Catching Up and Arguing With James

First, here’s a little catching up from yesterday, September 3.

Debbie:

Psalm 62
Psalm 62 reminds us, in no uncertain terms, that God is God. There are poor people and there are rich people, but they are the same before God. The Psalmist warns and promises that God is God and God will repay. But the Psalmist also promises that with God is steadfast love. God is our refuge. Do we really know that or do we rely on other means and other things?

II Chronicles 6:32-7:7
This is an amazing prayer that Samuel prayed. Were all our prayers filled with such faith! It’s almost as if Samuel is saying, “your will be done” and expects it to be that way. This dedication service is beautiful. After Samuel’s prayer, the offering for the house that he built for the Lord comes pouring in, beginning with his offering.

And now on with today, September 4.

Jim:

I’ll be honest from the outset. I don’t care much for the book of James (even if it shares my name). There are some very thoughtful and challenging verses in the book, true. But then you come to a verse like 2:24 and I lose all patience with it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

James 2:14-26
I underlined verse 24 because it really bothers me. “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Frankly, no, I don’t see. In fact, this verse appears to me to be a slippery slope akin to “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Now, if you squint a little you might get the impression that James is saying faith leads to works, or that the faithful will also, by grace, be led to do works. But to say that justification comes by way of works in any form or fashion flies in the face of the good news of the gospel. Debbie speculates that perhaps James uses the term “justified” the way we might understand “sanctified.” In fact, Debbie and I have spent 15 minutes discussing this whole concept this morning and we disagree sharply on James’s intent. I’ve also referred to Frances Taylor Gench’s commentary on Hebrews and James and see that she, too, finds no significant problem with James on this point. I’m not convinced, so I’ll leave it with these two points, 1) a sincere and Christ-centered faith will produce good fruit (like the works of the sheep in Matthew 25), but 2) there is nothing at all that we can do to earn our salvation (nor to lose our salvation for that matter), and if that is what James means by “justified” then I’m having none of it.