The Book of James, Who Made You Judge? James 4:11-12 - Lesson 19

James 4:11-12,  Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. ¹²There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

From the Amplified Bible

In this passage of chapter 4 of the book of James, we are drawn to the subject of judging.

Now in the context of this chapter James is not talking about discerning between right and wrong, but he is talking about condemning or despising on the basis of discerning someone’s life or actions as wrong.

He is talking about slander or misrepresentation of a brother.

He relates the speaking evil against a brother or sister as speaking evil of the law.

Now what law is James talking about?

James has already talked about law in this epistle and that was in James 2:12,13, where we read:

So the law that James is talking about is the law of liberty which he attaches to acts of mercy.

Therefore this law of liberty is a merciful law.

If we use this definition of law it becomes perfectly clear what James means: "When you judge your brother without mercy you are saying that the law of liberty is unrighteous in how it forgives and forbears with the sins of those who trust in Jesus."

I have heard it said. "I can never forgive my brother or my sister for what he or she has done against me."

Wives and husbands say this also when their mate has been unfaithful.

But this absolute, of not forgiving, confronts the law of liberty, the law of mercy, and says that the law of liberty is unrighteous.

This is a statement that says that God is wrong to forgive such conduct and to extend mercy.

This is a statement that says that God’s law is wrong!

James goes on to say: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

All we are given to do according to the scriptures is to be a doer of the law for being a judge is not only beyond our pay grade but beyond our ability.

We are not called to be a judge for we do not have the capacity to do that act in a righteous manner.

We are to carry out the law of liberty by exercising mercy, not condemnation.

If you exercise mercy God will exercise mercy toward you but if you set up your own law system God will judge you by your own law system.

That is what James told us in James 2:13,  For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

Not only is the law of liberty merciful, but it also demands mercy from us.

So in order to do the law of liberty we must be merciful as it is merciful.

Don’t you want the mercy of God with all your heart or are you satisfied to simply be treated justly?

If God can extend mercy to you why can’t you extend mercy to those that do you wrong?

Peter wanted instruction of the Lord about this very subject when he asked this question in Matthew 18:21.

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

In Peter’s mind seven times was as far as a man should go in forgiving those who wronged him, but not so with our Lord for Jesus replied in Matthew 18:22-35,

Have you ever been wronged by one person 490 times?

This servant became a judge of the law of mercy and chose to supersede it by making his own law, a law without mercy, a law which benefited himself and not another.

James continues his instruction by stating to an even greater degree how offensive it is to judge our brother as he recognizes that judging and lawgiving are only within God’s realm by virtue of His ability to forgive and punish sins.

For Verse 12 says,  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

You can’t save nor can you destroy, why then do you judge another.

Christ decides who He will be merciful to and who He will not.

Christ has declared in your favor and my favor and has indeed shown mercy to all of his own, and we, as a part of the body of Christ, are to follow the lead of the Head.

And the Head of the body says this in:

Luke 6:36-38,  Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: ³⁸Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Here then is the quality that our father expects us to have.

It is a quality of compassion, a quality of mercy.

We are not to have a quality of judgment in that we compare ourselves to others and elevate ourselves over others by finding the twig in their eye but refusing to see the timber in our own.

If you pay attention to your own faults and failures it will take so much time to remove the beam or timber from your eye that you will have no time left to attend to the twig in your brother or sister’s eye.

Anyone who works with wood is intimately acquainted with slivers for slivers and working with wood go together.

In working with wood I sometimes get large slivers but most of the time they are extremely small slivers and well embedded.

One thing I know from experience is that the body tells you very quickly when something is in it that does not belong there.

The body is very jealous and yells loudly and will keep on reminding you that a sliver is present and the body will not shut up until the offending party is removed.

I have the proper tools to get rid of slivers; magnifying glasses, needles and tweezers.

It takes time to remove even the tiniest of slivers.

I do not have an urgency to go around looking for slivers in others but I just take care of my own.

That is what God expects me to do.

By his grace I am to remove my own sliver for that alone will take up plenty of my time.

God gives us pain in our lives, he gives us slivers, he gives us a mote in the eye that we may have an understanding of what others are suffering.

Because we know the pain of the sliver we are to have compassion or mercy upon others of like suffering or weakness.

Compassion or mercy is to be the foundation we rest upon that will keep us from not judging, not condemning, but acquitting, and giving.

We are not to be as the Pharisees, who set themselves up as judges of all other men, glorying in themselves and despising others.

Jesus forbids the self-righteous, self exalting, and hypocritical judging which is false in its very nature and ends up only in the calling down of God’s judgment on those who judge.

The Pharisees took to judging in order to condemn others and to acquit themselves; and that is what the natural man always loves to do.

The Pharisees and men and women in general reserve all their compassion for themselves, finding themselves innocent, and never judge themselves that they may not be judged.

Paul said in I Corinthians 11:31,  For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

When I get busy and remove my sliver I judge myself and therefore no one else can judge me.

But instead of judging yourself it is easy to catch yourself judging others every day.

Nowhere in scripture do I find myself or do I find you as the standard by which all others are measured.

When you, as the Pharisees did, set your life up as the standard and judge others by your life you are doing what Jesus told you not to do.

Instead of compassion it is condemnation that you are expressing.

But by the grace of God we have the power to rise above those ordinary and natural qualities of judgment, condemnation, and lack of forgiveness.

Now we have gone through great detail as to what James is saying here but we also need to learn what James is not saying here.

We are to study to show ourselves approved unto God as to this matter of judgment for there are times when judgment is the right thing to do.

For James is not forbidding us to confront brothers and sisters who have clearly violated the Word of God, for love tells us that we are indeed our brother’s keeper and that confrontation at times is an act of love.

And so our Lord instructed His disciples in:

Matthew 18:15-17,  Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. ¹⁶But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. ¹⁷And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

This instruction of our Lord leaves no wiggle room for discussion of our brother or sister’s faults behind their backs.

Your first duty is to have a face to face meeting with your brother alone.

If this act does not cause your brother to seek forgiveness, then we are told to ramp it up a bit by going again to your brother but in the accompaniment of one or two others.

These others are to be there to hear both sides of the issue and be ready to report to the church if a conclusion of the matter does not take place.

If this is the case then it is a matter for the church to hear and the church to act.

The Pastor now gets involved to lead the church in a resolution of the matter.

It is a process of increasing pressure for now it is a matter for the body of Christ to address.

So if the brother continues to not hear and to seek forgiveness he is no longer to be thought of as a brother for he has cast aside the marks of a true believer and has shown himself to be as a heathen man.

There are those who use the admonition of scripture to "Judge not" as a way to not be under the examination of others, but this admonition is not absolute as we know from Christ’s own instruction to his disciples.

As the body takes care of each of its parts so we are to take care of each of the parts of the body of Christ.

If you are part of Christ’s body it is your obligation to see to the health of the other parts of Christ’s body.

We are indeed responsible for each other.

Our task is not to judge others where only God can judge.

God alone can judge the motives and intentions of men, and so we should not be judging here.

But our responsibility is to rebuke others in those areas where God has clearly identified their actions as sin.

It is also wrong to judge our brothers and sisters in matters that are not addressed in Scripture.

When we go beyond the Scriptures, we are treading on very thin ice, and most likely something bad will come back on us.

James tells us that when our standards are not clearly biblical standards, we are actually passing judgment on the law.

We are placing ourselves above the law, rather than under it.

We are saying, in effect, "God’s law did not go far enough here, so I will inject my own values and views.

Based upon a study of the actions of the Pharisees against our Lord almost every accusation the Jews made was based upon their expansion of the law, their traditions, and not the law itself.

God alone is the lawgiver, and He alone has the power to save or to destroy.

When we judge our neighbor, we completely lose sight of our proper place in God’s scheme of things.

Setting ourselves over others, and over the law, is arrogant for it puts our law above God’s law.