Let me tonight take this into the second
chapter of James, in the beginning of verse
14.
This is a passage of scriptures that is
confused many, and some see a conflict between
the teaching of Paul and the teaching of
James.
They see two different theologies, or two different
systems, in Romans and James.
Paul declares, categorically, in Romans 4, that a
man is justified by faith.
James, James, James, chapter 2 says a man
is justified by what?
Nothing could be further apart than justification by
faith and justification by what?
They're the opposite of free.
Now, how are we going to resolve this
conflict?
We can't have the Bible teaching two different
systems of justification.
There can only be one way of approach
to God, and that's God's revealed way.
And who's right?
James or Paul?
Some say that James is writing with an
undeveloped doctrine, an undeveloped theology.
That James really belongs to the Old Testament.
He's thinking of an Old Testament concept.
He's thinking in terms of the law, and
James doesn't really belong to the New Testament
at all.
He's Old Testament doctrine.
Now, difficulty with that is that justification was
never by works in the Old Testament.
The law never saved anybody in the Old
Testament.
And Abraham, who lived in the Old Testament,
wasn't justified by works.
He was justified by faith.
There's only one principle of justification.
So you can't say we ought to throw
James into the Old Testament.
So there are others who come along and
say we ought to throw James out of
Zion.
But James just didn't understand New Testament teaching.
And he was writing before full revelation, we
ought to ignore James.
And then there are others who feel that
there is a harmony between James and Paul,
and look for some harmony so that Paul
can say a man is justified by faith,
James can say a man is justified by
works, and they not contradict each other.
That's what we want to look at in
this passage tonight, to find the resolution of
the problem, because I think you will agree
with me that there is no more important
question that a man faces than the question,
how can a man be declared acceptable to
God?
After all, God's the one to take the
turn on which men come to himself.
God's answer to that question is of vital
importance.
So James is going to discuss this issue.
And he begins by asking a question in
verse 14.
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a
man say he hath faith and hath not
works?
Can faith save him?
May I use a marginal reading that I
think brings out what James is saying here.
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a
man say he hath faith and hath not
works?
Can that kind of faith save him?
Now, what James is doing in verse 14
is not tell us how a man is
saved.
James, in verse 14, is defining what faith
is.
He isn't trying to teach that faith saves.
He's trying to show us what faith is.
And according to James, faith is something that
is living, which demonstrates it is alive by
reproducing itself.
Faith is living, and what is living reproduces
itself.
So you know, I mean, pause and let
that begin, because this is vital to the
whole passage.
What James is trying to teach us, that
what professes to be faith must be put
to a test.
Does that which claims to be faith produce
anything?
Or does the person who claims to have
faith reproduce anything in his life?
Does the person who says, I have faith,
demonstrate the genuineness of his faith by letting
that faith produce that which is the fruit
of faith and is therefore acceptable to God?
Now, James is giving us this simple proposition.
When a man claims to have faith, to
believe God, don't accept it just on the
basis of his words.
Look at his life and see if his
life produces that which can be called the
fruit of faith.
That which is not faith is barren, sterile,
and dead, and never can and never will
reproduce.
So if a man says, I have faith,
but there is never any product of faith,
that which he calls faith is not faith
at all in the sight of God.
Because if it's not living, it's not faith.
And if it's not reproducing, it's not living.
And that's the thought in James' mind.
Again I say, James is not trying to
tell us how a man is faith, by
works as opposed to false doctrines of faith,
as though James were out to discredit Paul.
He's trying to define what faith is.
Let me read verse 14.
What does it profit, my brethren, or what
fruit is there, my brethren, of a man
saying he has faith?
Can, and he does not have works to
prove the validity of his faith, can that
which calls itself faith but is proven to
be not faith because it doesn't reproduce save
a person?
And of course the answer is no.
It takes life to beget life, and faith
lives so that faith can produce that which
is living because it is living.
And a man is saved by faith, but
what is dead has no right to go
under the guise of faith.
So James says, don't take a man's word,
look for the fruit.
And if there's no fruit, it's not faith.
Now, there may be weak faith and strong
faith.
There may be degrees of faith, and one
may have little faith and another have much
faith.
That's possible.
But there is no such thing as living
faith and dead faith because what's dead is
not faith.
There is no such thing as a genuine
faith that does not work.
That's not faith.
So there isn't a faith that works and
a faith that doesn't work.
Faith works.
That which doesn't work is not faith.
So you can talk about weak faith and
strong faith or little faith and much faith,
but don't ever talk about living faith and
dead faith because that ain't so.
All right.
That kind of faith, or that which parades
as faith, but which is not faith because
there's no life in it, can never save
an individual.
Now, James is going to proceed to give
us several illustrations of this definition of faith.
Faith is that which is alive, and what
is alive always reproduces itself.
The first illustration is in verse 15 and
16.
If a brother or sister be naked and
destitute of daily food, and one of you
say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye
warm, be ye filled, notwithstanding ye give them
not those things which are needful of the
body, what do your words profit them?
And you can make them sound as puppetish
and preacherish and pietistic as you want to,
but to say the word will never close
and feed the individual.
Your word has to be accompanied by action
if the individual is to be fed and
clothed.
Do you see his point?
Words will never meet a need.
Words must be accompanied by action to have
any benefit.
And so he draws a conclusion in verse
17.
Just as words not supported by action profit
the hungry and the cold nothing, even so
that which calls itself faith, if it's not
accompanied by work, is dead.
It's dead.
And what does that prove?
Now remember, I insisted there's no such thing
as dead faith.
What does it prove?
It's not faith at all.
Isn't that right, guys?
Good.
Thank you.
You see, it's not faith at all.
Now he's going on to his second illustration.
A man may say, thou hast faith and
I have work.
Show me thy faith without thy work.
Now is that possible?
You can't prove faith without work.
There is no way under God's heaven whereby
you can prove you have faith without work.
Show me thy faith without thy work.
And the person has to say, I can't
do that.
So the man turns right around and says,
all right.
I will show thee my faith, and how
do I show you my faith?
By my work.
Now he's showing us the place of work
in a believer's life.
Works are not designed to win salvation from
God.
But works are designed to be a demonstration
of what can never be proved by word
alone.
And that's the purpose of work, to prove
the validity of faith.
I can't prove my faith without work, but
by work I can prove faith.
Not by work I merit faith or gain
salvation, but by work I demonstrate that my
faith is a living faith.
He's going to continue this.
He wants to show in verse 19 that
mental ascent that might call itself faith is
not faith in God's sight.
And he goes into hell to find an
illustration of all places.
Now believe us that there is one God,
that's faith without any work.
Ascent to a doctrine.
Well, he says, you know better than the
devil, because the devil believes and trumps.
The demons in hell shudder at the almightyness
of God.
They give ascent.
Are they saved?
No.
Why not?
Because faith without work is not faith.
And to give ascent to a truth without
that truth being translated into conduct is a
valid and sterile and ineffectual thing in the
sight of God.
So he says, if you profess to have
faith and do not demonstrate the genuineness of
that faith by your work, you're no better
than a demon.
Now, you didn't know that you were being
likened to demons, did you?
I'm using the you generically, not individually.
And now he draws a conclusion to this
second illustration in verse 20.
Wilt thou know, O vain man?
And vanity in Scripture doesn't have to do
with fixing up your face or putting on
a good suit of clothes.
Vanity has to do with a mind that
is empty of genuine content.
To be bubble-headed is about as good
a way as I know to put this.
Now he says, wilt thou know, O bubble
-head, that faith without work is death and
therefore proves itself to be not faith at
all.
So he's given us the first illustration, the
hungry and the cold.
And words won't meet his needs.
The words have to be accompanied by action.
The second illustration, you can only prove the
genuineness of your faith by work The demon
professed to believe, but there is no accompanying
fruit of that faith, so it's not faith
at all in the sight of God that
could save demons.
Now he comes to the third.
And he goes now to an Old Testament
Biblical illustration.
These two that he drew in verse 15
and again verses 18 and 19 were logical
illustrations, but now he goes to a Biblical
illustration.
Now remember that James is writing, as he
states in 1.1, to the Twelve Tribes,
that is to Jews.
And if you want to stir the pride
of an American, you talk about George Washington.
And if you want to stir the pride
of a Jew, you go back to the
father of his country, you talk about Abraham.
So he says, now let's study Abraham, the
first person in Scripture about whom it was
specifically said he was justified by God.
Now let's study Abraham and see how Abraham
was justified before God.
And so he says, was not Abraham our
father justified by work?
Uh-oh, now it looks like he's crossing
himself up or crossing me up.
I don't know which.
Abraham was justified by work.
You go into Genesis chapter 15, where Abraham
was declared justified by God, and we read
in verse 2 that Abraham addressed God and
said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me,
seeing I go childless?
And God said, You're going to have a
son.
Verse 5.
Look now toward the heaven and tell the
stars if I'll be able to number them.
And he said unto him, So shall thy
seed be.
God made a promise.
What was Abraham's response?
Verse 6.
He believed God.
And as a Hebrew scholar like Bruce would
tell you, the word translated believed here is
the Hebrew word amen.
But we use it at the end of
a prayer.
And when we say amen, we are giving
a sense of our minds and hearts and
will to what has already been prayed.
When Abraham said amen to God, he was
saying, God, I understood it.
I love what you told me, and I
believe it.
Abraham believed God.
God said, You're going to have a promise.
Amen, Lord.
God said, Did I hear an amen?
Yes, Lord.
And God said to Abraham, Abraham, let me
tell you something.
I'm going to count that amen as a
basis for righteousness.
I'm going to declare you, Abraham, acceptable to
me.
Now, what did Abraham do?
All he did was to believe God, and
he was justified by faith.
How, then, can James say, Abraham, our father,
was justified by what?
Well, you turn from Genesis 15 into Genesis
22.
And Abraham in Genesis chapter 15 had believed
God, and God that very moment declared Abraham
justified.
Isaac is born years later, and Isaac has
grown to young manhood.
And God said to Abraham, Abraham, I want
you to take him down to a mountain
that I'll show you, and I want you
to sacrifice him on an altar.
You know the story about Abraham.
So I packed up a small caravan with
servants and firewood and his son, and they
made a three-day journey and went and
came to Mount Moriah.
He built an altar.
He bound Isaac, put Isaac on an altar.
He was ready to slay Isaac when God's
hand halted the sacrifice of Isaac.
And then God said this.
I'm reading Genesis 22 to 15.
The angel of the Lord called unto Abraham
out of heaven the second time and said,
By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord,
for because thou hast done this thing and
hast not withheld thy son, thine only son,
that in blessing I will bless thee, and
in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as
the stars of the heaven and as the
sand which is upon the seashore, and in
thy seed shall all the nations of the
earth be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my
voice.
Because thou hast obeyed my voice.
Now where did disobedience come from?
It was the product of faith.
And the genuineness of Abraham's faith of Genesis
15 is demonstrated in the fruit of faith
which is obedience in Genesis 22.
And how could subsequent generations in Israel know
that Abraham's faith was a genuine faith?
It was alive and it produced obedience.
So obedience was the product of faith, but
it was also the fruit of faith.
So Abraham was justified by faith.
He was also justified by works because his
works demonstrated the genuineness of the faith that
had justified him.
You see that?
Abraham was justified by works when he had
offered his son up on the altar.
Now verse 22 gives us the interpretation.
Seeest thou how faith worked with his works?
And by works faith was made perfect, or
faith produced its fruit.
The fruit of faith was obedience.
How did Israel know Abraham was justified?
By his obedience, by works.
How did God know Abraham was justified?
By faith, because God can see faith.
No man can see faith.
You've never seen faith in me, nor have
I ever seen faith in you.
I've seen the product of faith in you,
but the only way I knew that you
had faith was what your faith produced.
The only way you can know I have
faith is what faith produces in me.
You can't see faith.
God can't.
But faith is testified to be a living
thing by its fruit.
And as our Lord said, by their fruit
ye shall know them.
So the scripture is fulfilled with Seth Abraham
believed God, and it was imputed on him
for righteousness, and he was called a friend
of God.
Now, what's the conclusion to this lesson drawn
from Genesis 15 and 22?
Verse 24 gives us the conclusion.
You see, then, how that by works a
man is justified, not by faith only.
His works did not save him.
He was saved long before he produced the
works, but his works proved the validity of
his faith.
Now, he's going to conclude with a fourth
illustration, and he's using the harlot Rahab.
Rahab had heard the report of the promise
God made to Israel that God was going
to deliver the fortified city of Jericho into
the hands of the Israelites.
And instead of believing the military leaders in
Jericho who said Israel can never conquer Jericho,
she believed the promise of God to Israel
that God was going to deliver her city
into the hand of her own.
She believed God.
How was Rahab saved?
She believed God.
What was the proof of the genuineness of
her faith?
When the spies came in, and it was
known that there were men from the enemy
camp, she hid them under the haystack.
And when the people searching for the enemy
had left, she took them out and said,
You better get going and get back to
camp because they are looking for your life.
The fruit of her faith was that she
delivered the spies, gave them refuge, and sent
them back in safety.
She wasn't saved before God by her works.
But what did her works prove?
That what was called faith was genuine faith
because faith is alive and always reproduces itself.
That which calls itself faith but never reproduces
is dead, and that which is dead can
never be called faith.
So in verse 26, James for the fourth
time draws a conclusion from his lesson.
As the body without the spirit is dead,
so faith without works is dead also.
If the immaterial part of an individual leaves
this body, this body is a corpse.
It's not living.
It's dead.
If that which calls itself faith that reproduces
is gone, if there's no life in that
which calls itself faith, it's a spiritual corpse
and shouldn't be called faith at all.
Now, I trust in this, you can see,
that James is not teaching a doctrine that
Paul contradicts.
He's defining for us in very clear terms
what faith is and how faith operates and
how we can know that what we call
faith is genuine faith.
And sometimes if you want to ponder the
question, well, what is the biblical concept of
faith?
I suggest you come to James 2.
You see, that faith is that attitude of
utter dependence upon God that counts God's word
as the word of a gentleman so that
he will fulfill what he has promised.
And that confidence in God which we call
faith is a lie.
And what is a lie will reproduce itself.
And the fruit of faith will be evident
in the life of a child of God.
Our Father, may this portion of the word
be made living to us by the Spirit
so that we might understand that James is
not teaching a doctrine of salvation by work
but is defining for us what faith is
and showing us how faith operates so that
we might produce the fruit of faith in
our life.
We pray it in Jesus' name.
Amen.