James 2:1-13
We are influenced more than we think by the false scale of values of the world, with its emphasis on money, social status . . . Even Samuel needed to learn this: "man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). Do you know where this "respect of persons" led the world? Even to despise and reject the Son of God, because He came to earth as a poor man (2 Corinthians 8:9). Today the lovely name of Christ, called upon by Christians, is still the object of mockery and blasphemy. Well, those who bear His name, the poor whom the world despises, are called heirs of the kingdom by the Lord (v. 5; Matthew 5:3). Consequently "the royal law", that is the king’s law (v. 8), is imposed on them. Moreover to fall short of the command to love is to transgress the whole law just as a break in one link in a chain is enough to break the whole. So it was that we were all guilty, convicted of sin. But God has found a greater glory in mercy than in judgment. This mercy has now placed us under a quite different "law", the law of liberty – the liberty of a new nature which finds its pleasure in obedience to God (1 Peter 2:16).