James 4:11

4:11-17 Our lips must be governed by the law of kindness, as well as truth and justice. Christians are brethren. And to break God's commands, is to speak evil of them, and to judge them, as if they laid too great a restraint upon us. We have the law of God, which is a rule to all; let us not presume to set up our own notions and opinions as a rule to those about us, and let us be careful that we be not condemned of the Lord. Go to now, is a call to any one to consider his conduct as being wrong. How apt worldly and contriving men are to leave God out of their plans! How vain it is to look for any thing good without God's blessing and guidance! The frailty, shortness, and uncertainty of life, ought to check the vanity and presumptuous confidence of all projects for futurity. We can fix the hour and minute of the sun's rising and setting to-morrow, but we cannot fix the certain time of a vapour being scattered. So short, unreal, and fading is human life, and all the prosperity or enjoyment that attends it; though bliss or woe for ever must be according to our conduct during this fleeting moment. We are always to depend on the will of God. Our times are not in our own hands, but at the disposal of God. Our heads may be filled with cares and contrivances for ourselves, or our families, or our friends; but Providence often throws our plans into confusion. All we design, and all we do, should be with submissive dependence on God.

It is foolish, and it is hurtful, to boast of worldly things and aspiring projects; it will bring great disappointment, and will prove destruction in the end. Omissions are sins which will be brought into judgment, as well as commissions. He that does not the good he knows should be done, as well as he who does the evil he knows should not be done, will be condemned. Oh that we were as careful not to omit prayer, and not to neglect to meditate and examine our consciences, as we are not to commit gross outward vices against light!

Speak not evil one of another, brethren,.... The apostle here returns to his former subject, concerning the vices of the tongue, he had been upon in the preceding chapter, James 3:6 , and here mentions one, which professors of religion were too much guilty of, and that is, speaking evil one of another; which is done either by raising false reports, and bringing false charges; or by aggravating failings and infirmities; or by lessening and depreciating characters, and endeavouring to bring others into discredit and disesteem among men: this is a very great evil, and what the men of the world do, and from them it is expected; but for the saints to speak evil one of another, to sit and speak against a brother, and slander an own mother's son, is barbarous and unnatural.

James 4:11-12 . Speak not evil one of another — See on Titus 3:2 . Evil- speaking is a grand hinderance of peace and comfort; yea, and of holiness. O who is sufficiently aware of the evil of that sin? He that speaketh evil of his brother — Of his fellow-Christian or fellow-creature; and judgeth his brother — For such things as the word of God allows, or does not condemn, does, in effect, speak evil of the law — Both of Moses and of Christ, which forbids that kind of speaking; and judgeth the law — Condemns it, as if it were an imperfect rule. In doing which, thou art not a doer of the law — Dost not yield due obedience to it; but a judge of it — Settest thyself above it, and showest, if thou wert able, thou wouldest abrogate it. There is one lawgiver — By whose judgment and final sentence thou must stand or fall hereafter; for he is able to execute the sentence he denounces, and save with a perfect and everlasting salvation, and to destroy with an utter and endless destruction; who art thou — A poor, weak, dying worm; that judgest another — And thereby assumest the prerogative of Christ?

{7} 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. (7) He reprehends most sharply another double mischief of pride. The one is, in that the proud and arrogant will have other men to live according to their will and pleasure. Therefore they do most arrogantly condemn whatever does not please them: which cannot be done without great injury to our only lawmaker. For through this his laws are found fault with, as not carefully enough written, and men challenge that to themselves which properly belongs to God alone, in that they lay a law upon men's consciences.

Jam 4:11 . Μὴ καταλαλεῖτε , speak not evil ) He now notices other excesses of a restless soul; having in ch. 3 spoken of rest, and in the beginning of ch. 4 of confusion.— τὸν ἀδελφὸν , his brother ) The article is here used, though not with ἀδελφοῦ . The equality of brothers is violated by evil-speaking, but more so by judging.— κρίνει νόμον , judges the law ) For he acts, just as though the law itself could not perform that office, which a man of this kind pounces (flies) upon.— εἰ δὲ , but if ) If you judge, you are a judge . The figure Ploce.[52]— ΝΌΜΟΥ , of the law ) After this passage, the Law is not expressly mentioned in the volume of the New Testament, since it does not occur in the Epistles of Peter, John, and Jude, or in the Apocalypse. [52] The figure Ploce is, when a word is used twice, so that in one place the word itself is meant, and in the other its property or attribute. See Append.

11. Having mentioned sins of the tongue (Jas 3:5-12), he shows here that evil-speaking flows from the same spirit of exalting self at the expense of one's neighbor as caused the "fightings" reprobated in this chapter (Jas 4:1). Speak not evil—literally, "Speak not against" one another. brethren—implying the inconsistency of such depreciatory speaking of one another in brethren. speaketh evil of the law—for the law in commanding, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" (Jas 2:8), virtually condemns evil-speaking and judging [Estius]. Those who superciliously condemn the acts and words of others which do not please themselves, thus aiming at the reputation of sanctity, put their own moroseness in the place of the law, and claim to themselves a power of censuring above the law of God, condemning what the law permits [Calvin]. Such a one acts as though the law could not perform its own office of judging, but he must fly upon the office [Bengel]. This is the last mention of the law in the New Testament. Alford rightly takes the "law" to be the old moral law applied in its comprehensive spiritual fulness by Christ: "the law of liberty." if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer … but a judge—Setting aside the Christian brotherhood as all alike called to be doers of the law, in subjection to it, such a one arrogates the office of a judge.

Verses 11, 12. - Warning against censorious depreciation of others. Verse 11. - Speak not evil. Καταλαλεῖν : only here and 1 Peter 2:12 ; 1 Peter 3:16 . Vulgate, detrahere. But the context shows that the writer is thinking rather of harsh censorious judging. R.V., "Speak not one against another." And judgeth ; rather, or judgeth ; η} ( א , A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic) for καὶ of the Textus Receptus. Speaketh evil of the law. What law? According to Dean Plumptre, "the royal law of Christ, which forbids judging ( Matthew 7:1-5 )." Alford: "The law of Christian life: the old moral Law, glorified and amplified by Christ: the νόμος βασιλικός of James 2:8 ; νόμος τῆς ἐλευθερίας of James 1:25 ." Huther: " the law of Christian life which, according to its contents, is none other than the law of love." James 4:11

Speak not evil one of another; viz. unless in the way of an ordinance, by reproof, admonition, &c., Leviticus 5:1 1 Corinthians 1:11 11:18 2 Corinthians 11:13 2 Timothy 4:14,15 . He forbids all detraction, rigid censuring, and rash judging the hearts and lives of others, when men condemn whatever doth not suit with their notions or humours, and make their own moroseness the rule of other men’s manners. Judgeth his brother; finds fault with and condemns him for those things which the law doth not condemn in him, or forbid to him, Romans 14:3,4 . Judgeth the law; viz. either: 1. By his practising and approving what the law condemns, i.e. this very censoriousness and detraction: or: 2. By condemning that which the law allows; he condemns the law for allowing it, taxing it as too short and imperfect. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge; if thou not only judgest thy brother, and therein invadest the law’s office, (whose part it is to judge him), but judgest him for what the law doth not forbid him, and therein judgest the law itself, as insufficient, and not strict enough; thou dost cast off the law’s government, disown its superiority, exempt thyself from any subjection to it, and make thyself merely a judge of it.

(11) Speak not evil . . . —Do not “back-bite,” as the same word is translated in Romans 1:30 , and 2Corinthians 12:20 . The good reason why not is given in the graceful interjection “brothers.” Omit the conjunction in the next phrase, and read as follows:— He that speaketh evil . . .—Punctuate thus: He that speaketh evil of his brother, judgeth his brother; speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law. In this way the cumulative force of St. James’s remarks is best preserved. Hearken to the echo of his Master’s words. “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). But the apostolic condemnation is in no way meant to condone a vicious life, and leave it unalarmed and self-contented; for boldness in rebuke thereof we have the example of John the Baptist. All that he reproves is the setting up of our own tribunals, in which we are at once prosecutor, witness, law, lawgiver, and judge; not to say executioner as well. Prœjudicium was a merciful provision under Roman law, and often spared the innocent a lengthier after trial; but prejudice—our word taken from it—is its most unhappy opposite. Many worthy people have much sympathy with David, in their effort to hold their tongue and keep “silence, yea even from good words;” truly it is “pain and grief” to them (Psalm 39:3). But “to take the law into one’s own hands” is to break it, and administer inequitably.

11, 12 . Rebuke of Evil-speaking 11 . Speak not evil one of another, brethren ] The last word indicates the commencement of a new section. It scarcely, however, introduces a new topic. The writer dwells with an iteration, needful for others, and not grievous to himself, ( Php 3:1 ) on the ever-besetting sin of his time and people, against which he had warned his readers in Ch. James 1:19-20 ; James 1:26 , and throughout Ch. 3. speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law …] The logical train of thought seems to run thus. To speak against a brother is to condemn him; to condemn, when no duty calls us to it, is to usurp the function of a judge. One who so usurps becomes ipso facto a transgressor of the law, the royal law, of Christ, which forbids judging ( Matthew 7:1-5 ). The “brother” who is judged is not necessarily such as a member of the Christian society. The superscription of the Epistle includes under that title every one of the family of Abraham, perhaps, every child of Adam .

Jam 4:11-12 . The subject of these verses, speaking against and judging others, is the same as that of the section Jam 2:1-13 ; they follow on quite naturally after Jam 4:12-13 of that chapter, while they have nothing to do with the context in which they now stand. They constitute a weaving together of several quotations, much after the style of the section which precedes.