A lot of people try to pit Paul's teachings against James who preached a faith without works is a dead faith, but Paul was not saying righteous works would not come by an empowered grace through faith, just that we are not justified by our own works of the law.
If you look at that verse I quoted earlier in Galatians 5:6 about a faith that works (empowered, energized) by Love, you can see the same thing is being said in James...
James 2:26
[SUP]26 [/SUP]For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
So what makes the body alive in the above example? It is the Spirit. So like the body is "empowered or energized" by the Spirit of God, so is faith made alive by the works of love.
So the grace of God in Jesus Christ empowers a faith that works righteous works by the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
If you look at that verse I quoted earlier in Galatians 5:6 about a faith that works (empowered, energized) by Love, you can see the same thing is being said in James...
James 2:26
[SUP]26 [/SUP]For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
So what makes the body alive in the above example? It is the Spirit. So like the body is "empowered or energized" by the Spirit of God, so is faith made alive by the works of love.
So the grace of God in Jesus Christ empowers a faith that works righteous works by the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and by the same grace Paul said, I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.