In his discussion about our faith, James gives another example (James 2:25, 26) from the Old Testament. Rahab and her story is recorded in Joshua 2. Rahab was not a descendent of Abraham, but she had faith in the same God as Abraham. She is a perfect example of having a faith that is not dead.
When a person has a faith that is dead, James says it is “without works.” James uses Rahab to illustrate how a person’s faith must be “alive;” it must be filled with works, if they are going to be “justified.”
A harlot would not be considered a religious person. However, Rahab had faith in God. She had seen and heard what God did to the nations around Jericho. When she heard God was going to destroy her city, she believed what she heard and took action to escape being destroyed with the rest of the people in the city.
Rahab’s faith was based upon several things. She had heard God dried “up the waters of the Red Sea.” She had heard God “utterly destroyed” the “two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan” (Joshua 2:10). These reports convinced her that God would destroy Jericho.
She made a deal with the two Hebrew spies sent to Jericho by Joshua (2:12-13). Notice the conditions the spies put upon Rahab if she was going to be saved from the destruction (Joshua 2:14; also 2:17-20). Later, in the book of Joshua, we read that Rahab did exactly as instructed. She and her family were saved from the destruction of Jericho (Joshua 6:22-25).
Within this story there seems to be a pattern of avoiding having a faith that is dead. It begins by hearing about what God has done to show His power. The second step is to evaluate this information and make a decision that one will put their trust in this information. The third step is to do the things God has said for a person to do regarding forgiveness, how they are to worship God, and how they are to live their daily lives. Without doing all of these steps, James would conclude a person has a dead faith. Their faith is not like that of Rahab.
Rahab is only one of many examples in the Old Testament that tell of people who showed their faith in God. She and others were people who were “working” to show their faith was alive and not dead.
If people today are going to be justified, then they must show their faith like Rahab did. A person’s faith is seen by the “works” they do as they are living God’s way.
Carlton G. McPeak (carlton_mc@msn.com) is an evangelist working in the Florida Gateway region.
Scriptural quotations from the NASB.