What is Saving Faith? (James 2:14-26)

Well, it's good to see everybody back again. Glad to be here with you. And as we open your scriptures to the second chapter of James, and as you're doing that, let's pray. Father, thank you for our time together this morning.

Thank you that we can open the word. We pray that you would just enable us as we peer into it this morning to hear it with our ears of faith, that we might apply what we hear in our lives, that we might grow in godliness, that the Lord Jesus Christ would be magnified through us, for he alone is worthy.

Amen and amen.

All right.

Saving Faith in James 2

So back to James. And here in chapter 2, we're looking at verses 14 through 26. So 14 through to the end of the chapter in James chapter 2. And we're going to take up together this morning the topic of saving faith.

We're going to take up the topic of saving faith. What is saving faith? That's the title of the lesson this morning, and it's a great question to think about. What is saving faith? Can you see it? Can you see it?

And if so, what does it look like? What does saving faith look like? How do we know whether we have it? How do we know? And as a parent of children, particularly young children, how would you discern whether they have it or not?

How would you know? How would you discern it? We live in an unprecedented time in world history when people's access to the word of God has never been greater. It is widely available, certainly over the internet, but in personal copies of the word of God, certainly in the Western world.

I dare imagine that everyone in here has more than one copy of the scriptures that they could place their hands on. And yet, the very gospel that is revealed in those scriptures, it remains largely hidden, particularly now, and sadly so, in the evangelical world.

The gospel is concealed because Bible ignorance is rampant. We have the word of God, and yet our ignorance of it is rampant. Very few churches consistently teach the scriptures in any kind of exegetically satisfying or detailed way.

They hop and skip around. They create sermonettes for Christianettes, and people don't really encounter the power of the living word. Paul says that he didn't hold back any of the whole counsel of God.

There in Ephesus, when he spent several years there. You know, I think it's the American consumer mentality that has created the notion that the customer is king, and that notion has invaded the church.

And this invasion of the customer is king, or the consumer is king, has, I think, contributed to a general dumbing down of the requirements of discipleship. What does it mean? Seldom do we hear that you must deny yourself and take up your cross.

Instead, and particularly among some of the various largest churches in this country, what you'll hear is, you can have your best life now. The radical call to discipleship is just not heard.

It's not heard.

And the results of the decades of this kind of easy believism has filled the church with very weak and shallow people, people whose lifestyles are essentially indistinguishable from the culture at large.

You can look at any metric you want, and you will find that American evangelicalism mirrors its culture. It might be five to 10 years behind, perhaps, but in any meaningful measure, there's no difference.

The driving force behind this easy believism is the heresy of decisional regeneration, decisional regeneration, the notion that a verbal profession of faith in Jesus results in causing a person to be born again.

The Christian church has been plagued for centuries with the heresy of baptismal regeneration. That's the idea that the waters of baptism wash away original sin and confer grace upon the individual, whether faith is present or not.

The result of this teaching, of course, is that there are many unconverted people in the church, and they would point to their baptism and its ritual as the basis of their eternal confidence. Well, decisional regeneration substitutes a different ritual by which a person is given assurance of salvation because they've answered yes to a series of questions regarding Jesus and then prayed a prescribed prayer, and then there is a pronouncement that you are now a believer.

This decisional regeneration, just like baptismal regeneration, rests the assurance of salvation on an act done by the individual, or in the case of infant baptism, done on behalf of the individual. But in both cases, the power of salvation is falsely thought to reside in man, not God.

The jargon of decisional regeneration is frequently, I accepted Christ, and then there'll be something added onto that. I accepted Christ at a camp meeting. I accepted Christ when I was a teenager, you know, here, there, wherever.

I accepted Christ at a revival meeting. And yet, it is not whether you have accepted Christ, it's whether Christ has accepted you. That really is the issue. Has Christ accepted you? Well, here we are in the second chapter of James, and he is addressing a danger to the church there in the first century, but he has much to say to us as well with regard to this topic of saving faith,.

And what is it?

Let's take the reading here in verse 14. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed, and be filled, and yet do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, you have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

You believe that God is one, you do well. The demons also believe and shudder. Are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar?

You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God.

You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when God she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

But just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. Now, let's just begin with a basic statement. And the basic statement is this, there is no contradiction between the teaching of the apostle Paul and James with regard to the relationship between salvation and good works.

There is no contradiction. The word of God does not contradict itself because God does not contradict himself. In the book of Romans and Galatians, Paul is concerning himself with the means by which a sinner is made right before God.

And he teaches there is nothing a person can do to earn God's favor, but is simply declared justified based upon God's grace received through faith alone. Justification by grace through faith alone. That is what Paul is teaching in Romans and Galatians.

But here, James, on the other hand, is looking at a person after salvation, and there strongly insists that good works are a necessary consequence of the saving grace of God. God's grace does really and truly change people if it is a saving faith.

It necessarily produces change. In fact, we might well say good works are not the root, but the fruit of a saving relationship with God through Christ. Not the root, but they are surely the fruit of that saving relationship.

Now, James leads off this whole discussion here in verse 14 with a pair of rhetorical questions. What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? First question. Second, can that faith save him?

Both questions grammatically expect a negative answer. The answer, no. They're constructed that way to elicit the answer, no. What use is it? If a man says he has faith, but has not works, can that faith save him?

No, it cannot save him. What use is it? It's no use. It's no use. In other words, can a faith produce no internal or external change, no distinctly Christian deeds? Can that faith actually save? In the final judgment, will God accept that kind of faith?

The answer is no.

No, he will not.

In this lengthy section, I wanna break it down as follows. I've got four case studies, case studies. They became popular in the 1970s when I was in business school. Everything was a case study, where you'd get all the information.

And you'd work it through.

And produce some sort of a conclusion. So there are case studies. That's the way I'm gonna break this down for you. There are four of them. Four of them in this section of James, and they are designed to answer the simple question, what is saving faith?

Now, they don't provide a comprehensive answer, but they provide a true and necessary answer. So four case studies, that's the way I wanna look at it with you. And the first one is in verses 15 through 17, the case study number one, and it is the case study of the needy brother or sister.

The case study of the needy brother or sister, beginning in verse 15. If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm to be filled, and yet do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead being by itself. The first case study by which we may begin to discern what is saving faith is the case of the poor and needy believer. The poor and needy believer.

The scenario is simple, that James quickly sketches out here. He's talking about the poor, and these in his case here that he's created, the poor are poor even by ancient standards. They lack the clothing necessary to stay warm.

They lack the food necessary to sustain them on a daily basis. These are truly the very most destitute of people, and when confronted with this crying need, the people whose faith lacks saving power responds, notice, with kind words and warm wishes, and no effort to try to alleviate that person's suffering.

Be warmed and be filled. It might be translated, I wish you well as you go and take care of yourself, or perhaps may God feed and clothe you. That sounds pious, unspoken, because I'm not going to, or perhaps in the vernacular, be warmed, be filled, and be gone, be gone.

Either way, the idea is how cruel a response is this, how useless, how dead, what kind of faith is it? Real faith, genuine faith, living faith is active. It's an active faith. I think we can rightly say faith leads to faithful behavior.

True and living faith leads to faithful behavior. They're inevitably and inextricably connected. Turn with me over to Luke chapter 17. You've heard me say this a bunch of times. I'll probably continue to say it.

James, I'm convinced, was profoundly influenced by his older brother. So in Luke 17, in verses one to 10, we have a teaching of Jesus, which I think is instructive and relates directly to what James is taking up here.

Beginning in verse one, he that as Jesus said to his disciples, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble.

Be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times a day and returns to you seven times saying I repent, forgive him. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith.

Increase our faith. And the Lord said, if you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey you. Which of you having a slave plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he has come in from the field, come immediately and sit down to eat.

But will he not say to him, prepare something for me to eat and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink. And afterward you may eat and drink. He does not thank the slave because he did the things which are commanded, does he?

So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say we are unworthy slaves. We have done only that which we ought to have done. Notice, and we don't have time to completely pull this thing apart, but I want you to notice a few things.

I want you to notice the connection to faith in verse five with the need for the disciples themselves to remember those in need, those in need of justice and compassion and to work to restore a fallen sinner.

That's one through four. These are the people in need. And when that is given to them, their response is oh, we don't have enough faith to do that. Further notice that Jesus then begins to pick apart that statement about faith.

And he finishes here in verse nine in this parable noting that the master doesn't thank the slave because they did what was simply commanded of them.

Isn't that interesting?

Behind that idea of thankfulness here is the idea that it doesn't put the master in debt to them. He's not indebted to them because they did what was supposed to do. Nor is God indebted to us if we do what we are supposed to do.

Doesn't create a debt or an obligation on his part. It's just simply an understanding that true faith in God produces a compassionate heart. That's the point. That's the point of the whole thing. A true faith will produce a compassionate heart.

This is in contrast, by the way, if you look at the very wide context here, to the Pharisees. Or just the opposite. Back in chapter 15 and verse 32, for example, where he addresses the older brother and there the father says but we had to celebrate and rejoice for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live and was lost and has been found and yet the older brother, he wants nothing to do with that.

No compassion. Or chapter 16 and verse 14 where we have the money lovers. Now the Pharisees who are lovers of money were listening to all these things and were scoffing at him. The money lovers, the greedy.

We have chapter 16 verses 19 to 21 where we have the rich man and Lazarus who doesn't have enough to eat. He's waiting for the crumbs to fall off the table. These are the people in need. And then Jesus says you are to give, you are to demonstrate compassion and righteous justice for these.

Increase our faith.

He said it only takes this much. Only takes this much. Let's go back to James now. Not the quantity that determines saving faith.

It's the quality.

Notice, by the way, here in James two that this is not a case study about feeding the poor in general. But in particular, taking care of a specific class of poor. The believers, right? Those who belong to the same family that we do, the family of God.

This is where saving faith will first evidence itself. John says in 1 John 3, 17 and 18, whoever has the world's good and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. Seems like John was observing similar problems. When we see one of our brothers and sisters here in this fellowship sick or hurting, how do we respond?

Boy, that's tough. I hope you feel better. Be warm, be filled, be gone. Don't get too close to me, by the way, if you're sick. And we never give them a second thought. Never give them a second thought.

We don't take the time to pray. We don't pray then and there. We don't pray during the week. We don't take any kinds of actions to alleviate their suffering. Is that our response? You can nod your head, yeah, because we're all guilty.

We're all guilty. We gotta keep going, I'm sorry. Saving faith, here it is, the first case study. Saving faith is compassionate, okay? Just mark it down. Saving faith is compassionate faith. Let's move along, second case study.

Saving Faith and Love for God

The demons. The demons, verses 18 to 20. But someone may well say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without the works and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one, you do well.

The demons also believe in shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Here, James is anticipating an objection and the objection is those that try to differentiate faith and works as if God grants faith to some and works to another.

And he says, demonstrate your faith without or apart from your works, verse 18. Show me the invisible apart from the visible.

You can't.

You can't.

It can't be done. Good works make faith visible. They demonstrate its reality. In fact, the idea that saving faith is a purely intellectual faith, no matter how orthodox, is actually a demonic faith, according to James in verse 19.

You do well, the demons also believe in shudder. That expression, God is one, that is from the Old Testament statement of orthodoxy, the Shema in Deuteronomy chapter six. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.

That's their confession of faith. And James lists that and says, even the demons are orthodox, in the sense that they know the true God. They know Jesus, his son. They also know that Jesus will one day banish them to the lake of fire.

But their belief in his sovereignty does not result in love for him. In fact, just the opposite. It produces a terror and a dread that metaphorically makes the hair on the back of their necks stand up.

All right, look at it, verse 19. You do well, the demons also believe,.

And they shudder.

They're terrified, orthodox and terrified. Again, we're indebted to John in 1 John 4, 18, where he says that there is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

So the question we have to ask ourselves is, orthodox in our profession, but do we love? Do we love? Do we see a love for Christ in our hearts? Do we long to know him? Do we long to emulate him? Do we long to please him?

Is that the desire of our hearts? Do we pursue him? Or is our faith a series of theological propositions and truths that we profess, and yet it makes little to no impact on how we live our lives day to day?

See, that's the second lesson.

Saving faith is God-loving. It's first compassionate. Second, it's God-loving. It produces a love for God. Otherwise, it's a demon faith. So James tells us. He studied three.

Saving Faith as Obedient Faith

Abraham. Abraham.

Verse 21. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected, or matured.

And the scripture was fulfilled, which says Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Oh boy, that was the one that gets us in there, huh? Poor Martin Luther tripped him up. This third case study introduces us to the account of the patriarch, Abraham. And here, James refers to the shocking command by God to Abraham that he offer his only son, Isaac, as the capstone of his life of faith.

And when Abraham willingly offered Isaac, believing that God would raise him from the dead, we're told in Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 19, he was, according to James, verse 21, justified by his works.

Was not Abraham our father justified by his works, he says, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? Now, this word justify, it has actually two primary meanings, one that is most common and that we most think of when we use that terminology.

To justify, we speak of in a legal or forensic sense that has the idea of being put into a right relationship with God, to be acquitted, to be declared as righteous, to be treated as righteous. We see that, for example, over in Romans chapter three and verse 20, Romans 3 .20, right?

Because if by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. In other words, none will be acquitted, none will be declared righteous, none will be treated as righteous, none will be put into a right relationship with God by the works of the law.

And that is the primary usage, but there is a second usage, and I think it's the usage that James is now using. The second uses of the word justify means to show or prove to be right, or to vindicate.

To show to be right, to prove to be right, to vindicate. Same verb. Couple of illustrations of that for you. Luke chapter 10, verse 29, but wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor?

Seeking to vindicate himself, who is my neighbor? Or chapter 16 and verse 15, speaking here of the Pharisees, and he said, you are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.

And so there is this idea of being vindicated publicly, being proved as right. I think that's what James is talking about here. Abraham lived the life of faith. Hebrews chapter 11 tells us in verse eight that by faith he left his homeland for lands unknown,.

By faith.

Hebrews chapter 11, verse nine, by faith he wandered about in the promised land without any permanent home, and he did so for decades. Genesis 22, where he offers Isaac, it says, by faith he waited 25 years for God to give him a son, and then in complete obedience, he was willing to sacrifice that son because God had commanded it.

James looks at Abraham's life and makes the observation that all along his faith was working with, helping, aiding, the idea is his works. Verse 22, faith was working with, working alongside of, helping, aiding.

Each new trial strengthened his faith and brought it closer to its completeness or its intended goal, which was the willingness to sacrifice everything for God. The final and the public act of offering Isaac as a sacrifice fulfilled the earlier scriptural statement in Genesis 15, six.

There in verse 23, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. That's a statement about his forensic, his legal righteousness, his status before God based on his faith, it's a declaratory statement, that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

That's early on, and the authenticity of that earlier pronouncement by God is now made visible or vindicated before the watching world in a very dramatic way. What is that dramatic way? Offer your son, offer your son.

It was ultimately Abraham's progress in faith that earns him the title, the friend of God, the friend of God. The point James is making is that the faith that God counts as righteousness, the saving face must ultimately manifest itself in an unquestioning obedience.

That's what saving faith does. Saving faith is obedient faith. It is a compassionate faith, it is an obedient faith. Now God has not called any of us to the level of sacrifice that he called Abraham, but he does call all of us who name Christ to be obedient, and how do we cultivate that kind of obedience?

How is it cultivated? It's cultivated in the small things, faithful in little, faithful in much. Abraham's faith begins small and grows, just like us. Our faith begins small and grows, and each opportunity to visibly demonstrate the internal reality of a changed life strengthens that faith and enables us to pass the next test as it were.

To make evident to the watching world that we are children of God. What is saving faith? It is obedient, it is an obedient faith.

Saving Faith and Personal Risk

The case of Rahab.

In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

James is gonna close out his discussion of what is saving faith with the case of Rahab. Now, why he brings Rahab forward? We'll have to ask him. Perhaps it's because someone might think, well, yeah, Abraham, but he was a unique individual.

He's an anomaly. That's an anomaly. I mean, he's not the person to pattern your life after. Okay, well then how about faith in the life of an ancient prostitute named Rahab?

How about that one?

Her story is familiar to us in Joshua chapter two. Joshua chapter two. The nation of Israel now Moses gone under the leadership of Joshua stands just outside the promised land across the Jordan River.

And he sends in spies to spy out the land. And they come to the walled city of Jericho. They enter into the walled city of Jericho and they go to the place where historically you would go for information, a brothel.

And that's where they go. And while there, the prostitute Rahab utters the most amazing confession of faith regarding the power and authority of Israel's God and the certainty with which Israel would be successful in overthrowing Jericho.

Verse eight. Now, before they lay down, she came to them on the roof.

Just listen to this expression of faith.

And said to the man, I know that Yahweh has given you the land and that the terror of you has fallen on us. And that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you. But we have heard how Yahweh dried up the water of the Red Sea before you came out of Egypt.

That was 40 years before, by the way. And what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who are beyond the Jordan, the Sihon and Og whom you utterly destroyed. When we heard it, our hearts melted and no courage remained in any man any longer because of you.

For Yahweh your God, he is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. Now therefore, please swear to me by Yahweh since I have dealt kindly with you that you also will deal kindly with my father's household and give me a pledge of truth.

Spare my father and my mother and my brothers, my sisters and all who belong to them and deliver our lives from death. That is really quite a remarkable confession of faith from a pagan prostitute. She asks for them to spare her and her family.

She puts her life at risk because she believes that Yahweh will prevail. It's an active demonstration of saving faith. She doesn't merely say that she believes that he will overthrow the city. She takes action on that belief.

She risks her own life acting on that belief and by her actions, she proves the reality of her saving faith. We could say that saving faith is active. It is an active faith. Saving faith prompts us to action at personal risk.

It prompts us to take action at personal risk. Perhaps for someone here this morning, there's something you know you should do. You know you should do it. Or there is something that you are doing that you should stop.

The question is, will your faith activate? And will you this week?

Will you?

Will your faith activate? Well, the transformation of the human heart is a divine surgery. Salvation is of the Lord. It is unattainable by human effort. It is unseeable to the human eye. Only God knows for sure.

Only God knows for sure whether someone is a true follower. But he hasn't left us in a sea of subjectivity by the same token. The word of God gives us certain diagnostic tests. Remember Paul in 1 Corinthians, he says, test yourself to see whether you're in the faith.

There are certain diagnostic tests that he gives. And they allow us to get a glimpse of what's going on. First inside us. And then I guess as a parent, certainly inside of your children. So back to the original question, what is saving faith?

What does it look like?

Well, at least it partially looks like this.

It's compassionate.

It's God-loving, it's obedient, and it is active. These are the characteristics of saving faith. May God grant us, even this day, the ability to pass the test. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word.

It is sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts deeply like a scalpel. It reveals the thoughts and intents of the heart. We confess that salvation is of the Lord, that we have no part to play in it, that we are justified by your grace through faith alone in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.

But our Father, we also understand that it cannot just remain as an orthodox confession of faith. It must, it must issue forth in an unchanged life. Paul says that we are saved for the good works that were prepared for us before the foundation of the world.

We pray, O Lord, as we do take stock of our lives, as we listen to the word preached, as we sing together in encouragement to one another, as we interact as brothers and sisters in Christ in this place, that it would be used of your spirit to confirm and strengthen us.

You know, Father, if we are falling short, if there is an area of our lives that we, for whatever reason, have lost a grip on, as it were, that we have yielded to sin, that needs to be reclaimed for the glory of Christ, may you strengthen us to do so.

We pray in his name alone, amen.