James 2:1

2:1 My brothers, you cannot really believe that you have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, and yet continue to have respect of persons.

Respect of persons is the New Testament phrase for undue and unfair partiality; it means pandering to someone, because he is rich or influential or popular. It is a fault which the New Testament consistently condemns. It is a fault of which the orthodox Jewish leaders completely acquitted Jesus. Even they were bound to admit that there was no respect of persons with him ( Luke 20:21 ; Mark 12:14 ; Matthew 22:16 ). After his vision of the sheet with the clean and unclean animals upon it, the lesson that Peter learned was that with God there is no respect of persons ( Acts 10:34 ). It was Paul's conviction that Gentile and Jew stand under a like judgment in the sight of God, for with God there is no favouritism ( Romans 2:11 ). This is a truth which Paul urges on his people again and again ( Ephesians 6:9 ; Colossians 3:25 ).

The word itself is curious--prosopolempsia ( Greek #4382 ). The noun comes from the expression prosopon ( Greek #4383 ) lambanein ( Greek #2983 ). Prosopon ( Greek #4383 ) is the "face"; and lambanein ( Greek #2983 ) here means "to lift up." The expression in Greek is a literal translation of a Hebrew phrase. To lift up a person's countenance was to regard him with favour, in contradistinction perhaps to casting down his countenance.

Originally it was not a bad word at all; it simply meant to accept a person with favour. Malachi asks if the governor will be pleased with the people and will accept their persons, if they bring him blemished offerings ( Malachi 1:8-9 ). But the word rapidly acquired a bad sense. It soon began to mean, not so much to favour a person, as to show favouritism, to allow oneself to be unduly influenced by a person's social status or prestige or power or wealth. Malachi goes on to condemn that very sin when God accuses the people of not keeping his ways and of being partial in their judgments ( Malachi 2:9 ). The great characteristic of God is his complete impartiality. In the Law it was written, "You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbour" ( Leviticus 19:15 ). There is a necessary emphasis here. A person may be unjust because of the snobbery which truckles to the rich; and may be equally unjust because of the inverted snobbery which glorifies the poor. "The Lord," said Ben Sirach, "is judge and with him is no respect of persons" ( Sirach 35:12 ).

The Old and New Testaments unite in condemning that partiality of judgment and favouritism of treatment which comes of giving undue weight to a man's social standing, wealth or worldly influence. And it is a fault to which every one is more or less liable. "The rich and the poor meet together," says Proverbs, "the Lord is the maker of them all" ( Proverbs 22:2 ). "It is not meet," says Ben Sirach, "to despise the poor man that hath understanding; neither is it fitting to magnify a sinful man that is rich" ( Sirach 10:23 ). We do well to remember that it is just as much respect of persons to truckle to the mob as it is to pander to a tyrant.