William Burkitt Notes and Observations - James 2:11 - 2:11

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William Burkitt Notes and Observations - James 2:11 - 2:11


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As if the apostle had said, "He that threatened adultery with death, threatened also murder with death; it is the same lawgiver that forbids both, and his authority is as truly contemned in transgressing one as both these laws. Disobedience to God, in any one law, is a virtual denying of his authority to prescribe any law to us, and lays a foundation for universal disobedience; for if Almighty God's sovereignty be disowned in any one instance, it may as well be so in all other; the same reason that leads to the observation or violation of one law, doth oblige us to keep or break all the rest, and that is the authority of the lawgiver. The whole law hath an equal obligation upon the conscience." From hence the apostle draws this inference, that persons should so speak and so do, so order their speeches and their actions, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

Note here, 1. That all we say and do, all our actions and expressions, do fall under the judgment and sentence of the law of God.

2. That the law of God, in the hand of Christ, is the law of liberty; we are freed from it as a covenant, freed from its condemnatory curse, freed from its rigorous exactions, bondage, and terrors. The law to a believer is a law of liberty, and to others a law of bondage and death.

3. That it will be a great help to us in our Christian course, to think often that all our words and actions must come into judgment; it is agreeable to the liberty of the gospel to believe and remember, that all we say and do must be judged by the law of liberty.