James 2:8-13

The Law of Moses will not set you free. Before Christ came and died, the Jewish people already had the law and they were not free. In John Ch. 8:31-32 Jesus says, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin”. In our freedom, humanity chooses to disobey God. We make the choice in freedom, and having made the choice, we find ourselves in bondage to the sin we have chosen. Jewish teachers believed the solution was to study the law more carefully. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching … Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

James is reminding his readers that when they turned to Jesus for salvation, they were turning their backs upon trusting the law to save them. The law did not, and could not set them free; they needed the word of truth to receive freedom. They needed to remember that the word of truth was a living growing seed planed within their lives. It required them to be growing, changing, and becoming what God was leading them to become. Salvation is not stagnant, and it is not fixed, it is a relationship with God. Relationships grow and evolve, and they become stronger with time. No relationship, divine or human can survive without mercy. In every relationship, we say and do things that require forgiveness and repentance.

The law to Moses is fixed, it is static, and it has no room for mercy or relationship. Either you keep the law in its totality, or you are a lawbreaker. Under the Law to Moses there was no hope of salvation, that hoped was only found in God’s grace and mercy. Under the law that gives freedom we grow more Christlike all the time, but no matter how much we grow there will never be a time that we do not need God’s mercy. Considering our constant need for grace and mercy there is no excuse for a Christian not to be merciful. Christians are not judgmental because mercy triumphs over judgment.