Hello Readers, and welcome-or welcome back-to Renaissance Woman!

This week, I am going to share something private with all of you: I enjoyed the movie “Waterworld.”  I used to own a copy of it on DVD.  I have seen it more than once.  If you have not had the opportunity to enjoy this cinematic masterpiece (it’s not at all), allow me a moment to describe the plot and why it’s relevant to this continuation of my study on righteousness: specifically righteous deeds or works as described in scripture.

“Waterworld” is placed in the future where the polar icecaps have completely melted and the world is covered in water.  Remaining humanity lives in floating cities but there is a rumor that Dry Land still exists.  There is a fabled map supposed to reveal Dry Land’s location.  There is (of course) a villain who wishes to possess Dry Land for himself and is thus searching for said map.  He acquires it but cannot read it and here is why this movie is relevant to this week’s post:  the villain has to pacify his people who know he has acquired the map.  He cannot possibly tell them he can’t read it so the villain (brilliantly played by the late Dennis Hopper) gives this rousing speech and shows his people he does indeed have the map.  The people are whipped to such a frenzy they begin rowing their floating home to…where?

One of the villain’s lieutenants asks him that exact question and the villain answers he doesn’t have a clue.  Then he says something I’ve been thinking on for weeks now.  “But don’t worry”, he says, “they’ll row for a month before they figure out I’m faking it.”  Such is the state of many a Christian life.  It is rare that I hear anyone in Christian leadership saying the whole reason for the Incarnation was restoration to a vital relationship with the Father.  I never hear leaders declaring the Christ life is being formed within you by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit and that it is an established truth that the life we now live we live by the faith of Jesus Christ.  Instead, what I hear is; say the Sinner’s Prayer, believe in Jesus, pray every day, read your bible every day, don’t forget to tithe, and you’ll get to go to heaven when you die.  If you don’t, especially if you don’t believe in the correct authentic Jesus, then a fiery hell, or eternal death, or eternal torture is your fate-depending on which theological branch you are perching on. 

The “heaven” you must die to achieve is actually rather vague.  You will be where Jesus is and there are many mansions and…we don’t really know what heaven is like.  Hell is much more fleshed out as a concept even though the various denominations don’t agree on this either.  Suffice to say it’s a bad place and you do NOT want to go there.  The various denominations don’t agree on how to avoid going to Hell but they do all seem to agree that your best bet is to make sure you’ve declared your belief in Jesus and then stay busy.  Make sure all of your works are something you are doing FOR and TO Jesus and do as many of them as you can because without faith it is impossible to please God and faith without works is dead (Hebrews 11:6, James 2:26).

This is the answer for the problems of your day to day life as well.  Read your Bible, pray, and stay busy being a good Christian and all of the problems of your day to day life should sort themselves out.  If they do not, it might be because you doubted when you prayed which makes you double minded and such a person cannot expect to receive anything from God. And, maybe you prayed a prayer of faith but didn’t energize your faith with enough works so your prayer never really got off the ground.  But then, even if you are the busiest Christian ever to have walked the earth with the longest resume of good works, there is no real guarantee you have safe passage to heaven because Jesus is going to come back, look at your works, see they weren’t done properly, and then He will utter words that bring despair: “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” 

Perhaps the hope is we will all be so busy working for Jesus, we won’t realize we are not being offered life.

I find it a tragic irony that the book of James, especially chapters one and two, are used to back up the “good news” I’ve just described.  However, this lifestyle is so opposite to the one described by Paul in his Epistles that it is taught that James and Paul contradict each other. In the course of my studies, I have found no such contradiction.

When James is speaking of not doubting and not being double minded,  I have seen a practical application of what Paul is saying when he says to let the same mind that was in Christ Jesus be in us and that we do indeed have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5, 1 Corinthians 2:16).  I have also read James 1:1-8 with Paul’s words “to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6) in mind.  I have always thought James’ warning not to doubt was a plea to believe what he wrote in verse 5: that we can ask wisdom of God and trust that He we will receive it because He is a God who gives liberally and without reproach.  This passage is not a hammer being dropped on the poor believer who prays in genuine faith but, when time stretches on without seeing the prayer answered and a bit of doubt creeps in, that’s it!  You’ve doubted now, proving you are still unstable and now God cannot answer your prayer.  You have been tested and found wanting.

Incidentally, the King James Version doesn’t have the word “doubt” in this passage at all.  The English word chosen to translate the Greek here is “waver” and I prefer it to “doubt” in every respect.  I have always thought James was in complete agreement with Paul and his admonition to be not one who wavereth could be put in other words: be not carnal but spiritual minded!

I also find it tragic that Chapter Two of James’ Epistle is said to contradict Paul.  Rather, I have always found it contradicted the idea of the necessity of a busy Christian life and was perfectly in line with Paul’s theology.  As I began to research this idea of contradiction, I looked through the commentaries on my shelf and found none upholding contradiction.  For example, the Abingdon Commentary says, “the theology of James is not as fully developed as that of Paul but there is no real contradiction between them” (page 936). Ellicott’s Commentary on verses 14-26 says, “Many have seen James and Paul at variance here; but the truth is that they regarded the same object with a different motive, and aimed at a dissimilar result-just as in medicine, opposite treatments are required by various sicknesses and in the several stages of disease” (Page 1152).

I agree.  Rather than see a contradiction, I have seen James to be perfectly in line with Paul.  I have read James and seen that he was speaking against a faith of mere assent: “you believe God is one?  So do the demons believe, and tremble!” (Ja. 2:19).  He was not proposing doing works according to the Mosaic Law.  James points out how transgressing one part of the law meant we were guilty of the whole (10) and he mentions the “law of liberty” in verse 12.  This is perfectly in line with Paul’s law of the spirit of life which has set us free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).  I have read James’ Epistle thinking he meant the works that we Christians do we do because the faith and life of Christ are in us, the same way the spirit (or breath) is in the body.

This post is becoming rather long so this is a subject I plan to return to next week.  I will close with two thoughts.  “Without Me, you can do nothing,” Jesus says in John’s Gospel.  “I am the Alpha and Omega”, He says in John’s Revelation.  In his commentary on Revelation 1:8, Francois du Toit writes, “The union of Alpha and Omega in Greek makes the verb αω, I breathe” (The Mirror, Page 495). 

This is beautiful and it brings me to peace and rest.  Jesus is our life, our very breath.  Apart from Him, we can do nothing.  What then?  Is this a free pass to laziness?  Of course not.  But, instead of doing works TO prove we believe in and love Jesus, our works flow OUT OF His life in us.  Waiting on God, doing only what we see The Father doing, saying only the words He has given us to say, is very difficult.  One reason is because God is unpredictable and not knowing HOW He is going to bring about His will in a situation can be difficult.  We see what we think is the best solution and refusing to act to ensure our desired solution is open warfare with our flesh.  Another reason waiting is so difficult is there is a vast list of dos and don’ts in the Bible and so, as long as we align our works with God’s law, our works ought to be acceptable.  The law never made anyone righteous (See Romans 3:20).  Our works must align with His life.  We must be sensitive to the moving of His Spirit.  Anything else is fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

May this be our prayer in the upcoming week: that our ears are opened to hear the Voice of our Shepherd, that our eyes are opened to see what the Father is doing, and may we be strengthened to BE STILL until we are certain we are moving in the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Unless noted otherwise, all Scriptures are quoted from The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1982

References

The New Testament in Four Versions, Christianity Today, Inc. Washington, D.C., 1965

Du Toit, Francois, Mirror Study Bible: The Romance of the Ages, Eighth Edition, Mirror Word Publishing, 2012, 2018

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, Edwin Lewis, and David G. Downey, The Abingdon Bible Commentary, The Abingdon Press, Inc., Nashville•New York, 1929

Ellicott, Charles John, Ellicott’s Bible Commentary In One Volume, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971