the Good Question

Fairness is the line between to opposite horizons: darkness and light. It is the twilight that is itself not yet darkness, but that cannot quite be called very light, except by comparison to heavy darkness. It is the point one foot past which, in one direction, a traveler can be confidently declared to be in the light, and in the other direction, just as equally in the darkness. It is the first point that really seems light to a man who stands deep in the darkness. But many things stand in the darkness, in evil, with toes hung over the line, seeming good to themselves merely by proximity to the line. Indeed, they can make out vague shapes in the darkness, and they are quite proud. But the further you walk away from the line, up the path of love, toward the gilded, broadening light, the dimmer the line appears to you when you turn around to give it a look, the drearier its surrounding environment, and the closer the line looks to the dark horizon on the other side—because the farther you are from a place, the closer it looks to everything else in that direction you are far from until the whole collection of distant things in the same direction becomes a single thing you can point at and call "over there." Fairness is a great distance from the horizon on love's side—like the trickling light of the very early dawn is very far from the white-hot passion of the high noon sun.

Fairness is a good thing to begin upon, if you must, because it is, after all, not itself darkness; it even seems to have been created for this reason: if one cannot love, one can at least be fair. But it is not—oh, do not be tempted to think—even bright enough in that spot to tell where a stone landed if you tossed one casually from you. It isn't that bright. But you will make out your hand, so that you may see what it does. And that is a start.

But how is Good satisfied in that? Fairness demands its own rights; it is not selfless. It allows; it does not give. It begrudges; it does not delight. It is exacting; it is not generous. It is harsh; it is not merciful. It is mechanical; not gracious. It is mathematical; not beautiful. It is just; it is not love. Fairness measures all things in equal proportion; love gives all things without reserve.

Fairness cannot even be a virtue! The thing that calls you to meet the minimum requirements of the law, or of the ethics of personal relationships, is not a virtue. The thing that calls you to exceed the requirements of the law, or the demands of civil relation, is a virtue. The Decalogue, all morality, most personal grievances, and many of the world's commonest pet-peeves call for the fair, the right, the just from people. And that is good. Let it be.

But if all God wanted was for everything to be just just, then biological robots would have been the sure-bet inhabits of this Earth. Something is given, something of exact value is paid back; a deed done for another, and a deed precisely it's twin in return; an action, and a directly proportional reaction—these are the ways of gears and levers and physics, dull grays and metallic clanks, not lovers.

Above all things, be a lover. Give freely. Be unscrupulously merciful. Allow the beauty of people loving each other without claiming rights, without holding expectations, without demands, agendas, and manipulations—loving and moving and giving and deferring—remind you of dance. Let it remind you of art and other things robots cannot do. Let it remind you that there are greater things than to be merely lawful, to have merely your rights, to pursue merely wages.

If you see even the Bible tell you "Do what is right," remember that it goes on to say, "Above all, love." John said, "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Those who do not do what is right are not God’s children; nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters." Yes, do what is right, but do not stop there. God's children are found doing right, certainly. But they are found doing much more than that! Love always does what is better than merely right. It is at least right. If love is "not against the Law," and it "fulfills the Law," and it is "the greatest," then there can never be a time in which it is a wrong decision to do what is loving and gracious over what is fair and just.

But remember, when you are trying to love, to expect to find yourself attempting to make an alloy of love and fairness. It's easy to reason yourself into loving only those who love you in return. But that's a tepid, weak love, not in the pattern of God's unconditional love, which is a wild, fiery, potent thing. So Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them."

But then, there are also times so momentous that to choose to do what is fair, rather than to do what is love, is to keep your friend, or enemy, or husband, or daughter, back on the line in the twilight beside yourself—a critical opportunity missed to pierce through the haze with the light and step forward with them into a new day. You think your nagging someone to do what is right—to do what is their just portion—or your demands for fair treatment and equal work will accomplish your goals? You are sadly mistaken. Fairness may be moral, but it doesn't inspire anyone to do anything. Oh, maybe on this occasion or that, something may get done out of resentment, guilt, or shame...

But is that what you want? Just what is fair and no more? Love fulfills the Law. The Law can't even do that. When voices shouting for fairness, justice, and rights only get enough to fill shallow pockets, love produces what is better than fair, better than just, and better than right! Tell me which is the "more excellent way"!

In order to fulfill the commonest law... we must rise into a loftier region altogether, a region that is above law, because it is spirit and life and makes the law.... The law comes to make us long for the needful grace—that is, for the divine condition, in which love is all, for God is Love.

(George MacDonald)

There is no fair in love.

It's a pattern that is apparent in every human being. You need to feel loved and you need to feel secure, so you manipulate the people and the circumstances in your life, even in subconscious action, to attempt to convince yourself that these things are true. But the moment you bring control into a relationship, you rob your friend of the joy of giving what he could have given in love, and you rob yourself of the joy of receiving what he could have given in love. You cheat yourself of real opportunities for love and security. You cheapen so many friends by making them your pawns. And you reflect your own qualities upon God, expecting Him to act the same way toward you that you do toward the people in your life. But this is not unconditional love.

On a good day, coercion produces hypocrisy; on a bad day, rivers of blood. (Roger Williams, paraphrased)

You will accomplish more in the next two months developing a sincere interest in two people than you will ever accomplish in the next two years trying to get two people interested in you. (Tim Sanders)

I'm a Visionary-Advocate personality type (MBTI), and true to form, I have these dreams that I want to pursue ("visionary"), and I badly wish to help other people catch those dreams ("advocate"). But there's the rub. It is such a struggle for me to not draw my identity and sense of worth from my dreams... but rather draw my identity from who God has proclaimed me to be in His love, and to allow the motivation for whatever serving I do for Him to come out of the overflow of my heart, not out of my seeking for self-validation through any personal standard of "success."

My identity has issued from my dreams and my power (or lack thereof) to "micromanage" the Kingdom to conform to the idea I have in my mind of the way it ought to be. And if things are going poorly by my estimation, then I get depressed because my security rests in my ability to meet some performance-based criteria. If things are going well by my estimation, then I feel temporarily fulfilled. But the satisfaction is empty, like trying to pull water out of a dry well.

It's the same misstep as the one God spoke of by Jeremiah. Jeremiah recorded these words:

For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—

the fountain of living water.

And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns

that can hold no water at all! (Jeremiah 2:13 NLT)

Father said something similar in Isaiah's prophecy:

Come, all of you who are thirsty.

Come and drink the water I offer to you.

You who do not have any money, come.

Buy and eat the grain I give you.

Come and buy wine and milk.

You will not have to pay anything for it.

Why spend money on what is not food?

Why work for what does not satisfy you?

Listen carefully to me.

Then you will eat what is good.

You will enjoy the richest food there is. (Isaiah 55:1-2 NIrV)

I'm talking about a shifting of my heart's pursuit. From pursuing validation (and security, identity, satisfaction...) through a realized dream, to pursuing a persistent nearness to the God who doesn't care whether I accomplish my dreams if I never learn to live in the overwhelming acceptance I have in His grace. After all, "Grace is God's acceptance of us. Faith is our acceptance of God's acceptance of us" (Adrian Rogers, from Freedom from the Performance Trap).

One of the most freeing things someone ever told me was something I heard in one of The God Journey podcasts with Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings. Wayne said, if I may recite it from my poor memory, "I don't care if you don't do anything for a year, if you learn to walk in Father's affection."

When I heard that, it really sank deep in my soul: God isn't looking for me to produce for Him; He is looking for me to rest in Him.

Now, let me tell you: that's hard to swallow for someone who has done almost everything for twenty-five years with performance-based, works-righteous motives! That's difficult to step out of. That's a deep mire of ingrained religious caca. And I'm sick of it. I've felt like an employee in God's production plant for all my life. And all I want is a real-life relationship!

But now—wouldn't you know—I'm finding that I'm relationally-challenged, having worked with machines for so long. But thank you, Papa! You are showing me the ropes of this relationship with You!

And my reader friend, whoever you are, I want you to know that there is rest in our Father. There is complete rest. He is our eternal Sabbath (Hebrews 4). He is our permanent Vacation. And when you are all caught up in the DOs, know that as far as He is concerned, there is only DONE. "You are trying to earn points with someone who is no longer keeping score" (Wayne Jacobsen).

It is finished. (John 19:30)

What the law could not do... God did. (Romans 8:3 CSB)

James follows with an example of favoritism, and then a brief explanation—for the sake of this particular example—of why it makes no sense to honor the rich above the poor:

For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, "You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor"—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?

Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Aren’t they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear? (2:2-7 NLT)

He explains how favoritism and prejudice break the Old Covenant Law. He reminds us that God despises any form of partiality. It's not just a trifle. He continues:

If you really carry out the royal law prescribed in Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all. For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." So if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you are a lawbreaker. (2:8-11 CSB)

But then, he returns to his original point to resolve the issue he left us with in verse 1: How is it that partiality and faith in Christ are mutually exclusive of each other? It's interesting to see the direction James takes with his reasoning. He lifts the weight of his argument off of the Old Covenant Law onto the New Covenant "law":

Speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to the one who hasn't shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (2:12-13 CSB)

So, James compares the Torah Law with this "law of freedom." James has already mentioned a "law of freedom" in his epistle—at James 1:25, where he exhorts us to always keep at the forefront of our minds our identity—the reality of the freedom we have in Christ—and to live according to that reality of freedom and grace. But what is this talk of a New Covenant "law"?

Paul uses similar terminology in his open letter to the Christians at Rome. We pick up his argument in Romans at 3:1-30:

Then what advantage has the Jew [over the Gentile]? Or what is the value of circumcision?... Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.... Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. (ESV)

Well, what is a law? It's as the NIV has it here, a "principle"... a principle that is followed, a rule of action. So, when Paul says that there is no room for the Jews to boast in their nationality as though it made them any closer to God than other nations, he explains that this is because there is a principle of faith that needs to be considered. That principle of faith is "that a man is justified [made right with God] by faith apart from observing the law [of works]" (NIV). The "law of faith" is the principle of relationship that allows people like you and me to be reconciled with our Father, God. It is, in other terminology, "the Gospel." It is "Grace."

So, when James says, "favoritism is not consistent with faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" and "speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom" (TNIV) what does he mean? What's the connection?

He means that "the law of freedom" motivates us to love, greatly and equally, all people. Why? Because "the law of freedom" is the truth of freedom from condemnation. How do we know this? Because Paul said,

No condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit's law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. (Romans 8:1-2 CSB)

By faith in Christ, by having confidence in the power of God and His love for us, we are set free from the chains of sin and death, because there is no longer any condemnation over us. A condemnation is "a sentence of judgment which condemns some one to do, to give or to pay something." We are no longer criminals being judged. We are no longer condemned to attempt to pay the penalty from crimes too numerous to count. We are free. Rather than condemned, we have been forgiven.

A condemnation is also "an expression of strong disapproval," which is also something that does not exist for us in Christ. We are—you are—totally approved of God. He accepts you. He loves you. He validates you. He considers you valuable to Him. And there is absolutely nothing you can do to change that.

But how then can we, who have been forgiven of our incalculable debts, go on with unforgiveness in our hearts? How then can we, who have been accepted despite ourselves, go on rejecting others based upon our formulated criteria? How then can we, who are loved unconditionally, go on distributing love to others according to how they meet our standards?

Do you favor one person above another, because the one is "cool" and the other is decidedly "not"? Do you love and approve of one friend who is mature, thoughtful, and loving, but look down upon another in condescension who is immature, whiny, and selfish? Do you hang out only with people you find pleasant and avoid people who are annoying, are irritable, or have poor personal hygiene? Do you find yourself surrounded with people who hide well their sins on the inside, but wouldn't dream of befriending people who wear their sins on the outside? Do you stick close to your comfort zone when your comfort zone tells you to socialize only with people of your own ethnicity? Do you give the best seats to the rich?

It is with all this in mind that James continues his thought with, "What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions?" (James 2:14 NLT)

Jesus taught the same thing:

Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?"

"No, not seven times," Jesus replied, "but seventy times seven!

"Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

"But the man fell down before his master and begged him, 'Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

"But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

"His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it,' he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

"When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

"That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart." (Matthew 18:21-35 NLT)

Do you see then why "favoritism is not consistent with faith in our Lord Jesus Christ"?

But...

If someone merely listens to the message and does not live it out, he is like someone who gazes at his own face in a mirror. For he gazes at himself and then goes out and immediately forgets what sort of person he was.

Ah! "But," he says!

But the one who peers into the perfect law of liberty and fixes his attention there, and does not become a forgetful listener but one who lives it out—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:23-25 NET)

I'd like you to read that again, in the Contemporary English Version, to make sure you get the point:

But you must never stop looking at the perfect law that sets you free. God will bless you in everything you do, if you listen and obey, and don't just hear and forget. (1:25)

You are free. You are forgiven. You are accepted. And you must hold onto that truth with a deathgrip. There is no room for shame or guilt or any other form of self-condemnation. Because "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." There is only love. There is only grace. And when you fix your eyes on that—that is faith. It is confidence in God's love and promise: stubborn faith in stubborn promises.

Grace is God's acceptance of us. Faith is our acceptance of God's acceptance of us. (Adrian Rogers)

This freedom will change the way you look at others. It will change the way you act. Eugene Peterson sums it up pretty well with his paraphrase of James 2:14-17:

Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

There are some people in this world who will not turn to Christ until they witness a believer suffering—suffering without regret or malice, for the Gospel of our matchless Jesus. Our suffering for him is a parable of love that tells of the love of God for poor humanity, the "monsters of iniquity" (Paris Reidhead) that we are. So, don't waste your suffering.

And even when we don't suffer for the Gospel explicitly, our times of pain and trouble are the best opportunities we have in this life to show what Jesus means to us. That's when people will stand up and notice that we don't hope the same hopeless hopes they hope—{grin}. It is then they will ask "of the hope that lies within us" (1 Peter 3:15). What hope is there to hope for when you are full and clothed and comfortable and know exactly where the money for this month's rent will come from? You have no reason to hope for anything—at least, that's what they think.

But when you're vomiting from the chemo or giving your mother's eulogy or being beaten for your faith, you have an amazing opportunity to show just how precious and valuable and sufficient Jesus is to you.

Think back on those early days when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and were beaten, and sometimes you helped others who were suffering the same things. You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail, and when all you owned was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew there were better things waiting for you that will last forever. So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord.
(Hebrews 10:32-35a)