"You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." (James 2:24 NRSV)
What James is protesting is not Pauline theology, but a perversion of it: acting as though God's Word is mere advice and then wending our own way. Few Christians would ever put it quite so boldly, but in effect that's the way many so-called believers live. They say, "We believe," but there's nothing to distinguish them from unbelievers. They live by their own lusts rather that by the will of God.
How sad that we would claim to be Jesus' followers and go our own way. (I recall Ambrose Bierce's bitter definition of Christians as those "who believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with the life of sin.") It only confirms the world in its opinion that we Christians are up to no good and makes unbelievers by the score. How sad -- indeed, how tragic. Can that "faith" save us? Can it draw others to salvation? "No, indeed!" says James.
-- David Roper in Growing Slowly Wise
#2366
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