Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
The book of James was accepted into the new testament canon. So we should respect that. It is useful to us today like any other book of the Bible. The problem comes if we make the gospel around his "faith+works" verse like the Catholics do, and ignore the majority "grace alone" writings by Paul. We could try to reconcile the two, but in my view if we are not careful that could be a step in the Catholic direction. Of course it is always possible to go to the other extreme as well with Paul's writings, and for that reason James provides some balance.
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Every single writer in the New Testament is consistent, never once are we told that you can be saved merely by confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, nor are we told that you are saved by believing. Rather you are saved by believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth. Baptism is an act of confession and an act of obedience. So some times it says that you are saved by "believing and being baptized", that is equivalent to believing and confessing. It is a step into the Kingdom similar to Abraham's act of obedience and confession when he offered up his son.
Every single writer makes it clear that we are saved by both. Paul was adjusting to those who thought we were saved by good works without any faith. But, it is also possible to go off on an extreme where your faith has no tangible expression. Baptism signifies the forming of a new Kingdom, crossing over into a new realm, expressing God's kingdom on Earth. The goal for Christians is to become kings who rule and reign with Christ and who bring in the kingdom to this earth. If there is no tangible expression of that then those are empty, dead words. Paul even said that he was given the right hands of the fellowship, "only not to forget the poor, which very thing he also agreed was very important". Everyone in the NT is in agreement, from the Gospels, Acts, Epistles of Paul, James, etc that "pure religion is to visit orphans and widows in their trouble". This isn't a Catholic view, or a Judaizer view, or James OT flavor, it is the consistent NT view. This is what the Lord meant when He said to "love your neighbor as yourself".
The only NT characters to disagree were Judas (because he was a thief), Balaam (taught Balak how to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel) and Jezebel (stole people's vineyards by false accusations). Jezebel called herself a "prophetess" so all three of these are examples of false prophets in the New Testament.
To me the problem comes when we do not accept the entire Bible. Once we start to pick and choose the parts we like and don't like we allow a false prophet the opportunity to scam us.