| Chapter 1: Text of James 2:14-16 | | Chapter 2: Faith Alone, or Faith plus Works? | | Chapter 3: James in Three Peanut Shells: Nutshell 1 | | Chapter 4: James in Three Peanut Shells: Nutshell 2 | | Chapter 5: James in Three Peanut Shells: Nutshell 3 | | Chapter 6: Overview of the Message of James | | Chapter 7: What Does it Mean to Be "Saved?" | | Chapter 8: Poverty in the Epistle of James | | Chapter 9: Wisdom Literature and the Epistle of James | | Chapter 10: Eternal Salvation: What does James have to say? | | Chapter 11: Irony in the Epistle of James | | Chapter 12: The Opening Verses of James | | Chapter 13: James 2:14-17--Salvation in James | | Chapter 14: James 2:18-20 | | Chapter 15: Justification and the Epistle of James | | Chapter 16: Exegesis of James 2:21-24 |
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EXEGESIS OF JAMES 2:14-17
SALVATION IN THE BOOK OF JAMES
Moving forward from these introductory verses of Chapter 1 of James, let us go on to the passage in question in Chapter 2, examining this passage according to these alternative heuristics. After every verse, you, the reader, are urged, not simply to read, but to look away, and, in view of the foregoing data, contemplate which interpretation makes sense, and which looks utterly ridiculous.
James 2:14 "What does it profit my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can faith save him?"
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Heuristic 1
James begins addressing the duty of the church toward their unemployed and homeless brethren with a touch of irony, whether or not the unemployed and homeless can be saved from this earthly dilemma by faith, the same terms, "faith" and "save" that surrounded the question of eternal salvation when James was a keynote speaker at the Jerusalem counsel. |
Heuristic 2
James is exploring the great theological question of whether or not salvation from hell can be secured simply by faith in Christ,
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James 2:15 " "If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food,"
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Heuristic 1
James begins by an example of a trial from which many Christians are in need of salvation . . . the trials and hardships of poverty. |
Heuristic 2
James begins by bringing up an example of a man or woman lost and in need of salvation through Jesus Christ.
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James 2:16 " and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things that are needed by the body, what does it profit?"
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Heuristic 1
Following his theme of poverty, trials, and irony, James asks if the plight of the poor can be solved simply by a kind word. James deliberately addresses the question deliverance of the poor in terms of the word %u201Csave%u201D as sarcasm or irony, driving home the fact that salvation from earthly trials is quite different from the means of salvation from sin and eternal damnation. |
Heuristic 2
James illustrates the absurdity of saving the poor through empty greetings and kind words to demonstrate the absurdity of saving a man from eternal simply through faith in Christ. |
James 2:17 " "Thus also, faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead."
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Heuristic 1
James generalizes from the above example about food and clothing that faith without works is "dead" in that it is of no real consequence to those who are in physical or material need, or other similar mundane realities of the human condition. James is talking about SALVATION FROM TRIALS. |
Heuristic 2
James uses the absurdity of saving the poor through a kind word to show the absurdity of teaching eternal salvation through simple faith in Christ. Faith without works is "dead faith." This type of faith can no more deliver one to eternal life than it can deliver the poor from starvation and freezing. |
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Chapter 13: James 2:14-17--Salvation in James |
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