Matthew Poole and continuators on James 2:25

25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works , when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

This Instance of Rahab is joyned to that of Abraham, either to shew, that none of any Condition, Degree, or Nation, was ever numbred among true Believers; without good Works, or else to prove, that Faith, wherever it is sincere and genuine, is likewise operative, and fruitful, not only in older Disciples and stronger, such as Abraham was, but even proportionably in those that are weaker, and but newly converted to the Faith, which was Rahab's case.

Really and properly so, Iosh. 2.1. Heb. 11.31. tho possibly she might keep an Inn, and that might occasion the Spies going to her House, not knowing her to be one of so scandalous a Life; which yet the Holy Ghost takes special notice of, that by the Infamousness of her former Conversation, the Grace of God in her Conversion might be more conspicuous.

In the same sense as Abraham was, i. e. declared to be righteous, and her Sincerity approved in the Face of the Congregation of Israel, when, upon her hiding the Spies, God gave a Commandment to save her alive, though the rest of her People were to be destroyed.

Her receiving them implies likewise her hiding them; both which, together with her sending them forth another way, were Acts of Love to the People of God, of Mercy to the Spies, and of great Self-denial in respect of her own Safety, which the hazarded by thus exposing her self to the Fury of the King of Iericho, and her Countrymen; but all proceeded from her Faith in the God of Israel, of whose great Works she had heard, and whom she had now taken to be her God, and under whose Wings she was now come to trust.