True believers
must therefore become "doers of the word and not
hearers only" (vs. 22), for God's word requires an active response
("lay aside all filthiness"), not merely quiescent mental recognition
("the devils also believe, and tremble," 2:19). The faith which God
demands is in fact the kind of faith which has been "perfected" (eteleiothe,
"brought to completion") as works (vs. 22); otherwise, it
receives no justification whatever:
Was not Abraham our father
justified by works? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works
was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham
believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness...Ye see then how
that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only (2:21-25). (Eugene
Seaich, Ancient Texts and Mormonism, 6 vols. [3d ed.; Salt Lake City,
Ronald W. Gibson, 2014], 4:36)
This explains Joseph Smith's
otherwise puzzling emendation of Rom. 4:16: "Justified by faith and works,"
which stands in apparent contradiction to his version of Rom. 3:28:
"Justified by faith alone, without the works of the law" . . .
Compare also Rom. 2:13: "The doers of the law shall be
justified." What is actually meant here is that one is saved by the kind
of faith which expresses itself as works. (Ibid., 4:36 n. 92)
The following comes from New Testament Manuscript 2, Folio 4, page 123:
