30 June 2013
Steve Grant
Series on The Epistle of James
James 5:19-20

THE TRUE MEASURE OF FAITH

The entire book of James is a warning to us to measure our faith against what God considers the standard. It’s also a warning to people who are Christians in name only. This teaching is for them to evaluate whether they have actually been born again. What’s more, this is consistent with Jesus’ own teaching in His Sermon on the Mount.

It’s quite clear that verse 20 refers to people who are unsaved because it speaks of them being be rescued from death. This has refer to an unsaved person because those who are saved are never in danger of death. Furthermore, the Bible always refers to unsaved people as ‘sinners’ because that is their nature. Saved people sin as well; however they have been given a new nature.

As James wraps up his letter, it’s fitting that he ends on the issue of salvation and the importance of evaluating one’s spiritual state before God. It’s a message that applies to the saved and unsaved alike; after all, this is a matter with eternal consequences. No person can afford to be ignorant of it.