Essay About Opposite End Of The Spectrum James And Authors Writings

The Doctrine of Soteriology
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Jill Sutherlin
Theology II- Soteriology
Professor Nunez
October 30, 2007
The Docrtine of Justification & Faith By Grace (Not
Works)
The Doctrine of Soteriology:
Jesus is the exemplar of human existence. Jesus
positive confrontation of death in loyalty to God has
to do with what it reveals about human existence.
This is illustrated in I Corinthians, “For what I
received I passed on to you as of first importance
that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures,
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third
day.” He is the “homo verus,” the true and complete
being who came not to be served but to serve. He was
faithful and merciful to the end, inviting and
inspiring us to exhibit such true humanity as well.
Thus, Jesus mediates what God wants human beings to
be, saving efficacy is shown in the form of exemplary
cause.
People turn to God when they repent and show Him that
they have faith. This faith stems from the grace that
was given to the world by Jesus dying on the cross.
True repentence is having genuine faith, giving ones
sins to God, and asking that His forgiveness would be
bestowed upon them. In return for ones faithful
devotion to Him, His grace allows for unconditional
love and forgiveness, making a person righteous in Him
once again. It is through faith, by grace that
forgiveness is attained
Justification & Faith By Grace:
Titus 3:16 states “All scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine”
yet on the surface of the writings of the authors
James and Paul there lays an obviously seeming
contradiction between the two authors writings. Paul
expresses statements in his epistle to the Romans that
“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by
faith without the deeds of the law”(Romans 3:28); and
in Galatians: “Knowing that a man is not justified by
the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ,
even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might
be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the
works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no
flesh be justified” (Galatians 2:16) Coming from the
opposite end of the spectrum James states “Ye see how
that by works a man is justified, and not by faith
only.” (James 2:24). In believing that God is
infallible, and scripture inspired by God, we must
therefore conclude that his word is infallible
-without error, without contradiction. Seeing that
there is a topical contradiction between the
statements of Paul and James, and knowing that there
are no contradictions in Gods word we must
reconciliate the two opposing views. In order to
harmonize the writings we should grasp the idea of who
the audiences were that James and Paul wrote their
epistles towards. Not only were James and Pauls
epistles directed to different audiences they were
directed in a different time period. James wrote to
the early church, while Paul wrote to a church with
little more precise questions, a church older then
that of James era. To add to the understanding of how
the authors complement each other we must recognize
that the two authors use the word “works” in different
context. In Romans, written by Paul, “works” means
dead works that can be done apart from faith. In James
“works” means that living works can be done only
through faith and that will attest to the existence of
faith. The authors use two projections of the word
“justified”; in Romans “justified” means “declared
righteous by God”. In James his definition is meant as
“shown to be righteous”. Hebrews 11 consoles the
contradictions by Paul and James. The Old Testament
patriarchs show that their deeds were done “by faith”;
through chapter 11 we see that grace plays an integral
part of faith. Not only do the writings of James and
Paul harmonize with each other, they complement each
other and strengthen the importance of works and
faith.