This past weekend I preached the first of a two-part message on James 2:14-26’s subject of faith without works being dead.  I made it through verse 20.  We covered James’ two scenarios of a faith that is without works.

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Just hitting the highlights for you, James said that a faith without works could have three really great and necessary things and yet still remain a faith that is unable to save.

1. Profession w/o Possession
   James 1:18’s, “But someone will say” indicates a person who claims to be saved, who makes a profession—yet their’s is a faith devoid of transforming power.  James rules this an unsaving faith.
2. Doctrine w/o Deliverance
   James 1:19’s, “You believe that God is one” reveals a person with correct theology.  The great monotheistic claim of Judaism was no small matter in a 1st century pluralistic, polytheistic, Roman-controlled Middle East. Yet all the correct doctrine in the world is not able to save.
3. Emotion w/o Eternal Life
   James 1:19’s, ‘The demons believe—and shudder!” shows that an individual can have quite the emotional response to God and not be saved any more for it.

James would ask of the person who held this sort of “faith”—the sort that makes a profession, maintains correct doctrine, and has emotional experiences, but does not have works—”Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless?” (vs. 20)

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