Wrongful Judgment By Christians

September 1st, 2026
by Lance Waldie

James 4:11-12 He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?

Since many in James’ audience were in conflict with each other, full of jealousy and selfish ambition (3:14, 16; 4:1-2), using their tongues to degrade one another (3:5-12), having become friends of the world and exalting themselves (4:4-6), James reproves them, commanding them not to “speak against” (Gr. katalaleō) one another (v. 11). This term denotes slander or insult—from questioning the authority of leaders (Num 21:5) to secretly belittling another (Ps. 101:5) to accusing falsely or even making insinuations against Christians (1 Pet. 2:12; 3:16). In short, slander entails setting oneself above another as an envious judge. God fervently opposes this.

What James adds in v. 11 is that speaking against a fellow believer is one and the same as speaking against God and His Law. After all, God’s Law commands us to love both God and man. In the OT Law, God said, “You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor; I am Yahweh” (Lev. 19:16, LSB). So the “law” James speaks of is the OT Mosaic Law—the “royal law” he spoke of in 2:8 admonishing Christians to love their neighbors as they love themselves (cf. Lev. 19:18).

Jesus Himself said that the greatest Law was to love God with all of one’s heart, mind, and strength (Matt. 22:37). He then added the caveat that we are also to love our fellow man as we love our own selves (22:39). These two commands of Jesus summarize the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses in Exodus 20:1-17. The first four concern our vertical love for God (no god other than God, no graven images, no taking God’s name in vain, and keeping the Sabbath Day holy). The next six concern our horizontal love for one another (honor your father and mother, no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no lying, and no coveting our neighbor’s property). If we love God, we keep the first four; if we love our neighbors, we keep the second six. Clearly, “love” is the key term for all of God’s commands. Failure to keep God’s commands is therefore slander—of God, His Law, and the people God made in His image.

Of course every law demands a lawgiver, and since there are unchangeable laws of nature, logic, mathematics, love, aesthetics, and morality, there must be an ultimate lawgiver—God. As the Lawgiver and Judge (v. 12), God reveals the magnitude of the sin of one who slanders Him by slandering another person. Such slander is actually a violation of God’s unique right to judge His own, for He alone is “Judge.” Jesus said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). So if God is Judge, James asks, “But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?” This is akin to Paul’s “Who are you O man who answers back to God?” (Rom. 9:20, italics mine). God is the righteous Judge, so what right has man to usurp God’s role as Judge? Absolutely none.

Food For Thought
It is hypocritical judgment that God hates, not all judgment, for God has ordered Christians to rebuke sin and judge sinners who refuse to repent. Jesus addressed the need to confront sin in order to restore or exclude a sinner (Matt. 18:15-20), and Paul spoke of handing defiant sinners over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh in order that their souls might be saved in the end (1 Cor. 5:5; cf. Gal. 6:1). James thus had every right to judge his church’s sin with his rebuke of their abuses and slander of each other and God. He was not guilty of slandering them in this; rather, he was encouraging godly behavior by rebuking their ungodly behavior.