00:00as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
00:08We have these descriptions in the Psalms and other places about how
00:12the dead don't know anything. They can't praise God. They're not their whole selves.
00:19And that's because a human being is a soul, a living being. That's what soul or the Hebrew
00:27word that's translated as soul is the nephesh, and it refers to the totality of a living being.
00:34And a human is a soul that has a spirit and a body. And if you are missing either one,
00:41then something is seriously amiss. In James's analogy here, the faith is the body and the works
00:47is the spirit. You know, the body, if it doesn't have a spirit, it's just dirt or it's just stuff
00:56returning to dirt, or it's an animal, however you want to look at that. It is not a human being.
01:03And so faith that doesn't have a spirit to animate it is just dirt laying there. And it doesn't really
01:13do any good to anybody. If you want that body to do something, you have to infuse it with the spirit,
01:20which are the good works that then allows it to get up and do things in the world to be God's hands
01:26and feet in the world. That's the purpose of the faith that brings us to life.
01:34And I think it's, it's interesting because that, I mean, that's the animation part, right?
01:39Like if he just created us and we just sat there with no animation, what good would we have been?
01:45And, and I do feel like there's this, when I came to this understanding, it was kind of a celebration
01:56of like, oh my gosh, I finally get to like put these two things together. Like what I do in my body,
02:03what I do with my life is a spiritual thing. And that whole idea of aligning myself with
02:12what God desires is like this, this animation that happens of like us actually reflecting who he is.
02:23Right. Um, and so we were never meant to be just like one or the other. Like we can't actually
02:30act certain things out unless we're in our body doing those things.
02:35The spirit by itself is nothing works by itself is nothing. So if you have a spirit and you're in
02:45the grave, you have no impact on the world. The spirit without the body is dead. It has no impact
02:53on the world. The dead have no awareness of what is happening in this world. They can't talk to
03:00anybody. They can't affect anything. They can't make any changes. They can't make anybody's life
03:05better or worse. If you want to impact the world, you have to put the two together, faith and works.
03:11That is a living human being. So the faith, the committed faith that leads to salvation
03:19is a faith that is united with works. So when James says that, uh, Abraham believed God and it was
03:27counted him as righteousness and he's justified that a person is justified by works and not by faith
03:35alone. He's saying that you are not saved by faith that doesn't have works. So when Paul talks about
03:43you are saved by faith apart from works, he's saying that it is the faith that saves you, not the works.
03:50And James is saying that, yes, it is the faith that saves you, but the works that come with the faith
03:56are a part of the faith. They can't be separated. If you have committed faith, then you have works.
04:04If you just have a faith that with no commitment, you don't even really have faith. You have no way
04:10of impacting the world. You have no way of impacting yourself.
Comments