Jas. 2:10 ... "Whoever keeps the whole Law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all."
Statistics have risen to a position of importance, and often even authority, in the current world. We tend to quantify most of the things in life in an effort to discover their basic nature, the degree of their influence upon us, and what they may portend for the future. This is doubtless our attempt to cope with the complexity and confusion of the mass society into which we have moved during the past century. We also use statistics to evaluate things and compare their worth in relation to other things. If a baseball player's batting average is .400, we say he is an excellent hitter. If the mechanical efficiency of a device is 80%, it might indicate it is performing rather well. If a new drug cures 95% of the cases of a disease that was formerly untreatable, we rejoice over the medical breakthrough.
When we begin to consider the matter of our performance in obeying the will of God, however, statistical measurement becomes irrevelant. The precise number of commandments that constitute "the whole Law" is known only to God. It is sad that ancient Jewish scholars counted 615 commandments in the Mosaic Law. Using that number for illustration, if someone "offended in one point," he also obeyed the other 614. This fixed the measure of his rate of obedience at 99.8%, and by human standards this would be quite acceptable, even admirable, laudable, and exemplary. But, according to Jas. 2:10, it is tantamount to total disobedience. We wonder why.
The explanation must involve the attitude in which the isolated transgression is committed. The person evidently chose to set aside God's Law in one instance to follow his own, and this constitutes an act of rebellion. A case in point might be King Saul in I Samuel 15. The Lord commanded him to attack the Amalekites and put to the sword both man and beast. For the most part, Saul did exactly what he was instructed to do, but in a few cases he chose to make exceptions. He spared Agag, the Amalekite king, to bring back as a trophy, and he spared the best of the flocks and herds to offer up as a grand sacrifice to God when he returned home. But when the prophet Samuel met Saul, he said to him, "Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams," (v. 22). Because the king set aside one point in God's law to do what he thought better, God told him that he had rebelled. Rebellion, in turn, changes entirely a person's relation to God. In Saul's case, it meant being rejected as king, (v.26); in our case, it means being held guilty of breaking the whole Law and becoming a sinner before God.
Yet another factor involved is the concept of God's Law that a person holds. Some people have been reared in such a way that they "do instinctively the things of the Law," (Rom. 2:14). Their obedience to the Law is not particularly based upon respect for it and reverence toward Him who gave it, but rather upon the subjective relation to the law which they acquired in their training. One's transgression of a solitary statute might betray his actual independence from the Law. When he confronts something in it that displeases him, perhaps for the first time in his experience, he feels no compulsion to obey. It is important as we are teaching God's will, especially to youth, that we base the training upon knowledge and understanding so that their response will always be rational. We do not want to turn out products who "have a zeal for God but not in accordance with knowledge." For such are those who, "not knowing about God's righteousness," then seek "to establish their own," (Rom. 10:2-3). In other words, when their will differs from God's, they feel quite justified in setting aside His law to institute their own. This attitude is perhaps the most prominent characteristic of contemporary "Christianity." The "form of godliness" is still there, but it has come down to us as part of our culture, and "its power" is all too often denied, (II Tim. 3:5).
