I just had a thought. Everybody knows James's famous statement "faith without works is dead"
Yes, and a lot of people quote just those words, taken out of context.
Of course. This makes James sound like a liar because he seemingly says that a workless faith will not save.
James wasn't actually talking about eternal life, salvation and being saved from hell at that point.
At the beginning of chapter 2 he is talking about not showing favouritism, James 2:1-7. He reminds his readers that the royal law is "love your neighbour as yourself", but that if they showed favouritism, they were guilty of breaking that law - and if a person breaks one part of the law, they break all of it, James 2:8-11. He tells them to show mercy, and then goes on to ask what good it is to tell a homeless, hungry person to "stay well, warm and well fed" and not do anything about it?
It seems to me from that that James is saying that there's no point in blessing someone or offering warm words alone - words do not actually keep anyone warm. If you wish that they will be fed and clothed; do something about it. Or as we might say - "be the answer to your own prayers."
He doesn't actually say here that a person needs to do good works to prove that they have faith in, and are saved by, Jesus.
A workless faith seems to be a "dead" faith in Gods eyes and God rebukes and chastises them for their lack of obedience on Judgement day.
Well not entirely.
Someone might believe in Jesus, receive him and have eternal life but not be able to physically do very much, except pray and encourage people. That doesn't mean that their faith is not real, however.
After all. Both statements are spoken by the Holy Spirit so both statements HAVE to be true
They ARE true; Scripture does not contradict itself.
My feeling is that if people paid more attention to the context, the people that these letters were written to and their circumstances, instead of taking a few words out of context and building a doctrine on them, we'd understand Scripture better.
so what if I "cracked the code" so to speak.
What you've just said is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15.
But that does raise a question if we accept this as fact. Just what is saving faith then?
Faith in Jesus and his finished work on the cross.
Jesus came to die for us, Matthew 26:28 and reconcile us to God, Romans 5:11. We were all sinners, Romans 3:23; spiritually dead, apart from God, and nothing that WE could do would change that.
If we accept that we can't get eternal life and to heaven by our own works because we are spiritually dead, that Jesus came as the 2nd Adam to bring justification, life and righteousness, Romans 5:12-19 and that he alone can reconcile us to God and give us eternal life, we are saved by him.
When the Pharisees asked what were the works that God required them to do, Jesus replied, "the work of God is to believe in the One he has sent," John 6:29.