Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

of the Church, and the recovery of the individual. In short, when Scripture
mandates this, one must speak out. In those instances silence would not be
“golden,” but “yellow.”
Second, by the same token, no judgments of others may be made in issues
or areas where there is no explicit injunction of Scripture. Where the Bible
does not forbid or command, man must keep his mouth shut and his hands
off (Rom. 14:1-13; Col. 2:20-21). Whenever a man disregards this biblical
teaching, he is censorious.
Finally, where Scripture settles a matter, and judgments must be made,
the following three guidelines ought to be observed very carefully.
First, the spirit of hypocrisy is condemned (Mt. 7:1-6; Rom. 2:1-3). This
is to say that the person who does the judging may not be guilty of the same
sin ... let alone an even greater sin.
Second, a spirit of meekness is required (Gal. 6:1). The one who judges
must realize that without the grace of God, he will fall into the same sin. This
excludes by definition judgments arising from a selfish, ambitious, envious,
bitter and quarrelsome spirit (Moo, 1985, 151)!
Third, a spirit of intercession must be present (1 John 5:16). The person
who judges must show his intention to restore and edify by his intercession
for the offender.
Romans 2:1-3 indicates that where the first two guidelines are absent,
and a spirit of pride or harshness prevails, the person who judges can be certain
of having already fallen in the same (type of) sin! This is a sobering truth.
While in unbiblical judgments Christian love is the “missing link,”
(Moo, 1985, 152), it should never be said that righteous judgments and
Christian love are mutually exclusive. Nothing could be farther from the
truth. Any animus to that effect indicates that there is not the slightest recognition
that the epitome of God’s love is to secure holiness in the objects of his
love. Without this recognition James may seem out of step. With it James always
hits the right note by definition, however confrontational and cutting his
words may seem (See specifically Mt. 16:23; Acts 2:37; 7:51-54). In this
James does not only reflect God’s love. It is suffused with it. Genuine Christian
love does and must unreservedly follow suit!
James, further, states that someone who wrongfully speaks against his
brother or judges his brother, wrongfully speaks against the law, and judges
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