It Is Not Sufficient Only To Be A Hearer, It Is Necessary Also To Be A Doer (James 1:22-27).
Having laid a careful foundation in demonstrating that God's People are those whom He has sovereignly begotten, in whose hearts his word of truth has been received and implanted, and is to grow, (their side has been through the response of faith both to His word and to His begetting), James now emphasises that that truth must be carried out into practise. It was very necessary that they hear His word, and receive it with due solemnity (James 1:19), but now they must also ensure that they carry it through into action.
Analysis.
a But be you doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding your own selves (James 1:22).
b For if any one is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like to a man beholding his natural face in a mirror, for he beholds himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was (James 1:23-24).
c But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and so continues, being not a hearer who forgets but a doer who works, this man will be blessed in his doing (James 1:25).
b If any man thinks himself to be religious, while he does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is vain (James 1:26).
a Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world (James 1:27).
Note that in ‘a' we have the command to be a doer and a picture of the deluded religionist, and in the parallel we have the description of what is true religion which results in doing. In ‘b' we have the picture of the man who looks into his mirror in vain because he does not act on what he sees, and in the parallel we have the picture of the man who thinks himself fine but in fact his religion is in vain, because he does not bridle his tongue. Both are self-deceived. Centrally in ‘c' we have the man who looks in the perfect law of liberty who acts on what he sees and is thereby blessed.