Many believers think that faith means believing God and then sitting back and doing nothing except praying. But faith never operates like this. With faith, there is always a corresponding action which must accompany believing God and confessing his Word. James 2:2 shows that faith is completed by works. The Greek verb teleioo, ‘make perfect’, means ‘to bring to end by completing or finishing’, and its use proves that faith is incomplete without works. James 2:21–23 states that Abraham was considered righteous when he offered his son. The verse that 2:23 quotes, Genesis 15:6, was spoken by God many years before Isaac’s sacrifice, and was God’s response to Abraham’s faith that God’s 15:5 word would be fulfilled. Abraham’s action in Genesis 22 was a specific test of his 15:6 faith—hence the saying in James 2:23 that the Scripture was fulfilled when Abraham offered Isaac on the altar. Abraham’s 15:5 faith developed throughout Isaac’s conception, birth and early life; but it was completed or finished when Abraham did what God told him to do in 22:2. His works completed his faith, and he was called ‘a friend of God’. Without actions, our faith will remain a mere theory; it will be just an intellectual idea or an empty dream.
Posted on: Fri, 23 May 2014 08:38:01 +0000
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