Q&A7: Paul & James - Law of liberty & justification

OK. Now we have a fun one. This is this question seven is one that. Well, it gets asked fairly often, and even at that, people scratch their heads and hopefully we'll get some things answered and resolved. The question here is, why do Paul and James seem to write so very differently, almost in conflict with one another? Why did Paul and James use the word justified, or do they use justified in the same way? And what did James mean by the term law of liberty? Heavens. And then how does one reconcile that term with who we are in the church having died to the law, and not being under the law, but under grace? How do we make that work out? How many of you have wondered about this?

Now, one of the things that I'll point out here, here is the book of James written about 45 AD. So roughly a decade and a half after the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating of Christ. And only a few years after the Gentiles had first been introduced to the Gospel.

And so here is James writing, as far as we have any possession, the first New Testament book. So he's writing it. Now that's the first New Testament book. Paul is going to write his first New Testament book the book of Galatians a few years later. Galatians, more specifically, was written in 49 AD. So a few years later, Paul's going to write Galatians.

But let's ask this question. I think it's a very important one. Were the apostles and the other co-authors of Scripture, of the New Testament, were they learning things as they went along? Yes, yes they were. Now, let's ask this question. Where do you find the teaching that the believer is seated with Christ in the heavenlies? Pardon?

Paul's writing is in Ephesians 2.6 is where Christ is seated in the heavenlies.

When did he write that? Where was he when he wrote it? Probably in prison. He was in prison, basically under house arrest, in Rome, about 61 AD. So there's seated in the heavenlies. Here is Philippians, your heavenly citizenship. When did he write that? Where did he write it from? He was in prison, about 61 AD. Here is the book of Colossians. Set your mind on things above. Right? Where did you write that from? Prison. About 61 AD. Right?

What you find is, you look at, here's Paul's first book, Galatians. 49 AD. Does Galatians have the believer in the heavenlies? No. Romans, 16 chapters, the flagship of Paul's epistles. A foundational book. Does Romans place the believer in the heavenlies? No. We're studying through 1st and 2nd Corinthians, written from Ephesus. At least 1st Corinthians was. Does 1 Corinthians place the believer in the heavenlies by citizenship and position? In Christ, yes, but only by implication, not by direct statement. The teaching that the believer is in the heavenlies in position and citizenship and to set their minds there did not come until 61 AD or thereabouts when Paul was in prison in Rome. Even if you think of the Apostle Paul, his understanding and what he expressed about being in the heavenlies didn't show up until he was done with his missionary journeys from everything we know.

Isn't that something? Now, so when you think about it, James being the first book written before Paul even put pen to paper from anything we have possession of now. reflects that earlier understanding. Does it mean that James is wrong? No. But the understanding added to that, that Paul brought up later, even Paul didn't express until he was done with his missionary journeys. Isn't that something? So, when we look at James and Paul, one of the things to remember is what was the progression of understanding?

Here is James writing the first New Testament book that we have possession of, and the idea that the believer is seated in the heavenlies, not even Paul had that yet, so far as anything we have recognized. So, as we attempt to look at these two books, or these two authors, and try to compare, it's important to keep the history of understanding in mind. So here's James. What's the typical issue between Paul and James?

What are people wrestling with between the two? Law and grace. Law and grace is one of them. Yes, very much that. Works. Works, yeah. Works is a big thing. Paul, in fact, talked about works quite a bit. But they get talked about differently and so people wrestle with that. One of the things also is to look at language, history, and culture.

And a key thing, here's Paul and here's James. What's their ethnicity? James is Jewish. James is Jewish, and how about Paul? He's Jewish. He's Jewish too, right? Yeah. But they have different audiences. Ah, there is the key difference. Who was James writing to? He's looking to Jews, the twelve tribes scattered about, right? He's writing to Jews, so he's a Jew writing to Jews at the earliest stages of the apostolic ministry. Paul, on the other hand, is writing to who? Christians. He's writing to Christians, but what?

Gentile background. And a different way of thinking. A different way of thinking. So that's a key distinction there. We have that, you know, you look at language, history, and culture there in the bullets, and right below that, who they are writing to, and the time that they are writing, is the key understanding to the difference between them. It's the cultural difference between the way the Gentiles thought and the way that the Jews thought that was at the root of the differences in the way that Paul and James wrote.

What's interesting, we have James is the name of the book. It's translated in most Bibles, James. It's really Yaakov, which is the base of the name Jacob. So if we were to be a little bit more direct, it would actually be the Book of Jacob. But traditionally it got called James, and so we'll stick with that in order not to confuse people. Now both Paul and James have an interesting characteristic, and that is, well, let's ask this question. When did Paul believe before Christ was crucified and buried and raised, or afterwards? Afterwards, right? How about James? Pardon? I beg to differ. Yes, and here's why.

In the Gospel of John, it says that Jesus' brothers did not believe. until chapter 15 of 1st Corinthians says that specifically the Lord appeared to his brother James. Now, let me tell you, when your brother gets crucified and buried and resurrected, you're going to be a believer when you see it. That's going to make a believer out of you, and that's what happened.

So we have James and Jude are two of Jesus' brothers. who each authored a book of the New Testament, and they believed afterwards. So very interesting, here's something in common between James and Paul. They both believed afterwards, and they both got to see Christ resurrected. The only difference was with James, it was within that period of time between the resurrection and his ascension. Paul saw him afterwards. Now, so, then we come to the bottom.

In terms of the development of the New Testament, James wrote, when the Old Testament books were the only scriptures in writing and general circulation among Jews and church believers. Interestingly, Paul at times quotes from other New Testament books. Explicitly at one point in writing Timothy, he quotes from the Gospel of Luke. James had no New Testament books to quote from, right? Because he was the first author of the New Testament to write a book.

So a distinction between the two. All right. Let's look at page two, second paragraph. When Paul wrote about the believer being justified, he was, in context, referring to being justified, that is, declared righteous before God, as declared by God. Romans 2-5 explicitly spelled that out. It was a positional statement about one's eternal salvation. Since Paul's audience was often a mixture of mostly Gentiles and some Jews, he would often write about position and condition separately, and typically in that sequence.

Okay, what do we mean by position? I don't want to throw terms around without having some... What do we mean by a position? The position we have in Christ. The position we have in Christ. Okay, what else can we say about that? That's true. What else can we say about position?

It's eternal. Yes, and that's one of the reasons why we use the terms I often like to put eternal position, daily condition, right? Eternal position, daily condition. My eternal position doesn't change. My daily condition certainly does and can, okay? So we make a distinction between those two. Paul wrote about them separately.

Why would he have to do that? Why would he need to do that with the Gentiles? Why would he have to do that? Why would he need to deal with position and condition separately? To make it clear. Most certainly he did that and he put in fact great efforts to that.

Here's Romans where he talks about position issues for chapters And matter of fact, the first half of chapter 6 is still talking about position, right? It isn't until he gets to the middle of chapter 6 in Romans that he has anything for the believer to do. When you go to the book of James, what does James do? He gets through saying, Hi, I'm James. And what's the next verse? Something to do.

The big difference is this, Paul most often explained position first and then gave, here's what to do. And there's a reason why, and that is because in the Gentile world, the idea of who you are impacting your life was not a given. Remember in Gentile religion and spirituality, morality was not an issue.

Right? Remember some of the pagan temples in New Testament times? What are some of the things that went on in the pagan temples? Prostitution. Orgies. Right in the pagan temple. You might, if you were a pagan, make a sacrifice to your god and then pray to your god to be able to steal better. and to be able to lie more convincingly. See, there was no connection between spirituality and morality. So, Paul had to essentially fill in a vacuum and connect the dots that they didn't have. So when he's telling them, when he's telling them, you know, here's like in Ephesians chapter 4, stop stealing.

Okay? Under their pagan beliefs, stealing really good was a good thing. If you were really good at stealing, well that was just fine. As a matter of fact, everybody admired the guy who really did it well. But then, what's that? Oh yeah, well, they would just say, boy he's good.

But the thing is that they made no connection between spirituality and morality. So Paul was having to lay this foundation for which there was a vacuum, a complete vacuum, and fill that in. Here's who you are in Christ. Because they had no idea what that was supposed to mean automatically. As a matter of fact, guess what happens in our culture? We don't have any idea what it is until we learn about it either, right? And so then, when he would tell them, because of your position, then you live this way.

So Ephesians 1.7, you've been forgiven, right?

Ephesians 4.32, forgive as God and Christ has forgiven you. Here's your position, then explains how you live. And they had to spell that out to them. To the Jew, did they have a connection between who they were and how they lived in their culture, already built into their thinking? Yes.

And so what James was looking for was not making a connection between your position and how you live, but he was looking for them to have reality and substance. So a part of it is James assumed a position and didn't spend time explaining it. And that in part is what makes it difficult for us to jump from the way Paul wrote to the way James wrote. And James just assumed your position. He didn't spend time explaining. He goes immediately into the action. Because among the Jews, they didn't have to make that connection. So that understanding by itself helps us to understand the difference between how James wrote and how Paul wrote.

Why did they not put the letters in order, the epistles in order, you know? In time sequence? In time sequence, yeah, so I think then you could get an idea. Yeah, the way that the epistles were assembled was not according to time sequence at all. If you go in the New Testament, what did they put in there first? The Gospels. You got the four Gospels, okay, and they were not written at the same time. even though they were writing about the same period of time, which is the ministry of Christ. So they weren't written at the same time. Now, logically and historically, the next thing after that was Acts. If you didn't have the book of Acts, you would be asking, who's Paul? Who's Timothy, you know? Who are all these people? Barnabas? I don't understand. We would be puzzled about the peoples and personalities that come next.

So next you have the Apostle Paul, who is the theme of about the last half or more of the Book of Acts. So Apostle Paul's letters are next. Following that, they have what's called the general epistles. And that includes everything from Hebrews on to James and Peter and Jude. And then finally, Revelation. And so John's writings are the Gospel of John, his three letters, and then Revelation. Revelation was put as the last being in time sort of a capstone for the books. So anyway, quick answer to your question.

But no, they weren't written in sequence. Nonetheless, we can go back, excuse me, they weren't assembled in the time sequence. But we can go back and look at, you know, what was first and what was next and who was writing to who. We always still have to ask that question. We could say that there, we probably shouldn't say that the order was not inspired Yeah, the order was a matter of convenience. Likewise, your point is well taken.

Likewise, chapter and verses. Those were conveniences set up later. When the books were finally assembled, they were assembled where we have them, kind of as a custom. The chapters were put in around the year 1200, and the verses put in in the middle of the 1500s. And those are points of convenience, not inspiration. They're quite correct. Let's look at the middle of page two, the next paragraph here.

When James wrote about being justified, he was in context referring to being justified, declared righteous, before others in terms of what shows to other people. When Paul said justified, he meant justified before God. Romans 12.13. When James wrote justified, he meant, what does it look like to other people?

James 2.18.

They didn't use the word justified with the same definition. They didn't use it with the same definition. It was a conditional statement, in other words, about your daily condition, about how one's faith appears before other people without regard to one's eternal salvation. Whereas what Paul did was, when he used the word justified, it had everything to do with one's eternal salvation. They used the same word differently.

He assumed the position of believer, moving immediately to daily application. Note that once James opens his letter, he says not one word about the position of the believers, as Paul would often do for chapters, but immediately in the application of the verse. Unlike Paul, James did not need to make a connection from spiritual things to morality with the Jews.

It was automatic. It was a given. To the Jews it would be, of course you're going to live this way and that. That's the way it is. That's the way God is. Not so with the Gentiles. Not so. Now, let's look at the term Law of Liberty. Here's the passage in James chapter 1, 19 through 25. This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Boy, that would be a really good principle to think about.

For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, put aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. In humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, not merely hearers who delude themselves. If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror.

For once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. but one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." Then he goes on, if however you are fulfilling the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, do not commit adultery, also said, do not commit murder. Now if you did not commit adultery and did not commit murder, you become a transgressor of the law.

So speak and act as those who are judged by the law of liberty, for judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. With respect to this term, law of liberty, part of the struggle that grace-oriented Christians might have with the term stems from the various meanings of the word law. Let me take that for instance.

How many different ways did Paul use the word flesh? About a half dozen different ways, okay? And some of those had to do with flesh being expressions of the sin nature in the body. Some of those had to do with the flesh being flesh and blood, in other words, having to do with expressly human flesh. What we'll see in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is there are different kinds of flesh, so animal, human, and different kinds of animals. So Paul used the word flesh in different ways himself, didn't he?

The word law gets used in different ways. It's used of the law of Moses, consisting of things to do and not to do, all 613 of them. 365, like the number of days in the year, that's the number of things not to do in the law. The Torah, which would be the first five books of the Bible written by Moses, is also called the law. The entire Old Testament, which would have been the entire Bible known at that time, this term was shortened to the Law and the Prophets, as in Luke 16, 16, and consistent with views in Psalm 119, where the law means the written word of God.

Or the other thing that it could mean is a principle being a fundamental truth. or a key point of influence or guidance. This meaning is sometimes conveyed in the New Testament using the word law without a definite article in the Greek text. So some of us will see the word law, and in fact it shows up in some of Paul's letters, not as law, as in do this, don't do that, but as a principle, a fundamental truth. If I say that God is love, does that tell you automatically that you have to do or not do something? No. It is a principle. It's a fundamental truth about who God is, isn't it?

And the word that is translated law, namas, sometimes means principle. The third meaning seems to be what James had in mind when he wrote the Law of Liberty. In contrast, when Paul wrote in Romans 7, 4 and 6 and Galatians 2.19 about us who are believers having died to the law, he was using the term law according to the first definition, not the third definition as James did. Both Paul and James appear to have used a term with more than one meaning in the same document as Paul used flesh in the Book of Galatians and elsewhere. And so regarding the use of the word liberty, it was Paul, James, and Peter who used that word.

And so we have several references there everywhere from Romans to James 1.25 to 2 Peter 2.19.

These were the same ones who gathered in perfect agreement regarding law and grace in Acts 15 and Galatians 2.9. Here is a key point.

There are two times when we have clear record that Paul got together with James and Peter. And those two times are in Acts 15, sometimes called the Jerusalem Council, and as Paul records in Galatians, those two times Paul got together with James and Peter. In those two times that we have record, is there any evidence that Paul had any doctrinal tension with James and Peter?

No. Not the slightest evidence in Galatians chapter 2, where they're described as meeting, that there was any conflict whatsoever. Not even a hint of conflict between them. Acts 15, sometimes called the Jerusalem Council. Here is James speaking as one of the elders in Jerusalem. not the slightest hint of any conflict between the two.

And, in Galatians, what is one of the big themes of Galatians, for the whole book? We're not under law, right? You're no longer under this tutor. Etiquettes. Acts 15, what was the conclusion of the Jerusalem Council recorded in Acts 15. Basically it gave not, here are all the things that Gentiles need to do to keep righteous, but basically it gave Gentiles a few things to do so as not to stumble the Jews and put some sort of a conflict between And it was a minimal list, but it still wasn't a definition of what was righteous. Peter and James both expressed in Acts 15, we don't want to put these Gentiles under law. And so, Paul heads off to, first thing he does, goes to the churches in Galatia with this letter saying, here we've all met, We don't want to put you under the law. And that letter came from Peter and James. Okay? What was the controversy then in the Galatians between Peter and Paul?

There wasn't any. What happened is he got together with Peter, James, excuse me, Paul got together with Peter and with James. And, because he had been trained by who? Who had Paul been trained by? Christ himself, okay? And so Paul was getting together and kind of comparing notes with these guys kind of for the first time. And when he gets together with them, what turns out is no conflict whatsoever. Yes?

I think what Winnie is referring to is that Paul had to rebuke Peter because Peter was not eating of the Gentiles. Yes, okay. The rebuking instance where Paul rebuked Peter was actually something that James would have agreed with. Why? Because one of the things that James pressed in the book of James is not being hypocritical. Right? James would have pressed, if Paul hadn't have said something, I think James would have said something himself. Right? Because James pressed for no hypocrisy. And that's the thing James pressed for. Paul was trying to get them to connect up their position and their condition. James' point all the way through the book is no hypocrisy, truth of the court.

Okay? So interestingly, this liberty, that's something that James, Paul, Peter, they all three used that word. And in those instances where we have those three contacting each other, they're in complete agreement. Oh, with the one exception where Paul confronts Peter.

And because of the character of James' book where he confronts hypocrisy left and right, that would have been something James would have done as well. Yes? Paul was really saying, hey Peter, make your condition match your position. Yep. Make your condition match your position. Yep. Could you talk about that one thing you just talked about with the blood? What was the issue of not drinking blood?

Here's the thing that they did. What the Jews did with the Gentiles, because as you go through, for example, the book of Acts, you'll have God-fearing Gentiles who would come into the synagogues. And so when these Gentiles would come in to Judaism and be in the synagogues, the Gentiles did not get the law imposed upon them. They did not get the law of Moses imposed on them. What they did is they did what was called the Noahide laws and all that was was just the things that were summarized there in Acts 15. Don't eat, you know, don't commit immorality and don't eat things that have been strangled. These were Jewish laws. And those were called the Noahide laws and they were the laws that were put on the Gentiles who wanted to be a part of Jewish gathering at the synagogues.

And that's all that they told them to do. Why? Because that would keep the Jews from being stumbled by the Gentiles' behavior. It would keep from causing a division in the church. So that was all that they asked. Is that because the Jews were under that law? Those were the few laws, the ones that are summarized there in Acts 15, those were the few laws that the Jews asked of the Gentiles if they were going to come into the synagogue. And so all that happened is when they went there in Acts 15 is they said, in the church, let's just do that exact same thing and it will keep the Jews from being stumbled. and we'll keep the unity in the church. The Jews were under the whole law of Moses, right? The Jews were under the whole law of Moses. But it was, I mean, those specific things were just a few. Remember, the Jews had 613.

All kinds of things. But for the Gentiles who would come into the synagogue in order to be accepted into the synagogue and allowed in as Gentiles, those things that were summarized and that the apostles asked, those were called the Noahide laws and those were the only things they asked the Gentiles who came into the synagogue to do. And so all they did was adopt that in the church to say, let's adopt that in the church, and just basically were asking the Gentiles not to do these things as a means of avoiding a division in the church. That's all it was. But the Jews, I mean obviously had all 613 laws, and their inclination was to lean towards those. Yes? I think that Pat's thought, or maybe my thought is, since there are Yes.

It was not a matter of doing it so you'll be blessed. It was a matter of keeping peaceful relationships in the church. So it's not a matter of doing it so that you'll be blessed. It's not a matter of doing it because God wants everybody to do these things or not do these things. It was a matter of what will make for good relationships in the church. What will avoid division in the church based on Jew and Gentile.

So what does Paul write in Galatians 3.28? There is neither male nor female, slave nor free Jew or Greek, etc. He wants those divisions not to divide up the body of Christ. So all that they asked for the Gentiles was not because it's right or wrong, not because anything's holy or not holy, but only as a matter of what would be best for relationships within the church.

That was the reason for it. And one of the reasons why we don't go around in the church now telling you, you know, don't eat things that have been strangled and all that, We don't tell you that because it's not an issue. It was an issue then. When we were in the prayer class about who you are in Christ, there was a lesson there about the liberty that you have as a Christian and as a believer to do certain things or not to do certain things in order to cause your your brother to stumble.

And that's exactly what it is. To keep him from growing. Yeah, so it's not a matter of this is now right or that's now wrong, but it's a matter of I won't do this as a Gentile, I won't do this in order to avoid stumbling my Jewish brother. That's the character of it. And so it wasn't, you know, here's Acts 15, you notice as you go through the New Testament You don't see a whole lot of repetition of that or driving it home or... Why? Because it wasn't a matter of this is absolutely right and that's absolutely wrong. It's a matter of what will keep my brother from stumbling.

That was all. It may not be an issue today, but we've made up some new ones. Yeah, we've got different ones now, okay? We've got different ones now. Which is why I come to the church with pants on. We have different things that will cause people to stumble, right?

Okay. He even puts a jacket on when it snows. Pardon me? He even puts a jacket on when it snows so he won't feel bad. Yeah, yeah. Winnie noticed here when it was snowing outside I put a jacket on to walk into church. Not because I think I need a jacket, but I just don't want other people to feel uncomfortable. I don't want to stumble my brothers and sisters. Okay, page four.

This law of liberty is not about, you know, if you follow the law of Moses, then you'll be free. No. He's talking about, this is a truth of liberty spelled out actually in the root there in the pages of scripture. One further indication beyond that of James 1.2, as noted on the prior page, that James was not simply calling for the Mosaic Law, is that right after James used the term Law of Liberty, he wrote in James 2.13, For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Mercy triumphs over judgment. What did the Law of Moses specifically spell out?

You shall show no mercy. If it says that you're to kill this person, were you allowed not to? No. It even has explicit statements, Deuteronomy 35, 16, 17, 18. You shall surely be put to death. I'm talking about putting Shirley to death. You shall surely, you shall certainly be put to death.

Even the last part of there, Exodus 30.15 and Leviticus 19.15 says that you shall not diminish the payments even if the person is poor. The law explicitly forbade mercy. So here's what James is doing. Mercy triumphs over judgment. Let's look at some other things.

James, what does he come and say in James 1.2? What does it say? Rejoice when you encounter various trials. Rejoice when you encounter various trials. Now, what did the law of Moses say? If you don't obey me, according to the Law of Moses, Deuteronomy 28. If you don't obey me, the Jews were told, then you'll get what? Trials. If you do obey me, you won't get trials.

So the very first thing that James says contradicts the Law. Rejoice when you encounter various trials is completely contrary to the Law of Moses. You see that? And so you start looking at it, James contradicts the Law of Moses again and again, starting with verse 2. Then this mercy triumphs over judgment. That is contrary to the Law of Moses. You see, James teaches numerous principles contrary to the Law of Moses. He is not trying to get the Law of Moses down on their heads.

James and Paul quoted from the same verse regarding salvation by faith. James 2.23, quoting Genesis 15.6, And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Where else did we see that? Romans chapter 4 verses 3, 9 and 22 and Galatians 3, 6 all quote that exact same verse. Abraham believed God and was reckoned unto him with righteousness.

So what does James do? He quotes the exact same, how are you saved? By faith. Same thing that Paul wrote. James was not saying that some mixture of faith and works is needed for salvation, but rather that faith that has reality is the only faith that saves. Real faith, not just I say it.

Remember what James wrote in James 2.14? What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith? They say on the outside, with their lips, oh I have faith. Will that kind of faith save someone? No. It's not just saying it on the outside that's going to save you. So what does he do? He quotes the same verse that Paul does out of Genesis. Abraham believed God and was reckoned to him as righteousness. He's not undermining faith.

He's not saying you have to have faith that works. He's saying that a faith that is just phony talk isn't going to save anyone. So James wasn't saying that some mixture of faith and works is needed for salvation, but rather that faith that has reality is the only faith that saves. Not just someone says they have faith. Not mere external profession.

Wasn't Paul saying the exact same thing when he wrote, here's Ephesians 2, 8-10, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk in them. So that we would what? Walk in them. Does Paul want the believer to walk in the good works that God has created and prepared before him?

Yeah. That's why in Ephesians 4, 1, 17, 5, 2, and 5, 8, he's urging the believers to walk according to the position that they have. Does that sound like James? Yeah. James is looking for reality in the walk, so is Paul. Paul just spells out position first, and then spells out the walk. James assumes the position and says, let's talk about your walk. See the difference there?

Really, James and Paul are not in disagreement, even in the slightest. The two instances, Galatians chapter 2, Acts 15, where the two of them talk together, complete agreement. And ultimately, when you look at what Paul wrote, and what James wrote, and look carefully, Their writings are in complete agreement too. What James never said, because it took Paul years to say this, is you're seated in the heavenlies. Set your mind on things above. You have a heavenly citizenship. James never wrote that. And it wasn't until Paul was under house arrest in Rome that he wrote that. Does that help?

Now, the two of them are not in disagreement at all. They use the same words in different ways. Paul explained position, James doesn't. He just simply assumes it. Both of them are calling for reality in their faith. Paul explains it first as our position. James doesn't bother with that. Even though they quote the exact same verse, and Abraham believed God and was reckoned to him as righteousness. James just never explains who we are in Christ. He just assumes it. By the way, who we are in Christ is half-brother. This is something else to ponder. Here is James. Imagine growing up with this Jesus guy. This has got to be tough. Joseph and Mary talking to James. How come you aren't like your older brother?

He always does the right thing. He never says shut up. Right? He never says stupid. Right? He just doesn't do that. And so you can imagine James trying to get over that. But again, think about it. It doesn't matter what kind of resentments you had when you were growing up. When you see your brother crucified and buried and resurrected, that kind of gets to you, right? That kind of gets to you. So that's the James. He saw his brother and then believed. And then about 30 years later, according to Josephus, he was killed for that faith that he had in his brother. Isn't that something? So that's James. That's James. Okay.

Other questions about Book of James, the way Paul wrote, things like that. Yeah, I think if you look at it and start saying, what did James write that was contrary to the law of Moses? I mean, that's all, it starts to get amazing. Including, you know, verse 2. Rejoice when you encounter trial. The Jews were all thinking, if I'm going through trials, it means I must be disobedient. Something's wrong. And James says, no, something's really right in it. You know? As a matter of fact, my brother was translating James 1, 2. He translated, you must esteem it ultimate joy when you encounter various. And that word various is the same word we get our word polka dot. Like polka dot, you know, little ones, big ones, different kinds and sizes. Various tribes. Just to the Jew, that was just contrary thinking. Their thinking was, if you're going through trials, you must not be obedient. Wrong thought, huh? Yes?

I was thinking, if Paul had been playing the PlayStation 2 90% of the time, he made out of grass all the time. He literally did spend time James wrote the first book, so he may not have understood position and sitting in prison and praying to God. He may have gotten insights that just came later. I think the thing is, is a lot of, you think about James, he never had to worry about position.

How do I explain it to these people? Because it was something he just assumed. Yeah, you just, you just figure, you know, and you think about the Jews, they figure, hey, I'm Jewish, you know, it doesn't get any better than that. And so, you know, position, what's the deal? I already have a position. I'm Jewish, you know. And so for the Jews, the idea of your position was just built into their thinking.

But for the Gentiles, it was not. There's something else. In a lot of things, there were things that We don't always see them exactly as they understood them. I went through the first half of Ephesians and looked at the statements in there, some of which were aimed at the Jews and some of which were aimed at the Gentiles. And it's interesting, Paul alternated between those two. And it's not always visible.

In Ephesians 1.10, it talks about everything being summed up in Christ And that verse right there, it actually has the definite article, THE Christ. So the Jews would have read that and said the Messiah. The Messiah. That's the first of 23 times in the book of Ephesians that the definite article comes in front of Christ.

I can't find any of our common translations to bring that out. As the Jews saw, reading through Ephesians, they would see the Messiah, the Messiah, the Messiah, the Messiah, 23 times, almost two dozen times throughout the book. And it doesn't show up in our translations at all, so we miss that.

Paul was grabbing the Jews' attention. You know, it's the Messiah here that we're talking about. He was getting their attention. And so things like that, a lot of times we miss it. We don't see it. But if you start to look at, you know, how is James looking at things? How is Paul looking at things?

Paul spoke mostly to Gentiles, but he also had to keep the Jews involved too. And so he would often alternate in what he wrote between whether he was talking to Jew or Gentile audiences. And he would use terms and ways of speaking. that were mixtures that he would keep both of them on their toes, so to speak. And so both of them had to deal with some of these issues, but Paul explicitly reaching the Gentiles and getting them to understand their position, where for the Jews it was not an issue.

You just assume it, and you just don't have to explain a thing. So that's why James was writing to a different audience, And they thought differently. Paul had to explain the position, or they wouldn't get it. Sometimes we don't get it, right? Let's pray. We've got people pressing their noses against the glass. All right.

Well, we do thank you for what you've laid out. We thank you for James Words, who wrote, even from the very first verses, who wrote things contrary to the law of Moses, and he spelled out even, yes, we're saved by faith. And like his brother Paul, he also called for reality in our faith, a faith that has a reality at heart, a faith that is lived out so that our condition is consistent with our position. We thank you for what you spelled out in your word. In Jesus' name, amen.