Commentary and Notes

2:10† ^{^}For whoever keeps the whole Law and yet offends in one point, he has become guilty of all.† Compare Gal. 5:19-21. Ya‘aqōv̱ means transgression (cf. vs. 11, γέγονας παραβάτης νόμου). See also Rev. 9:21. Transgression is sin that cannot be forgiven without repentance. Transgressions are sins that lead to death (cf. 1John 5:16-17; Num. 15:22-31; cf. Num. 15:32-36). In other words, if someone sins willfully with a high hand, and not in ignorance or in a circumstance beyond his or her control, then he is not forgiven.

Ya‘aqōv means that if one does not transgress all of the Law except at one point, the the transgression of the one point is sufficient to declare the person completely guilty. By transgression, Ya‘aqōv means violations which are plain, obvious, and serious, such as the blatant discrimination he rebuked a certain assembly for in 2:1-9. No one can not know that favoring the rich in the assembly and humiliating the poor is not evil. At least after Ya‘aqōv has pointed it out, they cannot not know it.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges suggests a very sensible interpretation of the words, “guilty of all”: “Better, he has become guilty, i. e. liable to condemnation under an indictment which includes all the particular commandments included in the great Law. This seems at first of the nature of an ethical paradox, but practically it states a deep moral truth. If we willfully transgress one commandment we shew that in principle we sit loose to all. It is but accident, or fear, or the absence of temptation, that prevents our transgressing them also. Actual transgression in one case involves potential transgression in all. A saying of Rabbi Yochanan is recorded in the Talmud (Sabbath, fol. 70) identical with this in its terms, and including in its range what were classed as the 39 precepts of Moses.” Clarke’s Commentary also states: “Rabbi Yochanan says: But if a man do the whole, with the omission of one, he is guilty of the whole, and of every one. In Bammidar rabba, sec. 9, fol. 200, and in Tanchum, fol. 60, there is a copious example given, how an adulteress, by that one crime, breaks all the ten commandments, and by the same mode of proof any one sin may be shown to be a breach of the whole decalogue. The truth is, any sin is against the Divine authority; and he who has committed one transgression is guilty of death; and by his one deliberate act dissolves, as far as he can, the sacred connection that subsists between all the Divine precepts and the obligation which he is under to obey, and thus casts off in effect his allegiance to God. For, if God should be obeyed in any one instance, he should be obeyed in all, as the authority and reason of obedience are the same in every case; he therefore who breaks one of these laws is, in effect, if not in fact, guilty of the whole. But there is scarcely a more common form of speech among the rabbins than this, for they consider that any one sin has the seeds of all others in it. See a multitude of examples in Schoettgen.”

To bring this out more clearly, the beginning of faithfulness in keeping an important neglected commandment is counted as intent to keep all of the Law. But in the beginning of rebellion, the deliberate intent to break one commandment is counted as intent to break all of it. The Rabbis, however, reckoned the keeping of one commandment at the merit of keeping all of the law, and the willful violation of one command as the guilt of breaking it all. According to Numbers 15:30-31 the negative statement is correct, and Ya‘aqōv̱ repeats it. But the positive statement is incorrect. The faithful keeping of one command does not merit a perfect status. Rather faithfulness in general is the complete absence of rebellion or sin with a high hand, and under this condition Mĕssiah forgives all sins. One abides or remains in the word without rebellion, as John teaches in both the gospel and his letters. The keeping of the commandments in faithfulness does not merit the keeping of all perfectly. It only counts as the intent to keep all. Because we have forgivness in Mĕssiah, unlike the Rabbis, we do not have to invent a way of being counted perfect against reality.

The Church later picked up on the philosophical idea of perfection and it evolved into the doctrine of forensic imputed righteousness, or imputation by baptism.

I have translated the Greek word πταίσῃ as in the King James Version, because the modern versions imply unwitting or mere accident in the commission of the sin Ya‘aqōv̱ mentions. They therefore translate, "stumble", which the Greek word literally means, however in English this word connotes an innocent fall, or happenstance, or that one was ignorant of the obstacle. We can see from 1Peter 1:10, “for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble,” that he does not mean never sin in any sort of sin of ignorance or circumstance, but that he means never rebel. See 1John 1:8.

It should be noted that the LXX uses the same word πταίσῃς for the sin of idolatry (cf. Deut. 7:25). Also in Romans 11:11 the same word is used of the fall from grace, and surely these sins were the high handed sort. But the context alone can determine whether the sin is willful or not. In James 3:2, he uses it of the unwitting sins, such as when a man speaks without thinking.

Anti-Law theology, in general, seeks to eliminate the distinction between Sin and sin, or between rebellion and the sin of ignorance. This is because anti-Law teachers do not recognize the principle of faithfulness, but rather have replaced it with believe only, and have reduced belief to a unilateral gift of God that is not a decision of the believer. They are so desperate to get away from any notion of man cooperating with Gŏd by abiding in his word after forgiveness (cf. John 15:4-10) that they have invented twisted doctrines and warped interpretations of a multitude of texts to avoid the plain sense.

In this text, the typical anti-Law advocate quotes the text against someone who, in faithfulness, observes the Law. They imply or point out that the faithful person is not perfect, and that the faithful person errors in some way. And then they declare that the faithful person is completely guilty, and so they conclude that faithfully keeping the Law has no value, and justifies their rejection of the Law. But the argument is a lie. Ya’aqōv̱ is only speaking of deliberate sin, such as is noted in Numbers 15:30-31.

2:24† ^{^} You see that a man is made righteous by works, and not by an affirmation alone.† The only place in Scripture where the words “faith alone” (πίστεως μόνον) occur, here translated, “an affirmation alone.” But Ya’aqōv is not defending justification by faith alone! Rather, he is disproving that righteousness is counted by belief or trust alone, and proving that it requires a faithfulness expressed by good works to be made righteous.

There is no contradiction with Romans 3:28 because there Paul is speaking about Mĕssiah’s faithfulness to the cross on our behalf, and not about our own faithfulness. See text.