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9th October 2024
WednesdayReflection
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'John Piper'
'founder and teacher of Desiring God.com'
Does James Contradict Paul?
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James 2:14-26 says
What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works?
Can that faith save him?
Romans 3 says
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
We believe that the Bible is inspired by God
(2 Timothy 3:16).
It is the very word of God, written.
Therefore, we believe that the Bible is true and coherent.
But this does not mean that there are no problems for us in the Bible.
Language itself can confuse us when different words carry the same meaning, and when the same words carry different meanings.
Take the simple English word "rock." It might mean a stone, or a kind of music, etc.
Or take the Greek word zelos which can be "jealousy" in a bad sense or "zeal" in a good sense.
Or consider an Englishman saying, "Let's play football this afternoon," to which you respond, "No, I'd like to play soccer."
So the same words can have different meanings.
And different words can have the same meanings.
This is true in the Bible as well as in all other books and conversations.
While words are at times maddening, they are also a precious means of communicating.
All of that introduction is simply to set the stage for the apparent contradiction between Paul and James on the doctrine of justification by faith.
I can make a case from Romans 4:1-5 for the truth that we are justified by faith alone, not by works.
And James 2:24, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone."
So you see that James not only says that a person is justified by works, but he also denies that justification is by faith alone.
At least he uses words that, on the face of it, seem to mean something very different from Paul.
So the key question here is: Does James aim to refute the doctrine of Paul that justification is by faith alone, which would mean there is a massive contradiction in the Bible?
Or does James aim to refute an abuse of Paul's teaching and bring a corrective for the churches he was writing to?
I want to try to show you that James is not contradicting Paul here but teaching something compatible with Paul's teaching and correcting a misuse of Paul's teaching.
Paul was very aware that his teaching was being distorted and misused.
You can see this, in Romans 3:8, ("As we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), 'Let us do evil that good may come'?
So he knows he is being slandered
Consider Romans 5:20. Paul says, "The Law came in so that the sin would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more."
Paul knows what some are saying, "Let's continue in sin that grace may increase."
Now Paul has answers to this kind of superficial distortion and abuse of his teaching.
He has answers in virtually all his letters to show how good works and love necessarily flow from real justifying faith.
Look at Galatians 5:6, a crucial text in seeing Paul and James in harmony with each other.
"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love."
So when Paul dealt with the abuse of his doctrine of justification by faith alone, he said:
It's not added works like circumcision that will win God's favour.
What then?
It is "faith working through love."
Notice very carefully what he says. What counts with God?
"Faith."
But what kind of faith?
Faith that "works through love."
He says that what counts with God is the kind of faith that produces love.
But it is faith that gives us our right standing with God.
The love that comes from it only shows that it is, in fact, real living, justifying faith.
Now that, I think, is what James was trying to get across to his churches.
Loveless faith is absolutely useless; and anybody that comes along and says
"We are justified by faith alone, and so you don't have to be a loving person to go to heaven" is not telling the truth.
James' concern is with a kind of counterfeit faith that does not produce love.
This faith cannot justify anybody.
Verse 14: "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?"
You see his concern.
Faith alone unites us to Christ for righteousness, and the faith that unites us to Christ for righteousness does not remain alone.
It bears the fruit of love.
It must do so or it is dead, useless faith and does not justify.
The glory of Christ in the gospel is not merely that we are justified when we depend entirely on Christ, but also that is the power that makes us new, loving people.
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Un-edited version, (MUCH MORE) available on request
(and Bible references)
'John Piper'
is founder and teacher of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy.
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