“If indeed you keep the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole Law, but shall stumble in one point, he has become guilty of all.” James 2:8-10
James sometimes is perceived to be a stickler for the law, because of the story in Galatians, “For before certain ones came from James, he [Peter] had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they came, he was drawing back and was separating himself, being afraid of those of the circumcision.” James 2:12 Which sort of gives the impression that James expected them to keep the law. But here James is not speaking in support of the law, but teaches how it ought to be surpassed. He is teaching on the judgment we give based on our perception of the flesh, so he says, “have you not made a distinction [between rich and poor] among yourselves and have become judges with evil thoughts?” [vs.4]
And he makes his point saying, if you say you observe the royal law according to the Scripture, the all-encompassing law, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” you are doing well.” James is pointing them to the old standard [the Law] and is quoting the Scripture, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.” Leviticus 19:18 And says, even though through this one all-encompassing law you have managed to keep all the law [ten commandments], but because you have showed partiality you have broken the law, and if you break one you break all. “If you show partiality, you are committing sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors.” Partiality is judgment, it has to do with weighing one thing against another. The royal law gave way to partiality, [“against any of your people”] if you have yourself as a guide you will show partiality.
Then he points them to the new covenant and says, “So speak and so act as being about to be judged by the Law of freedom. For judgment without mercy will be to the one not having shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:12-13 The law of liberty is Grace, one who is judged in mercy, is one who have received grace, therefore has not earned it. Grace, takes no account of any merit, therefore shows no partiality. Now if my measure is grace, as one who is judged by it, I ought to use grace to be the means to address others. So act in grace and speak in grace, giving unmerited favour without partiality, be it poor or rich since both are children of God. It is to do as God does that is, “God is not One who shows partiality.” Acts 10:34 Therefore let not the royal law be your measure but the law of liberty. Paul also teaching Timothy says to him, “I earnestly testify before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels that you should keep these things apart from prejudice, doing nothing out of partiality.” 1 Timothy 5:21
When one of the Scribes asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?” After Jesus gave him the answer, the scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher. You have spoken according to truth that He is One, and there is not another besides Him, and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love the neighbour as oneself is more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” And Jesus, having seen him that he answered wisely, said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Mark 12:28,32-34
The answer the Lord gave and the Scribe affirmed is based on in part the same Scripture James identified as the royal law [Leviticus 19:18]. The point is our perception of royal law, which we perceive to be a directive form the new testament, since both Paul and James make mention of it, but it is an iteration of the old. And the question the Scribe asked the Lord is, “Which commandment is the first of all?” that is to say, “Which law is first of all the law?” To which the answer is the royal law, therefore the royal law is law. And if law it is not of grace, it is what we do and not what is done in us.
So when Paul and James make reference to the royal law, it is as a platform to point to a higher standard. Paul in Galatians writes, “For the entire Law is fulfilled in in this one word: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take heed, lest you might be consumed by one another.” Galatians 5:14-15 Then to this he adds “Now I say, walk by the Spirit, and you should not gratify the desires of the flesh.” [And] “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.” [vs.16,18]
So Paul says, the law is fulfilled in this one word love, [it is to say [the law] is obeyed in this one word], to this he says but if you walk by the Spirit [not the law: as a guide] then the flesh will not be gratified, meaning you will not do the things that may cause harm or offence to another. And because you are in the Spirit, you are not under the law [NOT] even the law to love your neighbour as yourself [the royal law.] He is saying there is a better way to do that, you can try to love and fulfil all the law, at the same time being grieved and telling how you love the unlovable, how you took the bullet of love for another. Or you walk in the Spirit and let God love through you, a love that is not offended, a love that does not require recognition, a love that does not recognise it is working, it does not need to stir itself up. A love that is ever present and a love that operates without partiality.
We in our understanding see merit in our suffering for the love of another, we without knowledge in subtlety then qualify our own selves be it in the very act of love [which ought to be selfless]. The humility of love is to love another through the love of God, dare we say without effort. Paul had such love in him working, a love that would choose alienation from Christ for the sake of others. That is the Love of Christ, that was so treated on the cross for our sakes. We are made righteous without effort, we are to walk free from sin without effort, and we ought to love others without effort. [Effort] gives way to boasting in the flesh.
Then it is not us trying to love our neighbour as ourselves, which is faulty and full of self-effort but the nature of God at work in us. John says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.” 1 john 3:14 [And] “We should love one another, because love is from God; and everyone loving has been born from God and knows God. The one not loving has not known God, because God is love.” 1 john 4:7-8
What is he saying, he is not saying I must love my brother in order to be born of God. Rather the love that he has for his brother is something that flows from within him it is of God, he cannot but help to love his brother. So John cannot understand how can you not love your brother if indeed you are born of God. He does not say this to encourage us to be more loving [so to speak] but stating the very fact of the nature that is in us, so he says , “God is love.” If God is love, and God lives in us then we ought to have the love of God in us, which is manifested through us, as love for those who are born of Him. Life in the Spirit is not us doing, but letting God do in us. “We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 The very act of love in us is a response from His love.
[Note]: The royal law, “to love your neighbour as yourself ” is an old commandment and was ever present from the beginning, yet Israel failed to do this very one thing. The royal law failed, because it required us to do it. The difference in the new is the presences of God’s own love in our hearts.
Even in the flesh, we cannot but help love our blood relatives, there are many quips about family, he or she is family therefore entitled to that natural love regardless. So John speaks of it on the same merit but far more reaching, a love that is rooted in God Himself. “The Love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” Romans 5:5 [A.M] writes, “We have as much love as we have of the Holy Spirit.” And the very act of love we give is not the work we do but is the working of God’s love in us. “The fruit of the Spirit is love.” Galatians 5:22
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the One working in you both to will and to work according to His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12-13
The Lord, saw the royal law to be the very pinnacle of [the covenant of the law], that is the highest goal mankind was to aim at, yet He says, it was short of the kingdom of God. “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Law is law, be it the ten commandments, or the all-encompassing royal law of love, it is still law. Therefore it falls short of God’s requirement. Because the essence of the law is to demand from us what we must do, our effort. Grace speaks of what God does for you, in you and through you. [J.P] The royal law commands you to love, but the grace of God loves through you. Being in the Spirit means the law/every bit of it no longer applies. Simply put none of your effort is welcome.
Grace is unmerited. If you walk by the Spirit, in the love of God, you will be giving unmerited love then you have no need of any law. You are walking in the law of liberty, “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those persecuting you, so that you may be sons of your Father in the heavens. For He makes His sun rise on evil and good, and He sends rain on righteous and unrighteous.” Matthew 5:44-45 That is to love without partiality. Therefore, do not seek for others to merit your love, you have not earned God’s love and the love you have in your heart, is not yours but God’s.
“Freely you received; freely give.”
Matthew 10:8
Bread Bait. 
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