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Video Transcript: Grammatical Analysis of James 2:14-26

Welcome, my name is Jeff Weima, and I'm a professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary. And this series of videos we'll be exegeting or interpreting a rather interesting, although controversial passage from the New Testament, James 2:14-26. And although there are lots of interesting things that we will learn about just in this passage by its very self, the larger goal of this process is to again illustrate the hermeneutic the kind of principles for interpretation that ought to control the passage or the reading of any passage of scripture. First, we begin by hearing what the text says. And we read that then in chapter two, verses 14 to 26, as follows. 

What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food? If 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? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not a company by action is dead? But 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. You believe that there is one God, good. But even the demons believe that and shudder You foolish man. Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless, was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered Isaac on the altar, you see that his faith and his actions were working together. And his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he was called God's friend, you see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. In 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, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. 

Now this passage has had a controversial history in the church, for the simple but rather important reason that James sounds like too many, that he's contradicting Paul, especially Paul on the business of faith and its relationship to works. Paul, for example, in Romans 3:28 says, We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from observing the law. And at first blush that sounds like it disagrees with verse 24 from our passage in James to where he says, you see that a person is justified by what he does, and not by faith alone. 

There are a number of examples of people who have struggled with James and drawn in my mind wrong conclusions from this passage. For example, we have luthers approach to this passage. Luther, you know, did not like the letter of James as a whole at all. That's because Luther discovered what he thought was the central teaching of Scripture, the central teaching of the gospel, namely, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. And he looked high, and he looked low, and James to find that teaching, and he couldn't find it anywhere. And so as a result, he really questioned whether it should even be in the Bible in the canon. And if Luther didn't like James as a whole, he called it actually a straw letter, right. It was theologically lightweight and wimpy, it lacked the heart or the substance of the gospel. So if Luther didn't like the letter, James as a whole, he especially didn't like one passage in James, namely the one that we're looking at. And he believed that, that James in this passage not only lacked the gospel, he contradicted Paul. In fact, he says, you have the quote there before you it that is the letter of James is flatly against St. Paul, and all the rest of scripture in ascribing justification to works. In fact, Luther was so sure of himself that you couldn't solve this. 

Suppose the tension between James and Paul, he said, if anybody could solve it, I'll take off my professors hat, give it to that person and let him call me a fool. Well, before we blame Luther for drawing maybe a wrong conclusion from this passage, there are others who have also struggled with it as well. For instance, here's a European scholar who says this, the statements of James cannot be brought into harmony With the authentic Paul, and what we confront is not only a tension but an antithesis.

That's pretty strong language and antithesis, that is two ideas or two authors that are completely opposed to each other. James Dunn is one of the actually leading New Testament scholars in the world today's just recently retired. But he looks at this passage and he sees in it a division, a controversy between two different wings within the early church. He says this, it is obvious then that what is reflected here that is in James is a controversy within Christianity between that stream of Jewish Christianity which was represented by James at Jerusalem on the one hand, and the Gentile churches or Hellenistic Jewish Christians who had been decisively influenced by Paul's teaching on the other. So Don looks at our passage, he says, Oh, I see what's going on in here. This is the manifestation, the evidence that there was a division in the early church, we have the the Gentile wing, and that's the Pauline wing, and then you have the Jewish wing, and these two are opposed to each other. And this text is evidence of that division or attention. Another example of how this passage has played an important and controversial role has been in something called the lordship salvation debate. Maybe you've heard about this debate, maybe you haven't. 

It's been more restricted within the evangelical wing of the church. And the way this debate is usually articulated, is this people ask, Is Jesus our Savior or our Lord? Now, in answer to that question, one can't within this debate answers, Jesus is our Savior. And if you fall into that camp, you try to stress the fact that one doesn't have to do anything. There's, there's no emphasis on works or deeds. It's all grace and the free nature of grace made possible through faith. And if you belong to another camp, the one we're about to turn to, namely, that you believe Jesus is Lord, you accuse the other camp of an overemphasis on the law and over emphasis on works or works righteousness perspective, or something that we often call legalism. You can see here, one of the proponents from this side, notice the title of his book, it's absolutely free, right? This is a person who's worried that any talk about works or deeds, somehow undermines the free undeserved nature of God's grace. But there's the other side, the other camp and they say, No, no, no, Jesus is not just our Savior, he's also our Lord. Lord is a term for those in power and authority, the idea that you have to not only just believe in Jesus, but you have to submit your life to Jesus. 

In other words, you are willing to, to allow every aspect of your life to be controlled by the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And so there's an emphasis then on your works on your deeds, you give evidence of the fact that Jesus is your Lord by the things that you do. And then what do they say about the other camp, the Jesus his Savior, folks, they say, Well, those people are guilty of what we sometimes called cheap grace, or easy believism. So you can see here I've given four different examples of people or groups of people who've struggled with this passage of James. So I'm not exaggerating when saying that this passage has had a kind of controversial history within the Christian church. So let's enter into this discussion. And, as always, we want to approach the passage the proper way, namely, following the five hermeneutical, or interpretive principles that we have been talking about in the course so far. So the first one, some of you may know is not the one before you, it actually is the Holy Spirit element. But we've talked before how it is more of a pre supposition underlying these other hermeneutical principles, rather than the other four that we're about to talk about now that are more objective categories. And so we turned to this more objective category called grammatical and this is the idea that we need to look at the text in its original language. And because this is a new testament passage, that means we're looking at it in Greek. And we simply can't just cop out and say, it's all Greek to me, and then we just kind of forget about it and move on. 

No, even if we don't know Greek or even if we're not a Greek geek, we still have to wrestle with whatever knowledge the original text or language might have for us. And so we have to make sure that we consult the right kind of sources As in people who are familiar enough with the language so that we can benefit from these things.

Another way to ask the question is, what can I learn about this passage from the Greek text that I can't get just from the English translation alone? So let me give you a bunch of examples of how this is. This principle, this grammatical principle is a very important one for beginning to get a good understanding of what's going on in this passage. So we started off already in the first verse with a question What good is it in Greek it's a little phrase "ti to ophelos". Now, if you did a word study on this, you would find pretty quickly that it is a fixed expression. In other words, a little three word phrase "ti to ophelos" regularly occurs together. And whenever it occurs together, it always has the same expected answer, right? The question literally means what is the good? Or what is the benefit? Or what is the profit? Those are different English translations for the same Greek phrase? But the answer to the question is always the same? And the answer is nothing, zero. And you can see examples of that elsewhere in the New Testament, and in writings outside the New Testament. So when James begins his passage by saying "ti to ophelos", what is the Prophet? Or what is the benefit? We need to now know that this actually isn't a real question? It isn't like James is saying, 

I don't know what the answer is going to be. Let's talk about it. Maybe you can help me figure it out. No, no, this is more of a loaded question. It's more of an assertion. What James is about to say is, whatever I'm about to talk about, it's not worth anything. Remember, the answer to this question is always nothing. Now, the first rhetorical question is followed by yet another rhetorical question. Our translation, which comes from the NIV says, Can such faith save him? Actually, the original Greek simply has the definite article the article "The". And this is important, because when James talks about "The Faith" here in verse 14, B, that means he's not talking about faith in general, or faith in the abstract. No, he's talking about a special kind of faith, what kind of faith? Well, the faith that I just mentioned, that is James, in the earlier part of the verse, the earlier part of the verse that says, someone claims to have faith but has no works or deeds. And some translations, then rightly try to, well, first of all, there are translations that don't capture that. So you take the King James Version, or even the New Revised Standard Version, they translate verse 14, be simply as can faith save you. If you look at that, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. I mean, it might sound like James either doesn't know what the answer is, or assemble thinks that faith can save. Rather, the Greek text is quite clear. 

He says, Can the faith save you what faith the faith I just talked about earlier in the verse, namely, the kind of faith where somebody says they have faith, but has no deeds? Can that kind of faith save you? And so that's why the NIV is right, when they translate it with the word not faith, but such faith. And a few other translations, I think are right to when they say faith like that, or that kind of faith. Now, even those translations that rightly point back to the earlier part of the verse that James is talking about a special kind of faith, a faith that has no works. Even the ones who get that right, get something else wrong with this verse. And that is because this is again, a loaded question. You see in Greek, there are three different ways that you can ask a question. One way in Greek, you can ask a question is in a neutral way where the speaker really doesn't know the answer. So I could say to you, are you enjoying this video series? And I have no idea whether you are you're not? Your answer might be yes or no, I really don't know. It's a genuine question. However, I could ask instead, a loaded question, a rhetorical question, which I already know. And I'm asserting what the answer is, let's imagine. I know the answer is no, I could say it this way. I would say you're not enjoying this video presentation, are you? 

Or I could say a third way, also loaded a rhetorical question with more of an assertion than a genuine question where the answer is yes, I'm saying, you are enjoying this video presentation, aren't you? So in Greek, you have these three different ways to ask a question. And now you have to go back to verse 14 B. And the question is "which one of those three, can such Faith them"? It's not the neutral way? It's the loaded way, and it's the loaded way that expects the answer to be, no. So the best translation is such faith, namely the faith described in the first part of 4:14a the kind of faith or somebody says they have faith but as no works. such faith is Unable to save him Is it?

So actually, the Greek is quite helpful here in telling us that these aren't neutral or genuine questions is if James is puzzling over the matter, he has no idea whether the answer is yes or no. Instead, James is more asserting something he's asking a rhetorical or loaded question. And he's asserting to his audience, he's saying, a kind of faith that has no works that is on able to say that's a non saving faith. These are all important truths that the Greek text clearly tells us, which often, if not almost always are missing in English translation, you do sometimes lose something in translation. Verse 15 starts off in translation. Suppose a brother or sister actually the original Greek text starts off with if a brother or sister is without clothes, a sentence that begins with if is called a conditional sentence. And there's 1 2 3 kinds of conditional sentences in the Greek language. And this one is a third class condition. And many scholars take this third class condition as describing not an actual situation, not a real situation, but more of a hypothetical situation. In fact, that's why the NIV translates it not as if a brother, but rather suppose a brother, right, we're just postulating some hypothetical situation with your brothers sisters walking around in need, and something happens to them. 

However, this is where a mistake is often made, because a third class condition often describes not a hypothetical situation, but a general situation or a fairly common situation. And this is important, and we'll talk about it later when we get to the historical context. Because if this is read the right way as describing a general situation or common situation, that means that James is dealing not with something unusual, something rare, something that hardly ever happens, but rather just the opposite. He's talking about a common problem in his churches, where you have brothers or sisters walking around, lacking food and clothing, and people are ignoring their needs. James has something else in verse 15, which I think is important to notice. He says, suppose a brother, or sister. Now the reason I'm stressing that is because James actually writes or sister. And you might miss that because many Bible translations today, out of a gender inclusive policy, take when a biblical writer writes just brother and then they add, even though some of the original texts they add, or sister. And the reason they do so is because with some justification, they assume that when the biblical writer says brother, they include not just the male members of the church, they include all the members of the church, including this, the female and so they don't want the modern reader to be misled or to draw a wrong conclusion. And so they add or sister. 

But then if you have a Bible like that, you might not realize the James actually adds or sister that's not so common in the New Testament. And the reason James ads or sister I think is important, because James highlights not only brothers who are in need, but he goes out of his way to also explicitly identify sisters who are in need. And I think this would be important, particularly in a patriarchal culture, where women are dependent either on a husband or a father for help and for protection. And so by mentioning sisters, it highlights the vulnerability of some of the members the female members of the church, and also how the church is unfortunately neglecting to minister to those who are vulnerable and in need. The Greek again tells us something more that the English doesn't clarify or always say. Another example in verse 15, is the participle that's what it is technically, in the Greek language, the participle lacking, lacking, being drift of daily food. And James uses a tense of the participle here. It's a present tense that has nothing really to do with time when it is happening, and has everything to do with emphasis or accent. The present tense participle is used when the writer wants to stress something, especially an ongoing or continuous situation. And so this highlights the the problem that James is talking about, again, he's not just talking about a brother or two, right, a brother, a sister who happens once in a blue moon to have a need, but it sounds like he's describing an ongoing continuous situation. 

There's an ongoing problem of meaty people within the family of God and the church is unfortunately neglecting them. The Greek stresses that, for 16 is interesting as well, this is the response. This is James describing how some Christians respond to the brother or sister who's lacking clothes and food. And the response is one way to translate it is keep warm and well fed. Now, it just so happens that in the Greek language, the form used here for these two verbs can either be something that's called the Middle Voice, or the passive voice, let's say with a passive voice first, because that I think, is more easy for us English speakers to understand. When you look at the image you had before that, you can see that the difference between a passive and an active voice in a passive voice, the subject receives the action, something is being done to the subject. So here we talk about how the mouse is being eaten by the cat, right, the mouse isn't doing something that's being acted upon, right, that's the passive voice.

Now, if you translate this verb passively, what you're saying is be kept warm and be well fed, you're implying that somebody else other than you, poor people will take care of that. And that could either be God. And this is actually a technical form in the Greek language called the divine passive. God is implied as the agent, even though he's not explicitly stated, or another Christian. But the important point I want you to see is if it's translated passively, the speaker who's saying these things is blind to the fact that that they possibly can be that agent by which this needy person is kept warm or well fed. That's one possible way reading it as the passive voice. However, it could equally be translated with a Middle Voice, we have, we don't need to talk about what the Middle Voice is, other than to tell you that in terms of the subject, the Middle Voice does the action, just like in the active voice, so the subject is doing whatever the verb is. So if you turn it to the active voice, you have to talk about how the cat is eating right, the cat is actively doing something, the cat is eating the mouse. And if we translate this response from the Christian community, to the needy people as the Middle Voice, then it would be something like, warm yourselves and feed yourselves. And you see how this involves a greater insult to these poor and needy Christians. 

Because now basically, you're not only ignoring them, but you're telling them you guys take care of the problem yourself, right? Don't be dependent on someone else to help you out of your need, you take care of it yourself. Now, we can't know 100% sure which one James intended because again, both are possible. I've one scholar here who suggests that the middle is better. But the last part of his quote is important for us to hear. He says, though, either voice whether it's middle or passive points to the fact that some professed believers are failing to meet the needs of other church members. So it comes out looking bad for the church. Either way, the middle or the passive, although it might be a little bit more embarrassing for the church with the middle, a little more uncaring and insensitive as they kind of tell these needy people to take care of the problems themselves. Verse 19 has an interesting grammatical point read and they shutter they, of course, are the demons because James says you believe that God is one good even the demons believe that and shutter that's a little bit of a Wimpy translation shutter that just sounds something like that. 

Actually, the Greek verb "phrissô" is often used in the ancient world in connection with hair. And we talked about people's hair standing on the ends of their head, or animals with their hair bristling up high why when they're afraid, right when they're under some kind of danger. And so this is actually a quite strong verb that is used, right it refers to a kind of uncontrollable uncontainable violent shaking from fear and terror so the image is a lot more vivid I think in the Greek than it is in the English. You can see the noun that comes from the same verb "phrikê" is where we get our English word fright "phrikê" fright. It's the same route. And this verb also occurs in magical "papyri", water magical "papyri". Well, they're "papyri" that means are written on papyrus paper. That means they're likely discovered in Egypt. It's one of the few places where these kinds of texts can survive and their magical "papyri". Because in the ancient world, People were very superstitious. They believe they're all kinds of spirits and deities and beings a gathering around it, and they try to control them and, and one way to try to get rid of the evil spirits is you try to exorcise them, you cast them out. And this verb occurs many times in those texts, and describes the reaction of demons supposedly to that verb the idea of, of responding in terror or in fright. If we want another example we can turn to of course, the gospels were number of occasion Jesus cast out demons and we see the response. The one there before you is a good one. 

From Mark One where we read the evil spirits shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. And so again, and they shutter, at least in my mind, and English sounds a little bit wimpy, it kind of loses the punch or the force of the original Greek text, something is lost in translation. In verse 20b, there is a clever pun, right? a pun is difficult to pick up when you go from one language to another. I have a pun here in English, right? frog parking only, all others will be toad. Well, it's only funny. It's only humorous if you if you recognize Wait a minute, a toad and a frog, okay, they go together and then of course, the English word to tow right to tow vehicle, right? You can put in the past tense towed, it's spelt differently, but it sounds the same. So there there's kind of a clever pun there frog parking only all others will be toad? Well, James does a similar kind of pun, a clever word play. And he doesn't here in verse 20b, where in Greek he uses the word "argê". Now, the word "argê" is made up from the same word that the word work comes from, except you have an alpha added to it, which negates it. And it's hard to capture it in English, here's one possible way to do it, it would go like this. 

Faith without works, does not work, you can catch a little bit Faith without works does not work. And I know that James was intending this pun, because not only is the meaning itself kind of clever, but the word for work is put up right beside the word for useless, right, the word from which work is derived. So those two words are put right beside each other in order for the reader not to miss the pun. Now, you might be saying to yourself, big deal. How does that help me interpret the passage? Well, I think there are two significances to this rhetorically or persuasively remember, James is writing first and foremost to an audience in his day, and he's trying to convince them of something he's trying to persuade them of something. And how does that help him? Well, upon First of all, makes his readers favorably disposed to him, right? You're kind of impressed by his ability and clever writing skill. And so you just kind of like him, and you're more likely to accept them for what he's saying. And then secondly, with upon it force you to kind of slow down and say, wait a minute, Did I get that right? And you look more carefully at what is actually said. And so there's greater emphasis to the claim that is made, which is at the heart of his argument, namely, that faith without works does not work, right. The kind of faith that doesn't have any works. In James, mine doesn't work. It's useless. It's no good. 

So rhetorically, the pun actually is helpful on two levels. Verse 21, we need another kind of question. And we again say now, what kind of question is this? Is it a neutral question in which the speaker is unsure? Yes, no, maybe? Or is it one of those loaded question one of those rhetorical questions where the speaker is asserting something more than genuinely asking something? And the answer is, it's not the neutral question. It's one of those rhetorical loaded ones. But unlike 14b, where the answer was clearly no, here, the answer is clearly Yes. Right. The structure in the Greek clearly shows that the answer is yes. And so the question that James asked was Abraham our father considered righteous when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? James is asserting not asking. He's asserting that that Yes, he was. Yes, he was. And that's important for you to know if you're going to properly interpret this passage. The next verse, verse 22, has two things that are worthy of a note, and that is first that James uses the plural actions. Sometimes we could translate the deeds or works. And then the second thing I'll explain the significance of the first thing in a second, but the second thing is the verb we're working. This is a rarer, more unusual form of the verb that again stresses the ongoing or continuous nature of the action. 

So what are these two features, the plural actions and the unique or rare form of the verb mean. Well, that means that James even though he's referring to the one act of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar, he must not be thinking only of that one act. He instead, as he says in verse 22, is thinking Abraham's actions, the actions throughout Abraham's life that we're constantly working together with his deeds. Another important exegetical point. word order is important. Now, in English, at least for correct English grammar. prepositional phrases are usually at the end of a sentence, that's where they normally belong. But in Greek word order doesn't matter unless you want to emphasize something. And so James puts some keywords in the very front of a sentence for emphasis. So the word order in verse 24, reads more literally like this, you see that out of works is justified a person and not out of faith alone. Now that would be bad English, right? In English, your translation would take the subject a person, you would, it would go something like this, you see a person is justified out of works, but James put out of works in the front of the sentence. Why? Because he's stressing that works or deeds are evidence of a special saving faith. James emphasis on works here is part of his overriding message or theme for this passage. 

That's lost in English translation. We have yet another question in verse 25. And again, we ask ourselves neutral question or loaded one. And again, it's the loaded question. And also like Abraham's question, this one too with Rahab expects the answer. Yes. And so when James says was Rahab, the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave logic to the spies and set them off in a different direction? And the Greek says very clearly, yes, she was. James is again not asking as much as he is asserting this to be the truth. Well, we've seen in a variety of important ways how grammar makes a difference, how the Greek text tells us important information about what the author was thinking and intending and meaning. And that's why these are all good examples of that principle of interpretation that we can call grammatical. Well, we'll take a break before we turn our attention to the next hermeneutical principle, and I look forward to hearing and speaking with you about that.

Video Transcript: Literary Analysis of James 2:14-26

The next hermeneutical category that we need to consider when looking at James 2:14-26 is what we call a literary analysis or a literary approach. And literary approach involves a number of things. One of the things that evolves is what kind of literature the technical term is genre that James belongs to. Remember that the Bible, even though it's one book has many different kinds of writings or genres, there are historical books, there are political books, there are apocalyptic books, there are gospels, and there are letters, sometimes called epistles. And James belongs to that category of a letter or an epistle. And so if we want to understand James, we have to know something about letters and formulas that were typically used in letters in the ancient world, because James audience would have been familiar with these formulas and expressions, and therefore we have to kind of educate ourselves so that we won't miss what the original audience would have heard, and what the author clearly intended. But in addition to these literary devices, which are unique to letters, there are also other literary devices that biblical writers use as well, for instance, inclusio the inclusio is the repetition of a key word or phrase at the beginning, or the end acting as kind of bookmarks marking out a section. 

That's not unique to letters, but it is found in letters and other forms of genre. And James may well use these and other kind of more broadly literary devices as well. Now we use a lot of these literary clues to know where to start a passage, and where to end a passage, it's very important that we begin where the author intends to begin, and we end where the author intends the reader to stop, in other words, that this is a legitimate preaching or teaching unit that this passage holds together. Now, when we do that, for this passage, we actually discover that our passage doesn't begin at 2:14. We discover actually that our passage starts much earlier at 2:1. How do I know that? Well, because there are a number of verbal, thematic and literary links connecting 2:1-13, along with our passage 2:14-26. And these links show that these two passages are closely connected together. Here are some of those things that bind or link the two halves of chapter two, namely 2:1-13, with the second half 2:14-26. For instance, both open with the vocative. My brothers, this is a common epistolary device to introduce a new idea or thought, both have the word faith as a key word in the opening verse, And be careful. 

For some reason, the NIV doesn't have that in that opening verse, but it is there in the Greek and you might therefore miss how both passages 2:1-13 and 2:14 begin with that key word faith. Both passages deal in some way with poor people, poor people are either in shabby clothes in the first part of the passage, or who almost have no clothing at all in the second half of the passage. Both passages describe the discrimination or the neglect of the poor, and then they end it with a rhetorical question, not a legitimate question, like a question where the speaker doesn't know the answer, but where he's asserting something, both of those analogies or examples conclude in the same way, in the first passage in verse four, and the second one in verse 16. Both passages in the first half of chapter two in the second half have the expression you do well, "kalôs poiete". And both passages have the passive of the verb to be called. And so these are a variety of ways verbally, thematically, and literarily that the two halves of chapter two are closely connected together. So one scholar, for example, Ralph Martin says this, we still have to consider how 2:14-26, that's our passage fits into the preceding section, namely 2:1-13, the links between the two paragraphs are too strong to be overlooked. 

These parallels argue for a smooth and connected flow in the author's writing. And the same situation in the bag lies in the background of the two units. So in other words, if I'm going to exegete and interpret 2:14-26, I have to make sure that I see that passage in light of the preceding passage 2:1-13, with which it is closely connected, and which shares the same background. The same point is made by yet another New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson, he says, the position taken here is that in chapter two James develops single argument, you see, not all scholars see that. And so he's contrasting these other positions with his own that it's all one. In this sense, the final part of the discussion in 2:14-26 only provides the broadest formal framework for the specifics argued earlier in 2:1-13. Likewise the point of the discussion in 2:14-26 is not to be found by way of engagement with a Pauline position, but rather by the specific points argued in 2:1-13. If I might paraphrase what Luke Timothy Johnson is saying is, is this, he says, there's a close connection between our passage 14 to 26, and the one before it, and when we look at 14 to 26, we shouldn't first run off to Paul, we shouldn't compare what James is saying, first and foremost, to Paul, we should compare it with the passage to which it's most closely connected, namely, the verses in the preceding part of the chapter. 

So that's evidence for the fact that actually, the real beginning of the whole discussion of faith that works begins at the beginning of the chapter two verse one. So does that mean that I'm wrong then to begin the passage at 2:14? And the answer is no, or at least not quite. And that's because there is evidence of a shift taking place at verse 14. So on one hand, there's a connection to what happens before, but they're also clearly is movement in James argumentation. And what is the evidence for a slight shift starting here at 2:14? Well, it's one that we've mentioned or looked at before, and that is the vocative. Brothers here, said my brothers. And this is an extremely common device use not just by James, you can see all the other places in the letter where he uses the same device. But in other letters of that day, not only the New Testament, like Paul and, and Peter and John, but also secular letters of that day to indicate either a major shift or a minor shift. In this case, it'd be a somewhat minor shift within the whole discussion of chapter two. And then there's something that we Greek geeks, or grammarians called "asyndeton", that's just a fancy word for saying, there isn't any kind of connecting word that shows the link between 2:14-26. 

And the one beforehand, Greek has lots of these little words that are actually quite important for showing the connection from one verse to another one, you can see some of them there Gar for, or debt, or all of these are more contrastive of words or "Ki in". And so there isn't any of those connecting words in 2:14, which then what suggest that we have the start of something new, here in 2:14. And then another pretty powerful evidence is the word pair that occurs in this passage, you know, the word pair is, where you think of one word, you automatically think of the other words, so you have heaven and earth are night and day, those are all good word pairs. Well, in this passage, there is a clear word pair between faith and works faith and works. In fact, it occurs 10 times that's a huge amount within a relatively short amount of space. 10 times, faith and works are held together as a word pair. And faith occurs in the preceding passage to times but never the word pair of faith and works. And also, faith never occurs in the following passage. So you can see that 14 to 26 is set apart from the surrounding material, it's kind of marked out as an independent unit by this word pair faith and works and 10 times is pretty persuasive evidence. It isn't a word prayer that occurs just a couple, and maybe we're reading something into it 10 times and nowhere else before afterwards is rather clear and decisive. 

Well, then, if we have evidence for at least a shift for a break at the beginning of 2:14, where do we know where the passage ends? And here the evidence is pretty strong. There's no real question. First of all, we observed that the word pair that we've already talked about the last of the word pairs occurs in verse 26. And so that's one good literary or lexical clue that the passage has come to a close. 3:1, we have again, that vocative, which we noticed at the beginning of 2:14. So again, it's transition, it's starting a new topic. Then when we look at the subject matter of 3:1-2 and following, we see that Wait a minute, faith and works isn't mentioned anymore. Instead, James is talking about the tongue and how powerful and dangerous and the need to control it is.

 So when you put all of this together, we have compelling evidence, then, that a legitimate unit of the Bible for preaching or teaching purposes then is chapter two of James beginning of verse 14 to 26. Now, again, this may not seem so exciting to you, but I want you to see how important it nevertheless is for exegesis. So whatever passage you're looking at, make sure that you or maybe if you're using a Bible Commentary, this person has given some thought and care to wait a minute are we beginning a legitimate point? And are we ending at a legitimate point, that doesn't mean you can never preach or teach on a smaller part of a passage. But when we do that, we always have to be very much aware of how this smaller unit isn't the just a smaller unit, and then it belongs to the larger unit, and the boundaries that are clearly marked out. So I'm doing this more for illustrative purposes. This kind of questions hardly ever make it to a sermon, or even to a class, but they nevertheless are an important part of exegesis. And they illustrate again, how a literary approach that is a concern not just for what the Bible says, but how it says it is important. Well, that gives me a transition to talk about another way in which literary analysis is important. And that has to do with the internal structure of a given passage. 

James, just like Paul, as you may have seen in another one of our earlier videos, is a gifted writer, who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit thinks very carefully, not just about what he's going to say, but how he's going to say it. Or to use some different vocabulary. James thinks not just about the what of the text, the content of the Bible, but the how of the text, the form in which that content is given. A modern analogy, maybe that is easier to understand is that of a MapQuest if we want to go somewhere, right, especially if we don't know where we're going, well, it's not very smart to just kind of drive around and hope you finally found your way you waste all kinds of time as you meander here and there and there might be a dead end over there, and, and so forth. Instead, we go on to MapQuest, and we see now, what is the clearest and easiest and maybe quickest way to get from point A to point B. And in a similar way, we need to ask, how does the biblical writer get from the beginning of his passage to the end of the passage? In our text, how does James get from the opening in verse 14, where he has those negative questions about a certain kind of faith? How does he get it to the end of the passage in verse 26. And this has to do then with the internal structure of the passage. 

I could say it differently. Instead of maybe just beginning at verse 14, that's what some preachers or teachers to do that was started 14 ta da ta da ta da and than explain verse 14, then they go on to verse 15 and they go ta da ta da ta da and And then we go on to verse 16. And you keep on going and going and going, I call this army exegesis. Why? Because you as the interpreter are marching verse by verse through the text. That's not a bad thing, because at least you're dealing with the text. But even though it's not a bad thing, it's not the best thing. Because you might, to us another expression in English, you might lose the forest for the trees, when you're so busy looking in a myopic way on verse 14, and then verse 15, and then verse 16, you may lose the big picture, and the rather clear structure that the author has in mind, and that can be revealed in the text. And that is indeed the case. James, in our passage, clearly has thought about how he's going to address this business of faith and works. And we need to know what that structure is. Now, when you look at the text more carefully, the variety of clues that are there, we can see that the passage falls into two major units. In the first half, James seems to be talking about what faith isn't. Or maybe I should say it this way, he seems to be talking about a false faith, a faith that is unable to save. And he gives two examples of what that kind of worthless faith looks like the kind of worthless faith that he says is impossible to save. 

But then in verse 20, and there's another evocative there another transitional marker, he clearly shifts gears, and he has two positive examples, two examples that come from the Old Testament, one involving Abraham, the other involving Rahab. And here, he talks about a different kind of faith, a saving faith or a true faith or you could call it a working faith. And then he wraps it up with a conclusion and simily, in the concluding verse of verse 26, if we would map it out, it might look something like this.

So you can see there in the first box, he has the examples of what a non saving faith looks like. He indicates the beginning with that evocative my brothers and then he has those two loaded rhetorical questions. What is the profit? The answer is nothing? And is the space able to save him? The answer is no. And then he follows up that assertion with two examples, again, both of them negative, the first one involving the kind of faith where a person just sees another Christian and need a brother or a sister pretty close and lacking daily food, and then just gives a "pious cliché". And then a second example of the faith of the demons. And the first example is nicely and cleverly linked together by an "inclusio" if you look at what good is it that fixed expression we talked about earlier under the grammatical element, you can see that it's repeated in verse 16, marking the boundaries of this first example, and then followed by the application in verse 17. Well, when we get to the second half of the passage in verse 20, we get another evocative right, not my brother's but all foolish person, oh, foolish man. So there's a transition here. And then it gives a disclosure formula. 

Now, if you know something about letters of the ancient world, a disclosure formula is a formula found in letters of that day that uses the verb to know. And it could be a statement like we know this, or it could be a command know that. Sometimes it can be a question, do you know that? Or do you wish to know that, but all of these formulas involving the key word to know they occur at a transitional point. And again, that formula occurs at 20. And that's another clue that we're shifting gears returning a corner, so to say in a major way, they're in verse 20, not just evocative, but also that transitional disclosure formula. And then once we turn the corner, we get then two positive examples, I guess, balancing some of the two negative examples in the first half. The first positive example involves the faith of Abraham. And the second positive example involves the faith of Rahab. And then he wraps it up with a simile, right assembly is just as this is the case. So also, this is the case. And he uses the body spirit connection, to show that faith and works are so closely connected, that it is wrong. Indeed, it is impossible to separate the two if you separate body from spirit, it results in death. 

And so also faith and works results in death and something that is dead or useless. If you tweak this outline a little bit, this is a little more user friendly outline, although it's largely the same, you can see the same basic strokes, it might look like this, this is our MapQuest, this is our. This is our outline, our exegetical outline, that we're going to use our roadmap as we go through all of these verses, so we don't lose the forest for the trees. We see again, an introductory opening question. And his thesis is faith and works can't be separated. Anybody who says they have faith, and it's not a company by works, well, that's worth nothing, and it is dead. And he exemplifies that in two ways. First, in verses 15 to 17, with the person who's all talk and no action, and then in verse 19, with the demons who are all knowledge and no action. And then we switch gears in verse 20. Again, another opening question, a loaded question. But this time, we see that the answers are positive. Remember the answers to the questions of Abraham and Rahab, I'd expect the answer to be yes. And he picks Of course, two examples from the Old Testament. That makes sense, because, of course, he's speaking to a Jewish audience, who are well familiar with the story of Abraham, and also the story of Ray hap. And then again, he concludes with that simile, that the two of them that is faith and works, you can't separate the two from each other. That would be like separating body from spirit. If you do that, you result in something that is only dead. 

Well, that is one important way in which we can see again, how a literary aproach to Scripture is important, forming the boundaries for the text, but also doing other important things, giving us the guidance for the outline or the structure of the text. And before we move on to the next principle that historical, we'll take another break. And so I look forward to see you and you just a minute as we seek to kind of go back in time and understand the historical context of this passage, and how crucial that is for properly interpreting James 2:14-26.

Video Transcript: Historical Analysis of James 2:14-26

We now turn to the next hermeneutical category, often called the historical element. Sometimes if you want to impress family and friends, you can use a German phrase, maybe you've heard it before, it certainly pops up in some academic writing. It's called the "sits zum leben". That just means the situation in life. And it was referring to the fact that we need to kind of go back in time, and go back in James case to the first century and say, What is going on here? What is the trouble in the text? What is the problem that James is trying to address? Because of course, James, when he wrote his letter, he's not just sitting down in the abstract and then kind of thinking to himself, what should I write about today? I don't know. Maybe I'll write about faith and works. So he's not writing about faith that works in some kind of abstract way? No, no, no, there's some specific problems, some real situation that he has in mind. So now we need to know what that real situation is, so we can interpret his words in its right context. Now, right away, we have a question whether James is describing a real situation or a hypothetical one. A number of scholars observed that in the preceding passage, which are passages closely connected to the first half of chapter two. 

There are some if clauses, and then we also have another if clause in our passage, and they say, well, all of these if clause it sounds like James isn't talking about an actual situation or real situation, he's just hypothesizing some problem. And indeed, the NIV, I think, translates it with that idea in mind. They don't say if a brother or sister in 2:15, they add, suppose a brother or sister right as if it were some kind of imaginary scenario that James is coming up with. One scholar says, For example, how realistic is this incident? He's talking about? brothers and sisters who are poor being either prejudiced against or being neglected. He says the Greek construction James uses to describe this incident on plus the subjunctive mood suggests though, it does not require that James is giving a hypothetical example. And the hypothetical nature of the situation is underscored by the indefiniteness of brother or sister. So here's one scholar who concludes the James isn't addressing a real situation, but rather a hypothetical one. However, I want to disagree with that on four grounds. 

First of all, there's a grammatical argument, notice the previous quote, the scholar conceded, though it doesn't require the James is giving a hypothetical example, under grammatical you may or may not remember that I said that this if clause, this conditional clause, this third class conditional clause is better understood as describing a general situation rather a common problem. And so I think rather than say James is just imagining something that might happen, he's actually instead referring to something that is happening. In fact, it's happening with some commonality or frequency that is so serious that he devotes a good chunk of his letter to addressing it. 

That leads to the next response, which I've already alluded to the kind of contextual argument. There's a certain emphasis given to this passage, not only by the length, all of chapter two, James seems to deal with so many subjects in a short, almost a haphazard way. Our chapter sticks out actually like a sore thumb in the letter as a whole, because it's such a large block of unified material. That's one way in which I think it is emphatic it seems to be describing a real situation. But then the other emphasis we talked about earlier under grammatical he doesn't say just a brother, but he says a brother or a sister, and then he talks about lacking daily food. He uses the rare form of the participle highlighting that this was an ongoing or continuous situation. Two scholars are struck by this and they say this is Blumberg and canal. 

James could be presenting a hypothetical objection for the sake of His argument, right? That's possible, but it seems likely that some in his congregation were making precisely this inquiry. Why else would verses 14 to 26? rebut the viability of a lifeless orthodoxy so strenuously, I Why is James so animated in this discussion if it's only an imaginary or a hypothetical or made up problem? 

Third, there are two words that are suggestive in verse 16. One scholar rightly makes this comment. He says two little words make it clear that this situation is not simply a parabolic analogy. Jane says if someone from among you, it's three words in English, it's only two words in Greek. Right? Says right 2:16. So if James were only making a comparison, James simply would have said if someone says not specifying someone from among you. 

And the fourth response I have is this, even if I think that this is a hypothetical or rhetorical argument, remember I don't. But even if the situation is hypothetical, James picked this hypothetical situation. In other words, James wanted his words about faith and works to be heard in a particular context, namely, the context where poor people were being discriminated against or neglected. And so therefore, that's how we ought to interpret it, whether it's real or imaginary, whether it's real or rhetorical. One scholar who argue for the rhetorical position actually makes exactly this point, Dwayne Watson says, even if the historical situation or context is hypothetical, historical information can still be gleaned from the example because it that is this example was selected to address a specific restored rhetorical situation. 

So let's turn to that situation, which I suggest to you is a real and from Jame's point of view, sadly, far too widespread and common problem. Now on a general level, the problem is easy to understand. And I've already referred to it a couple of times, and that is, the poor are being discriminated against. They're either being discriminated against in the first part of the chapter, or they are being neglected in our passage in the second half of the chapter. And we can find that quite clearly in 2:15. Right, the church fails to help out a brother, a sister, who is without clothes and daily food. And then in verses two to four, remember, there's a close connection between our half the second half and the first half. So in verses two to four, it shows how the church shows special attention or favoritism to the rich while it neglects or discriminates against the poor. So on a general level, it's not hard to understand that the interesting thing, the little tricky thing is when we get a little more specific, there are two options. One option is we should think of a worship context. And remember, our passage is closely connected to the first half of the chapter. And we read there in verse two, if a man comes into your meeting, now in Greek, James uses the word "synagôgê". And even if you don't know Greek, you hear the word in English synagogue. 

And that makes sense, because remember, James is writing to Jewish Christians, Jewish Christians who would think of their church gatherings as being similar to their previously Jewish synagogue meetings. Now, when James refers to their gathering as a synagogue, if a man comes into your meeting into your "synagôgê", one thing he could be referring to is worship, because worship is one of the things that happens in a Jewish synagogue. And therefore, not surprisingly, one of the things that would happen in a Jewish Christian church. And if that's the case, then verses two to four are quite clear. A rich person comes in with fine clothes and lots of bling, lots of rich jewelry, and we read in the text that the church gets all excited and shows this person a special place. And then a poor person comes in, they're obviously poor, the clothes aren't very nice, they don't have all the nice fancy jewelry, and the church kind of neglects them. So one way to envision what's happening in the churches to whom James is writing, is that there is discrimination against the poor in the context of worship. However, if there's option one, there's going to least be option number two, and that's the case we're going to turn to now. Remember, the text says, If a man comes into your meeting, and Greek, you're "synagôgê"? Well, lots of things happen in a synagogue besides worship. The synagogue also is a social gathering. That's where Jews would just kind of come together and hang out. 

The synagogue was also a location for education for schooling. And yet one other important function takes place in a synagogue, and that is the adjudication of legal matters. Jews and therefore Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians are supposed to do the same, according to Paul and his letter to the Corinthians. They don't go running to the secular law courts when they have a disagreement with a brother or sister. No, they deal with it in house. And that might be also or in addition to what James is describing, in other words, there might be a lawsuit some kind of disagreement between a rich Christian and a poor Christian and they handle it within the church community. as they are, but the church size with the rich person, just because he's rich, even though the evidence sides with the poor, and strengthening the legal context is verse six, where James says, Is it not the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Now, on one hand, it really doesn't matter whether it was a worship context or a legal context, the more important thing is, we now know that when James talks about faith and works, it isn't in some mythical world, it isn't some abstract theological argument he's having in his head. No, no, he's thinking about a very specific situation. 

He James, the likely brother of Jesus, and the head of the Church of Jerusalem and the Jewish, Christian churches in the area of Judea has a serious problem of discrimination on his hands. And it is serious, because remember what the law of God is summarized as not only loving God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength, but also loving our neighbor. And interestingly, and importantly, James cites that second law in the preceding verses in verse eight, he explicitly says, if you really fulfill the Royal law, according to the Scriptures, you will love your neighbor as yourself. And so the context, the "Sits zum leben", the historical setting of the passage is important and quite clear. 

The church in some sense, is neglecting and discriminating poor members within its fellowship. And this is again, so crucial for understanding how his dichotomy of faith and works needs to be understood. While we move on to other questions of historical nature, again, we're kind of going back in time and saying what's going on here. And so we turn next then to the negative example. Right? So the first example is where a Christian see somebody who's hurting, and who is in need, who's pretty close. And then what do they say they say, Go in peace. 

Now, in Hebrew, this is actually a fairly common expression, right? To Go in peace, love, who loves shalom to go in peace? And what do you call a kind of common expression of either Hello, or for a well, we call it a cliche, a cliche. Notice how the NAV the new American Bible translates this verse they translated as the Christian saying to the needy, Christian, goodbye, and good luck. Now, the second command is also important, where the rich faith, the worklist Christian says to the needy Christian, keep warm and well fed. Earlier, we talked about how the fact that this could be interpreted passively, right or middle e with an act of sense. But now I want to talk about something else. It's interesting that the two commands match exactly the two needs. Remember earlier, the brother or sister who is a need is described as one being naked, and to lacking daily food. Well, those two needs are perfectly matched now by what the, what the Christian says to this needy person in response? If you're naked, right, well, then the responses be warm or keep warm, and if you're hungry, or lacking daily food that the responses keep well fed. 

And Luke Timothy Johnson rightly makes this comment that the fact that the speakers can so perfectly match the two answers to the two needs, suggests that the speaker truly knows that this person is in need, but nevertheless refuses to help and thereby a kind of exacerbates how bad this person's faith is, to quote Luke Timothy Johnson. He says, The exhortations namely keep a woman well fed correspond to the conditions of nakedness and hunger, revealing that the speaker knows and he emphasized that we're not meet the needs of this other brother or sister but refuses to meet them. So again, it highlights how again in ineffective and how worthless this kind of faith is the kind of faith that just utters a pious cliche. see somebody needs and says, Well, people learn and be well fed. And James spells out then how valuable or valueless actually this faith is because then he repeats that fixed phrase, what is the profit? And don't forget, it's that rhetorical question that always expects the negative answer. It's worth nothing. It doesn't profit you anything at all. And in case you didn't get it from that fixed, rhetorical question, then in verse 17, James spells it out even more clearly. He says, In the same way, right in the same way that this person just says something callously cavalierly and doesn't do anything. Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead.

Now, it's important to see that James is not doing what many commentators think he's doing, namely contrasting faith and works James is not contrasting faith versus works. Throughout this passage, he's contrasting instead, in my mind, I agree with this faith versus faith, wait a minute it even sounds puzzling, maybe I need to specify that he's contrasting one kind of faith with another kind of faith. In the first half of our passage, he's contrasting a false non saving a workless faith within the second half a positive a saving a working faith. Douglas Moo in his commentary and jeans nicely expresses this point, he says, quote, it is absolutely vital to understand that the main point of this argument expressed three times in verses 17, 20, and 26, is not that works must be added to faith. But the genuine faith includes works. That's its very nature, faith and works can't be separated together. Faith, by its very definition, involves deeds or works. Well, we move from the explanation of the first example to the second one. And this involves the demons faith, if you will, James says, you know, do you believe that God is one. And at that point, James, readers would have instantly heard something because remember, they're Jewish Christians. 

And of course, in Judaism, as soon as you say God is one you hear in your mind, the Hebrew phrase Shema, Israel, here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. This is kind of the confession of the Israelite people that they are a monotheistic religion, in contrast to all the other religions around them. And this is an important confession that not only of Jews, but also therefore, of Christians, and how much more so Jewish Christians. So the demons believe that God is one, right. But apparently, that is not enough. As we saw earlier, they shutter they react in terror and fright. And so Jame's point seems to be that Wait a minute, the first example where a false faith is people who are all talk and no action. Here we have demons who have some knowledge, but apparently no action, this knowledge of the demons have isn't sufficient faith, otherwise, they would not shutter Otherwise, they would not react with the hair standing on their heads, right in such a violent reaction. The reformers made a distinction at this point between three kinds of knowledge. It's a technical distinction, but I think it is helpful in this particular verse, They distinguish between "notitia", which could be translated as knowledge. And this is when you just intellectually understand something, right? You comprehend it, and then they distinguish that from "assensus", which is belief, and that is where they not only understand it, but you believe that it's true, right? 

And then they yet distinguish it yet from "fiducia", which is trust you somehow personally commit yourself to this true thing. That sounds kind of abstract, and maybe not so powerful. Maybe if we apply it to marriage, it will become more convincing to you, right? It's more It's one thing for you to intellectually understand the concept of marriage, right? You You say, Oh, I understand what marriage is, what it involves and so forth. That's "notitia" wait a minute. It's another thing for you to believe that it's a valid human institution, you might assent to that truth. But believe me, it's quite a different thing for you to walk down the aisle and ultimately say I do you see that last thing involves a level of personal commitment that I think captures the kind of faith that James expects from his readers.

Now We move in a rather significant way in the second half from two negative examples to two positive examples. And the two positive examples come from the Old Testament. No surprise there, because we have to remember, of course, that James is writing to Jewish Christians. So James naturally picks examples that they know, they know well, and they'll find powerful or persuasive. Now, the first example, the first positive example that James cites, is an extremely well known story in Judaism, and indeed in the history of the Christian church. And that's the so called binding of issac story. And although James does remind them of all the details surrounding the story, he can assume rightly so that the audience knows these details. So if I were preaching today, or teaching to an audience that is not Jewish, or maybe doesn't know the details of the story, I would have to spell it out for them. Right, I would have to tell the audience about who Abraham was. And he wasn't always called Abraham, he was called Abram at one time and how God established a covenant with him. And now, he promised that his descendants would be like the sand in the seashore and the stars in the sky. And I would have to talk about how old they were when Isaac was born, right, Abraham was 99. And I and Sarah was 89. 

So all of those details James assumes his audience knows. And if somehow you know that your audience isn't familiar with these details, you have to make sure that we spell them out because that's part of the force of the story that James assumes this illustration has. Now, as we noted earlier, under grammar when James explains that he must have in mind though a lot more than this one act of faith of Abraham, a faith that proved itself by his that his Abraham's being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on the mountain of Mariah. And that's because in the explanation, Jame says, you see that his faith and his actions, remember the plural actions, and then that unique form of the verb, we're working together. And so James isn't thinking of just the one act, even though it's a very powerful one that he highlights for his readers, James must also be reminding them up all the actions throughout Abraham's life that testified to his true saving faith. Now, he concludes that example with a statement that Well, at first blush again, sounds contradictory to Paul. He says in verse 24, you see that a person is justified by what he does, and not by faith, and hesitating, because that last word is important. faith alone, if James just said not by faith, that would even be maybe more puzzling, but it's that word alone. 

Because when he says alone, James isn't talking about a real faith, he isn't talking about a saving faith because for James, true faith, saving faith is never alone, right. It's always a faith that is naturally accompanied by or a faith that automatically manifests itself with works with deeds, deeds of obedience, and works especially of kindness toward those who are hurting and in need. That's the end of the first positive example. And so we move on to the second positive example. And that is the example of Rahab. And again, writing to a Jewish audience, James assumes that they know all of the details surrounding Rahab and the story. And again, if your audience doesn't know those details, we have to spell that out for them about how the Israelites are one unit around and how they don't have faith as the into the promised land. And so they have to wander for another generation, and how the spies come in and how Rahab receives them and kind of sends the pursuing kings forces on a wild goose chase right, on the condition right that her life and her family be spared. And so the story of Rahab needs to be told to the audience today if they're not familiar with it.

Now, this is an interesting question that not all biblical scholars ask if you do but not all. And that is why pair Abraham and Rahab. I mean, Abraham is an easy choice. That's a no brainer. I mean, Abraham is the Father, the hero of the Jewish faith, but why Rahab? I mean, the Old Testament got all kinds of other heroes of faith. To quote Hebrews 11, right. Why did James pick Rahab rather than some other important or seemingly more important Old Testament hero? Well, one option and of course, I wouldn't mention one option unless there was another one. But one option is that these two namely Abraham and Rahab nicely are paired together because they exemplify hospitality, hospitality. Maybe you remember the Old Testament story of Genesis 18 Abraham gets three guest or three visitors who turn out to be a little bit more significant than that. But anyway, Abraham shows hospitality to them. And of course Rahab in terms of showing hospitality showing housing to the two spies. So for example, to quote from one New Testament scholar, he says, that is doing Watson, the examples of Abraham, father of the faith and Rahab a harlot are a strange combination, but one found in the tradition, why because both exemplified hospitality. 

Now, how should we evaluate that? Well, there is a strength to that argument. And that is it would fit the context very well. Remember that James's historical situation is "Sits zum leben" is, the church is neglecting the needs of poorly cloth fellow Christians and hungry fellow Christians. And so obviously, two stories about showing hospitality would nicely fit the context. And another piece of further support could be the fact that in the rabbinic writing, so these are not by biblical writers, these are by the later rabbis after the New Testament times, Abraham, but importantly, not joined with Rahab just Abraham alone was often celebrated and praised for his hospitality. So those are some reasons to support the connection with hospitality. But there are some significant weaknesses with linking them together under the heading of hospitality. 

The first and by far biggest weakness is that James does not cite the story of the three visitors, Genesis 18. But instead, James cites the story of Abraham offering his son Isaac, which is Genesis 22. that's a that's a huge weakness with his argument. If James could have picked the story from 22, what would stop him from picking the better, more obvious connection from Genesis 18, if indeed, the connection in James mine was one of hospitality. 

A second weakness is that when you read what James says about Rahab, he talks about not just her providing lodging, hospitality, but also quote by sending them out by another way. So she did more than provide hospitality, she also helped them in terms of their escape, and their safety. 

And then a third, less significant weakness is the pairing of these two, actually, despite what the quote from the scholar earlier said, is not very common in Jewish or Christian writings. The only place I think where it occurs is first Clement, 10, and 12. And that's not so significant, because first Clement is a Christian writing and dates to after James, I could well be influenced by James linking these two, instead of the other way around. So if that's not the best interpretation. If Abraham and Rahab are not linked together because of their connection with hospitality, what might they be connected through? And I suggest to you that they provide an example of two extremes, two extremes. Actually, there's a literary term for this, it's called "Merismus", "Merismus". And "Merismus", it first and foremost is found in Hebrew poetry, right? That would make sense because James is a Jew, and is very familiar then with Jewish writings and Hebrew poetry. 

But that's where you use two parts, usually extremes to describe the whole. So for example, in the Psalms, when the psalmist, in one line refers to the morning, and the next line refers to the night, he's not referring only to the morning, and the night he's referring to the two extremes of the day in order to describe the whole day. Or again, in Hebrew poetry where one line refers to heaven, and the next line refers to Earth, right? We're picking the two different extremes, the two different geographical spheres. So we're trying to talk about every place everywhere. Or if we're talking about from the root of a tree in one line, to the fruit of the tree, right from the very base of the tree to the extension, we're talking about everything in between. These are examples where to extremes to describe the whole and in a similar way, we can go to Rahab and Abraham, they are two extremes. Who is Abraham, while again, he is the hero of the Jewish faith. In fact, there are no Jews before Abraham. He literally is Abraham and Hebrew is the father of a nation. He is the father of the Jews. He's Numero Uno. He's top dog dog in Jewish eyes. But who was Rahab? Well, Rahab is not a Jew, first of all, right? She's a Gentile. That's strike one. Secondly, she's a woman. That doesn't sound very politically correct. But that's strike two in that day and that patriarchal culture. And what's worse, she wasn't just any old woman, she was a prostitute strike three. In fact, it's kind of hard to get any worse than a Gentile woman prostitute, right? 

Unless somehow you give her leprosy. And so we have the two extremes. And it doesn't really matter whether you're the great patriarch, or Abraham or the prostitute Rahab. The call for faith is the same a true saving faith that manifests itself that demonstrates itself in concrete acts or deeds. Here's a quote from a scholar to that might convince you that I'm not just imagining this, but this actually is convincing, Blomberg and Kamell say, quote, the two exemplars of Jame's principle of works completing, or vindicating, one's faith, namely Abraham and Rahab, contrast with each other in several respects, creating a powerful "Merismus", a figure of speech, which makes equal the most extreme members of a hole, and therefore all the other members who fall in between. And so again, it doesn't matter whether you're the great patriarch Abraham or the prostitute Rahab, it doesn't matter whether you're a bigwig in the pecking order of culture and society or the church, or whether in your minds, you're just a nobody a Pew sitter, the call for true faith is the same, namely, that true saving faith manifests itself and works of kindness, and obedience.

Well, we get toward the end of the passage, and they're in verse 26, we get a simile adjust as so also construction. And it's a pretty powerful one, because in that day, we have the body which is physical stuff, but the body needs to have the spirit to sort of say, come alive. So spirit here isn't capital S as in the Holy Spirit, it simply is the life principle. We read about that in Genesis two after God formed Adam and Eve, he, he kind of breathe into them, right the the breath of life or in Ezekiel 37, we have the Valley of dry bones, and then we have to have the spirit that kind of gives them life. And so the idea is, if you have no spirit, well, then you end up with a dead body. And by analogy, if you have no works, you end up with a dead faith. And so this simile actually brings the passage to a rather powerful and dramatic conclusion. As James says, Faith without deeds is dead. 

Exegesis is hard work, it's not easy to approach the text from a grammatical, a literary, historical, and one more yet a theological way. But we're going to bring our discussion to a close now and when we come back, we're going to bring it to a definitive close and we're going to finally answer the question, does James contradict Paul or not. So thank you for your time and attention, and I look forward to resuming the discussion in just a moment.

Video Transcript: Theological Analysis of James 2:14-26

Welcome back to our exegesis, our interpretation of this strategic passage in James chapter 2:14-26. Now, so far, we've spent a fair amount of time and energy approaching the text from the grammatical, literary and historical perspective. And that leaves then the theological perspective. And here actually, instead of helping us it actually kind of potentially creates a problem. Because when we compare Scripture with Scripture, we come to a possible conclusion that James might contradict, Paul. And so that's the question we need to finally bring to a close. Are they contradictory or not? Well, I hope the answer is already clear to you, it should be from the different exegetical conclusions we've been making along the way. And the answer is clearly no. And the apparent contradiction stems from the fact that both of them use the same language, the same vocabulary of faith, but they use it to address quite different situations. So for example, take James, what is his specific historical context? His "sit some Laybin"? We've seen ithat he's addressing a very serious problem in the Jewish Christian churches of Jerusalem in the surrounding area, namely, the discrimination and neglect of the poor, either in worship or perhaps in matters of judgment. And so addressing that serious problem, what does he say about works? 

Well, he has a very positive view of works not as a way to obtain righteousness, no, no, no. But instead as a natural as an essential as an automatic element of true saving faith. And as we've observed, already, James in our passage is actually not contrasting faith and works. That's a wrong way of thinking about this passage. James instead, is contrasting faith and faith, one kind of faith with another kind of faith, namely, a false non saving faith, contrasting with a true saving faith. Now, that's James, what about Paul, we haven't said anything about him yet, but his situation is quite different. Now, truth be told, we often overstate the situation. It isn't, as in every letter, this is Paul's context. Actually, it's primarily in Galatians. And also in Romans, much less so in all of his other letters. But in Galatians, in particular, and to a lesser degree in Romans, Paul is facing also a serious problem, not a problem of discrimination, of neglected the poor, but a problem that we might call legalism, or works righteousness. 

These are people who think that they can achieve a special status before God by their works of the law, by their obedience to the law. And so in that specific historical context, Paul has, understandably not a positive view of works, but a negative one. And therefore, he stresses that a person is never justified by their works by their deeds, there instead justified by their faith, namely, their belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ. But if you take Paul out of that specific context, if you take Paul out of the Galatians, and Romans, actually, even within Galatians, and Romans, you can find it too. But if you In other words, have you put Paul in a more neutral context, where he's not thinking about or worried about the danger of legalism, or works righteousness? Well, then Paul will be exactly like James and Paul will speak very positively about works or deeds that Christians automatically do, again, not as a way to secure God's favor, but rather as a natural automatic response to God's favor. So for example, Romans, again, where he has in the letter, some negative statements about the law or works. Notice here, how positively he speaks about it, he says, and I maybe should backtrack a little bit to the earlier verses, he talks about God redeeming us in Christ. But he says in verse four, all of this happened, why, in order that the righteous requirement of the law may might be fully filled in us. 

And why because we no longer walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So Paul expects Christians to walk fully according to the law, Paul expects Christians to obey the law to do good deeds. Galatians that's an interesting passage, because here, Paul, a time speaks quite negatively about the law and about works, but here, notice what he says in verse six of chapter five. He says, circumcision really doesn't matter. uncircumcision doesn't really matter. What really matters is faith working itself out through love. That's striking, because you see faith and the verb for work or works right together, faith working itself out through love. And in a more neutral letter like Thessalonians, Paul's not worried there about legalism or works righteousness, he takes those two words work in faith, which and another letter are opposed to each other. And he puts them together in the same breath, he talks about the work of faith, the NIV translates that as work produced by or work that comes out of our faith. Well, that's exactly what James would say. So, here's another way of maybe thinking about the two different writers who talk again in similar language, but addressing quite different situations. James, in his specific historical context, stresses the necessity of post conversion works, right. So these are works. 

These are actions. These are deeds of love for one neighbor, namely caring for those in need, not showing favoritism. And all of this is done as a natural response to God's gift of grace and righteousness. Paul, in his specific historical context, quite different from that of James, he strongly denies not works, but more accurately, pre conversion works, works of the law, such as circumcision, following Jewish food laws, following the Jewish religious calendar, all these things done somehow to get or obtain or secure God's righteousness. So I think this is a helpful distinction when you think about works and James and Paul, think James is talking about post conversion works works that occur after one is already a believer, whereas Paul, sometimes when he's talking negatively about works is talking about pre conversion works, works done in order to become a believer or a Christian supposedly. Or if you don't like that distinction here, I think is a kind of a clever medical metaphor that Francis Gench, has given it goes like this. Paul is dealing with obstetrics mainly with how life begins. James, however, is dealing with pediatrics and geriatrics, with how a Christian life grows and matures, and ages. It's kind of ironic that when we turn to luthers commentary on Romans, that Luthor says something about faith that sounds awfully like James Luthor, who didn't like James it didn't think it belonged in the canon. 

He speaks awfully James like in the preface to his commentary on Romans about faith. Notice what he says. Oh, it is a living, busy, active thing, this faith, it is impossible for it not to be doing good things incessantly. It that is faith, it is not asked whether good works are to be done. But before the question is asked, it has already done this and is constantly doing them. Whoever does not do such work, however, is an unbeliever. He gropes and looks around for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith is nor what good works are. Yet he talks and talks with many words about the faith and good works. 

Well, we've reached the end of our detailed and lengthy exegesis, our interpretation of this strategic passage, James 2:14-26. And again, I hope and I'm optimistic, you've learned a lot of important things about what God is saying in this passage on this particular subject. But I also hope that you see again, the greater purpose that this discussion has had, namely, that we now have yet another illustration, another example of how to properly read the Bible for all it's worth, that we approach the text from a grammatical, literary, historical and theological perspective. And if we do so we can be confident that we accurately hear not only what God was saying to the people then in there, but also therefore we have confidence about what God is saying to his people, here and now. Thank you for your time and attention.

Video Transcript: Sermon Saving Faith

Saving Faith

James 2:14-26
Sermon Outline

 I. The Historical Context of James' Argument

II. The Interpretation of James' Argument

1. Two Negative Arguments (vv 15-19)

a. Illustration of false, non-saving faith (vv 15-17)

b. Illustration of demons' faith (vv 18-19)

2. Two Positive Arguments (vv 20-25)

a. Example of Abraham's faith (vv 20-24)

b. Example of Rahab's faith (v 25)

Conclusion

Welcome. My name again is Jeff Weima, I'm a professor of New Testament at Calvin Theological Seminary. And in this session, we hope to hear a sermon on the passage that we've been exegeting for some time, namely, James 2:14-26. And the idea is, is that you will see in the sermon that I hope to give to you a model or an illustration of how one might move from the study to the pulpit. Now, before we hear from God in His Word, we first pause for a prayer for illumination, because the Scripture teaches us that the Holy Spirit needs to illumine that is shed light to our sin, darkened minds. And so Let's bow our heads then, in a prayer for the Spirit's presence and illuminating work. 

Great, and Almighty God loving Father, we thank and praise You for Your world, that even though you are a great and awesome God, far beyond our understanding our knowledge and comprehension, you nevertheless are one who has revealed Himself to us, not only in your world, the creation, but even more clearly in your Word, the Bible. So we thank you for the scriptures, and the precious role it plays in our lives, the way that you reveal in it, your great works of redemption, and how you called us to be your children. And yet, oh God, we are sinners. And we know that on our own strength and ability, we will fail to accurately hear and heed your voice. And so we want to do what you have called us to do in that word, namely, to ask for the Spirit's presence, we pray that your Holy Spirit will so work in us that we may indeed hear your voice that we may understand what it is that you were saying through the Apostle James to his readers so many years ago, but also the truth, that same truth that you are saying to us today. So fill us with your spirit. so that we may hear, that we may understand and also through the Spirit's prompting, we may live out and obey. In Jesus name, we asked this, Amen. 

Our scripture passage again is James 2:14-26. And it reads as follows. What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sisters without clothes and daily food, if 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? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead? But someone will say you have faith I had deeds? Show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God good? even the demons believe that and shutter? You foolish man? Do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless, was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did? When he offered Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together. And his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And he was called God's friend, you see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. In 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. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

If the great reformer Martin Luther were listening to my sermon today, he would not be very happy with me, I'm afraid. And the reason Luther would not be very happy with me is not because I teach at a school who's got the name of another great reformer john Calvin written over its doorpost? No, the reason Luther would not be happy with me is because of my scripture selection. You see, Luther didn't like the letter of James very much. He couldn't find in it the heart of the gospel and for Luther that was salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and he looked high and he look low in James and he couldn't find it anywhere. And as a result, he said, James is a letter of straw, right? It's light weight, it's theologically wimpy, it lacks the heart and the substance of the gospel, and therefore he wondered whether it could even be in the Bible. Well, if Luther didn't like James as a whole, he especially didn't like one passage in James, the passage that we're looking at now, namely chapter 2:14-26. You see, Luther not only found the gospel, lacking in this passage, even worse, he thought that James contradicted Paul, he heard in Paul a certain view of faith and works. And when he heard now the words of James, he said, James mixes these two up, he contradicts the apostle. In fact, Luther was so sure that James contradicted Paul, and he was so confident that it was impossible to solve this dilemma. 

He said, If anybody could do that, he said, I'll take off my professors hat, give it to that person, and let him call me a fool. Well, I want to I'm afraid, steal Martin luthers, professors had nothing, I need another one. And I want to call him a fool, though with some respect in my voice. Why? Because I believe and I want you to hear in the message now, that James is not contradictory to Paul, I want you to hear the kind of faith that James is talking about the same kind of faith that Paul are used for and agrees with, namely, the kind of true saving faith that manifests itself that shows itself in concrete actions and deads. Now to interpret any passage of scripture and therefore also a passage a challenging one, like the one we're looking at here at James, it's important to follow the principle, a principle I think you're familiar with, namely, that every passage ought to be interpreted in its, I think, you know what, in its context, sometimes I say that context is king. Words can mean quite different things depending on their context. Well, that's easy to illustrate. Let's take for example, the English word hot, hot. Let's imagine you watch this video and you meet someone else who watches this video. And that other person says to you, oh Weima was hot. Now, wait a minute. What were they saying? 

Well, I guess it all depends on the context, right? It might be that I was perspiring greatly, and sweat is dripping down my head. And so this person said, yo, Weima was hot. Or maybe some Oh, in the sermon, I got really angry. And I write I kind of spoke with some righteous indignation. And so you said Weima was hot. Or maybe you're like this time my wife just gave me and you're like the way it's assembled with as soon as you say, oh, Weima was hot. You see, the word hot can mean different things, depending on its context. And if you know the context, it'll be clear which of those three meanings the author or the speaker clearly intended? Well, it's also different for our passes today, James uses the word faith and works and and Paul uses those words to, but in order to understand them, we have to hear them in their context. Context is king.

Paul, not James. Now, make sure we don't confuse the two. The apostle Paul has one context, we overstate that this is the context because it wasn't always the case in his letters, but in a couple of letters, Galatians, in particular, and in lesser degree Romans. In those contexts, Paul has a particular context in mind. He is writing to address a problem that we often call legalism, or works righteousness. In other words, these are people who thought that they could score points with God by somehow being obedient to the law. And in that context, Paul has some pretty strong and negative things to say about deeds or works, that there are no deeds or works that we could ever do to somehow secure our salvation, or to score enough points with God to cover our sins. For Paul that's only possible by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That's Paul not James, Paul. James now, not Paul, James has a quite different context in mind. James, who almost certainly is the brother of Jesus and head of the Jerusalem church, and therefore in charge of the Jewish Christian churches of Judea and the surrounding area has a significant problem of discrimination on his hands. We hear about discrimination today, I think quite a bit. 

Sometimes we hear about gender discrimination, right how in particular women are discriminated against in favor of men, we hear more and more about ethnic discrimination, right, how there is favoritism, or there is negative judgments against one race because of the color of their skin. But James is talking about gender discrimination or ethnic discrimination. James is dealing with social discrimination, rich versus poor. It's clear from the context and especially not just our passage, but the passage right before us in the first half of chapter two with which our passage is closely connected. It's clear that the church was either discriminating against the poor or neglecting the poor. in worship context, somebody wearing a fine looking suit with lots of jewelry and bling bling would come in, and everyone would get all excited. That's it. Whoa, wow, we were glad to see you. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Come right up here in the front, we have a special spot just for you. And then somebody comes in, you know, who lacks the nice suit, and it doesn't have all the nice gold jewelry and, and well, somehow they weren't so excited, they said, you know, I'm good to see you, you know, I think we have a spot for you over here in the back, if you don't mind. And when there were judgments among Christians, and when the church treated them in house as they ought to the church leadership always seem to side with the rich, even though the evidence sided with the poor. And so James has indeed a serious problem of discrimination on his hands. 

This is a serious problem, when you remember the summary of the law. Not only that, we love God with all our hearts, our soul and our strength. But we also love our neighbor as ourselves. And James is thinking about that second summary of the law, because he actually cites it just a couple of verses earlier. And so James, when he talks about faith and works, you have to hear him in his context. He's not just writing in an abstract way. He's not just sitting back one day and reflecting on the relationship of faith and works. No, he's a pastor of all kinds of churches. And he sees this serious, significant problem of discrimination, neglect of brothers and sisters, poor brothers and sisters in his churches. And in order to answer that problem, he writes the words that we're looking at today. Well, now that we know the context of James argument, I think we're in a better position to look at the interpretation of James argument. Now, how does James deal with this serious, embarrassing, significant problem of discrimination and neglect of the poor? What does he do? Well, he doesn't do what many preachers and some theologians claim that he does. many preachers and other people read this text, and they say, Oh, that's what James is doing. He's contrasting. He's contrasting faith and works.

However, I suggest to you the James is contrasting something else, James is contrasting faith and faith. That's right. He's contrasting more specifically, one kind of faith with another kind of faith. He's contrasting first a negative face that is impossible to save with our true faith that does save. In fact, his argument is quite clear. If you look at the passage, he starts off first with two negative arguments. How do I know that they're negative? Because it begins with the question, What good is it? What good is it? That's actually a fixed phrase in his day? And whenever people said, What good is it? There was only one answer? And the answer is nothing, not a squat. And so James is right away going to say something negative when he starts off by saying what good is it and he says that not once, but twice. And then he has another suggestion that he's going to start off with something negative. He says, Can such faith save him? And here the Greek which is the original language in which James wrote is more helpful than our English translation? Because in Greek, you can ask a neutral question where the speaker is not sure whether the answer is yes or no or you can ask a loaded Question. We might call it a rhetorical question. In fact, you're not so much asking a question as you are asserting something. And that's what James is doing here in verse 14. 

He says, Can faith save him that kind of faith where somebody claims that faith and has no works? And he uses the loaded, answer, No. So it's clear that he starts off first with what faith isn't. Or maybe you could say what a false faith is. And he's got not one, but two negative examples of that. And then in verse 20, if I'm driving a standard car, what am I doing? I'm shifting Yeah, he has a major shift there in verse 20. And he switches and he balances the two negative arguments with two positive arguments, two examples that not surprisingly, come from the Old Testament, the faith of Abraham, and the faith of Rahab. So let's follow the text and the same roadmap that James has laid out for us. And what that means is we begin with the first of the two negative arguments. And the first negative argument is found in verse 15 and 16. He says, suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If 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? The first example of faith is something that we can call all talk and no action. This is the kind of faith where apparently you see a fellow Christian who is poorly close and there have hungry and their need. And then what do you do? You just say, hey, go in peace, right? You just utter some pious, empty cliche. And in Jane's mind, what kind of value is this faith? 

He says, What is the profit? Remember nothing squat? No. Before we to quickly blame the person who's offering this kind of all talk, but no action faith. I want to suggest you that I'm a lot more like that. And maybe you are too then we might realize, I mean, have you ever had this experience? I'm sure you have. You know, I see somebody and I say, you know, Hey, there, how are you? And then the person catches me off guard, they start telling me about their life about some bad things that are happening in life. And then inside, you're kind of going Oh, no, you know, I didn't really expect this, you know, I got myself in this situation, how do I get out? You know, what am I going to do? I don't look care, uncaring, or unsympathetic. And then you go all, I know what I can do, right? You reach into your pocket for those nice Christian cliches you say for just this kind of moment, right? So here comes cliche, number one, you say, oh, I'll pray for you. And then of course, you say goodbye to the person and you don't pray for them. Right? You're so preoccupied with your own life, and your own concerns and interest you forget about them, you don't follow up on that at all. Or maybe you need a backup one an extra one. So I got one of those two, I reached in my pocket. And I'll say, um, God will provide for you in your time of need. 

It sounds wonderful. But of course, I'm blind to the fact that maybe God will provide for this person in their time of need by meeting them by having this conversation and maybe somehow I'll help them out. And James again, says that that kind of faith that's all talk and no action is useless. Or as he says in verse 17, faith by itself, if it's not accompanied by action is dead. He's got a second example of what faith isn't, or maybe of what a false faith is. And that's found in verses 18 and 19. There's actually a problem in verse 18, that we don't have time to talk about. And so we'll just go to 19. We read, you believe that there is one God good, even the demons believe that and shudder if the first example is of a faith, that's all talk and no action. The second example would be all knowledge and no action. I mean, the demons have a certain knowledge about God. They have a knowledge that God exists, and apparently that God is one, because as soon as James says, you believe that there is one God, his Jewish Christian readers would have instantly heard in Hebrew, "Shema O Isreael". Right here, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. It's something that all Israelites and therefore all Jews and Jewish Christians would know from memory, the "Shema" here O Israel, the Lord our God is one. And the demons may know that God exists and the demons may even acknowledge that God is one. 

But apparently that's not enough, either because they respond by shuttering or in the original Greek text. It's a lot more stronger than that. By by being scared by being frightened by being shocked. And the second example is an important one for, for me, and maybe for you, you know, people like us who perhaps know a lot about the faith, right? We know a lot about the Bible. We know a lot about God. We know a lot about theology. I mean, we're the kind of people who know that Habakkuk is Habakkuk. That's how you say it. And we don't have to have the pastor tell us on what page to find it, we can find it all by ourselves, right. And, of course, there's nothing wrong with knowing a lot about the Bible and knowing a lot about God and being mature in our theological understanding. There's much in fact to commend for that. But as important as knowledge is, that in of itself apparently doesn't qualify as true saving faith.

Well, James has given the two negative examples, two examples of what faith isn't. And so now he shifts gear here in verse 20. And he gives two positive examples of what real faith looks like what saving faith looks like, and it's going to be working faith. And not surprisingly, because he's writing to Jews and Jewish Christians, I should say, he cites examples from the Old Testament. Why not pick examples that they know about that they'll find powerful and convincing. And although James doesn't tell all the details about Abraham and Rahab, he doesn't need to, he can assume that they know the back story of Abraham. James can assume that his heroes know that he wasn't always called Abraham, he was called Abram. They know how God called him aside, one said and said, Abram, check out the stars in the sky, check out the sand on the seashore. That's so many, you're just your descendants are going to be that sounds Whoo, that sounds pretty impressive. In fact, your descendants gonna be so numerous, we're gonna have to change your name to Abraham, father of a nation. 

And so Abraham who doesn't really know this God, he, he's kind of intrigued. He's kind of impressed and apparently has faith to, to follow this God and to go to a foreign land and, and he's waiting for this prophecy of becoming a father of a nation that come to fulfillment. And he waits, and he waits, and he waits. And nothing's happening. Maybe I have to somehow have got along in this process. Maybe I have to have a relationship and sleep with my wives help. No, I guess that's not either. And so Abraham continues to wait and one day he's 99. And God comes to him and says, It's time and so Abraham someone understandably laughs Yeah, right. And Sarah's 89. And God comes through and says, It's time and she's somewhat understand to be laughs, and says, right. And it is right, because she conceives and gives birth to a boy, and they have to name him Isaac, what else but to call him a name that means laughter. How precious is a child to any parent, how much more precious is a child to parents of advanced age? How much even more precious is a child like Isaac, on whom a whole future nation is dependent. And then comes the news, the awful news, we're new, so we can't even hardly understand where God comes from. It says, Abraham, take your son, notice the words, your only son, the one whom you love. And then take him to the mountain of Mariah and offer him as a sacrifice to me. Christians for centuries have tried to understand the significance of this command. It's really difficult, if not impossible, maybe some of us and and I'm afraid I'm one of them. 

Maybe some of us who've lost a child and know the pain and horror of the death of a beloved son or daughter may maybe have a little bit of an inkling of the kind of emotions that Abraham was going through. But Abraham apparently has faith so much faith that he raises a hand and at the last moment, God provides a deliverer. And then James says, Did you see it? Did you get it? It's right there. That's faith. That's what real faith looks like. And James apparently says, it wasn't just this one thing that Abraham did that proved his faith. Remember, I tried to stress it maybe didn't catch it. In the reading in verse 22. We read you see that his face And his actions, actions plural. So it wasn't just this one time act of offering Isaac but it was through out Abraham's life, his works his deeds regularly testified to the genuineness of his saving faith. James has a second example the example of Rahab. And again, he can assume that his heroes know the backstory here to a backstory which highlights again how significant Rahab faith is.

But I was a little puzzled, though, by the choice of Rahab. If you think about it for a moment, it does sound a little strange, doesn't it? I mean, Abraham, I can understand that's a no brainer. I mean, why not pick Abraham, he literally is the father of the Jewish nation. I mean, there are no Jews before Abraham. That's why we sing that annoy him. Father Abraham, he is the father of the Jewish people. He's really the top dog in Jewish circles, if you will. But you know, Rahab. I mean, who is she? Well, one, she's not a Jew. She's a Gentile. Two, she's a woman. I know, that doesn't sound very politically correct. But in that patriarchal culture and age, that meant something. And three, she was, well, maybe the worst kind of woman she was a prostitute. I mean, boy, it's kind of hard to get worse than that unless you somehow give her leprosy to boot. And yet, I think that James has deliberately picked these two because they're extremes. It doesn't matter whether you're the patriarch Abraham, or the prostitute Rahab, it doesn't matter whether you're a seminary professor, or a student of the Bible, watching this video, it doesn't matter who you are, the call to true faith is exactly the same for all of us. 

All of us are called to have the kind of genuine faith that shows itself that manifests itself in concrete acts of obedience, and especially in this context, kindness, and love and generosity to those who are hurting, and in need. So James can conclude by having this analogy as the body without the spirit is dead. So faith without deeds is dead, the body needs to come alive through the infusing presence of the Spirit. And similarly, deeds are an essential part of a living, saving, faith. Martin Luther, the great reformer did not like the letter of James, and he especially didn't like this passage that we've been looking at chapter 2:14-26. But I like this passage. I think it's especially relevant for the church, the North American contemporary church today. Why? Well, because the church has changed sometimes in positive ways, sometimes and not so positive ways. One way the church has changed from yesteryear is its ability to articulate its faith. Christians today are much more free in giving a testimony and speaking openly about their love for Jesus and what God has done for them. And that's a positive and encouraging thing. If I think about my grandparents, for instance, they, they would probably struggle, right. 

They could speak about their faith, but they wouldn't do so eagerly or so openly. They certainly wouldn't in a public worship service, be willing to step up to the mic and give their personal testimony. But even though they couldn't speak about their faith very much, they certainly showed their faith, man, did they ever demonstrate their faith? I mean, well, for example, they grew up in the Netherlands during the Second World War, and during that time, they hit a Jewish boy. And they trust you understand the serious implications of what what happened if you were caught hiding a Jew, he was someone in need, they could have justified it and said, Hey, I have to look out for my own interest in the safety of my family. But they did that. They did show love to their neighbor. they immigrated to Canada after the Second World War and and they ministered to all kinds of people and only found this out after the fact because they were so modest, of course about what they had done. These are grandparents from my mother's side of the family. So they couldn't tell from my last name that they were my grandparents. But a number of occasions that I preached in different places in Ontario, Canada. 

When people found out that I was a grandson of Garrett and Clasca de Schiffer, where people not only broke out in smiles, many of them literally cried, they literally cried because they would tell me sometimes through their tears and through smiles about how my grandparents helped them because they too had immigrated, and how my grandparents either lent the money or farming equipment, or let them live with them for a while, maybe the husband went ahead and made arrangements for a new job and housing situation. And I remember later in life, when I had the privilege of having my grandparents come and visit with me in different places, and I would hear them pray at night, in Friesian, right in their native dialect. You see my grandparents, their actions, were crystal clear in testifying to the genuineness of their faith. Now today, though, it's just the opposite. Today, again, we have Christians who can articulate their faith and that's again, a good and wonderful thing. The Scriptures say that we ought to be able to give an account a defense for the faith that is ours. I think it's healthy that when when people make professional faith, they just don't say yes, or I do to some questions, but it's a positive thing if they can maybe write or say in their own words, what their Christian faith and commitment means. But I'm afraid that that faith, which is sometimes so eloquently expressed, is not so always faithfully lived. I've had opportunity as a pastor and as an elder to, you know, visit people and ask kind of personal questions about, you know, your faith, and how do you implement your faith in your daily life? 

And how does your faith you know, interact with your job or with your vacation and things like that, and your home life, your marriage? And, and the answer is often are not so encouraging. And that's why I like James. That's why James message is so desperately needed by the church today. James has very little tolerance for people who are all talk and no action has said James presents for us a very vigorous working faith, the kind of faith that impacts every single thing we say, think and do. I mean, our faith will impact the kind of movies we choose for Netflix to send to our home. Our faith will impact how eager and cheerfully we put money into the offering plate or support other Christian causes.

Our faith will impact how, how quick we are to spend time on our knees and God in prayer. Our faith will also influence how motivated and how committed we are to hearing God speak to us through His Word. Our faith will impact as a young person, the kind of person we might choose to date and potentially marry. Our faith will will also impact the way we refer to members of the opposite sex, what things we find appropriate and not appropriate. And our faith, especially later this passage will also greatly impact how we respond to those who are hurting and in need. You see, dear friends that faith? Wait a minute, what kind of faith now not a false faith. But wait a minute, a true faith, a saving faith will literally impact every single thing. You say, think and do. 

Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Word and the way that it speaks to us and our situation today. Not just to that a James day, but to our contemporary world and how we now as your children and followers of Jesus are called to live. We pray that we may be a people who by the infusing presence of your spirit, have the kind of faith that James desires in his readers. We pray that your grace will so work in us that we're changed, that we think differently, that we speak differently, and that we act differently. Oh God may our conduct, at home, at work, at play at church may all the things we do and every place we find ourselves in with no matter who We might be, may our faith display itself in concrete and specific acts of obedience. And especially in contexts of need of kindness, and love and generosity. Work that kind of faith in us through your word and spirit we pray. In Jesus name Amen.