James 1:25

‘But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continues, being not a hearer who forgets but a doer who works, this man will be blessed in his doing.'

But then in contrast James describes the one who is true at heart. He looks into the perfect Law, which is the Law of liberty and then goes on his way. He does not forget what he has ‘heard' in the perfect law of liberty. He does not forget what he is supposed to be. But he does what the law of liberty requires. And he will be blessed in his doing.

The perfect law of liberty is the Law of God (Psalms 19:7, and consider Psalms 1:2 and Psalms 119) as released from its unnecessary restraints by Jesus, and expanded in the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31 ff; Hebrews 8:8). It is the Sermon on the Mount and its equivalents (see Matthew 5:48), properly interpreted, being worked in their hearts by God. It has given men freedom from the restrictions of the Law laid down by the Elders, which have bound men with burdens grievous to be borne, and has brought out the deeper significance of that Law, bringing them into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:21). Thus their righteousness exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees because they hear His words and do them. As Paul regularly does in the second half of his letters, James is insisting that faith and response to God must result in love and response to man. Faith must result in works. Their light is to so shine before men that they see their good works and glorify their Father Who is in Heaven (Matthew 5:16).

‘And he will be blessed in his doing.' It was always the insistence of the Torah that the man who did what was required in it would live a full life as a result of it (Leviticus 18:5). And it is not just a coincidence that the Law ends in blessings on those who obey it (Deuteronomy 28:1, compare Luke 11:28). In Christ the religious ordinance of the Law have been fulfilled and no longer apply, but the heart of the Law continues to throb and be valid. That was why Paul was concerned that men fulfil the Law (Galatians 5:13) as Jesus Himself had taught.