For Bible Students: Be Cautious Doing Word Studies - Part 2

Here's another short blog to help those of us who study the Bible, to do it with a level of precision that we are not in danger of being ashamed.  Previously I cautioned about doing "word studies".  In that Blog I mentioned that we need to confirm the meaning of word with how it is used contextually.  We can't always rely on the etymological origins.

Along the same line, I want to caution you to be careful in applying the same meaning for a word, throughout the Bible.  Stated otherwise, the same word can be used differently in different passages. I ran into an example of that recently in 1 Corinthians 7.  Note:

“If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.” (1 Corinthians 7:13–14, ESV)

In the ESV the word translated "holy" is the Greek word hagiazo [pronounced: hag·ee·ad·zo].   The KJV translates the word "sanctified".  It is often understood as "separated unto God" or "pure".  We know that marriage to a Christian or birth in a Christian family does not make someone pure before God. The word is used in a different sense here.

In Paul's letter to Rome we read, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1, ESV).  But when James wrote his epistle he said, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24, ESV).   That word justified, although the same word, is used in two different ways.  There is a justification [a declaration of righteousness] by faith alone whereby God imputes the perfection of His Son upon believing sinners, as free grace.   But there is a declaration of validity that confirms that a person, indeed is saved or justified. Or stated better:

Faith without works cannot save; it takes faith that proves itself in the deeds it produces. James is not speaking of deeds performed to earn merit before God (as Paul uses the term in Rom 3:20). Genuine faith is a concomitant of regeneration and therefore affects the believer's behavior. Faith that does not issue in regenerate actions is superficial and spurious.[1]

This is not bizarre (even if you don't know Greek).  The English language is full of such anomalies.  If I say that my wife is not home, but at a shower, you know that I don't mean she is bathing elsewhere.  She is perhaps at a baby shower or a wedding shower.  Likewise you will err if you think the same word in the Bible always means the same things.  Once again context umpires the call.

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[1] Expositor's Bible Commentary, The, Pradis CD-ROM:James/Exposition of James/V. The Relation of Faith and Action (2:14-26), Book Version: 4.0.2