Picture how you can be a lighthouse beaming out into eternity. The treasure God deposited in your inner man can radiate Christ the Word in your life: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” (II Cor. 4:6-7) Much better than acquiring rubies or gold, this grace doctrine matures us spiritually to live as adult believers and be interconnected members of Christ’s Body. Being left here on earth, we are His arms and legs to minister to others. A delightful thought and opportunity!

Since it is not us and our efforts, but Christ and His resurrection life beaming forth, we can confidently hold forth the Word and run our race as who we are in Christ to be a living sacrifice. This service is approved of God and has eternal benefits. Whether in life or in death, no matter how difficult the challenge, we are “more than conquerors.” (Romans 8:37) God designed it all to work for us.

Philippians 2 provides us with several examples to meditate upon. First and foremost, Christ who loved us with eternal love, became sin, dying for us. (vs 5-11) Paul is the next, serving through his life as our Apostle. (vs 12-18) God planned that he would be our example for edification and negotiating life using the grace doctrine: “For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:16) Timothy’s life showed he matured in Christ’s love and naturally cared for the state of others. (vs 19-24) Finally Epaphroditus’ witness reveals that he put his life on the line to minister to the Philippians. (vs 25-30)

To Do: Think upon these men and their ministries. What can you glean from their lives, characteristics, and the fruit of their labor to transform you?

The Epistle to the Hebrews presents us with one of the more intriguing questions of New Testament authorship. The book itself does not identify its writer. Unlike Paul’s epistles, there is no opening salutation naming an apostle, nor does the writer identify himself anywhere in the body of the epistle.

For centuries, Paul was commonly regarded as the author, and the familiar title in the King James Bible is The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. Yet the internal character of the book has caused many to question whether Paul actually penned it. Its vocabulary, style, structure, and manner of argument differ noticeably from Paul’s identified epistles.

That does not mean Hebrews is unrelated to Paul or his ministry. In fact, the closing chapter provides an important clue:“Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty; with whom, if he come shortly, I will see you.”
— Hebrews 13:23

Whoever wrote Hebrews knew Timothy personally and expected possibly to travel with him. The writer therefore appears to have had some connection with the circle in which Paul and Timothy ministered.Among the many names proposed through the centuries, two are particularly interesting: John Mark and Apollos. Neither can be proven to have written Hebrews, but both possess characteristics that make the possibility worth considering.

The Case for John Mark

John Mark occupies an unusual position in the book of Acts and the apostolic epistles. He had meaningful associations with both Peter and Paul.When Peter was miraculously released from prison, he went:“to the house of Mary the mother of John, whose surname was Mark.”
— Acts 12:12Mark later accompanied Barnabas and Saul:“And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministry, and took with them John, whose surname was Mark.”
— Acts 12:25He accompanied them into their ministry but departed from them at Perga (Acts 13:13). That departure eventually contributed to the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas recorded in Acts 15:36–40. Barnabas took Mark, while Paul chose Silas.Whatever difficulties existed at that time were not permanent. Years later Paul referred favorably to Mark, calling him a fellowlabourer in Philemon 24. Near the end of Paul’s life he instructed Timothy:“Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”
— 2 Timothy 4:11This gives us an interesting connection. Hebrews was written by someone who knew Timothy, and John Mark clearly knew both Paul and Timothy.But Mark’s connections extended in another direction as well.

Peter wrote:”The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son.”
— 1 Peter 5:13

Whatever precise relationship Peter intended by “Marcus my son,” the statement demonstrates a close association between Peter and Mark.That makes Mark an intriguing candidate for Hebrews. He stood at an unusual intersection. He had close connections with Peter and the Jerusalem believers, yet he also ministered among Paul and his associates.Such a background could help explain a book that is thoroughly Hebrew in its subject matter while nevertheless having recognizable connections with the Pauline circle.

A Possible Levitical Connection

There is another interesting consideration.Mark was related to Barnabas. Paul identifies:“Marcus, sister’s son to Barnabas”
— Colossians 4:10Barnabas, meanwhile, is specifically identified as:”a Levite”
— Acts 4:36

We should be cautious here. Mark’s relationship to Barnabas does not establish that Mark himself was a Levite. The family relationship does, however, place him in close proximity to a Levitical family.That becomes interesting when we consider the content of Hebrews.Few books of the New Testament display such sustained familiarity with the priesthood, sacrifices, tabernacle, covenant, and Levitical system. Hebrews 7–10 in particular develops an extended argument concerning the Levitical priesthood and its relationship to the superior priesthood of Christ after the order of Melchisedec.A writer with close family connections to the Levitical world would certainly be compatible with that material.The same fact, of course, has long contributed to the suggestion that Barnabas himself may have written Hebrews.

The Difficulty With Mark

The principal weakness of the Mark theory is historical.There is no known early tradition identifying John Mark as the author of Hebrews. That does not make his authorship impossible, but it means the case must be constructed almost entirely from circumstantial evidence.Mark fits several pieces of the puzzle, but we possess no ancient testimony telling us that he actually wrote the book.

The Case for Apollos

If Mark is an intriguing possibility, Apollos may present an even stronger internal profile.Luke introduces him in Acts with an unusually detailed description:”And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.”
— Acts 18:24

Nearly every part of that description deserves attention when considering the authorship of Hebrews.He was a Jew.He was Alexandrian.He was eloquent.And he was mighty in the scriptures.

Those characteristics correspond remarkably well with what we encounter in Hebrews.

An Eloquent Man

Hebrews is an extraordinarily sophisticated composition. Even apart from questions of theology, its literary character distinguishes it from much of the New Testament.Its arguments are carefully constructed and sustained. The writer moves from proposition to Scripture, from Scripture to explanation, and from explanation to exhortation. Major themes introduced early in the book reappear and develop throughout it.The extended arguments concerning Melchisedec, the priesthood, the covenants, the tabernacle, and the sacrifices require considerable intellectual discipline.The description of Apollos as “an eloquent man” therefore deserves more than passing notice.If we were searching among named New Testament individuals for someone possessing the intellectual and rhetorical ability necessary to compose Hebrews, Apollos would immediately deserve consideration.

Mighty in the Scriptures

Even more significant may be Luke’s statement that Apollos was “mighty in the scriptures.”Hebrews does not merely quote Scripture. Its author reasons from Scripture.Psalm 2, Psalm 8, Psalm 95, Psalm 110, Jeremiah 31, and numerous passages from the law are woven into sustained theological arguments. The writer can take a relatively brief Old Testament reference to Melchisedec and develop its implications for the priesthood of Christ over several chapters.Hebrews 7–10 demonstrates especially well the writer’s mastery of Israel’s Scriptures and institutions.That sounds very much like a man who could properly be described as “mighty in the scriptures.”

Acts provides further evidence of Apollos’ ability:” For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ.”— Acts 18:28

That statement could almost serve as a description of the method employed throughout Hebrews.The author addresses Hebrew readers and demonstrates from their own Scriptures the identity, supremacy, priesthood, sacrifice, and sufficiency of Christ.

The Alexandrian Connection

Apollos was born at Alexandria.That is potentially significant because Hebrews demonstrates considerable familiarity with the Greek Old Testament. Alexandria was one of the great centers of Jewish learning in the Greek-speaking world, and an educated Alexandrian Jew would naturally be comfortable working with the Scriptures in Greek.We should not press this evidence beyond what it can bear. Being Alexandrian does not prove that Apollos wrote Hebrews. Nevertheless, when combined with Luke’s explicit description of him as both eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures, it strengthens the profile.We are not merely looking for an educated man. We are looking for an educated Jewish man with extraordinary command of Israel’s Scriptures and the rhetorical ability to construct a sophisticated argument from them.

Acts tells us that Apollos was precisely such a man.

Apollos and the Pauline Circle

There is another important consideration.When Apollos first appears in Acts, his understanding is incomplete:“This man was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.”— Acts 18:25

Aquila and Priscilla then:“took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly.”— Acts 18:26

This is particularly interesting because Aquila and Priscilla had ministered closely with Paul.Afterward Apollos became an important minister among the believers at Corinth. Paul could write:”I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.”— 1 Corinthians 3:6

Paul clearly regarded Apollos as a fellowlaborer.Yet Apollos was not merely functioning as Paul’s subordinate. In 1 Corinthians 16:12 Paul provides an interesting glimpse of their relationship:

“As touching our brother Apollos, I greatly desired him to come unto you with the brethren: but his will was not at all to come at this time; but he will come when he shall have convenient time.”

Paul wanted Apollos to go to Corinth, but Apollos determined that it was not the appropriate time.This suggests an independent minister who nevertheless enjoyed Paul’s confidence and fellowship.Such a man would make sense as the author of a book that has connections with the Pauline sphere but does not read like one of Paul’s epistles.It would also make the reference to Timothy in Hebrews 13:23 entirely natural. Apollos moved within the same broad ministry network in which Timothy was well known.

Mark and Apollos Compared

Both candidates can account for important features of Hebrews, but they do so in somewhat different ways.

John Mark offers a fascinating biographical bridge. He had intimate connections with Peter and the Jerusalem believers while eventually becoming a trusted associate of Paul. His relationship with Barnabas provides at least a possible connection with a Levitical family. He also belongs naturally to the circle in which Timothy was known.

Apollos, however, offers an unusually strong intellectual and Scriptural profile. Acts explicitly identifies him as a Jew, an Alexandrian, an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures. It further describes his particular ability to convince Jews publicly by demonstrating from Scripture that Jesus was Christ.

Mark fits the apostolic relationships surrounding Hebrews remarkably well.

Apollos fits the actual composition of Hebrews remarkably well.

That distinction may be the most useful way of comparing them.

An Interesting Dispensational Consideration

For those who recognize the distinctive apostleship and revelation committed to Paul, the question takes on another dimension.Hebrews does not need to be Pauline in authorship in order to contain truths compatible with things Paul taught. Nor does its association with someone from Paul’s ministry circle require that Hebrews be addressed to the Body of Christ.Both Mark and Apollos occupied positions that could explain such connections.

Mark had known Peter and Paul.

Apollos had been instructed more perfectly by Aquila and Priscilla and subsequently labored alongside Paul.

Either man therefore could have possessed knowledge gained through association with Paul while writing specifically to Hebrews from the standpoint of Israel’s Scriptures and promises.

Apollos may be particularly interesting in this regard. Before meeting Aquila and Priscilla he was already an accomplished Jewish teacher who knew the Scriptures and preached Christ. After they “expounded unto him the way of God more perfectly,” he continued a powerful ministry of demonstrating from the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.

If Hebrews came from such a man, its character would hardly be surprising.

What Can We Know?

Ultimately, Scripture does not tell us who wrote Hebrews.That fact should restrain our conclusions.

John Mark is possible. His relationships with Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy make him a more interesting candidate than is sometimes recognized.

Apollos is also possible. Unlike Mark, however, the explicit biblical description of Apollos corresponds strikingly with the abilities displayed by the author of Hebrews:

“an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures.”

There is no early historical tradition identifying Apollos as the author. The suggestion appears relatively late in church history and is especially associated with Martin Luther. Consequently, Apollos cannot be declared the author on historical grounds.

Nevertheless, if the question is not, Can we prove who wrote Hebrews? but rather, Which named New Testament individual best fits the internal profile of its writer?—Apollos deserves serious consideration.

Perhaps that is where the matter should remain.

We know considerably more about what the writer believed than about who the writer was. The Holy Spirit has preserved the former for us while leaving the latter unnamed.

John Mark provides an intriguing possibility.

Apollos provides a compelling one.

But where Scripture remains silent, certainty should remain silent as well.

There are some in grace circles who believe that the payment for all sin was accepted and applied to all at Calvary, which means that unbelievers are going to hell with their sins paid for and forgiven. The reason they’re going to hell is unimputed righteousness because of their unbelief.

This view is called Universal Forgiveness. I once did a deep dive arguing against this position in another article here, but I want to revisit this topic to make a few additional points about “receive” and Acts 26:18.

We discussed on a podcast not long ago a certain man who holds the view of universal forgiveness and had recently talked about the word “receive” in Acts 26:18. In this passage, Paul is recounting what the Lord told him on the road to Damascus when he got saved and how He would send Paul unto the Gentiles “…that they MAY RECEIVE FORGIVENESS of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.”

This individual argued that in Acts 26:18 receiving forgiveness means you’re merely acknowledging something God has already given you, as if to say, “Yes, I accept the fact that God had already forgiven all my sins at Calvary.”

I think it’s important for saints to know that there is not one dictionary that defines receive as acknowledging something you’ve already been given. That definition does not exist. You can it look up in Webster’s 1828, Webster’s 1913, OED excerpts, American Heritage, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Collins, etc., and there is not one standard dictionary that defines the word receive as merely acknowledging something you already possess.

Look at Webster’s 1828, which is my favorite dictionary. Consider all 18 definitions. Never once does Webster tell us that to receive is to acknowledge something you already have in your possession.

Plus, Webster twice uses obtain to define receive. To receive something is to obtain something, to come into possession of something.

Obtain and receive are synonymous words. The idea is that to receive something means you’re coming into possession of something. To receive something is to obtain something. That’s what the word means. If you go to etymonline and look up receive, which goes back to the 1300’s, this word has ALWAYS meant to obtain something. Or to welcome someone or something.

This was the common understanding of receive when the translators gave us the King James Version. We have this same understanding even today.

Biblical Examples of “Receive”

Let’s look at a couple of other examples of “receive” in the (so-called) NT.

Consider Acts 2:38. “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

Same Greek word as Acts 26:18.

Does Peter mean receive in the sense of acknowledging something they already possessed? Does he mean, if you repent and be baptized, well, then you’ll be able to acknowledge that you’ve ALWAYS had the gift of the Holy Ghost? That’d be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? That’s not what the word means. He means receive in the same sense as every definition of that word. He means you’re not going to possess the gift of the Holy Ghost UNLESS you repent and be baptized. They will obtain the promised gift IF they come to God with faith and obedience. God required them to have faith and be water baptized BEFORE they RECEIVED the Holy Ghost. This is the same sense in Acts 26:18. You have to come to God with faith in His Son and His death, burial, and resurrection as a complete substitutionary atoning work BEFORE you can RECEIVE forgiveness of sins.

How about Galatians 3:2? “Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”

Again, same Greek word as Acts 26:18.

Paul isn’t asking here, “Did you acknowledge that the Spirit was already given to you before you got saved?” He’s asking HOW did they come to obtain the Spirit. “How did the Spirit come to dwell inside of you? Was it by obeying the law? Or by the hearing of faith?” They accepted the gospel by faith and THEN they received the Spirit. They came into possession of the Holy Spirit inside of them after they got saved.

Acts 26:18

Let’s come back to Acts 26:18. Again, Paul is recounting what the Lord told him on the road to Damascus after his conversion. The Lord says in vs. 17, he’s going to send Paul unto the Gentiles, and then in vs. 18, He says, “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.”

Notice something here. The Gentiles receive TWO things in this verse. There is only one verb —and that’s receive. That one verb governs two blessings:

1. forgiveness of sins
2. inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t use one verb for forgiveness and a different verb for inheritance. The Spirit intentionally uses the same verb for both. The Gentiles receive TWO things in this verse. They do not ONLY receive forgiveness of sins in this verse. They also receive - what? - the inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. They receive both forgiveness of sins AND the same inheritance all the saints receive.

Do you see the problem with their interpretation?

There is only one verb here – receive. So what is true about forgiveness of sins is also true about the inheritance to the saints. If you’re going to argue that receive in this verse only means to acknowledge something they’ve already been given by God, then you’re saying that new converts are also acknowledging that they’ve ALSO already been given the same INHERITANCE as all the other saints. This is what the grammatical structure demands.

I mean, are we supposed to interpret the same verb two different ways in the same sentence? That’d be a bit difficult to swallow. If “receive forgiveness” means “acknowledge you already had forgiveness,” then consistency demands that “receive the inheritance” means “acknowledge you already had the inheritance.”

And if unbelievers already have the saints’ inheritance – that’s universalism.

Plus, the verse says: “...inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” That’s a qualifying phrase. The inheritance isn’t something already possessed by unbelievers. It’s the inheritance among those sanctified by faith. So the verse itself limits the inheritance to believers, which means that receive in this verse cannot in any conceivable way mean that Gentiles are acknowledging what they’ve already been given.

Notice also that the Lord says “that they MAY receive.” If they had already received forgiveness of all their sins, the Lord would’ve never said “MAY.” What does this mean? This means that obtaining forgiveness of sins and obtaining the inheritance is conditional. He is talking about an intended outcome that is dependent upon a condition being met. What is that condition? The Lord tells us in the verse – “by faith that is in me.”

There is a big difference between an offered gift and a received gift. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross provides the universal basis for everyone’s forgiveness but Acts 26:18 makes it perfectly clear that the actual obtaining of that forgiveness (”may receive”) is conditioned upon that person’s faith in Christ and what He accomplished at Calvary.

In Acts 26:18, the Gentiles receive two things - forgiveness of sins AND the saints’ inheritance. What is true about receiving forgiveness of sins is also true about receiving the inheritance for the saints.

If you are going to accept their interpretation of receive in this verse, then you’re saying that all the unbelievers of the world are already forgiven of all their sins AND they have already been given the inheritance only meant for the saints.

That view is not universal forgiveness. That view is universal salvation.

Their argument about what receive means in this passage is nothing less than a universalist argument. If the lost, unregenerate Gentiles already possess:

1. total forgiveness of sins, AND
2. the inheritance belonging to the saints...

...then salvation is no longer you being delivered from eternal death to receiving eternal life. Receive according to their view is nothing more than an intellectual acknowledgement of the doctrine of universalism, because you are already in possession of forgiveness of sins AND you are already in possession of the saints’ inheritance. That is straight up Universal Salvation (Universalism).

So if those who believe universal forgiveness is right, if the moment you get saved, you’re just acknowledging that your sins were already forgiven AND you were already given the inheritance meant for all the saints then you are by default endorsing the heresy of universalism.

There is no explaining away the simplicity of Acts 26:18. You have the divine mission given by God to Paul to open the eyes of the Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light, to turn them from the power of Satan unto God, and then you have the divine result. What is that result?

That they MAY RECEIVE forgiveness of sins AND the inheritance among the saints.

In English, in the Greek, in every dictionary, in the etymology of the word going back to the 1300s, receive is an active appropriation, or obtaining, or taking hold of something bestowed by a giver. You do not “receive” a gift by acknowledging that the gift is already in your pocket. You “receive” that gift the moment that gift was given to you, the moment you reached out and accepted that gift.

What does Scripture actually say about who you were before Christ? Not a flattering diagnosis. Not “pretty good, but imperfect.” Scripture’s verdict is far more severe: dead to God, alive to sin, and an enemy of God.

This is the second lesson in a ten-lesson series on our identity in Christ. The first lesson laid the groundwork. This lesson, along with the next two, examines our identity in Adam before we turn to the mechanism by which that identity changes, and then to our identity in Christ itself. These next three lessons will be grim. But the doctrine of our union in Christ shines brightly only against the backdrop of who we are by nature.

The goal here is not to consider how you view yourself, how the world views you, or what your own heart or reputation might suggest. What matters is what God says. What is His verdict? Scripture is not vague on this point — and it is, in one sense, the offense of the cross. The cross says: I need to die for you, because you are so vile, so wretched, so wicked, from head to toe, inside and outside, that everything you touch becomes unclean because you are unclean. Christ has to come and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. People do not like to hear this. They do not want to admit how wretched they are.

Abomination in Adam

Titus 1:15–16 sets the starting point: “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.”

Paul is writing to Titus about the believers on Crete. He notes that they profess to know God — but a verbal profession doesn’t always mean something. “In works they deny him.” That is their behavior, their conduct, their manner of life. And Paul doesn’t prescribe behavior modification as the remedy. He goes to the root: being abominable. Not merely what they do, but the essence of their being — the core of who they are — is abominable, and so their works deny Him. They are disobedient “unto every good work.” Every good work. Not “over here I need help, but over here I’m good.” As one in Adam, there is abomination — full stop.

There are only two places of union available from God’s perspective: union with Adam (Romans 5) or union with Christ. We are born in Adam by natural birth and natural inheritance. What Adam did gets passed on to us. We inherit it.

Three things are worth seeing here: God’s reckoning of us prior to anything we do is that we are detestable, unclean, profane — biblical words — with an identity with sin so total and so inherent that nothing less than justification, sanctification, and glorification in Christ can meet it.

This matters because most people carry a settled verdict of themselves: not perfect, but decent. “I’m good enough.” How many times has someone responded to the gospel by saying they’re good enough, or better than the next person? That itself is a self-verdict that concedes sin — “I’m better than this person, but I’m not perfect” still means you need forgiveness, a righteousness you don’t possess. And people assume that verdict is shared by God.

Psalm 50:16–17 exposes this: “But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes...? Seeing thou hatest instruction... when thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him... thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit... these things hast thou done, and I kept silence.” Verse 21 gives their interpretation of that silence: “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.” That’s man making God in his own image — not some equal image, but a sinful one, so that adultery and theft become things God is supposedly fine with, simply because He hasn’t directly spoken. Yet these people had the law. They had the Ten Commandments. They knew what sin was.

If a person never faces God’s actual verdict on them, they will settle for a false one of their own making — and trade Christ’s remedy for religion. This shows up even now: a resurgence of interest in religion, in behavior modification, in self-improvement — anything that doesn’t require being saved, because in their own estimate, they were never that far gone in the first place. But a false self-assessment cannot bear the weight of what the gospel actually cost: a Son crucified, penalty-bearing, substitutionary, on the cross under the wages of sin. None of that makes sense for someone who only needed a little correcting. They don’t need a raising from the dead.

Rightly grasping this is also what produces good works. Ephesians 2 says believers in Christ are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works — but those works don’t close a gap we’ve invented. They flow from knowing Him and what He has provided. Get the verdict about Adam wrong, and even good works become something we’ve done, something we can take credit for, rather than fruit that stems only from His grace, from beholding Him and being changed. The clear verdict doesn’t just tell us we need forgiveness — it tells us we need a radically new identity, and it becomes the basis of ongoing humility. God is not merely a one-time rescue out of Adam; He is our continual strength and refuge every day we remain in Christ.

Three Features: Dead to God, Alive to Sin, Enemies of God

Ephesians 2:1–3 lays these out together: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world... and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” Here is a deadness that is nonetheless active — dead in trespasses and sins, yet walking (v. 2). That’s the abomination. Verse 3 adds God’s judicial verdict — condemnation — “children of wrath.” And there is alienation: separation, estrangement, no access to God.

Ephesians 4:17–18 develops the alienation: “That ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.” Their heart blinds them, so they are ignorant of their own alienation — and they mistake that alienation for life itself, because they have pleasure in sin.

Isaiah 1:4–6 gives the illustration of sickness: “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.” This is why, when the Lord comes to earth healing the sick and the blind left and right, it is a teaching and an illustration — real events that also point to His power to address the spiritual sickness of the inner man. He comes not for those who are healthy, but those who are sick — those who understand there is a problem.

Romans 5:16 distinguishes condemnation from the gift: “The judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.” The gift is greater — it deals not only with Adam’s offense but with our own offenses in Adam. Abomination is highlighted before condemnation because Scripture typically presents the identity and its fruit before the judicial verdict against it.

When God saves, He first judicially declares us righteous in Christ, then gives us a whole new identity: instead of abomination, sanctification; instead of condemnation, justification; instead of alienation, glorification — instead of eternal estrangement, immediate access, and one day, a glorified body before Him in love.

Dead to God

The word abomination carries the sense of extreme hatred, detestation, defilement, pollution — evil doctrines and practices that are moral defilements. In Titus 1, Paul describes those who profess to know God while their works deny Him: the profession is intact, but the mind and conscience are defiled, so nothing that follows from that root — however religious it looks — is actually pure. Abomination isn’t a verdict on isolated bad acts. It’s a verdict on the root.

Romans 6:11 states the positive, from which we deduce the prior condition: “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Before that “through Jesus Christ our Lord,” the reality was reversed — dead to God, alive to sin.

Man is not merely flawed toward God. He is dead toward Him. But this deadness is not inactivity — Scripture says he is “dead in his trespasses and sins,” which means he is doing a great deal of trespassing and sinning. The issue isn’t a cessation of activity; it’s the continuation of activity from a dead root — activity that can’t produce anything unto God. And men at large don’t even know they’re dead. They’re hourly active and unaware of their own plight.

Sin does what death cannot: it separates a man, while he is still very much alive, from God, who is the light and life of our lives. Nothing can separate a believer from the love of God — but sin severs relation to God in a man who is not yet in Christ.

James 2:26 defines physical death by comparison: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.” Death is separation — of spirit from body. In the same way, to be dead to God is to be wholly separated from Him — spirit, soul, and body (echoing 1 Thessalonians 5’s language of being “wholly” sanctified).

Paul himself is the case study: a religious man, certain of his own righteousness, persecuting the church while believing he was defending God. What he needed wasn’t more religious achievement — he needed to recognize he was a sinner like anyone else, needing to be quickened just as much as everyone else.

Romans 3:9–12 drives this home: “Are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin... There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that seeketh after God... there is none that doeth good, no, not one.” Dead men don’t know they are dead — that is precisely what makes them dead, not merely dying. You don’t ask a corpse whether it is a corpse.

Alive to Sin

Being dead to God is only half the diagnosis. The other half is that we are alive to sin. Man isn’t merely capable of sin — he pursues it, runs after it, the way a man runs after what he loves. Sin isn’t merely present in the unregenerate heart; it’s craved, loved, pursued with the passion a starving man brings to food — because to that heart, sin is food.

Romans 6 uses the language of servanthood, and it’s not a servant dragged unwillingly to his master — it’s a servant who loves his master, who runs to sin and calls that running freedom, liberty, progression. Job 15:16 pictures it starkly: “How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water” — the way water is a necessity of life. Proverbs 4:16–17 adds: “They sleep not, except they have done mischief... they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence.”

Romans 6:14–19 develops the servant theme. Verse 16: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” Verse 18: “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness” — meaning that before, we were servants of sin. Jesus makes the same point in John 8:34: “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” Verse 20: “When ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness... the end of those things is death.”

Consider the Old Testament picture of the bondservant who, given the chance to walk free, instead says, “I love my master, I don’t want to go out free, I want to live with him the rest of my life” — and has his ear bored through as a mark of devotion. That posture is usually preached toward those who love Christ. But it is the same posture the natural man holds toward sin. Not compelled — consenting. Not merely obeying — loving the one he obeys. It isn’t reluctant compliance; it’s approval, pleasure taken in the very things a man knows condemn him.

Romans 1:32 confirms this: “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” They know the verdict and delight in it anyway — and delight in others who do likewise, because misery loves company.

Where does this servanthood operate? Romans 7:5 answers: “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.” It operates first in the body itself — sin’s motions stirring before a single outward act takes shape. Romans 6:13 calls the members “instruments of unrighteousness” — the same word used of weapons of warfare in Ephesians 6. What should have been offered to God is offered instead to self — to self-service, self-preservation, self-satisfaction. It is, in fact, warfare against God.

Paul calls this “the body of sin,” and two chapters later, “the body of this death.” This is the whole-scope wound pictured in Isaiah 1 — “the whole head... sick... the whole heart faint... no soundness in it.” And because the wound is total, the remedy must match its scope: not partial sanctification, but whole sanctification — spirit, soul, and body. Salvation operates in three tenses: saved from the debt and penalty of sin (dealing with condemnation), saved from the power of sin (dealing with abomination), and saved from the presence of sin (glorification).

The one in Adam is not merely sick with sin — he’s in love with it, even though it’s killing him, even though he’s dead. This isn’t a man merely infected with sin; sin has made him alive to it, and he calls it life. The exact things Scripture condemns, our culture now glorifies openly — nothing new, only unveiled. The one in Adam doesn’t serve sin because he must. He serves it because he loves its wages, even without having tasted them — every appetite fed is a debt collected, and what feels like life is truly death, taking its payment in installments.

Enemies of God

This is the stamp on it all. Romans 5:10 speaks of being “reconciled to God by the death of his Son” — implying the prior state was not merely sin committed and loved, but enmity: identification with sin so complete that our master has named us after his own works. We’re not merely those who commit idolatry — we become idolaters. Not merely those who commit adultery — we’re named adulterers.

1 Corinthians 6:9–10 lists the names: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers... nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Romans 8:7 sharpens it further: “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” An enemy is one who is unfriendly, who hates and desires to injure another — a foe, an adversary — which is the very meaning of the name Satan.

Iniquity was first found not in Adam, but in Lucifer — lifted in pride, and rather than taking that iniquity to his Father, he cultivated it, increased it, trafficked it, until it reached Adam and Eve. That which originated in him — the “seed of evildoers” of Isaiah 1 — is now in Adam and passed to everyone after him. Our father, apart from Christ, is not God the Father but the father of the lie. And the servant of sin embraces the name given him: “I’m an adulterer, I’m a fornicator, and there’s nothing you can do about it” — loving the wages of sin without tasting them.

This adversarial posture is not confined to the mind. Genesis says every imagination of the heart was only evil continually. Colossians 1:21 speaks of being “alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works.” Psalm 10:4 notes it even in outward bearing: “The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God.” And in activity — “none righteous... none doeth good” — they earn the name: enemies, fornicators, the covetous, the whoremonger, and they forfeit the inheritance of the kingdom of God’s dear Son.

Psalm 51:5 completes the picture: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Job asks, “How can a man who is born of a woman be clean?” We are born in Adam, servants to the sin whose name follows us, children of the father the Scriptures identify with sin and iniquity.

The Remedy

These are the three features of abomination in Adam: dead to God, alive to sin, enemies of God. Grim — but useful. Paul later reminds believers in Titus 3 not to forget what they once were, hateful and hating one another, until the grace and love of God appeared and changed that. It’s only by that same grace that it changes now, and believers become the lens and the manifestation of it to those around them.

Consider the Old Testament leper — unclean, unable to approach God, required to call out “unclean, unclean” and keep his distance, with the priest able only to identify the disease, not heal it. In the same way, sin leaves us with no one able to take it away — until the Lord Jesus Christ comes. And unlike the priest, when He touches the leper, He does not become unclean; He cleanses the leper. He is the way, the truth, and the life — there is no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved.

If the clarity of your predicament in Adam is not yet apparent, believe what Scripture makes plain: it is all there, and it is not a diagnosis without a remedy. He will not take you as you are — you are an abomination to Him, condemned, alienated — but He comes to you, and provides the way for you to come to Him. Give up your own righteousness; Scripture calls it filthy rags. Whatever you might bring to Him as though it could save you, He strikes down and replaces with the true remedy.

There is no promise of another day. The hope found in Jesus Christ, grounded in His resurrection from the dead, stands unlike anything any other religion offers — a hope that stabilizes, strengthens, and comforts through every trial, until sorrow and tears are wiped away and swallowed up in victory, and joy and true pleasures remain forevermore in the presence of our God and King.

Look Up,

—Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher

This is the second article in a ten-part study on Union in Christ at Twin Cities Grace Fellowship. Next up: condemnation — more teaching like this at beholding-christ.com.

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Once we trust the “gospel of Christ,” our faith is counted for righteousness, Paul explains how someone can have “the righteousness of God,” he says that when we hear the gospel of Christ, and place our “faith” in the gospel, that is how we are saved from the wrath of God, and completely righteous in God’s sight. And we are “saved,” and no longer in Adam, but now “in Christ” by our faith alone in Jesus Christ the Redeemer alone.

2. Salvation From Physical Peril/Death:

Exo 14:10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.

Exo 14:11 And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?

Exo 14:12 Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

Exo 14:13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.

2Sa 22:1 And David spake unto the LORD the words of this song in the day that the LORD had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul:

2Sa 22:2 And he said, The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;

2Sa 22:3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.

Act 27:20 And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.

Jas 5:14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

Jas 5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

Salvation from physical affliction and death is another type of salvation; this is the issue of some being delivered from affliction, peril, or death, where God would deliver some from a fate that would otherwise overtake them. And as we can see in the verses above, those who would otherwise go through a physical circumstance, would be partakers of the “salvation” of God, saving them in their circumstances.

3. Salvation From Satan’s Policy Of Evil:

1Ti 4:16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.

Php 1:19 For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,

Php 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Jas 1:18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Jas 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

Jas 1:20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

Jas 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.

This salvation mentioned in James chapter 1, concerns salvation from” all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness” by the “engrafted word” which will save their souls from Satan’s temptation against them.

Jud 1:18 How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

Jud 1:19 These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.

Jud 1:20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

Jud 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Jud 1:22 And of some have compassion, making a difference:

Jud 1:23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

This type of salvation is deliverance from being victimized from Satan’s attack on the saint because of who God has made them to be in Christ. Because Satan is unsuccessful in the ability to have the saint unsaved, he will try to attack the message in the believer, with false doctrines from false teachers, and if he cannot produce corruption within the message, he will try to go after the saint and try to discourage and discredit him. This has always been the case with Israel, and it is also the case in this dispensation too.

4. The Woman’s Salvation:

Ti 2:10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

1Ti 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

1Ti 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

1Ti 2:15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

In 1 Timothy Paul told Timothy to “charge some that they teach no other doctrine,” and some of the guys that were teaching this “other doctrine” were Hymenaeus and Alexander. These two were preaching false doctrine in Ephesus, and it was taking effect on the churches there. In the book of Acts we can read about what these guys were involved in; some of which was Greek goddess worship. Diana and a few other goddesses were worshiped in Ephesus, and in their temple, there were women who spoke and taught the men, this started to also have an effect on the churches in Ephesus where some of the women would teach the men also. In verse 15, Paul says, “she shall be saved in childbearing,” this type of salvation is unique because it only pertains to the woman. This salvation is not only talking about Eve, but also has all women in view, notice Paul says “they” when referring to this type of salvation. God designed a way for “the woman” not to be victimized again by Satan, Paul says, “if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety,” when a woman is not thinking soberly (Godly), and if she is not operating upon “sound doctrine,” she can be easily taken in by Satan.

1Co 11:8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.

1Co 11:9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

1Co 11:10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

God designed for the woman to have “power on her head,” and for the woman to acknowledge and submit to the non-authority position in the marriage. The next few verses will explain what it means for the woman to have “power on her head,” and what all this has to do with “the angels.”

1Ti 5:11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;

1Ti 5:12 Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.

1Ti 5:13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

1Ti 5:14 I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.

1Ti 5:15 For some are already turned aside after Satan.

Most do not understand the “power” of marriage, and the effect it can have on Satan, and “the angels.” When both the man and the woman are operating upon sound doctrine, and they both are following God the Father’s design for marriage, Satan is no match for their marriage, and there is salvation from being victimized by Satan. In Ephesians 3:10 we are told that we the church make God’s manifold wisdom “known” unto the angels, and the angels can rejoice when the word of God is working effectually within the saint like God intended. In verses 11-13, Paul speaks of women who are not married and need that type of salvation. Paul says that the younger widows are not to be taken in, because if they become “idle” (without a husband) for too long, Satan will have a chance to “speak reproachfully” about her, and she will be an easy target for him. Paul says if a woman remains unmarried she has “cast off her first faith,” and that she has “damnation,” this is not talking about losing her salvation from the debt and penalty of her sins, this “damnation” has to do with the woman not following God’s design, but following Satan, and she, like some in Paul’s day were “already turned aside after Satan,” they were not spiritually lost, but they belonged to him, and were “turned aside” after the things of this world.

Tit 2:1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:

Tit 2:2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

Tit 2:3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

Tit 2:5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

The woman’s “first faith” is what explained in Titus 2:4-5, and if the woman is not operating upon “sound doctrine,” then she is an easy target for Satan, and the word of God will be “blasphemed” because she is not following God’s design for the woman. This salvation saves the woman from the damnation of being “led away,” “turned aside,” and “deceived” by Satan and his ministers, and the things of this world, and having a functional damnation because she is “led” by Satan, and not by the doctrine according to Godliness.

2Ti 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

2Ti 3:2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

2Ti 3:3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

2Ti 3:4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

2Ti 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

2Ti 3:6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

2Ti 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

5. Day Of The Lord’s Salvation:

Mat 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Mat 10:23 But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.

Mat 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Mat 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

After the church of the body of Christ is “caught up,” the Lord will have his day of wrath, there will be tribulation on this earth and Satan will go after Israel and try to wipe the nation out. This salvation is a national one, where it saves the nation as a whole, not as individuals, and when He comes, He will avenge His nation and defeat all that oppose Israel. Too often this verse is misused and misunderstood, but the salvation here is salvation from “the time of Jacob’s trouble.”

Jer 30:3 For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

Jer 30:4 And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah.

Jer 30:5 For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.

Jer 30:6 Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?

Jer 30:7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.

Jer 30:8 For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him:

Jer 30:9 But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them.

Jer 30:10 Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid.

Jer 30:11 For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.

This salvation is the Lord’s Day salvation, notice the LORD already called Israel “my people,” and they who have trusted what the scriptures said about the Redeemer already have salvation from their sins.

1Pe 1:9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

1Pe 1:10 Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:

1Pe 1:11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

1Pe 1:12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

This salvation that the “prophets have enquired and searched diligently” about is not salvation from the debt and penalty of their sins, we all know the prophets already had salvation, this is a different type of salvation for the “soul,” this refers to Israel being saved from the 5 courses of punishments delivered unto them. This is the grace of the Lord coming unto Israel in that day, and the angels “desire to look into” it because it’s going to affect them out there in that day also. In the book of the Revelations the angels play a big part in the Lord’s day of wrath.

6. Salvation From Adverse Israel:

Jas 2:5 Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

Jas 2:6 But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?

Jas 2:7 Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by the which ye are called?

Jas 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

Jas 2:9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

Jas 2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.

Jas 2:12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

Jas 2:13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.

Jas 2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

We are told by Paul that in this dispensation that we should not abuse our “liberty” in Christ, James says that Israel will be judged by the “law of liberty,” Israel will be judged based upon how they served in the “law of liberty.” When an Israelite operates upon the law of liberty, he has reward based upon his works, this has nothing to do with his salvation from sins, notice in verse 5 James calls these saints “beloved brethren.” The ones that had greater works will be “the greatest” in that kingdom, and their “works” will save them from being judged as being the “least” in that kingdom along with the ones who will just have their faith, with no works of service.

Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

7. Salvation From The Effects Of Israel’s Blindness:

Rom 10:3 For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Rom 10:5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

Rom 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)

Rom 10:7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

Rom 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

Rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Rom 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the

mouth confession is made unto salvation.

This type of salvation is another misunderstood doctrine in scripture. Paul is not dealing with the recipe for salvation here, he already completely covered that earlier in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Paul says, “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” stop right there! That’s the righteousness of God, and that’s all He requires, the verse says if man believes with the heart, he has the righteousness of God. The next part of the verses says, “with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,” Paul is not talking about salvation from the debt and penalty of sins, he already confirmed how salvation is attained by man. In the 4 gospel accounts and in the beginning of this dispensation of Gentile grace, rebellious Israel tried to cause corruption within the believers in Israel’s program as well as in ours. All you have to do is read from Matthew to Acts 28 to see that rebellious Israel was opposing the saved remnant of Israel, as well as some of the Gentiles, and you can see the effects that it had on them, that’s why Peter would not eat with the Gentiles, and Titus was circumcised, and that’s why we see those things at the beginning of this dispensation. Rebellious Israel was affecting Israel as well as members of the body of Christ, and even though both believed with the heart and had the “righteousness of God,” they were suffering because the Jews were trying to pull them in under the customs of the law, also they produced corruption in the beginning of this dispensation of grace, saying that the Gentiles have to keep certain customs also. When a saint confessed with the mouth the “Lord Jesus,” he acknowledged Jesus, and Him crucified, he made clear that he is complete in the Christ and by the cross of Christ. Romans 9, 10, and 11, explains what happened to Israel, and here in chapter 10 Paul is talking about Israel’s ignorance to the “the righteousness of God,” and how they should have responded to the ones that were “sent” unto them, and that they are without excuse for their blindness.

Rom 11:7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded

Rom 11:8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.

Rom 11:9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:

Rom 11:10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.

Rom 11:11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

Judicial blindness was pronounced upon Israel, and they “stumbled” concerning what they “seeketh for” and if a member of the saved remnant, or a member of the body of Christ got deceived by the Jews, he would also have his eyes “darkened,” his table will be made a “snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence” because he wanted to be accepted by that Jew, but when a saint would confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus, the unsaved Jew would count that saint as a “heathen,” and have nothing to do with him, here are a few examples:

Joh 9:22 These words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue.

Act 19:18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.

Act 19:19 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.

Act 19:20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

Joh 12:42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:

Joh 12:43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

Mat 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

Rod Jones

At the center of functioning as who God made us, is thinking and functioning with Christ’s heart and mind. We’re to encourage and edify one another to be unified, “…having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” (Phil. 2:2) The resultant outworking is developing a humble mindset, not focused on the flesh, arguing, nor self-centered, but serving in godliness, preferring one another in love. Christ’s heart, mind, and life is magnified in us as we dwell on the doctrine through the day, which leads our thinking. God’s desire: “That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate. Laying up for store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.” (I Tim.6:18-19)

Reflect: How can this assist us in our roles as women? In every relationship we can have an impact as God integrates Christ’s mind into our thinking, and thus each circumstance. Life has its ups and downs, challenges, and unexpected difficulties. However, we can humbly walk by faith, tap into the Word stored within us, and in love be a living sacrifice in whatever challenge or interaction that faces us. (Rom 12:1-2) As we set our affection above (Col. 3: 1-4), our thoughts and desires will be that of Christ’s, with great opportunity: “For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.” (I Cor. 9:19) Think on this and make needed changes!

We have a new ethereal shoegaze grace song that’s very popular right now (and you can download the mp3 for free here).

I thought I might talk about the ideas behind lyrics.

Shoegaze tends to be very symbolic lyrically, very dreamlike, and the lyrics might seem a bit inaccessible at first but there’s real meaning behind the words that may not seem obvious the first time you hear the song.

We started with idea that the ocean is a metaphor for grace. Okay, great. Love it.

We incorporated into the song a progression from night to morning and from striving to resting, which is fairly common for us.

Verse 1

Moonlight sleeping on the tide
Silver waves where fears can hide

This establishes a kind of dreamy, nocturnal atmosphere, common in Shoegaze. I picture a calm ocean at night with moonlight reflecting off it. But “where fears can hide” introduces the emotional state of the singer. She comes to this ocean of grace carrying fears, regrets, wounds, and anxieties.

Every current knows my name
Still, Your love remains the same

The ocean isn’t impersonal anymore. If the ocean represents God’s grace, then she isn’t getting lost in something vast — she is known within it. “Still” is important. Despite everything the singer is carrying, His love hasn’t changed.

Then we get one of my favorite images:

Hands once full of broken glass
Now they open... let it pass

The broken glass represents all the painful things we insist on holding onto like guilt, hurt, failure, depression, resentment, perhaps even our attempts to fix ourselves. Holding broken glass only wounds the person clutching it so tightly. So opening the hands becomes an image of finally ceasing to cling to all of that. Letting His grace free you from all that pain.

That flows into:

Nothing left for me to earn
Only endless waves return

That’s the doctrinal heart of Verse 1. She’s stopped trying to earn God’s acceptance. His grace doesn’t come because she successfully swims toward it. His grace just keeps arriving — wave after wave after wave.

And that prepares for the chorus: “Grace like an ocean / Over my soul.”

Verse 2

Now notice the first line:

Morning blooms across the sea
Colors washing over me

We’ve moved from night to morning. Verse 1 begins in moonlight. Verse 2 begins with sunrise. That’s intentional emotionally even if we didn’t spell it out. The singer is moving from fear and uncertainty into understanding and freedom in His grace.

Then comes:

Every mile I tried to swim
Only brought me back again

She’s been trying to swim through the ocean of grace.

She’s exhausting herself trying to get somewhere spiritually — trying to become accepted, secure, worthy, forgiven, whatever the case may be — only to discover that she was already surrounded by the very things she was trying to get.

In other words: you can’t swim your way around in His grace in order to get all these spiritual things you want. If you’re in the ocean of His grace, you’re already surrounded by all these things you always wanted spiritually.

That connects with Verse 1’s “Nothing left for me to earn.”

Then:

All the weight I used to know
Sinks beneath the undertow
Now I’m lighter than the tide
Because You carried all my life

An undertow is usually threatening, but here it’s a good thing. The undertow pulls all her broken glass, all her weight, all her issues, beneath the surface. The guilt, striving, fear, and weight disappear beneath the ocean of grace, and she’s free.

“Because You carried all my life” can be viewed in two different ways, which I like. Christ carried the burden of her sins at Calvary — which she could never bear herself — but there’s also the sense that He is now and always will be carrying her all along in His grace until she reaches her heavenly destiny.

The discovery in the song isn’t really “I finally found His grace.” This is more about after she’s saved and she realizes she is surrounded by His grace already having every spiritual blessing she could’ve ever wanted from God.

And this is why “There was never any bottom / Only love” is used as a payoff. She keeps expecting to reach the limit of God’s grace — but there’s no end to it.

I also once made a whole Christian Shoegaze album, which is fun. More grace songs can be found here.

Grace & Peace!

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh” (James 5:7–8).

The expression “the latter rain” is sometimes used to describe a special or renewed outpouring of the Holy Spirit. In some systems of interpretation, the former rain is associated with Pentecost and the latter rain with a second, greater spiritual outpouring near the end of the age.

That interpretation, however, should not be assumed and then imposed upon James’s words. We must first ask what James himself is saying. What does the husbandman await? How would the twelve tribes, to whom James writes, understand the early and latter rain? What part does the imagery play in James’s exhortation?

When the passage is read in its immediate context and against its Old Testament background, its emphasis becomes clear. James does not identify the rain as the Holy Spirit. He draws upon Israel’s familiar agricultural, covenantal, and prophetic vocabulary of rain, fruit, waiting, and harvest. His purpose is to teach suffering believers to endure patiently as they await the coming of the Lord and the certainty of God’s promised blessing.

1. Let James Set the Terms

James introduces his epistle as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” and addresses it “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1). This identification is important. James is writing to people whose Scriptures were filled with promises and warnings concerning rain, harvest, fruitfulness, judgment, and restoration.

The closing chapter retains this distinctly prophetic atmosphere. James announces judgment upon oppressive rich men whose wealth has been corrupted and whose conduct has brought suffering upon the righteous. He then turns to the afflicted brethren and tells them to wait patiently “unto the coming of the Lord” (James 5:7).

The surrounding expressions are equally significant:

• “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh” (verse 8).

• “The judge standeth before the door” (verse 9).

• The prophets are presented as examples of suffering and patience (verse 10).

• Job is remembered for his endurance and the Lord’s final purpose toward him (verse 11).

• Elijah is recalled in connection with withheld and restored rain (verses 17–18).

James therefore places the early and latter rain within a context of suffering, judgment, prophetic expectation, patient endurance, and the coming of the Lord. Before the rain is made to represent a particular spiritual experience, it should be understood according to the setting James has supplied.

The controlling subject of the passage is not a special reception of spiritual power. It is the necessity of patient endurance while awaiting the Lord’s coming.

2. The Husbandman Awaits a Harvest

James’s illustration is straightforward: “Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth.”

The husbandman is a farmer. He has labored in expectation of a harvest, but he cannot command the seasons or produce the crop instantly. He must exercise “long patience” until the earth has received the necessary rain and brought forth its fruit.

The farmer’s attention is fixed upon “the precious fruit of the earth.” The early and latter rain belong to the process by which that fruit is produced. The early rain prepares the soil and supports the beginning of the growing season; the latter rain helps bring the crop to maturity before harvest. The farmer waits through the entire appointed season because he is confident that the harvest will come.

James then applies the illustration directly:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts.”

As the husbandman waits for the harvest, James’s readers are to wait for the coming of the Lord. The farmer’s patience does not mean inactivity or uncertainty. It is settled endurance based upon confidence in an appointed outcome.

The husbandman cannot manufacture the rain, hasten the season, or produce the harvest through impatience. He waits because the order established by God gives him reason to expect fruit. In the same way, the suffering believers addressed by James are called to remain steadfast because God’s promised purpose is certain.

The point of the illustration is therefore not that the husbandman receives the rain as a spiritual experience. The rain falls upon the earth so that the earth may yield its fruit. The husbandman waits for the completion of that process. Likewise, James’s readers must endure until the Lord comes and God’s purpose is brought to its appointed fulfillment.

3. Rain in Israel’s Covenant Vocabulary

The language of the early and latter rain did not originate with James. It belonged to Israel’s covenant vocabulary.

Moses told Israel:

“And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil” (Deuteronomy 11:13–14).

The rain promised here is literal rain upon Israel’s land. It produces corn, wine, oil, and the other fruits necessary for the nation’s well-being. Under the covenant, however, physical rain also carried governmental significance. Its presence testified to divine blessing, while its absence could testify to covenant chastening.

Israel was warned that if the nation turned aside to serve other gods, the Lord would “shut up the heaven, that there be no rain” (Deuteronomy 11:17). Among the curses associated with disobedience, Moses declared that the heaven over Israel’s head would become brass and that the rain of the land would be turned into powder and dust (Deuteronomy 28:23–24).

This pattern continues throughout Israel’s history.

Jeremiah explained that Israel’s sins had caused the showers to be withheld. He also told the people, “Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you” (Jeremiah 5:25). Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the temple likewise anticipated a time when heaven might be shut because Israel had sinned. Confession, prayer, and turning from sin were connected with forgiveness and the restoration of rain (2 Chronicles 6:26–27).

Rain was therefore both a physical necessity and a covenant sign. It belonged to God’s administration of Israel’s life in the land. The early and latter rain meant that God was providing the seasonal blessing necessary for fruitfulness and harvest.

When James uses this vocabulary while writing to the twelve tribes, he is not borrowing an unrelated expression and giving it an entirely new meaning. He is speaking in terms deeply rooted in Israel’s Scriptures.

4. Rain in Israel’s Prophetic Hope

The prophets carried the imagery of rain beyond Israel’s immediate agricultural life and placed it within the nation’s hope of repentance, restoration, and the coming of the Lord.

Hosea called Israel to return to the Lord:

“Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1).

The prophet then declared:

“Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth” (verse 3).

The similarity to James is striking. Hosea joins the coming of the Lord with the familiar image of rain upon the earth. James tells his readers to wait patiently for the early and latter rain and immediately adds, “for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

Joel also describes the restoration of Israel in agricultural terms:

“Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain” (Joel 2:23).

The following verses speak of floors full of wheat, vats overflowing with wine and oil, and the restoration of the years consumed by destructive armies. The people will eat in plenty and praise the Lord, and Israel will no longer be put to shame.

Psalm 72 uses similar imagery in describing the righteous reign of the King: “He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth” (verse 6). Zechariah also connects future blessing with the Lord’s provision of rain.

This prophetic background enriches James’s illustration. The farmer’s rain is literal, but the imagery carries the weight of Israel’s expectation. Rain, fruitfulness, restoration, righteous government, and the coming of the Lord repeatedly appear together in Israel’s prophetic hope.

James can therefore employ a simple agricultural picture while drawing upon a much larger scriptural pattern. His readers are suffering, but their suffering will not have the final word. The Judge stands before the door. The Lord will come, and God’s promised purpose will not fail.

5. Joel Distinguishes the Rain from the Spirit

The close association between the latter rain and Joel’s prophecy has sometimes led interpreters to identify the rain itself with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Joel, however, distinguishes the two.

Joel 2:23–27 describes physical and agricultural restoration:

• The former and latter rain come upon the land.

• The floors become full of wheat.

• The vats overflow with wine and oil.

• The years of loss are restored.

• Israel eats in plenty and is satisfied.

Only after describing these blessings does Joel introduce the promise of the Spirit:

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh” (Joel 2:28).

The word “afterward” marks a progression in the prophecy. The rain and the outpouring of the Spirit belong to the same broad prophetic program of Israel’s restoration, but Joel does not identify them as the same event or substance. The rain is rain; the Spirit is the Spirit.

When Peter speaks on the day of Pentecost, he does not say, “This is the latter rain.” He says, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel,” and then quotes the portion of Joel concerning the outpouring of the Spirit (Acts 2:16–18).

Scripture thus gives no basis for turning “the latter rain” into a technical designation for a second Pentecost or a modern spiritual outpouring. Such an interpretation depends upon joining images that the prophetic text itself distinguishes.

This does not diminish the work of the Holy Spirit. It simply permits each biblical promise to retain the meaning given to it in its own context. Believers today are united in one Body by the Spirit: “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). This spiritual identification should not be confused with the covenant rain promised to Israel or with the agricultural image James uses to teach patience.

6. Elijah Confirms James’s Meaning

James provides his own internal confirmation near the end of the chapter.

“Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are,” James writes, “and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months” (James 5:17).

James then adds:

“And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit” (verse 18).

The parallel with verse 7 is difficult to miss:

• In verse 7, the husbandman waits for rain so that the earth may bring forth precious fruit.

• In verse 18, heaven gives rain and the earth brings forth fruit.

James begins his exhortation with rain, earth, and fruit, and he closes the chapter by returning to rain, earth, and fruit. Elijah’s experience supplies a scriptural example drawn directly from Israel’s covenant history.

The drought in Elijah’s day was not a charismatic phenomenon. It was divine judgment upon an apostate nation. Ahab and Jezebel had promoted Baal worship, and Israel had forsaken the Lord’s covenant. The withholding of rain corresponded exactly to the warnings given through Moses. Its restoration demonstrated both the Lord’s sovereignty and His dealings with Israel under the covenant.

Elijah’s appearance in James 5 therefore reinforces the natural sense of the earlier illustration. James has literal rain in view—rain connected with the earth, fruitfulness, Israel’s covenant history, and the government of God.

Elijah also contributes to James’s practical purpose. The prophet endured during a time of national apostasy. He depended upon God through years of drought, and he prayed in confidence that God’s declared purpose would be accomplished. James’s readers are likewise called to remain faithful under difficult conditions.

7. “Stablish Your Hearts”

After examining the covenantal and prophetic background, we must return to James’s principal exhortation:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

The principal subject of James 5:7–8 is not rain. It is patient endurance in expectation of the Lord’s coming. The rain serves the illustration; the coming of the Lord supplies the believer’s hope.

James reinforces this exhortation through a succession of witnesses.

The husbandman waits because the harvest is precious and the appointed rains will accomplish their work. The prophets endured suffering while speaking in the name of the Lord. Job endured terrible affliction and eventually saw “the end of the Lord,” proving that the Lord is “very pitiful, and of tender mercy” (James 5:11). Elijah lived and prayed through a period of drought until the rain returned and the earth yielded fruit.

Together these examples declare that present suffering does not mean God has abandoned His purpose. Delay does not mean uncertainty. The apparent triumph of injustice does not mean that judgment will never come. The Lord remains faithful, the Judge stands before the door, and the promised harvest is certain.

To “stablish” the heart is to make it firm and settled. James’s readers must not be governed by the instability of their circumstances. Their hearts are to rest upon the certainty of the Lord’s coming.

The husbandman cannot pull fruit from the earth before its season. Neither can he improve the harvest through anxiety. He labors, watches, and waits because he trusts the order God has established. In the same way, believing Israel is called to endure suffering with confidence that God will fulfill His covenant and prophetic purpose.

The progression of James’s argument is therefore plain:

The husbandman waits.
The prophets endured.
Job endured.
Elijah prayed, and the rain returned.
The earth brought forth its fruit.
The coming of the Lord draws near.

The former and latter rain should not be transformed into a prediction of recurring Pentecostal outpourings. The expression belongs to the covenantal, agricultural, and prophetic vocabulary of Israel. James employs that familiar pattern to assure suffering believers that God’s appointed purpose is moving toward fulfillment.

The rain will come in its season. The earth will yield its fruit. The Lord will fulfill His word.

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts.”

[17] Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,

[18] And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

In the verses above, this ‘gospel’ Paul is giving unto the Corinthian Saints is not the gospel of salvation from the debt and penalty of sin against them. This “salvation” concerns the salvation from the Saints being victimized by this world, and be alienated from the life of God as “sons and daughter” unto the Father. This IS an “adoption” that the Apostle Paul gives unto us concerning the Glorious “mercies” of “promises” by our Father unto them who “love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Those are just some of the promises that have been “predestined” by our Father for those who are the called according to His purpose. And we ought to value and esteem these things as ‘treasures’ unto us, these things Paul desired that the Corinthian Saints would “enlarge” their hearts unto, and that they too would desire, and value and esteem that ‘Father to sons and daughters’ relationship that our Father also “called” us unto. And “these things” are taught unto the Saints, and all Saints have been called unto this adoption by His grace, but only they “who love God” with His selfless love, will desire this “fellowship” after His will and purpose.

2^nd Cor.7:1] Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Furthermore, those things, and those things mentioned below, are provisions that our Father has provided for them who desire to “come out from among” this ungodly world, and those who desire not to be “conformed to this world,” but be “transformed by” the knowledge of His will according to His purpose. And our Father has a ‘plan and purpose’ for “Dear Children.” These are those who also see that our Father called us, and also see His foreknown, and predestined plan to not just save us, but also to glorify us as well. Our Father called all Saints unto this adoption, but not all Saints are going to see the godly value of these “promises,” and ‘count’ them as “treasure” as we ought. This ‘life’ of adoption is not referring to the settled truth of our Justified standing ‘life’ in Christ, this ‘life’ is in accordance to the sanctified life that we are taught about in Romans chapter 8 about walking “after the Spirit.”

Rom.8:27] And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

[28] And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

[29] For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

[30] Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

And we have been given “promises” by our Father and we are beseeched by His “mercies,” to be a living sacrifice and by Our understanding of the love of Christ, we would be ‘constrained’ by these things. And it ought to be our desire to be His “sons and daughters” as we walk in “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” And God desires to be a Father unto us, and that is; in that relationship seen before in 2^nd Corinthians chapter 6. And it is our enlarging our hearts unto the selfless love of Christ as we have been taught (2^nd Corinthians 5:14-21) by our Father to value these promises as we ought:

Because We are the temple of the living God

He Will walk in us

He will dwell in us

He will be our God

We will be His people

And He Saith, “Be ye separate”

And I will receive you

And will be a Father unto you

And ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

And these are just some of our Father’s “promises” given unto His sons and daughters. But in 2^nd Corinthians Chapter 7, these promises are in view regarding the “adoption of sons” of these Corinthian Saints as per 2^nd Corinthians chapter 6:11-18.

Rom.12:1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

[2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

And oftentimes, we do not ‘see’ the value of our “liberty” in Christ as we ought, in the verses above, the Saint is ‘beseeched’ to “BE” a living sacrifice; he does not ‘have to BE,’ he could continue to “live” unto the conformity of this world, but he would “be separate” from our “liberty” to “live” in the “life” of a Saint who ‘chooses’ to “be” a living sacrifice, and be “holy,” which is acceptable unto God, and in this “life” there is a “reasonable service” we are privileged to live unto Him. And those Saints who desire to now “live” this life in Christ, also will ‘see’ the necessity to NO LONGER “BE” conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of their minds by the Father’s Word, and to now walk in the selfless life of His Son. And that living sacrifice life “is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” This Saint now walks not just as a child of God who is in Christ, and an “heir of God,” this Saint sees the value of the liberty that he is afforded by His Father. That Saint knows that he is a heir of the “Great House,” but as we are taught in 2^nd Timothy chapter 2, in God’s great House there are “vessels to honor,” and “vessels to dishonor.” And the ‘difference’ between those two “vessels” has nothing to do with God choosing “who” will be the one to honor, or the one to dishonor, but this all depends upon the heart and mind of the Saint. And how he ‘sees’ our Father’s life for him, or does he choose to live a life in condemnation and ‘separation,’ and ‘dishonor?’ this is where, and when the Saints themselves MUST “thus judge” will we allow the love of Christ to constrain us, or will we continue to be ‘straighten in our OWN bowels?’

2^nd Cor.5:14] For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

[15] And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

Rod Jones

Most see suffering as something to pray away or avoid. It feels negative to even talk about it for many saints. What do you believe? Consider that God designed all things to work for us, including suffering, though Satan’s desire is that tribulation will discourage and shipwreck us. Romans 5:3-5 is a process which continually works for us as we encounter any kind of difficulties: “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience, experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” Romans 8:18, 28 also addresses suffering: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us… And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Paul’s epistles teach us how sufferings can work for our good in life. His personal walk of faith provides additional insights into handling afflictions: “For I will shew him (Paul) how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.” (Acts 9:16) To Do: Study some of his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:21-29.

Paul had a sincere confidence, expectant that through the challenges he went through, Christ’s life would be made manifest: “According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.” (Phil. 1:20) This is built upon the foundation found in Romans. It summarizes the confidence we’re to have in God to enable and empower us in any experience. From minor tribulation to even the sword (death), we can trust our Father: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, of famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword… Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Rom 8:35-37) Patient endurance works the doctrine in us and teaches how to be faithful women, relying on God and His power and wisdom rather than ourselves, staying set for the defense of the gospel so Christ is magnified: “But I would ye should understand brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”(Phil. 1:12-14) Dear sisters, be “stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord;” thankful unto God who gave us “the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ,” in all things, including suffering. (I Corinthians 15:57-58)

— Josh Strelecki

Ask someone who they are and the answer may change day by day. One day they’re doing great, so they feel accepted. The next day they sin, and they wonder if God can still have them. Ask the culture around us the same question and you’ll hear it dressed up differently — I identify as, I identify with — but underneath the language it’s the same old wandering. A vague sense. A borrowed sense. An identity that rises and falls with feeling, with performance, with whatever is currently the offer.

Thankfully, God’s Word will not leave you there.

The Bible does not describe your identity in vague or borrowed terms. It reduces every person to one of two unions — in Adam, or in Christ — and if you are in Christ, that position is not something you are growing into. It is something you were put into, and it is fixed.

Four things will show us this, and they’re worth walking through slowly instead of taking my word for it. Your identity is declared, not discovered — you don’t dig it up, God says it. It’s defended, not doubted — there’s an accuser, and there’s an answer. It’s traced to a person, not a performance — one man’s act, not your own effort, decides it. And it’s anchored, not adrift — it holds when everything else in your life is shaking. Then we’ll deal honestly with the objection this doctrine always raises, before we land on what all of this actually means for you, this week, in your own skin.

In Adam, that’s what you’re born into. In Christ, that’s what you’re put into — and it isn’t a matter of degree. Just as at the moment of conception your DNA is already complete, though you’ll spend years growing into what your body will look like, so at the moment of faith your union with Christ is already complete, though you’ll spend a lifetime growing into what that union means. The union is fixed. The walk is lifelong. Don’t confuse the two, and don’t let go of either one.

Declared, Not Discovered

Look at Galatians 3:26-27: “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Not may be. Not hope to be. Paul writes this to believers at Galatia who were flirting with the law and walking carnally — and he still says of them, plainly, ye are. What made them children of God wasn’t their performance. It was faith in Christ Jesus.

And notice who does the baptizing. Not a man, not water, not a ritual you could later second-guess. Ye have been baptized into Christ. No man can put you there. Only He can. If a man could do it, you’d have every right to question whether he did it right — was it the right water, the right formula, the right moment. But this baptism isn’t performed by hands. It’s performed by God, and it cannot be undone by asking whether it worked.

This is the difference between an identity you assemble and an identity you’re given. You didn’t build this one. You received it. That’s not a small distinction — it’s the whole reason it can hold.

Defended, Not Doubted

Romans 8 pushes the same truth further, into the place where it actually gets tested — under accusation. Verse 16: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” Verse 17 follows the logic out: “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” Then, later in the chapter, verse 33: “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”

I’ve sat with believers who told me, through tears, I know I’m forgiven, but I don’t feel it. I’ve felt that myself — I spent years in a system that taught if you sinned a hundred times, you had reason to question whether you were saved at all. And I knew in my heart I had sinned a hundred times. But here’s what I’ve learned to say, to them and to myself: get over the feeling and believe the verse. The accuser will bring up your sin — the same sin, over and over — and God’s answer has never changed from one time to the next. “I justified them.” Not I’m working on it. Not we’ll see how this goes. Justified. Your accusations once had ground. They don’t anymore.

Traced to a Person, Not a Performance

Romans 5 traces the whole question back to its source, and it’s not a source most people expect. Verse 12: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” And verse 15: “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.”

Everything Adam did gets applied to everyone in Adam — and you didn’t earn that, you inherited it. Everything Christ did gets applied to everyone in Christ — through a condition, yes, but a condition that isn’t merit. Faith. Nobody stands before God arguing they built their own identity out of good behavior, on either side of the ledger. You didn’t earn your place in Adam and you don’t earn your place in Christ. Both are given. Only one of them is good news.

Anchored, Not Adrift

This is where the doctrine stops being merely comforting and starts being useful, because none of us live in a controlled environment. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” Notice the difference between the pressure and the outcome. The pressure is real — troubled, perplexed, persecuted, cast down. But the outcome doesn’t follow from the pressure. It follows from the identity.

Suffering has a way of making people ask what they did wrong, as though pain were always evidence of God’s absence. An unbeliever going through hardship has no anchor for that question — nothing underneath the suffering except the suffering itself. But if you are in Christ, the pressure is not the last word on who you are or where you stand, because that was settled before the pressure arrived. You can be cast down without being forsaken, because those two things are not the same thing under God’s grace today - sure, under the law to chastise his people for their disobedience - but not today. You may reap what you sow, but the persecution is not God’s forsaking of you.

The Fair Question

Someone will say — fine, but if my identity is already fixed, what’s stopping me from doing whatever I want? It’s a fair question, the kind worth naming honestly instead of neglecting it. And Paul never leaves it unanswered.

He doesn’t say, you are, therefore do as you please. He says, you are, therefore walk like it. Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” The union is the foundation. The good works are what gets built on it. Take away the identity and you’re left trying to manufacture righteousness out of nothing — that’s legalism. Take away the walk and you’ve turned a settled truth into a license — that’s licentiousness. Paul holds both, refusing either error, and so should we. Identity isn’t the excuse for the walk. It’s the reason the walk is even possible.

What This Means for You

So which one are you in? Not which one do you feel like you’re in on your best day, or your worst — which one are you actually in. If you have never trusted Christ, Scripture doesn’t leave that vague either: you are in Adam, still under the sentence of wrath, still carrying a debt you cannot pay. But the offer stands. Trust in what He did — died for your sins, buried, and raised again — and everything changes, not because you feel different, but because He has said so.

And if you are already in Christ, this week is a good week to stop consulting your feelings for a verdict God already delivered. Stop letting a bad day reopen a settled case. When the accusation comes — and it will come, because it always does — you don’t need a better feeling to answer it. You need a better memory. You need faith. Don’t soon forget. You are not what you were on your worst day this week. You are not what the accuser whispers at midnight. You are what your Father has declared you to be, in His Son, settled once, and never up for renegotiation again.

Look Up,

— Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher

• Adapted from the sermon “Union in Christ” (Lesson 1), preached by Josh Strelecki at Twin Cities Grace Fellowship. Listen to the full message here: https://twincitiesgracefellowshi.subspla.sh/8xwkj2r

Being bold is confidently courageous with a willingness, despite challenges, to push forward to get things done unto the Lord. This is the opposite of being ashamed, allowing thoughts of unworthiness and reluctance, which becomes a constant mind battle, justifying inaction. To speak the Truth in love when there is expected pushback requires a spiritually focused heart of charity, preferring others over our flesh and feelings. This maturity enables us to boldly minister to others, walking by faith even in fear and trembling.

As confident sisters, be driven by zealousness, praying to be a living sacrifice, tempered with nurturing. Pray to realize what the person specifically needs and how best to present it in order for it to be received: “But we were gently among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only , but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God…as a father doth his children. (I Thes. 2:7-9,11) Nurturing often takes longer than we may expect.

Application Ideas Summarized: 1) Be reflective and evaluate your motive and the situation. Determine from personal experience and Scripture what fosters your reluctance and fear, preventing boldness. Pray about this issue. Be aware of your thoughts: are they temporal or eternal, are you seeing things as light affliction and just for a moment or are challenges exalted and blown out of perspective? Realize why you have been left here as ambassadors. 2) Prepare: To minister to others in love so they gain a renewed mind is often a slow process. Determine to be longsuffering and consistent. 3) Pray and think about what to say, how much, and how often to bring up the topic with those you have regular contact. 4) Use verses to teach and encourage. 5) List verses that can be your confidence in time of need, such as: “What shall we then say, If God be for us, who can be against us.” (Rom. 8:31), “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (I Cor. 1:18), and “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God…” (Eph. 6:10-11) Think on This.

Oh my. There has been a brewing controversy for a while in the grace movement over the doctrine of “the Trinity.” This comes as news to no one, I’m sure, and I suspect this controversy probably exists in Christendom generally.

Let’s defend the doctrine of the Trinity, shall we?

THE WORD “TRINITY”

I noticed that some of these anti-trinitarian saints like to post these rather in-your-face combative statements online declaring that the trinity is heresy, and there is no “trinity” in your Bible. As if to say that the doctrine of “trinity” doesn’t exist in the Bible because the word “trinity” doesn’t exist in the Bible.

Do you know what else doesn’t exist in your Bible?

The word “Bible.”

Show me chapter and verse where God says “Bible” in your Bible. How can anyone say that something isn’t a Bible word when the word “Bible” doesn’t exist in your Bible? That is a title added by the translators to God’s holy “word” or “scriptures.” Yet, Bible is a perfectly acceptable word, which means sacred volume.

I’d say that’s a pretty accurate word to precisely describe His scriptures, wouldn’t you agree? This glorious book truly is a sacred volume, a holy collection of writings inspired by the Spirit that reveals God to us.

In the same sense, “Trinity” is a perfectly accurate word to precisely describe the union of three persons in one Godhead - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

THE FATHER – SON RELATIONSHIP

I once read some anti-trinitarians (Partialists - 1 God made up of 3 parts) argue for a body–soul–spirit analogy. They said that man is 1 person with 3 parts that are distinct (body, soul, spirit) according to 1 Thess. 5:23. And the argument goes that the distinction in these parts is not the same as multiple persons.

I would absolutely agree with every word of that argument.

However, in Scripture, the triune Godhead goes way beyond some meager comparison to a person’s body, soul, and spirit. A soul does not pray to the body, like the way Christ prayed to the Father. A body does not send a soul, like the way the Father sends the Spirit. God presents Himself to us in Scripture as Father, Son, Spirit (Matt. 28:19). The Father is called God (Rom. 1:7). The Son is called God (Heb. 1:8), and the Spirit is called God (Acts 5:3-4).

Let’s consider the Father / Son relationship. How can anyone not view a father and a son as distinct persons? A typical father and son on earth are distinct persons that have a relationship in a family, do they not?

No father and son will ever be – one person. They are two independent, distinct people with separate wills in a relationship defined by family.

God knew perfectly well that we’d view the Father and the Son as distinct persons with separate wills in the same family, because a father and a son on earth are distinct persons with separate wills in a family.

How can this not be intentional on God’s part?

Did you ever notice how the Son submits His will to the will of His Father in Heaven? The Lord said in Luke 22:42, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (See also John 5:30, 6:38, Matthew 26:39, Matthew 26:42, John 4:34, John 8:29, John 14:31, Philippians 2:8, and Hebrews 10:7, 9.)

There are separate wills being contrasted in the Lord’s prayer.

Traditionally, people would explain this conflict of wills as the Son submitting His human will to the divine will of the Father. You still have separate wills. But I would also suggest that two sinless, holy persons can have differing ideas about how to accomplish things. Do you remember how the Lord invited sinless angels to give Him different ideas about how to kill Ahab in 1 Kings 22:19-23?

Just because you’re sinless and holy doesn’t mean that you don’t have different ideas than another sinless and holy person.

Wouldn’t separate wills indicate distinctly unique persons?

The issue isn’t whether one person can have differing components to his being. Of course, he can! The issue is - does scripture portray Father, Son, and Holy Ghost merely as parts of one person? It absolutely does not.

· The Father loves the Son (John 3:35; 5:20).

· The Son loves the Father (John 14:31).

· The Father sends the Son (John 5:37).

· The Son comes from the Father (John 16:28).

· The Son prays to the Father (John 17).

· The Father glorifies the Son (John 17:5).

· The Son glorifies the Father (John 17:4).

· The Spirit speaks concerning the Son and glorifies Him (John 16:13–14).

· The Son sends the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26).

Does this list not scream volition? Free will? Agency? Independence? These are the actions and relationships between distinct divine persons, are they not?

THE LORD’S BAPTISM

When the Lord was water baptized in Matthew 3:16–17, He is physically standing in the Jordan river. The Spirit descends upon Him as a dove. The Father’s voice comes from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

All three are simultaneously present and totally distinct in that moment. How can this be three parts of one person? How does this even remotely compare to the body-soul-spirit analogy?

More importantly, the Father doesn’t say: “This is another manifestation / component / aspect of Me.”

He says: “my beloved Son.”

Again, a Father / Son relationship, which compels us to view them as distinct.

JOHN 1:1

How can we not think of John 1:1? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

He was with God, and He was God.

Christ is the Word, logos. Just as words reveal hidden thoughts, Christ came into this world to reveal the hidden God, and Christ Himself is the Living Word of the living God, the one who spoke the words of the Father, revealing to us the very hidden thoughts of the Father for us. He said, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (Joh 8:28).

Let me ask a question: is the Living Word the Lord Jesus Christ or the words He spoke or the words in the Bible?

Yes.

John says, “Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He’s saying that Christ was WITH God and He WAS God.

How can He be God and WITH God at the same time?

How do you explain the preposition “with?” I’d argue that “with” in John 1:1 has only one solution - with indicates both equality, distinction of identity, along with unity. In other words, He was “face to face with God.” Christ was face-to-face with God the Father. He was equal to God. He was in perfect oneness with Him, yet distinct. Christ, the “Word,” is deity, eternal, one with God, co-equal with God, face to face with God the Father, yet distinct. We have eternal coexistence, eternal equality, eternal oneness, and eternal unity of God with God.

BIBLICAL ONENESS

To me, a debate about Trinity is really about Biblical oneness.

Oneness in the Bible is not necessarily sameness of person. “One” does not always mean “one person.” Biblical oneness can describe a genuine unity among genuinely distinct persons. Like Marriage. Like the Body of Christ.

Marriage

In Genesis 2:24, man and woman become “one flesh” –- a compound unity – more than one distinct entity brought into a new unified reality. Christ makes the distinction even more explicit in Matthew 19:5–6. He says, “...they twain shall be one flesh... Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.” Jesus doesn’t deny that they are two persons. In fact, He explicitly calls them “twain.” Yet those two are simultaneously called “one.”

So when the Bible calls two people “one,” does that mean the husband and wife suddenly become one physical human being made up of two parts? Of course not. Their distinction remains. She can speak to him. He can speak to her. He can love her. She can love him back. Or not. LOL They are one, but they remain distinct.

Scripture teaches us that oneness can exist with distinct persons brought together. That is true Biblical Oneness. That is practically being ignored in all of this Trinity controversy.

The Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12–13)

Paul teaches oneness in the Body of Christ while all of us members remain distinct. In partialism, the body, soul, and spirit are sub-components of one individual. But in 1 Corinthians 12, the members are full individuals baptized into one new collective reality.

Paul says: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” (1 Cor. 12:12)

Notice how deliberately Paul holds together two concepts: ONE — MANY — ONE.

And then verse 13, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body...”

Then verse 14, “For the body is not one member, but many.”

This is practically tailor-made to illustrate Biblical Oneness. Paul does not say: Because the body is one, its members can no longer be distinct. He says, “the body is not one member, but many.” Yet all those many constitute “one body.”

A FAVORITE POINT

Here’s a favorite argument of mine. Consider this. Jesus is praying in John 17:21, and he says, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us...”

Notice what He says here. Jesus uses the unity of the Godhead as a kind of baseline for how He wanted to see distinct believers united. If the Godhead was like one person with a body, soul, and spirit, then the Lord’s prayer would make absolutely no sense — believers cannot become one new physical being. They can, however, share absolute unity of purpose, nature, and love while remaining distinct persons - just like the Trinity.

Biblical Oneness is all about unity that can exist with distinct persons who are brought together.

1 JOHN 5:7

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

Every anti-trinitarian argument fails to adequately explain 1 John 5:7.

I once read that 1 John 5:7 is not really about the makeup of the Godhead. This is more about establishing legal testimony (”witness”). Because verse 8 talks about water, blood, and Spirit as non-person earthly witnesses, then these three heavenly witnesses in verse 7 somehow does not imply that there are three distinct divine Persons.

What are you talking about?

Verse 7 says the heavenly three “ARE ONE” (unified, one being as three persons). Verse 8 says the earthly three “AGREE IN ONE” (agreement toward a singular goal).

Things that are different are not the same.

Do you not remember how the law of Moses required two or three witnesses to establish a truth? This is in Deut. 19:15. A witness isn’t one person made up of three parts. Two or three witnesses are two or three distinct individuals.

A witness has to possess independent, personal agency in order to be a true witness, and 1 John was written to refute heresies that denied the true nature and identity of Jesus Christ (1 John 2:22, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” Is not the Father and Son distinct individuals here?)

Verse 6 sets up the record: the Spirit bears witness because the Spirit is truth. Verse 9 states that this record is “the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” Those are two distinct witnesses, as reflected in Deut. 19. When John was writing about witnesses, every Jew reading this very epistle knew that the law required two or three distinct witnesses as the legal standard to establish a truth.

John is fulfilling that Mosaic legal standard by declaring the distinct witnesses of the Father and the Spirit that Jesus is the Christ. That’s the point here. This threefold testimony fits naturally within their legal guidelines of two or three witnesses. The Father and the Spirit have to be distinct to satisfy the Mosaic standard of establishing a truth.

Yet, they ARE ONE. This is one Being as three distinct Persons. The three operate together as one unit with the same divine essence / nature.

PUSHBACK

On the podcast, the argument to this view I shared about 1 John 5:7 is that God used rocks as witnesses in Joshua 24:27. Tell me something - if a Jew was on trial before the Sanhedrin Council, do you think he could bring in some rocks, line them up on a table, and say, “Here you go! These are my witnesses!” How well do you think that is going to go over?

What was going on in Joshua 24? We have the final address of Joshua to the gathered tribes of Israel at Shechem. After reminding them of God’s faithfulness from the calling of Abraham through the conquest of Canaan, Joshua demands a covenant decision: “choose you this day whom ye will serve” (v. 15). The people respond three times promising to serve the LORD (vv. 16, 21, 24). Joshua cuts a formal covenant with them, writes the words in the book of the law of God, and takes a great stone to set it up under an oak by the sanctuary of the LORD (v. 26). Verse 27 was just the formal ratifying of the covenant.

The stone served as nothing more than a memorial to a moment in time, a silent reminder of the solemn oaths and the covenant that was made.

The rock cannot testify of a truth that Christ is the Son of God like the Father and the Spirit can testify as witnesses in 1 John 5:7. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not inanimate objects. You can metaphorically say a stone “heard” a speech, but a stone cannot pray, love, or commission someone to go on a mission like the Father, Son, and Spirit. The stone as a memorial isn’t even remotely similar to the law of two or three witnesses in Deut. 19.

The rock does nothing more than bear record simply by existing as historical evidence of an event. The Father, Word, and Spirit are active persons. The Father speaks from heaven. The Son dies on a cross and resurrects, and the Spirit indwells believers. They are not passive tokens of a moment in time like rocks.

They are active, personal, distinct participants as witnesses.

CONCLUSION

Of a truth Scripture is abundantly clear - God is one Being (one divine essence / nature) existing eternally as three distinct Persons.

Rom. 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

Rom. 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Gal. 3:11 But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

Hab. 2:4 Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.

When Paul says in Romans and Galatians that the “just shall live by faith,” he quotes from Habakkuk 2:4, Paul goes on to say in Galatians 3:11 that “no man” has ever been justified by the law, and that “it is evident that the just shall live by faith.” Hopefully when this study is over it will be “evident” unto you also that “the man” has always been justified unto eternal life by faith, and faith alone.

1. JUSTIFICATION UNTO ETERNAL LIFE:

Rom. 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Rom. 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Rom. 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

Rom. 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Rom. 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Rom. 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Rom. 3:25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

Rom. 3:26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Rom. 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

Rom. 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

This justification in Romans 3 shows how that “the righteousness of God” unto eternal life is by faith alone, and when Paul says “but now” in verse 3:21; he is not saying that the righteousness of God was always by the law “but now” it is by faith alone in Christ. Paul is confirming that is has always been by faith! he says the “righteousness of God” is by faith of Jesus Christ, this is what was manifested “now” and before Jesus Christ, the “law and the Prophets” wrote that the “righteousness of God” would come by faith in the Christ, Paul just said that righteousness will never come by the deeds of the law. Even though the message is different, the justice of God has always responded to faith and faith alone, with Abraham he placed his faith in what the LORD said at that time, “Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be” Gen. 15:5, in verse 6 he believed, and it was counted “unto him for righteousness,” that’s not the gospel that we hear that justifies us today, just like it wasn’t the case when John the Baptist preached in the wilderness for Israel to “repent,” and that the kingdom was at hand, the gospel that justified man has been different, but God’s requirement for His justice to be satisfied has always been by the same way; faith.

2. JUSTIFICATION OF GOD BEING JUST IN HIS WORD WITH ISRAEL AND WITH US IN THIS DISPENSATION OF GENTILE GRACE:

Luk 7:28 For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist: but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.

Luk 7:29 And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.

Luk 7:34 The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!

Luk 7:35 But wisdom is justified of all her children.

Rom 3:3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

Rom 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

This type of justification shows God as being “just” or “righteous” in His word, it’s the issue of God confirming things that He promised in His word, and man getting the results from trusting God and His word. God will also be justified in His word in the day when God casts death and hell in the lake of fire and God is shown to “be true and every man a liar.”

3. JUSTIFICATION BY HUMAN JUDGES:

Deu 25:1 If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.

Pro 17:15 He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the LORD.

Isa 5:22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:

Isa 5:23 Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!

This type of justification is the issue of an Israelite being judged by their judges based upon his conduct within that nation. Israel was appointed judges to judge the nation with all fairness and justly in circumstances that came up in the life of an Israelite. The judges were required of God to judge the nation with all fairness and righteousness, and not to judge unfairly. There were some that justified the unrighteous, and condemned the righteous, just as Proverb 17:15 points out, which is what Israel did with Jesus Christ. Today we also have judges in the court systems, and we also judge one another within our lives, it’s the issue of someone justifying us in any matter.

4. SELF JUSTIFICATION:

Job 9:20 If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse.

Jer 3:11 And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.

Luk 10:29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?

1Co 4:3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.

1Co 4:4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.

We oftentimes justify ourselves in certain matters, which is the issue of showing ourselves to be ‘just’ or ‘righteous’ in any aspect of our lives, if we are not judged fairly, we will try to prove or justify ourselves in the matter.

5. JUSTIFICATION AT THE JUDGEMENT SEAT:

Rom 2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

1Co 4:4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.

When the Saints stand before the Lord, we are not being judged based upon our sins, but our service. Our sins are a dead issue with God, but He will judge a saint accordingly based upon how the saint responded to the doctrine according to godly edification and his reward will be according to how the Saint allowed God’s word to work effectually within the saint.

6. JUSTIFICATION IN THE MECHANICS OF GODLINESS:

1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

1Ti 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;

1Ti 4:2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

1Ti 4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

This doctrine is a very interesting and important one to understand, Paul not only wanted to make sure that Timothy charged some “that they teach no other doctrine,” but he did not want the saints to be ignorant concerning this truth for the church. Paul says that “God was manifest in the flesh,” meaning He was manifest in Christ, “justified in the Spirit,” notice Spirit has a capital S, so it is talking about the Holy Spirit and His doctrine. Jesus Christ was a living testimony to the issue of Godliness, in the 4 gospel accounts we see the Holy Spirit bear witness to the ministry of Jesus Christ, and Godliness being put into practice by flesh and blood. Also, this was “seen of angels,” Godliness was put on display by Christ to the angels, and now it is “preached unto the Gentiles,” and we also have the opportunity to put it on display in the heavenly places also. This doctrine is “believed on in the world” by the “church,” and it is “received up into glory,” that’s why Ephesians 3:10 talks about the church making God’s manifold wisdom “known” to the angels. Godliness was never a mystery, Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles displayed Godliness, the mystery aspect of it was God using twice dead gentiles to display Godliness, and to teach it to the angelic realm as well. The issue of Godliness being justified is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit working within the believer the way it was intended to work.

7. JUSTIFICATION IN WORKS IN THE EYES OF MEN/ISRAEL BEING A FRIEND OF GOD:

Jas 2:14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

Jas 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

Jas 2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Jas 2:17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

Jas 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Jas 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Jas 2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

Jas 2:21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

Jas 2:22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

Jas 2:23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

Jas 2:24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

Having justification unto eternal life was not all that God wanted Israel to have, He also wanted them to be faithful enough to be a “first fruit of His righteousness,” just as Abraham was in his day. In that day of tribulation (which is what this doctrine is designed for), Israel in the face of all tribulation and persecution, are to act as if that kingdom is already established, and they are to show themselves to be who God has made them to be; a friend of God. The gentile world and Satan would see that nation as being holy and “just” being a holy nation, and a kingdom of Priests. This justification compliments the first justification, these saints that James is writing to are saved and justified, James calls them “my beloved brethren,” and “begotten” of God.

Rod Jones

Sometimes a place in Scripture is merely a geographical detail. At other times, the recurrence of a place in remarkably similar circumstances invites us to stop and take notice.

Joppa is such a place.

Centuries before Peter lodged there in the house of Simon the tanner, another servant of God came to Joppa with Gentiles very much in view. His name was Jonah.

“But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish...”
— Jonah 1:3

Jonah had been commanded:

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.”
— Jonah 1:2

Jonah went to Joppa intending to go in the opposite direction.

Many generations later, the book of Acts brings us back to the same place. Peter had come to Joppa following the raising of Tabitha from the dead and “tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon a tanner” (Acts 9:43).

It was there that Peter received the vision that prepared him to enter the house of Cornelius.

Once again an Israelite servant of God was at Joppa.

Once again Gentiles were in view.

The two accounts are not identical, nor is one intended to be a prophetic picture of the other. Yet the parallels and contrasts are difficult to miss. More importantly, comparing them raises a larger question running through Scripture:

What was God’s purpose for Israel concerning the Gentiles?

The answer eventually takes us beyond both Jonah and Peter to the apostle Paul and to a purpose of God concerning Jew and Gentile that neither Jonah nor Peter could have known.

Jonah, Nineveh, and the Gentile World

The significance of Jonah’s commission becomes clearer when we appreciate where God was sending him.

Nineveh stood on the eastern bank of the Tigris River in the region opposite modern Mosul in northern Iraq. It became one of the great cities of the Assyrian world and eventually the capital of the Assyrian Empire under Sennacherib. Its location placed it along important routes of commerce, and the city became associated with wealth, culture, pagan religion, and imperial power.

But Assyria was also notorious for its cruelty toward conquered peoples.

Jonah therefore was not being sent merely to a foreign village outside the borders of Israel. God was sending an Israelite prophet into a major city belonging to a powerful and fearsome Gentile people.

And God said:

“Arise, go to Nineveh.”

Jonah arose—but went down to Joppa.

There he found a ship headed toward Tarshish and attempted to flee “from the presence of the LORD” (Jonah 1:3).

Why?

Jonah eventually tells us himself. After Nineveh responded to his preaching and God withheld the threatened judgment, Jonah said:

“Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.”
— Jonah 4:2

Jonah understood that God could be merciful to Gentiles.

Indeed, that was precisely his problem.

If Nineveh repented, Jonah knew God might spare it.

Consequently, Jonah’s story establishes something important long before we ever reach Acts 10: God’s separation of Israel from the nations never meant that God had no purpose of mercy toward the nations.

Separated—but for a Purpose

God had indeed separated Israel.

The distinction between Israel and the Gentiles was neither imaginary nor merely a product of Jewish tradition. It was established by God Himself.

Israel possessed the covenants, the promises, the law, the worship of God, and a privileged national relationship with Him that the Gentiles did not possess.

Paul later describes the Gentile condition:

“Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:”
— Ephesians 2:11–12

There really was a distinction.

But separation was not the end of God’s purpose for Israel.

God had promised Abraham:

“in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
— Genesis 12:3

Israel was called:

“a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.”
— Exodus 19:6

And Isaiah spoke of light extending beyond Israel:

“I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
— Isaiah 49:6

The prophetic expectation was therefore not Israel separated from the Gentiles merely for separation’s sake.

Israel was separated unto God, with a purpose that ultimately involved blessing reaching the nations.

The Gentiles did not possess Israel’s position, covenants, or promises. But God’s purpose for Israel always looked beyond Israel.

Jonah proves the point dramatically.

God could take one of His prophets and say, in effect, “Go to that Gentile city and speak My word to them.”

Israel’s separation did not prevent that mission.

It made the mission significant.

Peter at Joppa

Now return to Joppa.

Peter was staying in the house of Simon the tanner when he received the vision of the great sheet descending from heaven.

Meanwhile, at Caesarea, Cornelius had been instructed to send for him.

Cornelius was not merely a Gentile:

“There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band.”
— Acts 10:1

He was associated with Rome—the dominant Gentile imperial power of Peter’s world.

That creates an intriguing correspondence with Jonah.

Jonah was sent toward Nineveh, a great city associated with Assyrian Gentile power.

Peter was summoned to Cornelius, an officer associated with Roman Gentile power.

In both accounts an Israelite servant of God confronts the Gentile world.

And in both accounts Joppa stands at the turning point.

But the responses are quite different.

Jonah knew exactly where God wanted him to go and went to Joppa attempting to get away from the Gentiles.

Peter was already in Joppa—and the Gentiles came looking for him.

“An Unlawful Thing”

It is here that Peter says something particularly interesting.

After entering the house of Cornelius, Peter declared:

“Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”
— Acts 10:28

The first half of that statement deserves more consideration than it often receives.

What exactly was “unlawful”?

The law certainly separated Israel from the nations. It contained dietary restrictions, ceremonial distinctions, prohibitions concerning idolatry and intermarriage, and numerous provisions preserving Israel’s sanctified identity.

But where did the law establish an absolute prohibition against an Israelite entering the company of a Gentile?

Israel’s own Scriptures make such an absolute separation difficult to maintain.

Rahab was received.

Ruth was received.

Solomon specifically prayed concerning the stranger who would come from a far country for God’s name’s sake (1 Kings 8:41–43).

And perhaps most strikingly for our comparison, God Himself had commanded Jonah to enter the Gentile world and preach to Nineveh.

Peter was therefore correct that God had established a real distinction between Israel and the nations. But it appears that the practical separation practiced in Peter’s day had carried that distinction beyond its intended purpose.

Israel was to be separated from the idolatry and uncleanness of the nations.

That did not mean Israel had no ministry toward the nations.

Perhaps Peter’s problem was not that he believed Israel was separated. Scripture confirms that she was.

The problem was treating separation as though separation itself were God’s ultimate purpose.

And God’s explanation to Peter is telling:

“but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”
— Acts 10:28

Peter himself tells us what the vision meant.

The great lesson was about men.

Two Kinds of Reluctance at Joppa

The comparison with Jonah now becomes even more interesting.

Jonah knew God could send an Israelite to Gentiles.

He simply did not want to go.

Peter apparently believed that entering the company of Gentiles was unlawful.

God had to show him otherwise.

Jonah’s reluctance came despite knowing God’s mercy toward Gentiles.

Peter’s reluctance grew out of his understanding of Israel’s separation from Gentiles.

Jonah went down to Joppa looking for a ship that would take him away from his Gentile commission.

Peter sat in Joppa trying to understand a vision when:

“the men which were sent from Cornelius had made enquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate.”
— Acts 10:17

The scene is almost impossible to improve upon.

Jonah went to Joppa trying to get away from Gentiles.

Peter was sitting in Joppa when Gentiles came looking for him.

Peter obeyed.

Yet Acts 11 demonstrates that his difficulty was not peculiar to Peter.

When Peter returned to Jerusalem:

“they that were of the circumcision contended with him,
Saying, Thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them.”
— Acts 11:2–3

Peter had to rehearse the entire matter “from the beginning” and explain what God had done.

Only then did they respond:

“Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”
— Acts 11:18

Israel’s struggle with the Gentile question was real.

And yet Israel’s Scriptures had always contained a purpose concerning the nations.

Israel’s Rise and Gentile Blessing

That purpose is beautifully expressed in the prophets.

Isaiah speaks concerning Israel:

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.”

And then:

“And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
— Isaiah 60:1, 3

Notice the order.

Israel rises.

Gentiles come to Israel’s light.

This is entirely consistent with the prophetic purpose.

Paul himself confirms that Gentile blessing was no secret:

“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers:
And that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy...”
— Romans 15:8–9

Paul then cites Israel’s Scriptures:

“Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.”
— Romans 15:10

And:

“Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people.”
— Romans 15:11

Gentile salvation, therefore, was never itself the mystery.

Jonah alone should prevent us from saying that.

God’s revealed prophetic purpose had always anticipated blessing reaching the Gentiles.

The expectation was that blessing would reach them through God’s purpose for Israel.

But Israel did not rise.

Israel fell.

And it is here that the purpose of God takes an astonishing turn.

“Through Their Fall”

Paul asks:

“I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.”
— Romans 11:11

That is not the expected prophetic order.

Prophecy anticipates:

Israel’s rise → Gentile blessing.

Paul announces:

Israel’s fall → salvation unto the Gentiles.

The difference is profound.

Israel’s rejection did not defeat God’s purpose.

Rather, God used Israel’s very fall as the occasion for accomplishing something concerning Gentiles that He had not previously revealed.

And only two verses after announcing salvation coming to the Gentiles through Israel’s fall, Paul writes:

“For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:”
— Romans 11:13

Jonah could never say that.

Peter never said that.

Paul did.

God’s concern for Gentiles did not begin with Paul.

But God’s revelation of what He was now accomplishing among Gentiles through Israel’s fall was committed distinctively to him.

“But Now”

Ephesians 2 brings the magnitude of that change into focus.

Paul first tells Gentiles to remember their former position:

“aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise...”
— Ephesians 2:12

That was “time past.”

Then comes one of Paul’s great dispensational expressions:

“But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
— Ephesians 2:13

Notice what Paul does not say.

He does not say that Gentiles have now been brought into Israel so that they may participate in Israel’s covenant position.

Instead:

“For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;”
— Ephesians 2:14

And:

“for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:”
— Ephesians 2:15–16

This is something far greater than an Israelite prophet entering Nineveh.

It is something different from Peter entering the house of Cornelius.

The answer to the Jew-Gentile distinction is no longer merely Gentiles receiving blessing through Israel’s privileged position.

God has made both one.

The former dispensational distinction has given way, in the Body of Christ, to a new creation in which Jew and Gentile are reconciled unto God “in one body by the cross.”

And this purpose was not simply another feature of Israel’s prophetic hope waiting to be discovered.

The Purpose That Had Been Hidden

Ephesians 3 guards us against confusing what God had revealed concerning Gentiles in prophecy with what He later revealed through Paul.

Paul writes:

“How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery...”
— Ephesians 3:3

And:

“Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;”
— Ephesians 3:5

What did that revelation concern?

“That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:”
— Ephesians 3:6

There had always been a revealed purpose concerning Gentiles.

But there was also an unrevealed purpose concerning Gentiles.

That distinction is essential.

The mystery was not that God loved Gentiles.

Nineveh proves otherwise.

The mystery was not simply that Gentiles could be saved.

Israel’s prophetic Scriptures had already anticipated Gentile blessing.

The mystery concerned what God would accomplish through Christ apart from Israel’s national rise: Jew and Gentile made one in Christ, reconciled unto God in one Body, according to a purpose previously kept hidden in God.

And herein lies one of the remarkable ironies of the biblical story.

Israel struggled with God’s revealed purpose toward the Gentiles.

Yet God used Israel’s rejection as the historical occasion for revealing His secret purpose concerning Jew and Gentile through the apostle of the Gentiles.

Israel’s failure did not frustrate the wisdom of God.

It became the occasion upon which another dimension of that wisdom was made known.

Back to Joppa

And so we return once more to that little port city on the Mediterranean.

Joppa does not mark the beginning of God’s concern for Gentiles.

Far from it.

Instead, Joppa appears twice in Scripture at remarkable moments when servants of Israel are confronted with God’s purpose toward the nations.

Jonah knew God had sent him to Gentiles—and resisted going.

Peter understood Israel’s separation from Gentiles so strongly that God intervened to show him that he should “not call any man common or unclean.”

One fled from Joppa rather than go.

The other had to be divinely persuaded at Joppa to go.

Yet in both cases God’s mercy reached beyond Israel.

Nineveh repented.

Cornelius believed.

And neither account exhausted God’s purpose concerning the Gentiles.

The prophets had foretold a day when the Gentiles would come to the brightness of Israel’s rising.

But Israel stumbled.

Israel fell.

And then came an announcement no student of prophecy would have anticipated:

“through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles.”

Along with that announcement came an apostle who could say:

“I am the apostle of the Gentiles.”

And through that apostle God revealed something that Jonah could not have known, Peter at Joppa did not yet understand, and the prophets had never disclosed:

“to make in himself of twain one new man.”

The story that begins with an Israelite prophet reluctant to enter a Gentile city and continues with an apostle of Israel reluctant to enter a Gentile home eventually leads us to something neither man’s reluctance could prevent:

the manifold wisdom of God.

God had a revealed purpose by which blessing would reach the Gentiles through Israel.

And when Israel rejected that purpose, God revealed through the apostle of the Gentiles a purpose that had been hidden in Himself.

Jonah at Joppa helps us see that God’s mercy toward Gentiles was never a secret.

Peter at Joppa helps us see how deeply Israel struggled with the implications of that mercy.

Paul helps us see the mystery:

Not Gentiles blessed because Israel had risen,

but salvation sent to Gentiles through Israel’s fall;

not Gentiles brought into Israel’s privileged standing,

but Jew and Gentile made one new man in Christ.

The comparison does not erase the dispensational distinctions.

It brings them into view.

-Paul was thankful for the Philippians: “Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.” (Phil. 1:4-5)

-God calls us to fellowship: “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” (I Cor 1:9) This is intimacy in our relationship with the Lord.

-We are joined together and have communion: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness.” II Cor.6:14) We can have this with the Body of Christ.

-There is companionship in ministry: “Praying us with much intreaty that we would receive the gift, and take upon us the fellowship of the ministering to the saints.” II Cor. 8:4)

-We have opportunity to be unified in purpose and understanding: “…they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.” (Gal. 2:9) Also, “And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery…” or “fellowship in the gospel,” “fellowship of the Spirit.” and “fellowship of his sufferings.” (Eph. 3:9, Phil. 1:5, 2:1, and 3:10) Think on these things for your own ministry.

So then, as we realize the great opportunity to value oneness in the grace bestowed upon us, love constrains us as faithful women to work together closely, experiencing one heart in ministry to God’s glory. How? “Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye 1) stand fast in one spirit, 2) with one mind 3) striving together for the faith of the gospel; 4) And in nothing terrified by your adversaries…” (Phil 1:27-28) Think on this for personal application in your roles.

What would it look like for you, knowing we each have unique opportunities? Whether you are a friend, daughter, wife, or employee, you can choose to be “led by the Spirit” (Rom. 8:14) to manifest Christ in every aspect of daily living to impact others. A few things to consider: be self-aware of choices in responses to situations and open to be renewed by sound doctrine, preferring others before yourself. Examine your heart and think whether it is in line with who you are in Christ. This type of reflection will provide insights to grow or make corrections, enabling and empowering you to mature and live as “becometh the gospel” in any situation.

To Do: Make time as you start and throughout your day to consider where you are personally and whether your relationships reflect grace. Adjust as needed. Rejoice to edify and work with others.

DID JAMES REALLY CONTRADICT PAUL?

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?”

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

DID JAMES REALLY CONTRADICT PAUL?

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?”

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

DID JAMES REALLY CONTRADICT PAUL?

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?”

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?”

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

Today, whether you are married with kids or just have a busy schedule with many responsibilities, reading the Word can be challenging. First, make it a priority to have study time with prayer and think about how to apply what you learn. Next, consider reading verses about the importance of the Scripture, like Heb. 4:12, II Tim. 2:15, I Thess. 2:13, and Rom. 10:17. Put it to prayer to begin this new habit, allowing God to work the doctrine within you by the Spirit and think about how to put it into practice. As you pray, remember: “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.” (Colossians 3:23)

When you are ready, assess your day and what works best for you, mornings, evenings, or during the day. It may work best to make study time early in the morning before the distractions of the day envelop you into the affairs of this life. When I homeschooled young ones, I got up before my family to find quiet, uninterrupted time. I ended up being able to have personal time, but also self-care (like exercising), straightening, cleaning, and organizing school with minimal distractions.

2. How can I encourage my spouse to read and study the Word with me?

In my experience this can be done best by example, setting quiet time for yourself with God first. Periodically, share what you’re reading, ask him a question to gain insight into his thinking, which provides opportunity for him to function as your spiritual head: “… the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” (I Cor. 11:3) Difficult or too many questions can intimidate, therefore in love, make them reasonable for him to know or find out. He can study it, ask a friend, or consult a teacher or resource. This can motivate and encourage him to see that you need him in this role. Slowly over time, tell him how you feel, being gentle without pressure. Relay that you would joy to study with him as you appreciate his insights and spending time with him.

Sometimes beginning a new habit can be hard, so be careful with expectations. Begin with once a month for a short time, 5–15-minute sessions to see how it goes. Expand or reduce it as needed. Be sure not to talk too much or take the role of his teacher or corrector. Start by reading together and discussing passages. In time you may want to add prayer. Enjoy the process. His perception of it as pleasurable rather than pressure will affect the outcome. Pray for grace. Prepare yourself as this may be a long process before having consistent time together. Be genuinely thankful for every positive effort, but also be in regular prayer for him and yourself. Purpose to have a love attitude in grace to avoid legalism.

3. I have a hard time keeping my house clean. Any suggestions?

a) Re-eval: As an older Mom homeschooling two young ones, I recall being challenged in this area, especially with a history of wanting everything just so, being hyper-clean. My expectations definitely changed. I had to let many things go and accept my new situation. Be sure to do this, re-evaluating regularly.

b) Schedule and pair tasks with your routine: Initially, take 3-5 minutes to tidy-up key rooms or zones. Start with one area, then two, and the rest. Personalize this idea to meet your needs: Bedroom: Once you get up, make the bed, replace pillows, pick up dirty clothes, etc. Bathroom: Get up, use the facilities, then wipe the counters, sink, mirror, and toilet before you leave the room. Kitchen: Make your tea or coffee, and while it’s brewing, wipe the counters, sink, and clean or put away dishes. Family Room: Once you finish your Bible-Prayer time, straighten the living area: pillows, papers, toys, etc.

c) Set regular days at a set time, associated with another activity, to do a deep clean various parts of the house. i.e. Have your kids work with you, like Sunday assign the kids to strip the beds and put it in the washer as soon as they get up. After Church do the laundry. Monday after lunch, thoroughly clean bathrooms; have the kids clean the sinks. Wednesdays after breakfast do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen. Involve the children to develop a chart with pictures for weekly jobs that will teach but also help you keep the home clean. Reinforce good work.

4. What are some self-care suggestions for a very busy wife who works?

As a coach, I have observed how hard it is to do self-care; it is often seen as selfish and self-indulgent. However, God highly values each of us, dying in our place to pay for all sin. We are instructed, “That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour. (I Thess. 4:4) If you are over-tired, depleted of resources, not having time in the Word nor communion with the Father, what will the quality of your attitude, work, and interactions look like? They will be significantly off from your best.

Your biggest ministry is your immediate family and all our labor is to be unto the Lord: “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” (Col. 3:17) Make time each morning to address your spiritual needs: reflect on the day, how you’re doing, pray, and read His Word. We also have physical needs, like rest, exercise, time alone with our husbands and friends or away to get a break. Plan these into your schedule, asking your husband for help.

Peter, Paul, Faith, Works, and the Importance of Right Division

The following is adapted from a chapter in a book project I am presently developing on the distinctive apostleship and gospel committed to Paul. One of the purposes of that project is to examine not only where Paul’s message differs from what preceded it, but also where Scripture requires us to recognize continuity. Distinction should never be manufactured merely for the sake of making Paul different.

The confrontation between Peter and Paul in Galatians 2 provides a particularly revealing test case. It raises a question I believe deserves more attention than it commonly receives:

What did the man who preached Acts 2:38 know about justification?

Few doctrines stand nearer the heart of Paul’s gospel than justification.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:”

— Romans 5:1

Yet precisely because justification occupies such a prominent place in Paul’s writings, it is tempting to assume that justification by faith itself must have originated with Paul’s revelation.

That conclusion goes farther than Scripture allows.

Paul unquestionably reveals dimensions of justification inseparably connected with the gospel committed to him. He explains the Cross as the righteous ground upon which God justifies the ungodly. He declares justification to be freely by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He connects Christ’s resurrection with our justification and unfolds the believer’s standing in Christ apart from the works of the Law.

But Paul did not introduce faith into God’s dealings with man.

Nor did he reveal for the first time that human works possess no merit by which a sinner can establish righteousness before God.

That distinction is essential.

What is distinctive about Paul’s gospel must be determined by revelation, not by our need to make Paul different.

And perhaps no passage demonstrates that principle more clearly than a confrontation between two apostles in Antioch.

WHEN PAUL WITHSTOOD PETER

Galatians 2 records one of the most remarkable confrontations in the New Testament.

Paul writes:

“But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.”

— Galatians 2:11

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

That fact itself is significant.

He was not living in complete separation from them according to the traditional Jewish pattern. Something had changed in Peter’s understanding and practice.

But when certain men came from James:

“he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Peter’s actions affected others:

“And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

Paul recognized that considerably more was at stake than where Peter chose to eat.

“But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel...”

— Galatians 2:14

Peter’s conduct was communicating something contrary to the truth of the gospel.

Paul therefore confronted him publicly:

“If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?”

— Galatians 2:14

Then Paul says something extraordinarily important:

“We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ...”

— Galatians 2:15–16

Notice the language.

“We.”

And:

“Knowing.”

Paul does not say:

Peter, I am about to reveal something you could never previously have known.

He appeals to something they know.

“We who are Jews by nature...”

“Knowing...”

Peter’s conduct was inconsistent with Paul’s gospel, but Paul’s rebuke appeals to a principle concerning justification that Peter already understood.

That observation deserves considerable weight.

Peter knew the Law.

Peter knew circumcision.

Peter knew Israel’s covenant requirements.

Peter had preached repentance.

Peter had preached water baptism.

Yet Paul could address that same Peter and say:

“We...knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law.”

This raises an important question.

WHAT DID THE MAN WHO PREACHED ACTS 2:38 KNOW ABOUT JUSTIFICATION?

Peter had stood before Israel on the day of Pentecost and declared:

“Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins...”

— Acts 2:38

Whatever interpretation we give those words, we must permit them to say what they say.

Peter required repentance.

Peter required baptism.

He connected that response with remission of sins and the promised gift of the Holy Ghost.

We should not weaken Peter’s words merely because they differ from the terminology of Paul’s later ministry.

But neither should we interpret Peter’s requirements in a manner that forces Peter to believe something Scripture tells us he knew was false.

The Peter who preached Acts 2:38 is the Peter to whom Paul could say:

“We...knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law.”

Galatians 2 therefore provides an important interpretive control.

It does not rewrite Acts 2.

It does not turn Peter’s message into Paul’s gospel.

It does not make water baptism optional within Peter’s proclamation.

Rather, it establishes a boundary around what we may reasonably conclude Peter believed about the relationship between works and justification.

A later passage need not change the meaning of an earlier passage in order to place boundaries around interpretations of that earlier passage.

And here the connection is particularly compelling because we are dealing with the same man.

Acts 2 tells us what Peter preached.

Galatians 2 tells us something about what the man who preached it knew concerning justification.

That distinction protects us from two opposite errors.

We need not make Peter’s gospel Paul’s gospel.

And we need not make Peter a preacher of meritorious justification in order to preserve the distinctiveness of Paul.

The answer is not to make Peter’s message Pauline, nor to make Peter’s justification meritorious. It is to understand Peter’s requirements within the purpose and administration in which God gave them.

AN INDIVIDUAL RESPONSE WITHIN A NATIONAL APPEAL

Acts 2:38 does not occur in a vacuum.

Peter’s audience is identified repeatedly.

“Ye men of Judaea...”

— Acts 2:14

“Ye men of Israel, hear these words...”

— Acts 2:22

His indictment concerns Israel’s rejection of her Messiah:

“Jesus of Nazareth...ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.”

— Acts 2:22–23

Peter then connects Christ’s resurrection with the Davidic promise:

“Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins...he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ...”

— Acts 2:30–31

Then Peter brings the indictment home:

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

— Acts 2:36

Only then comes the question:

“Men and brethren, what shall we do?”

— Acts 2:37

Peter’s answer must be understood in relation to the question.

Israel had rejected her Messiah.

God had raised Him from the dead.

The resurrection vindicated the very Christ whom the nation had crucified.

What were believing Israelites now to do?

“Repent, and be baptized every one of you...”

The appeal is national in its setting, but personal in its response.

That distinction matters.

A national message can demand an individual response without becoming merely an individual message.

Peter says:

“every one of you.”

Individual Israelites had to respond.

But the fact that individuals responded does not erase the corporate context from which the appeal arose.

Peter continues:

“And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.”

— Acts 2:40

The believing Israelite was called to separate himself from the unbelieving generation that had rejected Messiah.

Acts 3 confirms the same framework.

Peter again addresses:

“Ye men of Israel...”

— Acts 3:12

Again he rehearses their rejection:

“But ye denied the Holy One and the Just...”

— Acts 3:14

And:

“And killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead...”

— Acts 3:15

Then comes the appeal:

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out...”

— Acts 3:19

The passage immediately proceeds into the times of refreshing, the return of Christ, “the restitution of all things,” the prophets, Abraham, and finally:

“Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers...”

— Acts 3:25

The setting is unmistakable.

Peter’s message belongs to Israel’s prophetic and covenantal expectation.

Individuals must respond, but they respond within a national program.

REQUIRED DOES NOT MEAN MERITORIOUS

This distinction helps us understand the place of works and obedience in Israel’s program.

God gave Israel real requirements.

Circumcision was required.

The Law contained real commandments.

John’s baptism was not presented as an optional ceremony.

Peter’s command to repent and be baptized was not merely a suggestion.

Faithful interpretation must allow those requirements to retain their force.

But a requirement is not necessarily a merit.

A work can be required without being meritorious.

That distinction is easily lost.

When God commanded an Israelite to do something, obedience mattered. Israel’s covenant life contained genuine conditions concerning blessing, chastisement, deliverance, possession, restoration, and participation in the promises made to the nation.

The Old Testament repeatedly contains the language of condition:

If...then.

That conditional structure was real.

But it does not follow that every required act supplied some portion of the righteousness by which an individual sinner was justified before God.

The distinction between requirement and merit must be maintained.

Neither should we say that the requirements were unimportant because “faith was all that mattered.”

That would create another error.

Faith believes what God says.

If God commands a particular response within the revelation He has given, faith cannot dismiss that response while claiming to believe Him.

Thus:

Because faith responds to revelation, the required expression of faith may differ as revelation and administration differ; but the expression of faith must never be confused with the meritorious ground of justification.

This allows the dispensational differences to remain genuine without transforming earlier administrations into systems in which sinners earned righteousness.

ISRAEL’S NATIONAL SALVATION

Luke’s account of Zacharias provides an excellent example of the national dimension of Israel’s salvation.

Filled with the Holy Ghost, Zacharias prophesied:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,

And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;”

— Luke 1:68–69

What salvation does he anticipate?

“That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;

To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

The oath which he sware to our father Abraham...”

— Luke 1:71–73

This is plainly more than an abstract statement concerning the individual sinner’s justification.

Israel’s redemption included national deliverance.

It involved enemies.

It involved covenant.

It involved promises to the fathers.

It involved the house of David.

It involved the nation serving God:

“In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.”

— Luke 1:75

Israel therefore encountered salvation language in a context where personal faith, covenant obedience, national blessing, deliverance, and prophetic expectation stood together.

If those categories are indiscriminately collapsed, works associated with Israel’s covenantal program can easily be mistaken for the meritorious basis of personal justification.

Paul helps us separate them.

And remarkably, he does so by returning to men who lived long before his apostleship.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

Paul asks:

“For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:3

Abraham did many things in obedience to God.

He left his homeland.

He received circumcision.

He offered Isaac.

His life was marked by acts of obedience arising from faith.

Yet when Paul asks how righteousness was counted to Abraham, his answer is not:

Abraham earned it.

It is:

“Abraham believed God.”

Paul immediately draws the distinction:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.”

— Romans 4:4

If righteousness were earned, God would owe it.

That is precisely what Paul denies.

Then:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

Abraham’s works were real.

His obedience was real.

But his works were not the meritorious basis upon which God counted him righteous.

And Abraham is especially useful because he lived before the Law.

But Paul does not stop with Abraham.

DAVID UNDER THE LAW

Paul next turns to David:

“Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

— Romans 4:6–8

David lived under the Law.

Yet Paul deliberately uses David to describe:

“the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works.”

The significance is difficult to avoid.

Abraham lived before the Law.

David lived under the Law.

Peter ministered within Israel’s prophetic and covenantal program.

And Paul can appeal across these administrations without suggesting that human works supplied the meritorious ground of personal justification.

This does not mean that Abraham, David, Peter, and Paul all preached the same gospel.

They did not.

It means that the principle of faith must not be confused with the content of the gospel being believed.

FAITH IS NOT THE GOSPEL

This distinction is fundamental.

Faith is not the gospel. Faith is man’s response to the revelation of God.

The content presented to faith may change as revelation progresses; the necessity of believing God does not.

Galatians provides an especially clear example.

Paul writes:

“And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.”

— Galatians 3:8

Scripture explicitly calls something preached to Abraham “the gospel.”

And Scripture tells us its content:

“In thee shall all nations be blessed.”

Abraham was not told:

“Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures...and...rose again the third day.”

He could not believe revelation God had not yet given.

He believed what God revealed to him.

And God counted his faith for righteousness.

Thus two truths stand together without contradiction:

Abraham was justified through faith.

Abraham did not believe Paul’s gospel.

The unifying principle is not that God preached one identical gospel message in every dispensation.

The unifying principle is faith in what God revealed.

Different gospels do not require different principles of justification.

And the same principle of justification does not require identical gospels.

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

PETER AND PAUL: HARMONY AND DISTINCTION

We can now return to Antioch with greater clarity.

Peter and Paul harmonize concerning the insufficiency of works as the meritorious basis of justification.

Paul can say:

“We...knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law...”

But that harmony does not erase their distinct ministries or messages.

Peter had proclaimed Israel’s Messiah to Israel.

His appeal arose from the nation’s rejection of Christ.

He called Israelites to repent.

He required baptism.

He promised the Holy Ghost.

He called believing Israelites to separate themselves from an untoward generation.

His preaching looked toward the times of refreshing, the return of Christ, the restitution spoken by the prophets, and the fulfillment of God’s covenant promises to the fathers.

Paul’s gospel does not simply reproduce that proclamation.

Paul declares:

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”

— Romans 3:24

There is no appeal here for Israel nationally to reverse her rejection of Messiah.

There is no call to separate from an unbelieving generation of Israel through water baptism.

There is no covenantal restoration of the nation attached to the offer.

Instead Paul unfolds the meaning of the finished work of Christ as the ground upon which God justifies the ungodly.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

And both must be allowed to stand.

Right division requires us to distinguish things that differ, but it never gives us permission to make biblical persons believe contradictory propositions merely because they ministered under distinguishable administrations.

Galatians 2 demonstrates both principles at once.

Peter knew that works of the Law could not justify.

Yet Peter’s conduct was not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel entrusted to Paul.

Distinctive revelation to Paul did not require Peter to have been wrong about everything before Paul received it.

Nor did Peter’s recognition of truth revealed through Paul make their apostleships identical.

Scripture gives us something more precise than either extreme.

BUT BY THE FAITH OF JESUS CHRIST

Paul’s words to Peter deserve further attention:

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ...”

— Galatians 2:16

The wording should not be casually flattened.

Paul says:

“the faith of Jesus Christ”

and then:

“we have believed in Jesus Christ.”

Whatever else we say about the expression, Paul plainly distinguishes Christ’s faith from the believer’s act of believing within the sentence itself.

Our faith is not a meritorious substitute for works.

Faith does not become the one human contribution that finally earns God’s righteousness.

The saving merit resides in Christ.

Paul similarly writes:

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe...”

— Romans 3:21–22

Again we encounter both:

“faith of Jesus Christ”

and:

“them that believe.”

The believer receives.

Christ provides.

Faith does not purchase righteousness.

Grace provides what faith could never earn.

And now we approach something particularly distinctive in Paul’s explanation of justification.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD REVEALED

Paul writes:

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;”

— Romans 3:21

Notice again the harmony and distinction.

“But now...manifested.”

There is revelation appropriate to the present.

Yet it is:

“witnessed by the law and the prophets.”

Paul does not need to choose between continuity and new revelation.

Neither should we.

He continues:

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

— Romans 3:22–23

Here Paul’s proclamation moves beyond Israel’s national distinctions.

There is:

“no difference.”

Jew and Gentile stand together as sinners.

The question is no longer Israel’s covenant standing among the nations.

The question is man’s universal guilt before God.

And Paul’s answer is magnificent:

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”

— Romans 3:24

Justified.

Freely.

By His grace.

Through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

This is not righteousness earned by obedience.

It is not righteousness supplied partly by God and partly by man.

It is not Israel fulfilling covenant conditions so that national blessing may follow.

God justifies freely by His grace.

But grace does not mean God simply ignores sin.

The Cross explains how a righteous God can justify the ungodly.

JUST AND THE JUSTIFIER

Paul continues:

“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

— Romans 3:25–26

Here we reach one of the great heights of Paul’s gospel.

The question is not merely:

How can a sinner be forgiven?

It is:

How can God justify the ungodly and remain perfectly righteous in doing so?

The answer is Christ.

His blood.

His redemption.

His propitiatory sacrifice.

God does not compromise righteousness in order to exercise grace.

The Cross declares His righteousness.

God remains:

“just.”

And at the same time He becomes:

“the justifier.”

Grace is not divine leniency.

Grace rests upon the finished work of Christ.

This is where Paul’s revelation concerning justification reaches beyond merely stating that a man must believe God.

Paul unfolds the accomplishment of Christ as the righteous basis upon which God can justify the believer freely.

The principle of faith is ancient.

The full significance of the Cross upon which present justification rests is part of the revelation now manifested.

DELIVERED FOR OUR OFFENCES

Romans 4 began with Abraham.

It ends with Christ.

Paul speaks of Abraham’s faith:

“Who against hope believed in hope...”

— Romans 4:18

Then:

“And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:22

But Paul immediately adds:

“Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

— Romans 4:23–25

Here harmony and distinction meet again.

Abraham believed God.

We believe God.

Righteousness was imputed to Abraham through faith.

Righteousness is imputed to us through faith.

But Abraham did not possess the revelation contained in Romans 4:25.

Christ has now been delivered for our offences.

Christ has now been raised again for our justification.

The historical accomplishment has occurred.

Its significance has been revealed.

Thus the principle is continuous while the content of revelation has advanced enormously.

Christ’s resurrection is not merely proof that He survived death.

He:

“was raised again for our justification.”

The risen Christ is at the heart of the righteous standing Paul proclaims.

REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST

Paul describes justification as coming:

“through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Redemption was not a new word.

Israel knew redemption.

God had redeemed Israel from Egypt.

Zacharias could declare concerning Israel:

“he hath visited and redeemed his people.”

But once again, harmony does not require identicality.

Israel’s prophetic redemption included national deliverance, covenant fulfillment, restoration, and freedom from her enemies.

Paul reveals redemption centered in the blood of Christ and the believer’s position in Him.

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;”

— Ephesians 1:7

And:

“In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:”

— Colossians 1:14

The believer does not await national deliverance before possessing redemption.

“We have redemption.”

It is ours in Christ.

It is through His blood.

It includes the forgiveness of sins.

And Paul carries redemption even to its bodily conclusion:

“waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”

— Romans 8:23

Paul’s doctrine of redemption therefore reaches from guilt all the way to glory.

The sinner is justified.

The believer possesses redemption.

Sin is forgiven.

The believer is identified with Christ.

And ultimately the mortal body itself will be redeemed from corruption and death.

NO DIFFERENCE

One further distinction must not be overlooked.

Peter’s Pentecostal message addressed Israel within her national and covenantal setting.

Paul declares:

“For there is no difference:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”

— Romans 3:22–23

The former distinction between Israel and the nations supplied no advantage at the bar of God’s righteousness.

Paul makes the point again:

“For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.”

— Romans 10:12

This does not mean that Israel’s former distinctions were imaginary.

They were established by God.

But in the present proclamation of grace, they provide no privileged avenue of justification.

The Jew is not justified because he possesses the Law.

The Gentile is not excluded because he stood outside Israel’s covenants.

Both stand as sinners.

Both require God’s righteousness.

And that righteousness is found in Christ.

The distinction between Peter and Paul therefore cannot be reduced merely to two different ways of getting individuals saved.

Their ministries operate within different revealed administrations.

Peter addresses Israel’s prophetic and covenantal crisis.

Paul proclaims God’s righteousness to a world in which the former national distinction provides no basis of acceptance.

Yet beneath those differences stands the same fundamental truth:

No sinner has ever possessed sufficient righteousness of his own to place God in his debt.

FAITH AND THE WORD OF GOD

The principle that runs through the dispensations is therefore neither works nor one unchanging gospel formula.

It is faith.

“Without faith it is impossible to please him...”

— Hebrews 11:6

Faith takes God at His Word.

Abraham believed what God revealed to Abraham.

David trusted the God whose mercy could forgive sin.

Believing Israel responded to what God revealed concerning her Messiah.

And today the sinner is called to believe the gospel committed through Paul concerning what Christ has accomplished through His death and resurrection.

The messages must not be indiscriminately merged.

Neither should the common principle of faith be denied simply to make the dispensations appear more different.

Faith is not the gospel.

Faith believes the gospel God has revealed.

And when revelation changes, faith believes what God has now made known.

This allows us to recognize genuine progressive and dispensational revelation without making God’s righteousness change its character from one age to another.

God has never owed righteousness to sinful man.

Man has never placed God in his debt through human achievement.

God has always been the source of righteousness.

Faith receives what God reveals and provides.

THE GLORY OF PAUL’S GOSPEL

None of this diminishes Paul’s distinctive apostleship.

It clarifies it.

If we insist that everything associated with Paul must have originated with Paul, we eventually call things mysteries that Scripture plainly reveals beforehand.

Faith existed before Paul.

Justification through faith existed before Paul.

Imputed righteousness existed before Paul.

Forgiveness existed before Paul.

Redemption existed before Paul.

The promise of resurrection existed before Paul.

Paul himself appeals to these truths.

His distinctiveness does not depend upon denying them.

What is distinctive about Paul’s gospel must be determined by revelation, not by our need to make Paul different.

And when we permit Scripture to make that determination, Paul’s gospel loses nothing.

It gains clarity.

The risen Christ reveals through Paul the meaning of His finished work in dimensions previously unrevealed.

Christ was delivered for our offences.

He was raised again for our justification.

God justifies freely by His grace.

Redemption is in Christ Jesus.

His blood declares God’s righteousness.

God can therefore remain just while becoming the justifier of the believer.

Jew and Gentile stand without difference in their need.

And the believer possesses a standing in Christ independent of Israel’s covenantal status or national restoration.

That is not a small distinction.

It is magnificent.

We do not magnify Paul’s gospel by making Peter wrong about justification.

We magnify Paul’s gospel by allowing the revelation entrusted to Paul to tell us precisely what God has now made known.

PEACE WITH GOD

Romans 4 closes with Christ:

“Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”

Then Romans 5 opens with the consequence:

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:”

— Romans 5:1

That is where the argument finally rests.

Not in man’s performance.

Not in national privilege.

Not in covenantal identity.

Not in religious achievement.

Not even in faith regarded as a meritorious work.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith receives what grace has provided.

And because the basis of justification is Christ rather than ourselves, the result is not uncertainty.

It is:

peace with God.

Peter and Paul need not be made identical for Scripture to harmonize.

Nor must they be made contradictory in order for Paul to be distinctive.

Peter could preach Acts 2:38 within Israel’s national and prophetic program and still know that the works of the Law did not supply the righteousness by which a sinner was justified.

Paul could appeal to that shared understanding while simultaneously holding Peter accountable to the truth of the gospel uniquely entrusted to him.

Abraham could believe one gospel.

Peter could proclaim another.

Paul could receive another by revelation of Jesus Christ.

Yet in every case faith takes God at His Word.

Different revelation.

Different administrations.

Different gospel content.

But never a righteous God obligated by the merit of sinful man.

Right division requires us to distinguish those differences.

It also requires us to believe everything Scripture says about their harmony.

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

And nowhere is that more beautifully demonstrated than in justification—where the sinner contributes no righteousness of his own, God provides everything in Christ, and faith simply rests upon what God has revealed.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

This article is adapted from a chapter of a work in progress exploring Paul’s Gospel—its distinctiveness, its relationship to the prophetic Scriptures, and its place within the harmonious unfolding of God’s eternal purpose in Christ.

Last Sunday for the main service, we were considering Eph, 5:21, which says, “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”

By saying, “Submitting yourselves,” Paul means “to arrange under” or “to place oneself under.” Notice that Paul doesn’t say, “Force everyone else to submit to you!” He says, “Submitting yourselves.” This is everyone submitting to each other voluntarily.

Man, woman, or child – doesn’t matter. Every single soul is called by God to submit to all the other saints. This is an act voluntary humility to serve others.

Even leadership is a role of service. This is your disposition, as a spiritual leader, to place the interests of all the others above yourself. The great cross-reference would have to be Php 2:3, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” With “lowliness of mind,” he means the mindset of a true servant. You know who you are in Christ, already victorious over death, freed from sin, and empowered by His grace, but you have chosen the path of humble servitude like Christ. You’re naturally elevating the needs of others above yourself. This is not poor self-esteem. This is meekness – strength under control with humility.

Then Paul says to esteem other, which means “to consider, count, reckon, or regard.” We are to make reasoned decisions about how we evaluate others. And what did Paul say about how we view others? As better. Better than ourselves. This doesn’t mean they have more value as a person. This means to simply hold them above our own interests.

This is to be our way of life as saints in the Body of Christ.

Yet, Paul will still teach that husbands lead wives, parents lead children, masters oversee servants, and elders oversee local churches.

So how does everyone submit to each other while at the same time function in this framework of structured authority with leaders?

One of my favorite aspects about submission is that it totally forces you to take a deep dive at the Trinity (1 John 5:7), or the triune Godhead, and to really understand this relationship between power structures vs. equal submission.

I love how no one in the Godhead competes for authority or glory or recognition. Instead, they each live to continually honor and exalt the other members.

Let’s start with Christ. He said repeatedly, “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30), and He said, “for my Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). Greater in authority, not a greater divine person.

But the also Father exalts the Son: The Father gives all authority to Christ (“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him”—Matt. 17:5). He bestows on Him “a name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9).

And then you have the Spirit exalting both the Father and Son. A great example of this for me would be those verses in John 16:13-14. The Lord was explaining to the disciples how they’re going to speak the words of God at Pentecost. He said the Spirit “will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak... He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” He’s explaining the process of how Peter will be speaking the words of God at Pentecost. The Spirit will share what He hears in Heaven – the voice of one glorifying Christ. That’s not Christ Himself. That’s the Father. But, you see, the Spirit loves to serve and glorify the Father and Son without asserting Himself.

As a result the Father and Son, both exalt the Spirit. The Father sends the Spirit as the primary Agent of our spiritual renewal when we get saved, and the Spirit’s inspired Word is also magnified above His name (Psalm 138:2).

So we have this beautiful absence of competition in the Trinity. They’re all elevating the others above themselves.

1. The Father points to the Son.

2. The Son glorifies the Father.

3. The Spirit glorifies the Son and the Father.

4. The Father magnifies the Spirit’s work above His name.

5. The Son sends the Spirit into all of us to seal us.

Yet, within the Trinity, there is structure and order.

I’ve always called God the Father “the executive branch of the Godhead.” He’s the one basically in charge, isn’t He? Ephesians 1! But that doesn’t mean He is “more God” than the Son or the Spirit. He is simply the one who was designated to be the divine fountainhead of everything. Plus, everything in this age of grace was by the Father’s design according to all the grace that is in His nature.

As I like to say about the Godhead, “Everything is of the Father, by Jesus Christ, through the Spirit.” They are three who operate as one unit, one God.

Thus, the Father is, basically, in charge of everything. There is structure and order within the Godhead, and there is also at the same time willing, voluntary, happy submission by all the members of the Godhead out of love.

Power structure and authority establishes order - that’s it. It doesn’t establish worth of the person who is in charge. Remember how Paul says in 1 Cor. 15, “when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him” (v. 28). And what is the final result? “that God may be all in all.” In the eternal state, Paul tells us the Son willingly subjects Himself to the Father and His eternal purpose for all of us. And the result is that God will be all in all – He’ll be in us and we’ll be in Him.

Even though the Father is in this position of penultimate authority and the Son is subject to the Father, that doesn’t erase their equality as divine beings. It simply means that both Father and Son have accepted this established hierarchy for the sake of keeping order in the kingdom of God.

Equality does not demand equal authority. Christ doesn’t see authority as defining His worth. For Christ, worth has nothing to do with position of authority. “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. 2:8) Then: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” (v. 9)

There’s both equal submission and a power structure in the Trinity. The Son obeys. The Father exalts. Both are submitting. Both are elevating the others above themselves. What does the Father do with His authority? He uses it to exalt the Son. He also uses it to exalt the work of the Spirit and magnifies His Word above His name. And what does the Son do in His submission? He uses His role to exalt and glorify the Father. It’s not like there is equal submission, which means there’s no need for authority. The beauty of the Trinity is the absence of selfishness and the elevation of others within their established power structure and authority.

Not everybody submits to everybody else in the same way. The Father does not submit to the Son in the same way that the Son submits to the Father. Mutual love and submission does not mean identical roles. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit share the exact same divine nature, power, and glory, but they each occupy unique roles and submit and exalt the others in their own way within those roles.

The Son obeyed the Father. He did everything the Father told Him to do. But the Father exalted the Son and entrusted Him with all authority “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand” (John 3:35). The Father does not obey the Son in the way the Son obeys the Father. Yet the Father continually submits Himself by serving His Son, elevating His Son, from His position of authority. The Spirit has that same kind of relationship.

All three members of the Trinity have completely unique roles. Yet, in those unique roles, they universally submit and elevate the others above themselves.

That is our model.