II. Faith Works
“14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy
faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead” (James 2:14-20)?
The fact that real saving faith works is equally true of sanctifying faith. In Hebrews chapter eleven, Abel is the example of saving faith. Enoch is the example of sanctifying faith. The action verbs of sanctifying faith are reckon and yield (Romans 6:11-13). Sanctifying faith is a life lived in cooperative synergism with the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Bible word for this synergism, or partnership in holiness, is “fellowship.” Without these two verbs of sanctifying faith, the Christian life is reduced to a legalistic form of will-power sanctification produced through the power of the “flesh. This is the opposite of a life of grace through faith. Therefore, reckoning the “old man” to be “crucified with Christ” is necessary before a believer can yield to the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
When the believer’s life is consumed with knowing God and living for God, the rotting scales
of worldliness will begin to fall away from our lives. This spiritual
dynamic is a matter of focus. Focusing upon getting rid of worldliness
is like trying to disengage a fishhook embedded deep in the flesh by
pulling on it as hard as possible. The result of doing that will
increase the damage already done. The solution is to cut out the hook, not rend the flesh.
If we want worldliness removed from our lives, we need to change the
desires of our hearts to wanting to know, serve, worship, and walk with
God more than anything else in our lives. This demands a kind of faith
that transforms the human will. Before this will ever happen, our faith
in the reality of God must increase through the knowledge of God’s
Word.
This
world is filled with millions of professing Christians who are
baptized, confirmed, and who have become members of local churches.
They attend church services, but for most of these people, the reality
of their profession of Christ will seldom get beyond the church-house
doors. They are not working at living pure and
righteous lives. Neither are they intent on studying the Word of God in
order to know and do God’s will. Most of these people have no real
desire to reach the lost and make no real effort to reach the lost for
Christ. Their profession of saving faith never transitions into the
manifestation of life transformation in working/ministering faith. This
anomaly is a contradiction against the supernatural effect of saving faith.
The
reality of faith that understands the eternal condemnation of a soul
and the eternal salvation of a soul is discovered by asking one simple
question. “What
shall a man give in exchange for his soul” (Matthew 16:24-28). Notice
that the question is not asking about the value you put upon an eternal
soul. Everyone believing in an eternal Hell would say a human soul is
priceless. The question is really, what would you GIVE for one soul,
especially if it was YOUR soul? The reality of faith is tested by
answering this question.
In
Matthew 16:21-23, Jesus had just told His disciples that He was going
to go to Jerusalem and there He would be killed by the Jewish
Sanhedrin. Peter rebukes Jesus for consenting to this death when He
could avoid it. Jesus rebukes Peter with some remarkable words; “Get
thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest
not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew
16:23). Peter yet did not understand the necessity of the death,
burial, and resurrection of Jesus for the redemption price of lost
souls. The price being paid was unfathomable! Jesus was establishing
His answer to the question, “what shall a man give in exchange for his
soul?” Jesus was willing to GIVE His life. This is what Jesus is
addressing in Matthew 16:24. Real faith understands the value of an
eternal soul and is willing to pay whatever price is necessary to bring
ONE to Christ. We will never understand this until we have learned to
give out of our poverty rather than out of our abundance. When the
money is gone, what then can you give?
“24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 26
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 27
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his
angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 28
Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not
taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom
(Matthew 16:24-28).
Real Christianity is where real Christians live a real faith in the give and take of a real world. James continues to bring us before the never lying mirror of God’s Word for self-examination. We would be foolish to have God bring us to the never lying mirror
of God’s Word for self-examination and not respond to the convictions
of what that mirror exposes about the real us. This is the warning
regarding the possibility of an artificial faith spoken of in
James 1:23-25. If we bring what Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-28 into the
context of what is said in James 1:23-25, we add a great deal of depth
to what James is saying. Real faith works as defined by what price we
are willing to actually and personally GIVE in exchange for a soul.
“23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:23-25).
All true teaching of “the faith” requires that we take a long and hard look at our spiritual reflection
comparing the reality of what is seen with the expectations of God
revealed in the Word of God. We must carefully compare what we see with
any discrepancies or contradictions to what God’s Word says. In doing
so, we are looking for a living faith. A living faith is a working
faith that walks the walk, not just one that talks the talk.
There
is a story of a little boy who came home after church services one
Sunday morning puzzled. He asked his daddy, what is a Christian? His
dad put him on his knee and carefully explained what it meant to be a
Christian. He said a Christian was a person who had trusted in Jesus
Christ to save his soul from having to go to hell by calling on Jesus to
be his Savior. He said a Christian was a person who read and studied
the Bible every day to discover God’s truth so he could live for God and
obey Him. He said a Christian was a person who talked to God and
believed God would meet his every need. He told him a Christian was a
person who tried to love all people the way God loves them, even those
people that hate you. He told the little boy that loving them meant
making any sacrifice necessary to get people saved and help them to
become Christians too. After the father finished, the little boy’s eyes
grew big in amazement, “Daddy, have you ever met one of those kinds of
people?”
Biblical “faith,” like biblical Christianity, is defined by what we do, not by what we know. The point of James 2:20 and 26 is that knowing truth, without doing
truth, is dead faith. Paul deals with the same issue in his
confrontation of the continuing carnality in the lives of the Corinthian
believers. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith;
prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus
Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (II Corinthians 13:5). Paul
is saying, the change in the way you live will prove if Christ is
really living in you. Lives lived to the contrary of God’s revealed
will in God’s Word reveals a contradiction to saving faith. In fact, reprobation is the danger (II Corinthians 5:17).
Faith is the certainty (a real possession) of the spiritual things we hope for. Faith is the proof of the reality of the spiritual things we cannot see (Hebrews 11:1). Therefore, faith comes:
1. By hearing the Word of God regarding an invisible spiritual truth
2. Resulting in a conviction that the truth is real (owning it)
3. Implying a pledge of fidelity to that spiritual truth
4. Resulting in obedient action that corresponds with that truth (living it)
Without anyone of these elements, neither saving faith or working faith
is real. Hebrews 11:4-40 gives detailed illustrations and personal
examples of those who acted upon the truths of God as a reality (true working faith).
Faith holds the title deed to do what God promises and acts upon that
title deed as if the property in question already belongs to the
believer.
Biblical faith deals only with truth and reality as defined by the Word of God.
1. By the Word of God, we know what is real
2. By the Word of God, we experience what is real by acting upon the Word
3. By the Word of God, we possess what is real because it is the immutable promise of God
God honors living faith (Hebrews 11:2)
“For by it {faith} the elders” {Hebrews 11:2; all the generations of faithful believers before us; both men and women, some of who are listed in Hebrews chapter eleven}
were honored by God. As we look at each of these people, we will see
that God honored them by honoring His promises to them. He looked after
them, cared for them, corrected them, directed them, and gave them
victories over their enemies and the world around them. God has
historically honored faith. We can believe He will historically
continue to do so.
True life transforming saving faith expresses itself in moral obedience to God’s Word and in ministry to others in a working faith. That is what James means by the use of the word “works” (ergon). It can also be translated doing. In James 1:23, the word “doer is from the Greek word poietes (poy-ay-tace’), meaning a person who performs what he professes. Faith without “doing” is self-deception about its reality.
“22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was” (James 1:22).
James is not proposing that “works” (doing) is a means of salvation, but rather that it is a product of (and proof of) a real and living faith. This is the evidence of the kind of faith that really saved a person.
Any professed faith in Christ that continues in resistance to God’s
will (as revealed by His Word), in rebellion against God’s will (by
selfish disobedience), or that continues to reflect an attitude contrary
to God’s Word, must question its own hypocrisy and its own reality.
The groundwork of introduction to James 2:14-20 is verse 13. “For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” Just as mercy is the inevitable response of real and true biblical love, verses 14-16 show us that works, a working faith that does what God says, is the inevitable response (action) of a real, true biblical saving faith.
When you take a real, living faith before the mirror of God’s Word,
that which is reflected is an action of life that images a “doer of the
word.”
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Numerous studies and series are available free of charge for local churches at: http://www.disciplemakerministries.org/
Dr. Lance Ketchum serves the Lord as a Church Planter, Evangelist/Revivalist.
He has served the Lord for over 40 years.
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