James

Respect of Persons

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Respect of Persons

Genre: Sermon

Lesson: 6 of 16

Track: #24

Year:

Dictation Name: RR328M24

[Rushdoony] Let us worship God.

The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God who hast made all things in heaven and earth and who art mindful of the greatest and of the least we come again into Thy presence, knowing that all things are open and naked to Thy sight, knowing that Thou knowest us better than we know ourselves, knowing that our times are in Thy hands who doest all thing well. Do Thou work in us that which is well pleasing in Thy sight. Mold us, remake us, use us, and grant that in all things we grow in grace and in understanding of Thy word and of Thy kingdom. Bless us this day and make us stronger for having been in Thy house and for having heard Thy word, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is James 2 verse 1-13, our subject Respect of Persons, Respect of persons, James 2:1-13.

“My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; 3 And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: 4 Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? 5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? 6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats? 7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called? 8 If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: 9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. 10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

James speaks again of our Lord Jesus Christ and he refers to Him as the Lord of Glory. Moreover he again, as in the 12th verse of the 1st chapter, here in verse 5 refers to Christians as those loving God. His purpose is to encourage them in their love and service. To call Jesus the Lord of glory is to declare Him the manifested presence of God among His people. To believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord of glory is not consistent, James says, with respect of persons. Such a personality to persons because of their status, whether rich or poor, is forbidden by God in Deuteronomy 1:17 and elsewhere.

In this instance what is involved is favoritism to the rich. The Christian assembly is, in the Greek text, a word that is our English word, synagogue, almost literally taken over from the Greek. This was the earliest name for the church; it was called the Christian synagogue. Rome regarded Christianity not as a separate religion but really as a sect of Judiasim, only with time was the difference noted and the separation made by Rome. The Christian synagogue, because it held very strictly to the Old Testament revelation, saw itself not as a new group but as the true vessel of the ancient faith. It attracted, especially in the earliest days apparently, more than a few people of note who were curious about this Messianic synagogue, these were Jews. When such persons attended the Christian synagogue much attention was paid to them, after all these were prominent people well known, readily recognized. Late-comers sat on the floor, but those important curious persons, James tells us, were given good seats rather than floor space. This could be called courtesy to guests, as perhaps it was in part. But at the same time poor visitors had no such courtesies extended to them, only the rich and the prominent. The poor were told to sit on the floor; such partiality James calls evil.

Paul in I Corinthians 1 verses 1 following makes a like-point condemning partiality because of statists, the fact was that while many prominent Greek and Roman converts were very early brought into the fold, for some uears the notable Jewish thinkers stayed outside the Christian fold, no matter how great their curiosity. God, James reminded the church, was confounding the wisdom of the wise and choosing the poor of this world as heirs of the kingdom, a kingdom promised to them that love Him. To show partiality to the culture despisers of Jesus Christ is to go against the Lord. Already these powerful leaders were oppressing and arresting them, having them taken to court for trial, their treatment in court would not be lightened because they had been courteous to these people when they came ot the services; these were heartless men. “Do they not blaspheme” James says “that worthy name by the which ye are called?” In other words, their presence at the church had as its purpose at times to arrest and silence the Christians.

Now James did not call for discourtesy to these visitors; rather he insisted on the same Godly treatment of all in terms of the royal law “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” which we find first in Leviticus 19:18 and then several times in the New Testament. James thus makes an important point with respect to the law, it is a unity not a collection of miscellaneous texts. This is as a very important point because if you turn to a law book of any state or country now days you’ll find simply a collection of miscellaneous things, each passed w/o reference to the other. To break a regulation of the state for example, with respect to some rule about the disposal of trash, and if what you have done is a minor technical error of which you and the rest of the people are ignorant, does not make you or anyone else guilty or lawless men in reality. For a time a major city in California had rules that you had to have three or four different garbage cans, each for a specific purpose, and you could be cited if by mistake you deposited the wrong thing in the wrong can. Now that was a technical error, very often as a child went out and carelessly paid no attention to where he was putting that particular bag of trash, it did not make one a sinner. There are enough statist regulations enacted of which we are ignorant to convict us all many times over; I’ve heard that affirmed more than once by men who know the law well. I once heard the vice president of a bank state that there were enough regulations, that there were enough regulations on the book concerning banking, to put him in jail when he had not knowingly done anything wrong and he added some of the regulations tend to contradict one another.

But God’s law is different, it is a unity and its purpose is justice. If we violate the law at any point we have chosen injustice, we have broken the law. If we exercise daily, physical exercise, and then take poison, the poison negates our exercise. So James says we must keep the whole law to avoid being a transgressor of the law. God’s law is the law of liberty but sin is slavery, to break God’s moral law at any point is to move from freedom into slavery. Well of course at this point the antinomians say “well it’s impossible for anyone to keep the law perfectly.” True enough, but it overlook the key fact that scriptures says there are two kinds of sin; anomia – lawlessness, when you are working against the law, and hamartia – missing a mark, when you are trying to keep the law but you fall short of the mark.

Statist criminal law is having trouble disengaging itself from this Biblical premise. However exemplary a man’s life may be otherwise, if he commits murder he is sentenced for murder. But we see increasingly social factors are being weighed in before sentence is pronounced “the person came from a broken home”, or “a very bad neighborhood or ghetto.” And so on and on, instead of being governed by social factors and the status of men, we must be governed by God’s law, the law of liberty. James conclusion is important “for he shall have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy and mercy rejoices against judgment.” We are not to be hard hearted, because the prosperous visitors to the meeting may be enemies of Christ gives us no right to be merciless or unkind. The rich and the poor, the friend and the foe, are to be received equally with grace, the golden rule still must govern us. To show grace and mercy towards enemies will bring mercy and grace to us from our God.

A.T. Robertson pointed out that as late as the fourth century there were references to the church as the synagogue, this is very interesting. They saw themselves as the true Israel of God, they saw themselves as replacing the old chosen people, they saw Christ as the new temple, and their churches as the synagogues in connection with the temple.

James refers to the gold rings, but the term is better translated as a gold ring demand, that is having many rings. One of these would be the signet ring which every man carried. In that time people did wear many rings of they could afford it. Greeks and Romans wore many rings, often more than one on a finger, but never on the right hand. Now it is interesting that wearing rings and large rings with something in the way of a knob, with either a jewel or a gold emblem at the top, had been common more than once in history, they have a practical use. In a fight you can really cut up somebody if you have enough rings on your finger, or fingers. It is interesting that after the battle of Cannae Hannibal, having defeated the Romans, sent as a trophy to Carthage three bushels of gold rings taken from the Roman dead, which tells you how common rings were even among soldiers who are not wealthy.

Early Christians for some generations wore rings adorned with symbols of the faith, the cross, the anchor, the monogram of Christ, and so on. Saint Paul in I Corinthians, the first chapter, echoes James on respect of persons, calls attention to the false starting points of Jewish and Greco-Roman thought. Jesus Christ is the only true premise of thinking and those who reject Him, Paul says, are, despite their claims of wisdom, fools and sinners. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word, we pray that Thou would so establish Thy word and Thy Spirit in our lives that we may show no respect of persons, but grace and kindliness to all. Make of us Thy people, Thy Sons and daughters by the adoption of grace. Grant that as we face a world that seeks only to do as evil, we in faithfulness to Thy word may return good for evil. Grant us this we beseech Thee, in Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

One of the things I hope you are recognizing is that while people in our time try to pit one part of the Bible against another it becomes very obvious as we study these books, such as James, that he echoes repeatedly, perhaps twenty times or more, the Sermon on the Mount and that later on Paul parallels him; the word of God is a unity.

Yes?

[Audience member] You know what I’ve read from the New Testament it just reiterates what’s all said in the law of the Old Testament, especially in case illustrations, statues {?} and judgments, it’s all over the New Testament, I can’t understand how people would miss the point.

[Rushdoony] Because they want to misinterpret it.

[Audience member] Disobedience is {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

Any other questions?

Yes Mark?

[Mark] In verse 13 what exactly does it mean “and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.”?

[Rushdoony] Mercy confronted with judgment is joyful because mercy knows that it can overrule judgment. What he is talking about is that as you face these people whose law is evil and who do not go by the royal law of liberty you’re going to behave in a totally different way “so speak ye and so do ye” as he says in verse twelve “as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” So, having this law you love your neighbor as yourself. When he does you evil you do him good, when he judges you, arrests you, takes you to court. Instead of going out of your way then to do him evil the next opportunity you have, you show mercy, you show grace and kindliness. Paul speaks of it as heaping coals of fire upon people, showing that in spite of what they do you are a man of grace and you can rise above your natural inclination to slug them and instead you show them mercy.

Yes?

[Audience member] Notice again too Rush how verse nine validates the eternal authority of the law {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience member] That the law is depicted as something that presently judges those who violate it.

[Rushdoony] Yes. It’s one of the great premises of God’s law that there can be no respect of persons, and that has gone into our law, even though it is increasingly being negated because we have, over the generations for example, had racist premises in our law, and then premises that favor one racial group over another.

Yes?

[Audience member] Well Matthew {?} too because we don’t have to take revenge because Matthew says “Woe to those who bring us offenses.” But we can pray for them too, and if we pray for them if they don’t repent the judgment comes heavier on them then what we would have {?} against us.

[Rushdoony] Yes, {?} Could you speak up?

[Audience member] When you’re referring to the principal of downplaying personal vindictiveness, you balance that with legal vindication don’t you?

[Rushdoony] What, what?

[Audience member] When you’re talking about God’s pursuing personal vindictiveness you on the other hand must balance that with legal vindication, is that not correct?

[Rushdoony] Yes, but also in the process you show grace. You manifest that it’s not a case of one dog barking at the other and I think it was Spurgeon who said that too many people are like dogs who answer bark for bark so that it’s an endless barking back and forth which accomplishes nothing. If you’ve ever lived in coyote country one of the sad things is at night some coyotes will start yipping in one area and then the others will yip in another area, and suddenly it’s nothing but the coyotes yipping all around you all night long, they just go back and forth. Well, a lot of people are like that, they answer bark for bark, and we are not only to go by God’s just law, but also by God’s grace. It isn’t easy, it takes grace to do it, but God gives the grace.

Any other questions or comments?

Yes?

[Audience member] {?}

[Rushdoony] Could you speak up?

[Audience member] You mentioned the anchor as a symbol for Christians, what was that?

[Rushdoony] Yes. One of the common symbols that the Christians used in the early church was the anchor. Christ the anchor, whereby we can hold in the crisis of life, we are not blown about by every wind, we stand fast, so it’s a very familiar symbol. A number of symbols were used and the Christians could recognize one another very often by these symbols, and they were a kind of oh, way of silently knowing one another. You have to remember they were often persecuted so it was very helpful if you had a way of identifying yourself.

Yes?

[Audience member] Rush I’d like to ask a question, I don’t believe civil rights but I think this would make clear {?} for the justification for civil rights but I’ve recently been fired from two jobs and it wasn’t my fault, but I don’t think the Bible gives me any mandate to sue these companies legally, do you?

[Rushdoony] No.

[Audience member] {?} The civil rights would give me the right, but the Bible doesn’t, right?

[Rushdoony] Mmm hmm, no.

Any other questions or comments? Well if not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee for this Thy word, we rejoice in its plain speaking, for its relevance to our everyday life, we pray our Father that by Thy grace we may grow in wisdom in understanding, in our ability to cope with the problems of life, to be more than conquerors in all things through Jesus Christ our Lord. And now go in peace God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.