Faith That Works: Abraham's Living Faith

The Song of the Redeemed and the Book of James

Amen, what a wonderful hymn. All focus is on Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us. Don't you love that chorus? Sing, oh sing of my Redeemer. With this blood He purchased me.

On the cross He sealed my pardon, paid the debt, and made me free. I don't know about you, but I could sing that all day long. Because that's gonna be the song of the saints of the redeemed throughout all eternity.

Might as well practice it. Because we're going to be saying that, singing that, throughout all eternity. Well, we're going to continue our study through the wonderful book of James. As I mean, Miss Lillian was talking about actually James's commentary extended or expanded from our Lord's Sermon on the Mount.

And we're looking at a I would like to, what I would like to do is, this is a part two. And we're going to look at a little bit today of an introduction of living faith. We talked about dead faith last week as we looked at James chapter 2.

That emphasized the sobering truth of dead faith. Faith that is false. Not real. A kind of faith that is not alive, real or genuine. We saw that the first characteristic of dead faith is empty confession.

Which is in James chapter 2 verse 14. What doeth that profit my brethren? Though a man say he has faith and not works, can faith save him? Then we looked at the second characteristic of dead faith is false compassion.

Not only there's an empty confession, there's a false compassion. We see this false compassion in verse 15 through 17. If a brother or sister be naked without clothing and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto him again,.

Say,.

Depart in peace, be you warmed and filled. Notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doeth it profit? Even so faith, if it has not works, it is dead being alone.

Notice that the key word is if they say no action, there's no action behind it, so it's dead faith. Then we saw the third characteristic of dead faith is shallow conviction. So you have empty confession, you have false compassion, then you have a shallow conviction, and that's found in verses 18 through 20 that we looked at.

Yea, a man may say, notice in each one of those beginnings of the paragraph, the section in which James is talking about, he says, they say thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Very good, and then he actually gets very sarcastic toward them. He says, well, you believe that there's one God, a big deal really, thou doest well, the devils also believe and tremble, but wilt thou know, oh vain man, he says, that faith without works is dead.

So we see here in this, we saw shallow conviction, a recognition of certain facts about God in his word without submission to either. It seems most likely that someone or some man refers to James himself, speaking of himself, using the third person out of humility.

So he was not boasting, trying to prove that his own Christian life was more exemplary than others. He was not speaking primarily about faithfulness in the faith, but about faith itself. And that's what we see here in this section, in which he speaks about dead faith in the first portion of it.

He was saying, in effect, to anyone opposing the truth, he was declaring about the true salvation. You claim to have faith, and that nothing else is necessary, that your faith can stand by itself before God and bring salvation.

But the truth is, you cannot show me your faith, the works, without any practical evidence or outworking of it. Because true faith, as the scripture speaks of, a faith that is living, always gives practical evidence of what has happened in the heart.

And that's what he's saying. He did not say, by your works, but the faith that is given by grace, by God, produces good works. That's what we created, unto good works. And Paul talks about that in Ephesians 2.

And as just started in the previous verse, he says, even so faith, if it has not works, is dead. Being by itself. Such faith is not really faith at all. Certainly not saving faith. So as living faith produces good fruit, for that is its nature and its purpose.

So dead faith does not produce good fruit. There's bad fruit. And Jesus said that. A tree's known by its fruit. Because it just cannot. It is for that reason that a remembered experience of one's life with Jesus Christ, even a sacrifice.

Let me put it this way. What I'm thinking is, for that reason, even a experience, quote-unquote, of giving one's life to Jesus Christ, even in a specific day or a place, is not itself proof of salvation.

Right? We have a lot of false converts because of that. And I think I need to bring that out right there. Because just because you go to an altar and say a prayer does not mean one comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and repents of their sin.

Just as.

Repentance may involve weeping, but just because one weeps over their sin does not mean they are truly changed by it. It's the changing that brings evidence that there's been true salvation and true repentance.

Living Faith as the Outworking of Salvation

Well today, we're going to look at one of the first sections of faith that's living. Faith that's living. But we're looking at faith that works. And like I said, we looked at dead faith last week. Let me read again this whole section so we can just get the whole of what James is talking about.

Starting at 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, is in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed, and be filled, and you 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, 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.

But 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.

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

And in verse 24, he says this, 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 she received the messengers and sent out by another way?

In verse 26, for just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your living Word. It is active. It's powerful. It's sharper than any two-edged sword.

Father, I pray, may your Word do its work in our hearts today to even sanctify us even more so. Only by the truth can we be sanctified. So, Father, may it have its sanctifying work in our heart today, and may we, as your servants, as you speak, may we listen, and then may we obey for your glory.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, as it says here in verse 1 through 26, we're going to focus on today, this Lord's Day, and the next Lord's Day. Especially next Lord's Day, I'd like to look at as Rahab the harlot was justified by her works when she received the messengers sent out by another way.

We're going to look at that. I think there's a great illustration for us of what James is trying to get across to us. But he speaks here of an example. The Apostle Paul here is contrasting living dynamic faith with what he has described as dead, previously described as dead false faith in verses 14 through 20.

But saying the saving faith with non-saving faith is a contrast. So productive faith with unproductive faith. There's the contrast. Godly faith with a kind of faith that is exercised even by demons or fallen angels, you could say.

So in doing so, he does what might be expected, giving living illustrations. I like, don't you love how James does that? He gives a living illustrations, a practical examples, so you could get it. And of course, it's the Holy Spirit's.

It's really inspiring him to do this.

And.

Everything he says is commentary on our Lord's Sermon on the Mount as Jesus preached basically on this. The first example he gives is Abraham. Abraham's the friend of God. He's the reverend, revered, I should say, patriarch and the father of the Hebrew people as you see in verses 21 through 24.

And the second illustration he gives is Rahab, a Gentile prostitute. Isn't that interesting? In verse 25, he goes to the Jewish father of the faith, and then he takes a Gentile that was a prostitute, a Gentile prostitute.

And today, we're gonna basically just look at with Apostle James's first living illustration. The touch base on it is through Father Abraham, the father of our faith. So you see in verse 21, as scripture says, was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar?

It's interesting here. MacArthur notes, this does not contradict Paul's clear teaching that Abraham was justified before God by grace alone through faith alone. It does not contradict that. And he says here for several reasons that James cannot mean that Abraham was constituted righteous before God because of his own good works.

And then he says, one, James already stressed that salvation is a gracious gift of God. Where do we see that? Well, you see that in chapter 1. Go back a little with me in chapter 1 and look at verse 17 and 18.

This is what he says, every good thing and every perfect gift or every good gift or every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation or shifting of shadow.

And then he says in verse 18, in the exercise of his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth. So he's already clarified that faith is a gift of God. It's not something of works. So this is something he's saying here.

Second is, and MacArthur says this, in the middle of this disputed passage in verse 23, James quoted Genesis 15 .6, which forcefully claims that God credited righteousness to Abraham solely on the basis of his faith.

Then, and the third reason is that the work that James has said justified Abraham was his offering up of Isaac in Genesis 22, 9, and 12, an event that occurred many years after he exercised faith and was declared righteous before God.

So then he says instead,.

Abraham's.

Offering of Isaac demonstrated, and I like this and he's so right, notice what he says, he demonstrated the genuineness of his faith and the reality of his justification before God. James is emphasizing the vindication before others of a person's claim to salvation.

James is teaching perfectly complements Paul's writings. Salvation is determined by faith alone, according to Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and demonstrated by faithfulness to obey God's will alone in Ephesians 2, 8, 2, 10.

So in quote. So isn't that you know, so many people think James is contradicting Paul. No, he compliments him. He compliments him. So what do we see in verse 21? Verse 21 is a severe stumbling block to the German Martin Luther, but there's a reason for that.

He was adamantly opposed to the Roman Catholic dogma of salvation through works and so strong of the defender of the truth was Luther by salvation, by grace alone, through faith alone that he completely missed the Apostles James's point here, really.

And it's it's ironic. I was gleaming through Sinclair Ferguson's book there, Miss Lillian, is that he says the same thing, that calling the entire writing of the Epistle of James an epistle of straw. But Luther, you got to understand Luther, he struggled with this because in his life, during his time, if you know anything about his life, and I know Brother Ben and everybody else here knows about Luther's life and his background, he struggled with earning his way to heaven by good works.

This man was devout. He was a devout monk as it became into the order of the Augustinian Church there, and he studied very hard his background. His father wanted him to be a lawyer. He was a very studious, devout man, and his heart was everything that he could do to get it right with God, and all he could see was God's frown, and he tried in every way he.

Could.

He, under, he, everything by the flesh's power to muster it up to get to heaven, but as you well know, he saw the gospel and Paul's account in Romans chapter 1 verses 16 and 17, especially verse 17, and that he saw that the righteousness in which he sought so hard was provided in Jesus Christ, and Jesus paid it all, and it was released to him, and it was liberating to him, but James is no white contradiction.

Paul, and like I said, that's, that was the struggle of Luther, and we must remember that the Apostle James was in no way contradicting the great doctrine of salvation by faith alone, right? He was not dealing with the means of salvation.

This is what we need to see. He was not dealing with the means of salvation at all, but rather with the outcome of salvation, the fruits, what it produces, the evidence that it shows that something has happened in your heart, that a man believes unto righteousness with his heart, but it is shown by the fruits that he bears, and that's what James is emphasizing.

The evidence that it genuinely occurred after establishing the absence of good works proves that a professed faith.

Really,.

In a sense, is like tares growing alongside the wheat, so to speak. You see this today. It's not real and saving, but rather it's deceptive and dead faith. It's a dead salvation, and how many people that you and I know that professes something that does not possess the real genuine article, that the real thing, that there have not been changed, that there's no real fruits of real repentance that's given.

They say something, but it is not backed up. So, which is always only by God's grace working through man's. It's not something we do. It's a work of God. We know that. It's inevitable. It will be demonstrated outwardly by faithful obedience to the Word of God and to His will in the form of a holy, as I've read this morning from Peter.

What does he talk about? He talks about how to conduct yourself in holiness and to live godly until Jesus comes back again, right? So, it is demonstrated in righteous deeds of charity, righteous deeds of love, and that is what he's talking about.

Warren Wiersbe gives a good word here, and I got a quote from him as well about true saving faith, and I could not bypass this, and this is what he says in his commentary. He says, quote, Faith is only as good as its object.

The man in the jungle bows before an idol of stone and trusts it to help him, but he receives no help. No matter how much faith a person may generate, if it is not directed at the right object, it will not, it will accomplish nothing.

And then he says this, I believe, I believe may be the testimony of a many sincere people, but the big question is in whom do you believe? What do you believe? We are not saved by faith in faith, in which the prosperity gospel teaches, which is heresy.

We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ as revealed in His Word. And he goes on to say this, Dynamic faith is based on God's Word, and it involves the whole man. Dead faith touches only the intellect. Demonic faith involves both the mind and the emotions, but dynamic faith involves the will.

The whole person plays a part in true saving faith. The mind understands the truth, the heart desires the truth, and the will acts upon the truth. The men and women of faith named in Hebrews chapter 11, the hall of fame of faith, were people of action.

Don't you love that? They were action. And he says this, God spoke and they obeyed it. Again, faith is not believing in spite of evidence. Faith is obeying in spite of consequence. End quote. And I love that.

I think Wiersbe nailed it down pretty good. True saving faith leads to action. It's always active. It's always moving. I don't know if you notice this, but of course you do. When you read in the Gospels that people that was saved, like the woman of issue, that she was a issue of blood, what did she do?

She was desperate. Her faith moved her to action, to go toward Jesus. And as far as she was concerned, nothing would stop her in touching the hem of his garment. So she pressed forward with everything she had.

This was God's grace upon her soul. As she was being active and obedient to what she needed to take hold, to be whole, she knew that she had to get to Jesus. It was active. Faith was active. Same with blind Bartimaeus.

Nothing would shut blind Bartimaeus up. He was a blind man. He was a beggar on the side of the road to Jericho. Jesus is passing by. People tried to shut him up. He pressed forward. Nothing would stop him.

That's the way faith is. It's active. It's dynamic. Living faith, I should say. Not dead faith, but the faith that pleases God. And God gives us faith, by the way. It's a gift from God. And it's like God was just bestowing that grace upon them to do this action, and they did it.

So that was the Holy Spirit that was working upon them. But true saving faith always leads to action. Dynamic faith is not just intellectual contemplation or emotional consideration. It leads to obedience and the part of the will.

And this obedience is not an isolated event. It continues throughout the whole life. And actually, it leads to good works. And that's what James is talking about. So many different kinds of works are named in the New Testament.

Now we're talking about works, Galatians 2 .16. It speaks about the works of the law, to relate to the sinners, to attempt to please God by obeying the law of Moses. And of course, it's impossible for a sinner to be saved through the works of the law, right?

It's only by the works of Jesus Christ. The works of the law. Of course, the law has a purpose. It's a tutor. It's a schoolmaster. It's good. It's holy, as Paul said. To lead us to Jesus Christ. But it cannot save us.

It condemns us. It shows us our sin. And it has a great purpose. And I believe that's why there's the great purpose of the law. You can't throw out the law. For in order for us to see that we're sinners and doomed under God's wrath, it helps us to see what sin is.

It revives the sin and it shows us the strength of sin so that we can fly to Jesus Christ and beg for mercy for Him. It also speaks about the works of the flesh. What about Galatians 5 .19? Are done by unsaved people who live for the things of the old nature.

The works of the flesh. These are also wicked works, as the Bible speaks in Colossians 1 .21. And in Hebrews 9 .14, it speaks of dead works. So you have works of the law, works of the flesh, you have dead works, you have wicked works.

But when there's living, dynamic faith, truth-saving faith, you will also find always good works. There's good works. And the good works is what God is looking at. And of course, that's only produced by His Holy Spirit.

It is interesting that the Apostle James illustrates his doctrine in the lives of two well-known Bible characters here. And like I mentioned previously, it's Father Abraham and the Jewish Father Abraham and the Gentile prostitute Rahab.

I love the way the Holy Spirit just gives James these two illustrations. Isn't it beautiful? The Jewish audience, the Gentile audience. And mainly he's speaking, of course, to Jews scattered abroad. But he starts with Father Abraham.

You could not find two more different persons, can you, in Scripture? Abraham was a Jew. Let's look at this. Rahab was a Gentile. Abraham was a godly man. Rahab was a sinful woman. She was a harlot. She was a prostitute.

Abraham was the friend of God. Well, Rahab belonged to the enemies of God.

Isn't this beautiful?

You have the Gospel. I love the way James brings this out. And this really excites my soul. So what did they have in common? Both of them exercised saving faith in the living God. That's what they did.

That's what they had in common. They had living, active faith. One was a Jewish man that was a very godly man. Of course, he had his failures and faults, right? But you had the comparison of the Gentile Rahab who was a dirty, prostitute Gentile.

MacArthur notes here also, because fallen man is morally and spiritually bankrupt, with no redeeming merit at all before God, nothing he can possibly do in himself and by his own power can make him right and acceptable before the Lord.

It is for that reason that salvation has always been possible solely through the pure graciousness of God working through a faithful response to His grace. It is not that in the Old Testament men were saved through the law and that in the New Testament they were saved by faith.

No. At whatever point in the unfolding revelation and the work God men may have lived or ever live, God requires nothing of them for salvation except true faith in Him. Hebrews 11 makes abundantly clear that both before, I like this, before and after the law was given at Sinai, salvation was by faith.

Abraham believed in the Lord, Moses tells us, and he reckoned it to him as righteousness. Don't you love that? Well, yet the Apostle James says that the Father of our faithful of the faith, whose very faith itself was a gift of God, was nevertheless justified by works, by faith.

But He was justified by works and what He did showed that what He believed was right. You know, that seems like a contradiction, but it's not. It has frustrated and confused believers throughout the history of the church and clarified by understanding that justification by faith, which is very, very important to get right.

If we get this wrong, we've got everything else wrong. It pertains to a person standing before God, whereas the justification by works that James speaks in pertains to a person standing before men. It's that simple.

And that's basically the point which Paul takes and James takes. Both apostles agree with each other, and they don't contradict each other, they just have that view. Seemingly contradiction, but there's no contradiction.

Some Bible commentators have further imagined a contradiction, but between James' declaration that Abraham was justified by works and Paul's teaching that was justified solely by grace through faith. But such is not the case.

However, the apostle James has already emphasized again that every good, gracious gift comes from God above in James 1, verses 17 -18, which I read previously. So we know that, right? And verse 23 quotes Genesis 15 -6, which declares that God imputed righteousness to Abraham solely on the basis of faith, faith alone.

But also the specific event James said justified Abraham by works was the offering of Isaac, his only son. What a tremendous test of Abraham, this man, up in age and had to offer up sacrifice. What a test.

And this, in his son, he knew the seed was there. And that son was everything to this man, right? God tested him. It was an event that occurred many years after he declared.

Righteous before God.

This happened afterwards. So he had to offer up Isaac. And that is, it speaks so much of this man, of what he believed and how he was accounted righteous before God. So what is important for us to remember is this truth here.

The apostle James is teaching then that Abraham's willingness, that's what we need to see, his willingness, his desire to offer up Isaac vindicates, we can't miss this, it vindicates his faith before men.

You see? The first is before God. That's the view Paul takes. Before God, you're accounted righteous. You're right as just as you've never ever sinned in Jesus Christ. And Jesus has taken all that sin upon himself and was saved by Jesus' works.

And you see, but James takes the view that what Abraham did is vindication by faith before men. A teaching which the apostle Paul was wholehearted in agreement on, by the way, because Ephesians 2 .10 says what?

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. See that? Which God prepared beforehand. And I like the old King James version here because it says before the foundation of the world we should walk in them.

I like that. Therefore there's no conflict between the two holy inspired writers, the same Holy Spirit. Now don't you love this? When you start digging into this and you see this, there is no contradiction.

Scripture interprets Scripture. Scripture backs up Scripture. So now let's look a little bit at what the Bible, the Word of God has to say about this important doctrine of justification. I think this is a good place to start this part here on living faith.

We'll look very quickly. It is important to understand that, first of all, the Greek verb diko, or justification, has two general meanings. I was briefly scanning this on Sinclair Ferguson. He brings out the same thing, Sister Lillian.

I didn't get a chance to look at it, but I'm going to pick that book up in a minute and bring out one quote. It got me excited. Thank you so much for that. The first pertains to acquittal, acquittal. That is declaring and treating a person as righteous.

That is its meaning in relationship to salvation. And, in a sense, which Paul almost always uses that term, he declares, for example, that we are justified as a gift by God's grace through redemption, which is in Christ Jesus in Romans 3 .24.

It's all been paid for by the blood of Jesus and his sacrifice. That's what it means by faith alone. We're justified by faith apart from the works of the law, Romans 3 .28. And that, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So that is acquittal. That's what Paul is talking about. In another letter he writes, and actually he says this, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus.

Even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith. And then he says this, in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. He also reminds Titus, that in Titus 3 .7, that being justified by his grace, we are made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

So that's the term acquittal. The second meaning of diakaiō, I hope I said that right. I probably not. But anyway, what's important here is to get the meaning, right? Justification pertains to vindication, or should you say proof of righteousness.

The proof of righteousness. It is used in that sense a number of times in the New Testament in relation to God as well as men. What does it mean? Well, Paul says in Romans 3 .4, let God be found true and every man be found a liar.

As it is written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. What does he mean? Well, let me pull in another scripture and you can get his meaning. He writes to Timothy and he says to his son in the faith, in 1 Timothy 3 .16, that Jesus Christ was revealed in the flesh, and notice what he says, was justified.

In other words, he was vindicated. He was vindicated diakaios. It's the same Greek word right here. In the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, and taken up in glory.

Don't you love that? That's an outline right there. That's a whole another series of sermons. But Jesus Christ himself commented that wisdom is vindicated, justified by all her children in Luke 7 .35.

So what do we do here? We do not want to miss this. It is the second sense which James is using, the diakaio in James 2 .21, that he asks rhetorically, was not Abraham our father justified by works? This is what he's talking about.

He explains that Abraham's supreme demonstration, by offering up Isaac, that justification occurred as he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar, which happened many years after his justification by faith, recorded in Genesis 15 .6.

Let me say that again. Abraham our father justified by works? He explained that Abraham's supreme demonstration of that justification occurred when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar, which happened many years after his justification by faith, recorded in Genesis 15 .6.

Genesis 15 .6 and chapter 22 is several chapters back. So he's demonstrated what already previously happened.

And that's the way it works, right?

It was when Abraham offered up Isaac that the whole world, let's look at it like this, the whole world could perceive the reality of the faith of this man, Abraham, that was genuine rather than false.

It proved.

See, he passed the test.

And it proved that the faith that he had was authentic. It was real. It was living. It wasn't dead.

It was active.

You notice that. It wasn't dead. So you're not going to believe this, but I'm almost to my conclusion. I'm doing quite well, praise God, right at 37 minutes. So that's it. She's keeping me straight. So the conclusion is this.

Let me conclude. You see, there's a perfect relationship, right, between faith and good works.

You see that?

Genuine living faith, genuine good works. You know, Jesus said that. A tree, a bad tree will bear bad fruit. A good tree always will bear good fruit. It is what it is. And, you know, we see it so simple because the Holy Spirit has shown us.

But other people out there that are still dead in their sins has a dead faith. The thing about it is they may intellectually know it, as Ben prayed this morning, about you can intellectually know all these things, and they think because they know it intellectually they're okay.

Oh my goodness, no. There has to be a change. There has to be genuine repentance. There has to be, as Zacchaeus did, restitution. Something must happen. And it's demonstrated what happens in the heart.

Didn't Jesus teach this?

What did He teach?

It's always regeneration before reformation. You cannot pour, how did He say, new wine into old wine scans. That's what He was talking about. In other words, you can't reform it on the outward. Something has to happen on the inward.

It's not from the outside in. It's from the inside out. That is what actually the Gospel is all about. There must be a radical change within. And what Abraham did proved it vindicated before men what has already happened in his heart previously, that he believed God and it was accounted unto him righteous.