Dead Faith

“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

(James 2:14-18)

For many people what James says here and in the next passage we are going to consider next week seems like a contradiction to what Paul says elsewhere. In Ephesians 2:8-9 for instance he writes, “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.” Again in Titus 3:5-7 he says, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
The great Reformation cry is that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. In other words, it is fully and completely 100% the work of Jesus in his perfect life of obedience and his sacrificial death on the cross that we are forgiven and adopted into God’s family. It is not because of anything we have done nor anything we can do. Our good works do not add to our salvation. In other words, it is not Jesus plus our good works, it is Jesus alone. This is a cardinal and fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, and it is what sets us apart from works based religions whether claiming to be Christian or not.

But it seems that James is saying the exact opposite. He says that if we have faith and do not have works that this kind of faith cannot save us! Is he contradicting what Paul says? Is there a contradiction in the Bible? Not at all. We need to understand the basis or ground of our salvation is grace alone through faith alone. We are not saved because of our merit or good works. However, and this is important, genuine saving faith not only brings us into God’s family, but it is transformative. God gives us new life. We are made alive (regenerated) by the Holy Spirit and when we accept Christ we are also indwelt with the Holy Spirit. God begins a work of transformation in our lives and in the life of EVERY true believer. A person cannot truly come to Christ and remain unaffected or unchanged.

In other words, the true evidence of saving faith is a transformed life that RESULTS in a life filled with good works. Remember the passage in Ephesians that I cited above, listen to what Paul writes in the very next verse, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). Likewise, in Titus right after those verses he states, “The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people” (Titus 3:8).

Both passages clearly teach that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in the finished work of Christ alone. They also tell us that this genuine saving faith MUST result in a life filled with good works. If someone professes to have Christ but remains unchanged that proves that the faith was defective and worthless. That is the issue that James is addressing in this passage. Paul and James are in agreement on how a person is saved and what is the immediate, necessary, and inevitable result of saving faith, a life of good works.