Not By Works

[eternally-gratefull]

Amen, one has to read James in the light of all other scriptures and not be like Luther who wanted to toss it out of the Bible or twist it to mean we need works to be saved.

James was a problem with me for years.. I hated it, until I actually studied it.

 

[Ralph-]

Jesus explains this in Verse 37-39

37 He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man.38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one,39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

I take that as meaning the unsaved. ?

Yes, the unsaved. They belong to the evil one, not the Son of Man. If they belonged to the Son of Man he would bring them into his barn not burn them up.

So are Wheat & Weeds saved (gathered) & unsaved (burned)?

Yes.

Or are they: saved and doing works (gathered) & merely saved (burned) ?

Not a chance. Jesus said they come from the evil one and belong to the evil one, not him. And the plantings of the evil one are identified by the fact that they have no fruited head of grain like a stalk of wheat has. They look the same on the outside but it's the fruit they produce or don't produce by the end of the season that ultimately distinguishes between them and separates them.

 

[Gracie_14]

I meant that I want my heavenly mansion to be a log cabin on a lake with all sorts of animals..and bread..lol

oooh! how lovely Blue! A log cabin by a lake...how thrilling!

 

[Magenta]

stonesofflames

Are you deliberately changing Stonesoffire's name to something else? It seems rude and disrespectful.

 

[eternally-gratefull]

Trust me, I have never been banned from this forum.

I will begin to report any further suggestions that I am Fran. It is extremely annoying and impolite. You are disrupting the forum and causing strife. What does it matter anyway if Fran wants to come back to this forum?

She was banned, Most bans occurs for a year. She can come back when her time is up.

I am surprised you ask why it matters. For someone who is professing we need to act like God, saying it is ok for someone to sin (and it would be sin) is just telling.

 

[UnderGrace]

So how do you show your righteousness?

And you are absolutely sure if I watched your actions day in and day out and measured every word you uttered I could find proof of your righteousness?

You misunderstand. You do not need works to be put into the family of God. You need works to show that has happened. Did you know the word justify means to be made righteous, and to be shown to be righteous? Paul's justification by faith apart from works is talking about being made righteous before God. No works required to do that. James's justification by works is talking about being SHOWN to be righteous before God. Don't feel bad, hardly anyone knows this. I learned it in another forum a few years back. Pass it along.

The person who can not show himself to have the righteousness of God by what he does does not have the righteousness of God. And it is irrelevant if they ever were righteous before God and lost it, or never had it to begin with. The fact remains that the person who can't show he has the righteousness of God in salvation doesn't have it. Whether he really had it or not to begin with doesn't change that truth.

 

[Ralph-]

I believe He was talking to unbelievers, people called hearers of the word only. Making the fact that if you claim to have faith is it enough? Even demons believe,

We have to look at context. James was telling people to test their faith, Paul spoke to people adding works to faith. The peopl ejames spoke to had no works. Because they had no faith.

You keep talking like this and we might become friends................................naah!

 

[Lucy-Pevensie]

Yes, the unsaved. They belong to the evil one, not the Son of Man. If they belonged to the Son of Man he would bring them into his barn not burn them up.


Yes.


Not a chance. Jesus said they come from the evil one and belong to the evil one, not him. And the plantings of the evil one are identified by the fact that they have no fruited head of grain like a stalk of wheat has. They look the same on the outside but it's the fruit they produce or don't produce by the end of the season that ultimately distinguishes between them and separates them.

Well, I had better get busy! I'm sure that I am severely lacking in the works department.

 

[UnderGrace]

I disagree

They had dead faith not no faith.

I believe He was talking to unbelievers, people called hearers of the word only. Making the fact that if you claim to have faith is it enough? Even demons believe,

We have to look at context. James was telling people to test their faith, Paul spoke to people adding works to faith. The peopl ejames spoke to had no works. Because they had no faith.

 

[Gracie_14]

She was banned, Most bans occurs for a year. She can come back when her time is up.

I am surprised you ask why it matters. For someone who is professing we need to act like God, saying it is ok for someone to sin (and it would be sin) is just telling.

oh my! I have to be careful from hanging around in this thread then...

 

[Ralph-]

So how do you show your righteousness?

By responding to life's situations according to the fruit of the Spirit.
And you do mean God's righteousness in me, right?

And you are absolutely sure if I watched your actions day in and day out and measured every word you uttered I could find proof of your righteousness?

Yes. You'll see me stumble too, but you will see responses that are unnatural in human beings. And if you knew me ten years ago you'd see how much more today than then. God is being faithful to work this good thing in me.

 

[Magenta]

Yes, the unsaved. They belong to the evil one, not the Son of Man. If they belonged to the Son of Man he would bring them into his barn not burn them up.

It is problematic that you so steadfastly contradict yourself, talking about non-believers as if they were saved, but then affirming that believers are in fact saved by sheer virtue of the fact of their belonging to Him.

 

[Gracie_14]

I disagree

They had dead faith not no faith.

what's the difference???

 

[Magenta]

She was banned, Most bans occurs for a year. She can come back when her time is up.

I am surprised you ask why it matters. For someone who is professing we need to act like God, saying it is ok for someone to sin (and it would be sin) is just telling.

I never heard of a time limit on bans before

 

[UnderGrace]

Something that is dead was once alive...no faith never existed. Even when we die we still had an existence.

This is why James phrased it this way.

what's the difference???

 

[Ralph-]

She was banned, Most bans occurs for a year. She can come back when her time is up.

I am surprised you ask why it matters. For someone who is professing we need to act like God, saying it is ok for someone to sin (and it would be sin) is just telling.

If it's really in the rulz to not come back after being banned then she should not do that. I don't see any posts that show that she may be back here. She was up on church history big time. The history of the church that most of us don't know about and how it has made the church what it is today and different than what it was in the beginning. No posts like that that I know of.

 

[Gracie_14]

I never heard of a time limit on bans before

me neither...

 

[stonesoffire]

You're being evasive. But as long as you stop assuming I'm Fran we'll be good. It's annoying and disruptive and I will report it from now on. Peace?

yes, am being evasive. It's easy to know who you are to the moderators.

 

[Gracie_14]

Something that is dead was once alive...no faith never existed. Even when we die we still had an existence.

This is why James phrased it this way.

ah, that makes much more sense. interesting... i never thought of it that way

 

[Ralph-]

Something that is dead was once alive...no faith never existed. Even when we die we still had an existence.

This is why James phrased it this way.

Technically we were all alive before we became accountable for our sin and started sinning. Then we died. Paul says that. But James is using dead in the sense of ineffective. In context, unable to save. Ineffective toward saving a person.

If your belief in God is not changing you then you do not have the faith that saves. you merely know about God and believe that he and the gospel exist, but you do not believe in it as in trust in it to forgive your sins. One's life shows if we have the faith that saves or the faith that just knows that the gospel is true. Ultimately, the latter belief is someone who has heard it but has not received it.