James 2:14-26 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs,
Today’s passage is James 2:14-26. Let’s go!
On verses 14-26: What a powerful and hard-hitting passage. How do you reconcile this passage with other famous passages in the Bible like Ephesians 2:8 which clearly teach that “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…not by works so that no one can boast”? Is James saying here that you can earn your way to heaven by your own good works? No. Is he questioning whether faith in Jesus can really save you? No. Rather, here James is defining what real saving faith in Christ looks like. If someone has real saving faith in Christ, that faith will express itself through action. Anyone can say, “Jesus is my Saviour”, but whether or not that person truly believes that Jesus is their Saviour will become evident in how that person lives.
James is not saying that you need to live a perfect Christian life before it can be concluded that you have true saving faith. (As James will later write in chapter 3, “we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2)). But if you have no deeds at all, if you refuse to do the basic things that Christ calls His followers to do, like get baptized, or repent of sin, or have compassion for the poor (v15-16), or serve your church, then your behaviour will start to call into question your belief, such that you may need to start questioning whether you truly believe Jesus is your Saviour at all. Jesus says something similar in Matthew 7:20: “you will recognize them by their fruit”. For a complete absence of deeds can call into question the real presence of saving faith.
