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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - James 2:1 - 2:1
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JAMES CHAPTER 2
Jam_2:1-9 It is not agreeable to the Christian profession to
regard the rich, and despise the poor.
Jam_2:10-12 The guilt of any one breach of the law.
Jam_2:13 The obligation to mercy.
Jam_2:14-19 Faith without works is dead.
Jam_2:20-26 We are justified, as Abraham and Rahab were, by
works, and not by faith only.
Have not; profess not yourselves, and regard not, or esteem not in others.
The faith of our Lord Jesus Christ; i.e. faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; not the author but the object of faith is meant, as Gal_2:20 Gal_3:22 Phi_3:9.
The Lord of glory; Lord not being in the Greek, glory may be joined with faith, ( admitting only a trajection in the words, so frequent in the sacred writers), and then the words will run thus, the faith of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, i.e. the faith of his being glorified, which by a synecdoche may be put for the whole work of redemption wrought by him, which was completed by his glorification, as the last part of it; or, by a Hebraism, the faith of the glory, may be for the glorious faith. But the plainest way of reading the words is (as our translators do) by supplying the word Lord just before mentioned; Lord of glory, ( Christ being elsewhere so called, 1Co_2:8), i.e. the glorious Lord; as the Father is called the Father of glory, Eph_1:17, i.e. the glorious Father: and then it may be an argument to second what the apostle is speaking of; Christ being the Lord of glory, a relation to him by faith puts an honour upon believers, though poor and despicable in the world; and therefore they are not to be contemned.
With respect of persons; the word rendered persons signifies the face or countenance, and synecdochically the whole person; and, by consequence, all those parts or qualities we take notice of in the person. To respect a person is sometimes taken in a good sense, Gen_19:21 1Sa_25:35. Mostly in an evil, when either the person is opposed to the cause, we give more or less to a man upon the account of something we see in him which is altogether foreign to his cause, Lev_19:15, or when we accept one with injury to or contempt of another. To have, then, the faith of Christ with respect of persons, is to esteem the professors of religion, not for their faith, or relation to Christ, but according to their worldly condition, their being great or mean, rich or poor; this the apostle taxeth in the Hebrews to whom he wrote, that whereas in the things of God all believers are equal, they respected the greater and richer sort of professors, because great or rich; so as to despise those that were poor or low. The Greek hath the word plurally, respects, which may intimate the several ways of respecting persons, in judgment or out, of judgment. This doth not exclude the civil respect we owe to magistrates and superiors upon the account of their places or gifts; but only a respecting men in the things of religion upon such accounts as are extrinsical to religion; or, with prejudice to others as considerable in religion as themselves, though inferior to them in the world.