"Faith without works is dead," says James. We talked about that a little bit last week, and we'll talk about it a little more this week. We'll dig into the idea of how faith and works work together, so to speak, and we'll show how we believe this phrase from James does not mean that we do works in order to "prove" our faith or in order to make our faith genuine. We'll also talk a bit about how "works without faith are dead works!" (See how we cleverly moved the words around a bit). ;) Anyone, even people without faith, can do good works. People can be good imitators, and their imitations can appear very close to the real thing, and yet just as an imitation is not the real thing, in the same way people can do works that appear really, really good, but are nevertheless dead works.
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This is sort of cool and certainly a God thing... LOL! I was looking at this verse today, then was reading a bit in Maj Ian Thomas "The Saving Life of Christ" and the verse popped out again... then I run into it here.
ReplyDeleteI love the Major's thoughts on this verse. James 2: 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
He unpacks it that spirit is the same as breath, so the body that does not breath is dead. So faith without deeds is dead. Faith should be that inner working of the Spirit of God that works in and through us to do the Work's God created us to do through Him.
So not this is not about works, but about Faith being active in those who the Spirit of God dwells in and such a part of our new nature that it is like our own breath. To make it works would mean that we must do the work of breathing to live! That is of course rather silly as breathing is second nature to us... it is an auto pilot as such and what we do as we live...
Anyway glad to find your blog and will have to check it out more soon. = )
blessings,
iggy
Thanks iggy... I appreciate your comment and it is so right on! I love the writings of Major Ian Thomas, and you've really said it well here. The church has made this verse (and surrounding passage) to be about works, when it really is about faith that is already alive and active. Works are the natural result of that, and they're God's works that He prepared beforehand, and that we get the pleasure of walking in.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for stopping by!