Chapter 2
| James: Chapters -1- -2- -3- -4- -5- |
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| 2:1 My brothers and sisters, do not hold the faith of our Lord, Jesus Christ of glory, inside of favoritism or respect of persons. 2 For if someone comes into your assembly with a gold ring and wearing splendid clothes, then someone else comes in, poor and with dirty clothes, 3 and you then look upon the one wearing the splendid clothes and say, “You sit here in honor,” but to the poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit beneath my footstool,” 4 then have you not made a distinction among yourselves and become critics with malicious thinking? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has God not chosen the poor in this world to be rich inside of faith and heirs of the kingdom that He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor. Are not the rich oppressing you and dragging you into court? 7 Are they not slandering the good name by which you are called? 8 If indeed you keep the royal law, according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) [d], you are doing well. 9 But if you show favoritism, you are falling short of the mark, and are exposed by that law [of love] as walking contrary. • 10 For whoever manages to keep the entire law, but stumbles in one point, he is now guilty of all. 11 For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13-14) [d]. If you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you have become one who walks contrary to the law. 12 So speak and so act as one being judged through the law of freedom. 13 For judgment will be without mercy to the one who does not show mercy. Mercy triumphs and exults boastfully over judgment. • 14 What is the advantage, my brothers and sisters, if anyone claims to have faith, but does not do anything? Is such faith able to rescue him and make him whole? 15 Now, if a brother or a sister is without clothes and lacking of daily food, 16 and any of you says to them, “Go in peace; be warmed and be filled,” but does not give them the needful things for the body, how does that help? 17 In the same way, if faith does not also do something for others, it is dead of itself. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without doing anything for others, and I will show my works coming out from faith. 19 You believe that God is one. You are doing well! Even the demons believe that and shudder! 20 Do you not want to know, however, O empty man [e], that faith that doesn’t do anything for others is pointless? 21 Was not Abraham our father declared to be justly innocent, having offered his son Isaac upon the altar? • 22 You see that his faith was synergeoing with his works, and out of his works, his faith became fully complete. 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled saying, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him into just innocence” (Genesis 15:6), and he was called a friend of God. • 24 You see that out from doing good things for others, a man is declared justly innocent, and not out from faith alone 25 Likewise also, was not Rahab the prostitute declared justly innocent out from what she did in receiving the messengers and sending them out by another way? • 26 For just as the body apart from spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. |
| Gospel Comments | Notes |
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| • Covenant: We CANNOT save ourselves. • Ruling Verse 1: First consider 1 Peter 4:19. God’s faith and His well-doing are two sides of the same thing, inside of each other, even synergeoing together. As we are conceived of God by His Word, Jesus Sent into us, so it is the same with us. Our faith, coming out from God, participates with God in actions of Love, in doing good. This is part of the ruling verse, Romans 8:28 - synergeoing with God, making all good. • Definition: Faith (the faith of the Son now ours, see Galatians 2:20), proven and made complete, is faith that has brought forth the actions of Love. This line also shows us the complete interrelationship of spirit and physic in our outward form, and that death is the splitting apart of heaven and earth.. |
d. It is important to me that Scriptural quotations be referenced, not as side notes, but as an integral part of the text. e. With the word “empty,” James is referring to the so-called “invisible” faith. |