I have read with pleasure and much profit for two years now, the Present Truth, especially the "Editor's Private Corner." I have a small Bible class every Tuesday in connection with a mission, and a week ago we were reading the second chapter of James. The 25th verse seemed rather difficult to some:
"Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way."
Could you explain how Rahab was justified in telling an untruth in order to protect the spies, as recorded in Joshua 2:4? We should be thankful for light on this subject.
A closer study of the text, and of the transaction to which it refers, and some knowledge of the condition of the people concerned, will clear away the difficulty. Note that the text does not say that Rahab was justified in telling an untruth. It says that she was justified by works. This may seem like a distinction without any difference, inasmuch as that which she did involved the telling of a lie; but there is a difference, nevertheless.
The topic under consideration in the 2nd of James is, "Faith and Works." The Apostle is not depreciating faith, as some have supposed; but is showing the difference between real and pretended faith. Real faith works; pretended faith does nothing. It is by works that faith is shown to be perfect. The harlot Rahab had real faith, and she showed it by her action. Now men are justified by faith, and therefore she is considered to be justified by the works which demonstrated her faith.
It should be borne in mind that the harlot Rahab was a heathen. She had all her life lived in the midst of the very blackest heathenism. Now it is a well-known fact that among the heathen nations lying is not considered a sin.
Indeed, among some ancient people lying was cultivated as a fine art, the crime consisting only in being found out. Some of the wisest philosophers taught that it was virtuous to lie, if one's ends could be furthered by that means. Consequently, to the harlot Rahab, an uninstructed heathen, her lie was by no means incongruous with her faith in the God of Israel. She believed that God was leading Israel, and that He would destroy the Canaanites, and that only in Him was there salvation. She showed her faith in the only way that she knew, and it was accepted. It was perfect faith, but uninstructed. So far as her state of knowledge was concerned, it was the same to her as though she had shown her faith by the purest works.
The Apostle James confines himself closely to his topic, not thinking it necessary to distract the minds of the readers from the great point before him, by turning aside to note the obvious truth that it is wrong to lie. He seized upon the instance of Rahab and the spies to illustrate the truth, and it was not necessary to deliver a homily on the ethics of the transaction.
The great lesson to be taught by the case of Rahab is that God accepts singleness of purpose, even though the person may be very ignorant and degraded. Rahab's faith saved her life, and brought her among the people of Israel, where she could receive perfect instruction in the law of God. Thus the faith of even the most ignorant and sinful heathen brings the soul into contact with God, into God's kingdom, where it can be better instructed.
God does not measure people by the amount of their knowledge, but by their humble submission. As soon as a man is purged from the sin of rebellion, he can be admitted into heaven. The thief, an evil doer all his life, who surrendered himself wholly to the Lord while being executed, was a fit subject for His heavenly kingdom; because, being admitted to it, he would make not the slightest opposition to its laws, but would ever live in perfect harmony with them. The most degraded man in the street who gets a glimpse of God, and cries out with his whole flesh and soul for more, can be taken to heaven direct from the gutter; while the highly instructed, cultured man, making a great profession, but still bent on having his own way, would be shut out. Thus it was that Christ said to the self-righteous Pharisees: "The publicans and the harlots enter the kingdom of God before you." (Matthew 21:31)
This is not, by any means, intended as a defense of immorality, but to show that God looks upon the heart, upon the motive, and not upon the outward show as man judges.
The church, His kingdom on earth, is not a collection of perfect people, a society out of which everybody is to be shut who cannot give a certificate of an absolutely perfect character, but a company of people who are striving for perfection, and have come to Christ to learn of Him.--Present Truth, June 25, 1903.