Faith and Works
The basic issue
In the closing portion of chapter two, James continues with his attack on empty religion. As throughout his epistle, he is firm and uncompromising in his estimate of any nominal believer whose life is devoid of good works. He says bluntly, "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" (v. 20).
To comprehend the full force of this question, let us examine the whole passage verse-by-verse.
Verse 14
James begins with a searching rhetorical question, clearly demanding a "no" answer. Faith without works cannot save a man. Therefore, right at the outset James raises the possibility that a man who claims to have faith may not be saved.
Verse 15
He then shows a kind of faith that is unprofitable. He imagines a scene where two believers meet. One is a brother or sister living in a poverty so severe that he lacks basic necessities. He is "naked," a term that might describe someone wearing only an undergarment, or having only rags to cover an undergarment. The poor brother is also hungry. The phrase "destitute of daily food" means that on the day the rich brother finds him, the poor brother has eaten nothing and has nothing to eat.
Verse 16
The rich brother is full of pompous compassion, effusive in showing concern, but heartless in withholding assistance. In a charade of Christian piety, he intones a blessing on his brother, wishing him peace when he really needs food, and commanding him to depart when he really needs to stay and receive help. And the rich brother covers up his callousness with a sweet voice such as he might use in inviting the poor brother to dinner. Someone nearby who caught his voice but not his meaning would never imagine that he was telling his poor brother to get lost. And to make his phony religion even more disgusting, he says, as if he were raising a prayer to God, that he hopes the poor brother’s needs will be met. In other words, he pretends to be a man of faith, confident that God will provide. It is as though he says, "I’m praying for you, brother." But he is merely making excuses. What help comes from good wishes? And what help comes from prayers rising out of a stingy heart? While posing as a good man, the rich brother does nothing at all to lift his poor brother from the trash heap of society. James is not impressed. He says the man’s faith is worthless.
Verse 17
Even worse, his faith is dead. The Greek word rendered "dead" means nothing else but dead. If the man has no living faith, then he has no faith at all. Therefore, he is not saved, for faith is the prerequisite for salvation.
Verse 18
Now James considers an objection. Someone says, "Thou hast faith, and I have works." To interpret this correctly, we must understand that in James’s mind, the objector is a third party seeking to mediate between James and the person who lacks works although he professes faith (v. 14); also, that James treats the works-deficient person as one of his readers. He is "one of you" (v. 16), so James calls him "thou." "I" is James himself. To clarify the third party's objection, we may therefore expand it as follows: "One of you (the man without works) has faith and the other (James) has works. Don’t argue between yourselves. You each have a strength—a form of spiritual excellence—that is good for the church. The church needs both a man of works and a man of faith." James’s reply, addressing the man whose life is devoid of works, is to challenge his claim to possess faith. Prove it, James says. The only way is to begin acting like a Christian. James continues by denying that he has works only. Far from it. He also has the only kind of real faith—a living faith manifest in works. By implication, he exhorts us all to acquire and demonstrate his kind of faith.
Verse 19
As he seeks to reach the hearts of hypocrites, James senses how they might dodge the cutting edge of the story about the rich brother who refuses to help a poor brother—the story James has just used to illustrate dead faith. The reader might protest that the rich brother was simply a hypocrite, mouthing words he did not believe. The reader might say, "That’s not me. My faith is not dead. I really believe in God and in God’s Word." Therefore, James continues by showing that a purely intellectual belief in God has no value. Even the devil and his angels, the demons, do not doubt God’s existence. Yet they are not saved. No man is saved just because he knows there is a God in heaven. A man whose belief is limited to intellectual assent may be entirely honest in his belief. But his belief is not saving faith.
Verse 20
Next follows James’s classic summation of the true relationship between faith and works. "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" The debate between Luther and the Catholic church at the time of the Reformation centered on whether salvation and justification are by faith or by works. Luther correctly taught that justification is by faith alone (sola fides). But he carried this principle so far that he could not comprehend such verses as James 2:20. He even proposed to remove the Epistle of James from the Bible. But in this verse James is not questioning that faith alone is the prerequisite for eternal life. He is merely giving us a definition of saving faith. It is a faith productive of works.
We see a parallel in marriage. Its foundation is love, but the love produces a changed life involving an ever faithful relationship between the spouses. If a man, just two weeks after gaining one woman’s assent to marriage, forgets her and proposes to another, how would we describe his love for the first? It is dead, not the real thing. Just as love without faithfulness is dead, so faith without works is dead.
Verse 21
As an example of saving faith, James points to the faith of Abraham, which enabled him to obey God even at the price of sacrificing his own son. James is not teaching that Abraham was saved by works. Rather, he is saying that Abraham could not be justified without the kind of faith that produced obedience to God.
Verse 22
To clarify what kind of faith he means, James says, "Faith wrought with his works." That is, faith reshapes his works, so that they will serve as sterling evidence of faith. "By works was faith made perfect." That is, works bring faith to perfection, or completion.
What does all this mean? A man is saved at the very instant when genuine faith enters his heart and he accepts Christ, even though observers cannot yet see any outward evidence of faith. The change is first inside him. But his new faith is not complete until he acts upon it. Suppose my friend says that he is coming to visit me. Perhaps he fully intends to do so. But his promise is not made complete and perfect until he actually comes. Likewise, faith is not made complete and perfect until it produces works. If it never produces works, it is dead.
Verse 23
Lest we misunderstand him and twist his words into the false teaching of works salvation, James hastens to affirm that justification is by faith alone. Abraham was justified not because he offered Isaac, but because he believed God. In particular, he believed God’s promise of an innumerable seed. From that step of belief came all the benefits of a relationship with God: first, imputed righteousness; then, to be reckoned as God’s friend. Without righteousness, no man can dwell with God. The righteousness Abraham received was not his own, but Christ’s, imputed to him as a free gift in response to his faith.
Verses 24
James’s main point in this passage is so important that he uses the device of repetition to make it as strong as possible. In this verse we find the fifth statement of the same principle (also in vv. 14, 17, 20, and 22). It will appear again in verse 26. Seldom in Scripture elsewhere do we find so many affirmations of the same idea within a short passage. James seems to be warning the church down through the ages not to tamper with his message. He presents it in six ways so there is no chance he will be misunderstood and no chance the awkward truth might be cast aside.
Verse 25
James gives yet another example of profitable faith, of the kind that leads to good works. He recalls Rahab’s protection of the two spies. The motive leading her to shelter them at great risk to herself was faith. She had decided to place her faith in the God of Israel. But her faith did not remain a hidden loyalty, without peril. Rather, at first opportunity, she expressed her faith by allying herself with the people of God. Thus, as James says, she was justified by works, in the sense that without her works she could not be regarded as having real faith.
Verse 26
As his final observation on the crucial issue of how we gain salvation, James says again that faith must be properly defined. He reminds us that faith is not a true, living faith unless it is accompanied by works.
We must now insert a caution. The orthodox teaching that faith involves works is easily twisted into the heretical teaching that salvation depends partly on man’s own efforts. The corrective is Paul’s assertion in Ephesians 2:8-10. Four questions are answered in these verses.
- What does not save us? What is powerless to save is works.
- What does save us? The answer is etched plain. "We are saved by grace through faith."
- What accompanies faith? Paul agrees with James that true faith gives rise to works.
- Where do these works come from? The works issuing from salvation come from God. They are different from the self-generated works that many trust in for their salvation. In fact, a man cannot begin to perform truly good works until he is saved.
Self-Test
2. Have I received salvation by faith in Christ?
Have you acknowledged that you are a sinner undeserving of eternal life with God, but deserving only of eternal separation from God? Have you beheld Jesus as very God in the flesh who died on a cross to pay the full penalty of your sin? Have you acknowledged and joyfully received Christ as your Savior so that His payment for your sin might be credited to your account? Have you repented of your sin by desiring in your heart to turn from it by the power and direction of Christ your Lord?
In 1905 and 1906, the prominent American evangelist R. A. Torrey conducted meetings throughout Britain. It is instructive to consider his closing appeal at a gathering of about 11,000 men at Royal Albert Hall in London. He said this:
Now without a song, without any further persuasion, I want to ask every person in the building, old or young, who will here and now yield to the love of God, who will accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, surrender to Him as your Lord and Master, begin to confess Him as such publicly before the world, and live from this time on to please Him in everything day by day—every one who will thus accept Jesus Christ tonight, stand up, all over the building (1).
Torrey's preaching was never highly emotional, although he spoke with considerable force. Otherwise, in the days before microphones, he could not have been heard by thousands. His strategy was to urge the only decision that was right and reasonable, and as a result of his manly words and bearing, an unusually high percentage of those who responded were men. Three features of his invitation on this occasion stand out as especially interesting.
- He did not ask anyone to pray to receive Christ. He recognized that salvation is a decision. Today, by emphasizing the prayer, we have ritualized the process. The truth is that the moment of salvation generally precedes an actual prayer to be saved.
- He incorporated the principles of James 2 in his gospel presentation, telling his hearers up front that receiving Christ is a decision to live for Him. Today we have many false converts because although they recite what we consider to be the right prayer, they do not make the right decision.
- He required public confession at the start. There was no sneaking forward when everyone's eyes were closed. No harm is done by a private decision for Christ if it is later followed by baptism, which serves as a public confession of faith. Still, a policy of asking for public decisions would probably prevent many false conversions.
3. Is my faith dead or alive?
Has faith in Christ made a difference in your life? Can others see the Holy Spirit in you? Is His presence manifest in the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23)? Is your religion vital and genuine by the two chief tests that James provides: that is, is it productive of good works, and is it marked by separation from the world (Jas. 1:27)?
4. When people approach me for help, do I put on a pious face as I reject their plea?
Do you ever use words of blessing as a cover-up for the coldness of your heart? If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that sometimes when we promise to pray for another’s need, we are speaking the wrong words. What God wants us to say is not, "I will pray," but, "I will help."
1. What am I trusting in for salvation? Is it any form of works?
If you think you are on the road to heaven because you go to church, or because you were immersed, sprinkled, or in some other way doused or sloshed with water inside a church, or because you live near a church, or because you own a burial plot in the churchyard, or because your parents professed to be Christians, or because your mother prayed for you, or because there was one occasion when you actually gave money to a church or religious cause, or because you sometimes check yourself before you use God’s name in vain, or because you watch a televangelist, or because God answered you once when you prayed for something, or because you have never committed murder, although you have thought about it, or because you have not committed adultery as often as you wanted to, or because you like the pope, or because you dislike Democrats, or because you have a Bible in your home, or because you send your kids to church, or because your brother-in-law is a preacher—we could go on and on—if you are relying on anything except simple faith in Christ, you are deluded. In selecting reasons that people give for their hope of heaven, we have chosen many that are obviously absurd. We have done so precisely to show that all reasons, even those that many people take seriously, are absurd if they neglect Christ.
None of the reasons we have listed are as plausible and pious as the reasons that many will offer on the Day of Judgment (Matt. 7:21-23). Many will claim very impressive works. Jesus gives this foreglimpse of future reckoning as a warning that no amount of good in us can outweigh the bad. If our sins are not covered by the blood of Christ, our good works are invisible to God. However good they might be in our estimation, God still sees us as workers of iniquity.