November 28, 2025 - James 2, again

We talk a great deal about salvation being entirely of grace and rightly so.  If not for Christ dying for us, the Holy Spirit working in our hearts, turning us, and drawing us by faith, we would be lost.  As the prophet Jonah exclaimed, when he sought to be saved from the belly of the whale, “Salvation is of the Lord” (Jonah 2:9).  That statement can also be applied to our salvation from sin and death unto life and a full righteousness in Christ.  And here’s the thing, that salvation, which God works in us, produces fruit by which we can know that we, and others, are genuinely saved.  James asks and, then, answers his own question, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can that faith save him?  If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’  Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (2:14-19).  That last statement tells the story, doesn’t it?  Faith is shown by its works.  Remember the duck?  If it looks, sounds, and walks like a duck, it’s a duck!  If one looks, sounds, and lives like a Christian, that person is a Christian.  Pretty simple, isn’t it?

So let our lips and lives express

The holy gospel we profess;

So let our works and virtues shine,

To prove the doctrine all divine.   –Isaac Watts (1758)