The following message by Alistair Begg is made
available by Truth For Life.
For more information, visit us online at truthforlife
.org.
We're going to read from James in Chapter
2.
We read from verse 14.
What good is it, my brothers, if a
man claims to have faith but has no
deeds?
Can such faith save him?
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes
and daily food.
If one of you says to him, Go,
I wish you well, keep warm and well
fed, but does nothing about his physical needs,
what good is it?
In the same way, faith by itself, if
it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
But someone will say, You have faith, I
have deeds.
Show me your faith without deeds, and I
will show you my faith by what I
do.
You believe that there is one God, good,
even the demons believe that and shudder.
You foolish man, do you want evidence that
faith without deeds is useless?
Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for
what he did when he offered his son
Isaac on the altar?
You see that his faith and his actions
were working together, and his faith was made
complete by what he did.
And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham
believed God and it was credited to him
as righteousness, and he was called God's friend.
You see that a person is justified by
what he does and not by faith alone.
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?
As the body without the spirit is dead,
so faith without deeds is dead.
Amen.
As we turn to the Bible this morning,
and we're going to pray in just a
moment, I want to read a quote from
John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace and
the minister of the gospel in the 18th
century in England.
I came across this not so long ago,
and I thought it was very good and
worth sharing with you.
He says to his congregation in the 18th
century, I counted my honor and happiness that
I preach to a free people who have
the Bible in their hands.
To your Bibles, I appeal.
I entreat, I charge you to receive nothing
upon my word any farther than I can
prove it from the word of God and
bring every preacher and every sermon that you
hear to the same standard.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you for the privilege of
turning now to the Bible, and we pray
that the Spirit of God will bring the
truth of your word home to our lives
in a way that is life-changing.
For we humbly pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, I encourage you to turn to the
passage, or if you've left your Bible open
there, that's fine.
We're at the 14th verse of James chapter
2.
You'll remember last time we had a very
long introduction and a short conclusion.
And so let me return to the conclusion
so that we make sure that we don't
do a disservice to the text in any
way.
And let us just work our way back
down through these verses.
It's important to remind one another, as we
saw last time, that the contrast that James
is addressing here is not a contrast between
faith and deeds.
It is rather a contrast between true faith
and false faith.
A true faith, which James shows, is linked
inseparably to good deeds, and a false faith,
which James points out, is one that is
barren and useless.
We noted last time also that this distinction,
this contrast, is a crucial contrast because on
it hinges matters not only of time, but
also of eternity.
And therefore the challenge that is presented in
the question of verse 14 is one to
which we need to pay most careful attention.
Look at his question, What good is it,
my brothers, if a man claims to have
faith but has no deeds?
Here's the individual who is making big boasts
and big claims about their understanding of faith,
but in actual fact they are good on
words and they are absent in deeds.
Their lips have much to say, their lives
have little to show.
They have belief without behavior, they espouse a
creed, but there is no accompanying conduct.
And James is making it quite plain that
a sincere claim to have faith is not
necessarily synonymous with a sincere faith.
We can be sincere in our claim and
yet be sincerely wrong.
Hence the nature of this passage.
In verses 15 and 16 he underscores the
useless nature of such a claim when he
says, let me illustrate this for you, the
futility of mere words seeking to alter the
circumstances of the needy.
It's quite obvious, isn't it?
If somebody says to someone who's in need
of clothes and sustenance, well I hope you
have a wonderful day and keep warm and
are well fed.
He ends verse 16 with the way he
begins verse 14, doesn't he?
What good is it?
It's absolutely no good at all.
The poor will not thank us for our
kind wishes, nor will God thank us for
just simply saying that we have faith.
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
But they don't.
They don't because wishes cannot transform the circumstances.
That's the illustration he provides.
You might just as well do nothing as
stand there and make such statements.
And then in verse 17, the application of
his illustration.
In the same way, he says, faith by
itself, lonely faith, is dead.
Lonely faith is dead.
Now, James would have had access to a
number of occasions when Jesus, his brother, was
the teacher.
We know, of course, that James, through much
of Jesus' life, did not believe that Jesus
was who he said he was.
It was only after the reality of the
resurrection that he came to believe himself.
But he would not have been unfamiliar with
the clarity of Jesus' teaching, and not least
of all, in this kind of area.
So, for example, he may well have, as
a reference point, Matthew chapter 25, where Jesus,
in the second half of that chapter, speaks
about the separation of the sheep and the
goats.
It is a classic passage.
We use that illustration or that phraseology in
life, many of us not realizing that it
is a biblical picture.
We talk about separating the sheep from the
goats.
It is, of course, a rural picture, but
made famous by Jesus.
When, identifying the work of a Palestinian farmer
or shepherd, separating those that were to be
in one place and those that were to
be in another, Jesus, on one occasion, says,
that's how it's going to be when the
Son of Man comes in his glory.
When he comes and sits on his throne,
all the nations will be gathered before him,
and he will separate the people from one
another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats.
I'm quoting Matthew chapter 25 and verse 31
at this point.
He will put the sheep on his right
and the goats on his left.
So, it's a very straightforward picture, isn't it?
Anybody could understand what Jesus was saying.
They would routinely have known that experience, either
by doing it themselves, from the realm of
shepherding, or as a result of seeing it
take place in the course of a week.
But what Jesus goes on to point out,
is that those who enter into his kingdom
will be those who have done certain things.
And this is what he says.
I was hungry, and you gave me something
to eat.
I was thirsty, you gave me something to
drink.
I was a stranger, and you invited me
in.
I needed clothes, and you clothed me.
I was sick, and you looked after me.
I was in prison, and you came and
visited me.
And then, the righteous will answer him, Lord,
when did we see you hungry?
I mean, seriously.
The 18th century Christians are going to be
able to reply.
We weren't there in 1st century Jerusalem.
We weren't there in Galilee.
When did we see you?
When did we see you as a stranger,
invite you into our houses?
Or when did you need clothes, and we
gave you clothes?
And the king will reply, I tell you
the truth.
Whatever you did for one of the least
of these brothers of mine, you did for
me.
And then he flips to the other side,
and he says, and the people who will
be separated from me and cast into hell,
will be those who saw people needy, and
so on, and did nothing about it at
all.
It's a staggering statement.
It's a somewhat chilling statement, isn't it?
James says, Faith by itself, lonely faith, if
it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Now, of course, it would be possible for
us to jump to a false conclusion on
the strength of Matthew chapter 25, and also
on the basis of James 2, 17.
And some do.
And this is how they understand it.
They say, well, I read Matthew chapter 25,
and apparently the way that you get to
heaven is by giving clothes to people that
don't have clothes.
Or by welcoming them into your home if
they don't have a place to stay, and
so on.
Because that's what Jesus said in Matthew chapter
25, isn't it?
Yes.
But it's the same person who, when a
religious, almsgiving gentleman by the name of Nicodemus
came to see Jesus under the cover of
darkness, that Jesus said to Nicodemus, I tell
you the truth, you will never see the
kingdom of God or enter the kingdom of
God unless you are born again.
In other words, that which is referenced in
Matthew 25 is not the ground of entry
into heaven, for that ground of entry into
heaven is the work of Jesus.
But those deeds are evidence of the fact
that a man or a woman has been
made new by the work of Jesus.
Now clearly, it is possible to do those
things without any reference to Jesus at all.
And many people do, even today.
All around the world, there are all kinds
of humanitarian agencies that are dealing with AIDS
crisis and poor people and giving out different
things and so on.
And it is all very, very good humanitarian
work.
But it is not, in any sense, related
to Jesus.
Many of the people would deny an existence
of God and certainly would have no interest
in Jesus of Nazareth whatsoever.
So that is why you see what James
is doing is of such pressing importance.
He is making it clear that the presence
of these deeds cannot be used to argue
the presence of faith, but the absence of
these deeds may be used to argue the
absence of faith.
You see, you and I this morning cannot
claim to have a valid, eternally significant relationship
with Jesus if we choose constantly to sit
lightly and easily to the needs of people
around us.
We understand, I think we do, as a
congregation, that the need to be right with
God outweighs the need for physical sustenance.
But the fact that we understand the priority
of the gospel of a man or a
woman being put in a right relationship with
God does not allow us to sidestep the
clear instruction of James here nor the instruction
of Jesus in Matthew chapter 25.
We are not relieved of the responsibility of
caring for the needy simply because we understand
the nature of the priority of the gospel.
It is indeed the priority of the gospel
which gave rise to the great work of
Wilberforce in dealing with the slave trade in
England.
It is the priority of the gospel which
led to the development of so much work
amongst orphans and widows and the development of
so many hospitals throughout the entire world.
It was because God had gone to such
lengths in coming to save that it seemed
incomprehensible to those who were redeemed by the
compassionate love of God that the outworking of
that should not reveal itself in the cares
that are expressed to those who are in
need.
Spurgeon is reputed to have said, If you
want to give a hungry man a tract,
wrap it in a sandwich.
Which is quite an interesting thought, isn't it?
But maybe, and we want to be careful
about second-guessing Spurgeon, but maybe he should
have said, If you want to give a
hungry man a sandwich, wrap it in a
tract.
Because in all of our giving and in
all of our going and all of our
sharing, the cause of the gospel must remain
at the core.
It is very, very possible to collapse a
biblical understanding of the gospel into an amalgam
of charity and morality.
And indeed, the history of the church and
the history of organizations bears testimony to what
happens when an individual or an organization or
a church congregation or a denomination takes, as
it were, its focus from the work of
Christ on the cross in the gospel and
attaches it to that which emerges from that
truth, but dare not supplant that truth.
And it could happen as easily here at
Parkside Church as anywhere else.
That, incidentally and tangentially, is how groups who
do not believe the essentials with one another,
Jews and Christians, or Jews, Christians and Muslims,
can be involved together.
The only way they can be involved together
is if they collapse their central, core beliefs
into charity and morality.
But if we are prepared to hold true
and central to that which comes to us
from the scriptures, then we will be forced
to recognize that the gospel is the great
divide.
Well, verse 18, someone will say, you have
faith and I have deeds.
And James is going to say, no, we're
not going to be able to play that
game.
We're not going to be able to separate
them from one another.
This 18th verse and perhaps even the 19th
verse proves to be a challenge insofar as
the punctuation is very, very difficult.
We have to remember that there was no
punctuation provided for us in the original text.
Therefore, in translating, the translators have had to
decide who's who in this little dialogue.
Is this a hypothetical dialogue?
Who is the someone?
Who is the you of the personal pronoun,
you have faith?
Who is the I of the personal pronoun,
I have deeds?
Should the punctuation, should the quotes simply surround
you have faith, I have deeds?
Or should the quotes extend to show me
your faith without deeds and I will show
you my faith by what I do.
Essentially, it can keep you up all night
trying to punctuate this.
I've spent way too much time on it
and this is what I finally decided.
I'm going to leave you to have fun
with it by yourselves at home.
Because if we stand far enough back from
the text and ask, what is the main
and plain thing here?
Irrespective of whether it's a hypothetical conversation, irrespective
of if James is the first pronoun or
the second pronoun or whatever it might be.
What is James doing?
The answer is that he is dealing a
healthy blow to any attempt to suggest that
faith and deeds may be separated.
That's what he's saying.
Somebody says, well, we can perhaps parse it
out and you can have one and I
can have the other.
Perhaps that's the way we ought to do
it.
No.
The person says, why don't you go ahead
and provide me with an example of real
faith that is not accompanied by deeds and
I'll be happy to show you the reality
of my faith on the basis of my
deeds.
Now, the idea of faith being simply an
orthodox assent to certain truths is also dealt
with in the 19th verse.
You believe there's one God?
That's jolly good.
But even the demons believe that and they
shudder.
James again would have known that when Jesus
came into an area, oftentimes it was the
demons who were able to identify him.
Mark chapter 1, Jesus' teaching in the synagogues
and they're amazed at his teaching because he
has such authority.
And then a man in the synagogue who
was possessed by an evil spirit cried out,
What do you want with us, Jesus of
Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are, the Holy One
of God.
Was the demon a believer?
Was the demon trusting in Jesus as a
Savior?
No.
He knew who he was.
He had an orthodox understanding of Jesus.
And James is pointing out, you can have
an orthodox understanding of the Godhead, but you
won't be any better than the demons if
you do.
So, in other words, information plus a little
perspiration is not the same as the transformation
that God brings about when he gives us
birth through the word of his truth and
turns his people into those who are producing
first fruits.
That's verse 18.
We needn't stray very far from it.
In chapter 1, he chose to give us
birth.
And that's God's initiative, remember?
Through the word of truth.
That's God's instrument.
That we might be kind of first fruits
of all he created.
That's God's intention.
He produces this in us.
So, James is tackling the individual who says,
Well, I actually have an orthodox view.
I do believe there is a God.
Well, that's very good.
And I even actually believe that Jesus was
the Son of God.
That's also very good.
But you haven't even got beyond the demon's
classroom yet.
And the person may be prepared to say,
And not only do I believe in a
God and believe that Jesus is the Son
of God, but I also believe that it
is very important to do certain things like
feeding people and giving clothes to folks who
are cold at night.
All of that put together is now what
James is referencing here in terms of saving
faith.
You see, what the Bible makes clear to
us is that we're not in need of
an educator.
We're in need of a Savior.
We're not in need of education.
We're in need of salvation.
There is an educational dimension to coming to
saving faith insofar as there are propositions that
are laid out for us in the Bible
that are to be believed.
But the believing of those propositions is not
to be equated with genuine saving faith.
Because it is possible to believe propositions intellectually
without consenting to the impact of those propositions
in our lives.
And we know that from easy illustrations throughout
every aspect of our days.
There's no intellectual road to God in the
sense that we can simply decide to put
the pieces of the puzzle together and get
there.
No, we need God to do what only
God can do.
And that is to wake us up to
our need of a Savior.
Which is very different from being wakened up
to an interest in a deity.
Or being concerned to acknowledge that there is
an existence of a superpower.
Or that there is some great unmoved mover
at the origin of the universe.
Or that we're prepared to give credence to
the idea of a prophet who roamed the
Galilean hillsides.
We can do all of that and yet
still have no notion of what it means
to have our sins forgiven, to have our
lives invaded by the expulsive power of a
new affection, to be convinced within our hearts
that God is who He claimed to be,
and so on.
There is great potential for a lonely faith.
And a lonely faith, says James, is a
dead faith.
It is no good.
It is dangerous.
It is unhelpful.
It will take a man or woman eventually
into hell.
That's why it's so significant.
Now, he says, what I'd like to do
at this point is call a couple of
witnesses in defense of my thesis.
And so he's going to call first of
all, Abraham.
That won't be a surprise.
He's the daddy of them all, as it
were, we might say.
So well known for his place in biblical
history.
And then he's going to call Rahab a
prostitute, which is a little more surprising.
An unlikely illustration.
What is he doing in this?
Well, he's destroying the pretense of those who
imagine that simply their declaring of a belief
without evidence in their lives is saving faith.
You foolish man.
You foolish fellow.
The fool, remember, is the one who said
in his heart there is no God.
You foolish man.
Do you want evidence that faith without deeds
is useless?
Let me call two witnesses.
First of all, let me call Abraham.
Wasn't our ancestor Abram considered righteous for what
he did when he offered his son Isaac
on the altar?
And he goes all the way through to
the staggering statement in verse 24.
You see that a person is justified by
what he does and not by faith alone.
He's justified by what he does and not
by faith alone.
What are we going to do with this?
Some of you are immediately reaching for your
concordance to say that seems like an amazing
contradiction.
That seems to be a distinct contradiction to
what Paul is saying in the opening chapters
of Romans.
After all, isn't it Paul who tells us
that no one will be justified by the
works of the law because by the works
of the law can no one be justified.
James is apparently saying that Abraham is justified
by what he does and not by faith
alone.
Well, let me answer the question for you
and then we can unpack it now and
at a later time.
Two things will be helpful in tackling what
is an apparent but not a contradiction.
Number one, recognizing that what Paul is dealing
with in Romans is different from what James
is dealing with in James.
They're coming from two different starting points.
Paul is starting from the point or he's
pointing out that works have no value in
bringing a man or a woman into a
relationship with Jesus.
So those who would come along and say,
well, I did this and I did this
and I did that would God accept me
on the basis of that?
And Paul says, no, it wouldn't be possible
for you could never be good enough or
do enough in order to be accepted by
God.
Therefore, you'll never be accepted by God on
account of what you do.
James is not at that point.
James is picking up the people who profess
to have come to a knowledge of Jesus.
And James is insisting that a genuine awareness
of who Jesus is and what he has
done will be evidenced in good deeds.
And that those good deeds are not the
ground of our acceptance with God, but they
are the evidence of our acceptance with God.
So again, we ended last time in Ephesians
2.
It is by grace you have been saved
through faith and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of
works, so that no one should boast.
Then what does he say in the very
next verse?
For we are God's workmanship created in Christ
Jesus to do good works so that they
are the evidence of, not the ground of.
But James is saying, I don't want to
hear from you folks just rabbiting on about
what you believe and telling me things that
stir around in your heads.
Lonely faith is dead faith.
The other thing that we need to recognize,
and with this we must stop, is that
James and Paul are using justification in two
different ways.
The verb dikaio is used in the majority
of times in the way that most of
us have been taught to understand it in
terms of being declared righteous, not being made
righteous.
That justification in that sense is the opposite
of condemnation.
That in condemnation we are declared guilty.
In being justified we are declared not guilty.
But those who are declared not guilty still
know themselves to be wretched sinners.
How then can those who are sinful people
be declared not guilty?
On the strength not of anything done by
them, not actually of anything done in them,
but on the strength of something done for
them, so that our acceptance before God is
an account of who Jesus is and what
he has accomplished.
And indeed, until we understand that use of
the verb to justify, most of us will
make a complete shambles of trying to understand
what James is doing here.
So why don't I just end by at
least making an attempt to make sure that
we understand what Paul is doing with justify,
and then we'll come back to what James
is doing with justify.
Turn to Romans chapter 3 for just a
moment.
I'm going to take you on a whistle
-stop tour of a few verses.
In Romans, Paul is explaining, chapter 1, that
we have exchanged the glory of God.
In chapter 3, he is explaining that we
have fallen short of the glory of God.
And our predicament is such that in verse
19, now we know that whatever the law
says, it says to those who are under
the law, so that every mouth may be
silenced and the whole world held accountable to
God.
And here we are.
No one will be declared righteous in his
sight, declared righteous in his sight.
Notice, by observing the law, rather through the
law, we become conscious of sin.
So in other words, our mouths are shut.
We have nothing to say in our defense.
And when we are called upon to sit
in the dock and to give an answer
for where we stand before God, the answer
is we stand with our mouths closed.
We stand guilty.
We stand caught with a sword of rebellion
in our hands.
We stand lost in our own helpless indifference.
And then in verse 21, he explains how
it could possibly be that those who have
exchanged the glory and fallen short of God's
glory may come, as he mentions it in
Romans 5, to rejoice in the hope of
glory.
How is this possible?
Because, verse 21 and 3, a righteousness from
God apart from law has been made known.
And this righteousness from God comes through faith
in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
To all who believe.
To all who cast themselves consenting on Christ.
What this makes perfectly plain is that you
can never be so bad that you are
beyond the reach of God's grace.
And none of us could ever be so
good that we are beyond the need of
God's grace.
That's Jerry Bridges.
You can never be so bad as to
be beyond grace's reach.
And you could never be so good as
to be beyond grace's need.
So it covers us all, doesn't it?
It covers a person who's sitting here this
morning and whose life, as we look back
on it, is a royal shambles.
Who feel that they have blotted their copy
book so severely.
Who have marred their lives.
Who have turned their back on God.
Who have destroyed things.
Who have wasted his time and wasted their
time and invaded others' lives.
And harmed them and hated God.
And they say, there is no possibility for
me.
Look in here.
To all who believe.
You are not so bad as to be
beyond his reach.
And then, the spotlight spins around and catches
the smug and the self-confident and the
religious and the people who are so secure
in their own goodness.
And shakes us up and says, listen here.
You're not good enough to get into heaven
without a Savior.
You will on that day have only one
defense.
You will only have one plea that you
may enter.
And that plea is Christ.
Jesus paid it all.
He did it.
And I look to him.
The wonder of justification by faith is that
God has brought into time his great assize.
So that when a man or a woman
comes to rest in the work of Jesus,
that man or woman need never ever fear
that God will go and muck around and
rake around in that which he has forgiven.
We need never fear that the penalty will
be reintroduced.
It is forever and for all time.
He will discipline us.
The work of God in sanctification is an
ongoing work.
But the work of God in justification is
a finished work.
That's why there is no condemnation.
To them that are in Christ Jesus.
Does that describe you?
In Christ Jesus.
Not interested in Christ Jesus.
But in him.
Because you have cast yourself upon him.
Caught up in the arms of his mercy.
You'll actually know if that's true.
Not because of a feeling in your tummy.
Although you may have a feeling in your
tummy.
But you will know it to be true
when even through your own awareness of your
falterings and your bumblings and your bad weeks
and your not praying enough and you're not
reading your Bible regularly.
That even when you are confronted by the
fact that there's a way to go.
Still when Alan plays that hymn and takes
it up a notch on the second stanza
if you know the hymn there was a
reason to take it up and play it
with such conviction because what is it that
Spafford says in the second stanza?
My sin.
Oh the bliss of this glorious thought.
My sin not in part, but the whole
is nailed to his cross and I bear
it no more.
That's the issue.
And my dear friends if you do not
have that conviction within your heart if God
does not bring it to you despite all
of the assailing of the evil one against
you.
Then you probably need to get down on
your knees and cry God be merciful to
me the sinner and he will save all
who believe and he will bring you into
an experience of genuine expressions of his wonderful
love and grace.
While we left Abraham kind of hanging we'll
come back to him.
Father look upon us in your mercy come
to those of us who feel ourselves to
be beyond the pale of your goodness and
pick us up in the arms of your
redeeming love and to those of us who
like the elder brother in the story of
the prodigal have been slaves in your house
but have no knowledge of you as a
wonderful father and friend pierce the bubble of
our self righteous pomposity and bring us down
so that we might kneel and then that
we might stand with all of our comfort
and all of our defense outside of ourselves
in Jesus.
It's in his name we pray.
Amen.
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