The Hearer Who Forgets

Many readers will have heard this one from a pulpit:

“The Ten Commandments are good. But the moment they are set before people, punishment comes if they fail to keep them. The law is like a mirror. A mirror shows you the dirt on your face. But you cannot wash your face with a mirror.”

It is a good illustration, and there is truth in it. A mirror really cannot clean anything, and the law really does show sin for what it is, as Paul said in the passage we read in Chapter 36. The conclusion seems to follow: the law can show you how dirty you are, and that is all it can do. For the washing, you need something else.

But this illustration has a history. No preacher invented the mirror. James used it long before any preacher did, and when we read what James actually did with it, the picture turns around.

James’s Mirror

This is the passage where James uses it:

James 1:23-25 For if anyone is a hearer of the logos λόγος log'-os(word) and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror — for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect nomos νόμος nom'-os(law) of freedom and perseveres — not being a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts — this one will be blessed in his doing.

Observe who is compared to the man at the mirror. It is not the law but “anyone” who “is a hearer of the logos(word) and not a doer.” The man at the mirror is a person who hears and does not do.

His problem is not that the mirror is useless, for the mirror did its job and he saw his face. The word for “looks at” is katanoeo κατανοέω kat-an-o-eh'-o, to look carefully, to take note, so he really did look. His problem is what happened next: he “goes away and at once forgets what he was like.”

Picture a man who stops at the hall mirror on his way out the door and sees a smear of breakfast on his chin. He notices it, then picks up his keys, walks out, and spends the whole day in meetings with the smear still there. No one would blame the mirror. It told him the truth, and he simply did nothing about it.

That is James’s point, and it runs opposite to the sermon illustration. The sermon concludes that the mirror cannot help you. James concludes that the man who walks away from the mirror is deceiving himself (James 1:22).

Look and Stay

James does not leave us at the hall mirror. In verse 25 he gives the answer: “the one who looks into the perfect nomos(law) of freedom and perseveres — not being a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts — this one will be blessed in his doing.”

He does not tell us to throw the mirror away because it cannot wash us. He tells us to look into it, to stay there, and to do what we see. And he gives the law two descriptions worth pausing over: it is “perfect,” and it is the law “of freedom.”

The sermon puts the law on one side and freedom on the other, while James puts them in the same phrase.

What the Psalms Say It Does

The sermon also says that the law can only show and never change. The Psalms say something different:

Psalm 19:8 The Torah of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh); the testimony (edut עֵדוּת ay-dooth') of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.

(Psalm 19:7 in most English Bibles; the YLV numbers it 19:8, as the Hebrew text does.)

The word for “perfect” is tamim תָּמִים taw-meem', complete, whole, without defect. James was not inventing anything when he called it “the perfect nomos(law).” The psalmist had already called the Torah perfect.

This perfect Torah is “restoring the soul (nephesh).” The verb is shub שׁוּב shoob, to turn back, to bring back. A mirror only reflects what is already there, but the psalmist says that the Torah turns the soul back, which is a change of direction rather than a reflection.

Another psalm says what the Torah does when it is kept within:

Psalm 119:11 In my heart I have stored up your saying, so that I may not sin against you.

The word for “stored up” is tsaphan צָפַן bah'-al tsef-one', to hide away, to treasure. The psalmist does not merely look at God’s word to see where he has gone wrong. He stores it in his heart, and it keeps him from going wrong.

None of this says that the Torah forgives sin. Forgiveness comes by grace, through faith, as we saw at the start of this book. But these verses do say that the Torah does more than reflect a face. For the one who treasures it, it turns back the soul and keeps him from sin.

Does Punishment End?

One more piece of the claim remains: “The moment they are set before people, punishment comes if they fail to keep them.” Put that way, it sounds like a description of the old covenant alone, as if under the new covenant the warning had been taken away.

Hebrews says otherwise:

Hebrews 10:28-29 Anyone who has set aside the nomos(law) of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded the blood of the diatheke διαθήκη dee-ath-ay'-kay(covenant) by which he was sanctified as koinos κοινός koy-nos'(common, worldly), and has insulted the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit) of charis χάρις khar'-ece(grace)?

Verse 28 looks back to the one who “has set aside the nomos(law) of Moses.” Verse 29 turns to the new covenant, and there the warning grows heavier rather than softer: “How much worse punishment.” The one in view has “trampled underfoot the Son of God,” has treated the blood of the covenant as common, and has insulted the spirit of grace.

Two chapters later, Hebrews says it again:

Hebrews 12:25 See that you do not refuse Him who is speaking, for if those who refused the one who warned them on earth did not escape, much less shall we escape if we reject the One who warns from heaven.

The writer says “much less shall we escape.” Those under the new covenant have less hope of escape, not more.

The sentence “punishment comes if you fail to keep it” is therefore not a mark of the old covenant that the new covenant leaves behind. The writer to the Hebrews says it stands just as firmly in the new.

Back to the Mirror

The mirror was never the problem. James chose it to describe a person who sees and walks away, and his remedy was not a different mirror but a different response: look into the perfect law of freedom, stay there, and do what it says.

So far we have considered the law as something that shows. Yet another familiar contrast between the two covenants is not about mirrors but about contracts: the old one, people say, lays all the weight on “you,” and the new one is God’s promise, “I will do it for you.”