There Is Great Benefit To A Working Faith (James 2:14-26) Series

and it was calculated/reckoned to him for righteousness,

and a friend of God, he was called.

Verse 23 is maybe the most important in the whole section. It's also, maybe, the most complicated.

In Genesis 15, Abraham "believes in God"-- he trusts God-- when God promises him descendants. And God considers Abraham's belief, or "trust," as righteousness (in the LXX), and God calls Abraham, at that point, his friend.

Seven chapters later, in Genesis 22, God tests Abraham's faith, by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac on the altar. And Abraham passes the test (we are supposed to hear a link to James 1:2-4, where we consider "testings" to be pure joy). He shows his righteousness by his works.

So when he does this, he "fulfills/completes" the Scripture. He shows that the way God talked about him was true.

The idea here, is that righteousness is something that has to be demonstrated. And Abraham proved/showed that the way God talked about him was right-- Abraham was righteous, and God's friend, not just in theory, or in words, but in reality.

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Slide:

"Reckoned" righteous----------> Works added-----------> "Shown/Proven" Righteous.

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And James says exactly this in verse 24. This is thing #4:

(24) You see that from/by works, a person is shown right(eous),

and not from/by faith alone.

Again. Righteousness is something that has to be shown. [This is maybe the most important point James makes.] I can't demonstrate my righteousness by my faith. Faith doesn't do that. It wasn't designed to do that. Righteousness is demonstrated by good works.

In verse 25, James attacks the objection from verse 18 one last time:

(25) Now, likewise, also Rahab the prostitute-- was it not from/by works [that] she was shown right(eous),

welcoming the messengers,

and by another road sending them out?

(26) For just as the body apart from the spirit, dead, it is, thus also faith without works, dead, it is.

When we look at Rahab's life, we see the same relationship between faith and works. Rahab believed that Jericho was doomed. She placed her trust in God. And, acting out of that faith, she welcomed the messengers (showing hospitality), and got them safely back to the Israelites. Rahab's faith was shown by her works.

Then in verse 26, we find James wrapping up his argument. James had started by asking, is there any benefit to a faith without works? And now he says, a faith without works is dead.

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If we've managed to follow James's argument, and take him seriously, our application this morning is really straightforward.

When James looks at the church, he sees people who claim to be Christians (and they are), who claim to have "saving" faith, but who don't show faith in the areas God most cares about. They don't care about their brothers and sisters in need. They show favoritism. They go through life using worldly wisdom, living as friends to the world, instead of as friends to God. They don't practice true religion.