Maximus said:
That "water and wind" interpretation is pretty far-fetched given Jesus' commandment to baptize and all the rest of the scriptural passages on baptism.
It also runs counter to what the Church Fathers had to say about the new birth passage in John 3. They universally agreed that John 3:5 refers to baptism.
The "water and wind" idea sounds like an attempt to explain away a verse that is obviously difficult for those who deny both the necessity and efficacy of baptism. It is readily apparent that it is a reading into the Gospel of a preconceived notion.
Where else is "water and wind" used to describe the Holy Spirit?
Nowhere. Water refers to baptism. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit.
A most excellent rejoinder, and, again, thoroughly Biblical. Joh 3:5 is definitely talking about the Spirit accompnaying water baptism.
Maximus said:
BTW, nowhere does the Bible say we are saved by "faith alone."
In fact, the only place in all the Bible where faith and alone are used together is James 2:24, and that verse says that we are justified by works and not by faith alone.
DOH!!!
And you had been doing SO well...
Didn't you just say something about not making the EXCEPTION the rule??? Then why do you do it here?
Rom 3:28 said:
For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.
Rom 4:5 said:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.
Rom 5:1-3 said:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Rom 11:6 said:
And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.
Gal 2:20-21 said:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
Gal 3:5-6 said:
Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?
Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
Gal 3:24-26 said:
So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ[ that we might be justified by faith. 25Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus
Eph 2:8-10 said:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faithand this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Philippians 3:8-11 said:
What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christthe righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
There are of course, many more examples...the most famous probably being the "Parable of the Lost Items" in Luke 15, which
clearly teaches salvation
apart from works. (Neither the sheep, nor the coin, nor the younger son did ANYTHING to "find" themselves.)
Now, there are a few wags out there (educated wags, but wrong!, like N.T. Wright...) who claim that Paul is talking only about the ceremonial law, but that is self-evidently untrue. In his discussion of the "Law" in Romans 7, he is not using the "ceremonial law" as his primary example, he is using the "moral law" as the example of the law that cannot save. He's using covetousness as his example:
covetousness is not part of the ceremonial law; it is part of the moral law. In other places, Paul inlcudes the ceremonial law as well, so Paul (overall) is discussing ANY law, ceremonial, moral, whatever. It DOES not, CANNOT save us.
But then we come to James...and all too often, people like to pull out one verse without looking at the context. James' epistle is about judging other Christains, specifically, judging other Christians according to their socio-economic status. James has a specific crowd he's speaking to, and I'm of the convivtion that James doesn't think these people are truly Christians. He calls them "brothers", but he gives them a dressing down like no one else in Scripture. This book displays a "righteous anger" on par with Jesus' "brood of vipers" remarks. Look at how James addresses them (the same audience!) towards the end of the letter:
James 5:1-3 said:
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. 2Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.
They don't sound like his "brothers" anymore, do they? He goes on to call them brothers, once again...but his anger and disappointment with them is the driving force of this letter.
James 2:1-12 said:
My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. 2Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," 4have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? 7Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?
8If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. 9But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 10For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. 11For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
12Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!
This is the
more important part of the second chapter of James. Without using this to set the stage for the latter half, the latter half will invariably turn into something it is not.
In the first 4 verses, he is accusing his readers of discrimination. And what we must understand is, his readers were truly guilty of this. He would not be accusing them, if they had not actually done it. "J'accuse!!", James is saying. And he goes on to say, that if they are going to behave that way, then thay themselves will be discrimiated against come judgement time. In this sense, James is mimicking Paul in Galatains 3:
Gal 3:27-29 said:
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
Paul is saying, "In Jesus we are all the same." NO FAVORITES. Jmaes is saying the same thing: NO FAVORITES. If you play by that rule, you will judged by that rule. The "work" that James is presribing is "living by the Gospel", or, as Jesus put it:
John 6:29 said:
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
James is accusing them of living by the cultural rules (pharisaism) rather than by Faith. The "work" of "believing" is "living by faith". Faith trusts Christ. James -- just like Paul -- is ATTACKING people who were continuing to live in their "old world."
In the world Jesus confronted, well-off and self-righteous people looked down on poor people. They BELIEVED that poor people were poor BECAUSE they were sinners. They BELIEVED that they themselves were blessed BY God, and that the proof of this was their socio-economic status. (What on earth would James have said to the Mercedes-driving TV preachers today? I'd REALLY like to see that!)
The people James confronts here are pharisees (in the metaphorical sense). They think they are better than others, and that they themselves should get priveleged places to sit in the synagogue (just like they ALWAYS had!). James is slapping them upside the head. He is, (to use an American colloquialism), "PREACHIN' IT!" Verse 12 is the most succinct and tight presentation of what we Lutherans call "Law and Gospel": Live as those who are free (Gospel), but if in your freedom you put others in bondage, you yourselves will be treated the same (LAW). Freedom triumphs over bondage (GOSPEL).
NOW we have set the stage for the latter portion of the Chapter (which, BTW, is more LAW.)
James 2:14-19 said:
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds."
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.
19You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe thatand shudder.
Well, so far, he's saying that genuine faith is demomstrated outwardly by works. And that's ALL he has said.
James 2:20-26 said:
20You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,"[e] and he was called God's friend. 24You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.
25In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
AH!. So what James really seems to be suggesting is that these people he's speaking to have not actually "repented"...their minds have not been changed. Their faith is not GENUINE; they are still living by the old rules. They are not trusting God.
GENUINE faith (as Abraham had) shows trust in God. His belief/faith (which came first) was reflected outwardly by his work (which followed). Works are
post hoc ergo propter hoc. They
follow faith, therefore they are
caused by faith.
James says this explicitly when he says, "and his faith was
made complete by what he did." This is in EXACT agreement with Paul, when Paul says:
Eph 2:8-10 said:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faithand this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Would ya look at that??? Paul says the same thing: Justifying Faith precedes works. The works are prepared in advance for us to do.
If we refuse to do them? Must not have been justifying faith, then. Or perhaps we just need some encourgaement, as James is doing with his readers...
We clearly see now that when James says, "You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone," he is referring to a package deal, but he is absolutely NOT saying "works" contribute to salvation. He
cannot be saying that, because he has already said (in vs. 22) that works
follow faith.
James is the
EXCEPTION because he is pounding on the visibility of people's works. He is doing this becasue his readers were behaving like a bunch of self-righteous jerks. But just becasue he puts an emphasis on the visibility of works, this does not override the enormity of the rest of the NT which proclaims "faith, NOT works." James is preaching LAW and preaching it HARD, in order to convict his readers of their sin
But, Maximus, as you SO CORRECTLY stated, the
exception does
NOT make the
rule.
Peace be with you!
Kepler