A LESS LIKELY EXAMPLE OF LIVING FAITH

Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:25-26)

 

James is determined to show us the great need for a living faith and to shake anyone from the false security they might place in a dead, inactive faith. In the previous few verses, he used the example of Abraham – whom any of his readers would recognize as a giant of faith from the pages of the Old Testament.

 

Now, in these verses, James used a less likely example of faith: "Rahab the harlot." Her story is found in Joshua 2. Rahab was a Canaanite, a people long hardened against God and destined for a unique judgment. She wasn't even a shining moral example among the Canaanites, because her profession was prostitution. Yet when two spies from the advancing tribes of Israel asked her to hide and protect them, she did. She also asked for her and her family to be saved by the people of Israel and the God of Israel, and so she and her family were saved.

 

Therefore James writes, "Was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works?" Rahab demonstrated her trust in the God of Israel by hiding the spies and seeking salvation from their God (Joshua 2:8- 13). Her faith was shown to be a living faith because it did something.

 

Her belief in the God of Israel would not have saved her if she had not done something with that faith.

 

The lesson from Abraham is clear: if we believe in God, we will do what He tells us to do. The lesson from Rahab is also clear: if we believe in God, we will help His people, even at our own expense.

 

Significantly, James used two examples of a living faith – Abraham (the father of the Jews) and Rahab (a Gentile). James perhaps is subtly rebuking the prejudice and partiality that may have developed on the part of Jewish Christians against the Gentile believers starting to come into the church.

 

Then James made a point, relevant both to Rahab's example and Abraham's: "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." As much as you can have a body with no life (a corpse), you can have a faith with no life - and faith without works is a dead faith, unable to save.

 

James will admit that it is faith or at least a kind of faith – it is dead faith, and only living faith can save.

We can think of the example of an apple tree. Where is the life of the tree? It is in the root, and underneath the bark of the tree in the trunk. Life is not in the apples, the fruit that will be evident to everyone in the right season; but if the tree is alive it will bring apples in season.

 

The theologian John Calvin had it right at this point, writing about this passage: "Man is not justified by faith alone, that is, by a bare and empty knowledge of God; he is justified by works, that is, his righteousness is known and proved by its fruits."