In James 2:8, the writer of that New Testament letter used a curious phrase: “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right.” James had been saying that Christian church members should treat poor people just as well as they do rich people and then said that this would be fulfilling “the royal law.” What did he mean by that? James went on to say that the royal law is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

When Jesus was asked which were the most important commandments, He answered that they were to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39). The word that James used here for “royal” is basilikos. From this, we get our English word “basilica,” which is a Roman Catholic cathedral, the home base of a bishop. The word actually means “base” and refers to a big building for a court or high church official, a power base. So, what did James mean by calling this commandment the “royal law”?  He could have meant that this was the law given by the King (Jesus), but he might also have meant that this is the foundational law that supports and rules all others.

James was the leader of the Jewish wing of the church and, as such, might have been expected to uphold the importance of obeying the Jewish law. But here he made an interesting argument. He said that no matter how many laws we keep, if we break even one, we are sinners: “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). We are all sinful. This is the argument that Paul made in Romans (Romans 3:9-20), teaching that we are all saved by faith. James here used a phrase that he had used before, that Christians are to be judged by “the law that gives freedom” (James 2:12). He was not talking about the Old Testament law but about the new covenant that Jesus brought, a promise that we can be forgiven through Jesus’ death on the cross. He then reinforced this idea by saying that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). Included in James’s teaching here is Jesus’ teaching that if we want mercy for ourselves as sinners, we must extend that mercy to others (Matthew 6:12-15, 18:21-35).