WHERE THE ACTION IS
                                                        James 2:14-26

At last! We see why Galatians and James are put together to study in the same quarterly. In answer to your first question:
  Yes, Paul and James use the same Greek words: pistes and erga meaning faith and works.
  But NO, they are still not talking about the same thing. The biggest difference is in the meaning of “works.” The Judaizers were pushing the fake news that for God to accept Christians, they must be Christian Jews, circumcised and observing Jewish rituals such as kosher diets. That’s what Paul means by works – the works that are built into a Jewish life style.

  James means good works, doing good deeds, behaving yourself, keeping yourself “unspotted from the world.”

  BOTH look at faith as transformative, a new birth, a new creation. When we are saved, we are new people, headed in a new direction. You can see this very quickly in Paul by glancing at Galatians 5:22, “the fruits of the Spirit,” and just before it, “the works of the flesh.” Paul expects Christians to do good works, just as James does.

  Why the apparent difference? Any Baptist preacher can tell you that many laymen and many preachers of other denominations tell them if they believed in “once saved, always saved,” they would be able to sin all they wanted to and get away with it. Martin Luther is reported to have said, “Trust Christ, and do what you will!” The joker in that deck, however, is that if you belong to Jesus, you won’t WANT to take up sin as a lifestyle.

In 1974 I wrote a book which Broadman (predecessor to Lifeway) published in paperback for 14 years entitled Once Saved, Always Saved. I spent the entire first chapter talking about the nature of salvation and conversion. Briefly, I said salvation was not a one-shot insurance policy, where we walked down the aisle, got dunked, and went on our way as before. Rather genuine salvation happens when one encounters the Living Christ, turns the direction of his life toward God, and surrenders to the embrace of the Spirit. The change is so radical, one becomes a new person, with a new purpose and a new lifestyle. If that didn’t happen, you didn’t find Christ. Jesus said, “Why do you call me Lord and do not do what I say?”

I believe in James acquaintance there were people who made the same argument we hear today. James addresses the problem and denies that saving faith has come to someone whose lifestyle has not changed.

So let’s translate 2:14 something like this: How much good do you think, my friend, it’s going to do you if you only SAY you have faith, but there’s no evidence of it from good works? As an example, consider some guy shows up in ragged clothing and having nothing to eat. Suppose you say to him, “Man, I hurt for you. I’ll be praying for you that you find some warm clothing and some kind of food – but you – you don’t give him anything. How is that going to help anybody?

Verse 18 – James imagines someone challenging a believer, “You claim to believe, and I claim to have good works. Okay, you demonstrate your faith however you can without deeds/works/actions, and I will demonstrate MY faith by the actions I take, the works/deeds I actually do!

He then attacks intellectual belief: You claim to believe in the existence of God, and only one God at that. Great! But remember, Satan and his demons also believe intellectually, but their knowledge leaves them trembling in fear!  Think about that for a minute.

Satan knows without a doubt that God exists. He knows without a doubt that Jesus lived, died, and rose again.  But that intellectual knowledge does him exactly NO good. He also knows he’s headed toward severe punishment in the lake of fire, yet he lives in eternal rebellion against God. Salvation definitely requires more than intellectual belief. The longer I live the more I conclude that following is the best term to describe saving faith. You are saved and are being saved when you find yourself following Jesus.

James then offers an example from the Hebrew Bible we call the Old Testament. Abraham was the grand patriarch, the father of the Hebrew race. In one very mysterious story, Yahweh asked Abraham to offer his only son Isaac on an altar to Him. That would mean as an old man, Abraham would almost certainly die without an heir, no one to carry on his name and family into the future. There would be NO future generations. But the Lord had one day come to Abraham and challenged him to pull up stakes with his whole family and travel wherever the LORD led him. In return God would bless his family forever, building a great people from his descendants. And Abraham did. But time passed, and he and his wife Sarah had no children. They passed the age of child-bearing and still Sarah did not become pregnant. So they ran ahead of God. Sarah seems to have brought it up first, but she proposed Abraham father a son through her handmaid. Then that son would become Abraham’s heir and God could fulfil His promise. He did have sex with the maid, Hagar, and she did have a son she named Ishmael, but this was not God’s way of doing things.

Bible scholars have proposed all sorts of reasons for God’s asking for the sacrifice of Isaac. One popular reason given is so that Israel would not practice child sacrifice as many nations did. Another is to discover whether Abraham’s faith was as strong as the pagan people around him who routinely sacrificed their firstborn sons. Both of these ideas have merit, but the actual reason stands clear against the background of the overall story.

Abraham and Sarah had disobeyed God through their lack of faith. They did not believe that God was going to fulfil His promise to build a strong nation of descendants of Abraham. Now if he gave up Isaac, he and Sarah were back in the condition they were before, with no heir. Would they trust God to provide a way. When it became obvious his faith was great enough, The Lord made the last-minute swap for a ram caught in nearby bushes. Over and over the Bible makes clear that God does things His way in His time. He calls on us to trust. It was Isaac’s son Jacob, who in time became the 12 patriarchs or fathers of Israel’s 12 tribes.

James pointed out the obedience of Abraham proved he had the faith God was looking for. Saying he had faith wasn’t enough. In the past he had even been obedient – up to a point. But when it came to the basic idea of conceiving a son, he didn’t trust the Lord. Until finally he did. And proved it.

James gives a final example, perhaps for the women in the audience. He told of Rahab the prostitute. Her action and quick thinking saved Israel’s spies and proved her statement that she feared the Lord. In return Israel spared her life and her family’s life.

James final comment is a blunt warning. If you can’t tell you are a believer by your actions, your so called faith ain’t worth a flip!