Paul and James indeed agree. Faith without Love is Dead.
1 Corinthians 13:2 ;
James 2:20 ...
might as well throw John in...
1 John 4:8...
"He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:8)
Also >
"My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth." (1 John 3:18)
This agrees with how James earlier says (James 2:14-17) it does not profit if you see someone in need, but only say, "God bless you and be warmed and filled," but do not help the person to meet his or her needs.
With this, I think of how Paul says >
"They zealously court you, but for no good; yes, they want to exclude you, that you may be zealous for them." (Galatians 4:17)
There are people who will very enthusiastically talk to us like we are so great, but this is in order to get us to feel they must be such great people, since they know we are!! But this is meant to get us isolated with them, so then they can use us and control us for what they want.
So, this can be done by means of talk . . . loving us
"in word", like John says, instead of loving
"in deed and in truth." And our attention can become isolated to them, instead of our attention being called more and more to God.
There are cult and church people who can talk our attention more and more to them and get us isolated with them. But, yes, we ourselves possibly have done this sort of thing, in trying to get someone to marry us so we can use them for what we want. We can use our talk, a lot of say-so and not
"deed" and
"truth" of God's all-loving love >
"if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" Jesus says in Matthew 5:46.
and why not add a splash of Peter...
1 Peter 4:8
"And above all things have fervent love for one another, for 'love will cover a multitude of sins.'" (1 Peter 4:8)
Splash of Peter... (
Matthew 14:29)
"So He said, 'Come.' And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus." (Matthew 14:29)
In God's all-loving love, we can walk where worldly people can not go. We will be with Jesus, and not only isolated with people we are trying to use and possess and control. They will sink and stink, but God's grace is able to keep us in His way of caring and sharing.
Of course, we can sink, too > in unforgiveness, frustration, and lusts for different sorts of pleasures and security and using and controlling people for what we want. But because we are with Jesus, we can get homesick for how we can be in His love, and so we trust God to get us out of the messy stuff we can still sink in and stink in.
James 2:21 >
"Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?" (James 2:21)
Abraham, by faith, was able to go where humans in sin can not go. But was Abraham's faith of love . . . if he was heading out to slay and sacrifice his own son Isaac?
Well, Genesis 22 is very clear how the LORD told Abraham to do this. But, though, then the LORD changed the orders, saying He had been testing Abraham. But > that work of obedience did have results >
"'In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.'" (Genesis 22:18)
So, because Abraham obeyed the LORD,
"all the nations of the earth shall be blessed". Therefore, I consider, by obeying God who is all-loving, and not being isolated with only himself and what he might get himself to do to love people, Abraham's work has an all-loving result > blessing
"all the nations of the earth" ! ! ! Therefore > we are talking about faith which works by means of love > God's love all-loving.
And yes this is our example > if we obey God and do His all-loving works, our works, too, will do all-loving good. So, yes, no matter how much or little reputation we may have, every one of us is "somebody", like this, with God who will produce the results > 1 Corinthians 15:58.
And so, even Genesis agrees with works being by faith working through love, like James is indicating, even using Abraham of early scripture times as an example . . . of love works.
And James here says Abraham was
"justified" by his
"works".
But we see that the works James means are works of God's all-loving love . . . not merely of religious copy-catting in order to get our own selves into Heaven, caring only or mainly about our own selves, or caring only or mainly about ones close to us > so we are not justified by works of selfish loving, and
"not by works of righteousness which we have done", Paul says in Titus 3:5 >
"not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy spirit," (Titus 3:5)
But I think I'll spare trying to just explain this, how we are justified by works.
Because you can see for yourself how you become as you do things in God's all-loving love. As we exercise in God's love, don't we become more and more deeply kind and gentle, stronger in love? And this love growing in us makes us genuinely right > just > in our character, doesn't He?
So, we need healthy and wholesome activities as God's children. A child needs to do things with a mature adult, so the child can discover how to love and how to relate. And this develops while the child is doing good things with people who know how to love . . . not being left to be babysat by a TV set and a pile of toys and new-tech stuff which do not know how to love the child. And peers and people caring in order to make money is also not going to work.
We God's little children have God Himself in us, to grow us while He has us doing His works in His love. His love in us, makes us more and more right > just > the way His love is so right, therefore righteous > while we do things He has us doing.
It is kind of like how if you exercise by running on a smoggy day, your work will make you more and more unhealthy, because of the atmosphere in which you are jogging. But if we go out on a sweet and breezy spring day, our activity can make us more and more healthy . . . the right way . . . because of how our activity is in an atmosphere of fresh air.
And we can feed on what James says is and is not in the atmosphere of God's love > James 3:13-18. We see that works of bitterness do not make us right, do not justify us (make us right like God's love) . . . do not sanctify us (make us holy like God's love). But if our works are
"in the meekness of wisdom", amen; works in the meekness of Christ can help us become more genuine in love > how love makes us more and more maturely righteous and justified and therefore sanctified.
And so we need to submit to You, all the time, O God our Father.
"Therefore submit to God," James later says in this epistle > in James 4:7. I think this
"Therefore" applies to all he has said, even before what James has said in chapter four. We need how God has us doing all His word says through James. And this is all the time.
So, then, we are not talking about self-produced works, or occasional gestures to bribe our egos and get people out of our consciences. But our examples of love, in this second chapter of James, involve personal caring for people and personal communication with God. Love is personal. Love makes us strong and sensible enough to do well in close involvement with other people >
"without complaining and disputing" > Philippians 2:13-16.
Paul even says that if we do every single thing and every married thing
"without complaining and disputing" > we can
"become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation" > see Philippians 2:13-16. If we do such works, we can become blameless, harmless, and without fault, right in this evil world! So, I see, Paul can mean that doing such works will help to justify us, meaning to make us more and more right and therefore sanctified the way God's love makes us right in His sight, by making us more and maturely like Jesus who is growing in us as our new inner Person > Galatians 4:19.
In order to live . . . to love . . . like this, we need to be submissive to God, all the time.
