James 2:10 - Printer Friendly

ESV: For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

NIV: For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

NASB: For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all.

CSB: For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.

NLT: For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.

KJV: For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

NKJV: For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

In the previous verse, James insisted that to show favoritism to a wealthy person over a poor one is a sin. It is a failure to obey God's command to love others as we love ourselves. We become, by definition, lawbreakers.

James recognizes that our human tendency is to dismiss our sin. But he's not going to let us off of the hook. To sin in this area of favoritism and prejudice, James reveals, makes us just as guilty as if we had systematically broken every single command in the Law. The point is not that all sins are equally heinous. Rather, it is that on God's legal scorecard, for those He will judge according to the Old Testament Law, even one sin is damning. A person either is perfect, or they are not. One "stumble," as James describes it here, earns us the same "fail" rating as a lifetime of deliberate disobedience.

In a few verses, James will make the point that such a reality should make us depend all the more on God's mercy. This grace is available to all who trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. For now, though, James wants us to understand that this sin of discriminating against others, based on the world's standards, is just that: a sin. The laws we follow do not make up for the ones we break.

James 2:1–13 continues the prior passage's focus on Christians living out what the Word of God says. Those who hold the faith of Christ should obey the command to love our neighbors as ourselves. This includes not showing favoritism to the rich over the poor. Christians should trust God to provide for and protect them, instead of seeking the favor of the very group of people who were oppressing them in the first place. According to the gospel, all of us are lawbreakers. Christians, as people who believe they will be judged by the law that gives freedom, should treat all others as equals.

Genuine saving faith in God leads to good and loving actions: ''works.'' In chapter 1, James discussed the importance of acting on the words of God, not merely hearing them. Favoritism to the rich over the poor demonstrates a lack of faith. In fact, this is a sin. Following up on these ideas, James insists that ''faith'' which doesn't result in good works is dead. Such belief is merely intellectual agreement. It is not trust, or true, biblical saving faith. James doesn't deny that belief in God is essential to salvation, nor does he claim that works are necessary to obtain salvation. Rather, he makes the case that works are to faith what the breath is to the body: a sign of life. A ''faith'' without works is like a body without breath: dead.

In chapter 1, James taught that a saving belief in God changes how a Christian looks at trials in their lives. It affects where they turn for help, and who they credit for good. Believers hear the Word and do it. In this chapter, James insists that our faith in God should keep us from showing favoritism to the rich and powerful on earth and should provoke us to love our poor neighbors as ourselves. He also makes the case that so-called-''faith'' which does not result in works, is not saving faith, at all. Despite controversy, this does not clash with Paul's view of salvation by grace alone. James refers to good works as an expected outcome of salvation, not the source of it. In the following chapters, he will continue to show what a life of genuine faith looks like.

The book of James is about specifically understanding what saving faith looks like. How does faith in Christ reveal itself in a believer's life? What choices does real trust in God lead us to make? Those are the questions James answers. Most scholars believe the writer was Jesus' half-brother, a son born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus' birth. James may not have come to believe Jesus was the Messiah until after the resurrection. Eventually, though, he became one of the leaders of the Christian church in Jerusalem. This is possibly the earliest-written of all the New Testament books, around AD 40–50. James addresses his letter to Jewish Christians scattered around the known world.