C’mon, girl, we’ll never get there like this! Just drive a bit faster and let them catch the next car! Why study so hard, man? Passing doesn’t mean perfect! Many people are used to a “close enough” view of life, where we expect our own efforts or experience will get us through. And maybe that’s true with human authorities. The police officer might blink, and your teacher likely knows you’re a good student.
But while “close enough” might work for many things, God views things differently. His thoughts and His ways aren’t like ours. They’re higher, and they’re perfect (Isa 55:8-9; Psa 18:30). He holds each of us to the sinless standard of His Son, Jesus Christ. It’s a hard truth. In Jeremiah 23:29, God tells us His Word is like a hammer, and in his epistle over 600 years later, James swings the point home, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all” (Jas 2:10).1
James tells us that partiality, when we might think we’re better than that woman, or certainly more righteous than a criminal on the evening news, is sin! Not living up to this “royal law” convicts us as transgressors, as people who have stepped over the line with our pride and selfishness (vv8-9). We’re sinners.
Going to heaven at the end of life or pleasing God while you’re still living isn’t the result of checking some spiritual boxes toward a passing grade. To miss one point, a single sin, is to break the chain, and the whole thing fails.2 Nor does God give bonuses for avoiding sins we might think are more grave. Every sane person knows murder is wrong, but James leads us to understand that murder, immorality, or even lying are all equally sin. “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (4:17).
What an impossible dilemma! All of us have sinned, and we don’t measure up to God’s standard. We don’t have the ability to go back and fix our past, and we are sure to fail again in our future. What can we do? Thankfully, the apostle James leads us to the right place. At the end of his treatise on partiality, James writes, “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (2:13). What a beautiful thought!
There is no greater love, no softer mercy, and no deeper compassion for sinners than with the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to our world, and as a perfect Man He lived out the royal law and met God’s righteous standard. He went beyond, loving us more than His own life, and died on the cross for our sins. God put the punishment for our failures on Him, to save our souls (Isa 53:5). His mercy triumphs over the judgment we deserve!
So, what can we do? Certainly nothing to save ourselves. Thankfully, our salvation doesn’t depend on our works but on the Lord Jesus Christ. Accept His perfect work on the cross, rest in His mercy, and you will be saved from sin.
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the NASB.
2 Bernie Payne, The Epistles of James & Jude (Cookstown, NI: Scripture Teaching Library Limited, 2024), 38.
