Prior Book | Prior Chapter | Prior Verse | Next Verse | Next Chapter | Next Book | Viewing NASB and Amplified 2015 | |
NASB | James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole Law but stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of [breaking] all of it. |
Subject: Joe, who is ya, man? |
Bible Note: All true. My problem is that far too many people avoid verses like this when they answer: "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" --James 2:14 "If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him." --1 John 2:29 "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." --1 John 3:9 "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." --1 John 3:15 "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God." --1 Corinthians 6:9,10 Galatians 5:19-21; Galatians 6:7,8; John 14:15; Luke 9:23-26; and the some of the most sobering words of Scripture: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'" --Mathhew 7:21-23 (the four verses following are pretty good as well) Time after time we see that those who practice sin will not enter the kingdom. Yet we are saved on the basis of faith alone. Then what is the CONTENT of saving faith? Is it just a real good feeling about what Christ has done, or a mere intellectual acknowledgement? Or is it a complete and total dependence on Christ which will result in God-honoring works and a changed life? My answer to the question, "Why OBEY God?": Because that is what the truly faithful do. No works? No faith, and therefore no place in God's Kingdom. I cannot tell you how many times that I have heard people try and explain how a "dead" faith can save anyone. If that were the case, then James 2 might as well have never been written, since his whole argument loses any meaning whatsoever. Same with John's first epistle and those Pauline passages which say that those who practice sin have no part in the Kingdom. Obedience matters to God, and all those who possess saving faith can and will obey Him (Romans 8:7-10). --Joe! |