What is YOUR interpretation of James 2:10 ?

pasifika said:

Okay thanks, I can get their teachings from the Bible NT.

So, I think their(apostles) teachings is for Christians to live a "holy" life and to do that Christians have to believe and obey the Gospel message in which they proclaimed.

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The issue is that it is common today for people to want to take the approach of all or nothing (which I think is mistaken), while there were early Christians who took the approach of if you can't do everything, then do as much as you can.

johnjanuary1984 said:

Does James 2:10 mean that those who broke only 1 of the 10 commandments are just as guilty as the guy who breaks all of them ????

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That is correct. If a person is seeking to be justified by God according to the Law, then he has to keep it without a single fault from his youth up. That means that just one infraction of the Law, even a minor one, brings a curse and condemnation to the person seeking to be justified by the Law. The Scripture says that no man can be justified by the Law. Paul says that the Law is good and holy and so it is not the fault of the Law, but it is the absolutely sinfulness of man that he is unable to keep the Law.

There are two people in the New Testament who were described as blameless according to the Law. The rich young ruler. Jesus commended him for it, but He said that the young man had one fault. He was wealthy and the covetness of his heart let him down when Jesus told him to sell his possessions and come and follow Him. That one fault caused his total observance to the Law fall down like a house of cards.

The other was Paul. He described himself that while as a Pharisee, he was blameless according to the Law, but he consented to the murder of Stephen. In other words he was an accessory to what was for the Jews under Roman law, an unlawful killing. As soon as he did that, he came under a curse and condemnation. It was by the grace of God that Jesus revealed Himself to Paul and as a result he was converted by grace through faith in Christ.

It is a fact that someone can take an office pen home (stealing), or tell a white lie (lying), say "[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]{ (blasphemy), look at a young woman in a short skirt and enjoy the sight (adultery in heart). Even just one of these can be a total breach of the Law, bringing condemnation on the person.

This shows that none of us can keep the Law, and so none of us can be justified by it.

Oscarr said:

There are two people in the New Testament who were described as blameless according to the Law.

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Here is one more for you O.
Luke 1:
5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias,
of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances
of the Lord blameless.

johnjanuary1984 said:

I'm curious. Does this passage mean that if you break just one of the 10 commandments your just as guilty as the guy who broke all of them ????

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Exactly. Sin is sin. God does not differentiate.

johnjanuary1984 said:

Were they considered "righteous" because of their faith in God? Or do you truly believe they never committed a sin in their entire life ? They never had an impure thought ???? You really believe that ???

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All I did was cite a verse that identifies two others who are spoken of as righteous and blameless.
To answer your question, I can only believe that they had a faith that few had at that time.
Romans 9:
31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.
32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.
For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.
33 As it is written:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

johnjanuary1984 said:

How can a person believe James 2:10 yet still think they can EARN their salvation ???

It seems like a loosing effort

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We can't earn our salvation by our obedience to God's law even through perfect obedience because it was never given as a means of doing that (Romans 4:4-5), so that was never the goal of why we should obey the law, and the topic of earning our salvation has nothing to do with what James 2:1-11 is speaking about. His point was not that they had committed favoritism, that now they won't be able to earn their justification, and no longer need to try to obey God's law, but rather he was encouraging them to repent and to do a better job of obeying God's law more consistently.

johnjanuary1984 said:

I'm curious. Does this passage mean that if you break just one of the 10 commandments your just as guilty as the guy who broke all of them ????

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I belive hyperbole is used here to make a point that the weightier part of the law is Love. We read this message being preached in different ways all throughout scripture. Blessings.

johnjanuary1984 said:

Does James 2:10 mean that those who broke only 1 of the 10 commandments are just as guilty as the guy who breaks all of them ????

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Only in the sense that breaking 1 commandment makes you a lawbreaker, and therefore guilty of sin before a perfect God. And the only solution for that is the savior, Christ Jesus.

That does NOT mean that all sins are equal in the destruction and consequences wrought by them. Obviously failing to honor ones parents is not on the same level as killing them.

Minister Monardo said:

Here is one more for you O.
Luke 1:
5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias,
of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances
of the Lord blameless.

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Correct. I believe that his faith in the Messiah to come completed his righteousness along with this faithful compliance with the commandments and ordinances. It appears that he was not relying on compliance with the Law alone, but had, what the young ruler and Paul didn't have (before his conversion), faith in the Messiah to come in the same way that these two had.

Soyeong said:

Nowhere does the Bible say that God wants us to know that as human beings we are not capable of keeping His laws, but just the opposite.

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If you as a human being could keep God's law perfectly you would not need Christ. You can't, you are a sinner like we all are. The law helps you see that you are a sinner, that you need a savior. If you don't see yourself as a sinner you wont repent, you won't turn to Christ, because why would you if you can perfectly keep Gods law without him? So yes the law very much makes us see ourselves as sinners incapable of keeping the law.
There are many good sermons and teaching around on this.
The Purpose of the Law (Gal 3:19-26) — The Fellowship

coffee4u said:

If you as a human being could keep God's law perfectly you would not need Christ. You can't, you are a sinner like we all are. The law helps you see that you are a sinner, that you need a savior. If you don't see yourself as a sinner you wont repent, you won't turn to Christ, because why would you if you can perfectly keep Gods law without him? So yes the law very much makes us see ourselves as sinners incapable of keeping the law.

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Countless people have kept God's law while only Jesus kept it perfectly, so there is a huge difference between you claiming that we are incapable of keeping the law and you claiming that we are incapable of keeping the law perfectly. The law itself came with instructions for what to do when the people sinned, so perfect obedience was never a requirement for us. Repentance doesn't change the fact that we have already fallen short of perfect obedience, so either we need to have perfect obedience and repentance has no value, or repentance has value and we don't need to have perfect obedience, and the consistent message of the prophets was the call for repentance, not perfect obedience. We can't earn our righteousness as a wage (Romans 4:4-5), so even if someone managed to have perfect obedience, then there wouldn't be anything special that they earned as a wage.

In Romans 3:21-22, it does not say that the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteousness of God comes through perfect obedience, but rather they testify that it comes through faith in Christ for everyone who believes, so this has always been the one and only way to become righteous that is testified about in the Law and the Prophets. In Genesis 6:8-9, Noah found grace in the eyes of God and was a righteous man, so he was declared righteous by grace through faith by the same means as everyone else, so God had no need to provide an alternative and unattainable means of becoming righteous through perfect obedience to His law when a perfectly good means was already in place, so that was never the goal for why we should obey God's law.

coffee4u said:

There are many good sermons and teaching around on this.
The Purpose of the Law (Gal 3:19-26) — The Fellowship

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"the law has no power to give life."

While it is good that the law reveals our sin, there would be no point in God commanding us to do something that was too difficult to keep for the purpose of showing us that it is too difficult for us to keep, especially when there has never been a need for us to have perfect obedience, but rather God said that it is not too difficult for us to keep and that obedience to it brings life and a blessing (Deuteronomy 30:11-16), so we are capable of keeping it. In Deuteronomy 32:47, it is our very life. In Proverbs 3:18, she is a tree of life for all who take hold of her. In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know Him, and Israel too, in 1 Kings 2:1-3, God taught how to walk in His way through His law, and in John 17:3, eternal life is knowing God and Jesus. So God's law does have the power to give life and the way that I reconcile these verses with Galatians 3:21 is by recognizing that faith in a key ingredient to everything in the Bible, so the law does not bring life apart from faith, but does bring life through faith. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of God's law.

In regard to Galatians 3:18, we do not earn our inheritance by obeying God's law because it was never given as a means of doing that, but that does not mean that we don't need to obey it for the purposes for which it was given. In Genesis 18:19 and 26:4-5, the promises are brought about because Abraham walk in God's way in obedience to His law and taught his offspring how to do that, and in Deuteronomy 30:15-16, those promises are again brought about by his offspring walking in God's way in obedience to his law. In Acts 3:25-26, Jesus was sent as the fulfillment of the promise in order to bless us by turning us from our wickedness, so again the promises are brought about by walking in God's way in obedience God's law, especially because Jesus is the living embodiment of God's way (John 14:6).

In regard to Romans 5:20, it is referring to the law of sin, not to the Law of God. In Romans 7:7, Paul said that God's law is not sinful, and in 7:22, he delighted in obeying God's law, however, Romans 5:20 is referring to a law that is sinful, and it would be absurd to think that Paul delighted in causing sin to increase.

In regard to Galatians 3:19, Jesus did not begin his ministry telling people that the law has ended now that he has come and they need to stop repenting, but rather he called for people to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, so Galatians 3:19 should not be interpreted in a way that undermines his ministry, but rather all of God's righteous laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160).

"The law was not given to give life, and righteousness was not from the law."

In Romans 2:13, only doers of the law will be declared righteous, so while we do not earn our righteousness by obeying the law, righteousness nevertheless only comes through choosing to obey it through faith.

In regard to Galatians 3:22, the word used refers to the law protecting us by guarding us, not to being trapped in prison that we want to break free from.

"the only way out of the prison is the grace available through the promise by faith."

In Psalms 119:29-30, David wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faithfulness, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith, not a way of escaping God's law.

In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the real purpose of the Mosaic Law is to teach us how to know Jesus, which is again eternal life (John 17:3), or in other words, knowing Christ is the goal of the law (Romans 10:4). Likewise, in 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Jesus, but don't obey his commands are liars, and in 1 John 3:4-6, those who continue to practice sin in transgression of God's law have neither seen nor known him. Jesus spent his ministry fulfilling the law by teaching his followers how to obey it by word and by example, so the law leads us to him because it teaches us how to know and be like him, but does not lead us to him so that we can reject what he taught and go back to living in sin.

Galatians 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

In 1 John 2:6, it says that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked, which in obedience to God's law, and in 1 John 3:10, those who do not practice righteousness in obedience to God's law are not sons of God. In Romans 8:1-17, those who walk in the Spirit are sons of God in contrast with those who have mind set on the flesh who refuse to submit to God's law. In Romans 3:31, our faith upholds God's law.

coffee4u said:

The ten are but a tiny part of Old Testament law, there were over 600 laws. God wants us to know that as human beings we are not capable of keeping his laws which is why we need Jesus. That was the point of the law, not only to give guidelines on how to to live but to show mankind just how wrenched he really is and how in need of saving he is. That this is all of God's Grace to us, not by our own striving, not by our own goodness. It is God's gift to us. Given to us while we were undeserving.

Romans 3:24


24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

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^ This.

Soyeong said:

Countless people have kept God's law while only Jesus kept it perfectly, so there is a hug difference between you claiming that we are incapable of keeping the law and you claiming that we are incapable of keeping the law perfectly.

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James 2:10
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

coffee4u said:

James 2:10
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

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In James 2:1-11, he was speaking with people who had already sinned by committing favoritism, so he was not telling them that they needed to have perfect obedience because that would have already been too late, and he was not discouraging them from trying to obey God's law, but rather he was encouraging them to repent and to do a better job of obeying God's law more consistently.

johnjanuary1984 said:

Does James 2:10 mean that those who broke only 1 of the 10 commandments are just as guilty as the guy who breaks all of them ????

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Would they both be guilty of breaking the Law ... yes ...

johnjanuary1984 said:

How can a person believe James 2:10 yet still think they can EARN their salvation ???

It seems like a loosing effort

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It seems like a lost effort ...

johnjanuary1984 said:

I'm curious. Does this passage mean that if you break just one of the 10 commandments your just as guilty as the guy who broke all of them ????

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Yes, as far as determining your standing with God...law-keepers, without faith in Jesus, must keep the entire law perfectly to attain salvation which is an impossibility because man is born in sin.