Matthew Henry on James 2:8-13
The apostle, having condemned the sin of those who had an undue respect of persons, and having urged what was sufficient to convict them of the greatness of this evil, now proceeds to show how the matter may be mended; it is the work of a gospel ministry, not only to reprove and warn, but to teach and direct. Col 1:28, Warning every man, and teaching every man. And here,
I. We have the law that is to guide us in all our regards to men set down in general. If you fulfil the royal law, according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, you do well, Jam 2:8. Lest any should think James had been pleading for the poor so as to throw contempt on the rich, he now lets them know t…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on James 2:11
He is One who gave the whole law; therefore, they who violate His will in one point, violate it all [BENGEL]. The law and its Author alike have a complete unity.
adultery . . . kill--selected as being the most glaring cases of violation of duty towards one's neighbor.
Adam Clarke on James 2:11
For he that said - That is, the authority that gave one commandment gave also the rest; and he who breaks one resists this authority; so that the breach of any one commandment may be justly considered a breach of the whole law. It was a maxim also among the Jewish doctors that, if a man kept any one commandment carefully, though he broke all the rest, he might assure himself of the favor of God; for while they taught that "He who transgresses all the precepts of the law has broken the yoke, dissolved the covenant, and exposed the law to contempt, and so has he done who has broken even one precept," (Mechilta, fol. 5, Yalcut Simeoni, part 1, fol. 59), they also taught, "that he who observed a…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on James 2:11
For he that said, Do not commit adultery,.... That same lawgiver, who is but one, and is God, that gave out the seventh command, and forbids adultery,
said also, Do not kill; delivered the sixth command, which forbids murder.
Now if thou commit no adultery; do not break the seventh command;
yet if thou kill, break the sixth command,
thou art become a transgressor of the law; not of that particular precept of the law, the seventh command, for the contrary is supposed before, but of the sixth only; and yet by so doing, a man becomes a violator of the whole law; for the law is but one, though it consists of various precepts; and the breach of one precept, as well as of another, is the breac…
