Quote Originally Posted by Al Swearengen View Post
What if the thief would have been able to come down off the cross? Do you think maybe he would have gladly obeyed with his new chance at life?

Your analogy is flawed and severely biased. The pattern is always grace through faith, works then follow...faith without works is dead.

Any law...whether it come from man or Yah cannot save a person...NADA, ZIP, ZILCH....it can ONLY point out sin and direct you into the Way of living right...at least Yah's law (not man's)!

Had the man in your second scenario kept the entire law flawlessly his entire life...and did no sin...he could have made it. Not one "man" has done this...

But One did in our stead...Yeshua, our Salvation!
The bottom line is that faith in Jesus Christ vastly trumps the mere keeping of the 613 Torah laws.

Yes ... "faith without works is dead."

We need to be mindful of the Two Great Commandments of Jesus Christ: Love God with all of your heart, mind, and soul and love thy neighbor as thyself.

But let's take a closer look at James and the "works" he's talking about:

James 2:14-17, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone."

He's not at all talking about keeping the Mosaic law. He's talking about helping our neighbors, the sick, the elderly, the young, the needy, the destitute, etc.