The supreme purpose of every true Christian church, the chief duty of every Christian minister, the main responsibility of every Christian layman, is to present to all who may be reached, in the clearest and most forceful way, the basic facts of the gospel of Christ and to urge all who hear to make the definite, personal response to these facts which God requires. To this, the supreme task, every other duty and activity of the church must be secondary and subsidiary.

Let me now state once again these basic facts of the gospel and the response which each person is required to make.

Christ was delivered by God the Father to the punishment of death on account of our sins.
Christ was buried.
God raised Him from the dead on the third day.
Righteousness is received from God through believing these facts.

In order to receive salvation, each individual soul must make a direct, personal response to Christ. This response can be described in any of the following ways: calling upon the name of Christ as Lord; coming to Christ; receiving Christ; drinking of the water of life which Christ alone can give.

To every person who has read this far I would ask this question: Have you believed these facts? Have you made this definite, personal response? If not, I urge you to do it now. Pray with me, just as Mrs. H. prayed there with me in that hospital room. Say these words:

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If salvation is not by works but is solely by faith, we may naturally ask, What part, then, do works play in the life of the Christian believer? The clearest answer to this in the New Testament is given by James.

“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?… For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (2:14; 26)

In this passage James gives several examples to illustrate the connection between faith and works. However, it is in the last verse, verse 26, that James sums up his teaching about the connection between faith and works by the example of the relationship between the body and the spirit. He says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

This reference to the spirit, in connection with faith, provides the key to understanding how faith operates in the life of the believer.

In week 10 on “The Nature of Faith” we referred to the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:13.

“But since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak.”

Here Paul states that true, scriptural faith is something spiritual – it is the spirit of faith. Through this we are able to understand James’s example of the body and the spirit.

In the natural order, so long as a man is alive, his spirit dwells within his body. Every action of the man’s body is an expression of his spirit within hi

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