Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

“the implanted word, ‘written on the heart,’ that has the power to save us”
(Moo, 1985, 98, with reference to Jam. 1:21). 238
As such it forms the only acceptable framework for all speech and action,
as well as the agent in the final judgment that everyone can expect to
meet. The specific speech and action in this context pertains to the despicable
sin of partiality. It must be eradicated by word and in deed or ... it spells
judgment! In short, “the law of freedom” either serves to set free from (the
heinous) sin (of partiality) or it does not. In the former case freedom from sin
spells freedom from the penalty of sin. In the latter case slavery to sin prevails
and the liability to the punishment attached to such slavery kicks in by
definition. The threat of the judgment could not have been formulated any
stronger. Everyone must appear before the judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:10) to face
God’s law. At that pivotal juncture in our personal history we will either have
mirrored God’s law, spelling freedom from sin, and hear words of undeserved
mercy, “Well done, good and faithful servant: Enter into the joy of your
master” (Mt. 25:23; 34-40)! Or we will have treated God’s law as inoperative
and dead capital, spelling “free” from holiness (See Rom. 6:20 for this phraseology),
and be told in words of fully deserved judgment, “Evil and lazy
servant: Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire” (Mt. 25: 41-45;
see also Mt. 18:21-35).
In the OT already, to despise Moses’ law is to be put to death without
mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses! How much greater punishment
does a person deserve who in blatant disregard of God’s holy law has
contempt for the Son of God by whom that law comes to its most glorious
manifestation, and insults the Spirit of grace through whom that law comes to
its most glorious implementation (Heb. 10:28-29)?
Therefore, if the law is the standard of judgment at that crucial point in
time, let the believers face it here and now before it is too late. In case all
confidence vanishes in the present, it will be no different when confronted by
Christ at his return, holding up the law as a mirror to show everyone “what he
looks like.” One commentator reminds us that “the works of the wicked” will
prove to be “produced as the merit of their ruin” and “the equity of their
wages” (Rom. 6:23a). He further reminds us that an “inward dunghill reeks
and sends forth its stench,” that “a stinking breath argues corrupt longs,” and
that “putrid and rank speeches come from a foul heart” (Manton, 221, 225).
This is strong language, but it puts the despicable sin of partiality, and all
238 See also Phillip Hughes, Second Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Company, 1962), 89-90, who makes the very same argument in commenting on 2 Corinthians
3:1ff. The contrast in this chapter is not between the law and the Spirit, but between the
law written on stone (by the finger of God) and the law written on the heart (by the Spirit).
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