Featured Who is James trying to persuade?

Please enlighten us old wise one, speak for the nonCal/synergist/free willer/Arminian/semi-Pelagian; what do YOU make of it?

 

He is just asserting that one cannot be a mere proessor of knowing Jesus, as if one really has been saved by him, there must be some type of evidence, as in a changed life!

For by Grace alone, thru faith alone a sinners gets saved by the Lord, yet that new saint will have some evidence of some kind to support what they now profess happened!

 

How about "We BEG you on behalf of Christ - be reconciled to God" -- 2Cor 5.

Same thing. The Gospel goes to the lost by way of 'appeal" not by way of magic-arbitrary zapping of the mind.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Faith, being alone, is dead. Works must accompany our faith. Our works make manifest who we are working for.

 

Genuine faith that has real salvations generates real works!

 

Genuine regeneration/birth of the Spirit/law written in the heart generates real works!

 

I am really quite surprised that you are trying to bend this passage in order to place Calvinists on the defensive. James is writing to "My brethren" (2:1), so obviously he is writing to believers, or "the Elect" as you put it. The context in which he is writing to them is to take them to task for showing partiality/favoritism to the wealthy at the expense of the poor:

"My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism" (Jas. 2:1).

The rest of the chapter deals with the issue of partiality/favoritism. In verse 14 Paul gets to the heart issue involved. James makes the case that saving faith is accompanied by true acts of charity (good works). The Apostle Paul makes the same argument in Ephesians 2:10, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."

This is not a for or against Calvinist passage. Seriously, I think some people want to start Calvinist debates about the table of contents!

 

He has fallen into the same rut as Winman and Van in relentlessly blaspheming and maligning the Calvinists. I'm seriously beginning to believe it's a bona fide mental illness with these people.

Bingo! Charity, i.e. AGAPE, thinking of others! That is the essence of the religion of Jesus Christ. AGAPE IS the fulfillment of the law.

15 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food

Would steaver or Winman or Van assist here? Or would they 'step to the other side of the road and walk on by' and then go make another post on the BB blaspheming the Calvinists? Would they show the work of the law written in their hearts, or do as the rich man with Lazarus and not even give them the crumbs from their table?

 

Interestingly, you jumped all the way from 2:1 to 2:14 without stopping at:

v12 - So speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of liberty

v13 - For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment

v14 - What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?


Verse 14 simply CANNOT be pulled apart from verses 12-13. James is speaking to [I[brethren[/I] who will be judged by the law of liberty. He reiterates this context of a believer's judgment in 3:1, where he says that teacher will be judged more strictly.


People need to stop thinking about "saved" as only being saved from hell. Here, James is warning believers of a coming judgment (1Cor 3:10-15).

If any man's work is burned up, he will be left with faith alone. If that's the case, he will suffer loss.

So when James asks "can [u[that faith[/u[ [I[save[/I] him, he is warning that dead faith cannot "save" anyone from suffering loss at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

And the rest of the chapter bears it out


The notion of "dead faith" equating to fake faith is one which ignores context and legitimate uses of "dead"


Is a dead battery a fake battery?
Is a dead body a fake body?
Is a "dead end" street a fake street?

Dead faith is USELESS as it relates to being judged by our works.

What USE is dead faith? It is worthless at the Judgment Seat of Christ

Verse 12 - speak and act as those who will be JUDGED by the law of liberty

Verse 20 - But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is USELESS ??

Let not many of you become teacher, MY BRETHREN, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter JUDGMENT


If James is in the context of a believer's judgment in 2:12 AND in 3:1, does it make sense that he's in the same context for the 14 verses between?

 

Persuasion of that sort found in the Bible - does not work in the 4 and 5 point Calvinist model. Calvinism does not allow the lost to be persuaded - rather they are zapped and then discover it after the fact.

Which is also the case with Calvinism and "we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God".

And how could anyone who accepted the man-made tradition of OSAS over the Bible - go for "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?" as applying to the saints?



in Christ,

Bob

 

Why do you need a table of contents if God has foreordained what you're going to read? Seriously though, I don't see this passage as helping either side either.

 

On the contrary - it is perfect for the Arminian POV.

 

1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion, greeting

James was a Jew, his audience were Jews, there's no doubt there were tares among the wheat in the above mentioned recipients. Chap 5 seems to flip flop from one sentence to the next between 'brethren' and tares. A preterist viewpoint here helps a whoooole lot.

Nah, not digging or searching old posts, time will bear me out here.