“Justification by Works?” (James 2:14-26) |2/2/20

James 2:14-26 | 2/2/20 | Will DuVal

This morning we’re in week 5 of our 12-week sermon series “TOUGH TEXTS”, in which we are tackling the most difficult passages in the Bible. We’ve considered allegedly IRRELEVANT texts, supposedly INCONSISTENT texts, purportedly PERSONALLY problematic passages (say that 5 times fast!). And last week, Pastor Thad did an excellent job filling in for me on the topic of “unanswered prayer”, as we transitioned to the category of THEOLOGICALLY problematic texts. 

And we’re gonna stay in that category this morning, and examine a passage, maybe THE passage, that has given Christians, evangelical Protestants, at least, perhaps more headaches than any other in all of Scripture - James ch2, vv14-26. And rightfully so! There is a very real tension that exists between what James is going to say here and what we find others, in particular, the apostle Paul, claim elsewhere in Scripture. Now, I use the word TENSION very purposefully. I hope to show you there’s no CONTRADICTION here; as we affirmed in week 2 of this series, the Bible is God’s word, and God doesn’t make mistakes. So no contradiction, but CERTAINLY some tension. Just consider these two verses side-by-side for a moment: 

Romans 3:28 - “one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. ”

James 2:24 - “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

Now I hope you can appreciate that I’ve got my work cut out for me this morning. To PROVE to you that those two statements are both equally true, inspired, important doctrines that believers must affirm. Some Christians throughout history haven’t. The tension was just too much for them, so they felt forced to pick: I’ve either gotta go with Paul or go with James; Roman Catholics chose James, while Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, called James “an epistle of straw”, he claimed it had NOTHING of the gospel in it, and Luther tried to have James removed from his own German translation of the Bible. But I want to argue this morning that when rightly understood, James and Paul are defending the same gospel, using the same language, but in different ways, to emphasize different calls to action, because of their different congregations. Got that? Same gospel. Same LANGUAGE, but in different ways. For different emphases. Because of different audiences. 

SCRIPTURE: Would you STAND with me, for the reading… James 2:14-26

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 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[b] is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.    THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD...

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  Now, I am NOT aiming at a verse-by-verse exposition of James 2 this morning. We will preach through the Book of James again in a few years. My goal this morning is simply and specifically to resolve the tension between James and Paul, or to use the word of the day, to JUSTIFY my claim that James doesn’t contradict Paul.

  But first, let’s put this debate in its historical context. In case you weren’t with us in October, when I preached my sermon entitled “The 5 Solas” on the 502nd anniversary of the Protestant Reformation - that history-altering, 16th c. movement to reform the theological perversions of the medieval Catholic Church - there are 5 core tenets of Protestantism, and indeed, of biblical orthodoxy, when it comes to the all-important doctrine of SALVATION: we are saved 1) by GRACE alone, 2) through FAITH alone, 3) in CHRIST alone, 4) to the GLORY OF GOD alone, 5) in accordance with SCRIPTURE alone. Now, at first glance, James APPEARS to repudiate the second sola, namely, that we are saved by faith alone. And were that the case, then we ought to INDEED stand with Luther in condemning James as a heretic. To deny the doctrine of justification by faith alone is to deny the gospel itself. There is no more central theological truth in ALL of Scripture than salvation by grace alone through faith alone; take that away, and the Bible is reduced to just another good story. (Actually, it would be a TERRIBLE story, because NO ONE is capable of salvation on their OWN merit, so the rest of the Bible would really just amount to an early heads up that we’re all doomed for HELL!) That’s why Paul is ADAMANT, that salvation comes through faith alone:

  -Rom 3:28 “one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

  -Gal 2:16 “a person is not justified[b] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”

  -And MOST famously, Eph 2:8-9 “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. ”

  -And let’s not forget JESUS either: “” (For God so loved the world,[i] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn 3:16)

  And YET, James just told us that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” (v24) So which is it? ARE WE JUSTIFIED BY FAITH, or by WORKS? The answer, is “Yes”. BOTH. Because it depends on what you mean by “justified”, what you mean by “faith”, AND what you mean by “works”.

  This interpretive tension highlights a problem with our language.

  -John Piper points this out using the example of the word “ROCK” - it can refer to a stone, a type of music, something you do in a rocking chair, or inexplicably, the highest paid actor in Hollywood ( :) He’s talented, but come on!)

  -So one word can refer to multiple things. Conversely, Iwan and I could sit here and debate all afternoon whether we’re gonna play FUTBOL after church, or we’re gonna play soccer, until we realize we’re talking about the same thing.

  -And Piper demonstrates the GREEK language wasn’t immune from such confusion either. Take the word “zelos”. It can mean “jealousy”, negatively, or ZEAL, positively. That’s a big difference! When James exhorts us in ch.3 to rid yourselves of all “ZELOS”, does he not want us to be passionate, or not want us to be envious? Very different implications.

  SIMILARLY, the word that BOTH James AND Paul use that is identically translated as “justified” (δικαιόω), has two VERY different meanings - according to Strong’s Concordance, δικαιόω can mean “to show to be righteous”, OR it can mean “to declare righteous”. And at the risk of oversimplifying this morning’s sermon, and letting myself off the hook too easily, that’s the ballgame right there, folks. That’s your sermon in a nutshell. The resolution of all the James-Paul tension:

  *Paul uses δικαιόω in the sense of “to declare righteous”; James uses it with the connotation of “to show, or we might even say to PROVE righteous”. To validate. Verify. Vindicate.

  I bet Eli $20 that the Chiefs are gonna win the Super Bowl tonight. By 11:30pm, because the game will last 6 hours, I’ll be JUSTIFIED in having placed that bet. I’ll be PROVEN right, vindicated. (I didn’t ACTUALLY bet him; it’s just a sermon illustration; relax, you Baptists…)

  So we might say that “justification (salvation) by faith necessarily results in justification (confirmation) by works”. Both James and Paul are right, because they mean different things by the word “justified”.

  Similarly, they mean different things by the word “faith” as well. James defines for us exactly what kind of *“faith”, he has in mind here - and I use scare quotes intentionally; they hadn’t been invented yet in the 1st c.; Koine Greek doesn’t have ANY punctuation, but if it HAD, I’m CONFIDENT James would be scare quoting every time he uses the word “faith” in this passage - because the “faith” he criticizes so harshly isn’t really faith AT ALL! That’s why he writes in v14: “What good is it… if someone says he has faith”; SAYS, being the operative word. James is lambasting NOMINAL faith. Faith in name only. Easy, EMPTY “believism”. He describes it in v19 as mere intellectual assent to unapplied, theological truths - “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” Faith isn’t a matter of taking a doctrinal quiz; demons pass those with flying colors. They know who Jesus is, and they poop their pants. They know He’s Lord, he’s just not THEIR Lord. Faith means surrendering to Jesus as Lord. Letting him change you from the inside out. THAT’S faith. Real faith, is life-changing, life-GIVING, effectual, SAVING faith; it is a faith that necessarily LEADS to, a change in behavior.

  Jesus made this clear, when he declared, “You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matt 7:16-20) Faith is the seed, that naturally and NECESSARILY, it ALWAYS, without exception, results in fruit. If you’re not bearing good fruit, you’re not saved. If you are, then you are. It’s really that simple.

  Now, our sanctification, our growth in holiness, is admittedly a process. A LONG process; LIFE-long, in fact. So growth may look like THIS. Virtually EVERY stock will have dips over time. But like the stock market, it’s all about your TRAJECTORY, and your performance over the long haul. A new believer doesn’t HAVE a long haul yet. They’ve just got a TRAJECTORY. But I’d rather invest in a stock that’s worth very little, but that’s DOUBLED in value since last year, than one with a higher overall valuation that’s dropped every month for the last year. What’s important at any given moment in our lives isn’t necessarily the current valuation of our “sanctification stock”, if you will, but how it’s performing over the last month, 6 months, year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. But James is warning us this morning: growth does NOT look like THIS. That’s not growth.

  Both James and Jesus, and even PAUL, are all in agreement on this. Listen to how PAUL describes true, saving faith in his epistles:

  -Gal 5:6 “The only thing that counts is faith working through love.” It is WORKING faith. Faith at WORK. As evidenced, by one’s love.

  -Eph 2:10, just AFTER his famous declaration of salvation by grace through faith, NOT by works, Paul IMMEDIATELY pivots to assure us that “ we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” We are saved BY grace FOR works.

  -Conversely, we hear him warn in Titus 1:15-16 “the defiled and unbelieving… profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.” You can PROFESS whatever you want. Jesus says in Matthew 7- “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (v21) LOTS of nominal Christians will be name-dropping Jesus at the gates of Heaven. And they will hear Him say, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Because it’s not enough to confess with your mouth; Romans 10:9 - you must confess with your mouth… AND... ?? believe in your HEART, and you’ll be saved. Because if you believe in your heart, truly believe, then it will necessarily affect the way you live OUT that faith in your hands and feet, your actions as well.

  -Paul exhorts us in 2 Cor 13:5 “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” And what does he mean by “TEST”? Take a doctrinal exam? A theological quiz? No, Paul clarifies in vv6-7: “unless indeed you fail to meet the test… But we pray to God that you may not do wrong… but that you may do what is right”. The TEST is your DEEDS. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. Or as Jesus would put it, ‘Examine your FRUIT.’

  -And whether or not we examine ourselves, our OWN works or not, Paul says we can rest assured that GOD will examine them on the Day of Judgment: 1 Cor 3:13 “the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.”

  - Because Rom 2:13 “it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”

  That sounds a lot like James to me. A lot like JESUS too, who says in Matthew 25:31-46

  ““When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[f] you did it to me.’...And the righteous will go away into eternal life.””

  Now, if I wasn’t DIRECTLY quoting Jesus there, and I just stood up and preached that from an evangelical, Protestant pulpit like this one WITHOUT further explanation, you guys would excommunicate me on the spot! Does that sound like grace alone through faith alone to YOU?! Jesus just tied salvation to WORKS; he didn’t say a WORD about faith, in that whole passage! Or in John 5:28-29: “an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” How can Jesus tie our salvation to our works, without any reference to our faith? Because IF you have faith, you WILL always have works.

  Jesus’ illustration was this: I save fruit-bearing fig trees. If you are producing figs, it’s a safe assumption that you are in fact a fig tree, and therefore, you will be saved. But interestingly, and this is why Jesus’ tree analogy is so ingenious, even with a limited 1st c., pre-Mendelian understanding of genetics, but I guess Jesus did create Gregor Mendel after all, so Jesus knew that you can duct tape figs to a thorn bush and it doesn’t make it a fig tree. The SEED is what makes a fig tree… a fig tree. BUT the internal change WILL necessarily result in the external outcropping. As John MacArthur explains: “Just as a fruit tree has not fulfilled its goal until it bears fruit, so also faith has not reached its end until it demonstrates itself in a righteous life.” (148)

  Or for those of you who are more MATHEMATICAL, like me. There are basically 4 ways of conceptualizing this relationship between salvation, faith, & works... the EQUATION, if you will.

  Works → Salvation

  This is the position of the current Pope Francis. When asked a few years back by a crying young boy whether his recently deceased atheist father was in Hell, Francis replied, “Your father did not have the [gift] of faith… But he had his children baptized. So he had a good heart… God ALSO has the heart of a father. Do you think he would abandon his child, your father, a good man, even if he didn’t have faith?” Pope Francis’ answer to the question is clear: faith is NOT necessary for salvation. At the OTHER end of the spectrum, some “evangelicals” hold that…

  Faith → Salvation

  Works aren’t necessarily part of the equation, in ANY way, shape, form, or fashion. If you pass the doctrinal quiz, your deeds are irrelevant. Unfortunately for them, there’s James 2, Romans 2, John 5, Matthew 7, Matthew 25… all the biblical evidence we’ve already examined, that makes it CLEAR that God really, REALLY cares about how we live. So, official Catholic Church doctrine responds that

  Faith + Works → Salvation

  Sorry Francis, you must have faith to be saved, BUT you’ve ALSO gotta have works. And on Judgment Day, you cross your fingers and hope that your works were sufficient, to supplement your faith, and earn you salvation. Unfortunately for Roman Catholics, there’s John 3:16, Romans 3, Galatians 2, Ephesians 2, oh, and by the way, James 2:23 - please notice that James HIMSELF, in this very passage, acknowledges that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness””. Faith alone saves. Which leaves just one possible configuration. The Bible’s CLEAR, consistent picture of the relationship between the 3...

  Faith → Salvation + Works

  Listen friends: if your good works are needed to SUPPLEMENT any part of your salvation, if your goodness is a necessary INGREDIENT, on the LEFT-hand side of that equation, then I don’t know how you sleep at night. Because the bad news is: you’re just not that good. Compared to a holy God, and the perfect sinlessness required for entrance into HEAVEN, Paul is justified in calling your best attempt at good deeds “worthless. No one does good, not even one.” (Rom 3:12) But the GOOD news, friends, is that Christ Jesus doesn’t need your help in saving you. In JUSTIFYING you. In declaring you righteous; not FINDING you righteous, because he didn’t. He FOUND you in a helpless pile of your own sinful FILTH. But while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. And in so doing, He DECLARED you righteous by virtue of his own, imputed righteousness. 2 Cor 5:21 “For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus traded his perfect righteousness for your sinful brokenness on the cross. He Paid the debt you owed but couldn’t afford. And PURCHASED new life for you by virtue of his resurrection from the dead. And all you have to now, all you CAN do, to be saved, is TRUST Him. Have FAITH. TRUE faith. Not just BELIEF, but FAITH. Belief is checking theological boxes. Faith is surrendering your heart, your will, your LIFE. You might BELIEVE the Chiefs will win. Faith is withdrawing your life savings and betting the house on it. The Chiefs aren’t worth that kind of faith. Sorry. JESUS is.

  And when you have THAT kind of faith, you can expect your life to change. Because it belongs to JESUS now; you surrendered it to him. And he has no intention of leaving you in the same filthy state he found you. He loves you too much. You can and should expect that true, saving faith ALWAYS results in not JUST salvation AFTER this life, but transformation DURING this life as well. Salvation PLUS Works.

  *So John MacArthur can say: “[James and Paul] are not standing face-to-face confronting each other, but are standing back-to-back fighting two common enemies. Paul opposes works-righteous legalism; while James opposes easy-believism. But both men make clear that we are going to be judged on the basis of what we have done, for that is a sure indicator of genuine salvation.” (MNTC: James, p.134)

  Thirdly, James and Paul mean different things by the word “WORKS”. Paul defines it as...

  -Rom 3:28 “works of the law.”

  -Gal 2:16 “a person is not justified[b] by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ… not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Repeated 3x for emphasis!

  Paul has in mind CIRCUMCISION. Ritual hand-washing. Keeping kosher. The same kinds of “works of the LAW, the Old Testament Law”, that Jesus had in mind when he claimed so boldly in Matthew 5 that he came to FULFILL the Law, for our sake. He questioned the Pharisees’ fasting in Mark 2. Their observance of the Sabbath. He called himself the LORD of the Sabbath. Jesus put an end to the OT kosher laws in Mark 7 when he “declared all foods clean” (v19). He celebrated the last legitimate Passover meal with his disciples the night before his crucifixion. OT Law and tradition would never be the same after Jesus. Hebrews 8:13 says the “new covenant… makes the first one obsolete.” It wasn’t bad. It was GOOD, for a time. For 1,500 years, the OT Law served its purpose. The analogy I used in a previous sermon was MS-DOS. Ground-breaking in its day. But there’s a new operating system in town now. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” (John 13:34-35) And like Jesus, James emphasizes new covenant, Christian works of love, as the confirmation of our salvation. That’s clear from the test case he offers in vv15-17: helping a poor Christian brother or sister in need. If you have FAITH, you will necessarily do it. Fig trees bear figs. Leopards have spots. And Christians have hearts of love and service. They just do. It’s in our spiritual DNA.

  So to recap, James and Paul mean different things by the same words:

  “Justification” -- Paul: “to declare righteous”; James: “to show to be righteous”

  The word “Faith” -- Paul: “saving heart-transformation”; James: “empty believism”...

  And the word “Works” -- Paul: “obsolete OT Law”; James: “requisite Christian love”

  As Joachim Jeremias characterized it, “Paul speaks of Christian faith (trust in Jesus) and Jewish works (obeying the law so as to justify oneself), whereas James refers to Jewish faith (pure monotheism) and Christian works (good deeds that flow from salvation)” (Jeremias, quoted in Blomberg and Kamell, ECNT: James, p.139).

  Their emphases are different, but their theologies are the same.

  Dan Doriani summarizes: “Paul and James concur that real faith works. Both say genuine disciples keep the whole law (Gal 5:3; James 2:10). Both praise the law. James says it is royal, perfect, and gives liberty (1:25; 2:8; 2:12). Pauls says it is holy, righteous, and good (Rom 7:12). Both say obedience is what counts (James 2:14-26; Rom 2:25-27; 1 Cor 7:19). Both say true faith works in love (Gal 5:6; James 2:8). Both say we show our faith by what we do (Eph 2:10; James 2:18; Jesus says the same in Matt 7:15-21). Paul says, “Doers of the law will be justified” (Rom 2:13); James says, “Doers of the word… will be blessed” (James 1:22, 25).” (Doriani, p97)

  Even LUTHER eventually came around and admitted “A believer does not truly believe if works of love do not follow his faith” (Luther, Lectures on Galatians, 1535, 27:30). As the OTHER Reformer, John Calvin, famously put it: “Faith alone justifies; but the faith that justifies is never alone”

  Now, ALL of this leads us to one final question we need to consider in closing, and in our APPLICATION of this text; I’ll let Doriani ask and answer it for us:

  -Doriani: “Even if we can show James does not contradict the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, we wonder why he chose language that appears to contradict Paul. Consider, therefore, James’s audience. He wrote for Jews who took pride in their theological knowledge. They tended to think their heritage and knowledge guaranteed them God’s favor. James wrote for the kind of person who, today, might tell a pastor: “Don’t bother me, I’m already a Christian”... James hoped to undermine false confidence in an orthodox confession. If Paul wrote to give comfort to those who were afflicted by guilt, then James wrote to afflict those who found false comfort in their assent to orthodox theological ideas.” (p99)

  I ask you this morning, friends: could James be addressing this letter to YOU? To ME? False comfort in an orthodox confession? MacArthur adds: “A remembered experience of giving one’s life to Jesus Christ, even with a specific date and place, is not in itself proof of salvation. The only certain proof is the life lived after such a profession was made.” (p.138)

  Many will say to Jesus on that day, “Lord, Lord” - I can give you the exact date and place of my profession of faith. I cried REAL tears! I got baptized! Here’s my church membership certificate. And He will reply, “Faith without works is DEAD. It is no faith at ALL.”

  Consider that image, that POWERFUL image, that James leaves us with at the end: “As the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” Have you ever attended an open-casket funeral, memorial service? Seen first-hand a lifeless corpse, a body without a spirit? It’s pretty jarring.

  Is your faith ALIVE? Is it VIBRANT? Is it GROWING? Are you living out your PURPOSE; you were created by God FOR GOOD WORKS? Praise God for justification by faith alone. But praise God that true faith is never truly alone. Let’s pray.