For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror;
In these words our apostle declares the vanity and unprofitableness of a bare hearing of the word, by a similitude taken from a man looking in a glass; though he sees in a glass his own natural face, which he was born with, whilst he is looking in it, yet no sooner is he gone from it, but he forgets the figure and fashion of...
For--the logical self-deceit (Jam 1:22) illustrated. not a doer--more literally, "a notdoer" [ALFORD]. The true disciple, say the rabbis, learns in order that he may do, not in order that he may merely know or teach. his natural face--literally, "the countenance of his birth": the face he was born with.
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: (17) Secondly: because they lose the most important use of God's word, if they do not use it to correct the faults that they know.