OntheDL said:
Yes, sabbath is a foreshadow of rest and peace with Christ (in heaven). But it does not exempt us from cooperating with the holy spirit to consecrate us.
James 2
Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
For as body without spirit is dead, faith without work is dead also.
Benchpress said:
Faith without works is dead, does it get any plainer than that? just remember faith comes first.
It never seems to impress me how so many of us seem to hang on this one chapter of James and avoid all the other scriptures to the contrary, the thing is that when many of us read James we see two kinds of faith being described. One is in referance to a "dead" faith the other to a saving faith that produces the right kind of "works" this is our way of viewing James Chapter 2 not the biblical way.
Rom 4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath reason to glory, but not before God.
Rom 4:5 But to him that worketh not, but believeth in Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness,
James 2:24 Ye see then how by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
Are these passages contradicting? Not at all if we keep chapter 2 of James in context there is no such contradiction.
Now the type of faith that James is reffering to is not a saving faith (pertaning to eternal life) but rather that our faith can be made visible or effective by works. Abraham believed God and was called a believer before he did any good works... Now the Justification that James talks about in chapter 2 is not the "Justification" of Salvation by grace through faith alone apart from any works. But rather the validation of his profession of faith before men. Men do not understand nor do they know the hearts of other men only God does.
Thus the only way or rather evidence of a true faith is a menifestation of that so called professed faith. However, God does know our hearts. If this passage is understood as proof text that salvation could be merited by faith and works, it would contradict a huge portion of the scriptures.
James never mentiones that works are required to gain eternal life we recieve eternal life by faith alone. What most of us do is that we try to redefine "faith" by purposely making it include works by saying that we are saved by Faith in Christ and or plus. Then when asked, most would say they don't mean that, but that is exactely what is being proposed.
So when James speaks about a faith that is dead he is in no wise speaking about a faith that does not exist or is not real (as some may assume), certainly if a person is "dead" it does not mean he is not real, so James was not talking about an "unreal" or "false" faith he was talking about a faith that was not put into practice which was a dead faith.
The fact that someone is dead means that there breath is gone, thus when faith has no works it's power is "gone" but the faith remains, powerless though. However, Faith only comes to life as we produce good deeds. Faith dies though when we fail to do so. In this chapter James was not questioning the faith of the people. He was questioning the effectiveness and usefulness of there faith. These were saved believers that James wrote to if i may add, they were already saved from (the lake of fire - second death). The greek word (Sozo) in James chapter 2 is used to show salvation in life sanctification - not justification before God.
James talks about both Justification by faith and Justification by works.....
much like the illustration he made about the one person who saw a hungry person in need of food and clothing. The person that saw the hungry person was already saved. But his faith to serve was useless because of his inability to save the needy person, he needed works to save the needy person. So to make it simple his faith was in regards to saving someone else, it was not in regards to whether he was saved from the second death or lost his salvation along they way, that is not what James talks about at all.
The
justfication by works that saves mentioned in the book of James is when the believer actually helps that person in need. That is righteousness that saves it's justification by works. But it does not save from the second death, we need Yeshua to do that in our behalf.. Simply by faith in Yeshua can we be saved from the second death not by any works.
To be declared righteous before God, and to have my sins forgiven, and to gain eternal life, all i need is faith alone in Yeshua that is called
justification by faith.
