In contrast to the mere hearer, James now describes the true hearer. The adversative particle But introduces the contrast. The true hearer is a person who both hears and practices the word, someone who looks into the perfect law … and perseveres. The Greek participle, which is rendered as looks here, is literally “stooping down sideways to look,” that is, bending over to look carefully. The same word is used in John 20.5 and 11 of Jesus’ disciples looking intently into the tomb to see whether it is really empty. In a number of languages it will be more natural to talk about “read intently” or “study carefully” rather than “look into.”
The perfect law, the law of liberty: there is no agreement as to the background of this expression. Some scholars consider it to be of Stoic origin. Others, however, see Jewish influence as dominant; and this view seems able to explain the concept better. For a Jew like James, it would be natural and normal to understand the word law as the law of Moses, or the Old Testament. It is clear from his explanation of “the royal law” in 2.8-13 that for James this law does include the Old Testament commandments. It needs to be noted also that the law, in its Hebrew sense of “teaching” or “instruction,” is considered to be perfect (Psa 19.7). We should also note that what James presents here agrees in quite a striking way with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true” (Matt 5.17, TEV), and “You must be perfect—just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matt 5.48, TEV). It is therefore quite possible that James has been influenced by Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law as a new law. Furthermore the perfect law is to be put into practice, just as “the word” is. It is therefore natural to assume, in the present context, that the author uses the expression as more or less equivalent to “the word” in verse 22, identified as “the implanted word” in verse 21 and “the word of truth” in verse 18. In the light of this, then, the perfect law is to be taken as the perfect Christian way of life, equivalent to the gospel message.
Fortunately in this case a full understanding of the background of the concept is not required for translation. The word perfect is best understood as “complete,” “wholesome,” “all-encompassing” and “good.” In languages where the word law always has a negative sense, we may choose to render it as “way of life,” “principle,” or “teaching,” and say, for example, “the perfect teaching” or “the completely good teaching.”
The perfect law is further characterized as the law of liberty. This expression seems to contain a contradiction, since the word law always refers to something binding, something imposed from outside, something contrary to freedom. However, the concept of law as having a liberating force is not entirely foreign in the Bible. In his meditation on God’s law in Psalm 119, for example, the psalmist says that to obey God’s law is to “set free my heart” (verse 32, Revised English Bible), to “live in perfect freedom” (verses 45-46, Good News Translation), and that God’s commandment is “exceedingly broad” (verse 96, New Revised Standard Version). In Paul’s teaching “freedom” is explained as the ability to fulfill “the law of Christ” (Gal 6.2), and the law is identified with the law of love (Rom 13.10; Gal 5.1, 13, 14). This is exactly what James has done in 2.8 and 12. The law is freedom in that by submitting to Christ a person is set free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8.2) and transformed to a life of service and love.
Basically liberty is not a description or an attribute of law but what a person experiences. For this reason it may be desirable to bring this information out by saying, for example, “[the perfect law that] sets people free” (Good News Translation), or “makes us free” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Bible en français courant). In certain languages it is necessary to say what the law sets us free from. In such cases we may render this clause as “the law [or, teaching] that sets us free from sin and death” or “… that helps us to escape from sin and death.”
The person who looks at the perfect law is different in two respects. First, he is someone who perseveres. This word, which means “to stay beside” or “to continue,” is a present participle in Greek, with a force of continual action. For this reason it is rendered as “keep on paying attention to it” (Good News Translation), “makes a habit of so doing” (Phillips), “continues to do this” (New International Version), “never stop looking at” (Contemporary English Version). Secondly, this person is further defined as being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, literally “becoming not a hearer of forgetfulness but a doer of work.” The contrast between the two parallel expressions in Greek is not natural and most likely reflects an underlying Hebrew construction. The first expression “a hearer of forgetfulness” is a genitive of quality, and so the word “forgetfulness” can be taken as an adjective, “forgetful hearer” (Moffatt; so also Barclay). The second expression, “doer of work,” is grammatically an objective genitive, but under the influence of the first construction, it is best taken as adjectival also, “active worker” (Barclay) or “active agent” (Moffatt). Since all the elements in these expressions are really action words, another way the clause can be rendered is “he does not just listen and forget, but obeys and acts upon it” (Goodspeed).
The person who listens and acts is one who puts the law into practice, and he shall be blessed in his doing. The he in Greek is “this person,” apparently used by the author for emphasis in contrast to the mere hearer. The word blessed is the same word used in 1.12, where it is rendered as “happy” by Good News Translation. In this context, however, the rendering “that man will be happy” (so Translator’s New Testament; similarly Revised English Bible) does not seem to carry the force required; and there is also the problem that “happy” is more appropriate for something a person obtains than for when they receive something. Good News Translation has rightly changed it to “blessed” here. The person who blesses is God, and this may be included as Barclay and Good News Translation have done. This blessing, as the verb shall be indicates, is perhaps best understood as a promise for the future; that is, the person who puts the law into practice will be blessed by God at the time of Christ’s coming. In his doing refers back to the word doer, so it means his putting the law into action.
An alternative translation model for this verse may be:
• But whoever studies the perfect teaching that frees people from sin and death, and keeps on doing this, God will bless him in everything he does. He is a person who does not simply listen but puts the teaching into practice.
Quoted with permission from Loh, I-Jin and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Letter from James. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .