The image of the mirror is carried on into the picture of the doer of
the word, the “doer that worketh,” a doer of work, “an active agent”
(Moffatt). The phrase is tautological but very emphatic. He is not only
a doer of word but a doer of deeds. He has put the word into practice
and has brought practical results. He has transmuted word into deed.
This is what counts, the practice of the Word of God, not mere glancing
at the mirror nor chatter about what one saw or picked up, not a hearer
of forgetfulness. It is astonishing what poor memories men have for what
God says. The _Doctrine of Addai_ gives as an uncanonical saying of
Jesus: “That which we preach before the people by word we should
practise by deed in the sight of all.”
The sincere listener pauses long enough to become interested in the real
meaning of the Word of God, which is now law to him, for he wishes to
obey this Word of the Master. These listeners are the joy of the
preacher’s heart, those who turn to the Scriptures, like the Bereans, to
see if these things are so (Acts 17:11). The word in James suggests
curiosity and eagerness, as in Sirach 14:23, of the one who looks
through the door of wisdom, and in 1 Peter 1:12, the desire of the
angels to peer into the problems of the mission of Christ to earth. The
law of God is attractive and perfect to the doer of work, as the
psalmist has it: “The law of the Lord is perfect” (Psalm 19:7). But it
is not a law of compulsion but of freedom. One is free to accept or to
reject it. Certainly James does not have the view of the Judaizers, who
made the law a yoke of bondage even for Gentiles, but rather that of
Paul, who accented the freedom in Christ (Gal. 5:1). Jesus held out
freedom as the great blessing of truth (John 8:32)—freedom to exercise
one’s highest functions and faculties held in bondage by sin and mere
legalism.
Perhaps the chief emphasis in this verse lies in the word “continueth.”
The man remains by the side of the roll of the law spread out before him
and unrolls page after page with the keenest interest and zest until he
rightly grasps the meaning of God. Thus he puts the Word into practice.
He has it stamped on his mind and heart. He is a Christian pragmatist.
He, like Brother Lawrence, practices the presence of God. He translates
the word of truth into his own life and becomes a living epistle. This
is the Bible that the twentieth century loves to read. The man who does
this is “happy in his doing,” “blessed in his activity” (Moffatt). He is
happy in the doing, even if it falls far short of the ideal in the word
of truth. He has tried, and he will keep on trying. He can sing the song
of the shirt, the song of the plow, the song of the desk.