The Epistle of James Archives

The Right is Passing Judgment on the Left

Reading Time: 4 minutes

This video published just a few hours ago indicates that the Right is doubling down on the claim that Kirk was shot by Tyler Robinson. Turning Point USA has issued a statement saying there was no exit wound in Kirk’s neck after he was shot with a .30-06 caliber bullet. Apparently, the bullet was stopped by his strong neck bones because he is a man of steel. This has unpleasant implications. It implies that the propaganda surrounding this assassination is going to be maintained. Because the alleged assassin has been identified as a member of the Left, the Right is passing judgment on the Left.

The Accusations Are Not Going Away

I regret to tell you, reader, what this means. It means outrageousness, and not truth, is the point. And because of its similarities with the JFK assassination, I think we have to assume outrageousness was the point there too. Whoever did this to Charlie Kirk is saying they can do whatever they want and no one can stop them. And when the authorities publicly ignore evidence in the public domain, they seem to be saying it’s all a joke. In my opinion, there is no response from the Left that will make this go away.

Taking Refuge in the Epistle of James

In this article, I’m taking the opportunity to share what James the Just says about judging one’s neighbor. I have been writing a series on the Epistle of James on my other website, but I’ve only got as far as James 1:11. I’m writing this here because I think these verses are particularly relevant in this context. The verses I would like to share are James 4:11-12. Please pay close attention to the conclusion in the commentary by James B. Adamson. I think it’s the best response to the Right’s accusations.

James 4:11-12

11.  Do not speak ill of one another, brothers. He that speaks ill of his brother and passes judgment on his brother is speaking ill of the law and passing judgment on the law; but if you pass judgment on the law, you are not a servant of the law but a judge of it.
12.  There is one dispenser of law and judge, he who has power of life and death. And who are you, that you pass judgment on your fellow? (Translation by Adamson, p. 175-6)

Previously in this chapter, James has focused on the temptations of the tongue. “Who are you to judge another?” He has made it clear that the failure to control the tongue is a form of self-righteous pride.

The Word Brother

11. The word brother is repeated three times in verse 11. Some have argued that James is talking to hypercritical Christians, anti-Pauline Christians, or Gnostic teachers. Adamson disagrees. He believes this signals a change of tone and a fresh appeal. This verse refers to all who submit to the world, and especially the proud (4:10). It is a warning. It is also an echo of James’s previous verses, 1:26; 2:12, 13; and 3:10. (Please hover your cursor over the verses if you want to read them.)

Evil Speaking Kills Three Persons

The Old Testament denounces evil speaking more often than any other offense, both against God (Numbers 21:5) and man (Psalms 49:20). Slander was called the third tongue because it killed three persons: the speaker, the spoken to, and the spoken of. It has been said there is no salvation for anyone who slanders his neighbor.¹ Here Adamson compares James’s view of the seriousness of slander to what Christ said in Matthew 7:1. James equates slander of a fellow Christian with breaking the Christian Torah², because the interests of both are the same.

Hillel said, “Judge not your neighbor before you find yourself in the same situation.“³

The Difference Between Judging and Doing the Law

The difference between judging and doing the law is carefully explained. Man must obey the law, not judge it. To set oneself above the law is to usurp the divine prerogative. In fact, the Rabbis taught that judging our neighbor leads to the graver sin of judging God. Respect for law and order is necessary for the health of modern society, but James reminds us that God is the source of all law. So, what is at stake in a ‘permissive society’ is respect for the authority of God himself. (From the context of this commentary, I think he means a society that permits Christians to judge one another.)

James 4:12 is the Most Important Point in the Entire Section

Adamson thinks the next verse, James 4:12, is the most important point in the entire section. The section in question is James 4:4 to 5:8. For ease of reading I’l repeat James 4:12 here.

There is one dispenser of law and judge, he who has power of life and death.
And who are you, that you pass judgment on your fellow?

(Adamson believes Matthew 10:5-42 makes the same point, especially verses 15, 22, and 28.)

James’s Personification of the Law

12. James personifies the law and he seems to identify it as the brother. In his view, “any slander or judgment of a brother implies not only an active disregard of Torah but also an attitude of superiority reserved solely for God, who is the omnipotent Lawgiver and Judge.“

This is a characteristic Jewish monotheistic doctrine of God’s supreme sovereignty. Rabbi Ishmael spoke on God as the final source of judicial authority: “Judge not alone; for there is none save One that judgeth alone.” Adamson also quotes Dibelius: “Truly, the Eternal destroys life and sustains.” and “One he casts down and the other he raises up….”

Adamson’s Conclusion: Salvation (or its Opposite) at the Last Judgement

Adamson believes James is referring to ‘salvation’ or its opposite at the Last Judgement (5:9).

The point is clinched with a devastating question. The disjunctive pronoun is sarcastic, emphasizing the sheer folly of the world to judge, while the vigorous proleptic ‘you‘ serves to widen the gulf between God’s judgment and man’s. ‘And who are you that pass judgment on another?’ To which John Wesley replies: ‘A poor, weak, dying worm.’ For James, as for us, however, the best answer is scornful silence. (Adamson, p. 178)

Derek Erets Zuta 1: Midr. R. Deut. vi. 9; Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud, p. 99; SB 1, pp. 226ff., 905. ↩︎
On this as Jewish Torah, see Oesterley, Knowling. ↩︎
Aboth ii. 4; see b. Shab. 127a; Matt. 7:1f.; John 12:31. ↩︎

09/21/2025

The Diaspora Remnant: The Scattered Twelve Tribes and the Un-Enclosed Frontier

Reading Time: 4 minutes

James, the Brother of Jesus

James B. Adamson begins his commentary with the assumption that James is the brother of Jesus. He argues this point in detail in his introduction. I have chosen not to include that detail because I prefer to start right away with the text of the Epistle and Adamson’s related commentary. However, if anyone is interested in the arguments presented in the introduction, please let me know and I will write about them. Alternatively, readers can order the commentary.

James, a bond slave of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion, salutation. (James 1:1)

Considering the Term ‘The Twelve Tribes of the Dispersion

Adamson begins by highlighting meaning of the term ‘the twelve tribes of the dispersion’ as it would have been used by ‘James the Lord’s brother’. He argues that this term could not refer figuratively to the whole multiracial Christian Church because the Epistle reflects the earliest stage of the teaching of the gospel. That would imply the most Jewish milieu. Therefore, it seems clear that James was not addressing Christianity’s ‘spiritual catholicity’. His theology and eschatology is that of a Jew who, like Jesus, focused on his own people.

To continue the argument, if James was implying a new spiritual meaning for the twelve tribes, he would not have added ‘of the Dispersion’, which gives it the historical application. ‘Of the Dispersion’ implies ‘the ancient, restricted, physical and national privileges of the Jews under the Covenant. Nor did James refer only to non-Palestinian Jewish Christians. The rabbis believed the Palestinian Jews represented all the twelve tribes of Israel.

The Bond Slave of God and Jesus

As far as I can tell, this identification of James as Jesus’s brother is not a controversial position even though Adamson’s approach is unique. That said, it seems to me that it has at least one controversial implication as Adamson explains below. It has to do with James identifying himself as the bond slave of God and Jesus. Adamson argues that James uses this term in a spirit of loyalty and devoted service to both God and Jesus. He explains that Paul also uses this term in an opening, in his Epistle to Titus. The concept is Hebrew (‘ebed) rather than Greek.

It is used in loyalty and respect toward prophets and rabbis, e.g. Gamaliel, Johanan b. Zakkai, and here toward God and our Lord Jesus Christ, as in the (non-Pauline) Epistle to the Hebrews…

Since proverbially no man can be the servant of two masters, it may be that James, in order to obviate any possible offense to the cherished monotheism of orthodox Jewry, is here emphasizing that service to Christ is also service to God, since they are both One (John 5:17; 9:4; 17:4), but we doubt whether such subtlety in the opening is truly in keeping with the character of this Epistle.

We hold that James, the Lord’s brother, is here writing as a Jew–not ‘a Jewish Christian’…, but a Christian Jew–to Jews, and that he was writing with full hope that the Jews as a whole would turn to Christ… (Adamson, pp. 50, 51)

Adamson looks ahead in the Epistle to the verses in which James will preach both aspects of the Christian religion, faith and works. He tells us that James will stress both aspects to the Jews as descendants and heirs of Abraham. However James is not teaching the same concept as Paul in Gal. 3:7:

Realize then that it is those who have faith who are children of Abraham.

Paul is concentrating on one aspect of Christian duty and the same aspect of God’s Fatherhood, the spiritual aspect. In this sense, Abraham’s fatherhood of the Jews is only symbolic. In James, however, prominence is given to God without prejudice to Christ. James understands that Jesus did not come to supplant but to supplement the Father. He did not come to supersede God’s Old Testament lessons to the Jews, but to reinforce them and extend them to the Gentiles.

To James, therefore, Christianity is not a new religion but the consummation of the old; and we shall never see Old Testament and New Testament as an intrinsic unity unless we grasp this fundamental truth enshrined in our Epistle.

In some verses, Prominence is Given to ‘God‘

Adamson lists the following verses in which James gives prominence to God without prejudice to Christ: 1:1, 5-8, 12-15, 16-21, 26, 27.

In Others, James Gives Prominence to Christ

Christ is the focus in 2:1:

Do not try to combine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Glory, 
with worship of men's social status.

And Finally, James Speaks of God

James speaks of God again in 2:19-25; 5:1-6 (esp. v. 5), in the prophetic tone of the whole passage 5:7-8, 9-11, 14-15, and in the example of Elijah in 5:16-18.

Adamson’s View of Who James Was Addressing

In the view of Adamson, James addresses his Epistle both to Christian and non-Christian Jews, outside and within Palestine:

see Paul’s practice in Acts 17:1-4 (esp. v. 2, ‘as his manner was’); also Gamaliel’s attitude (Acts 5:34-40). To Christian Jews Jesus is peculiarly the fulfillment of their eternal hope of ultimate restoration from the Dispersion (see 2 Esdras 13:40; Tobit 13:3-5, 15-18; Rev. 21:10-17 and Rev. 18-21. On that note James opens his Epistle, the note of suffering but hopeful brotherhood.

The Word Salutation

According to Adamson, the word salutation is the usual greeting with which Greek letters of all periods opened. (He cites Acts 15:23 and 23:26.) In Hebrew (and ancient Syriac and modern Arabic) the regular greeting is “Peace!” In Latin it is “Health!” (Salve or Salvete, in Letters Salutem, i.e., salutem dicit). In Greek it is “Joy be to you.”

07/06/2025

The Sincere Sovereign: Why James B. Adamson’s Commentary Explodes the Corporate Narrative

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This first article in the series will introduce James B. Adamson and explain why the sincere sovereign is a fitting description; his commentary explodes the corporate narrative. At the time of publication, James B. Adamson, M.A., Ph.D. was a Presbyterian minister in Santa Rosa, CA.

The Sayings of Jesus, the Tradition of Elijah and Moses, and the Style of the Psalms and the Prophets

James B. Adamson was convinced that James was a master writer whose knowledge and choice of Greek bestow on his epistle a sustained unity of style and content that bears a close affinity with the Synoptic Gospels and the sayings of Jesus. The substance and authoritative tone of this epistle follow in the tradition of Elijah and Moses, and the style and diction resemble some of the outstanding qualities of the Psalms and the prophets. (W. Ward Gasque, Eastern College)

Adamson’s view of James was unique among scholars at the time he was writing this commentary. However, there is general agreement with his view that James was committed to Jewish Christianity. His epistle has been called ‘the Amos of the new Covenant’.

Adamson Wanted to Address an Error Made by Luther and Subsequent Commentaries

Adamson wrote in his preface that one of his most important aims was to combat what he considered a fatal error made by Luther. And unfortunately, subsequent commentaries repeated this error. These sources argue that James’s epistle lacks cohesion of thought or design. Adamson disagrees and uses the structure of the epistle to identify its date and authorship. For example, he argues that James 5: 1-8 has a strong Old Testament and Jewish element. This is especially evident in the verb ‘howl,’ in 5:1. This verb occurs here alone in the New Testament, and in a passage of prophetic character, Isaiah 34:1.

Come now, you rich, weep and howl over your coming miseries. Your wealth has rotted, your clothes are moth-eaten: Your gold and silver is corroded, and the corrosion shall be for evidence against you, and shall devour your flesh like fire; you have laid up treasure in days that are coming to an end. See, the wages of the workers that have mowed your fields, which you have withheld from them, cry aloud; and the outcry of the reapers has reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and wantonness; you have fattened your hearts for the slaughtering day. You have condemned and murdered the just man; he does not resist you.

Hold out then, brothers, in patience till the coming of the Lord. See the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, with persevering patience over it, until it shall have had the winder and spring rains; You too must persevere with patience, and fortify your hearts; for the coming of the Lord is near.

James thus takes us back to the techniques of the Old Testament and the synagogue, comforting the afflicted in the Hebrew manner with a prediction of the fall of their enemies and oppressors, in the same way as, for example, the comprehensive curse of Isa. 34 upon the evil is immediately followed by the next chapter’s sublime comfort for their victims (Adamson, p. 12).

Tag: The Epistle of James