What does James have in mind when he speaks about looking in the mirror (James 1:23)? Is he wanting us to see our sins and come away from the mirror humbled and deflated?
The person who doesn’t do what the word says is equated to the person who forgets what he saw in the mirror (v.24). What that person saw in the mirror is not repeated and worked-out in obedience to the word.
It seems to follow, then, that looking into the perfect law of liberty (v.25) is seeing something other than their own sinfulness. I suggest they’re seeing Jesus and they’re seeing who and what they are in union with him.
No doubt they also, therefore, see their imperfections but they see them atoned for, they see them as antithetical to who they now are in Christ. And, so, in that liberty, they’re to go into the world not forgetting who they are and, thus, be equipped for keeping the word.
