For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. – James 2:10
We all know the old saying that any chain is as strong as its weakest link. Most chains that I have encountered are made of steel, and some of them are big. I recall one that my father brought home from some construction site that had huge links; each one would overlap a dinner plate. Nobody could lift that chain, and I can’t imagine a situation in which it could possibly break. But let’s imagine if we will a chain made out of links carved from stone. Obviously those links would be much weaker than links of steel. Now, let’s take that chain, with its ten stone links, and suspend it over the opening to the pit of hell. And we grab the bottom link and try to hang on. That is pretty much what people are doing when they place their faith in keeping the Ten Commandments. All it will take is for one link to break to result in eternal doom. And which of us has broken only one of those links?
Unlike the rich young ruler in Luke 18 who claimed to have kept the law from his youth, none of us would dare make such a claim. When James speaks in our text of someone keeping the whole law except for one, he is speaking hypothetically. Because none of us has kept even one of those commandments, let alone the rest of the law and ordinances that Moses delivered from a holy God. We have offended in every point. We are guilty and we are rightfully ashamed of it. This is a glaring condemnation of the entire human race. In Adam, we are all to die because we have all sinned (Romans 5:12). Our chain of stone crumbles about us. And yet, in all of this universal condemnation shines the bright light of the grace of God, in sending One among us Who kept the whole law and did not offend in even one point.
What must it have been like for Jesus of Nazareth to grow up and live sinlessly in a world filled with sinfulness and disobedience? How His heart would be grieved to hear those about Him taking His Father’s name in vain, or lifting up their voices and hearts in prideful boasting! How discouraging it must have been for Him to watch their dishonesty, their cruelty to one another, and their lack of respect for the Word of God and the ordinances of the temple! In all that time, as He watched them and as He prepared for His ministry and eventual death at Calvary, the heart of our Lord was perfect toward His Father and toward mankind.
From those of us who acknowledge that we are guilty of every point, to Him Who did not nor could not offend in even one point, let us pay our deepest homage and honour. – Jim MacIntosh