help in a prior article lmvec westminster ac uk william hargreaves writes now i am of the opinion that you a saved through faith alone not what you do as taught in romans but how can i square up in my mind the teachings of james in conjunction with the lukewarm christian being spat out if you agree that good works have a role somewhere you will generally find yourself in one of two camps faith works salvation or faith salvation works either works are required for salvation or faith will inevitably result in good works i am also of the opinion that salvation is by faith alone based on ephesians and romans i also conclude that james when read in context is teaching bullet above when james speaks of justification i would claim that he is not speaking of god declaring the believing sinner innocent in his sight paul s use of the word instead he is speaking of the sinner s profession of faith being justified or proven by the display of good works also according to james the abscence of such works is evidence for a dead or useless faith which fails to save james is not a problem for the doctrine of salvation by faith if it is teaching works would have their place not as merit toward salvation but as evidence of true faith regards dave weaver he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to weaver chdasic sps mot com gain what he cannot lose jim elliot there are of course a number of other possibilities the reformers believed salvation faith works some of us suspect that the three things are tied up together in such a way that no diagram of this form can do it justice clh
