Commentary - James 4:11-12

Bird's-eye view

In these two verses, James brings his preceding argument concerning worldliness, pride, and strife to a sharp, practical point. Having just called the believers to humble themselves before God, he now shows them what that humility looks like in their speech. The prohibition against slandering a brother is not a piece of disconnected ethical advice; it is the direct outworking of a right posture before the one true God. James reveals that the act of slander is far more than just unkind gossip. It is a form of theological rebellion. The slanderer, in his arrogance, sets himself up as a judge, not just over his brother, but over the very law of God. He presumes to occupy a seat that belongs to God alone. James concludes with a thunderous rhetorical question that exposes the absurdity of our pride: God is the one with the authority to save and destroy, so who in the world do you think you are when you set yourself up to judge your neighbor?

This passage is a frontal assault on the pride that fuels so much conflict within the church. James is teaching us that our horizontal relationships are a direct reflection of our vertical relationship with God. When we speak evil of a brother, we are not simply having a personal disagreement; we are usurping a divine prerogative. We are playing God. The remedy is not simply to bite our tongues, but to humble our hearts, to recognize our place as servants of the law, not its arbiters, and to leave all ultimate judgment in the hands of the only one qualified to hold it.

Outline

Context In James

This passage flows directly out of James's diagnosis of the church's internal conflicts in the first part of chapter 4. He has identified the source of their quarrels and fights as their lusts, their worldly ambition, and their friendship with the world, which is enmity with God (James 4:1-4). He has identified pride as the root sin and has called them to the grace-filled solution: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). This is followed by a series of sharp commands: submit to God, resist the devil, draw near to God, cleanse your hands, purify your hearts, and humble yourselves (James 4:7-10). The command in verse 11, "Do not slander one another," is therefore not a new topic. It is the first and most obvious application of what it means to be humbled before the Lord. A proud man slanders. A humble man does not. The critical, judgmental spirit is the native language of the prideful heart that James has been condemning all along.

Key Issues

Playing God With Your Mouth

We often treat sins of the tongue as though they were minor infractions, little slips, perhaps regrettable but ultimately not that big a deal. James will have none of it. Throughout this letter, he has been taking a spiritual scalpel to the self-deception of the believer, and here he cuts deep. The problem with slander is not primarily that it hurts someone's feelings, though it certainly does that. The problem is that it is an act of cosmic treason.

When a man speaks evil of his brother, he is setting himself up in the judgment seat. He is taking the law of God, which is meant to be his own standard of obedience, and is instead using it as a club with which to beat his brother. In doing so, he places himself above the law, as though he were qualified to be its administrator and judge. This is a profound arrogance. God gave the law. God is the one who judges by the law. Our job is to obey the law, the chief summary of which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Slander is a gross violation of that command, and in the very act of slandering, the slanderer demonstrates his contempt for the law he pretends to be upholding. He becomes a law-critic, a law-judge, instead of a law-keeper. James's point is that this is not just bad manners; it is blasphemous presumption.

Verse by Verse Commentary

11 Do not slander one another, brothers. He who slanders a brother or judges his brother, slanders the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it.

James begins with a direct, familial command: "Do not slander one another, brothers." The word for slander here means to speak against, to defame, to run someone down. This is the opposite of the edifying speech that ought to characterize the household of God. He immediately equates this slander with judging. To slander someone is to render a verdict on them, to declare them guilty in the court of your own opinion. And this is where James makes his startling theological move. He says that when you do this to a brother, you are not ultimately attacking the brother; you are attacking the law itself. How so? The law says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev. 19:18). Slander is a flagrant violation of this. By acting as though this command does not apply to you in this situation, you are effectively setting it aside. You are judging the law as being insufficient or inapplicable. You have promoted yourself. Your new job title is judge of the law, which means you have necessarily resigned from your old job, which was doer of the law. You cannot be both. One who keeps the law loves his brother; one who slanders his brother has set himself above the law as its critic.

12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you who judge your neighbor?

James now provides the bedrock theological reason for his command. The reason you cannot be the judge is that the position is already filled. There is one Lawgiver and Judge. This is a statement of God's absolute sovereignty. He alone has the authority to issue the law, and He alone has the authority to render the final verdict. This authority is tied to His power. He is the one who is able to save and to destroy. This is ultimate power, the power of eternal life and eternal death. The slanderer, puffed up in his pride, speaks as though he has this power, but he is a laughable imposter. His words can do temporal damage, but they cannot determine a man's eternal destiny. God's verdict, on the other hand, is final. Having established this unassailable fact of God's unique role, James turns the spotlight back on the reader with a devastatingly simple question: "But who are you who judge your neighbor?" In light of who God is, who do you think you are? You are a creature. You are a sinner saved by grace. You are a fellow servant. You are not the Lawgiver. You are not the Judge. You are in no position to be passing ultimate judgment on your neighbor. The question is designed to crush our pride and reduce us to our proper size before the majesty of God.

Application

The application of this text must begin where James does, with the humbling of our own hearts before God. The temptation to slander and judge others is a direct fruit of pride. We run others down in order to build ourselves up. We expose their faults in order to distract from our own. We sit in judgment over them because we have forgotten that we ourselves are under judgment, and that our only hope is the mercy of God in Christ.

Therefore, the first step in obedience here is not just to watch our words, but to repent of our pride. We must confess our arrogant desire to play God. We must ask God to give us a humble spirit, one that is more aware of the plank in our own eye than the speck in our brother's (Matt. 7:3-5). When we are truly gripped by the grace that has been shown to us, we will be far less inclined to be severe with others. A man who knows he has been forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents has no business choking his brother over a hundred denarii.

Secondly, this passage requires us to be active doers of the law of love. It is not enough to refrain from slander; we must replace it with edification. We are to speak in such a way that it builds others up, that it gives grace to those who hear (Eph. 4:29). This means learning to see our brothers and sisters in Christ through the lens of the gospel. They are, like us, flawed but beloved children of God. Our task is to encourage them, to restore them gently when they fall, and to cover a multitude of sins with love, not to expose those sins for our own self-aggrandizing purposes. When we are tempted to judge, let us remember James's question and answer it honestly: "Who am I? I am a sinner saved by a gracious Judge." And that realization should shut our mouths to all slander and open them to all praise.