I don't want it missed that within this passage James gives a clear and certain definition of the Law as being all the commandments of God given to Israel, and not only the 10 commandments, and that you cannot separate any of them from the rest as being not neccesary to be obeyed.
There are those who say, "Even as Christians we are bound to keep the 'moral law', but not the rest", James shows this to be invalid.
The existence of the subcategory of moral law would imply that we can be acting morally while disobeying the laws that are not in that category, however, there are no examples in the Bible where disobedience to any of God's laws is referred to as being moral and I see no justification for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God. Morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to embody God's character traits, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws. Legislators given laws in accordance with their understanding of what ought to be done, so for someone to claim that some of God's laws are not moral laws is to claim that God made a moral error about what ought to be done when He gave those laws and is therefore to claim to have greater moral knowledge than God.
Naturally Jesus wouldn't have given the purification offerings a woman would offer, not being a woman. Just the same, if a woman today were to say she were under the Law, she would be required to give those offerings. The problem is, there is no temple/altar upon which to make such an offering, and no Levite to bring it to. So this Law is impossible to be kept, and yet remains just as important as the law against murder. And that's a problem!
It's a wonderful thing that in Jesus, having died and risen in Him, we are not under that Law, and are instead under the Law of Love, AKA the Law of Christ.
We live according to His will for us individually at any given moment. There is no written Law that is capable of such a high standard of living.
Much love!
It is not a transgression of the Law of God to not follow laws that don't have their conditions met. For example, the Israelites were given a number of laws that had the condition "when you enter the land..." while they were still wandering the wilderness for 40 years. Likewise, when the Israelites were exiled to Babylon after the destruction of the 1st Temple, then the condition for their return to the land was to first return to obedience to the Law of God, which contains laws in regard to Temple practice, so when there are laws that don't have their conditions met, then we should nevertheless be faithful to obey the laws that we can obey.
Everything in the Law of Moses is either in regard to how to love God or how to love our neighbor, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so it is the Law of Love AKA the Law of Christ and the position that we should obey the greatest two commandments is also the position that we should obey the commandments that hang on them. God is sovereign, so we all under His law, which is indeed a wonderful thing:
Psalm 19:7-11
The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
8 the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
9 the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb.
11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
