“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth (wanders), and one convert him (brings him back); Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”  James 5:19-20 (KJV, emphasis mine)

This passage is a great encouragement for those who have ever been, or at this moment are, involved in the process of restoring a brother or sister in Christ who is ‘wandering’.  Baptist theologian John Gill (1697-1771) offers us an excellent commentary of these two verses, dividing each verse into its inherent phrases:  

Jas 5:19  , Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth,…. Either from Christ, who is the truth, by departing from him, forsaking his ways, worship, and ordinances; or from the Scriptures of truth, not speaking according to them, and embracing notions that are contrary unto them; or from the Gospel, the word of truth, from the doctrine of faith, and from uprightness of life and conversation, after having made a profession of Christianity; for this is to be understood of one who has embraced the Christian religion, become a member of a church, and has walked in the path of truth and holiness, but now fallen into error, either in principle, or in practice, or both:

and one convert him; or turn him from his error, to truth again; for this designs not first conversion, or the turning of a sinner from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, and from the evil of a man’s heart and ways and from a dependence on his own righteousness, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to look to him for righteousness, life, and salvation, which is wholly and entirely God’s work, and not man’s; but conversion after backslidings; for a restoration from a fallen condition is sometimes so called, and which one brother may be an instrument of to another, by showing him, and setting before him, the evil of his errors, whether in principle or practice; and by instructing him in the doctrines of the Gospel, and in the duties of religion; and by reproving him in meekness, and according to the rules of Christ; which means are sometimes blessed for the gaining of such; and which may be called conversion: and also, this is sometimes done by praying for him; and which seems chiefly to be intended here; for from praying for the healing of the diseases of the body, the apostle proceeds to encourage the saints to pray for one another, for the healing of the diseases of the mind; and suggests, that if prayer avails to the one, it may to the other; and which is the most desirable, and the greatest blessing, as follows.

Jas 5:20  Let him know,…. And observe it for his encouragement:

that he which converteth a sinner from the error of his way; who is the instrument of restoring a backsliding professor, for such an one is meant by a sinner, and not a profane person; or of turning a poor bewildered believer, who is got out of the way of truth and holiness, into the right way again; or of convincing him of the error of his way, whether it be in point of doctrine, or of duty; and so of bringing him to the fold of Christ again, from whence he has strayed:

shall save a soul from death; not efficiently, but instrumentally, as in 1Ti_4:16 for otherwise Christ is the only Saviour; and he will be the means of saving “a soul”, which is of more worth than a world; and that from death, the second death which lies in the separation of the soul from God, and in a sense of his wrath; which apostasy threatens with, and leads unto, if grace prevents not. The Alexandrian copy and others, and the Vulgate Latin version read, “his soul”; but the common reading is more emphatic; the Syriac and Arabic versions render it, “his own soul”; and the Ethiopic version, “himself”, as respecting him that is the instrument of the conversion of the other, and not the person converted:

and shall hide a multitude of sins; either “his own”, as the same versions read; and then the sense is, he shall be blessed with a discovery and application of the forgiveness of all his sins, though they have been many and great; or rather the sins of the person converted. Sin is only covered by the blood and righteousness of Christ; and thereby it is so covered, as not to be seen by the eye of vindictive justice and in such manner as that the persons of those who are covered therewith are all fair, without fault and unreproveable in the sight of God; and though their sins are many, even a multitude, they are blotted out as a thick cloud, and are abundantly pardoned; yea, all their sins are covered, be they ever so many, for God forgives all trespasses, for Christ’s sake; and the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, and his righteousness justifies from all: and whoever is an instrument of bringing a backslider to a sense of the evil of his ways, and to true repentance for the same; as he, upon such repentance, has his iniquities caused to pass from him, or, in other words, to be covered, as from the sight of God, so from his own; he may be said to be the instrument of this also.

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If you made it through and understood Gill’s commentary, you have done well. I pray that God has richly  blessed you in the reading of it. If you aren’t familiar with John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, you can access it online here. You will find an introduction of each book of the Bible, as well as a verse by verse commentary, although difficult reading at times, rich in knowledge and sound doctrine.

“Sin isn’t only doing bad things, it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things. Sin is building your life and meaning on anything, even a very good thing, more than on God. Whatever we build our life on will drive us and enslave us. Sin is primarily idolatry. ” – Tim Keller

“All those who do not at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep this [First] Commandment, and practice real idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, obedience, patience, and chastity of all the saints combined. For the chief work is not present, without which all the others are nothing but mere sham, show and pretense, with nothing back of them… If we doubt or do not believe that God is gracious to us and is pleased with us, or if we presumptuously expect to please Him only through and after our works, then it is all pure deception, outwardly honoring God, but inwardly setting up self as a false [savior]…” – Martin Luther from “A Treaties on Good Works”

Because we are, each of us, the image of God, we will worship, in fact we must worship, someone or something, either our original, as we should, or, with the illusion that we are the original or our own ultimate point of reference, ourselves. If the latter, we will give ourselves over, with the full, still efficient resources of our imaging capacities, to some figment, some distorted image, focused on ourselves or on some aspect of the world, ultimately seen as an extension of ourselves. What Calvin observed long ago is no less true today: the human heart, our image-bearing and image-fashioning nature, is an idol factory. – Richard Gaffin from “Speech and the Image of God” in The Pattern of Sound Doctrine

“It is ill for an heir of heaven to be a great friend with the heirs of hell. It has a bad look when a courtier is too intimate with his king’s enemies. Even small inconsistencies are dangerous. Little thorns make great blisters, little moths destroy fine garments, and little frivolities and little rogueries will rob religion of a thousand joys.” – C.H. Spurgeon

“. . .for it is God who works IN you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. ” – Phil 2:13

Herein lies the difference between the behavior of the the People of God under the Old Testament “legal” system and the Covenant of grace for the life of a disciple of Christ. The God of all creation is at work IN each and every believer! Does that describe His omnipresence, or what?!

HOW God works IN us is a glorious display of His awesome power in our lives. When the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our lives, God bends our selfish natural will towards himself so that when before we believed we desired to please ourselves, while from the moment of belief in the Risen Lord, we have an inner compulsion to please Him.

And since mere desire to do a thing is insufficient to actually perform it, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to ‘get the job done’, whatever that might be!

What does that look like? In some ways it is different in the life of every believer. We end up serving God in different ‘life’ circumstances, and in different roles in the Body of Christ. One thing is, or should be the same in the life of every believer. We all should be growing in grace and truth, becoming more like Christ inwardly and outwardly, as the ‘old’ is stripped away and cast aside, while the ‘new’ becomes more and more apparent inwardly and outwardly.

Inwardly, the assurance of our salvation becomes stronger and stronger in the face of the enemy who would have us doubt what God has done – saved us and freed us from the bondage of sin. Outwardly, as the inner changes in our ‘will’ result in changes in our ‘doing’, those who observe our lives take notice, both believers and those who have not yet trusted Christ for their salvation.

What this means is that if I hold on to the ‘garbage’ in my life, I am fighting against God!

How often do you take out the household garbage, especially the sort in the kitchen that usually holds a lot of stuff that stinks? As for me, for the non-stinky stuff like old papers in the downstairs office, the trip to “Big Blue” occurs when the trash can is full. For kitchen garbage, it can be when 1) it’s full or 2) when it gets too smelly. For some of us, the second instance is directly proportional to the keenness of our olfactory nerves. When it begins to stink it’s time to take it to “Big Blue” (or whatever color your waste management folks use). Failure to remove stinky stuff in the garbage can result in a smelly kitchen. It can even get so bad; folks that come knocking smell it as soon as you open the front door.

I’ve discovered, sometimes painfully, that sin in my life is just like the garbage in my house. I tend not to pay attention to it until it the trash can is full or it begins to stink. The thing is, if the sin in my life doesn’t stink to me, it stinks to God. The difference between my view of sin and God’s can be very great, especially when we even have ‘church folks’ telling us that God “loves us with our sin‘ and “God loves you just the way you are”! It’s true that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8), but the Father sent His own Son to the Cross because somebody had to die for our sin, not so we could ignore the smell!

If we name the name of Christ, we need to smell the stink of sin as keenly as God does, no matter what others might tell us, even if they are Christian friends, or standing behind the pulpit. And even if we don’t smell it, if we just know that it’s garbage, we need to take it to the curb (and not just when the trash can’s full) – we need to repent before God, ask for forgiveness from whomever we have sinned against, and trust God with the consequences, whatever they might look like.

I know that sometimes it’s easier said than done. When this old soldier senses a need for ‘divine’ encouragement he reads Revelation 5 to hear the voice of the angel thundering across the heavens:

“Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?”,

…then listening to the deafening silence, followed by the vision of the Lamb that had been slain, standing between the throne and the four living creatures, and among the twenty-four elders, who were singing a new song:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
      and to open its seals,
   because you were slain,
      and with your blood you purchased men for God
      from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

I seems to be rather difficult to hang on to whatever sin is troubling me when I envision my Savior on the Tree, drops of blood streaming to the ground, and seeing a solitary drop upon which is written my name.

He purchased me with the currency of His own blood. If you are reading this and are a believer, or if you are reading this truly seeking God, there is a drop of blood with your name on it.

Hang on to your sin now……I challenge you.

It is an interesting concept, and I don’t intend to offer my personal opinion of the matter. However, in recent discussions in which I have participated the term ‘separated brethren’ has surfaced. There are two definitions offered for the term:

1. The separation/divisions between members of the universal body of Christ.
2. Believers separated from the only true church established by Christ, the Roman Catholic Church.

The first definition is one that ideally should be shared by all believers everywhere, but sadly is not, because of the sin that still resides in human nature and revolves around the unity of the Spirit. The second is different, in that it revolves around the idea of one specific religious organization being the possessor of genuine truth in all matters religious/spiritual and others having some truth, but residing outside the ‘fold’.

The question of Rome’s official position (1 or 2), in the spirit of ecumenism, has been a subject of debate. There is a Christianity Today article here that discusses exactly that, with links to the sources of quotations in the main article. It is worth an objective read.

The greater issue at hand concerning divisions and separations between organizations in the Body of Christ can be summarized in one question:

“What is the Gospel that is preached?”

The answer to that question might answer the question in the title of this blog post, and even goes to ‘Catholics and Catholics Together?’, and ‘Protestants and Protestants Together? There are separations and divisions even within both branches of the Faith.

One thing this old guy knows – there’s coming a day when all believers everywhere will enjoy complete unity of Spirit in the bond of peace!

Dear brethren and sisters, never give up the grand old truths of the gospel. Let no excitement, even though it be the whirlwind of a revival, ever sweep you off your feet concerning the great doctrines of the cross. If God does not save men by truth he certainly will not save them by lies, and if the old gospel is not competent to work a revival, then we will do without the revival; we will keep to the old truth, anyhow, come what may! Our flag is nailed to the mast.

– Charles Spurgeon

Found at Pyromaniacs.

GOD saves sinners.

Salvation is the work of God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in completely unity in this great work. The Father has given to the Son a group of people who WILL come to the Son. The Son died to reconcile those the Father has Given Him and will not lose a single one. The Holy Spirit draws to Christ those the Father gives the Son; those of whom the Son will not lose a single one. Read John 6. It’s all contained in a single chapter of the Bible.

God SAVES sinners.

Salvation is the work God, from beginning to end. The salvation of sinners is the Father’s plan, Christ died and suffered their just punishment, and the Holy Spirit moves upon the hearts of sinners to draw them to the Cross.

God saves SINNERS.

Those whom God saves are born sinners, dead in their trespasses in sin, without a hope of salvation unless God begins a work in their hearts. Read Romans, chapter 3 and Ephesians, Chapter 2.

I have not included the text of the above passages of scripture so that you might be encouraged to read them and discover for yourself the truths therein, especially John, chapter 6 in which the unity of the Godhead in the salvation of those the ‘Father gives the Son’. That group is central to the message, as well as begs the question: WHO are those that the Father gives the Son?