Faith Without Works is Dead?

The Apologetic Dog

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But I wanna identify a mistake you made. You made a mistake, okay? You gave us your little flowery example of the tree and the apple, and you removed the apple and look, faith alone,

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I see what you did there, you sneaky, sneaky dog you, okay?

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Because everybody knows, while you're yapping and yapping and barking and barking, notice bark, bark,

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I did that on purpose, you're barking about faith alone, everybody knows that in James chapter two,

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James chapter two, the place in scripture where faith alone is mentioned, it is preceded by the word not by faith alone, okay?

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I wanna read for the folks to demonstrate your folly, to demonstrate your ignorance and a misuse of the scriptures,

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Mr. Apologetic Dog. James chapter two, beginning at verse 17, okay?

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So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, you have faith and I have works, show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works.

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You believe that God is one, you do well, even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?

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Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

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You see that faith was active along with his works and faith was completed by his works and the scriptures was fulfilled that says

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Abraham believed God and it was counted him as righteousness and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

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I'm not the cult, you are. Respond. I tried to add a little dramatic element there.

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I love it. What we have to understand is James is not contradicting

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Paul, okay? So literally if you isolate James in a vacuum, especially just a handful of those verses, like let's look at the one with Abraham.

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Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son

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Isaac on the altar? So how can you dismiss works so fast? Well, context is everything.

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James two. I would say what's key to the context is verse 14. 14 through the rest of the chapter, you gotta understand in context and I wanna give it away at the very beginning.

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Romans four, really Romans one through five is talking about justification before God.

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Literally in his sight in Romans three and then four two talking about Abraham.

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If he was justified by what he accomplished, it would be, it's implied men, but not before God, right?

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Because before God, it's only by trusting in his promises. In James two, we're talking about a said faith before men.

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Is that kind of faith going to save you before God? So God is always in the context.

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I've heard people say, well, if you look at 127, religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the father, and we're saying everything's before God, right?

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But what kind of fruit of justification, what does the fruit of justification look like? But it's talking about a said faith.

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If you say you're a Christian, does that automatically make you a Christian? Well, no, God sees the heart.

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God tests the heart. So many scriptures tell us. So if you had this understanding that it's talking about a said faith, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works, does that faith, that said faith save him?

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If you keep looking, if a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things that are needed for the body, what good is that faith?

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What I want you to see, Eli, is this is a person -to -person interaction, right? With a said faith.

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And like Dr. White has pointed out so many times, verse 18 is kind of the killer to really demonstrate this.

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But someone will say, you have faith, and I have works, show me.

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Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. So it's person -to -person interaction.

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He's saying, show me, demonstrate to me if you have true living faith, not a dead faith that says one thing and then lives in a completely opposite way.

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So you would say that in James, the justification in view there is horizontal, how we are justified before man, and the justification in the letters of Paul is vertical, how we are justified before God.

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And we need to keep those distinct. We don't want people to, we don't want to allow people to equivocate with the two different kinds of justification there.

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They're the same words, but the context, right? The context obviously gives us the proper way to understand how the concept of justification is being used in those passages.

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Right, we're only gonna see this more in James 2 as we look at it, because the question I was looking at earlier in 21, was not

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Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

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Church of Christ do not want to define the term works. They want to talk about different kinds of works.

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Oh, Romans 3 and 4 is talking about works of law. Galatians is talking about works of law, talking about circumcision.

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It's not talking about the definition of works, and it is, that's the whole point. That's why

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Romans 4 is so clear and Ephesians 2, there's nowhere in the context you're gonna be able to get away with saying works of law.

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He's talking about your Ergon, right? Your works are nowhere going to be in the sphere of your right standing before God, but we are created for that, right?

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We demonstrate to the world. Remember, the just shall live by faith. We are justified by faith, and then we now live to demonstrate that faith to the world.

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That's what we're seeing with Abraham. And if you were to strip 21 out of its context, that contradicts

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Romans. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son

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Isaac on the altar? So we already understand. I want to actually develop another thought here in a second, but this is demonstrating saving faith to the world.

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The fulfillment of faith that justifies us before God, the fulfillment is when the world sees you being salt and light.

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That's what Jesus was getting at, that let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works to glorify your father who is in heaven.

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And so verse 22, you see that faith was active alongside or with his works, that his faith was completed by his works.

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It was fulfilled, verse 23 says, and then at 24, you see, carrying that human to human interaction, that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

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We would interpret that to say, of course, before men, but not before God. But what did John Calvin said?

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Justified faith is never alone, right? Our justification is by faith alone, but justified faith is never alone.