Judges 20. The second appendix: The Benjamite War; Complete commitment to God and keeping faith alive.

Title: Judges 20. The second appendix: The Benjamite War; Complete commitment to God and keeping faith alive.

 

God calls us to complete dependence upon Him, which means trusting Him when we are in difficulty, which almost everyone can see, but it also means that we give all of ourselves over to His ways and His commands, which almost everyone tries to avoid.

 

The Christian in trouble will find it easy to cry out to God for help, and he should - every time. But will he cry out for God's help in humbling himself, removing all of his pride, so that he may give all of himself in the service of others. This is why the love for God is followed by the next greatest commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. We cannot confidently say that we serve God with all of ourselves if we do not do the same to the body of Christ. As our Lord clarified: "If you have done it to them, you've done it to Me."

 

ROM 13:8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

 

ROM 13:9 For this, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

 

ROM 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.

 

Christ fulfilled the Law with His sacrifice. We have fulfilled the Law through our union with Him. And, we are to love as He loved, which love fulfilled the Law.

 

ROM 15:1 Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves.

 

ROM 15:2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.

 

ROM 15:3 For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, "The reproaches of those who reproached Thee fell upon Me."

 

EPH 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

 

EPH 5:2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

 

1CO 10:23 All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.

 

1CO 10:24 Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor.

 

GAL 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

 

GAL 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

 

GAL 5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, take care lest you be consumed by one another.

 

James instructs the Jewish believers in Jerusalem not to favor the rich over the poor.

 

JAM 2:8 If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law, according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well.

 

This is important to us because faith in Christ and in the plan of God needs to be kept alive in the believer. This is one of the reasons that God challenges us all the time.

 

Faith that has gone unused will atrophy and die out. The believer will not lose his salvation, but he will lose his vigor and diligence to live the plan of God.

 

This is an all too common process, and it is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. Our struggle to remain in the plan of God day after day is keeping our faith vigorous. Slowly, a believer can give up the fight. Paul stated this himself. He disciplined his own body and made it is slave, lest after he had preached to others, that he might become untestable. It is clear that in the apostles mind, falling away from the discipline of the faith and the plan of God was always a possibility. It starts small and slow until soon enough the believer has lost all interest in the plan of God and the word of God. We must strive with God and keep our faith alive.

 

JAM 1:21 Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.

 

JAM 1:22 But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

 

"save your souls (psuche)" - save your lives.

 

MAT 10:39

"He who has found his life (psuche) shall lose it, and he who has lost his life (psuche) for My sake shall find it."

 

When a Christian ceases to act on his faith, it atrophies and dies. We use death in the way that Paul and James uses it. The faith in Christ that led to salvation has not continued to believe in the word of God and therefore follow, obey, and act upon the word of God. Some would say that such a person never believed, but the Gospel of Christ says otherwise. A believer can let his faith become a motionless thing, without life, without passion, without spirit. And the good news is that such a believer will feel the disciplining hand of God, and that if he awakens from his stupor, related to sleep or drunkenness in the Bible, then under the grace of God he can instantly find life in himself and in his faith again.

 

James is writing to believers about life and death. Paul did the same in Rom 8.

 

ROM 8:13

for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die

 

James states again at the closing of his book.

 

JAM 5:19 My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth, and one turns him back,

 

JAM 5:20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death, and will cover a multitude of sins.

 

In the controversial JAM 2:14, James returns to the thought of saving one's life fROM 1:21.

 

JAM 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?

 

We have grown up in a world that has for many centuries read the word "save" in the Bible and only interpret it as salvation from the Lake of Fire. No Greek reader in the first century would do this. To them, sozo (the Greek verb) appeared in many contexts.

 

Does faith in Christ save a believer from the deadly effects of sin? No.

 

JAM 2:15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,

 

JAM 2:16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

 

Believing in Christ and then assuming that you will be shielded from the effects of sin for the rest of your life is as good as giving a kind word to a starving man.

 

Something must be done. In order to deliver ourselves from a dead faith and a life under the control of the sin nature, we must learn and learn the word of God and we must do and do the word of God.

 

MAT 7:24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.

 

MAT 7:25 "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.

 

JAM 2:14 What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him [save his life]?

 

JAM 2:15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,

 

JAM 2:16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

 

JAM 2:17 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

 

"faith … is dead" - it's not working, it has lost its spirit.

 

It is odd that James would use death to modify faith. First off, if it's dead, it must have been alive. For every believer faith leaped into life the moment they believed on Christ as their Savior. But in the context of his whole epistle, it works quite well. It is a faith that is not working.

 

He doesn't call it a dead faith. There is no such thing. Faith is faith. Faith believes in facts, that's all it does. It either is or it isn't. He states that faith has become lifeless. Can a faith that has gone dead save a person from the death that comes from a life of sin? The question answers itself.