By: Brian Ediger

7-4-16

In my first blog post I made reference a couple time to the issue of faith and works. That is, are we saved simply by having faith in Jesus Christ, are we required to do works or does the saving faith cause us to do good works? There are several texts to look at. My intent for this post is to show that we are indeed saved solely by our faith in Jesus Christ, and that it is the fact that we are saved that causes us to do good works, not that we are compelled to against our will, but that our hearts and desires are changed. Quickly, I would like to also give a definition of “faith.” Faith is not merely a belief, that is it is not “blind” faith, or believing for the sake of believing, or because it’s what you grew up with. True faith is trust and confidence in the person whom you are putting your faith in. A good example of this would be the trust exercise where you have someone behind you and fall backwards trusting that they will catch you. You are more confident that your friend will catch than you are that someone you don’t know (or worse someone you know doesn’t like you) will. To put this in a Christian perspective, we trust God to fulfill His promises to us. In this specific situation, we are trusting God to accept the willing sacrifice of Jesus Christ in place of our own eternal suffering.

It seems like the two Apostles that people quote for this issue are Paul and James. There are more quotes from Paul because he wrote more letters (or books if you prefer) than James did. Many people seem to think that James and Paul were contradicting one another. With proper interpretation, we will see that this is not the case, but rather that they were complementing each other.

James 2:14-26

Here is a link to this passage: James 2:14-26. The verse the people will often quote, by itself, is James 2:24 “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” But what they fail to do in their interpretation is look at the context of that verse. At the very lest they should be reading all of James 2:14-26, and then think about what verse 24 actually means. Even in this small section we are given examples of people who had faith, and then acted upon that faith. It was Abraham’s faith that led him to offer Isaac on the altar. And it was Rahab’s faith that led her to take in and protect the Israelite spies. If they did not have faith, then they would not have done these deeds.

If we then expand the context of the verse by reading the rest of James, then we see that James is giving us examples of how people who are saved by faith will live. They will not show favoritism, they will control their tongues, and indeed their whole body. He is not saying that a saved person becomes perfect by any means, but he is saying that will be a definite difference in how that person lives, compared to someone who is not saved.

1 Corinthians 6:7-11

1 Corinthians 6:7-11 seems to be talking about something similar. Paul here is talking about how believers should be treating each other, but he also mentions that people doing certain actions (living certain lifestyles if you will) will not inherit the kingdom of God (which is another way of saying “will not be saved”). Verse 11 reads “And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” If they, and presumably we, used to be like those mentioned in the previous verses, but then were washed, sanctified and justified, then there was a change, correct? This would seem to coincide with what James was saying.

Ezekiel 36:26-27

In Ezekiel 36:26-27 Yahweh is saying that He will give a new heart and a new spirit to His people. His Spirit will be within them, and they will be caused to follow His statutes and observe His ordinances. When you look at the larger context, this passage is talking about a renewal of Israel both physically (returning to the land and never having to worry about famine again) and spiritually (as we just saw). This has not yet happened, but will before the second coming. However, it is also a good picture of what God does for those who do believe in Jesus Christ. He renews and restores us. It pairs well with the New Covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34 (which Jesus announced in Luke 22:20 during the last supper).

Living by the Law

Those who say that works are required for salvation seem to be doing the same thing that the Judaizers in Acts 15 were doing. They wanted the Gentiles to become Jews (religiously speaking) before becoming Christians, or at least as a part of Christianity. There was then a council in Jerusalem where the issue was debated, and it was decided that certain things would be required of Gentiles, while others would not. How did they decide these things? Well, we aren’t given that information. However, it does seem that they made a distinction concerning the laws that God had given to the Israelites through Moses. This is something that I will write about in more detail in a future post, but for now I will give you a very brief summary. All of the laws can be put under one of 3 categories: 1. Priestly Laws, which the priests had to follow, such as their dress code, what to do with sacrifices, what part of the sacrifices belonged to them, ritual washings, etc. 2. Cultural Laws, which all Jewish peoples (be they ethnic and religious Jews, or just religious Jews) had to follow, which involved a different dress code than the priestly dress code (and presumably the off duty priests would follow this one), what to eat and what not to eat, how to handle certain relationships, etc. 3. The Moral Laws, which are for every human being from the beginning to the end of time, and they would be every other law given. This may indeed end up being a series of blog posts.

Romans 3:19-31

In Romans 3:19-31 Paul demonstrates what the law’s purpose was. Verse 24 “They are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” You may be thinking, “Wait a minute! Didn’t same say we are justified by works? How can Paul say we are justified by grace?” While this is a good question, it is forgetting to look at the context. James is talking about showing people your faith, so the justification is in the sight of man. Paul is talking about being justified in the sight of God. God sees and knows the heart of a man, whereas you and I can only see and know what a man does.

In the follow chapters of Romans (namely 4 and 5) Paul gives us examples of people who were justified by faith before doing any works whatsoever. Both him and James use Abraham, and both say he was justified, one by faith and the other by works, which is again because they are talking about in God’s sight and man’s sight respectively. I am going to do a series on interpreting the Bible (also known as hermeneutics), which I would highly recommend reading. I would also recommend reading others works on hermeneutics or interpretation so that you will have a good grasp of the practice. Without proper hermeneutics, you cannot defend proper beliefs, and with proper hermeneutics, you can shed and denounce false beliefs.

Ephesians 2:1-10

The last passage I want to talk about is Ephesians 2:1-10. Here Paul talks about our inability to save ourselves. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Dead people can’t bring themselves back to life. God saved us because of His grace and mercy. The faith we have is a gift from God. Works do not save us, and therefore we cannot boast about being better than anyone. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works. And this is the new creation talked about in 2 Corinthians 5:17, which again is talking about a change.

A Faith that Changes

There are many other passages that we could go over, but I believe the above will suffice for now. I pray that you can see that our works are polluted garments, as Isaiah 64:6 says. It is by God’s grace and mercy that we have faith, and it is by that faith that we are saved. This may bring up a controversy, that is Calvinism vs Arminianism. If you have never heard those terms before, don’t worry about it. I’m not sure if I will do a blog post on it or not. I’m personally on the fence at this time about the issue. Maybe writing a post and studying it more will push me to one side or the other. Ultimately though, I think both sides (with the exception of extremists on either side) would agree that there is nothing that we can do to be saved, and the faith alone is what saves us.

And in conclusion, I would to reiterate what I said earlier: James and Paul were not contradicting each other, but were complementing each other. Both were showing that our faith changes who we are. Some get changed more than others, there is no doubt about that. But it is still a change. A true believer, that is someone who has saving faith in Jesus Christ, will be more loving towards others (and by others I mean everyone), will have more control over their anger, their tongue, and their sins (not by their own power, but by God’s power), and their light will shine before all men (but for God’s glory and not their own).

All quotes are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.