Legislating from the Peanut Gallery Text: James 4:11-12
Introduction: The Accuser's Native Tongue
In the book of James, we are constantly confronted with a fundamental choice between two competing wisdoms. There is the wisdom from above, which is pure, peaceable, gentle, and full of mercy. And then there is the wisdom from below, which is earthly, sensual, and demonic. This demonic wisdom is not known by its sophisticated philosophical arguments, but rather by its fruit: bitter envy and strife in your hearts. And when you have bitter envy and strife, you get quarrels, fights, and wars. And the native tongue of this entire demonic economy is slander.
The world runs on accusation. That is its fuel. The whole system is greased with gossip, backbiting, and character assassination. The devil himself is named for it; he is the diabolos, the slanderer, the accuser of the brethren. So when a spirit of slander and judgmentalism creeps into the church, we must not treat it as a minor social faux pas. We are not dealing with a breach of etiquette. We are dealing with an outbreak of the demonic. It is the wisdom from below, bubbling up from the pit.
James has just finished telling us to submit to God, resist the devil, and draw near to God. He has called us to humble ourselves. And what is the very first practical application of that humility? It is to shut our mouths. It is to stop speaking evil of one another. Humility and slander are mortal enemies. You cannot practice both. The man who is truly low before God will not be high and mighty over his brother. The man who is busy pulling the beam out of his own eye does not have the time or the inclination to become a grand inquisitor over the speck in his brother's eye.
In our text today, James gives us a profound theological diagnosis of this sin. He shows us that when we slander a brother, we are not simply committing a sin against that person. We are committing a far greater act of cosmic treason. We are setting ourselves up as judges, not of men, but of the very law of God itself.
The Text
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. 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 4:11-12 LSB)
The Sin and its Treasonous Upgrade (v. 11)
We begin with the straightforward command and its startling implication.
"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 4:11)
The command is plain: "Do not slander one another, brothers." The word for slander here means to speak against, to defame, to run down. It is not limited to telling lies, though it certainly includes that. It is the sin of using your words to tear down your brother's reputation. It is verbal vandalism. And notice who it is directed toward: "brothers." This is an in-house problem. This is a sin that threatens the fellowship of the saints.
But then James does something remarkable. He upgrades the charge. He says that when you slander your brother, or judge him in this censorious, condemnatory way, you are actually slandering and judging the law itself. How can this be? It is because you are misusing the law for a purpose for which it was never intended. God gave us His law as a mirror to show us our own filth, not as a club to beat our brothers with. The law says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." This is the royal law, as James called it earlier. This law is meant to govern me. It is a check on my selfishness, a curb on my pride.
But the slanderer takes this law and turns it inside out. He exempts himself from its jurisdiction and sets himself up as the prosecuting attorney, the judge, and the jury over his brother. In doing so, he implicitly says that the law is a fine tool for sorting out other people, but it does not apply to him in this moment. He has, in effect, judged the law. He has declared that the law is good for this, but not for that. He has taken the judge's gavel into his own hand.
And this leads to the final point in this verse: "if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it." This is the fundamental choice James has been pressing throughout the letter. Are you a hearer only, or a doer? Here, the contrast is even starker. Are you a doer, or a judge? You cannot be both. The doer of the law stands under the law, submitted to its authority. He hears the command to love his neighbor and asks, "Lord, how can I obey this?" The judge of the law stands over the law, using it as a perch from which to pronounce judgment on others. He sees his brother fail and says, "Aha! This law is perfect for condemning him." He has ceased to be a subject of the law and has become a self-appointed legislator.
The Divine Prerogative (v. 12)
James now provides the ultimate reason why our judgmentalism is such an absurdity. It is an encroachment on a divine prerogative.
"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 4:12)
Here we have it. The reason we are not to be judges of the law is that the position is already filled. There is one, and only one, Lawgiver and Judge. This is God. This is the bedrock Creator/creature distinction applied to the courtroom of the universe. God alone has the authority to make the law, and He alone has the authority to render the final verdict. He is the legislator and the judiciary. His authority is absolute because He is the "One who is able to save and to destroy."
This is ultimate power. The power to give eternal life and the power to inflict eternal death. This is what is at stake in the final judgment. Our little backbiting sessions and slanderous conversations are a pathetic parody of this. We act as though our verdict on our brother's character has ultimate weight. We speak as though we can save him with our praise or destroy him with our criticism. But we are playing with toy gavels in a sandbox. We have no authority to save or destroy. We are creatures, not the Creator. We are defendants in the dock ourselves, entirely dependent on the mercy of the one true Judge.
This reality then fuels James's final, devastating question: "But who are you who judge your neighbor?" This question is designed to cut us down to size. Who are you? You are dust. You are a creature. You are a sinner saved by grace. You are a fellow defendant who has had his charges dismissed for Christ's sake. You are not the judge. You are not the lawgiver. You are not God. When you sit in judgment on your neighbor, you are a nobody pretending to be a somebody. You are an imposter on the throne of God. It is the height of arrogance and the depth of folly.
Doers, Not Judges
So what is the practical upshot of all this? How do we live this out? The answer is to get back to our primary business, which is being doers of the Word.
The man who is a doer of the law has his hands full. The command to love your neighbor as yourself is a full-time occupation. It requires us to build up, not tear down. To encourage, not to criticize. To cover a multitude of sins, not to expose them for public consumption. The man who is truly wrestling with his own sin before God, who is humbled by the grace shown to him, simply has no time for a career as a freelance critic of others.
When you are tempted to speak against your brother, to pass on that juicy bit of gossip, to render your verdict on his motives or his ministry, you must stop and ask James's question: "Who am I?" Am I the one who is able to save and destroy? Am I the one Lawgiver? Or am I a man who lives and breathes by the sheer mercy of that Lawgiver? Am I a doer of the law, or am I setting myself up as a judge?
This is a call to radical humility. It is a call to turn from the demonic wisdom of accusation and to embrace the heavenly wisdom of mercy. Mercy, James has told us, triumphs over judgment. God's mercy in Christ has triumphed over the judgment we deserved. Our calling, then, is to let that same mercy triumph in our relationships with one another. We are to be a community that smells of grace, not of the sulfur of the accuser.
So do not slander one another, brothers. Put down the gavel. Step down from the bench. Your place is not there. Your place is at the foot of the cross, alongside your brother, marveling at the grace of the one true Judge who chose, for Christ's sake, to save you rather than to destroy you.