Is wealth a gift from God? (Christian only Response Please)

Jakkass wrote: »

James said faith without works is dead, which is true.
Paul said righteousness comes through faith, which is also true.

James argument relates to Jesus talking about bearing fruit and the fig tree. Doesn't seem like a diachotomy to me.

James also said that we are 'justified by works' not only that 'faith without works is dead'. Faith in God can do no other than to bring about good works but the good works is not what God is interested in primarily, because He knows they cannot come about without faith working first. What He is looking for is faith and that’s it, always just faith. works are inevitable result of faith in God. And once He sees faith God puts His spirit in us and places us judicially in Christ, which means He sees us as just-like-Christ (justified). To turn around and say that we must now prove that we have Christ in us by the way we perform under the law is to remove yourself from the covering wrought in Christ and to again be brought under bondage to the rudiments of the world which is what Christ came to deliver us from in the first place. To try and get in by performing works of the law is to say that what Christ done was not good enough, that you must somehow add to His perfect performance. It is a message from hell, it is Satan as an angel of light telling you that if you know good and evil you will be like God, IT IS A LIE don’t fall for it. God wants faith and faith alone.

"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Galatians 2:21

Here’s James:

"But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was notRahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." James 2:20-26

Frist off Abraham was a liar. He lied about his wife in Egypt and got her to lie too because he was afraid that he would be killed there because of her beauty and James says he was justified by works? Rahab ran a whorehouse and she lied to the soldiers when they came for the spies and yet James says she was justified by her works? Lying and whoring saved her??? No, her faith saved her. She did what spies told her to do with the scarlet thread and that faith saved her, not her lying and whoring. Abraham trusted God would keep his promise that through Isaac his seed would be reckoned and obeyed God on the mount and would have sacrificed Isaac and that faith was counted unto him for righteousness, not his works.

And even if you wanted to listen to James, it was James who agreed in council with the other apostles that Peter be the apostle to the circumcision (the Jew) and that Paul was to be the apostle to the uncircumcised (Gentiles or non Jew) so even if you want to side with James you must listen to Paul and Paul said that we are justified by faith and not of works of the law.

Now here’s Paul:

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." Romans 3:28

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" Romans 5:1

"know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. Galatians 2:16

"Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." Galatians 3:11

"So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." Galatians 3:24

The writer to the Hebrews (whom I believe was Paul) states in Hebrews 10 that to fall away from the path of faith then there remains no more remission.

“Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” Hebrews 10 v 29

To come out form the covering that Christ died to bring is to fall from grace, which by the way means “unmerited favor” i.e cannot be earned, as soon as it is earned, it is no more grace, rather the reward is reckoned of debt and not a gift of God as Paul says to the Ephesians:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8

So if you want to be rewarded for your works, then so be it, you are under a curse if your works are not perfect by the standard of the law. If you are going to be justified by works of the law then you must keep it perfectly and perpetually and ignorance is not an excuse. If you come under one jot of the law then you must keep the whole law.

“For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” Galatians 3:10

If there is anyone that cannot see the difference between what James says and what Paul says then I have failed in attempting to point it out. The Epistle of James was not read in all the churches until it was added to the cannon of scripture in the 5th century, and that only because of controversy over this very issue, faith alone verse faith and works.

Paul’s epistles were read in all the churches right from the get go. And Paul was chosen directly by Jesus after the resurrection. There is no evidence that James ever accepted Jesus’ teaching before the resurrection, in fact there is evidence that Jesus’ family (including His brethren) wanted to lay hands on Him arguably because they thought He was beside Himself due the claims He was making about Himself.


"Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press. And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee. And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it." Luke 8:19-21

Paul was an intellectual of the highest order, taught at the feet of Gamaliel and behind nobody with regards to a knowledge of the law, he knew it backwards, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Whereas James was merely a blood relative and was chosen to head the church at Jerusalem for that reason. Who are you going to listen to?

James wrote his epistle to the 12 tribes scattered so if you are not one of them then he was not talking to you anyway. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles (non Jew) and even if you want to listen to James you must listen to Paul because in Acts 15 Paul is chosen by the first Church council at Jerusalem to be the apostle to the Gentiles (not that he needed it, Jesus had already separated him out to be the apostle to the Gentiles).

It was in the Church at Jerusalem where Paul and his companion Titus were being spied on to see if Titus was circumcised. Titus was a Greek and had faith in God but that was not good enough for the Church at Jerusalem. Listen to what Paul had to say about it:

“But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised: And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage” Galatians 2:3

They actually hired people who were not even brethren to spy on them to see if Titus was circumcised. What does that tell you about the state of the Church at Jerusalem at that time. Paul is being persecuted everywhere he goes because he preaches Christ but these bozos in Jerusalem are looking up skirts for Jesus. I’m sticking with Paul.

PDN wrote: »

Sorry, that is ahistorical and wrong. There was no formal canon of Scripture to which the Book of James could be added.

I never said there was. What I said was this:

Soul Winner wrote:

The Epistle of James was not read in all the churches until it was added to the cannon of scripture in the 5th century

If anything I was wrong about the 5th century. Saying it wasn't added to the cannon does not necessarily mean that there was a cannon. It just means that one was in the making, possibly due to the heresy of Marcion who created his own cannon which included throwing everything out except Paul and some of Luke. This debate was a very contentious matter back then, but Marcion was wrong to reject all scripture except Paul but he was right in that he knew Paul was the most important of all the apostles when it came to the gentiles. The epistle of James was probably added to the general cannon (which as already said was established in reaction to Marcion’s) in order keep everyone (the pro-Jamers and the pro-Paulers) happy.

PDN wrote: »

James is cited as being Scripture by Cyril of Jerusalem (348 AD), the Council of Laodicea (363 AD), Athanasius (367 AD), Gregory of Nazianius (380 AD), the Syrian Apostolic Canons (380 AD), Rufinus (380 AD), Epiphanus (385 AD), Jerome (390 AD), Augustine (397 AD) and the Council of Carthage (397 AD).

It doesn't really matter, James still addressed his Epistle to Jewish Christians anyway or Christians descended from the 12 tribes and not to Gentiles, of which we are.

PDN wrote: »

James is mention is being up for debate by Origen in 225 AD (along with 2 John, 3 John, 2 Peter, and Jude).

Like Luther, Origen wasn’t entirely sure of the epistle’s authenticity. Luther called it ‘a right strawy little epistle with no word of Gospel in it’. I believe that James actually wrote it, and that he meant that you cannot be justified by faith alone, that you need works that can be seen too.

PDN wrote: »

If anyone has told you that James was added to the Canon in the 5th Century then they have quite clearly been having you on.

Possibly but it is of little consequence to this debate and not something that I will lose my faith over anyway.

PDN wrote: »

I don't think you're reading your own post. Abraham being a liar has nothing to do with the passage from James that you quote. James specifically says that the incident he is referring to is Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. This was a case where Abraham's act of obedience was evidence of his faith. If he said he believed God but failed to trust God enough to take Isaac up the mountain, then that would have demonstrated that his faith was not genuine saving faith at all.

But I don’t believe that that is what James meant. James states that it was Abraham's works that saved him. But trusting God to fulfill His promises and showing this trust by willingly obeying God to sacrifice Isaac, is faith, it is not a work of the law. He acted on the promise of God and that faith was counted unto Abraham as righteousness. If Abraham is to be justified by the law then he cannot get in because he broke the law when he lied about Sarah. "Thou shalt not bear false witness". And this is even confirmed by James himself:

"For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." James 2:10

What Paul says is that if you want to be justified by works of the law then you must have always kept it perfectly and continue to keep it perfectly, you cannot have missed even one jot of the law if you want to be justified by it.

I agree with James when he says that faith without works is dead. But that is like saying that an apple tree is not really an apple tree unless it bears apples in its time. It's a rhetorical statement. It is only when he crosses the line and says that we can be justified by works and not faith alone that causes contention. If that is the case then Christ is dead in vain and Paul is right.

All I'm pointing out is that you cannot reconcile the two doctrines. Apple trees bare apples, an apple tree that doesn't is dead. Goes without saying. But just as apples take time to grow, so do good works as fruit of the indwelling holy spirit in us by faith takes time to come to fruition. You never whip an apple tree and command it to bare apples, it will do in its time, just leave it alone and the apple producing life in it will bare fruit in time.

It is the same with Christians who will not accept that you are Christian until they see good works coming from you first. The only one to whom good works are to be produced is God Himself, not other Christians. Preach Christ and fan the flame of faith and true good works from the eternal spring of the indwelling holy spirit will be the inevitable result, you won't be able to keep it from happening if you maintain daily faith in God's promises.

The only way that you can stop this true flowing of God's nature in us is to bring back the law that Christ Himself nailed to a His cross, and beat people over the head with it if they do not conform. It reverses the effect of the Gospel which Paul calls the power of God unto salvation. "...for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" II Corinthians 3:6

The thing is, I have never read any scripture where Jesus appeared unto James and specifically told him that he is to be the official fruit inspector apostle of the church. When I find that, I will listen to James. James is not even a disciple that Jesus chose during his earthly ministry and as far as we know is not one that he chose after his resurrection either. He did choose Paul though, and specifically chose him to bring the gospel to the gentiles, and this Paul preached that we are not justified by works but by faith. Those who want to be rewarded for the works of the law that they do for God, relax you’re gonna get it.

PDN wrote: »

I think your misunderstanding is coming from the word 'justified'. This word (dikao) has a double meaning. It can mean 'made righteous', but it can also mean 'declared righteous'. http://www.searchgodsword.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=1344 So, if an innocent man was wrongly accused of murder, you could say that he was justified (in the sense of 'made righteous') from the beginning by the fact that he never committed the crime. However, at the end of the trial you could also say he was justified (in the sense of being 'declared righteous') by the not guilty verdict delivered by the jury.

Even if I was misunderstanding the word "justified" (which I wasn't) it still does not resolve the core arguments of James and Paul with regards to how we obtain salvation. By Faith or by Works?

PDN wrote: »

I think that it is clear that Paul uses the word in the sense of being made righteous - something that happens by faith. But James uses the word in the sense of being declared righteous - something that was evidenced by Abraham's works.

But the act that Abraham did was not a work of the law. Abraham had never even heard of the law, so how could he be doing works thereof?

"...the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect." Galatians 3:17

Abraham had the promise that through Isaac his seed would be reckoned and then God commands him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham trusted God so much to keep His promise with regards to his seed being reckoned through Isaac that he was willing to sacrifice him, probably believing that God would raise him from the dead after the fact. This is evident in the verse where Abraham said to his servants "we will come back".

"He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then 'we' will come back to you." Genesis 22:5

As it turned out the angel stayed his hand instead.

Abraham trusted God and it was counted to him as riotousness. That is what we who are also the children of promise are to act like, not observing the law and doing works of the law which came 400 years late on the scene anyway. We are to trust God with our lives, not measure up the perfect standard of the law by which no flesh shall be made or declared justified. And if you come under one jot of it then you are indebted to do all of it just like the Galatians would have been had they been circumcised.

"Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law" Galatians 5:3

Circumcision today is any outward sign tacked on from the law as an outward mark of conformity to it (look at me, I don't murder, I don't adulterate and so on) this will nullify your faith and bring you back into bondage to the law to which you must keep perfectly and perpetually.
But even if you could outwardly conform to it and fool your fellow Christians, you cannot fool God.

"Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment" Matthew 5:21-22

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." Matthew 5:27-28

So not only can we not break the law in deed, we cannot even break it in our hearts. That's how impossible it is to keep the law, which is why Jesus came, to deliver us from it and its curse for not keeping it, taking on himself the penalty for our not keeping it, death. To resurrect the law now from the cross after that faith has come is to be guilty of the most heinous of sins, treading underfoot the blood of Christ and counting it as dung. We may as well just burn our Bibles now and spit on the flame as it chars within.

Puck wrote: »

I had to do a double-take when I read that. That was unbelievably disrespectful.

Well she yawned at my post and then rubbished it while admitting she didn't even read it and then said that I was regurgitating verbatim something that some guy, whom I had never heard of before said, when all I was doing was quoting the Bible. That is also very disrespectful IMO but you didn't pull her up on that. Why not?

Puck wrote: »

I felt yours was more disrespectful. There is a difference in scoffing at an argument and scoffing at a person, so I didn't find sorella's posts to be rude.

You're showing great humility here! Do two wrongs make a right? If you thought sorella was being disrespectful do you really think the mature Christian response is to return it?

This is dragging the thread off topic by the way. I would be happy to discuss this in a thread regarding respect towards our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Is calling someone 'sweetheart' that bad? To be honest I didn't even mean anything by it. I think she is a sweetheart, anyone who does the work she does is a real sweetheart, they're probably the least selfish people on the planet and I'm sure their reward is great because what they do, they do in faith, so what's wrong with calling them sweethearts? They have sweet hearts, even the mods never remarked on my usage of it so I'm at a loss to know why you're getting so knotty about it.

Puck wrote: »

I'm not knotty about it really, I'm sure the Sister can fight her own battles anyway. I just think it comes across as quite patronising to refer to someone as "sweetheart" in the middle of a debate. To put the word "look" in front of it only ads to the patronising tone. There is a world of difference between me calling my niece sweetheart, calling my girlfriend sweetheart and calling a woman I've never met and am having a serious exchange of views with sweetheart. Or at least there is to me anyway.

But perhaps you genuinely only meant it as a warm, loving word of respect. It didn't come across that way to me but like I said, it's not my fight. Anyway, the Lord knows your heart and so do you.

To be really really honest I was proabbly being a little bit patrinising at the time :pac: but I do believe that she is a real sweetheart because people who do the kind of work she does are very rare indeed, especailly those who do it in the name of Jesus and with Him in focus all the while.

Húrin wrote: »

In a world of 6.8 billion people, a group of thousands is rare. I am interested to hear Soul winner's opinion though.

I was shooting from the hip, I could be wrong, the rareness I assumed stems from a basic knowledge that I possess not from thorough research or anything. Put it this way, I doubt there is as many which do this sort of work as there are McDonalds’ employees but again I could be wrong, I'm not in the field myself but I regularly support charities and from the information they send me it suggests more helpers would be nice.

sorella wrote: »

er.. a religious order is not a charity. Huge difference.

Well if we take charities out of the equation then the number of people who do this kind of work is even less than I first supposed, which would make it even rarer no???

Húrin wrote: »

I didn't mean that I wanted explanation of why you think they are rare. I meant, what factors within the world and the church have made selfless service a minority pursuit even among Christians?

Oh that. The ‘me first’ bent in human nature for a self serving existence I suppose. Paul calls it ‘a law in my members’ an actual force that prevents him from doing the good he wants to do and that can’t stop him from doing the bad he doesn’t want to do. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 7:24-25

I believe if we can affect the circle of influence that we all have in our own little lives where we actually live it would be much better served if we could be more selfless in our actions, instead of feeling guilty for not doing good to the unfortunates of the world thousands of miles away, then the world would be a much better place, our own part in it at least.

It is amazing how the real selfless acts of some people for the benefit of other people can make more people want to do likewise. It is contagious. If we could keep this kind of wild fire going and the world would be a much better place to live.

I believe that's why Jesus tells us to love God with all our hearts and each other as ourselves. In doing these two things we will have kept the whole law. The problem is that we need to be enlivened in order to do it, (like Paul just mentioned) and the source of that enlivening is God. We have the promise that for faith God will put His spirit in us, and if we maintain that spirit in us by daily acts of faith then that spirit can do no other than be itself through us, and that is what spirituality really means, the expressions of the spirit, and the scripture says we prove the genuineness of that spirit in us by the 'way' we give.

Not sure who said it but it fits right here, in short: "Be the change you want to see."

Soul Winner wrote: »

It is amazing how the real selfless acts of some people for the benefit of other people can make more people want to do likewise. It is contagious. If we could keep this kind of wild fire going and the world would be a much better place to live.

Amazingly enough, I witnessed this first hand yesterday. I was on the M-50 returning home from work, and the snowfall was causing havoc. A van was stuck up ahead. Wheel spinning and going nowhere. It was doing it for a while, until one person stopped looking and went to give him a push. All of a sudden, lots were out of their cars, pushing numerous vans further up the motorway all sparked by one person kicking it off. Small I know, but it certainly is contagious.

JimiTime wrote: »

Amazingly enough, I witnessed this first hand yesterday. I was on the M-50 returning home from work, and the snowfall was causing havoc. A van was stuck up ahead. Wheel spinning and going nowhere. It was doing it for a while, until one person stopped looking and went to give him a push. All of a sudden, lots were out of their cars, pushing numerous vans further up the motorway all sparked by one person kicking it off. Small I know, but it certainly is contagious.

People are nicer in recessions