Law and Mirrors

James says that the law is a mirror. We think he means that we read the law, it shows us flaws and blemishes, and we are convicted of sin.

That’s not the way the image works in James. The man who looks in a mirror and turns away is not the one who hears the law and ignores his sin. He’s the man who hears the law and doesn’t do it (1:23-24). Hearing and not obeying is like glancing and turning away without remembering the image in the mirror. Looking intently at the law means doing it (v. 25).

The structure of verses 23-25 brings this out:

A. Hearer and not doer like man looking in mirror

B. Glances and turns away

C. Forgets what kind of person he is.

B’. Looking intently by abiding

A’. Becomes doer and not hearer

C’ (?). Blessed in what he does.

The contrast is between glancing and turning away on the one hand, and looking intending and abiding by the perfect law on the other.

The mirror image, then, is not about exposure of sin and conviction, or if that is present it is a suppressed aspect of the image. The image instead seems to be that the law gives a portrait of maturity (“perfect law”), and when we gaze intently into the law, not only hear it but do it, we are made mature, truly religious (v. 26). When we hear and don’t do the law, we forget the kind of person we are supposed to be; we forget the image of God that we are supposed to embody by our doing of the law.