Authentic Faith Works

James 5 covers a broad variety of topics but a common theme is some of the "spiritual" evidences that authentic faith works. While most of James has focused on the outworking of faith in practical acts of servant-love, James 5 addresses four such works that are harder to identify and easier to overlook when we start focusing on "works".

James 5: 1-6: The Work of Justice
James 5:7-12: The Work of Perserverance
James 5:13-18: The Work of Prayer
James 5: 19-20: The Work of Restoration

The Work of Justice (5:1-6)
Come now, you rich! Weep and cry aloud over the miseries that are coming on you. Your riches have rotted and your clothing has become moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you. It will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have hoarded treasure!

Look, the pay you have held back from the workers who mowed your fields cries out against you, and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person, although he does not resist you.

James illustrates the work of justice by demonstrating the judgment where it is absent. James' condemnation of the rich echoes Jesus' words to the rich man who ignored Lazarus (Luke 16:19ff) and to the rich who knew no suffering (Luke 6:24-26). But it even more strongly echoes the parable of the rich man focused on his wealth (Luke 12:15-21). James, like Jesus, wants his readers to focus on being "rich toward God".

In a way this section is part of the same idea of 4:13-17: Those people who plan a business venture and fail to do what they know is right should instead be aware of their coming judgment because of their mistreatment of workers. In this passage, the rich will experience misery when their riches are gone and their finery, referenced in chapter 2 as a distinguishing mark, is decayed. All they value will be worth nothing except as a witness - their own rusted money with testify against them! Reminding them that they are living in the last days (which began at Pentecost), James levies four specific charges:

• Accumulating wealth to store it up (v. 3)
• Unjust wages (v. 4)
• Lavish, selfish lifestyle (v. 5)
• Condemnation of righteous (v. 6)

It's easy to see why justice is such an important work of faith. Scripture presents God as caring about the laborers in the field; those entrusted with wealth must constantly guard against the tendency to store it up and not do good with it today. Practicing social justice is a good way to protect from selfish uses of money.

The Work of Patience
James 5:7-12 So be patient, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s return. Think of how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the ground and is patient for it until it receives the early and late rains. You also be patient and strengthen your hearts, for the Lord’s return is near. Do not grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be judged. See, the judge stands before the gates! As an example of suffering and patience, brothers and sisters, take the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s name. Think of how we regard as blessed those who have endured. You have heard of Job’s endurance and you have seen the Lord’s purpose, that the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. And above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. But let your “Yes” be yes and your “No” be no, so that you may not fall into judgment.

"So" - or "therefore" - as a result of God hearing the laborers' cries, they should be patient. God's coming is at hand; this should prompt strengthening of heart to be patient. In the context of patience they are told not to complain against each other; judgment is sure for them just as it is for the rich.

James pulls two examples of patience from the familiar Old Testament scriptures: The prophets, and Job. The "bottom line" lessons of patience is that God is compassionate and merciful. Individuals in difficult times who are practicing the work of patience can rest in His character, and not swear oaths (a special temptation when facing a trial, but an admonition for all of us).

The Work of Prayer
James 5:13-18 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praises. Is anyone among you ill? He should summon the elders of the church, and they should pray for him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up – and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness. Elijah was a human being like us, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest.

James now turns to the work of prayer. Prayer is a work of faith; prayer and works are not mutually exclusive but are in partnership and cannot be separated. One doesn't eliminate or get us "off the hook" for the other. Psalm 50:15 emphasizes that as a result of God answering our cry, we should give increased honor to Him.

James highlights prayer for the suffering and the sick, in the context of the covenant community with spiritual leadership. This prayer results in restoration, raising up, and forgiveness. Because of this, we should confess our sins and pray for each other so healing can come. We see the effectiveness of a righteous man's prayer in the example of Elijah - someone "with a nature like ours". To be clear: Our righteousness comes from Christ. The point is not about the one praying, but about the God who responds! And incredibly, Bob Deffinbaugh points out, even one person's prayers matter:

"God delights in the prayers of His people, but prayer is not a work of man that moves God to action due to the volume or intensity of our efforts. We do not need a 'moral majority' to move God. We do not need to amass sufficient 'prayer power' to see God's hand. One elderly widow, privately praying in her closet, may effectively bring about great intervention from God. Let us have concerts of prayer, but let us not think that God is moved by mere numbers."

The Work of Restoration
5:19-20 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, he should know that the one who turns a sinner back from his wandering path will save that person’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

These final verses seem to end abruptly, but really draw the whole section together under the theme of restoration. Prayer and restoration are closely linked, with prayer as a means of restoration. This is a great work indeed to end this book, with its theme of "authentic faith works." Furthermore, paralleling Prov. 10:12 and 1 Peter 4:8, we see that restoration is a reflection of love, which covers a multitude of sins!

Hatred stirs up dissension,
but love covers all transgressions. (Prov. 10:12)

Above all keep your love for one another fervent, because love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

This ends the study of James which has dominated my lessons for Module 3A. My final outline of James is below. One more lesson will follow, which will highlight Module 3A lessons and explain why I chose to focus so much on James in these lessons. Thanks for reading!

James: Authentic Faith Works

I. Trials
A. The Product of Testing (1:1-4)
B. The Need in Testing: Wisdom (1:5-11)
C. The Blessing of Testing: Crown (1:12-18)
D. The Attitude during Testing: Obedience (1:19-27)

II. Faith Working through Love
A. The Sin of Partiality (2:1-13)
B. The Necessity of Works (2:14-26)

III. The Fruit of Righteousness
A. The Teacher and the Tongue (3:1-12)
B. God's Wisdom vs. Worldly Wisdom (3:13-18)

IV. The Fruit of Humility
A. A Greater Grace (4:1-10)
B. A New Attitude (4:11-17)

V. Authentic Faith Works
A. The Work of Justice (5:1-6)
B. The Work of Perserverance (5:7-12)
C. The Work of Prayer (5:13-18)
D. The Work of Restoration (5:19-20)

A New Attitude

Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. He who speaks against a fellow believer or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. But there is only one who is lawgiver and judge – the one who is able to save and destroy. On the other hand, who are you to judge your neighbor? Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into this or that town and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” You do not know about tomorrow. What is your life like? For you are a puff of smoke that appears for a short time and then vanishes. You ought to say instead, “If the Lord is willing, then we will live and do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin.

(James 4:11-17, NET. Biblical text and some background from www.nextbible.org).

The apostle continues his hard-hitting approach in these verses. Remember that James is speaking to Jewish Christians who are scattered and persecuted. Throughout the book, he has emphasized the practical side of faith -- that servant-love that is demonstrated in practical ways. One practical theme he emphasizes in every chapter is the tongue.

Here, James addresses two "sins of the tongue": Slandering other believers and prideful boasting about plans. He provides a solution to both, linking these "sins of the tongue" to his predominant message of a practical outworking of faith. The solution: A new attitude.

Speaking against another believer. The word for "speak against" is katalaleo, and it basically means literally to "speak evil of" or "slander" another person. Barclay adds that usually it is used when the party in question is not even present to defend himself. The only other use of katalaleo in the New Testament is in 1 Peter, where Peter uses it to refer to accusations of evil made by non-Christians against Christians (1 Pet. 2:12, 3:16). Its root word means "backbiter" and is used in the New Testament only by Paul, who wrote that the prevalence of "backbiters" is a sign of man's depravity (Rom. 1:30). The negativity of these contexts indicates that mere disagreement with another believer does not rise (or rather, fall) to the level of katalaleo. Instead, this is an accusatory speech, one that attributes evil motives or makes slanderous claims about a brother in Christ -- the type of claims made in that day by non-Christians against Christians according to Peter.

James' warning is that this type of harsh speech is the harsh judging which we are not to engage in by command of Jesus Himself (Matt. 7:1). "Judging" is a difficult topic to understand, for we are told in Matthew not to judge in one sense, and yet in another sense we are told that believers judge within the church but not outsiders (1 Cor. 5:12-13) so as to confront sin within the body. The topic of "judging" is a study in itself, and I refer interested students to word studies of krino (Strong's #2919) and its word family and synonyms available at http://www.blueletterbible.org/ and http://www.nextbible.org/ . However, within the context of James, we can clearly see that James' use of this same word is associated with motive.

James 2:4 If so, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

Earlier James dealt with the problem of prejudice by establishing that the distinctions they were making were based in "evil motives" and that the judge in these matters was the law of liberty:

James 2:12 Speak and act as those who will be judged by a law that gives freedom.

In chapter 4, James returns to a similar theme to address the problems of slanderous speech about other believers. He reminds us that we too face a judgment and that there is something beyond the issue between individual believers. Biblical guidelines on "judging" (for example, Matt. 18:15-20; Gal. 6:1-2; 1 Cor. 4:2-6) admonish believers to stay within the limits of Scripture (what these Jewish Christians would have called the law), and strictly forbid judging based on matters of conscience (Rom. 14). These guidelines also prohibit harsh judging or holding others to standards higher than those for ourselves (Matt. 7:1-5). Thus, James' answer to those who would slander other believers is to remind them that they too will be judged, and that their harsh judgment of a believer is really a judgment of the law. Thus, a new attitude is needed toward other believers - an attitude free from jumping to conclusions and assuming evil motives.

Arrogant boasting. James immediate transition to a discussion of boasting seems at first to be unconnected, but we shall see momentarily that it really is relevant. James still is addressing the need for a new attitude. In this case, he calls focusing on our own plans apart from God's will "evil" and "arrogant". Remember that "speak against" means literally to "speak evil of" - so James has transitioned from explaining the problem with speaking evil of someone else, to explaining something that is really evil.

What is striking about this passage in modern Christendom is that it seems to be such a good statement of faith. Some churches would call it a positive confession. Yet James calls is boastful, evil, arrogant -- because it leaves God's plan out of the picture. Here James echoes Prov. 27:1, which warns us not to boast about tomorrow, and Luke 12:18-20, where we see in stark reality the folly of one who boasted.

The "new attitude" that ties these two examples together is summed up in verse 17: "So then..." lets us know that this admonition is the point he is trying to make with what he has just said. And what is that point? Simply this: "Whoever knows what is good to do and does not do it is guilty of sin." James reiterates his basic message - a faith that works - in a way that strips away the judging of the slanderer and the pride of the boaster. Instead of focusing on the perceived wrongs of others or our own selfish ambition, James reminds us to do what we know is good to do. Our focus should be on the brevity of life (v. 14) and doing what is right today (v. 17) -- which will involve others, not ourselves! James has made clear early on that the true religion he speaks of helps the weak and meets real needs in practical ways - today.