The church in its preaching, teaching, and action must never divide human beings into bodies and souls but recognize God’s concern for the whole person. James 2 is a terrible indictment. The apostle had warned against having respect to persons, chap. 2,9, since by doing so “you commit sin and are convicted by the Law as a lawbreaker” The word translated as lawbreaker is instructive and indicting. The word literally means one who “goes beyond the line”. Someone who sees a sign that says “don’t cross this line” and does so anyway is a trespasser. He passes by the line without coming into contact with the reason it was established. Here is a metaphor of one who passes by the Law without touching it; one whose life and conversation is not within the lines of the Law but outside the Law; therefore lawless. Think of the story of the good Samaritan and those who passed by the wounded man. They were on a path whose boundaries and lines led directly to the Law of Love and they passed by on the other side without touching the poor wretch. Think of the rich man in Luke 16:19-31. Lazarus is literally tossed on his doorstep every morning so that the boundaries of his life and business are channeling him into a path of mercy and he crosses the line into his own sumptuous life style and ignores the “beggar at his gates”. Even in hell he wants to trespass a boundary and send Lazarus, whom he still treats as an object, across to him with a finger dipped in cool water.
