James 2:14-26 (2)

Faith Without Works Is Dead

There’s a word from the lord, coming from the book of James

James Chapter 2 verses 14-26

And you should find these words as printed

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food,

16 and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?

17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by [b]my works.

19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!

20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?

22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?

23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God.

24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.

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

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

That’s enough, I want to talk for the next fleeting moments with the help of the holy spirit

I want to talk about

Faith Results in Good Works

2:14 What good is it … if you say you have faith but do not have works?

The man who claims to have faith obviously thinks that his belief alone, without any good deeds (actions done in obedience to God), is satisfactory in God’s sight. He need not be concerned about anyone else.

However, talk is cheap, and so unsubstantiated claims are worthless. Faith not accompanied by deeds has no saving value. Anyone can say he has faith, but if his life-style remains selfish and worldly, then what good is that faith? It is merely faith that believes about Jesus, not faith that believes in him.

Can faith save you?

No, it cannot. The structure of the Greek for this question expects a negative answer. The faith that saves is faith that proves itself in the actions it produces.

James and Paul each meant something different in using the words faith and works. Each of them was responding to a different need.

FAITH

James

Concerned with the danger of “dead faith”—he knew that shallow beliefs would never stand up to the trials believers would face in life. People will claim faith, but an unsubstantiated claim may be only empty words (see James 2:14).

Paul

Concerned with the exercise of “true faith,” or saving faith—this faith not only opens the door for grace, but leads to obedient action (see Ephesians 2:8–10).

James

WORKS

James

Claims works are the natural product of faith that is alive—he emphasized the post-salvation results of the life of faith. This is very similar to Ephesians 2:8–10.

Paul

Calls “works” those legalistic efforts to secure one’s own salvation—any attempt at self-justification was called works. For Paul, the beginning of salvation was always faith. After that, works followed (see Galatians 3:2

James helps us see that genuine faith will always combine deep trust in God and consistent action in the world. It is not the one who claims to have faith, but the one who actually has faith who is saved

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2: 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.

NIV This hypothetical person may have been someone in the church fellowship—a brother or sister—who was in real need. To be without clothing and food is to be in a desperate yet all-too-common situation. James’s second case study also rings true in contemporary life. There is hardly a church today within whose walls there are not persons who live without adequate food and shelter.

The problem of world hunger is greater than most of us can visualize or respond to, so we often fail to help the problem. But James invites us to think of a brother or sister; not all the poor in town, or all the hungry in the state. Working towards those huge needs begins within reach, with someone in our own fellowship. People are fed and clothed one at a time.

2:16 One of you says to him. James leaves no doubt that the person in need is a brother or sister in Christ. The argument is strikingly similar to John’s words: “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:17–18 NIV).

“Go, I wish you well.” NIV This reflects a standard farewell blessing in Hebrew. The emphasis is on Go! It implied that the departing friend’s present needs were met and that one was hoping for the same in the future.

“Keep warm and well fed.” NIV The idea here is that the well-wisher is saying, “Please go, and may God take care of you because I don’t have the time.” This brings out the hypocrisy of those who, in a sense, are asking God to do what God wants them to do. Also, one of the key elements of prayer, as in Matthew 9:35–38, followed by the mission in

Matthew 10, is that when we pray for God to do something there is a very real chance that we may be the ones to fulfill our own prayer request, and God demands that we consider that possibility.

But does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? NIV Something could be done for this person. There would be plenty of clothes and food in the fellowship to care for this person, but the person was sent away empty-handed, with a prayer over his head, but no clothing on his back or food in his stomach.

Too often, we in the church offer mere words—prayers, advice, encouragement—when we are being called upon to act. The need is obvious, and the resources are not lacking, yet the help is not given. Faith that does not result in actions, is no more effective than a pious wish for the poor person to be warmed and fed—the wish accomplishes nothing.

Among Paul’s final words to the Galatians were, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:10 NIV). James is describing Christians who miss the opportunities to help.

WHAT ABOUT PHYSICAL NEEDS?

Have we received God’s gracious gifts and yet withheld them from others? Here are some ways we can give:

• Look for a single parent in need of help—car repairs, child care, help with financial or legal concerns.

• Provide meals for a sick or grieving family.

• Help a student whose college finances are a burden.

• Assist a young family with clothes and toys for the children.

• Help a young couple facing stress by funding a retreat or vacation for them.

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2:17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

A conviction or intellectual belief that refuses to obey the commands of Christ is unprofitable—it is dead.

Action is the fruit of living faith. If there are no positive actions, then the professed faith is dead. The right actions prove our faith to be real faith.

We might call this approach by James an argument from compassion. He is taking for granted the truth that spoken help is not adequate when material help is required. Real compassion doesn’t just talk; it does. In the same way, writes James, faith is not just a matter of saying the right words—it must also be accompanied by action. Believing involves faith keeping company, with action.

If those around us note our actions, they should be led to know the faith that motivates them. If others hear us speak of faith, they must also see us act out that faith.

The emphasis is on both: our life representing a genuine fellowship of faith and action. The balance can be kept by asking ourselves two questions regularly:

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2:18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.”

This someone may have been someone James personally knew, but it seems more likely that this was a hypothetical person who poses an argument to James. This someone considers faith and works to be separate and alternate expressions of Christianity. “You do your deeds, I’ll have my faith, and we’ll be religious in our own ways.”

But the two cannot be separated without ceasing to be alive. Faith lives in the action it generates; actions require faith to gain a particular meaning.

Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. NKJV

James responded with a challenge: Show me your faith without deeds. It cannot be done! Faith cannot be demonstrated apart from action. Faith is within us; it can only be seen by the actions, it produces through us. Anyone can profess faith, but only action shows its genuineness.

The “self-styled religion” mentality that is such a part of today’s world needs to be challenged with as much vigor as James challenged the mistake in his own time.

Any faith that does not move its believers to action, is a faith not worth holding. Any believer who is not moved by his faith, has a weak hold on what he claims to believe. And actions that are not expressions of faith rooted in the grace of Jesus Christ, are pointless efforts.

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2:19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble.

NKJV That God is one was a basic teaching of Judaism: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4 NIV—known as the shema).

The Jews were well known for their ardent monotheism. It was even a source of national pride in a world characterized by polytheism.

Israel was confident that she had been given the revelation of God, and he was one.

But James points out that acceptance of a creed (even a true one) is not enough to save anyone.

The demons have complete and thorough conviction that there is one God, but they are terrified by that truth.

They believe in God only to hate and resist him in every way they can.

Their “faith” even moves them to a negative reaction, while the faith of some of James’s readers isn’t real enough to give them a shiver.

The demons shudder (an expression of fear, revulsion, and hatred) and demonstrate that their “faith” is real, though misdirected.

Believing that anything or anyone exists does not bring us into right relationship with them. It is not satisfying progress for a wife who has been ignored to have her husband suddenly announce that he now admits she exists.

The movement might be in the right direction, but it is hardly noticeable. Likewise, we have not impressed God by grudgingly admitting his existence.

At that point, we share the uncomfortable position of being even with God’s enemies.

Saving faith, then, is not merely intellectual agreement. It starts deep within us and expresses itself through our actions.

Almost all Christian traditions include making vows before God and repeating the historic creeds of the church. But it is not unusual to find adults who admit that they affirmed baptismal or membership vows without ever giving serious thought to what they were actually saying.

They describe themselves as simply nodding their heads at the appropriate time while trusting the clergy to say the right words. Others can say the Apostles’ Creed in one breath without mentally interacting with a single word they have uttered. It is this kind of thoughtless, action-less, lifeless faith that James repeatedly challenges.

He is not contending that believing in one God is trite. What he is urging us to do is to express, with our actions, the kind of life that ought to characterize someone who knows God.

He is challenging us with applications of Jesus’ words: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’

The devil hath no promise, therefore he is excluded from Paul’s faith. The devil believeth that Christ died, but not that he died for his sins.

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2:20 You senseless person. NRSV

James again addresses his hypothetical person.

The foolish person is literally a “hollow man”). If the faith around which we build our lives turns out to be empty, we are truly hollow people.

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Do you want to be shown … that faith apart from works is barren? NRSV James prepares to show from the Scriptures that real faith always has works. The phrase here is literally, “But are you willing to know?”—indicating that he realizes the problem may reside in his readers’ will rather than in their having good reasons to act upon their faith.

There are times when we need more teaching or understanding in order to respond to God’s direction. But most often we know what needs to be done, yet are unwilling to act. When it comes to putting into practice what we know, is it our habit to obey God?

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From his own case studies, James now turns to historical figures from the Old Testament that he expects will confirm what he has been teaching about the importance of active faith.

2:21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? NKJV

Abraham’s remarkable obedience in being willing to sacrifice his son at God’s command was evidence of the works for which Abraham was called righteous.

What was Abraham doing when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? He was trusting God. The lesson we can draw from Abraham’s life is not a comparison between his sacrifices and ours. We can expect that in one way or another, our faith will have to grow from internal trust to external action. Eventually, like Abraham, we too will have to answer the question, “Do I really trust God?”

2:22 Faith was active along with works. NRSV

Abraham had great faith in God (Genesis 15:6), but James points out that Abraham’s faith was much more than just belief in the one God—the fruit of Abraham’s great faith was in his deeds.

Faith was brought to completion by the works. NRSV The Greek here has a play on words: Abraham’s faith was working with his works (ergois). His faith produced his works, and his works completed his faith, meaning they “perfected” or “matured” it. Mature and complete believers (1:4) are produced through perseverance in trials; mature and complete faith is produced through works of obedience to God. Faith and works should not be confused with each other, but neither can they be separated from each other.

2:23 “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness.” NKJV

Abraham believed God, so God gave Abraham the status of a right relationship with him—and this happened before Abraham’s noted works (such as his willingness to sacrifice Isaac), and even before Abraham was circumcised (see Paul’s words in Romans 4:1–17). But Abraham’s faith and God’s response fulfilled Scripture (meaning “filled” or “filled up”—gave their complete significance) when Abraham “completed” his faith by what he did (2:22). The Scripture to which James is referring is Genesis 15:6. Paul emphasized the chronology of Abraham’s life, pointing out that he was called righteous before his noted works. James showed that Abraham’s righteousness was the basis and reason for all those works.

He was called the friend of God. NRSV

Because of Abraham’s great faith and obedience, he held the privileged status of God’s friend

There Jesus stated that an ingredient of friendship is obedience:

“You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14 NRSV).

Among Jesus’ commands earlier during that occasion was this: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me” (John 14:1 NIV). Acting out our trust in God will lead to friendship with him, as it did in Abraham’s case.

2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. NRSV

Many have said that this statement contradicts Paul’s position, who wrote: “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Romans 3:28 NIV).

Indeed, if both James and Paul used the word justified in the same way, this verse would contradict Paul’s teaching about justification by faith alone.

But for James, justified refers to God’s final verdict over our entire Christian life, whereby we are declared righteous for having lived a life that was faithful to the end.

For Paul, justified is the initial granting of righteousness upon a person’s acceptance of Christ. For James, “works” (what he does) are the natural products of true faith; for Paul, “works” (observing the law) are what people were trying to do in order to be saved. For James, faith alone is the shallow belief in an idea; no commitment or life change is involved. For Paul, faith is saving faith—the belief that brings about an intimate union with Christ and results in salvation and obedience.

Paul made clear that a person enters into God’s kingdom only by faith; James made clear that God requires good deeds from those who are “in” the kingdom.

A person receives salvation by faith alone, not by doing works of obedience; but a saved person does works of obedience because of that faith. For people who rely on their religious “busyness” for their salvation or merit before God, Paul’s words are critical—those works alone can do nothing to save them. For people who rely on their intellectual assent of a belief, with only a verbal commitment, James’s words are critical—their belief alone can do nothing to save them.

Two brief questions that help us monitor our spiritual health are: Who am I trusting? and Why am I working? If we are trusting anyone (including ourselves) other than Christ as the source and provider of our justification, we are lost. If we are acting for any reason other than in obedience and thanksgiving to Christ for what he has done for us, we are lost. We only truly find our salvation in Christ. Out of our trust in him will flow action.

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2:25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? NIV

God’s final judgment on a person’s life considers the righteousness that person shows through works. But why would James bring up Rahab? After speaking of the great faith of Abraham, the father of Israel, James cited the example of Rahab, a pagan woman with a bad reputation (see Joshua 2:1–24; 6:22–25).

But these two people, as opposite as they were, cemented James’s argument—both people were declared righteous on the basis of their works that resulted from their faith. The contrast is not between faith and works, but between genuine faith and false faith.

If Abraham had not had faith, he would not have followed God. If Rahab had not had faith, she would never have decided to side with Israel—“For the LORD your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below” (Rahab’s words in Joshua 2:11 NIV).

Yet if Abraham had not been willing to obey God, his faith would have meant nothing. If Rahab had not risked her life to help the spies, her faith would have accomplished nothing.

But she is listed in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews: “By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient” (Hebrews 11:31 NIV).

Many have pointed out that Abraham and Rahab could represent opposite extremes of society. James may have used them for that reason, but they were also his relatives—Abraham in a general way as father of the Jewish nation, and Rahab in a specific way as one of the ancestors of David, Jesus Christ, and James (see Matthew 1:5). Both these heroes demonstrate the fact that real faith can survive in people with “feet of clay.” The Bible describes neither Abraham nor Rahab as perfect. In fact, the spotlight shines on their sins as much as on their trust.

Both demonstrated in their own way a tendency to lie (see Genesis 20:1–2; Joshua 2:3–7). Neither could have pointed to a life of perfect obedience as the reason for God’s acceptance. Rather, each pointed to a life that illustrated their need for God and their trust in God.

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2:26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. Faith and deeds are as important to each other as body and spirit. Deeds are not added to faith; instead, the right kind of faith is faith that “works,” that results in good deeds.

Otherwise, Christianity is nothing more than an idea.

No one is moved to action without faith; no one’s faith is real unless it moves him or her to action.

The action is obedience to God. This draws us back to James’s words in the first part of this chapter concerning care for others. The believer must do what God calls him to do—serve his brothers and sisters in Christ, refuse to discriminate among them, and help them out with good deeds.

Understanding how faith and deeds work together still doesn’t mean that our life will be different.