It is in our union with Christ that he gives us the grace to fulfill every exhortation that he gives in this book. He is modelling for us the only proper distinction, and that is who [you are] in Christ Jesus and how [you are] being conformed to the glorious image of Christ Jesus. And so James gives us this exhortation against partiality, and it simply reminds us of what the bonds and boundaries of Christian fellowship ought to be—that we are not to relate to other people because of what they can do for us; or because we are comfortable with them and not comfortable with others; or because they look like us and so they think like us. No, we look for the image of Christ. And when an image of Christ is there, we know we have a brother or a sister and we should relate to them as brothers and sisters. Not with pride or contempt, not with disdain, but with love. And long all the more to see Christ formed in them and in us, and long to have a relationship that will promote the further forming of Christ in them and in us…Just as you did not put yourself into your human family, you did not put yourself into this family of God. We had no checklist to tick off, [or someone asking us], Tell me what you prefer in a brother or a sister in the church. We are all there by sovereign grace, by divine discrimination that does not take into account all the things that either turn us on or make us unhappy or uncomfortable. And so we seek God's grace to live together as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, and to let our fellowship grow as we together long to see the glory of Jesus Christ in one another and in our fellowship.¹

Joseph A. Pipa