In James 1:22-25 the Apostle tells us to be “quick to hear,” but that we must be very selective in what we hear.  He then tells us what we must hear in order to be God’s people: “Be doers of the WORD, and not merely hearers.”  He goes on to warn that those who only hear the Word “deceive themselves.”  “But whoever looks into the perfect LAW of liberty (freedom from error) and does what he sees (in the Law) and does not forget what he sees is a doer of the WORK.  Such a man will be blessed in what he does.”

Notice that James uses the words WORD, LAW AND WORK in the same sentence, thereby connecting them.  God’s Ten Commandment LAW is the foundation of His entire Genesis to Revelation WORD.  To inherit eternal life we must make His WORD/LAW our moment-by-moment life-style (“walk”) from the time we are justified (have past sins forgiven) until  our death.  Our walk is a growing process.  A newborn is not what it will become.  We must grow “from faith to faith” (Rom. 1:17)–from spiritual babyhood to spiritual adulthood–the point at whichwe have attained “the faith of (not merely in) Jesus Christ” (Rom. 3:22) and apply it as did He.  Here Paul is writing about faith and its work in the act of justification–the removal of all PAST SINS.  The absence of sin is righteousness (holiness).  Justification places the now righteous salvation seeker on the path to conversion.  Note that justification is awarded by God, as is every good gift (Jam. 1:17).  We cannot earn it.  It is the product of our faith and God’s grace.  However, in order to remain justified (righteous) and to remain converted and on the path to salvation we must obey His Ten Commandment Law.  To break that Law is sin (1 Jn. 3:4).  Church people who are supposedly “saved by grace” have rejected God’s grace by returning to the sins which He forgave by His grace.  Paul speaks about this Truth in Romans 2:13: “For it is not the hearers of the Law who are just(tified) before God, but the doers of the Law shall (continue to) be justified.”

God’s grace reveals His righteousness when He forgives our PAST sins by fiat (grace, needing no effort on our part).  The Apostle Paul explains this miracle as only he can: “For all HAVE (formerly) sinned and come short of the glory of God.  He justifies (removes past sins) freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God killed in order to satisfy the death penalty for the sins we committed in the PAST” (Rom. 3:23-25).  However, this same Paul stated that if the justified one returns to sinning he “treasures up (accumulates) his sins until the day of God’s wrath”–judgment (Rom. 2:5).  Note that God’s wrath will fall on those who continue to sin following conversion.

Paul tells salvation seekers that by grace (unearned favor) God will forgive our PAST sins (justify us), convert us and set us on His narrow path that leads to eternal life in the Kingdom of God.  James picks up the narrative at that point, telling us that we must be DOERS OF THE LAW/WORD/WORK in order to remain on God’s Law-keeping path until our death or Christ’s return, at which time salvation will be awarded to those who have “… endured (in Law-obeying righteousness) to the end ….” (Mat. 10:22).

In the New Testament Church the Law was preached continually.  This was true even in the Catholic Church until 364 A.D. when Pope Sylvester I did away with commandment #4 in order to appease the church’s sun worshiping “converts.”  From 31 A.D. until 364 (333 years) the church obeyed the Ten Commandment Law.  God had plenty of time to tell His people there would be a change in the Sabbath day (4th commandment) but did not.  James 2:10 warns that to do away with one commandment does away with the entire Law.  When Sylvester I did away with the fourth (the Sabbath) commandment he spiritually “nailed it to the cross” where it has supposedly remained ever since.

Not so in God’s church where the Law is still the foundation upon which His church continues to stand.  It is to God’s true church that the New Testament writers wrote and to whom they preached.  The problem was that early on some began to follow the teachings of Satan’s false prophets.  Paul addressed this issue in his letter to the churches of Galatia (1:6-9) as well as the church in Corinth to whom he wrote that if someone presented to them “another Jesus,” they would embrace him (2 Cor. 11:4).  Most members in both those churches, as well as those in other churches of that day, eventually fell away from the Lord, embraced another Jesus and “forgot” the Law.

But God has always had a “remnant”–a tiny group of true believers who follow the commands of Joshua to “… diligently heed and do the Law …, love the Lord your God, walk in all His ways, keep His commandments, cling to Him and serve Him with all your soul” (Jos. 22:5).

James tells us that we must be DOERS OF THE LAW, the Law that Catholicism/Protestantism has destroyed.  This is the same Law which Jesus said He did not come to destroy (Mat. 5:17).  Nor did He give the false church the power to destroy it.  Pope Sylvester I did it for Him, and both branches of the counterfeit church have been enmity against God ever since (Jam. 4:4).  However, God’s remnant, whom He calls His little flock, His Very Elect who are precious in His sight, whom Peter calls “a chosen generation, a peculiar people whom He has called out of darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9) have stayed the course He laid out for us in His Holy Bible.  God’s remnant is sanctified–called out of the world in which they live.  They exhibit the characteristics Peter writes about, which causes them to be rejected by everyone else on earth.  But they are in good company.  Recall that the world had the same attitude toward Jesus and His people, millions of whom have been martyred since the establishment of the church in 31 A.D.

In James 1:25 the apostle uses the phrase “forgetful hearer” to describe Christians who heard the Law taught every Sabbath (7th day of the week) but went away and selectively forgot what was written therein until the following Sabbath.  The word mirror refers to the “perfect Law of liberty” (vs 25).  Note that James states that one must “continue therein, being a doer of the WORK (WORD/LAW) and not a forgetful hearer” in order to be blessed by God.  He who is a hearer of the WORD (on the Sabbath) and not a doer of it–a “forgetful hearer”–has made forgetting his way of life.

The world, including the worldly church, is filled with forgetful hearers.  Ask 100 people in any civilized nation to identify God’s Law and most will answer: “the Ten Commandments.”  Asked if they obey the Sabbath commandment (#4), they will answer: “No.”  Asked why not, the answer will be: “It was done away with,” or “… nailed to the cross.”  Never underestimate Satan (Rev. 12:9).

James writes that those who “forget” God’s Law “blaspheme that worthy name by which they are called” (2:7).  It is the Holy Spirit that enables man to believe God’s Word.  To “forget” the Law is to blaspheme not only the Giver of the Law, but His Spirit that plants it in the believer’s heart (Jer. 31-33/ Heb. 10:16).  Therefore, to disobey the Law is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, which puts one “in danger of eternal damnation” (Mk. 3:28,29).  Those who have turned against Christ by knowingly rejecting His command to obey God’s Law are ANTICHRISTS who fight against the very revelation God gave them through Jesus by way of His Holy Spirit.  To determine God’s attitude toward the world’s Law-breaking masses one need only turn on the news.  Jesus describes the current display of God’s wrath as merely “… the beginning of sorrows” (Mat. 24:8).  And still man “forgets the Law.”  L.J.