Question: Does God sleep?
Answered by: Ron, who has been a volunteer with us since July, 2009.
Answer: No, God does not sleep. ‘Behold, He who keeps Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep’ (Psalm 121:4), which is a contrast to pagan deities (1 Kings 18:27). The Hebrew word shabath in Genesis 2:2 means that God ceased from his work since it was completed. God is not a human being that ever tires.
Question: Comparing Romans 3:28 and James 2:24. Would you say that Paul and James disagreed on the subject of justification?
Answered by: Cory, who has been a volunteer with us since August, 2011.
Answer: The apparent tension between Paul and James has been a topic of much debate and discussion throughout the history of the Church. That said, I don’t think that Paul is speaking against James in passages like Romans 3 (and elsewhere, like the book of Galatians), and I don’t think James and Paul are in disagreement (ultimately) on the matter of justification. The best argument for this is from the early parts of Galatians: in Galatians 1:18-2:10, Paul identifies James (and Peter, whom Paul closely identifies with James) as being major pillars of the faith. Paul’s credentials to the church in Galatia is that James and Peter offered to him the “right hand of fellowship,” showing that they apparently had no issue with Paul’s teaching (or vice versa). The point is that Paul considered James to be one of the leaders of the Church, and considered James’ blessing proper credentials for teaching among the congregations of Christians throughout the world — Paul does not see himself in conflict with James, and James seems to think the same of Paul. But if James and Paul are on the same side, then why the apparent disagreement (a major disagreement indeed!) in the books of James and Paul?
I think much of the tension comes from the ambiguity of the language used in writings of James and Paul. When Paul speaks of Justification, he normally is referring to our ultimate, objective status before God, our legal standing with God, if you will. In this sense of Justification (arguably the most important sense) we are justified by our faith: God isn’t looking to see if we’ve been “good enough” to earn Heaven, but only if we’ve placed our faith in His only Son, Jesus Christ.
When James speaks of Justification, by comparison, he is mostly speaking of the outward evidences of our changed heart. Namely, sincere saving faith (the kind Paul normally talks about as justifying us) will always manifest in our lives as good works. This is why James says things like “Show me your faith apart from works, and I will show you my faith by my works” (2:18) and “faith apart from works is dead” (2:26). It isn’t that James is diminishing the importance of faith, but rather emphasizing the need for our faith to overflow in good works visible to ourselves and others. James is speaking against a hypothetical someone (or someones) who says “I don’t do any good works, but that’s fine because I have faith, and that’s what saves me.” James is saying (correctly) that such a faith is a dead, insincere faith.
Similarly, Paul is quick to point out that justification by faith alone entails the expectation of good works and a loving attitude: ‘What shall we say, then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!. . .Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.’ (Romans 6:1-13). “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another” (Galatians 5:13-15), “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another” (Galatians 5:24, 25). Paul, who spends most of the book talking about how we aren’t saved through works of Law, but rather by faith, also insists that our faith does not excuse us from doing good. There is an expectation that if we are really saved by faith we will do good works, as that shows God’s Holy Spirit living within us. Though he doesn’t put it in so many words, Paul also believes that faith without works is dead.
The other reason for the tension between these two writers, I believe, is the different audiences they are writing to. Paul, on the one hand, is writing to a group of Christians discussing and considering the roles of the Law of Moses in the Christian life. On the other hand, James is writing (presumably) to Christians who believe they are at full liberty to behave however they want, since their faith has already saved them. Both the errors Paul and James are writing against are spiritually destructive, both will lead to a shallow, incomplete Christianity, and thus both errors require strong, direct language in their refutations. Thus, even though Paul and James both admit that good works are the outflowing of true faith, both use strong language against their opponents which comes off as harsh when compared with one another’s writings.
James is not saying that one earns one’s way into Heaven, as evidenced by his insistence that works are a display of one’s genuine faith, but he was writing to an audience that was denying the need for living a God-honoring life, and he needed to be emphatic in his rebuke. Yes, our faith will manifest in good works done for the sake of honoring God. If it does not, we have reason to think our faith is not genuine. It was imperative to James that his audience understand this.
Paul understood that the doctrine of justification by faith alone was easily perverted into the kind of laissez-faire attitude James is writing against: he refutes the idea himself in passages like Romans 3:8 and Romans 6:1. But, knowing the Jewish culture from which many early Christians were drawn, Paul wants to make it clear that we are not saved by keeping any specific list of rules, but solely through sincere faith in Christ. Their problem is not that they are rejecting good works, but rather that they are believing their works will earn them the right to enter the Kingdom of God.
It is my conviction, then, that Paul and James are not contradicting each other in their teachings, but rather are like two soldiers standing back-to-back, fighting opponents coming from opposite directions. One writer addresses one extreme, the other writer addresses the other extreme. As such, I don’t think we need to make a decision as to who is “more right” or who is interpreting Jesus most correctly. Rather, they are brothers in Christ arguing two important points about the faith.
I hope this helps clarify things, and feel free to write back in a response email if you want any further clarifications. Thank you for your question, and God bless!
