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Jam_1:25 does not give the simple application of the image, but rather describes, with reference to the foregoing image, the right hearer, and says of him that he is μακάριος ἐν τῇ ποιήσει αὐτοῦ . In this description the three points named in Jam_1:24 are carefully observed: παρακύψας εἰς κ . τ . λ . answers to κατενόησεν ( ἐν ἐσόπτρῳ ), παραμείνας to ἀπελήλυθεν , and οὐκ ἀκροατὴς ἐπιλησμονῆς to ἐπελάθετο . The sentence consists of a simple combination of subject and predicate; γενόμενος is not to be resolved into the finite verb γίνεται (Pott). The predicate commences, after the subject is summed up, in οὗτος with μακάριος .
This is also the case with the textus receptus, where a οὗτος is put before οὐκ ἀκροατής ; for, since with this reading the first οὗτος is simply resumed by the second οὗτος (before μακάριος ), equivalent to hic, inquam, the words οὐκ ἀκροατὴς … ἔργου only serve to give a more exact designation of the subject, παρακύψας … καὶ παραμείνας being thus more clearly defined. Thus these words begin not the apodosis or principal sentence, as if James would here, in contrast to Jam_1:24, show that the right hearing and appropriation leads to the doing, (and thereby) to the blessedness of doing (against Wiesinger). Were this his object, he would have been obliged to put the finite verb instead of the participle γενόμενος , and a καί after ἔργου . The subject is accordingly: but whosoever looks into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein, being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man.
The aorist participles are explained from the close connection of this verse with the preceding, where the same tense was used. There is no copulative καί before the participial clause οὐκ ἀκροατὴς κ . τ . λ ., because the doing of the law is the necessary consequence of the continued looking into it, and it would otherwise have the appearance as if παρακύπτειν and παραμένειν could take place without ποιεῖν following.[102] The verb ΠΑΡΑΚΎΠΤΕΙΝ (properly bending oneself near an object in order to view it more exactly, Luk_24:12; Joh_20:5; Joh_20:11; 1Pe_1:12; Sir_14:23; Sir_21:23) refers back, indeed, to ΚΑΤΑΝΟΕῖΝ , but is a stronger idea. James has fittingly chosen this verb as verbum ad imaginem speculi humi aut mensae impositi adaptatum (Schneckenburger; see also Theile, Wiesinger). Luther inaccurately translates it: looketh through. As the accent is on παρα , the verb ΠΑΡΑΜΕΊΝΑς is used afterwards. By ΕἸς is expressed not only the direction to something, but the intensity of the look into the inner nature of the law. παραμείνας (not continueth therein, as Luther translates it, but thereat) is added to παρακύψας ,—without the article, because the two points are to be considered as most closely connected,—indicating the continued consideration of the ΝΌΜΟς , from which action necessarily follows. Schneckenburger incorrectly gives to the verb ΠΑΡΑΜΈΝΕΙΝ here (appealing to Act_14:22; Gal_3:10; Heb_8:9) the meaning to “observe the law;” but the subject treated of here is not the observance, but “the appropriation which leads to action” (Wiesinger), or “the remaining in the yielding of oneself to the object by contemplating it” (Lange). By νόμος τέλειος ὁ τῆς ἐλευθερίας [103] is meant neither the O. T. law, nor lex naturalis (Schulthess), but λόγος ἀληθείας (Jam_1:18), thus the gospel, inasmuch as it places before the Christian—by reason of redemption—the rule of his life. This evangelical νόμος , indeed, resembles the O. T. νόμος in expressing no other will of God, but differs from it in that it only is the νόμος τῆς ἐλευθερίας , the νόμος τέλειος . It not only confronts man as enjoining, but, resting on the love of God, it creates the new life from which joyful obedience springs forth voluntarily and unconstrained; it gives ἐλευθερία , which the O. T. νόμος was not able to give, and thus proves itself as the perfect law in contrast to the imperfect law of the Old Covenant. It is true that even in the O. T. the sweetness of the law was subject of praise (Psa_19:8-11), but the life-giving power belonged to the law only in an imperfect manner, because the covenant on which it rested was as yet only one of promise and not of fulfilment. It is accordingly incorrect to explain the additional attribute as if James considered the O. T. law, according to the Pauline manner, as a ζυγὸς δουλείας (Gal_5:1), for of this there is no trace.[104] Many expositors understand by ΝΌΜΟς ΤΈΛΕΙΟς Κ . Τ . Λ . the gospel, as the joyful message of salvation, or the doctrina evangelii, or simply gratia evangelii, namely, in contrast to the O. T. economy, which, however, corresponds neither to the language of James nor to his mode of contemplation.
In the additional participial sentence, the ideas ἈΚΡΟΑΤῊς ἘΠΙΛΗΣΜΟΝῆς and ΠΟΙΗΤῊς ἜΡΓΟΥ are opposed to each other. ἈΚΡΟΑΤῊς ἘΠΙΛΗΣΜΟΝῆς (the word, foreign to classical Greek, is in the N. T. a ἍΠ . ΛΕΓ .; it is found in Sir_11:27; among classical writers: ἘΠΙΛΉΣΜΗ , ἘΠΙΛΗΣΜΟΣΎΝΗ ) is = ἈΚΡ . ἘΠΙΛΉΣΜΩΝ , a hearer to whom forgetfulness belongs. To ΠΟΙΗΤΉς ἜΡΓΟΥ is attached in order to make still more prominent the idea of activity, which indeed is already contained in ΠΟΙΗΤΉς . The singular does not properly stand for the plural (Grotius: effector eorum operum, quae evangelica lex exigit), but “is designed to import that it here results in something, in the doing of work” (Wiesinger). Those ideas, which appear not to correspond, yet form a true antithesis, since the law is inoperative on the forgetful hearer, but incites him who is an attentive hearer to a corresponding activity of life. James says of him who is thus described: he ( οὗτος ) is blessed in his deed. ποίησις in N. T. ἍΠ . ΛΕΓ ., in Sir_19:20 : ΠΟΊΗΣΙς ΝΌΜΟΥ . The preposition ἘΝ is not to be exchanged with ΔΙΆ , for by ἘΝ the internal connection of doing and blessedness is marked; Brückner: “the blessing innate in such doing is meant.” ἜΣΤΑΙ is therefore not to be referred to tire future life; but it is by it announced what is even here directly connected with the ΠΟΊΗΣΙς ; James, however, certainly considered this ΜΑΚΑΡΙΌΤΗς as permanent. The thought here expressed refers to the last words of Jam_1:21, completing them, showing that the ΛΌΓΟς has the effect there stated ( ΣῶΣΑΙ ΤᾺς ΨΥΧΆς ) in him who so embraces it that it leads him to ΠΟΊΣΙς .[105]
[102] Lange agrees in essentials with this explanation, but he thinks that by it “the full energy of the idea is not preserved;” it should rather have been said that “the παρακύψας and παραμείνας , as such, ποιητὴς ἔργου γειόμενος ;” but the looking in and continuing is evidently in themselves not identical with the doing of which James speaks, however necessarily the latter results from the former.
[103] Kern incorrectly maintains that this expression is formed according to the Pauline phraseology: νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς ἐν Χρ . Ἰησοῦ , Rom_8:2; νόμος τῆς πίστεως , Rom_3:27; νόμος Χριστοῦ , Gal_6:2; as if James must have borrowed the designation of what was to him the cardinal point of Christian life from another, and could not himself originate it.
[104] It is to be observed that even in the so-called apostolic council at Jerusalem James did not, as Peter, call the law a ζυγός .
[105] Laurentius adds to the last words of the verse: sc. non ex merito ipsius operis, sed ex promissione gratuita; but this is a caution foreign to the context. Lange inappropriately intermingles ideas, when he reckons to this ποίησις particularly confession, and thinks that James above all things indicated that the Jews should confess Christ, and that the Jewish Christians should fully confess their Christian brethren from the Gentiles.