Wrap-up on James

I said:

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i) If Antonio is saying that in OT usage, deliverance from Sheol only means deliverance from the grave, and never deliverance from hell, he's behind on the standard scholarship. Read: P. Johnston: Shades of Sheol (IVP 2002).

Evan's interpretation comports with the two standard Evangelical commentaries by Davids and Moo, neither of whom is a Calvinist. I believe that Moo is a Lutheran with a premil eschatology while Davids is Anabaptist.

And Antonio has yet to interact with the argumentation presented by Moo and Davids. Has he ever bothered to read the standard exegetical literature on the subject? Or does he get all his information spoon-fed to him from Zane Hodges & Co?

# posted by steve : 1/27/2006 7:03 AM

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/01/nature-of-saving-faith-james-214ff-pt.html

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To which Antonio responded:

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Steve,

Do you suppose that striking a child with a rod will save him from hell? Has that now become another condition that the Traditionalist must put on the sinner for salvation? I’ll make sure I beat my children tonight rather than give them the gospel so that I can assure their entry into heaven and save them from hell!

Steve, don't put words into my mouth. We are discussing Proverbs 23:14. Are you going to put yourself in the position of saying that it means deliverance from hell here?

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Actually, we’re discussing more than one thing. The main thing we’re discussing is James 2:14-26. Since, however, Antonio brings up Prov 23:14 in that general connection, this is what Bruce Waltke has to say about the concept of Sheol in Proverbs:

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These vivid and powerful figures transform the grave from a six-foot pit to a metaphorical and transcendent realm distinct from life on top of the earth, inhabited by living mortals and from heaven inhabited by the immortal God and his court. Those who descend there will never again participate in salvation history or join the holy throng at the earthly temple (Ps 6:5[6]; Is 38:18). Like the Jordan River and Mount Zion, the grave symbolizes eternal realities that transcend their physical space.

The Book of Proverbs (Eerdmans 2004), 1:116.

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So, yes, verses like Prov 23:14 do look beyond the grave to the prospect of a hellish afterlife, barring a deterrent to the contrary.

As such, discipline, including corporal punishment are, indeed, factors which will contribute to keeping a child from going spiritually astray to his eternal perdition.

It's a false dichotomy to set this in opposition to teaching them the gospel. Spiritual incentives and disincentives still figure in the walk of faith.

Moving along:

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And that Evan comports to popularity, I don't believe makes his argument or interpretation correct.

Antonio

# posted by Antonio : 1/27/2006 7:57 AM


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Notice how Antonio substitutes “popularity” for “argumentation.” What I explicitly pointed out was his failure to "interact" with standard scholarship and the exegetical "arguments" marshaled therein.

Since then I’ve posted some lengthy excerpts from Robert Stein’s article:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/01/robert-stein-on-faith-works.html

Antonio has yet to address himself to Stein’s detailed exegesis.

Let’s supplement that article with additional argumentation, beginning with the standard evangelical commentary on the Greek text of James:

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The concept off saving a soul from death [Jas 5:20] is clear enough, for death is plainly the final result of sin, usually thought of as eternal death or the last judgment (Dt. 30:19; Jb. 8:13; Pss. 1:6; 2:12; Pr. 2:18; 12:28; 14:12; Je. 23:12; Jude 23). That sin can result in physical death is clear (1 Cor 15:30), as well as many of the above OT examples) and this may be part of James’s meaning (as in 5:14-16), but the tone appears to go beyond physical death and recognizes death as an eschatological entity, at least where one dies in sin (cf. 1:15).

Parallel to saving the person from death is the idea of covering a multitude of sins. To cover sin is normally to procure forgiveness (Pss. 32:1; 85:2; Dn. 4:24; Rom 4:7)…One must conclude, then, that the image is one of forgiving sins, of making atonement for sins.

P. Davids, the Epistle of James (Eerdmans 1982), 199-200).

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From here, let’s move on to the commentary by Moo, which is the most recent commentary of note by an Evangelical. Unlike Davids, Moo’s commentary was written after Hodges’ exposition was published, and interacts with him, among others.

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Critical to understanding the argument of the section [2:14-26] and integrating it successfully into a broader biblical perspective is the recognition that James is not arguing that works must be added to faith. His point, rather, is that genuine biblical faith will inevitable be characterized by works. Trying to add works to a bogus faith is an exercise in futility, for only by “accepting the implanted word” (1:21) and experiencing the inner transformation that it brings can one produce works pleasing to God. James, in a sense, proposes for us in these verses a “test” by which we determine the genuineness of faith: deeds of obedience to the will of God.

This insistence that true faith produces deeds is related to its context in at least three ways. The most immediate connection is with vv12-13. James’s warning that believers will be judged according to the “law of liberty” naturally raises the question, at least in the minds of some Christians, “What judgment? —we thought we were saved by faith and that we did not have to worry about judgment.” And so James makes clear just what kind of faith it is that will provide security in the judgment. A second, more remote connection is with the argument of 2:1-13…the third, and broadest connection that 2:14-26 has [is] to the argument of the letter. For this paragraph is the capstone on James’s presentation of “true religion,” begun in 1:21. Obedience to the word, James has insisted, is a necessary mark of authentic Christianity. Taken by itself, however, such an emphasis could lead to an externalist interpretation of Christianity, as if all that mattered was outward conformity to the demands of Scripture. And so 2:14-26 adds a necessary corrective: “true religion” begins with faith—but a faith that works. In this sense the “true religion” of 1:26 is nothing more than the genuine faith of 2:14-26, and the faith vs. works antithesis of this paragraph corresponds almost exactly to the “hearing the word”/”doing the word” antithesis of 1:22.

[2:14] The opposite error is made by those who, with the best of intentions, want to guard against precisely the kind of theological error we have just been discussing. They avoid the potential difficulty by insisting that the word “save” does not refer here to eschatological deliverance, but to some kind of rescue from earthly danger or trial. [For example, Z. Hodges, The Gospel under Siege (Dallas 1981), 26-27.] They note that “save” (Gk. sozo) apparently has this meaning in 5:14. But the word does not seem to have this meaning elsewhere in James (1:21; 4:12; 5:20). Especially important is the occurrence in 1:21, since the present discussion is part of the argument begun in that verse; and 1:21 speaks definitively about the “salvation of souls.” Moreover, “save” is also used here in a context that is discussing rescue at the judgment (vv12-13) and justification (vv21-25). Clearly, we must give the verb the full theological force that it normally has in the NT epistles (of the 30 occurrences of “save” outside of James in the NT epistles, 29 clearly refer to eschatological deliverance, the possible exception being Heb 5:7).

[2:19] For James is writing to Jewish Christians for whom the Shema would have been among the most basic of beliefs (the confession is appropriated by early Christians; cf. 1 Cor 1:8:4-6; Gal 3:20; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 2:5). Proclaiming that “God is one” in that context would have been similar to churchgoers today loudly proclaiming their belief in the deity of Christ…the problem lies not with the confession itself, but from the implication that it does not go beyond the verbal to touch the heart and the life. As Mitton puts it, “It is a good thing to possess an accurate theology, but it is unsatisfactory unless that good theology also possesses us.”

The demons perfectly illustrate the poverty of verbal profession in and of itself. They are among the most “orthodox” of theologians, James suggests, agreeing wholeheartedly with the Shema. Yet what is their reaction? They shudder. This verb, used only here in the NT, refers to the reaction of fear provoked by contact with God or the supernatural. It occurs particularly frequently in the papyri to describe the effect that a sorcerer aims to produce in his hearers.

Most Christians take their understanding of the verb “justify” from the writings of Paul; and naturally enough, for he gives the term a theological prominence that is foundational for biblical theology, and for soteriology. Specifically, Pal uses “justify” (Grk. dikaioo) to denote God’s initial judicial verdict of “innocence” pronounced over the sinner who trusts Jesus Christ in faith. But we must not assume that James, writing before Paul, uses the word in the same way. [“We think that James was probably written in the middle 40s, perhaps just before the Apostolic Council,” 26.]

So “justify” in Paul refers to how a person gets into relationship with God, while in James it connotes what that relationship must ultimately look like to receive God’s final approval.

[2:22] James’s second assertion about Abraham’s faith in this verse stands in careful balance with the first: “faith cooperates with works”—“works complete faith.”…But in what sense can it be said that works “complete” faith?…the closest parallel to James’s usage (despite a slightly different construction) is 1 Jn 4:12: “if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

[2:23] When Abraham “put faith in” the Lord, God gave him, then and there, the status of a right relationship with him: before he had done works, before he was circumcised. This is Paul’s point about Abraham (Rom 4:1-17). But the faith of Abraham and God’s verdict of acquittal were “filled up,” given their ultimate significance, when Abraham “perfected” his faith with works. It is after the greatest of those works, cited by James in v21, that the angel of the Lord reasserted God’s verdict: “Now I know that you fear God” (Gen 22:12).

Abraham’s works, especially his offering of Isaac, reveal the character of his faith, a faith that is crediting for righteousness…James is therefore not using Gen 15:6 in a way contradictory to that of Paul. They address different issues from different backgrounds and need to make different points about Abraham’s paradigmatic experience with the Lord. And so, without necessarily disagreeing about the basic sense of the verse, they set Gen 15:6 in different biblical-theological contexts and derive different conclusions from their contextual readings. Paul seizes on the chronological placement of Gen 15:6 and cites it as evidence of the initial declaration of righteousness that Abraham attained from God solely on the basis of faith. James views the same verse more as a “motto,” applicable to Abraham’s life as a whole.

[2:14] This verse is the center of James’s discussion of faith, works, and justification (vv21-25).

A more profitable approach is to compare the word “faith” in Paul with the phrase “faith alone” in James. The addition of “alone” shows clearly that James refers to the bogus faith that he has been attacking throughout this paragraph: the faith that a person “claims” to have (v14); a faith that is, in fact, “dead” (vv17 & 26). And “useless” (v20). This is not what Paul means by faith…He can therefore speak of the “obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5) and say that it is “faith working through love” that matters in Christ (Gal 5:6). This is exactly the concept of faith that James is propagating in this paragraph. Once we understand “faith alone,” then, as a neat summary of the bogus faith that James is criticizing, we can find no reason to expect that Paul would have any quarrel with the claim that “faith alone” does not justify.

As we suggested in our interpretation of v21, resolution of the tension can come only when we recognize that James and Paul use “justify” to refer to different things. Paul refers to the initial declaration of a sinner’s innocence before God; James to the ultimate verdict of innocence pronounced over a person at the last judgment. If a sinner can get into relationship with God only by faith (Paul), the ultimate validation of that relationship takes into account the works that true faith must inevitably produce (James).

D. Moo, The Letter of James (Eerdmans 2000), 120-41.

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