James 4:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Therefore, he says, do not set yourself to despise and, as it were, legislate against the law. This will not be forgiven you.

There is only one Lawgiver, God, who is able to save and destroy the transgressors of His law. The law and the Lawgiver have authority to punish transgressors of the law.

You have nothing more than empty talk, and you bring upon yourself the sentence of condemnation. By doing the same thing as the one you condemn, you condemn yourself as much as him.

"But who are you, who judge another?" He speaks with contempt. When you yourself are such, how do you dare to judge one subject to the same passions?

"If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law" (Jas 4:11). For who will wish to live under the authority of one whom he despises?

Therefore, he says, do not set yourself to despise and oppose the law. This will not be forgiven you. There is only one lawgiver, God, who is able to save and destroy the transgressor of His law.

Although the laws are different and there are many authors, that is, Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist, nevertheless the law is one, and the Lawgiver is one: God.

James points out the folly of the man who finds joy in judging his neighbor while forgetting his own weakness and unstable condition in this passing life.

Since the brother of God has shown, by reducing the matter to absurdity, how far into evil the one who condemns his brother can go, he now shames him still more.

He speaks as if in a didactic and even dogmatic way, saying that there is one and the same Lawgiver and Judge.

It is clear and known that the one who did not give the law to another cannot be judge over another. How can one who did not give the law judge another, especially one who has not transgressed the law?

This is absurd. But the one who gave laws to others for their benefit and salvation is undoubtedly their Judge. It belongs to Him to judge them.

He judges either to reward those who have kept His laws, or to punish those who have transgressed them.

When we see a man in wounds or in some other terrible illness, we pity him and suffer with him. Still more, when we see a man abiding in sins, we should pity him and suffer with him.

For the nature common to all of us means common calamity and wretchedness. If we suffer with and have compassion for a man's bodily calamity, still more must we suffer with and have compassion for the spiritual calamity of our neighbor.

If our neighbor's terrible bodily illness moves us to mercy, still more should the illness of his soul move us to mercy and compassion.

The soul is more honorable and precious than the body. Therefore its calamity and wretchedness are more terrible and dangerous than bodily calamity.

God, as the supreme Lawgiver, gave the law by His one will. As the supreme Judge according to this law, which He gave, He is undoubtedly above this law and is the only Judge.

This exclusive right and position of His is shown by the fact that He can save and destroy (cf. Mt 10:28).

"But who are you," and so on. In comparison with Him, the one Lawgiver and Judge, who are you, poor man, that you dare to judge your brother and, together with him, the law itself?

You have neither commission, nor right, nor authority for this. By doing this you anticipate God's authority, and therefore you are subject to His judgment and condemnation (cf. Rom 2:1 and following; Rom 14:4 and parallels).

Moving on to various reminders, the Apostle says that quarrels, enmity, and condemnation of others are a condemnation of the law. This treats the law as though it were not holy enough to be fulfilled in holiness.

Or it treats it as though it were not strong enough to move Christians to unfailing fulfillment of it. Yet its lawgiver is God and our Savior. Is it for us, His unworthy creatures, to judge it?

These thoughts were evidently directed against false teachers and heretics who sought to condemn the Christian law. Yet the Apostle James had reasons for reproving them indirectly rather than directly.

It is known that the heretics who rejected the law, the anomoeans, did not immediately declare their false teaching in all its negative breadth and full clarity.