James 2:22

"You see that faith was working with his works, and as. result of the works, faith was perfected;" "faith was working with his works" -"It was easy to see, in this historic incident, that Abraham's faith wrought (exercised itself) with his works" (Woods p. 145). The phrase "working with", means to cooperate with and the tense is imperfect. Hence, faith and the results of an active faith kept cooperating with each other. Abraham's convictions and his actions were operating in perfect harmony. Note: Abraham didn't journey to the land of Moriah and proceed to offer up Isaac out of anger, bitterness, resentment, self-pity or fear. Abraham was doing what God commanded from the motive of faith!

There is. tremendous lesson here! There are many people who do what God commands, but the motive behind their obedience isn't faith. Some even try to argue that as long as you do the right thing---motivation doesn't matter. Paul and James both disagree with that point of view (1 Corinthians 13:1)."as. result of the works" -Or couldn't we just as well say, "as. result of such obedience, as. result of obeying what God has said"?"faith was perfected" -"to bring to an end by completing or perfecting, of bringing to completeness" (Vine p. 174). Which means that there can be such. thing as an imperfect faith. And James has already described an imperfect faith,. faith that lacks obedience to the Divine will (James 2:14). "Neither works nor faith operating alone can justify" (Woods p. 145). The right act-was to obey what God commanded, the right motive, was to do it because God can be trusted.