Sola Fide Need Not Imply Easy Believism

Pass out tracks in the most efficient way and if that's going to be something that we're going to be able to continue to do given traffic flow and where people are going to be and whether we're going to have access to individuals, things like that.

But then, three weeks after that, starting the week before Easter, and Easter is very, very late this year, it'll be, I believe, the 23rd of April, we have our annual outreach to the LDS Easter pageant.

And for the past 17 years, I was thinking just this past week that my lovely wife and I got on the back of a Kawasaki 440. Stop laughing, right? Kawasaki 440. You know, this is 1983. How old were you in 1983, Youngin?

So my wife and I got on the back of a Kawasaki 440. We drove from 57th Avenue and Bell Road down the freeway out as far as the I -60 went, which at that time, what is now, what's the normal word for the 60 out there?

Superstition Freeway. Thank you, Rich. The Superstition Freeway ended at Country Club Road and we went to Country Club up to Main and over to the LDS Easter pageant and we couldn't believe what we were seeing.

Thousands and thousands of people. That was 1983. And then in 1984, we were out there passing out tracks with Wally Tope. Wally was quite a fellow. Some of you may have known him. He was the last person to die as a result of the riots in LA.

He was beaten into a coma during the riots and he died about a year, year and a half later. But Wally was out there with us passing out tracks and then in 1985, we had over 30 people with us who were passing out tracks at that point in time.

So we've been doing this for a long, long time. We've seen the Easter pageant change a lot as far as its presentation is concerned, but we also, during that period of time, have developed a number of tracks for sharing with the LDS people.

And what we would like to do during the program today is to help to begin to prepare really everyone for sharing the gospel because I know there's all sorts of folks who listen to our program. I got a note from a fellow in San Francisco that listens each week and was very appreciative of the work that we are doing and that's very encouraging to us.

But we would like to help everyone, but especially those people here in the local area, to start getting prepared, hopefully to join with us in distributing literature and sharing with the people in Mesa.

And so as we were talking about this, we said, well, you know, the very first verse that anyone starts to talk about when you're involved in witnessing to the Mormons, and it's not just the Mormons, it's also in witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses and talking to Roman Catholics, whatever it might be, is from the second chapter of the book of James.

And I know that in the years that I have been out there in speaking with people, every time that the issue has been the gospel and the issue has been the fact that we are justified by grace through faith without human works, the very first verse that you will hear coming from the mouths, even of the youngest people, sometimes just teenagers, will be, well, faith without works is dead.

And since this is such a common passage, we would like to invite your questions today about James chapter 2 at 602 -274 -1360, 1 -888 -550 -1360. And I am sitting here right now with my compact Presario laptop computer sitting in front of me, and not only am I running BibleWorks 4 .0, I just wanted to make sure everyone realized it was 4 .0, not 3 .5 or anything else.

BibleWorks 4 .0, but down at the bottom of the screen, some of you don't even have a laptop, oh my goodness, down at the bottom of my screen I have our worldwide chat channel on the internet called Prasapalagion.

And Prasapalagion is our channel that's pretty much wherever you are, you can get on it if you have access to the internet. And I am going to be doing my best to keep an eye on that channel. For example, Keltoi was just making a funny in the channel asking if we were misbehaving.

And I'm going to keep an eye on the channel, and if you would like to join that internet channel, you can do so. There are directions on how to get there if you're not used to using IRC chat on our website, www .aomin .org, a-o-m-i-n .org.

And if you have some questions that you would like to ask in the chat channel, please be patient with me. Obviously doing more than one thing at once, I might miss it the first time around. If I don't get to your question within a reasonable amount of time, you might want to repeat it.

But you can join with us in that way as well. And in fact, we're normally hanging around in there, and there's a number of good Christian folks, solid Christian folks that are sort of part of our little family in there.

And so you can join us in there pretty much anytime, sometimes even in the middle of the night. I have actually gotten up in the middle of the night, fired up the computer, and found a raging conversation going on at three o 'clock in the morning in the chat channel.

So it's always an interesting time. So join with us. So what I'd like to do here is I'd like to in essence say, okay, Mike and Simon, you're out there in Mesa, and you're passing out a tract that has to do with the doctrine of salvation.

And I'm a good LDS person that has just walked across, and I've taken your tract, and after going through the is this anti-Mormon literature, well actually that would depend on whether you identify the Bible as anti-Mormon literature, not spiel, and gone through all the rest of that stuff, the person has stopped and starts talking with you long enough.

And so for just a couple minutes here, we've already got one person online who called last week, so we're definitely going to get to him this week, because we held him online for about 45 minutes last week.

So I think out of penance or something, we ought to make sure that he gets on. But be that as it may, just to get things rolling here, I'm going to play the LDS person, and you all give me the standard responses.

I'm not going to be Dr. Peterson of BYU or something like that. We're just talking about regular folks here, and talk about some of the things that normally came up in regards to James 2. So basically the conversation was somewhat going like this.

So you all believe that we're just saved by believing in Jesus and not by anything else we might do? Yes. You can expand on that just a little bit. Just a tad. So well wait a minute, where do you think the Bible teaches that this is how a person is saved?

What do you believe about something like that? Well we would first of all go to Romans chapter 5, and talk about the fact that it is by faith that we are justified, and it is that justification that gives us a.

Peace with God. But that faith can't be alone, because as James said, and by the way let me step out a moment here, sometimes folks won't even know it's in James. Over and over again, if you had this happen to you Simon, or someone said, well Paul said, or Peter said, or Jesus said, or something along those lines.

I usually get the Bible says. Yeah the Bible says, but faith without works is dead. So obviously it's not just faith that justifies you, but you have to have.

Works along with. Well I think what we would try to do is make sure that we make the distinction between justifying faith, and the nature of saving faith. Obviously the nature of saving faith, we would then take them to the various passages that demonstrate that the nature of saving faith is exemplified, is demonstrated, by good works.

However that does not mean that the justifying faith, that faith that embraces Christ alone as Savior, is accompanied or merited in terms of works whatsoever.

Okay well let's say just for a moment that as a Mormon, I would come back and say, what do you mean justifying faith, saving faith, what are all these different kinds of faith? Because we just talked about having faith.

I mean what does it mean to be justified?

Justification, the declaration of God that a sinner has been made righteous, and the grounds of which, the perfect work of Christ in their place.

Made righteous. Boy in our group, we are righteous by what we do.

No, we are sinners by nature. And the greatest question that we need to try to get our listeners to listen to, is how is it that a man can be right with God? That is really the ultimate question that any one of us can ask an unbeliever, somebody who is a stranger to grace, stranger to our message, is how is it that a man is made right with God?

And that is the issue of justification. How a person becomes right with God, and of course the grounds of that justification is the work of Christ in their place.

So you are saying that in reality we need to preach the bad news before we can get around to explain what the good news is.

Yes, man needs to be informed of the nature of sin, the depravity of sin, and the condition that he is in, and how he is an alien from grace, from God, and how he can, not by himself, but who has done it in his place, reconcile him to God.

That is one of the main problems, however, in dealing with LDS people, is especially those who have been raised in the LDS faith have such a different view of sin than a biblical view of sin. That is, they do not believe that Adam sinned, he transgressed, that he did this purposefully, that he did this in a right way.

And so the idea of total depravity, or the idea of alienation from God, since God is our Heavenly Father, and God loves us, and we're all the children of our Heavenly Father, and all the rest of this stuff, we need to recognize in talking with folks that have a deficient or non-biblical view of sin, which is not just limited to the Mormons, though it is exemplified in a special way there, but everyone else who has a sub-biblical view of sin, a sub-biblical view of the Gospel, that's one of the chief areas where our communication breaks down.

Because we can be assuming, well, you need to understand. You need to understand the need to be justified, the need to be made right before God. Whereas many people feel that they can, by the works that they are doing, be righteous in God's sight, because they don't understand the depth of depravity and the depth of their alienation from God.

And I think that one of the reasons why a lot of people will cite James' faith without works as dead is because they do not have a proper understanding of the context, the passage, what it's really talking about.

James creates a clear distinction between a claimed faith in 2 .14, where he says, What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can that faith save him? And I think that it's important for us to understand that these kinds of, when you look at the context of passages and so forth, that you see a strong distinction between him saying a man has faith, and a man says he has faith.

Petey. Well, in fact, especially since a lot of our listeners might not have a Bible close at hand on a Saturday afternoon, I think it's a good idea maybe if we just read what James has to say. I'm going to read James 2, verses 14 -26 out of the New American Standard Bible, and then we can work through it together and take a look at what it has to say.

This is what James, of course, writing to Christians. It's very important, I think, to place this within its proper context. The entire theme of James from beginning to end is the same. He is writing to Christians about how Christians should live in the light of their faith in Christ, and it says, What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works?

Can that faith save him? Now before I continue on here, I just want to make a note. Since we're reading a context where we're talking to Christians, one of the things that was suggested by, most interestingly, by a Roman Catholic scholar, Luke Timothy Johnson, is that given the fact that Paul uses the term works in a completely different context, and we'll go back and emphasize this later on if time allows, but in a completely different context, he, when he translated this section, instead of using the word works, uses the word deeds, so that there is a distinction between what James is talking about and what Paul is talking about, because he recognizes, and I think any real interpretation of the passage recognizes, that the works being discussed here are a very different kind of works than those which Paul talks about, and the faith that he talks about here, I think we can establish in verse 14, is a very different kind of faith than the faith Paul is talking about as well.

So James asks, Can that faith save him? Now if you're reading the King James, the New King James, it doesn't read that way, but we will go back and I think demonstrate that it needs to be, Can that faith or can that kind of faith save him?

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 warmed and be filled, and yet 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 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. 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 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 the 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 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.

Now in every debate that I have done, for example against Mitchell Pacwa, against Jerry Matitix on the subject of justification by faith, this has been cited as evidence that the Reformed doctrine of sola fide, faith alone, is unbiblical.

And in fact it is a very common thing for apologists from a number of different groups to cite 224 and say, Do you know the only place in all the Bible where the phrase faith alone appears is James 224?

And there it is said, Not by faith alone. And so that is a very common presentation, that's a very common assertion. That passage 224 cannot be understood outside of its context. Sadly, most evangelicals end up approaching it outside of its context.

And the context begins as Mike was emphasizing back in verse 14. And there James says, What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but has no works? Now a few things. What use is it? What is the answer to the question?

The question is, it's of no use at all. This is a worthless or useless statement or claim on the part of this individual. Secondly, notice it says, If someone says he has faith. And that I believe was the emphasis that you were making, Mike, is that this is a claimed faith.

This is something the person is saying. Now this isn't the first time in James where this has come up. This idea of there being a profession that is empty. There being a person who looks into the perfect law of liberty.

Remember earlier on in the epistle he talks about people who would look into the perfect law of liberty and then walk away and forget kind of a person they were. There's something wrong here. When you look into the law you should see yourself as you really are.

But they look but they don't really look. Well here's another situation where a person says he has faith but it's a useless faith because it has no works. And please notice that verse 14 ends with the assertion, Can that faith save him?

Now anyone looking at what James originally wrote knows that before the word faith, the Greek term pistis, there is the definite article hey. And given the article of negation that James uses, the expected answer to can that faith save him is what?

No.

No way. It cannot. So James has already made his point. That is a person who claims to have a faith that is a faith that is basically invisible. It's invisible because the only thing we can see of it is the claim and not the works.

James says can that kind of faith save him? Now why am I emphasizing that? Well because some will look at that and say no. It's simply the statement is can faith save him? And no, faith cannot save him alone.

There has to be something added to faith. There's a couple things. First of all, James says when he refers to the word faith, he places that article there. So it's called the anaphoric use of the article referring back to the previous reference of the word.

And what kind of reference is that? It is the said faith. It is the faith that is claimed but not the faith that has works. And this is vitally important. When James says that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone, it has to be kept in mind what kind of faith started this entire section.

And that's what we find in verse 14. Mike?

Well, I think another thing that's also important to understand is the fact that this person continually claims to have this faith and he continually does not have works.

That's right.

His life is characterized by that of no works at all, because obviously Christians are going to sin. I think this is the thought that John brings out in his first epistle. In fact, if you look at 1 John 2, verse 4, you see a parallel concept here going on where he says the one who says, same term, the one who claims, I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar.

And so I think that the thought that he's giving here is that a person who makes a profession with nothing coming forth is a liar.

Exactly. That's exactly right. So that keeps, we have to keep that in mind. And unfortunately, the vast majority of situations that we find ourselves involved in, that verse in the context of the preceding, well, frequently six verses is not brought into the conversation and it desperately needs to be brought in.

And so James then gives an example. You want an example of useless faith? Here it is. 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 warmed and be filled.

And yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body. What use is that? Again, we see the same correlation. The person says something, be warmed and be filled. Here is the claim. But words are empty things.

Words have never filled a belly. Words have never provided a blanket to keep out the. And so James repeats his question. He says, what use is that? These are empty words, just as the claim to faith that has no corresponding reality is an empty claim.

And it is not the saving faith that Paul talks about. In fact, to me, and as I'm working on this passage in working on a book, I see a tremendous parallel in the writings of Paul. Paul, in a passage that many people are very, very familiar with in Ephesians chapter two, I believe presents the same thing.

Except here we see him talking about true saving faith and how true saving faith will be joined with works. But what kind of works? Ephesians chapter two, verse eight says, for by grace you have been saved through faith.

Now their faith is connected directly with the work of grace. That's not found here in James at all. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. What is the gift of God? All of the preceding phrase, grace, salvation, and faith, not as a result of works so that no one may boast.

So the works that are excluded are any works that could provide a ground for boasting. So if we add anything to God's grace in the form of works that could be used as a ground of boasting, it is excluded here by Ephesians 2 .9.

But verse 10 provides us with, I think, Paul's balance that is provided here in full in James when he says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for or unto good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

And so you see there is a perfect balance presented here between works that are excluded, and those are works that could provide any kind of claim of boasting on our part, and the result of grace, the result of saving faith, and that is good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

And so that's an extremely important point, I think, to point out that James here by this illustration points us to the fact that, again, the faith that he is railing against here is not the faith that Paul talks about in Ephesians 2, and the works that he is demanding that people have are the kind of works that we have in verse 10 of Ephesians 2, but not of verse 9.

And it is that distinction that is so vitally important in keeping things balanced.

I think further is the fact that he makes the command, go in peace. For him to make the command go in peace in James 2, for him to make the command, go in peace, and then not to give them anything for their body, I think that is a mockery of the phrase, go in peace.

They can't go in peace because they don't have anything in order to do. And so in line with what you're talking about, if we are making the claim to faith, if we are making this assertion that you do not have any works, you do not have any deeds coming forth, then we have made a mockery of the faith that.

We proclaim to have in the first place. Right. That's why he can then conclude that illustration by saying in verse 17, even so faith, and notice, again, it is hapistus, the exact same form that's used in verse 14 with the article, even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself, or some translate it dead by itself, that no faith can actually exist separate from, that saving faith, since it is a gift of God, and of course our many friends would deny that faith is the gift of God, but since it is the gift of God, saving faith will always have certain results.

And so this, I think, is an important point to make, and that is the issues concerning the Reformation come into play even here, and how we would respond to a Mormon out on the sidewalk in Mesa on this issue is different from how an Arminian would respond to a Mormon out on the sidewalk looking at the same passage.

Because we can assert that since faith is the gift of God, it's the work of the Holy Spirit in a person's heart, then that is a part of the entire work of God, and that's why good works flow from it. It's not, well, if you have saving faith, then you better add works, as if this is coming forth from man, because if faith comes forth from man, then it would be logical then for these quote-unquote good works to come forth from man as well.

Instead, we are asserting that since faith is the gift of God, then that faith is going to result in these works by nature, not by our trying to produce them. 602 -274 -1360, 1 -888 -550 -1360. Steve, we'll be coming to you right after the break, and we'd like to hear your comments here on The Dividing Line.

AOMIN .org. And by the way, a couple new articles up on the webpage this week. I discovered last week that Carl Keating continues to dodge our invitations to a debate there in San Diego, and gave what is quite simply an incredibly lame response to someone who wrote in and asked why he will not debate us in San Diego.

And so our main article on the main page right now is a brief, but I think a somewhat interesting response to Mr. Keating's comments. And then, if you go to the Reformed Theology and Apologetics section, which is sort of hidden over on the left-hand side, there's a link there, but a lot of folks have trouble finding it, you'll find that this week I put up a response to R. C. H. Lenski's commentary on Romans Chapter 9.

And this is a popular commentary, where Lenski in essence, I believe, turns the text on its head and really, I think, takes Romans 9 out of the context of what Paul was saying by a long shot. And so you might find those new articles on the webpage to be useful if you are one of those many, many people that we have that come and visit with us and take a look at what we have to say there on the webpage.

We haven't even gotten to James 2 .20 yet, but hey, we've still got four weeks before we go up to Salt Lake, and seven before we hit Mesa. So let's go ahead and talk to Steve up in the cold country of Ottawa, Canada.

And Steve, I noticed, I did see last week that you were online pretty much the entire program, and so never got on the air, so we'll make sure that you're the first one up to bat today here on The Dividing Line.

How are you doing? Not too bad, thank you very much.

I just had a quick question. I mean, not so much related to James 2, but I just had a friend of mine who became a Christian about a month ago, and he's from a Catholic background, and I've been meeting with him once or twice a week, you know, to help encourage him with his faith.

And so he had a lot of questions with Catholicism, and I was teaching him, you know, like the Bible loans are authority and all those other issues. But he's thinking of going back to the Catholic church now, and presently he's going to another Protestant church than my own.

What advice would you give to me for somebody who's in that situation, and how would you go about approaching.

That person, and what information should I give to them? Well, what issues are causing him to be attracted back to something that evidently, at least up until a year ago, did not provide him with any particularly meaningful spiritual guidance?

Well, as far as I can recall, something.

He's a bit confused with, why there is a skittishism to begin with. Like, he looks at the Catholic churches, maybe it's kind of a Cinderella syndrome. He looks at it, it looks like it's been established, and it hasn't, you know, immediately been.

Of course, you and I both know that's not true. But, I mean, that kind of thing. And he's talked to other Catholics, too, on my campus, at a university, who have kind of, you know, encouraged him to think about other things, and try to encourage him to come back.

So, I mean, he's pretty new. He's only been a month into the faith, and he's really, you know, he's just, he wants to look at both sides of the issue. And he even asked me for Catholic apologetics material.

I'm like, what?

Since I'm going to go direct him to Catholic answers. Right. Well, the question I guess I would have to ask is, to what was he introduced? In other words, if the Gospel had been explained very clearly to him, in the sense that we have dealt with the issue of what sin is, the necessity of punishment, the perfection of the work of Christ and His behalf, those types of issues, then that, obviously to me, is the very first thing that I mention to anyone in that particular context.

And that is, why would you wish to go back to a system that cannot give you peace with God? That will constantly put you on the treadmill of justification, unjustified, re-justified, unjustified, re-justified, via sacraments, never being able to really know whether you have done all the things that are necessary for achieving the state of justification, to quote Ludwig Ott.

Why would a person want to embrace a system like that? And that really, I think, is getting down to the nitty-gritty. Now, if he's encountering people that are throwing objections to sola scriptura and things like that at him, which are generally meant to confuse, which are generally not meant in an honest way.

And what I mean by that is, the objections that are placed against sola scriptura are, in general, the very same objections that could be raised against an infallible magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

And so, if you raise an objection against someone else's position that's just as fatal to your own, you're being somewhat dishonest and disingenuous. But if they're throwing things like that at him, I can understand a level of confusion.

But the first thing, I think, to recognize is that the gospel is the issue. If he is longing for and enjoying that peace that comes from knowing the perfection of the work of Christ, then it's hard to get anyone interested in Roman Catholicism and in sacraments and in imperfect deaths of Christ in the mass and the purgatory and all the rest of this stuff.

A person who really, in their heart, understands what it means to be justified, doesn't find those things to be of any attraction. But a person who has been given, let's say, a less-than-complete presentation of the gospel may not be able to see what those issues really.

Are. Well, he has been given a clear presentation of the gospel, and I've met with him to discuss it with him. We've talked about how we're saved by grace through faith alone, etc., and I explained that to him, and that Christ is our only mediary between us and God, the high priestly role of Christ.

So I've discussed that with him. I'm not sure if he's full-blown, I'm going to go back, or he's just thinking, I just want to weigh the issues out or something. I think that's where he's at right now.

But just a suggestion of any books or something like that.

Well, obviously there are some excellent works that are still available. A lot of the best works are no longer available, at least to be purchased at your local Christian bookstore. But yeah, there are some good works that I would direct him more toward, meaningful, in-depth works that would make him more solid in his faith than in regards to specifically polemic works.

I think someone who's a brand-new Christian could be totally blown away by attempting to work through my works and Bill Webster's works and things like that, and then going and reading Robert St. Genes or someone like that and trying to weigh all these things out for themselves.

It could be a very, very confusing thing for them. Personally, the first one I'd suggest that you spring for and give to him almost immediately and ask him to read would be a book that had a tremendous amount of impact upon my life, in fact is being promoted right now, I think, on this station.

I've heard some advertisements for it as well. And that is R .C. Sproul's The Holiness of God. The reason being, I really think that if you can emphasize to a person the holiness of God, they will see themselves in the proper biblical light and no kind of sacramental system that basically dribbles out grace through sacraments is going to satisfy a person who has seen the holiness of God for what it really is.

A person who really sees the holiness of God sees then the depth of sin in the proper way, and therefore they will not find the sacramental system of Rome, or of any other system for that matter, to be satisfactory to them.

And so I would suggest The Holiness of God by R .C. Sproul as a starting place, and then introducing him to some of the great writers who have gone into depth in regards to what it means to have a personal relationship with God, to worship God on the basis of his word, things like that.

Okay, well I appreciate the advice. I also have R .C. Sproul's book, The Essentials of the Christian Faith. It's not so much an in-depth systematic theology book, you're probably familiar with it, but it's really good intro stuff, and it does cover some of those issues on the sacraments and whatnot, and the extended atonement of Christ, etc.

So that might be another good book I'll lend to him after he's finished that other one. Yeah, that would be a good.

Direction to go, and I think that investing some of your own effort and time with him is very, very important, because we need to be reminded that the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees that they would encompass land and sea to get one proselyte, and they are very zealous, those that are opposed to the Christian truth in getting proselytes.

So they love to find new Christians. That's why Christians need to be a part of a sound, solid church where the word is being preached from the very beginning of their spiritual journey, because they are the very people that people are going to be going after and trying to turn into converts.

Okay. Okay, Steve? Well, thanks a lot, James, and you have a nice evening in Phoenix there.

All right. Thank you very much. God bless. Bye-bye. 602 -274 -1360, 1 -888 -550 -1360. We have a few more phone calls online. We'll be getting to them right after we take this break. Be joining with us, won't you?