1. They were to be judged. The thing was future, but as real and certain as if it had been past or present. The testimonies to this great event are clear, varied, and irresistible. Even apart from revelation, the evidence of it is strong and conclusive. And when we do turn to the Bible, the truth is there taught, both directly and by implication, in a large number of passages. The judgment, then, is most certain. What we have to do is to realise it, to take it home to ourselves, to live under the impressions which it is fitted to produce.
2. They were to be judged by “the law of liberty.” The issue is not to turn on our natural ideas of right and wrong, on our partial, perverted, and often most erroneous views of duty. Neither is it to proceed on the maxims and customs of the world. Everything is to be done in righteousness; and here is the only complete, infallible criterion of righteousness. But mark how it is here designated. It is called “the law of liberty.” We are certainly not to understand by this that it grants liberty to do anything that is evil--that it allows liberty to be taken with its own requirements and sanctions. Its object is the very reverse. It is to restrain men from the commission of sin. In common with all law, it exists for the end of being kept, not of being broken. It is the law of liberty, because, in the case of God’s people, and they are spoken of here, its curse is taken away. The chains are broken and the believer walks forth emancipated; for, saith the apostle, “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” He is no longer dependent on his own fulfilment of the law for the life everlasting; through the infinite mercy of God his transgressions of it are not marked against him, and he stands on the ground, not of a personal, but of a vicarious, obedience--that of his great substitute and surety. He is to be tried by it, not apart from the gospel of salvation, but, on the contrary, as incorporated with it--not in its original covenant form, but as thus magnified by the Son of God in our nature on behalf of all the redeemed, and then given to them to be the supreme rule of their character and conduct. And thus it obtains a ready, cordial acquiescence.
3. They were to live as about to be judged by this law of liberty. “So speak ye”--that is, as a habit; let this be your constant practice. Watch over your words; keep the door of your lips; guard against all transgression of the law in this respect. Avoid whatever it condemns, not merely everything profane and impure, but everything vain and unprofitable. And, in particular, remembering what is due to your neighbour according to the commandment, and what you need yourselves at the hand of God, be considerate and charitable, be just, be tender in the language you use both to and regarding your brethren of mankind, most of all your brethren in the faith of the gospel, whatever may be their earthly condition. “And so do”--so act, adds the apostle; speak, but not that only, act also as those whoare about to be judged by the law of liberty. It is not enough to make high professions, you must exhibit and maintain a corresponding practice. Fine speech will not suffice; there must be pure conduct. We must be doers of the Divine will, not hearers or talkers only.
II. THE REASON BY WHICH IT IS ENFORCED (Jam_2:13). James speaks here as from the day of doom itself, like one looking back to the transactions of life as over, as things of the past, not of the future or the present. His statement is to the effect that those persons who show no mercy, who work none in the case of their fellow creatures, shall find none at the Divine tribunal hereafter, but be dealt with in strict justice, according to its rigid, unmitigated requirements, apart from any modifying influence or mingling element of mercy. Having acted, not in the spirit of the law of liberty, but in opposition to it, they shall reap no benefit from it themselves at the great future assize. He adds, “And mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” It rejoiceth--literally, glorieth, boasteth. Well may one exclaim, “Grand word, memorable axiom!” Here we have the other side of the matter, the converse of the foregoing statement. Some sort of collision or contest is supposed between these two--mercy and judgment. They have their respective interests and claims; and these appear to be opposed, irreconcilable. They cannot have both absolutely their own way, and the one or the other must gain the ascendency. But mercy carries the day, it prevails in the conflict. How? Is it by trampling on judgment? Is it by robbing it of any of its lights, doing violence to any of its principles? No; it is by meeting its demands, and honouring it more than had it been allowed to hold undisputed sway and reign without a rival. This has been effected by the mission add mediation of the Lord Jesus. (John Adam.)
Mercy finds mercy
1. The condition of men under the covenant of works is very miserable. They meet with justice without any temper of mercy.
2. Unmerciful men find no mercy.
(1) It is a sin most unsuitable to grace. Kindness maketh us pity misery: “Thou wast a stranger, be kind to strangers.” God’s love to us melteth the soul, and affecteth us not only with contrition towards God, but compassion to our brethren. At Zurich, when the gospel was first preached, they gave liberty to their captives and prisoners, out of a sense of their own deliverance by Christ.
(2) It is unlike to God; He giveth and forgiveth. How will you look God in the face, if you should be so contrary to Him?
3. God usually retaliates and dealeth with men according to the manner and way of their wickedness.
4. God exercises acts of mercy with delight; His mercy rejoices over justice Mic_7:18; Jer_32:41).
5. Mercy in us is a sign of our interest in God’s mercy (Mat_5:7). It is manifested--
(1) In pitying miseries (Mat_15:32).
(2) In relieving wants by counsel or contribution.
(3) In forgiving injuries and offences(Mat_18:22). (T. Manton.)
Judged without mercy
The usual mode of explaining these words is that judgment in the case of the merciless shall be merciless, yet in the case of the merciful mercy glories against judgment, so as to ward off its stroke, and deliver the merciful man, so that mercy does not fear judgment, but rather glories against it and over it. The whole lesson teaching us, in Bengel’s words, that judgment shall be to every one as every one shall have been. But this exposition seems to bring in another subject, quite foreign to the writer’s argument; he is not treating of mercy or the merciful man, but of the unjust man and of judgment. Surely, if the mode of deciding the verdict of the merciful man had been intended, some mention of that character would have found a place. It seems better to regard this clause as a sort of climax to the preceding statement: You are about to be judged by the law which enjoins liberty, and the judgment which will be passed by God according to that law will be unaccompanied by mercy against the man that did not show mercy, even though it is characteristic of God’s mercy to glory against judgment. His mercy often spares when we deserve the blow, but it shall not be so then. You have judged and rejected others, you shall be judged and rejected yourselves. As you have sown, so shall you reap. (F. T. Bussett, M. A.)
Mercy rejoiceth against judgment
Mercy’s triumphs
The history of this world lies in these few words; and you might go about with this key to unlock almost all the mysteries of God’s providence. Let us define the words. “Mercy” is love to the weak, the unhappy, and the bad. “Judgment” is punishment, or a severe sentence, or a condemnation. And the thought of the text is this--that in the Divine government “mercy” contends with “judgment” to overcome it, and then rejoices in her victory; and that, if it be so in God’s method, so it should be with us. There are four ways in which this may be done: “Mercy” may stop “judgment”--that it shall never fall; or “mercy” may mingle itself with the “judgment”--to qualify it; or “mercy” may balance and outweigh the “judgment”; or, best of all, “mercy” may turn the “judgment” into blessing. We will glance at all four, only remembering this--the mind of God is perfect unity. There is no clashing or division. We speak of His different attributes; but His Being is one and His work one--from everlasting to everlasting. He is carrying out one object, by one plan, on one principle, to one end. We divide the “mercy” from the “judgment”; but there is no difference. For God is all love. There is, then, the “mercy” which withholds the” judgment” altogether. There must be “mercy” in heaven itself, for since God “charges His angels with folly,” it is a “mercy” that He has not cast them down; and as “the heavens are not clean in His sight,” it is a “mercy” that they stand and that we can call them firmament. Look at this world. The sun rises and sets; the tide flows; the seasons return; all goes on its ancient round; and all is beautiful. Thousands and thousands go about and flourish. They laugh, and are happy. Yet on what a world does that sun each day rise and set! What a pestilence of sin broods upon this whole earth! What sounds, what sights go up to “the Lord God of Sabaoth”! And we--we know not at this moment what impending” judgments” are hanging over the head of anyone of us stayed only by the hand of “mercy.” Why are we all here so quiet? Why are we not in hell?” Mercy”--arresting “mercy”--“mercy” has “rejoiced against judgment.” Or “mercy” may “rejoice against judgment “by tempering. And which of us could not go back to many a time when that promise came to pass to us: “In men, sure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: He stayeth His rough wind in the day of the east wind.” The mitigations of God’s “judgments” are wonderful. One look, one sigh, one thought, can change all, and in a moment take away all the wrath and almost all the pain. Who could not say that never was his heavenly Father so fatherly to him as when he was chastened? And so it has been, and so it will be to the end. The “sifting” is to come; but God will make it plain. Death may come, but no terror. There will be a “valley,” but no darkness. There will be solitude, but no fear. This world will pale away, but a brighter one will be opening. “If this be dying,” said Bishop Beveridge, “would that I could die for ever!” So “mercy” rejoices against “judgment.” Or the compensations of our “judgment” may be the method in which “mercy” triumphs. Never does God take anything away but He has something better to put in its place. The pains of the body are the medicines of the soul. Sad changes come into our families, and make deep chasms; but Christ comes and sits in the empty seat. We can count our troubles by units, our mercies by millions. But now I have yet to trace God’s own, truer, far higher, better way, by which He is wont to turn the “judgment” into “mercy,” till the sorrow becomes itself the joy. See it thus. He made a free, responsible creature, and the free and responsible creature, in his freeness and responsibility, chose sin, and for sin he was expelled from paradise, and doomed to die. That was the “judgment.” Then “mercy” stood up, and defied the “judgment”; and mercy did her own work. And what is the result? We have lost a paradise, and find a heaven 1 We have lost a garden, but got glory! We have lost God’s visits at certain intervals, to have His presence for ever and ever. What have we not in the Second Adam--infinitely more precious than all which we could have inherited in the First Adam? Examine any of the great “judgments” which have ever come upon this earth, and look how they issued. That great beacon, the Flood--did not mankind need that exhibition of God’s power and holiness? Was not it the grand type of a flood of grace to cleanse and a flood of fire to restore and renew this earth again? And did not “mercy” more than hold its own over the Flood when Christ “went and preached to those very spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah”? And Babel’s scattering--was not it to carry the knowledge of the true God, which else had remained confined to one spot, over the whole earth? and, like “the blood of martyrs” in every age, did not it become the “seed of the Church”? Or Israel’s seventy years’ captivity--do you not know that they went down to Babylon to unlearn, for the first time, their idolatry, that they have never been idolaters since? And their present dispersion and degradation--what a witness to truth it is to all the ages let every man see--what a testimony to prophecy, and what a preface to that grand comingchapter when their restoration shall be “as life from the dead” to the whole world! There is not a child of God who could not stand up and say that his “judgments” have been the elements which went to make his best happiness and his truest hopes. His tears have become his rainbow. And when the question goes round in heaven, “How came you here?” the greater part by far will make answer, “My sorrows! my sorrows!” So “mercy” entered the lists with “judgment,” and “mercy” won the day; and far above the clouds of wrath her banner floats, and she sits on high and chants her song of victory: “Mercy reigneth and rejoiceth against judgment”! Now, what measure has been meted to you measure again. Let “mercy” have her right place in your heart. Before you begin to speak of anybody’s faults, or even look at them, look at three things. Look at their good points. It is such a poor talent to see faults; it is so high and Christlike to see excellences. Use your eyelids to men’s failings, and open your eyes to their virtues. Secondly, see and make all allowance for circumstances. How different their circumstances from yours! How much more tempted than you! And how much less likely to resist! and how much of their sins, after all, may be accidental and circumstantial! how much purely physical I how much irresponsible! And then how little do you know what is going on in secret, in those very hearts that you are condemning!--what struggles! what hidden misery! what prayer! what repentance! what holy earnestness! what wrestlings with God! And above all, look at yourself. What have you done? How have you provoked God? How much heavier, if weighed in God’s balance, your sin would be than anybody else’s! Never look at sin but with pity. Take care that you never “smite those whom God hath not wounded.” Never condemn I never speak harshly. Place yourself on the lower ground. Tell of pardon, tell of Jesus! tell of heaven, tell of mercy. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Mercy rejoiceth against judgment
Far in the Empyrean heights, above the rolling spheres, is the Eternal City, the central seat of the great King. In its midst is a throne, all resplendent with celestial glories. There sits the Ancient of Days, the Creator and Ruler and Judge. Before the throne appears a personage of shining character, clothed in robes of light, celestial in her aspect, yet with bended knee, and with a tear upon her cheek. She appears there in supplication; not for herself, but for others; an intercessor for offenders. “Sire Eternal, admit Thy humble creature’s utterance. Down in far distant space is a speck of dust. There dwells a creature of humble grade, composed of dust himself in part, yet having a spark of intellectual being--a germ of immortality. That creature, though formed but last of all Thy works, has sinned. O Sovereign of the universe, suffer a plea to be presented for his pardon!” While these words were being uttered another personage appeared, and approached the throne. She was shining, like the former, of heavenly mien, yet different in her aspect. She stood erect, and no tear was on her face. She came, as the other ceased, to present a counter-plea. “Sovereign Judge,” she said, “the Just! the True! how can Mercy’s plea be granted? Justice has claims which cannot be dispensed with. Man, having sinned, must meet the due recompense. How can Justice be turned from her right?” Mercy interposed, in her beseeching tones: “But man is frail--a creature of flesh and ignorance, a creature of a day. He is as nothing compared with Thee, O Sovereign Judge! Yet his happiness is much to him. Turn from him the tokens of Thy displeasure, and let him live!” Justice again presents her counter-plea. “True,” she says, “compared with some other orders of being, man is frail; yet is he an appropriate subject of law. Insignificant, in himself, he may indeed be; yet have not his crimes given him consequence? He has knowingly transgressed, and continued to transgress. With the law in his hand--the law of universal love--he has disregarded alike its requisitions and its threatenings, and filled the world with idolatry and irreligion, corruption and crime. And has not the law threatened death to the transgressor?” But Mercy, intent on her purpose, still finds an argument to urge in reply. “Is not death,” she says, “the death threatened, an evil of too great magnitude? Can any creature endure it? Will the Infinite allow Himself to award to any creature, however far from righteousness, so dreadful a doom? Is not mercy one of Thy chief glories? Wilt Thou not, then, show Thyself merciful to man?” To which Justice rejoined: “The threatened punishment is no more than sin deserves. If it is great, it is only so because sin is a great evil, is committed against a great, an infinitely perfect, an infinitely glorious God, against boundless riches of goodness--infinite, eternal, and unceasing love. Moreover, the punishment, great as it may be, grows out of the very sin committed, as its natural consequence. If man take fire into his soul, can he complain if he be left to feel it burning there?” But further Justice pleads: “Has not the Infinite declared that sin shall be thus punished? How can the utterances of Thy lips be set aside? Who will believe again that Jehovah is true? Who again will tremble at His threatening, or fear to sin? If one sinner may escape a righteous recompense, and that in violation of a solemnly uttered sentence, then may another, and another; and the government of the Infinite, the Eternal Supreme, is undermined, and passes away for ever!” So Justice reasoned. And Heaven saw and felt the cogency of her plea. Even Mercy can say no more. She bows in silence, though still sorrowing. Man is bound and delivered over to the executioner’s power, and the sword of Justice is lifted over him. At this awful moment another scene arrests attention. From the light inaccessible which surrounds the throne comes forth a Personage, unseen before, partaker in the Godhead. With infinite pity He approaches the Eternal Sire, and says: “On Me be the wrong of man. On Me let Justice exact her utmost claims. By Me, descending to the world of sin, and dwelling in flesh like its lost inhabitants, and yielding up My life a sacrifice to Thee in their behalf, shall law be honoured and veracity and equity sustained, and man, accepting the preferred favour, shall live.” Deep silence was in heaven. Rapt wonder and awe held its circling throngs. The Eternal Sire assented to the Son. Alight, a glory shone, such as heaven itself had not before seen. Mercy and Justice bowed together before the throne, and bowed together before the wondrous Deliverer, and owned Him for their Lord. Justice herself wept. And suddenly, bursting from all the lips of the blessed, there went up a song, in strains like the voice of many waters, and like many thunderings, and harpers harping with their harps, saying, “Alleluia!” “O the depth of the riches,” &c. “Mercy and Truth are met together,” &c. Tiros “Mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” (L. F. Dimmick, D. D.)
