and 614 Warehouse Mission, 22 April 2018
By Captain Michael Ramsay
I have a little quiz for us today. How well does everyone remember their math from school? I have papers to hand out. Put your name on the top. In order to pass the test, you have to get all of the questions correct. Are you ready? Let’s see how you do? We’ll check our own work as we go along.
1) 1+2=
2) 2+3=
3) 4+5=
4) Using the formula y=mx+b where the coordinates are (8,9) and the slope is ¾, what is the y-intercept?
Now if this isn’t a test, if this is a question in a math text book what would be a really easy way that you find get the answer to this last question? You could flip to the back where the answers are usually located. So we’re going to pretend that this question is in a math textbook and switch to the answer page.
1) 3
2) 5
3) 9
4) b = 3.
What was the answer the question 4? b = 3. We’ll administer the test again now. Don’t forget the answer. Turn your papers over. I know you all got the first three questions correct so we’ll only have the one question on it this time. It will be this same as #4 last time. What is the answer? Turn your pages over. Here is the question. Write down your answers. What was the right answer? Oh right, this is a math test now so in order to get full marks you need to show me your work. Can someone who got the right answer put up her/his hand and come up here and show us your work.
y = m *x + b
9 = ¾ *8 + b
9 = 24/4 + b
9 = 6 + b
9 -6 = b
3 = b
Math can be a little confusing. I found some comics here about how Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes deal with the intricacies of Math problems.
One thing about Math is that it often has an ‘=’ and when it does, this means that the items on the one side have to equal the ones on the other. This is important. At the solution to a problem where there is an ‘=’, you want the two sides of the equation to be equal. Much of math is about balancing equations and this is very much what we are looking at today.
Today we have an equation before us in our pericopes (James 1:19-27 and 2:14-26) that has caused some people quite a bit of difficulty throughout history, not unlike Question 4 on our test today; what was the answer, by the way? (b=3)The problem we are examining here is the James 2:17 Salvation Equation and this is very closely related to Doctrine 9 of The Salvation Army. Doctrine 9 has been called the most confusing (or even controversial for those that don’t quite get it) of our doctrines; and in his inability to solve the related word problem of James 2:17, Martin Luther argued that the whole textbook of James as it were, due to this equation (which is the thesis to the whole letter),[1] was indeed just a ‘straw epistle’ and “Luther’s harsh evaluation of James as a book bereft of [or missing] the gospel and of [missing altogether the point of] Christ still lingers on in modern interpretations.”[2] Luther got so upset with this that he wanted to rip the whole book of James right out of the Bible and I think that some have felt the same about our ninth doctrine as well. Let’s take a look at this, shall we?
The James 2:17 SalvationEquation that we are learning about today states: “In the same way, Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead.” Broken down into its component parts it says, Eternal Death (not being in a good relationship with God) = Acknowledging Jesus (God) but NOT doing what He says.
Or… Eternal Death = Faith - Action (Works)
TSA Doctrine 9 puts it this way: Continuance in a state of salvation depends upon continued obedient faith in Christ. Broken down into its component parts it says basically the same thing: Eternal Life (being in a good relationship with God) = Acknowledging Jesus (God) and doing what He says
So… Eternal Life = Faith + Action (Works)
Doctrine 9 tells us that Eternal Life (being in a good relationship with God) is related to Faith in Jesus (God) and doing what He says and James 2:17 says that Eternal Death (not being in a good relationship with God) is related to Faith in Jesus (God) but NOT doing what He says.
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q Doctrine 9: Eternal Life = Faith + Action (Works)
q James 2:17: Eternal Death = Faith - Action (Works)
Now in Mathematics if you really can’t find the answer and you are getting frustrated and you need to get your homework done, what can you do? Like we said with our test at the beginning, if you don’t know the answer in a Math textbook, what can you do to just get the answer? You can flip to the back of the math textbook; the answers are usually all right there and unless the teacher asks you to show your work, you can get your assignment done that way. I used to teach school; I know some students who would do their whole math homework that way: simply copying down answers from the back. It is that easy, right? The problem with this is that when it comes time for the test, you are lost. When you copy down the right answers from the back, without doing your work, maybe you get a check mark on your homework paper but when you see the question again on the test you’re completely lost.
James talks about showing your work in relation to the Salvation Equation this way: he refers to it like a man in the mirror. James 1:23-24: “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says [someone who doesn’t show his work] is like a man who looks at his face in the mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” You might answer it right in the homework but when you see the question on the exam, you’ll forget it just like here with the man in the mirror.
Jesus also talks about how important it is to show your work for the Salvation Equation, Matthew 7:21-23, He says:
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who [shows his work and] does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not [copy down the right answer from the back, did we not] prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ [You’ll receive an ‘F’ on the test for not showing your work.]
Matthew 25:44-46 records this in Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats about people who get the right answer from the back of the book in that they acknowledge Jesus as Lord but they fail to show their work. When they get the ‘F’ for not showing their work:
“They also will answer, [Didn’t we have the right answer written down?] ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. [You may have got the answer right, calling me ‘Lord’ but you don’t pass if you don’t show your work.]
James 1:26-28:
If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. [If you just know the right answer from the Good Book and don’t show your work, James says, your religion –your answer- is worthless]
James 2:17: “In the same way, Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead.” Faith (which is always the right answer!), if you don’t show your work, is dead. It won’t save you on the test. Eternal Death = Faith - Action.
This isn’t too difficult to understand, right? We can all accept that if I believe something in general it is very different then if I actually believe it enough to do something about it. For example if I say that I support the New Liberal Conservative political party (or whomever) but then when election day comes around I never even bother vote, I didn’t really support them, did I? And I am no good to the party and even though I consider myself a supporter of theirs, I am really not. Or some people vote ‘strategically’; this has traditionally been a problem for the NDP in Canada. Excepting this last federal election, a lot of people would say in polls that they supported the NDP but then, especially in Ontario, on Election Day they would vote Liberal. For better or for worse, regardless of what they say, those people aren’t really social democrats then are they?
This seems pretty simple. ‘The proof is in the pudding’, as they say. You know you actually believe what you espouse, if you ‘put your money where your mouth is’, as they say. This is pretty straightforward; so, with all of this said, why do some, like Martin Luther for instance, have so much trouble with this salvation equation?[3] Martin Luther’s difficulty related to what he thought was a contradiction between James 2:17: “In the same way, Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action is dead.” And even more so James 2:24: “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone” compared with Ephesians 2:8-10 (cf. also Galatians 2:15 and Romans 4:5):
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This is an important objection that Martin Luther raises. James says, ‘a person is justified by what he does’ and Paul, in Ephesians says, ‘you have been saved…not by works’
This is important so we will look at it a little more here but first I want to talk about what exactly is ‘faith’. This is pivotal to our discussion today. We have heard the definition from Hebrews 11:1: ‘Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This is true but it is even more than that in New Testament Greek. In Greek the word translated ‘faith’ in our Bibles also equally means ‘faithfulness’. Trust in someone and that someone’s trustworthiness are linguistically interrelated in the New Testament; it is a symbiotic relationship; they aren’t separate ideas and the concepts of faith and faithfulness in Greek (pistis) are indeed actually bound up in the same word.[4] Belief and obedience are inter-connected.[5] “Faith means receiving the message of salvation and conduct based on the gospel” – especially in Paul’s wrings. And O. Michel tells us in the New International Dictionary of NT Theology, “James is conscious of the need to prove faith… For him faith and obedient conduct are indissolubly linked. Faith understood as merely trust and confession is not able to save.”[6] The Apostle Paul agrees. Faith, like James 5:17 says, is not just saying that you believe something; it is about actually doing it.
Now this is sobering in some ways for those of us living in North America today for, as Luke Timothy Johnson tells us, “Insofar as contemporary Christianity has aligned itself unthinkingly with the individualistic and competitive ethos of capitalism, or allowed itself to be seduced into equating financial success with God’s blessing, it has, by James' standards, become a friend of the world and not a friend of God;”[7] Pheme Perkins tells us that in the U.S. twice as many people claim to belong to churches than actually even bother to attend them.[8] Faith without deeds is not real faith and faith without deeds is dead.[9]
Well, what about Martin Luther’s objections to this text then? Where Martin Luther made his error – and most theologians today regardless of theological predisposition will admit that he made an error here[10] - was in thinking that James ‘puts the cart before the horse’, which James does not. Luther thought that James is saying here that we can somehow earn our salvation. Luther thought that James is saying that if we do these certain behaviours then we will gain salvation. James is not saying this at all. James, just like Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, is saying that when you do have an obedient faith in God, certain behaviours will naturally be the result.[11] Our works, our actions, do not and cannot save anyone. We are alone saved by the faithfulness of God through Jesus Christ. There is no other way by which anyone can be saved. However, when we are living out our eternal life there will be a noticeable change in our life.
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James says that when (and precisely because) we are saved:
q we will get rid of moral filth and accept the Word that can save us, James 1:21;
q we will not only listen to the Word but we will actually do what it says, James 1:22;
q and when we are saved we will actually provide for those in need, James 2:15-16; see also Matthew 25:31-46 and Ephesians 2:8-10.
So this Salvation Equation is actually really quite exciting because – while we do need to show our work on the test of our life – the truth of the matter is that Christ will actually show this work through us. Only one person in the class needed to do the work for us to be saved from failing eternally and that one was Jesus. Christ has already solved the question for us; so, for as long as we serve Him, He will do all of the aforementioned in our lives and more (Galatians 5:1-12; 1 Thessalonians 5:23,24 cf. Leviticus 20:5, Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:35, 49; John 17:11; Acts 3:14, 4:27-30; 2 Timothy 1:14; Titus 3:5; 1 John 2:20; 1 Peter 1:12-16; 2 Peter 1:21; Jude 20; Revelation 4:8, 6:10). God and the Bible call us to be holy as He is holy and we will be holy, not by anything we do but by everything that Christ does through us (Leviticus 11:44,45, 19:2, 20:7 and 1 Peter 1:16; see also Psalm 89:35, 2 Corinthians 13, Colossians 1:28, Hebrews 11-12).
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q Doctrine 9: Eternal Life is evidenced by Faith + Christ's Work in our lives [12]
q James 2:17: Eternal Death is evidenced by Faith – Christ's Work (which really is not faith at all!)
To reiterate, this is important: Doctrine 9 and James 2:17’s Salvation Equation are NOT saying that if we do certain behaviours it will result in us experiencing everlasting life. What they ARE saying is that if we DO have everlasting life then certain behaviours WILL result. You see the difference? The more time we spend with God, the more we will become like Him just like when people have been married 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years or more: they become more and more like their spouses and can often tell what the other is thinking and even complete their sentences for them. God promises that this will happen in our lives too – the more we know Him, the more we will naturally become like Him because Salvation, like holiness, like marriage, like employment, like so much in life, is a relationship rather than a state to be attained. If we are ‘saved’ it simply means that we are in a positive (right) relationship with the one who can (and has) save us, our saviour Christ Jesus. “Salvation is neither a state to be preserved nor an insurance policy which requires no further investment. It is the beginning of a pilgrimage with Christ.”[13] And what a pilgrimage it is; so if there are any of us here today who have not yet begun this wonderful life changing relationship with Jesus Christ. If you have not yet submitted to God, the test that Christ has already passed on your behalf, I invite you to do so today.
Let us pray.
---
[1] Otto Michel. “Faith” In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 1, edited by Colin Brown. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1981), 602.
[2] Martin Luther. Vermischte Deutche Schriften. (Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith. Fort Wayne Texas: Concordia Theological Seminary 1994), 124.
[3]Donald W. Burdick, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:James/Introduction to James/Canonicity of James, Book Version: 4.0.2: The epistle was not readily received into the collection of writings that were viewed as being on a par with the OT Scriptures. It was rejected by some as late as the time of Eusebius (c. 265-340). Few early Christian writers refer to it. The Muratorian Canon (c. 170) omits it, as does the OL version.
[4] Cf. Roy Jeal, Presentation to WCBC, Winter 2007.
[4] Cf. Roy Jeal, Presentation to WCBC, Winter 2007.
[5] Oswald Becker and Otto Michel. “Faith” In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 1, edited by Colin Brown. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1981), 587, 594.
[6] Otto Michel. “Faith” In The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 1, edited by Colin Brown. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1981), 601, 604.
[7] Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James, (NIB XII: Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1998), p. 200.
[8] Pheme Perkins, First and Second Peter, James, and Jude, (Interpretation : John Knox Press: Louisville, 1995), p. 113.
[9] Cf. Douglas J. Moo: James: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL. : InterVarsity Press, 1985 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 16), S. 104
[10] Read any of the diverse here mentioned scholars for evidence of this.
[11] Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of the Epistle of James, (NTC: Baker Academic: Grad Rapids, Michigan, 2007), p. 87.
[12] The General of the Salvation Army. Salvation Story: A Handbook of Salvationist Doctrine. (London, England: The Salvation Army International Headquarters, 1998), 82: Salvation Story offers an interesting response to this line of questioning: on initial examination it apparently, for our part, reinterprets the word ‘depends’ as ‘is evidenced by’ and leaves the conditional work entirely to Christ. “We remember that an ongoing union with Christ depends on his work and not our feelings...Such assurance must be affirmed daily by obedience and never made an excuse for carelessness or complacent presumption. It is the changed life that is evidence for the work of grace within.” ‘Obedience’ is mentioned in the preceding comment; ‘dependency’ - as our part - is not. The argument seems thus far to state that our continued Salvation depends not on our continued obedient faith but rather on Christ’s work. “We believe that God, who has accepted and saved us and given us eternal life, has given us also the assurance of our standing in him.”
[13] The General of the Salvation Army. Salvation Story: A Handbook of Salvationist Doctrine. (London, England: The Salvation Army International Headquarters, 1998), 85-86.
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