How do you understand these two verses from James?
1.25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.
Is the perfect (or completed) law, the law of liberty (a seeming oxymoron), different from the law given by Moses? If so, when was the law perfected and what is the law of liberty? On my reading, it would seem that the law has now been completed or perfected as the law of liberty, and, under the law of liberty, people are free from something by which they would otherwise have been bound.2.12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.
I think we have a good context for understanding this in Paul. In Gal. 3.23-26 and many other passages, Paul explains that the law has been superseded (in this case by means of Jesus Christ through faith):
Liberty or freedom (eleutheria) is not an especially common word in the NT, being found in the two quoted verses in James, seven times in Paul (four in Galatians alone) and once each in 1 and 2 Peter. When Paul uses it, he seems to mean especially freedom from the Mosaic law, for example in his account of the Antioch incident, in which the “circumcision faction” apparently discovered that Jews were eating with uncircumcised Gentiles at the church in Antioch:23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. (Gal 3.23-26).
2.44 But because of false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage
Paul insists that Christians are no longer in bondage to circumcision and the rest of the law, but in a state of freedom or liberty:
Yet in the same chapter, Paul argues that this freedom is not an unqualified freedom:Gal. 5.1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.2 Now I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole law.
This qualified freedom that Christians receive from Christ is later called the law of Christ:3 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The ins and outs of Paul’s view of freedom can result in some complex passages. Though Paul is free, he made himself a slave, and while he is not under the (presumably Jewish) law he is under the law of Christ:Gal 6.1: Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
Paul’s position that Christians are free from having to observe Jewish law (see Rom. 14.1-9 on dietary laws and holy days) yet need to keep away from sin (see Rom 6.1-15) can lead to some complex reasoning. But the point seems to be that freedom from the law under faith and grace does not make one free to sin (i.e., one is not free from the ethical rules).1 Cor. 9.19 For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. 22
I would suggest that the oxymoronic law of liberty in James 1.25 and 2.12 (actually 2.8-12) is a simplified, more user-friendly version of Paul’s “freedom in Christ” and “law of Christ,” under which Christians do not have to follow the Jewish law but do have to follow the moral law exemplified in “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”