Books of James & Jude - Faith and works - Abraham Illustration - James 2:21-23
James 2:21-23 · JD McCulley · May 19, 2013
James & Jude, No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492635297862

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, so we'll continue with Faith and Works today. This is the Abraham illustration found in James 2, 21-23. picking up from where we left off last week. I mentioned that 14-26 has always been a bit of a challenge and I think that a number of theologians through the years have gotten hung up here and as a result kind of hung their hats up too with regards to trying to understand it. It can be a challenge. I think one of the things that we enjoy here is just the ability to see things from a progressive, bigger picture. So I'll continue to bring that viewpoint in as we look at this particular illustration that James has for us.

21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. And he was called the friend of God.

So, just to kind of back up two seconds, I won't go into as great a depth as I have in the last several classes, but remember James is all about doing, Paul is all about beholding. And so we can't just see James pull it out of the scripture itself and use it as a proof text for faith. as it exists in the life of the believer alone. Not to say that it doesn't have its place, because it absolutely does. It's essential to a correct understanding of the Word and a correct understanding of faith as it's seen and developed in the New Testament. However, much like jumping into the middle of a scene in a movie, you can't just take James and unplug it with respect to all the other apostles' perspective on faith.

And so James is about doing. Paul talks to us about how that life gets lived. James talks about what that life is like and what it looks like to others. We're going to really hammer in on that today with the illustration that James uses with Abraham. So just a little bit of an outline here. Last week we looked at this number two, evidence of true faith. And today we're going to look at examples of true faith. Jeremy, do you have next week? So you'll be picking up with the Rahab illustration. Today we're going to look at Abraham, right? So these are examples.

I think that it's interesting that you don't have just a doctrinal statement about certain things, but you also have an example, a reality, and New Testament authors quote Old Testament scripture in order to bring to light the reality of a historical moment in time where this particular doctrine can best be seen. And sometimes they will add additional interpretation to it. as it exists in the mind of the New Testament believer. But I think in today's example, there's not a lot of new interpretation being added to it. It is just a clarification on how faith gets lived.

And there's some interesting aspects to justification that we're going to look at today, and how that worked out, and some of the potential controversies that have arisen surrounding justification that James has found himself being victim to in a lot of the church teaching over the years. And so I hope that we'll be able to clear that up as we look at some of these examples of true faith. So we'll start out here.

Was not Abraham our father? So in order to drive home his point, James is using an illustration that his Jewish believers, his audience, would have been very familiar with. He uses an objective negative here so that a person would understand that the question that he was proposing was surely the case. So was not Abraham our father? And the answer is, surely it was. And this is not a hypothetical situation. This was, in fact, the reality of the situation.

And we can definitely see throughout the scripture Abraham is not one that's unfamiliar to the word. Abraham definitely plays a very important role in the development of God choosing a people group out from the world and using Abraham as the beginning place for how he would teach the rest of the world about how he interacts with man. And so we said that Abraham held a special place in the mind of these believers and would help James to communicate that works is an entirely natural part of faith. And he's going to go back all the way into the Old Testament to show that this has been this way for years and years and years. You just have to have the correct understanding of how works relates to faith.

And we'll use Abraham as an example. So it's a natural part. God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, 1-3, that's where... in fact, why don't we read that? If one of you guys... maybe somebody can grab that for me. Genesis 1-3. Let's go back to that place where God approached Abraham and communicated that promise to him.

The Lord hath said to Abram, Leave your country, your people, and your father's household, and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. There's just so much packed into those three verses.

I mean, we talk about this is not a conditional agreement between God and Abraham. This is actually that unilateral promise that God makes to Abraham. Yep. Yeah. Another fancy theological way of putting it. But it was. It was a not conditional promise that God made to Abraham. And this began the ancestral relationship of all of Abraham's descendants underneath this promise. And so the Jewish believers that James was speaking to would understand the ancestral relationship that Abraham played in their faith. And they were often designated themselves as descendants of Abraham.

So Hebrews 2.16.

And I brought up, there's many instances of this phrase, but I brought up Hebrews 2.16 since we'll be looking at it in the main service with Fern. So again, James isn't the only one that brings back that clear understanding and perspective of what God's been doing in history all along. So we use the word progressive revelation a lot in this class. I think it's a key. component to understanding, but James is pulling on older historical truth to build his understanding of faith and works as it relates to the New Testament believers, especially these Jewish believers.

But they would have understood Abraham, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and his wives and concubines and then eventually give rise to the 12 tribes and so forth. And so they all would have had relationship back to Abraham in the very beginning of that promise. So was not Abraham our father justified by works? Was Abraham justified by works? So this portion of the verse tends to create an apparent contradiction. This is where folks just get all strung out and hung up and frustrated and confused, and I've been one of them.

And you probably have too, which is why you're in this class, because you probably want to get a little clarification on some of these things. And I'm hoping that previous classes with all of us as teacher have been able to, in unison, communicate that there's no controversy here, that there's actually a unison between the different apostles with relationship to these things, but that you do have to be careful. You have to step slowly through these verses Because if you run right into them, you're going to have this kind of frustration and this contradiction. I think that's one of the things that happens quite often.

So there's this apparent contradiction that Abraham was justified by works. Was he not? Our Father justified by works, James says. And so we say, oh my goodness, what are we going to do here? So God declared, we know that in other verses God declared Abraham righteous when he believed God's promise. That's Genesis 15, 1 through 6. Romans 4 actually develops this out. We'll talk about that later. But here, you know, we read that Abraham is justified by his faith.

And he was declared righteous because of his belief. So what is this that James is saying? Was he not justified by works? So justified, we have to make sure we have a proper definition, and I think that this is one of the keys to understanding this scripture, as it has been in previous ones that we've looked at. So justified always means to declare, and the key word there being declare.

To declare someone righteous, not to make someone righteous. So when Abraham was justified, when we were justified, we were declared to be righteous. In our condition, however, were we perfectly righteous at that moment? No. courtroom of heaven, put in the history books in regards to your citizenship in heaven, you were declared righteous. We won't go into that a great deal, but it's important to remember that justified always means to declare righteous. That's something I would even write into my Bible, that always means to declare, not to make someone righteous.

Al? I don't want to go to the end of your lesson too soon. for weeks, thank you for that. Yeah, you bet. Actually, it is the last slide. So just a real important note, I think, something to keep in mind as you become greater students of the Word and as we become careful and rightly dividing it and understanding it, this is a declaration that God makes about a believer.

And so we see that same declaration in some of the comparisons there with Exodus 23.7 in the Old Testament and Deuteronomy and Kings as well. I'll let you guys kind of take a look at that on your own time.

But here you see that God declared certain men righteous, even though they would have received curses later on for the very disobedience that they experienced in the land. And so he refers to all of Israel's meaning those that were believers as righteous, but yet we know that blessings were always in the land. In fact, when we read Genesis, the promise that was made to Abraham 12, one through three, it talked about blessings and cursings. And that's something that Vern and I have been looking at in Ephesians together, and that blessings in the Old Testament were always in the land, and cursings were always out of the land. And eventually, every Israelite, the righteous, as God called them, in these passages here, they all found themselves being cursed at some point because they could not fulfill the law completely, all 613 of them. And so to some degree there was a cursing that every Israelite would experience because they were unable to keep the law perfectly.

And ultimately that experience was being out of the land, being captive, being taken captive and losing that physical place and those physical blessings. So blessings were always physical for the Israelites and the cursings were always physical for the Israelites. Our blessings are where? Heaven. Heavenly blessings, that's right. It's a totally different transition with regards to blessing.

Learning a lot there in Ephesians. So misunderstanding here can lead to great confusion. And I use the examples of the Reformed movement. Many of them believe that when someone is declared righteous, that will result in good works continually, so to the point that you would not have any kind of sin in your life any longer. So, you will eventually, even if it's on the very last leg of your few minutes of life, you will move yourself in time to a place where your standing and your condition will match up completely in this life. And so, being steadfast till the end, and there's a lot of different perspectives on And it's not all Reformed views don't necessarily go there, but it's part of the logical makeup of the elect in terms of being righteous and that righteousness being performed on this earth fully and completely. If you think that justification means to make righteous, then you're going to have some difficulties understanding that in this life.

And there's different theological systems that have tried to answer that, and I think they've gone out of the scripture in order to make that system work for themselves. And again, been there, done that too. So it's a lot easier sometimes to have a logical system that works. where things are clearly in the mind of a person as opposed to being completely understood in God's mind and trusting Him with those things. So there are certain things that we just don't have all and complete answers for. So we have to be careful with that. I don't think there's any contradiction here though. We'll move on and explain why.

Scripture says Abraham was declared righteous when he believed. So can someone, Jeremy, can you read Genesis 15-6? And he believed in the Lord, and he accounted it to him for righteousness. So, accounted it to him, that's the same kind of concept there. The declaration was made at the point in Genesis 15-6 when Abraham believed God.

So this happened early, not early in Abraham's life in terms of age, but early in the revelation that we have about Abraham. Specifically, we're going to talk about Isaac here a little bit, but this was far before Isaac. And we'll talk about that time span in a minute.

But James tells us that several decades later in his life, he is declared righteous a second time. So he's declared for his belief, then he takes his son up to the altar, and he's declared righteous again. So there's two declarations of righteousness here, and man, that just starts throwing us for a loop in some ways. So we have to sort this stuff out.

So we see this two declaration pattern in these verses. In fact, in James 21 through 22, you see that it is linked to the offering of Isaac found in Genesis 22, and then in verse 23, the last verse we'll look at today, it's linked to the event of Genesis 15, which Jeremy just read for us. So the question is why? Why two declarations?

I think that the answer becomes clear in the distinction of justification from man's perspective, and that's verses 21 through 22, and God's perspective in verse 23. And this is one of those things that very clearly helps us understand the book of James. We've talked about man-ward justification and God-ward justification, or God-viewed justification. And so it really is, it's a heart perspective in God's eyes and a works perspective in man's eyes. We don't see the heart.

We've talked about this before, but James is making this example to explain to his objector, his hypothetical objector that he brought up in previous verses, and he knew that his audience would have these same objections, which is why he brought this hypothetical objection into view for them. He's like, I know that you've struggled with this kind of concept, and so I'm going to bring about this situation so that you can understand in your own mind how I view it as an apostle. And he does that in these verses. So two declarations of justification do not support the idea that Abraham lost his salvation, as some teach.

That's another theological system that think, OK, he believed. He failed to believe. We've got the whole Ishmael deal. Lots of different kinds of examples of where his works did not match up to his faith, right? I mean, did he trust God at every point from the point of Genesis 15 to Genesis 22? He sure didn't, so he lost his salvation. And that's the flip side. There's an Arminian perspective that it'll take that route, right?

So when you've got a theological system that you're bringing into the scripture and you've got to make it fit, you can make it fit a lot of different ways. However, when you don't have a theological system that overrides the Scripture itself, you can see, okay, maybe there are different aspects here that match up with all the verses of the Scripture. And I think that that's what we have. I think that's a good, just in general, a good point to realize that Scripture is consistent, but there are different perspectives, different stewardship. want to put it.

And the problem comes when you try to put everything from the same perspective. And confuse that for consistency. You talked about that flat world view. Exactly. Everything is, well it must be like this, but no, there's plenty of different perspectives and understanding as we've done so much work in this class in particular to show who's James speaking to, when is he speaking, and what are the perspective That makes such a difference. It does.

That flat view of the Bible is an example we used last week, and I know this is repetitive, but I think it's worth reminding ourselves. When you see the scripture as completely flat, meaning God did not communicate His truth in a progressive way, meaning it built up over time, just like how we raise our children. We don't tell them every single rule that they'll ever need to keep and expect them to keep it at age four. You know, we set boundaries and those boundaries begin to grow and some boundaries begin to be removed over time and they begin to understand more and more and more about who they are in Christ and how that relationship and that fellowship with Him works over time.

And that's exactly what God did. He did not communicate everything that a person needed to understand and believe to live the life that He had given them all in one setting, which is the way that people believe the Bible is communicated. So I can go into the book of Leviticus And I can get all that I need to know about living the spiritual life, right?

I mean, most Christians think that's the driest book in the world. Well, the reason it's dry to them is because they're seeing it as a personal application to themselves, and they cannot live it, they cannot do it, they don't understand it, they don't have a temple, or a tabernacle, they don't have a place to go, and they don't have sheep, and they don't have all the different Levites, And they're not Israelites. And they're not Israelites and they think they have to go back to Israel. So, you know, we've got different churches even just, you know, not too far that would choose to try to take a flat view of scripture and have us doing certain things that don't actually pertain to us any longer.

And you mentioned the word stewardship. Even dispensationalism in the past has gotten so hung up with the dispensational system that it locks it into a certain number of stewardships or dispensations. We call this how God administers people. Dispensationalism has done so great for us in that it's shown us that progressiveness. But one of the things that it does tend to do in certain instances is it hones us in to those exact points in time where certain administrations with God and His people are responsible for certain things. And Vern has communicated to me, and I think it's a good way of viewing it, that there are thousands of different stewardships in the scripture.

And so you have to just consider which one he's looking at at any given point in time. There's not these locked-in seven or these locked-in three. I think in one of the larger perspectives that we've kind of adopted at Holly Hills as of recent is just the bigger administration that God has of law and grace. And those are very, very huge, and there's thousands within each of those as well.

However, law and grace is probably the largest perspective, according to Paul, that you have with regards to where do I fit in relationship to God's stewardship. You still have to continue to understand each scripture individually and what stewardship it belongs to, but law and grace is probably the largest division of how God administers His people. So you have Israel and the Church. Those are probably some of the largest.

So why was it said twice that he was... That's a good question. And I'm glad you have it because that's where we're going next. No, you're good. I'm glad you have it because that's what I wanted to do is create this question of why. so we could begin to look at it.

But one thing that's clear is that there's no support in the scripture for Abraham having lost his salvation and needing to regain it through his works. And Abraham wasn't saved again when he took Isaac to the altar. Okay, we're going to see why. So we continue with verse 21.

Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? And the answer is yes. I mean it's a proposed negative objection. Surely this is the case and it's not the alternative. So it was at the point in time where Abraham committed to take Isaac's life that man could actually clearly see what God had seen years before. So here is an instance in Abraham's life where his fellow man could look and say, what your faith is based on when you said you believed and you left, now I can see that it's tied to the very faith that you had. I see your faith in action. And before me, I can actually understand that you're willing to go to this length for the faith that you have.

And so this is something that happens years later. We said several decades. But this was an opportunity that God placed before Abraham as a trial in order for him to be declared righteous before the eyes of who? Of men. And isn't that what trials is all about? I mean, James talks about that. We've already studied this, and so I've just tried to connect this back to James 1, 2 through 4.

He says, Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith, you didn't lose it, you don't need to regain it. It's not a test to get saved again, it's a test for your faith so that it might produce endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, we're going to look at that word again, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. So we studied the idea of faith being perfected as a result of a trial endured.

We already looked at that in James 1, 2 through 4, and here's a perfect example of it. So James is connecting what he's already said to these verses in chapter 2, 21 through 23 and following next week. So hold on to your thought there, Pat, because we're going to further clarify some of those questions that you have. But just as kind of a running start here. We'll just let the verses continue to unfold and I think it'll become clear.

So, you see, and this is verse 22, the you there is the you that was brought up in verse 16 and then in verse 20 that we looked at last week. This was the objector that said, I'll show you my faith by my works. And it wasn't an objector to James, it was an objector to the idea that faith could exist without works. Right? That was the point of last week. So James is telling this hypothetical person that faith worked together with Abraham's works to bring about an outward reality. Right?

So 1 Thessalonians, I brought up a New Testament perspective again. Here, Paul talks about constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor. Oh my, work and labor. Of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in presence of our God and Father. Now look at that verse. Where's the focus for the believer that's laboring and working of faith? Where is their focus? God's doing the work in you and through you. Their focus is in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the presence. Why do you think presence is brought up there? Who does the living? Christ. Yeah. I mean, the entire Godhead, all three persons are involved in working out the faith that you have as a believer.

And so, James didn't understand all this. I mentioned that James didn't know what it meant to be baptized in Christ. He didn't understand identification fully, but what he did understand is that faith had an outward reality and that man could see it. And as a result of what man saw, there was a justification manward that existed in the life of a believer.

And specifically he uses Abraham in these verses. So you see that faith was working with his works. I like this comment by Hodges here. It says, The faith which justifies can have an active and vital role in the life of the obedient believer. As with Abraham, it can be the dynamic for superb acts of obedience. In the process, faith itself can be perfected.

The Greek word suggests development and motivation. Faith is thus nourished and strengthened by works. Your faith, conditionally speaking, grows as you see the Lord working and living His life through you. You grow in faith. It's strengthened. It's nourished. And that's the idea of perfection here. It's maturation. Growth. And so you think of a believer that just came to know the Lord.

Justified. In the courtroom of heaven they are justified. They are declared righteous by God. They are saved for eternity. They are now His child. Adopted. They have all the full rights of sonship. But do they understand how much stronger their faith can be on day one? It's very much like a babe, right? It starts very simple. It's a simple faith. And it's not to say that the simplicity of faith becomes more complex. their opportunities that God uses with trials in their life can help them to grow in that faith and understanding.

We can all think back through from the point in time where we believed and were declared righteous to the point that we saw the Lord doing the living through us and we grew, didn't we? We grew in our faith. Our faith grew. Now, does that mean that we were more saved than we were when we began? No, it just means that justification from manward's perspective was more clear. Man could begin to see, oh, your faith has an outward reality. And when you see your faith take an outward reality, you grow.

And that's all James is saying. Paul talks about all the intricacies of how that works. Right? So I bring up the phases of salvation. Ron Merriman had this in his study on the book of James. But just remember that salvation is by grace, but we have these salvation or deliverances in three different ways, or three different stages. The first stage being the past tense. I talked about that a minute ago.

That's the phase one where you are saved from the penalty of sin. And then we also see the word salvation or deliverance being used in the context of a phase two, where we're being saved from the power of sin. And then phase three, that final salvation, that final deliverance, being saved from the presence of sin for all eternity. And so it's important to remember that James is talking about the salvation that we experience in phase two, the deliverance from the very power of sin in our lives.

And our faith grows as we are delivered from the power of sin. When you realize in your own life with an issue that you have struggled with, even as a believer, and you experience the Lord's work in your life to deliver you from that temptation or that sin or whatever it is, your faith grows in the capability of the Lord Himself living His life through you. So faith grows conditionally.

It's perfectly completed with regards to salvation, but in terms of the power of sin in your life, you no longer struggle with things that you struggled with before in certain ways. And then you still struggle with things that you do. And so you have an opportunity to grow in faith in those areas as well, as you trust the Lord to deliver you from those as well. I know I have a lot of those, and you do too. That's why we're in a process here of being delivered from the power of sin. It's a phase two thing that James is referring to in some ways here. I bring that up just so that this statement is clear.

We read at the end of James 2.22, And as a result of the works, faith was perfected. So Merriman says, in view is the God-designed reciprocity between faith, that's stage two sanctification stuff, and works. Faith in Christ and His finished work at Calvary has a divine goal, growth.

So God didn't just die on the cross, was raised from the tomb just so that you could be saved eternally, He also had a very focused intention that you experience growth in the life that you live until you meet Him face to face, where you'll be finally delivered from sin. See, everything has a purpose here. You think, well, why didn't God just save me and pull me right out? Because in God's perfect understanding of His creation and His perfect will, He knew that using trials, not God uses trials and He uses temptations to help you grow in the deliverance of the power of sin.

Your faith grows. This is an opportunity. So, here's the thing. God is intending that this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this the sin-filled world be a training ground for you as His children to grow in your faith in Him. So when you are challenged in an area, you need your needs, right? We say that quite often. Those are the needs that you are being presented so that you might grow in trust and faith in Him.

It's a different way of looking at a challenging life. Who wants to live a life where you have all the kinds of challenges that we have? And same thing for the Jewish believers that James was talking to, and same thing for the Israelites in years before. The challenges of the life that they live, to not trust God, are just the same. But God's purpose is growth in your life, and that is not for salvation eternal. It is for the salvation of the power of sin in your life. You grow in faith as you trust Him through these trials and these temptations. Do you think that Abraham struggled with the reality that was presented to him?

What's interesting is I read that before class and I was kind of amazed. It doesn't tell you much about his reaction. He just says, OK, I mean, I'll do it. But you wonder in the back of your mind, I mean, somebody presented that to you. This sounds pretty incredible to me. It does. And you know, it doesn't talk a lot about how Abraham felt when God made the promise in Genesis 12 as well. Leave. I'm going to take you somewhere else.

And we read into that, and I think that some of it is probably very accurate, some of it not. The scripture is silent with regards to a lot of Abraham's initial reaction, but we know several decades between the time that he was called out and left to the time that he was asked to take his son up on the altar, that he struggled.

So would he have not struggled at other points in time? It's very likely that he wasn't. So we use a lot of storytelling to help us grasp the challenges that Abraham might have gone through. And no doubt there were those because we know he struggled at other points to trust God at very simple things. So did he not struggle in those other ways? But the result of his struggling was not a denial of what God was promising him. He decided to trust Him. We don't know how long he labored in that thinking, but we do know that he did trust Him. And we know he didn't trust Him in other ways too. So he didn't get to grow then.

And that's so much like us. Sometimes you're a very disappointed quote in yourself, and we shouldn't be, because it's not us anyway. And we shouldn't be excited in ourselves. We shouldn't be saying, wow, that was a good one there. There's so many belief systems that have a person being are delivered in a way that removes them from the realities of this world. We use examples like nirvana or whatnot, where you just escape and you become nothing in an outside way to anything that's a reality here. You've got to go to another reality.

And what's really interesting about the scripture is that it's real people struggling in the same way that we struggle, but with a focus and with a God that is much different than any other belief system. And so we can go back to the Old Testament, and we can look at these individuals of our faith, and we can see them making horrible, horrid choices, just like us. And isn't it neat that the Lord used our choice for sin all the way back in the garden, as we made that in the headship of Adam himself, alongside him, and uses this world with all of its challenges to show you're going to go through them, but here's how it works. And so we see in mistakes and failures and frustrations the life lived by the believer and we can be encouraged by that.

See, the scripture is extremely practical. It doesn't tell us, you're saved, you're perfect, you'll never sin again, you'll never be challenged in faith again. It doesn't talk like that. It communicates with the reality that we see. What a shame that so many churches teach, or pastors teach, that you're going to have heaven on earth, so to speak. If you just do enough, give enough, you're going to be so happy right here. Everything's going to be great. And then when they're hit with a challenge, they don't know what to do with that. They're totally lost.

That whole heaven on earth is something that, you know, like I mentioned Ephesians and studying there, we use that term, we're blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, but our blessings in the most biblical sense are all in heaven. And it's interesting that the things that we enjoy, and we often refer to as blessings, are really privileges that teach us about our blessings with Christ in heaven, who we are in Christ.

So you think, you know, our family, our health, of course these things can take a turn. Relationships with children that were a blessing can turn into a cursing. Right? What you said of them when they were young is now not true when they're old, all of a sudden. Or the health that you enjoyed as a blessing early on in your life becomes an illness that you struggle with and is no longer a blessing, it's a cursing. And so when you start to think of physical things and the presence of certain things in our lives as being heaven on earth, well what happens when those things change? Did God take heaven on earth away from you?

No. See, we're not Israel. And Israel enjoyed the physical blessings of the land, but they also enjoyed the spiritual blessings that they didn't understand fully. But they will, right? They will understand those things. But we get to experience those now.

And that's the real heaven on earth, is not on earth at all, but having our minds set in the heavenlies, where our blessings are, where our treasures are, So this goal of being mature and the idea of faith being perfected is something that you can experience as you encounter trials and temptation and struggle in this life. You can grow. And so as we look at our own life and as we look at the life of our fellow believers and even our children, These are opportunities for you to grow in faith.

And it just drove his kids up the wall. Because he would look at that as God would say, well there's an opportunity for you to trust the Lord. I don't know how he ever did it because I have a tough time. My kids call me and I say, oh really? Yeah, okay, we'll do this and we'll do that. Hal was able to take the view that, you know, takes God's view in trials and look at it and encourage his kids to seek the Lord and to see that that trial is what God had in mind.

He did that with his diagnosis. I know, with his own illness, in the hospital. Oh, this is a wonderful opportunity to be in the hospital and tell people about Christ. You'll sue me with the Lord. I remember a few weeks before he died, we played bridge.

He was so excited because he knew the end was near. And he was like a little kid in a candy store. I'm not kidding. He was just like giddy. He was so excited. The whole time we were playing we were going, Hal, pay attention to the cards. Pay attention. I mean he was just like so excited that he was going to see the Lord face to face. And it was just so cute to watch this. That he never once, I mean it just never once was a bad thing. He never looked at it like that.

You know what's really encouraging about that story is that we too have that same opportunity. We do. We absolutely do. And we have that same opportunity to communicate these truths to our children and fellow believers as well. Hal experienced a kind of maturity that was God's perspective on his life. And I know I need maturity in that. I think about it regularly. And I know that you do too.

And so what's neat is that we don't look at how and think, oh, wow, he somehow arrived in a way that I can't arrive. And it's not that we look at how for those examples and this is what it looks like when. Maybe that's helpful, but at the most pure biblical perspective, we can be matured in our faith as we encounter trials and temptation in the same way. And that's what James is talking about. You know, Abraham, I don't know if he was, maybe it was a point in time in his life where his faith had grown to a place when he took Isaac that he didn't struggle like we think he did. Maybe he took the... Well, I've heard people conjecture, and it's only conjecture, that he thought, well, the Lord can raise him from the dead. I mean, hey, I trust him so much. This is God's plan. He'll raise him from the dead. No problem with that. And that's, you know, so... But that's, you know, we don't have that written down any place. No, we don't. But anyway, but obviously he had matured. You're right. It was a different response than he had during the interim time period. Yeah. It's good.

When you go back to Romans, you go back to Paul. in Romans 4, where he talks about, if Abraham was justified by his works, he would have something to boast about, but not before God. And it goes on and talks about, but to him it does not work but believes, and then he says, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness, like we were talking before about, the righteousness is not that I don't So, Paul in Romans 4, in his theological way, is saying the same thing that James is saying here in chapter 2. No, that's exactly right. Good.

So, verse 23, and the scripture was fulfilled, which says, so we've got the word scripture and fulfillment and here James is taking us back to a previous point in time in the scripture. So, in order to make that point, Genesis 15, 6 comes back up. Here's the verse where he appeals to justification through belief in God, not by works. So there's two different justifications that James has covered in just this three verse span. The scripture is one of the special ways God reveals himself to mankind as opposed to general revelation. I'll kind of flip back to the previous slide in a minute, but just to keep this in view, when we're talking about scripture, we're talking about this special revelation. God definitely reveals himself in general ways and through the person of Jesus Christ, but James is talking about scripture itself and specifically Genesis 15-6.

So when he says, and the scripture was fulfilled, fulfilled to have been fully accomplished, fully realized. was fully realized at that particular point in time. And just a little greeky, geeky stuff here. The aorist here is indicative, so it conveys an actual point in time in this instance. I've been working to try to get the proper understanding of that in place as I teach. So we're correct in interpreting this as a once-for-all complete fulfillment, whereas in other instances we may not. But this was a once-in-all time in the past that this was fulfilled. And what did it say?

Here he quotes Genesis 15.6, So, James quotes 15.6, Paul also quotes Romans 4.3, or not quotes, writes Romans 4.3, which is what Al was talking about, and communicates the exact same verse for the justification of man's faith with regards to stage one, right? That salvation from the penalty of sin. So James and Paul have no controversy here. They're both talking about the same thing. Stage one justification in the same way.

And this word reckoned, logitimai, it's a bookkeeping term for an entry into a ledger. You know, use the word Well, I'll just keep saying it this way. It's a developed doctrine in Romans 4, which is what Al was talking about there, and this idea of imputation chapter in the New Testament. So if you want to understand what was being done for Abraham fully as it pertains to us in the New Testament, Romans 4 is where that doctrinal theological perspective is brought out.

So here you have justification's two viewpoints. And Pat, I think this will help you understand what maybe you were asking in a chart form. So you have justification before God and before man. So Abraham is justified before God by faith alone, imputed righteousness. And that's Genesis 15, 6 and Romans 4, 1 through 3. And then you also have justification before man. Abraham is justified before man when offering Isaac. And that's Genesis 2, and that's James 2, 21 through 23, the verses we're looking at today. So when you talk justification in the New Testament, especially in James, you have to ask yourself, what's the context? Context, context, context. Because there's a manward and a God view, right? James and Paul agree.

I like this quote from Merriman. I have a number of quotes here because this has been such a difficult passage I wanted to bring out that we're not the only ones saying these things, right? There are great students of the Word that have understood this as well. It's not just here.

The Abraham was justified in the forensic sense solely by faith and not by works. James never says, and that's underlined, he never says that works justifies us before God. Paul does say that by faith without works, God does justify us. So they need to fit together because that's what's said. And it's not a theological system that makes those things work out. It's the fact that what is said and what isn't said, and in different places and different times and in different ways and different contexts, that have to be looked at and viewed together.

Paul and James are in complete agreement. There is no theological tension in their understanding of justification. James simply points out that Abraham's justification in the forensic sense, that's stage one, recorded in Genesis 15, 6, manifested itself.

In other words, it was shown fully some 40 years later when he offered Isaac. So it's communicating growth and growing faith and maturity and how justification before men is seen as you grow and mature and the works of your faith are seen. Whose works are they? The Lord's works through you, right?

It's interesting that in that same section of Scripture in Romans 4 it goes back to the promise of Isaac. And God came through in that case, even though Abraham was having trouble believing the process would be through Sarah having a son. But eventually he did believe. So there was a point, as you're saying here, many years earlier, where something that with man was impossible, that he saw that God brought it to be. as he had promised.

I think that's a good point. Do you think James could have brought out the trust of having a seed, a son, as being an area where he was not justified by works but then was later justified by works? Could he have chosen that example as well? He probably could have. I mean, there were stages, but he struggled there. When it got to Isaac, there was no struggle that was recorded in scripture.

So maybe he chose it for that reason. This catches your attention more. It's certainly more dramatic to lock up your son than to believe that your wife is going to get pregnant. Yeah. It's true. Even though she was pretty amazed. So James seems to connect the ongoing obedient, that is that stage two faith, to the intimate place of being God's friend.

We see at the end of James 2.23, as a result, Abraham was called God's friend. I thought this was cool. I spent a little bit more time this morning thinking about this. When a man is, and I'm gonna read Hodges here again, and then I'm gonna add a few thoughts and we'll wrap up. When a man is justified by faith, he finds an unqualified acceptance before God.

That's Romans 4.6, right? We've talked about that. But only God can see this. Only God can see this spiritual transaction. When, however, a man is justified by works, he achieves an intimacy with God that is manifest to men. That means that your husband can see it. Your children can see it. Not just men in general, like co-workers or some guy on the street. It's you. And me. And the church. It's our family, right? There's an intimacy that comes through that process that's manifest to man.

He can then be called the friend of God, even as Jesus said, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you. And it's interesting that when we're talking about forensic justification or that stage one, it's all family terms. It's all relationship stuff, right? And so I don't know if I fully, I haven't thought this out fully, but I thought it was interesting that when we're talking about fellowship faith, that God refers to a friendship. You know, this is a fellowship thing.

You know, of course you're my child, of course you're my son, of course your citizenship is in heaven, but as you grow in faith, our fellowship, our friendship grows. And I just thought it was kind of neat because we have family, and I'm going too far with this, but go with me for two minutes. We have family, and we don't necessarily have friendships in certain instances, right? We don't have that closeness. But we're still friends. I mean, we're still family and it'll never change.

But it's interesting that this friend of God, and it's used in the Old Testament as well. Isaiah 41.8 is a good example of that that I looked at. And even in chapter 4, verse 4, it talks about being friends with the world.

James 4.4. We'll look at that later.

But here, Abraham, because he trusted the Lord to deliver him from the power of sin in his life, and therefore trusted God to take care of business with regards to Isaac and the sacrifice that he was being asked to make, he grew in friendship as a result of that. And it was called the Friend of God, something that is intimate in a different way. Not to say that you don't have salvation and that you're not a child, but there was a friendship that grew, an intimacy between the two of them. there's well that's right when we when we are not trusting well we're not trusting the Lord are we true being friends with the Lord I mean and so I don't know if I would go that far as to say that that's exactly what James is saying but I think there's some interesting observations that are not negated here but I wouldn't necessarily stand like on a doctor position here either but I think it's an interesting choice of words and and title of Abraham is he got some 40 years later and God said, we're friends. This is a friendship thing.

So I thought that was pretty neat. Let me pray. Lord, I thank you so much that That we have the opportunity to be justified by believing what you did on the cross, your death, burial, and resurrection. And that Lord, by growth and understanding and the ascension and seeding, we can trust you to do the living through us and therefore be justified before men. for the purposes of growing in the faith, and that others might be just aware of how you come alongside us in your friendship, Lord, you teach us and you teach others, and I pray that we would desire to behold you through your word and allow you to do the living so that we might experience that kind of friendship as well. Thank you so much for yourself. In your name we pray. Amen.