James 4:11-12 Speak not evil one of another, brothers. He that speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law… 1. Wilful false accusation. This may be held as the very worst form of it. It involves two evils — one of heart and one of conduct — malice and falsehood. 2. The exaggeration of faults that are real. Few things are more common than this. It springs from the same odious principle of malice. 3. The needless repetition of real faults. The principle of this is still the same. 4. The whispering of slander, with the simulation of regret. Oh, there is nothing so nauseous as this. The whisperer must first be sure that doors are all close, and no one within hearing. He is so sorry to have anything to say such as he is about to disclose: begs it may be held confidential, and go no further, while he himself carries it further, the very next person he meets. 5. There is often in the representations given a colouring — in which there is no direct falsehood, but such an artful leaving out of one circumstance, and qualifying another, and giving prominence to a third, as to amount to a thorough misrepresentation of the sentiments or the actions reported, and to convey quite a different impression of them from the reality. Just as two painters may produce two pictures, each containing the very same objects, which shall yet, by the different arrangement of these objects, in foreground and background positions, and various lights and shades, be so thoroughly different, that the sameness of the objects contained in them shall never be observed. 6. Lastly, as connecting the subject with what immediately follows, harsh uncharitable judging of the conduct of others: "He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother." What means this judging? We may first reply, negatively, that it does not mean our simply forming an opinion of the conduct of others by the standard of God's law. This we cannot but do. (1) But first: we must not judge beyond the law, pronouncing sentence on our brother in matters which the Divine law does not embrace in its prohibitions or its requirements; in matters which it leaves indifferent. When we do this we are presumptuous. We go quite out of our province. (2) Then, secondly: we must not judge without sufficient evidence. We must not pronounce our sentences on suspicion, or surmise, or vague and unexamined rumour. (3) Further, we ought not to judge with undue severity, giving sentence with a rigour beyond the real desert of the offence; excluding from our judgment all alleviating circumstances. (4) We must not judge motives, the secret principles of action. These are beyond the range of our cognisance. The general interdiction of "evil-speaking" and "judging" is here enforced by a special consideration — "He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law."How is this? 1. The law itself prohibits such evil-speaking and judging. If, then, in despite and defiance of such intimations of God's will, we persist in "speaking evil of our brother, and judging our brother," we are, in the very fact, "speaking evil of the law and judging the law." We are speaking evil of it, as an over-stringent law, laying an interdict on what we see no harm in indulging. We "judge" it as being too severe and rigid in its judgments. In doing what it condemns, we condemn it. 2. When, on the other hand, we go beyond the law — judging our brother in matters which the law has left open — matters in which neither doing nor refraining to do is any violation of law; as in the case of meats and drinks and days — we then "speak evil of the law, and judge the law '"on a ground the very opposite of the former. We condemn it as not being sufficiently stringent; as leaving things indifferent, which ought not to be so left. 3. The remarks apply, in their full force, to the great general law of love. To that law the apostle had before adverted — "If ye fulfil the royal law according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well." Of this law the practical counterpart, in the terms of our Divine Master Himself, is — "Therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them for this is the law and the prophets." Now it is plain that to the spirit and the letter of this law all "evil-speaking" and all such "judging" as has been described is utterly opposed. When, therefore, we indulge in such evil speaking, we condemn, as laying too stringent a restraint upon us, even this Divinely excellent and self-recommending law, in which the elements of equity and love are so admirably combined. We in effect judge and censure this law, as laying unbearably stern restrictions upon the evil propensities of our nature. (R. Wardlaw, . D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. |
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