Was Abraham Justified by Faith or Works?

I recently had to read a few passages for class in light of Ephesians 2:8-9 and post this message in the class discussion board. The passages and the issue are described below. This is an exciting study to dig into and ponder over. I thought might benefit from and enjoy taking a look at it...

In my morning quiet time, I've been studying through John Macarthur's commentaries on Romans and when I found this issue and compared it with James, I ran into a bit of a pickle. I was reading Romans 4:1-5. Verses 2-3 stood out to me particularly, "If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about?but not before God. What does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.'"

Here we have Paul saying Abraham was specifically justified by faith and James seeming to say the same Abraham was justified by works in James 2:21, 24. I've always heard James 2 taught to convey the message from (as our materials say) that James was simply placing a different emphasis on salvation. He was saying that true faith produces works in the life of a believer. While I must default to this position due to my presupposition that the Bible never contradicts itself and God's Word is always true, I have always wondered... are we departing from the Literal approach to interpretation to harmonize these two passages? If anyone can help me dig into this, I would appreciate it.

In my search for clarification on this a while back, I found Matthew Henry's commentary on James 2. In it he adds a valuable perspective that affirms what I've been taught with a logical conclusion. He says, "The justification of which Paul speaks is different from that spoken of by James; the one speaks of our persons being justified before God, the other speaks of our faith being justified before men: 'Show me thy faith by thy works,' says James, 'let thy faith be justified in the eyes of those that behold thee by thy works;' but Paul speaks of justification in the sight of God, who justifies those only that believe in Jesus, and purely on account of the redemption that is in him. Thus we see that our persons are justified before God by faith, but our faith is justified before men by works."

The whole commentary can be found at... http://blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Jam/Jam002.htmlhttp://blueletterbible.org/Comm/mhc/Jam/Jam002.html


In other news, I found out my car's fuel pump went out and will cost $500 to fix. Oh well.. God's still in control, right? I also finished the big paper I had to write for class. It was where I chose a passage to interpret and then had to critique it from an Allegorical, Literal, and Historical perspective. While the assignment was helpful in solidifying my understanding of these 3 schools of methodology. it was a grueling grind of an experience to squeeze out 6 pages to do this. I really should have chosen a better fuller passage that would give room to write with ease from each perspective. My Midterm is at the end of this week so please pray that I can diligently read and complete all the assignments (and there are MANY) early enough to have time to actually study for the midterm. Those prayers are GREATLY appreciated.

I heard recently a quote from Charles Spurgeon, "Don't let your fire go out while you're picking up sticks." I was reminded that I still need to continue seeking the lost for Jesus to save them even while I'm studying in Bible college and I'm looking forward to spending time out witnessing tonight for that very reason! Well... back to reading!