No one who attempts to justify themselves under the Law will be saved by works alone ......because you have already fallen from grace, both historically (God allowed Israel to be destroyed with its people scattered over the earth in the late 1st century) and Spiritually, as the Old Law has served its purpose and has been fulfilled. God has fulfilled all the promises made to father Abraham in consideration of his descendants becoming a great nation and the promise of Land.
Faith and Works? One is dead without the other.......they do not contradict they compliment, just as James detailed. Faith and Works are required and must exist symbiotically. (James 2:17), "Even so faith without works is dead being by itself (under the Old Law it was works alone that offered salvation...i.,e the literal requirement to act in following the Law to the letter). James just declared the obvious, faith must be accompanied by works in order to be a living faith.
Even clearer (James 2:20) declares that faith without works is dead. Besides James, we find John (1 John) teaching the truth..........if we claim to be serving righteousness in fellowship with the Lord but do not practice your faith by acting in truth you are a liar. It takes truth, acting in truth.....a work, such as demonstrating your faith by the work of water baptism. Its takes faith to know that water baptism is a symbolic act of being buried with the Lord and arising again as a new born......free from sin.
If you have no faith in this required work, you can be baptized until you know the name of every fish in the water.........but the work of baptism becomes useless without the faith that act represents as explained by both Paul who said, WORK OUR YOUR SALVATION WITH FEAR (Phil 2: 12) as he declared baptism a work of faith (Col. 2:11-12) and Peter who delcared that the work of water baptism is what saves us from the world, just as water saved Noah and his family ( 1 Peter 3:21) We are baptized in water because our living faith requires it as a symbolic act in believing in the sacrifice of our Lord in taking the sins of the world upon Himself....who then became the first born man to literally defeat death, which is a curse of mankind that has existed since Adam, because Adam did not believe God when He declared that you will surely die if you eat of the tree of knowledge....Adam had no faith in God's law and believed the father of lies (Satan).......who told Adam that man can become gods. SOUND FAMILIAR?
