Would you fly in a plane if you could see that the engine was falling off or the tires were flat? Your senses would forbid it. What if I asked you to sit in a chair you couldn’t see? Or what if the chair was missing one of its legs and was falling over? You wouldn’t sit in a chair like that with human faith. That takes human faith, which God gave to every person. We fly in airplanes when we don’t fully understand how they work, and we don’t know the pilot, but we trust that everything will be okay. Using natural human faith, we can sit in a chair we’ve never sat in and believe it will hold us up. Human faith can only believe what it can see, taste, hear, smell, or feel it’s limited to the five senses. There is a human faith that is inherent within every human being, and there is a supernatural faith of God that only comes to those who receive the good news. This verse says that faith is the gift of God. We have to put faith in God’s grace, but the faith that we use isn’t our own human faith. If that were so, then everyone would be saved because God’s grace has come to all men (Tit. In Ephesians 2:8, Paul says, “For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” It’s God’s grace that saves us, but not His grace alone. Every born-again Christian already has the same quality and quantity of faith that Jesus has. We spend a lot of effort, like a dog chasing its tail, trying to get something we already have. One of the areas about faith that gives people the most trouble is the concept that we have to acquire more faith and that some people have much faith, while others have virtually none. They may reach some level of success, but to really be proficient, they have to read the book. They are impatient and want to do it on their own. The Bible is our manual with detailed instructions, but just like in the natural, few people take the time to really study it. ![]() It’s like having a computer and knowing its potential but not having a clue how to use it. Yet there is much confusion about faith today just as there has always been. ![]() Everything the Lord does for us is accessed through faith. Our faith is the victory that enables us to overcome the world (1 John 5:4). Faith is what brings the things God has provided for us from the spiritual realm into the physical realm (Heb. 11:6), so our relationship with the Lord is dependent on it. And a dead faith, because it is ineffectual, is really no faith at all.Without faith it’s impossible to please God (Heb. If works are not present, our faith is dead (James 2:26). Rather, we are declared righteous by faith alone, and this faith must be a living faith that endeavors to live according to God’s Word in gratitude for salvation. Our righteous status before God is not earned by the works of the Law or by other such good deeds (Gal. 2:10) and that if these works are absent then faith is absent as well. Like Paul, he knew that we are created for good works (Eph. It is a living faith that issues forth in works. James reminds us that though we are justified by faith alone, the faith that justifies us is never alone. Her works of hiding the spies and then helping them escape “justified,” or demonstrated, that she was a true woman of God, faithfully trusting in God’s promise through His people to save her (Josh. If she had confessed faith but then ignored God’s people when they were in need, she would have revealed that her profession was empty and her faith ineffectual. Rahab demonstrated her trust in the one true God by sheltering the spies (v. In today’s passage, James continues giving evidence for this point with the example of Rahab. These works do not earn salvation, they only show that true faith is present. James reminds us that our faith itself is “justified” (demonstrated to be true) when it manifests itself in works (2:18). When James uses the term, he is speaking of the quality of faith that is effectual for salvation. When Paul uses it, he has in mind a forensic declaration based on the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to our account when we trust in Him alone apart from any of our works. True, Paul and James both use the term justification, but they use it in different senses. However, we have seen that this is not the case. Many have claimed that this passage deals the death blow to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. ![]() As noted, this passage has been the center of much controversy in the debate surrounding the biblical doctrine of justification. Today we conclude our study of James 2 and the instruction that we find therein regarding our faith, works, and justification.
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