James 2: 14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
As I will be on Holiday for the 508th celebration of the Reformation, I thought I would take a couple Sundays focusing on truths that the Reformation restored. These truths are still abominated by much of the Church world. Indeed, when one becomes Biblical and so Reformed one is immediately on the wrong side of the popularity game – even within the Church.
And so there is a ongoing need to return to these treasures in order to understand the Biblical foundation of Biblical Christianity. To do so we look to James 2 this morning in order to take up the matter of Salvation – Justification and Sanctification.
The enemies of Biblical Christianity, whether Arminian, Eastern Orthodox, or Roman Catholic, will come to James and say… “Ah … here we have proof that the Biblical doctrine of Justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone that you Reformed type come up with is utter nonsense.”
Well, is that the case? Is James contradicting Paul who could write explicitly in Romans
Romans 4:2 If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3 What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[a] 4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
8 Blessed is the one
whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”[b]
9 Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10 Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! 11 And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. 12 And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. 13 It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, 15 because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression. 16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.
So, the question is, is James contradiction Paul? Is God of two minds when it comes to this issue of how it is one is right w/ God. Paul says
5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.
Yet here comes Randy Rome insisting that James says it is faith plus works wherein men can become right with God eventually.
As we come to James 2 we have to keep before ourselves what the problem is that James is dealing with. This is essential in order to understand this passage aright thus avoiding the soul damning mistakes that Rome makes when it comes to this passage.
James is dealing with the problem who claims to have faith in God. They would insist they are Christian but there is no evidence in their lives of this vital living faith. What does James say… The Holy Spirit says that such people are clearly lying to themselves about this so-called faith they have, because, the Holy Spirit says, genuine faith (as opposed to mere claims of faith) manifests itself in the person who has been declared righteous by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Seeking to be succinct and pithy so as to be memorable…
Paul deals with how it is a person is Justified … how it is they are right w/ God
James OTOH is dealing w/ how it is a person’s claim to being right w/ God is vindicated
Do you see the difference there? If we were to boil this down even more we would say;
Paul teaches how a man is justified
James teaches how a man’s justification is justified.
They are two completely different issues and so not in contradiction in the least. In point of fact Paul will say repeatedly in His writings what James says here. Paul will say…
Eph. 2:10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
And again Paul speaking of;
Titus 2:13 Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
Paul agrees with James because Paul and James are being inspired by the same Holy Spirit of God to write what they write and God does not embrace contradictions.
Of course this matter of how a man is accepted by God became one of the main contentious points of the Reformation. Rome then, and still today, insists that man will eventually be accepted by God, in some measure, by man’s cooperation with grace – by his behavior, while the Reformers insisted that man is now accepted by the behavior of Christ for Him.
And so Rome connects man’s behavior … his cooperation with the grace found in the sacramental system, with man’s eventually becoming right with God. While the Reformers following Scripture insisted that man does not become right with God over the course of time in concert with the Roman sacramental system combined with purgatory. The Reformers following Scripture insisted that God declares man right with God by God’s alone grace, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The alone are significant. They were placed there for the very reason of cutting out the ground beneath all claims that somehow man’s cooperating behavior is contriubtive to being right with God.
That is why to this day Rome, and Remonstrants, and Eastern Orthodox will howl whenever a Reformed chap comes along with the Gospel message. This is why to this day a Reformed person who stands on God’s Word on this matter will be greeted with hostility and will be considered a pariah. Especially if said person insists that this is the ONLY way of understanding how we are right with God and that all other ways may well lead to a person being eternally damned.
There is another matter we should note here in order to hopefully clarify matters in our mind. When we say that being right before God is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, we are at the same time saying w/ Paul in Romans 4:5 “that God justifies the ungodly.” Heathen Romish ways that misinterpret James teach that God only justifies the godly.
Why do I say that … well, it is due to the fact that the Roman sacramental system combined with purgatory is a system of salvation wherein a person is only finally declared righteous once they finally are righteous. By continuing to attend to the sacraments of Rome … followed by the time spent in purgatory burning off remaining sin, Rome teaches that the believer is finally justified in and of himself so that God can now say … “Well, because you are now just, I justify you.”
This is exactly contrary to Scripture. In the scriptural account God declares man, for the sake of the finished work of Jesus Christ to be be justified – man is right with God. Not because the redeemed man is now in and of himself all that God demands of Him, but because Christ put to the account of the ungodly His righteousness.
So … seeking for the pithy and memorable again …
Rome teaches that one is declared right with God because they have become right with God by cooperating with grace found in the sacramental system.
Scripture teaches that one is declared right with God because justifies the ungodly because of Christ’s finished work.
If we examine this in another way we would say that Rome, Remonstrants, and EO, have given us what we might call Christian Humanism. In this Christian Humanism man saves himself by his good works, his behavior, and his attendance on the sacramental system. This isn’t grace. This is self-salvation w/ God getting a hockey assist.
You see my friends as we consider James again, Rome looks at James and says it confirms their position. For them James is insisting that God works are combined with faith to the end of being right with God. For them these good works are seeking to attain something (being declared right with God) that is uncertain without their contribution. For the Reformed these good works are not in the least contributory to being declared right with God. For the Reformed these good works are the consequence of knowing that they have been declared right with God.
What does this mean? Well one thing it means is you could have two people (One who is Roman Catholic and one who is Reformed) doing the same exact good works and one is on their way to hell while the other is heaven bound? Why would that be? Well it is because Rome is working to obligate God to given them a salvation they cannot have apart from their cooperation while the Reformed is working out of gratitude to God for the salvation that can never be revoked or taken away. The difference is found in the motivation. Rome is motivated by gaining salvation. The Reformed are motivated because they have been freely given salvation.
This is why James can say marry faith and deeds. James insists that faith is dead without good works not because faith and works are required in order to be right with God, but rather because the consequent product of genuine faith that rests in Christ alone for being right with God is a zealousness for good works. When James complains of Faith unaccompanied by works he is not teaching that our behavior contributes to our being right with God. It is Jesus’ behavior alone that finds us declared right by God. James is saying that Faith unaccompanied by works is dead because such a faith is not faith. Even the demons have that kind of faith.
Look… we need to remind ourselves here that even after conversion our good works without being accepted for the sake of Jesus Christ still fall short of God’s standard for being good. It’s all a matter of God’s favor my friends. God accepts me for the sake of Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. God accepts my good works only for the same reason. The Spirit of Christ is daily increasingly conforming me to Christ in my thinking and behavior but even when my thinking and behavior are at their top level best they are still received and delighted in by God, not for the sake of their intrinsic righteous value but for the sake of the Father being pleased by Christ.
My friends, people who think that God accepts their good works as contributory along w/ Christ’s finished work unto the end of eventually one day in the future being right with God have not ever really understood the sinfulness of their sin.
This is why Christ is center for the Christian. It is why we hang crosses everywhere. My only hope is nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness.
Last week I had a Eastern Orthodox ask me;
Where do you even get this unbiblical idea that you are righteous simply by trusting Christ alone? My answer was, “Why, from Scripture alone of course.”
Galatians 2
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified[a] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18 For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. 19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness[b] were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
Look, when Rome comes to James insisting that James proves that our works are part of our being right with God what they are saying is that Christ doesn’t by Himself save His people by His righteousness imputed but instead people must add their additional works to Christ’s incomplete work and if they don’t add their additional works they will forever be damned? As such Christ doesn’t save but gives us the opportunity to save ourselves with maybe a little help from Him. That’s very good of God to allow us to save ourselves.
This is why I said earlier that this is nothing but religious humanism. It is a man centered religion where Christian language is used in order to cover up the fact that men are involved in an enterprise dedicated to saving themselves.
Now having said all this what do we do with James 2
24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
The Roman Catholic here will run to this verse in triumph insisting that our idea of salvation by Grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone is nonsense.
But again, remember the context here. The context is people claiming to have faith but not having correspondent works. The question that James is answering is … “How is that Christian faith is seen as vindicated.”
The Greek word in vs. 24 for “Justified” has a range of meaning that includes the idea of vindicated. This same word is translated that way in I Tim. 3:16. So, James is saying that if man claims to have faith (which is the context of this passage) then the vindication to that claim is the justified man’s behavior. However, has we have been laboring to explain, teaching how a man’s faith is vindicated is far different than teaching how a man is made right with God.
A person’s justification needs vindicated in James, as we see in James 2, because false claims are being made. People are saying they are justified (declared right w/ God via forensic declaration through faith alone in Christ alone) when there was no evidence to their claim. The evidence of which is good works. But good works are the evidence of Justification and NOT the foundation of Justification.
All of what we have said was zeroed in on by our own catechism in LD 11;
Q. Do such then believe in Jesus the only Savior, who seek their salvation and welfare of saints, of themselves, or anywhere else?
A. They do not; for though they boast of Him in words, yet in deeds they DENY Jesus the ONLY deliverer and Savior; for one of these two things must be true, either that Jesus is not a COMPLETE Savior, OR that they who by a true faith receive this Savior must find all things in Him necessary to their salvation.
Scriptural Support
1 Cor. 1:13, 31. Gal. 5:4 Col. 2:10. Isa. 9:6, 7. Col. 1:19, 20
Rome does not give us a complete savior. In the Romish system that insists that James is teaching our works are required for being declared right w/ God we find the denial that Jesus Christ is a complete savior.
With that in mind we now read James 2
26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
And with this all Protestants agree. Our only insistence is that works are the inevitable consequence of a living and vital faith and not contributory in the least to being right with God. As I cast my eyes across the dead churches of the West, I would say to our modern dead Church as James writes here … “You claim faith but your lack of good works as defined by God’s law means your faith is dead.”
Conclusion
I have tried to demonstrate, once again, that the religion of Rome and the religion of Geneva really are two completely different religions. Perhaps they both are not Christianity but it is certain that they both can NOT be Christianity.
We each own two different chaps both named Jesus. We both embrace completely different ideas of salvation. We both have completely different understandings of Church. We each have completely different worldviews.
And all this despite using the same words. It really is quite amazing and demonstrates how Worldviews affect EVERYTHING.