministers to represent liberty as a yoke of bondage, while people accept their ministers' explanations of Scripture and do not investigate for themselves. The law is therefore not to be rejected or broken because it exposes defects, for remaining ignorant of its claims does not remove the penalty, and cherished sins left unremoved bar the way to heaven. Opposition should be turned toward the sins the law exposes rather than toward the law that reveals them, with acknowledgment of its eternal truth giving moral power to live consistently, to put away sin and do what is right, and to do good works that lead others to glorify God.

Judgment Reward and Victory

The law is the great moral standard by which the living and the dead are to be tested according to the deeds done in the body in the last great day. Hearing without obeying is dangerous, for those who hear and obey build character on the rock while those who hear but do not practice build on sand and will fall when everything that can be shaken is shaken. Looking means carefully comparing life and character with God's great moral mirror, keenly criticizing what is seen with sincerity because the soul's interest is at stake. It is life or death and a mistake here is fatal, and diligence in this looking and continuing by complying with its requirements makes calling and election sure. Merely seeing defects and going away claiming righteousness and holiness, while trampling the immutable law and erecting a standard of one's own, leaves a person lost in the great day of accounts, for only the one who is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work is blessed in his deed.

Blessing is not measured by favorable feelings but by faith and by acting on what the law shows in examining character to reveal errors and imperfections to be removed. The obedient soul is free to lay hold by faith on a sure and steadfast hope as Christ is formed within, and obedience is the condition for receiving His riches and righteousness. Living by this practical instruction day by day and bringing it into daily life is part of God's remedy for the diseases of body and soul. Those who keep looking into the perfect law of liberty and continue in it as doers and not forgetful hearers will triumph at last with the overcomers. If the mirror shows character defective they must not go away and forget but must strive earnestly to overcome faults and banish selfishness so Christ can enter as an abiding guest, receiving strength in the Saviour with the joy of heaven filling the heart, His righteousness going before and the glory of God as rearward, rooted in Christ on a secure foundation persecution cannot shake.

Continuing therein must be done now, because life is short and every hour of probation must be wisely improved as a treasure more precious than gold in order to attain the perfection of character Christ requires. Precious probationary time must not be spent sewing fig leaves to cover the nakedness that sin causes. True success and blessing are connected with obeying the Word and improving character where one is, rather than expecting a change of place to change the heart. Even when obedience brings crosses, loss, persecution or death, those who lose their lives for Christ gain eternal life and are fully recompensed with life that lasts forever and a celestial crown.

Daily Life and Obedience

Looking into the perfect law of liberty calls for examining self rather than judging others or watching whether neighbors meet the standard, since each must give account of himself and prove whether he is in the faith with Christ enshrined in the heart in the place God desires. It requires thorough, critical, humble self-criticism by the light of the Word as a great looking glass, which reveals what manner of person one is as Christ sees, changes ideas of self, and shows especially those in responsible positions how unable they are to act as guide and judge over others. Comparing conduct with its holy standard exposes sin, faults, errors, imperfections, defects of character and selfishness, brings conviction of how sinful sin is, and must lead to alarm, confession, putting away wrongdoing and trying to make wrongs right, with obedience bringing blessing and good works reflecting Christ while rejecting selfishness, division, dissension and faultfinding. Temperance in all things, especially in eating, gives clear moral discernment and strong memory to retain what is seen, while overeating, eating to repletion and eating at irregular hours enfeeble the mind, disease the memory and cause forgetting; the doer continues looking and does not go away to forget, and the law then acts as schoolmaster to bring him to Christ the sin-pardoning Saviour for pardon and for perfecting Christian character. Knowing truth without its sanctifying power does not make life righteous, and watching for others' faults while neglecting one's own is not living out the truth.

Pure undefiled religion before God is the practical test of continuing therein as not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, and neglect of the work puts the soul at peril while doing brings blessing in the deed. It means laying aside all filthiness and receiving with meekness the word able to save the soul, looking into the perfect law of liberty and remaining in it under all circumstances rather than beholding self and straightway forgetting what manner of man was revealed. Doing is shown in bridling the tongue by being slow to speak and slow to anger, with no vain religion, bitterness, evil speaking, unjust suspicion, unruly tongue, irritation or anger, and in cleansing passion from the soul temple while listening attentively, submitting to one another and waiting patiently. It is visiting the fatherless and widows in affliction and keeping oneself unstained and unspotted from the world, living out justice, love to neighbor as self and kindness to every member of the human family, so that when the Word is received and obeyed light shines forth in good works and cheerful service honors the law and shows its value.

Daily doing means taking heed to self and doctrine to clear the King's highway, bringing the will into conformity with God's will under His discipline and pressing forward in overcoming self by divine power united with human effort, so that the righteousness of Christ is worked out in life. It means going to Jesus Christ and not to man to learn duty, taking impressions from Christ, never leaving judgment about duty to any human being, praying to God and not to man, learning of Christ to receive rest and wisdom to understand duty, with the influence of the divine Spirit resting upon the mind. It means practicing truth in everyday life and not merely attending church and listening, taking up the work God gives whether great or small and doing it conscientiously and constantly to God's glory and not from selfish motives, each doing from love for Christ and for those in need the work God has given after praying for the Holy Spirit's instruction and examining self by the Word as moral mirror and servant of God. It includes dwelling upon preached truth and improving upon it rather than praising and flattering ministers to the face, exalting the poor instrument and dwelling on his virtues and what he has done, since hearers must exalt God and remember Christ who employed the instrument, for flattery aids Satan and causes ministers to fall through exaltation; it includes cooperating with workers without hasty difference of opinion or criticism of the Lord's workers when plans and methods are not understood, and ministers and teachers themselves living in harmony with the Word so hearers become doers, for mere church membership and knowledge that does not sanctify never makes a Christian.

Specific applications begin with guarding words, actions and spirit so they do not offend but are commended of God, knowing self, watching unto prayer, refusing bitterness and a strong masterly spirit striving for supremacy that would mar God's work, and using words to strengthen others. They require bringing the natural temperament of character into subjection to Jesus Christ, learning the first lesson of a commander which is to obey, and then Christ makes that character a strength, power and efficiency for good; excluding the Word's influence from daily conduct cuts the soul away from God's blessings and robs God of lent talents, while continuing therein secures present and eternal good. They call for giving more care to inward character than to outward appearance, especially the meekness of Christ, perfection of character and what is humble, meek and lovely, through meditation, searching of heart and prayerful study, rather than idolatry of dress, vanity, luxurious living and extravagant dress that consumes precious hours which should be devoted to that work and swallows up all that is humble, needy and lowly. Hearing and understanding God's will is not enough but light received must be acted upon, so those who have received instruction about dress reform must choose whether to accept and follow it without being forced or condemned by others, and the same doing examines conduct by Scripture to influence others to obey God's commands, especially the fifth commandment, to leave smoking and drinking upon repentance, and to refuse wrong when urged by companions with justice and tender love.