D
ear Rant.
You are indeed ranting pure nonsense. You are indeed deceived by a
great prevaricator/ false teacher, a German false prophet who has
deceived and cursed countless millions of unaware, ignorant souls with
his "tradition of men." What did Luther say why faith alone is
supposedly true. Luther said."It is so. And I will have it so. And my
will is reason enough. (I know perfectly well that the word "alone" is
not in the Greek text (of Romans 3:28). It is so because I, Dr. Martin
Luther, say it is so." Thus you have Martin Luther, as your infallible
German pope. Not because the Bible says so, but because Luther says
so, it is "so". Sheer spiritual adultery! God save us from
Lutheranism. In Erie Scott R. Harrington Dear Rant: You just are
blinded by Luther so you don't believe the Bible, you don't believe
James 2:24 and you don't believe Galatians 5:6 and 1 Cor. 13:13.
An analogy of faith is pure heresy! It is you who teach a contradiction
against God's word and you don't believe what God says. You believe
what you want to believe, not what you should! Lord have mercy on
us.
Often I get mail correcting me and explaining that James teaches that salvation is by faith plus one's
works. The verse they use is James 2:24 which says, "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified,
and not by faith only." This verse seems to some to be proof positive that the Bible says that faith alone
does not save. However, on a close examination of the verse in its context within the passage it is easily
seen that this is not the case.
Let's begin by leaning some basis principles of how to interpret the Word of God. Is the verse teaching
that one's works can save him? Think for a moment, would God, who is the author of the Bible, contradict
Himself? It is a rhetorical question because the obvious answer is no, God cannot contradict Himself
because He is righteous and perfect. So are any other passages in the Bible which are as strong as James
2:24 in saying that salvation is through faith alone and not of works. The answer is yes. Look at the
following passages:
- "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God Not of
- works, lest any man should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9).
- "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
- for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5).
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by
- the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly
- through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs
- according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:5-7) Is God contradicting Himself? There must be
- some explanation why these verses appear to present opposing things because God would not
- contradict Himself.
The answer is a simple one and deals with properly interpreting the Bible. But before I explain this
seeming contradiction let's learn a little about interpreting the Word of God.
One primary rule of interpreting Scripture is the Word of God must be interpreted in the "analogy of the
Faith." The word "analogy" refers to things that are similar in various aspects. It means explaining
something by comparing it point by point with something else (Webster's New World Dictionary of the
American Language, Cleveland: The World Publishing Company. 1959, p53) In hermeneutics (the science
of interpreting the Bible) it means that we must interpret the Scriptures by comparing it point by point
with the rest of the Scriptures. In other words, we are letting the Bible interpret itself because the Bible
will be in harmony with itself. God is the author of the Bible and perfect in all his ways. Therefore God
cannot make an error or contradict Himself, so if we find a clear statement that seems to contradict some
other statement in Scripture we know we have an interpretation problem. The problem is not with the
Bible, but with our understanding of what we are reading. If we assume there is a contradiction then we
make God out to be a liar and destroy the creditability of the Bible.
Some may object to the premise that the Bible does not contradict itself, however, at the heart of
understanding the Bible is understanding what the Bible says about itself. The Bible plainly states that it is
the very Word of God! The term "Inspiration" is the theological term taken from the Bible which expresses
the truth the Bible is God's very Word. To understand inspiration we must look at two classic Scripture
verses:
The first passage is 2 Timothy 3:16.
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." The word "inspiration" can be
literally interpreted "God-breathed." The Greek word is "theopneutos", which means "theo" = God, and
"pneutos" = breathed. The Hebrew word is "nehemiah" and is used only once in the Old Testament in Job
32:8. The verse is saying God breathed on the writers of the Bible and the wrote His very Word.
The next passage is 2 Peter 1:21,
"For prophecy came not in old times by the will of man; but holy men of
God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Literally the verse is saying that inspiration is the
process by which the Holy Spirit "moved on" or directed the writers of Scripture so what they wrote was
not their words, but the word of God. God is saying He is the author of the Bible, not man. Hebrews 1:1
says, God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the
prophets." God has at different times in the past, and in many ways has spoken to man. Both Paul and
Peter add that what these men wrote was God's word.
This is why we must insist the Bible is without error. God wrote it and preserves it and not man. It is the
product of God, and His Word to man. It then is without error.
When it appears an error or contradiction, the problem is in our interpretation or understanding of the
verse or passage not the Scriptures. If the passage appears to be a contradiction then your course of
action is to continue studying until you arrive at the correct interpretation where there is no
contradiction. Many times arriving at the correct interpretation of a passage of Scripture will take careful
of study.
Another rule of interpreting the Bible is that we must consider the context of statement. For example
Isaiah 22:13 says, "let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die." Is the Bible then teaching that we
should live with abandon, drinking and eating, because we are going to die?" The answer is no! The
context of the verse is that Isaiah was quoting the disobedient Judah and warning them of their sinful
attitudes and of God's judgment. The context tells us that these are the foolish words of sinful Judah not
the instruction of God. The context of the passage clearly establishes this and shows us we must consider
the context of a passage in order to understand what it truly means. Now let's get back to James 2:24.
Applying these rules of biblical interpretation we must accept that these passages of God's word do not
contradict each other and we must do further study to understand what is in truth being said. Let us then
read the passage in its context:
