“Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).
And we are supposed to let this one verse by the Apostle to the Circumcision negate everything that the Apostle to the UNcircumcision said?
Perhaps we should just tear out of our bibles anything PAUL said about WORKING for your salvation and run with James’ one little letter.
Rom 4:6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,
Gal 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the WORKS OF THE LAW: for by the WORKS OF THE LAW shall no flesh be justified.
Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 NOT OF WORKS, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto GOOD WORKS, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
2Ti 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, NOT ACCORDING TO OUR WORKS, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
Tts 3:5 Not by WORKS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS which WE have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
so why is it that this one little letter from James (which was not accepted by the church for 200 years) carries more weight than all of Paul’s letters? Is it because still have a desire to EARN their salvation?
From Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther...
As to myself, I openly confess, that I should not wish “Free-will” to be granted me, even if it could be so, nor anything else to be left in my own hands, whereby I might endeavour something towards my own salvation. And that, not merely because in so many opposing dangers, and so many assaulting devils, I could not stand and hold it fast, (in which state no man could be saved, seeing that one devil is stronger than all men;) but because, even though there were no dangers, no conflicts, no devils, I should be compelled to labour under a continual uncertainty, and to beat the air only. Nor would my conscience, even if I should live and work to all eternity, ever come to a settled certainty, how much it ought to do in order to satisfy God. For whatever work should be done, there would still remain a scrupling, whether or not it pleased God, or whether He required any thing more; as is proved in the experience of all justiciaries, and as I myself learned to my bitter cost, through so many years of my own experience.
The whole argument of Faith versus Works, discussed in an either or manner, is frankly more than a little bit silly. There is perhaps no greater confusion among Roman Catholic Christians and Evangelical Protestant and Pentecostal Christians than that held over the controversy of faith versus good works.
There is no doubt or Catholic argument that the Bible is clear that faith holds a first and prominent role in the Salvation of every person. But the Bible is equally clear on the necessity of good works in the lives of the faithful and intimately Salvation. Jesus preached the necessity to feed, comfort, heal, visit, to give alms, to pray and to pray for, and to forgive. All of these are works.
James wasn’t alone in this message either. Every Apostle who put pen to paper taught a similar message, including St. Paul. We will be judged by our deeds; works and sins.
If as the Protestants say that Paul’s message alone was for the gentiles, a point that I do not concede, and that his letters were to the Church, that is the community of the saved, why would he have spent so much time and ink calling us to works and admonishing and correcting those who continued to sin.