[sup]8[/sup] If you really keep the
royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right. [sup]9[/sup] But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. [sup]10[/sup] For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. [sup]11[/sup] For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
[sup]12[/sup] Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom
[royal law], [sup]13[/sup] because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
James is talking about more than one thing. All HAVE sinned, that is obvious, and we must overcome the old nature every day, carry our cross daily. James is making a difference between using the law as judgment against a brother, and following the law of love, on which Christ says all the commands stand.
The law is as a guide, which in itself shows it is for those who are learning. But then there is the Spirit of the law, by which we can fulfill all that must be, if we walk by it. It is the Spirit of God; he is the one who gave the law. The law is not there to condemn us (as God isn't), but to examine us and show us where we are, and where we are lacking.
To take this and claim we cannot mature and grow in righteousness goes exactly opposite to the purpose of the law, which is to teach us and bring us up in the right direction, that we might be as Christ. That is the Spirit of the law.
We are not under that Law. It was "added" to the promises of God after those promises were already for some time made.
What James is telling you is that if you are going to act like you are yet under that Old Law Covenant then you had better be prepared not to violate one letter of it.
We who are in Christ live by the law of the spirit of life which is in Christ and we understand the purpose and the heavenly things foreshadowed by that Old Law Covenant. So we no longer have a need to be bound to it by letter as we now understand what was behind the letter.
That sounds foolish to one who does not yet understand it. It is part of the foolishness of the cross to the minds of those who do not yet understand.
Well put, Vengle.