04.13.25 Saving Faith

James 2.14-26

Introduction: “Can that faith save him?” (James 2.14b)

“faith” πίστιν [pistin] = the noun form of [pistis] (Faith) - assurance, confidence, what is believed. Jesus was able to find faith (Mt. 8.10), see faith (Mt. 9.2), act in response to faith (Mt. 9.29), and lament lack of faith (Mk. 4.40). This is more than something believed: Faith that can be seen must be externalized in some form or fashion (more later).

“that faith” = “that” is distinguished from “this”. My grandmother once had two cats with names I’ve never heard anywhere else: Thisin and Thatin. To say “that faith” means there must be different types, or qualities, of faith. Paul spoke of “the faith”, or the correct faith that Christians are to possess (Eph. 4.5), and yet in this question James is asking about some specific form of faith in contrast to other forms.

“Can that faith save him?” = salvation from sin, death, Hell are all in play here. We are being asked about whether or not the faith in question is able to save us. This sort of question is of utmost importance: Can that medicine save him? Can that parachute save him? Can that firefighter, that doctor, save him? One can conclude that perhaps this faith can save, or it can not save, and the same could be said for whatever other sort of faith exists.

That makes the question of this faith of utmost importance. Does our faith result in salvation, or not?

My question to you today is whether or not your faith is “Saving Faith”.

To help us answer this, I want to present to you four case studies of faith, found in James 2.14-26.

First, the “Armchair Philanthropist” (v.14-17)

Next, the “Doctrinally Orthodox Demon” (v.18-20)

Third, the “Patriarch” Abraham (v.21-24)

Fourth, the “Prostitute” Rahab (v.25-26)

The Armchair Philanthropist (James 2.14-17)

Three Positive Questions, One Negative Answer

When we read questions in scripture, especially questions asked to the reader, they are almost always rhetorical in nature. We as readers cannot respond to the author as if they were actually asking us the question. Rather, they are used as devices for making certain points and getting us to think.

Rhetorical questions are always answered the opposite of the way they are posed: Positive questions are answered negatively, and vice versa.

Look at how James ask these three questions: “What good is it… Can that faith save him… what good is that?” Positive questions demand negative answers.

Now, back to the subject (read through the passage again) “What good is it...”? It is NO GOOD, INEFFECTIVE, SUBSTANDARD. “Can that faith save him?” NO, IT CANNOT SAVE HIM (OR ANYONE ELSE) “...what good is that?” It is again NO GOOD, BECAUSE IT DOES NOT SAVE.

Now, what sort of faith is James describing? A faith without works, a faith that professes, declares, confesses, and even boldly states, but does not actually perform deeds in accordance with those statements and in submission to God’s commands.

“Sending Thoughts and Prayers” Faith

Here, James likens this sort of action-less faith to a well-wisher, or an “armchair philanthropist”.

This person is saying all the right things, even going so far as to notice and acknowledge that their sibling is destitute and wishing better for their situation. They are feeling all the right feelings, we might say.

However well this person wishes, they have failed to respond to that situation with saving faith. Saving faith acts for the betterment of that person’s situation in accordance with God’s commands for the proper merciful, generous treatment of people in need (Luke 3.11; Job 31.19-20; Prov. 28.27; Deut. 15.7-8).

This person for all their “thoughts and prayers” has done precisely NOTHING to change this situation. Their “faith” exists but it is motionless, it isn’t breathing and there are no discernable signs of life.

As such, the best description for a faith that does nothing is dead.

Unless Our Faith Does Something, It Accomplishes Nothing.

The specific something that our faith does is of great importance, but we must start by acknowledging the working nature of saving faith. Saving faith DOES SOMETHING in keeping with belief & confidence.

Peter told Cornelius in Acts 10.34-35 what sort of people, and what sort of faith, was acceptable to God: Acts 10:34–35 “So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

Fear, the proper attitude and response to the knowledge of God that is necessarily an internal experience, must be paired with external actions according to that knowledge. It’s obvious from the earlier context that Cornelius feared God, but Cornelius was still required to obey the Gospel, to be baptized for the forgiveness of his sins!

Guy Woods, in his commentary on James, wrote: “He who affects to believe in the Lord, yet refuses to do what the Lord says, or in doing it, does so on other grounds, demonstrates that his faith is vain, fruitless, dead.”

You can claim faith in Jesus, wear faith on our sleeve or even on our skin, broadcast your faith on your FB and Instagram pages, and attend every worship service here in this place but unless your faith drives you, compels you, moves you to submit to God’s commandments, your faith is lifeless, ineffective, & impotent.

Unless your faith drives you to obey the Gospel of Jesus, it is dead faith. Unless our faith drives us to help needy brethren, it is dead faith. Unless our faith drives us to talk about Jesus with our neighbors and coworkers and our kids, it is dead faith. Unless our faith drives us to give up pornography & sexual immorality, it is dead faith. Unless our faith drives us to practice our religion for God’s sake rather than the sake of our family members or people we care about, it is dead faith.

TRANSITION: It’s at this point when “someone” is portrayed as raising an objection, or at best a clarification. The fire on the feet of these brethren is getting a little too hot, and “someone” is hoping for some relief.

The Doctrinally Orthodox Demon (James 2.18-20)

Objection: Aren’t there more effective types of faith?

The hypothetical skeptic interjects: “But you have faith and I have works.”

This is another way of saying “Hey, to each their own, right? Different strokes for different folks. Your version of service to God is based on faith, while mine is based on works.”

Another way to think about it is this: Introverted and Extroverted. My service to God is more of a trusting, internal, contemplative, knowledge-based approach, while your approach to God is all about what you do, carrying out the tasks that God has given us.

And by the way, James, who are you to declare that “my version of faith” isn’t as valid as “your version of faith”, whether or not my faith is valid is NOT based on my works, right James? Both are valid paths to righteousness, right James? Both are pleasing to God, right James?

The only evidence for faith is works!

If you listen very closely, you can almost hear the sound of a deep annoyed sigh at such a profound lack of understanding and maturity.

For a moment, James assumes the argument: “Ok, fine, show me your faith without doing anything, and I’ll show you my faith by doing something.”

This wouldn’t hold up in literally any other aspect of our lives. Imagine a student refusing to complete their math test because “Well, you see, some people solve these problems to show that they understand the process, but people like me should just be trusted to know it and by the way should receive the same amount of credit as those who demonstrated their knowledge.”

You cannot demonstrate faith in anything without some form of action. Furthermore, you cannot demonstrate faith in Jesus without action in submission to the will of God.

“We do not always live what we say we believe, but we do always believe what we live out!” (Allberry, pg. 73)

It’s like saying this: Show me you have true saving faith in Jesus without baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I’ll show you faith in Jesus’ sacrifice by being baptized for the forgiveness of my sins. Which one of those is valid before God?

To see which one is valid, James turns to the demon who knows God perhaps better than we do.

Correct knowledge and recognition do not constitute saving faith.

James turns to a group of entities which know better than most that 1. There is a God, 2. There’s only one God like YHWH, and 3. That God is Awesome, Terrible, Majestic, and beyond all that we can ask or think: The Demons.

The Jews were famous for their belief in the oneness of God, highlighted by the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”)

The demons have correct, or orthodox, knowledge of God. The demons have correctly assessed the tremendous nature of God. The demons have correctly judged that trembling (i.e. fear) is the appropriate response. The demons have faith in God, friends and brethren!

Why aren’t the Demons saved, then? The demons have not paired their faith (their belief, their confidence, their assurance) with submissive, faithful action toward God. In short, they haven’t obeyed God.

As such, the faith of the demons, orthodox in regard to God as it may be, does not alleviate their damnation before God. It is not “Saving Faith”.

What do you call something that does not fulfill a needed use on behalf of its owner? Useless.

Unless your faith motivates and preceeds submission, it is useless.

To think that we can have faith in God without rendering works according to God is “foolish”, according to James by inspiration, and therefore according to the Holy Spirit!

1 John 2:4–6 “Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

Unless your response of faith motivates and proceeds obedience to God’s commands, it is useless.

That being said, this idea of “my version of faith” still infects the minds and spirits of many today. The idea that “Well, how I respond to God and Jesus Christ is just as valid as your response.”

Can you imagine it:

Hey, I have faith in Jesus, and I’ll prove it by twiddling my thumbs. Do I think that’ll work?

Hey, I have faith in Jesus, and I’ll prove it by generally not being a jerk and definitely by being a good red-blooded American citizen.

Hey, I have faith in Jesus, and I’ll prove it by coming to a few worship services and I’ll even sit in Bible class, but when it comes to obeying the Gospel or service or submission to the elders, I'll pass.

Hey, I have faith in Jesus, and I’ll prove it by casting out a few demons, and by doing a little prophesying, and throw in some mighty works in the name of Jesus.

And if that sounds familiar, it should: Matthew 7:21–23 ““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

One author put it this way: “If demons might hold such faith and remain in perdition, men might hold it and go to perdition...”

The Patriarch Abraham (James 2.21-24)

Abraham was “justified by works” Abraham’s “faith was active” Abraham’s faith “was completed by his works”

Here we see the sharp contrast to the do-nothing philanthropist, the do-nothing demon, and the do-nothing believers of today.

The account of Isaac’s sacrifice (Gen. 22) is the scene for James’ example.

Abraham was called by God to sacrifice his only son on Mt. Moriah as a burnt offering, which Abraham immediately the next morning sets out to obey. Abraham and Isaac arrive on Mt. Moriah, where Abraham binds his son, lays the wood on the altar and Isaac on top of the wood, and raises the knife to slay his son. He is stopped by God at the last moment:

Genesis 22:12 “He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.””

How did God “know”, according to God? God SAW what Abraham was about to do, and that unless interfered with, Abraham would do.

What was it that God saw? Abraham had prepared the means to sacrifice Isaac, he had journeyed three days to Mt. Moriah, he had climbed the mountain with Isaac, he had built the altar, arranged the wood, tied his son, laid him on the altar, and raised the knife to slay him!

Here the Bible says Abraham was

“justified by works”: “justified” [di-kay-oo] : pronounced righteous, vindicated.

“faith was active along with his works”: “active” [synergeo]: working with, where we get the word “synergy”, Abraham’s faith and works were working together toward the same end.

faith was “completed by his works”: Abraham’s faith was INCOMPLETE until his works were carried out!

Righteousness is still “counted to him”: Abraham’s works earned nothing.

And yet, James also recognizes that while these works are necessary, they do not earn God’s favor.

Abraham’s belief, as necessarily active as it was, was “counted to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15.6).

So many people downplay (or discard) the need for obedient faithful action by saying things like “You all think you’re earning your salvation: There’s nothing you can do to earn the favor of God.”, and they cite passages like Ephesians 2:8–9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Is salvation the result of works? No. Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac COMPELLED God to do precisely nothing. Does God require works in order to grant salvation? Absolutely. Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Again, James 2:24 “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

Friends and brethren, the only time “faith alone” is stated in the Bible is to demonstrate that “faith alone” does not justify, it does not pronounce us righteous or vindicate us!

This fact is so totally destructive to the Protestant and subsequently Calvinist notion of “faith alone” that its most famous progenitor, Martin Luther, described the entire Book of James as follows:

“Though this Epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and hold it a good book, because it sets up no doctrine of men and lays great stress upon God’s law. But to state my own opinion about it . . . I consider that it is not the writing of any apostle. My reasons are as follows. First: Flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture, it ascribes righteousness to works. . . . Second, its purpose is to teach Christians, and in all this long teaching it does not once mention the Passion, the Resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ. . . . James does nothing more than drive to the law and its works; and he mixes the two up in such disorderly fashion that it seems to me he must have been some good, pious man, who took some sayings of the apostles’ disciples and threw them thus on paper; or perhaps they were written down by someone else from his preaching. . . . In a word, he wants to guard against those who relied on faith without works, and is unequal to the task . . . and would accomplish by insisting on the Law what the apostles accomplish by inciting men to love. Therefore, I cannot put him among the chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from putting him where he pleases and estimating him as he pleases; for there are many good sayings in him.(1. See Luther’s Works, vol. 35, Word and Sacrament I (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960, 362)

In a word, St. John’s Gospel and his first epistle, St. Paul’s epistles, especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians, and St. Peter’s first epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that it is necessary and salvatory for you to know, even if you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. St. James’ epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to the others, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.” (2. Luther’s Works, 395–97).

Saving faith will risk the future to obey God’s commands.

Coming back to the ENTIRE scripture and specifically Abraham, consider that Abraham was willing to risk his entire future to demonstrate faith in God.

Isaac was the son of promise, the very child through whom God said he would become a great nation. God said you have to kill him in service to me, which Abraham was willing, and thankfully not required in the end, to do.

Saul of Tarsus, in obeying the Gospel, was setting aside the future afforded by his Jewish heritage, his privilege, his relationships, his elevated and respected status in Judaism, all of it: Philippians 3:7–8 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”

Often God asks us to obey him in ways that shatter the future we’ve imagined for ourselves.

Saving faith is willing to lay our remaining future on the altar for the sake of knowing Christ. Philippians 1:20–21 “as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

The Prostitute Rahab (James 2.25-26) Finally, James turns from the greatest of the Jewish Patriarchs, Abraham, to the most unlikely example of faith, a Gentile prostitute by named Rahab, a woman who for her faith is included not only here, but in Hebrews 11:31 “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.”

“And in the same way”: Her faith was just as alive and effective as that of Abraham!

Here Rahab’s story is summarized from Josh. 2: The Israelites approached the city of Jericho to conquer it, but before sends two spies to the city, who stay in the home of Rahab, a prostitute. When their arrival was reported to the king, he sent men to Rahab with orders to bring out these spies. In response, Rahab hides these men and misdirects the investigating soldiers, claiming that the men had fled the city already. Afterwards, she confesses her fear of YHWH to these men and begs the men to show [chesed] to her and her family when the city was conquered, to which they agree, and which occured in Joshua 6.

Now, the discussion of what she did right (and wrong) is for another sermon, but come back to James and notice what James says about her ACT of faith: “in the same way”

"In the same way” means RAHAB was likewise “justified by works” (2.25; cf. 2.21), just like Abraham!

Her faith was as alive, as effective, as salvific, and her works justified her just as much as Abraham.

Talk about being at a disadvantage: We have no record that God talked to Rahab. She wasn’t a prophetess. She wasn’t even Jewish. She wasn’t even wealthy. She wasn’t even someone we’d be comfortable letting our kids go over to play with her kids. She was a prostitute.

And yet, this prostitute rendered saving faith on par with that of Abraham, who this text and Isa.41.8 calls the friend of God!

Works are the discernable heartbeat of faith.

Finally, James 2:26 “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”

We’ve come all the way around from v.17, where “faith without works is dead”, to the body of faith without the spirit of works is “dead”.

This is a critically important point: Works of obedience to God is the life of our faith.

Consider this from the perspective of one who has never become a Christian:

They may have faith in God, and even in Jesus, but until obedience is rendered to the Gospel, they are dead! There’s a body, but no pulse! There’s a engine, but no spark!

Ephesians 2:1–2 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—”

Romans 6:4 “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

If you have become a Christian but your works have ceased and you have become still and motionless, and your heart is not beating, and there are no discernable signs of spiritual life, your faith is dead!

“There is as much necessity that faith and works should be united to constitute true religion, as there is that the body and soul should be united to constitute a living man. If good works do not follow, it is clear that there is no true and proper faith; none that justifies and saves. If faith produces no fruit of good living, that fact proves that it is dead, that it has no power, and that it is of no value.” (Barnes)

Saving faith will overcome history and circumstances to submit to God.

Consider all that Rahab had to overcome to exercise saving faith.

Rahab wasn’t a good person. Rahab’s family, clientele, city, or nation did not worship YHWH. Rahab didn’t know a single word of the Bible.

But when the moment came, Rahab put her entire trust in YHWH, and directed all her subsequent actions accordingly, and SHE ALONE saved herself and her family from the wrath of God against Jericho.

SHE ALONE escaped slaughter and destruction.

SHE ALONE escaped the closest thing to Hell we mortals can produce on this earth.

How?

Rahab heard that Israel and their God were coming, and that Canaan was now theirs to occupy. She heard of all He had done to the Egyptians and to the Amorite kings. She KNEW Jericho and her gods and her old way of life would not survive His arrival. And in fear she gave a friendly welcome to the spies, and according to their instructions tied a scarlet cord in her window, stayed inside her house, and did not perish with those who were disobedient (Heb. 11.31)

Rahab was saved, because Rahab, like Abraham, had saving faith.

Conclusion: So, is your faith saving faith, or not?

Imagine if you could ask this question

You see, “The only faith that works is faith that works.”

What works do you need to render to be pleasing to God today?

Do you need to repent of your sins, confess Christ, and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins? If you believe Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of God, you can render those works and be justified by God by His grace and be saved through faith, TODAY.

You don’t have to perish with the disobedient, with the inactive and the faithless.

You can survive, live, and thrive with God through faith.

Do you need to confess sin and beg God’s forgiveness?

Do you need to start preparing your “living sacrifice” (Rom. 12.1-2) and make your service to God complete?