Adult Bible Study

Well, good morning. I promised to have you out on a more timely basis today. We ran a little bit or I ran a little bit long last time. And it looks like you have a lot of notes but we really don't because the first half of the first page is essentially a review and I thought we would go back and look at that very, very briefly because we kind of scurried through the last few minutes.

I also have it on authority from Kim that at least two or three times he's going to challenge you to say amen. So even if it doesn't apply to make him happy, just do that. I mean he got up early and they came all the way up here just for that, so.

Review of the Test of Impartial Love

Okay, so with your handout we can go ahead and look at this. We have been following in the book of James a series of tests using roughly John MacArthur's outline. And you can see points one, two, three and four at the very top of page one.

We want to finish out the test of impartial love. And so if you would join me in chapter two verses 12 and 13. Chapter two of James verses 12 and 13. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty.

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy, mercy triumphs over judgment. So with the test of impartial love, that's the fourth test. There's kind of five sub parts to that and they're listed in your notes, the principle, the example, the inconsistency, the violation and then the appeal, which those two verses.

Notice again, we tend to think of James as being just a really nice, loving, concerned pastor. And he was. But he had no problems in his love to do firm rebukes. Remember that? We said there were over 50 admonitions.

And as we're looking at verses 12 and 13, we have two strong admonitions. Strong language here where he says, so speak and so act. So this is language as we look at the way it's structured for continuous action.

He's imploring his dear people to be about speaking and acting. This follows one of his major themes, which of course says that a person, if they have real faith, it will be evident in their works. So he brings together two things which a lot of people consider to be kind of opposites, law and liberty.

And we'll say more about that in a few minutes when we get into the next section in verses 14 through 26. But notice what it says in your notes. The law is the nature of God expressed in commandments.

Get your head around that. The law is the nature of God expressed in the commandments. Do you remember the royal law? Love the Lord your God with, yes. And the second is love your neighbor as yourself.

And we can go through the rest of the commandments and we can look at thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not murder, et cetera. If you think about each of those commandments, don't they reflect the nature of God?

And that's what James is saying. So are the commandments good? Yes, because they reflect the nature of God. So point B, when we obey his commands, then we are living like him. We are living the way that God wants us to live.

And then thirdly, point C, obedience liberates. Obedience liberates. We are called to obey and because the law corresponds to the wishes and the capacities of the new heart, we can. Can we really follow the law if we're not a Christian?

On the outside, we can, can't we, to a degree. We can not murder physically, but are there times that inside we want to murder? If you read the news, yes. Did you follow me? So we can do the external manifestation, reminds me of some folks called the Pharisees.

On the outside, we can look pretty good, but internally we can't. So obedience liberates. If we go back and look at verse 18 of chapter 1, it says, of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

So as we become Christians, we're a type of first fruits. In other words, we are being more and more Christ-like because obedience liberates. If we're not obedient, does it kind of crank up our conscience?

How many of you enjoy a conscience in turmoil? I don't. But if we're obedient, we don't have to worry about that. There's a sense of freedom. So verse 13 again, back in chapter 2. This is a further word of warning, possibly to unbelievers because certainly this is written to the believers that are scattered in the area in various churches after they left Jerusalem.

But some commentators say that this specifically here in verse 13, it's talking about James is specifically addressing unbelievers that are in those different congregations. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Our mercy testifies to our saving faith, doesn't it? After all, in the Sermon on the Mount. And remember several times, we've talked about the correlation between James and the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5 -7, you don't need to look at it.

It says, blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the merciful. So go back and look at verses 2 through 4 of chapter 2 where it's talking about the man wearing the this and, you know, the good and the bad.

So what was happening there is a merciful spirit was replaced by a spirit of partiality. If you go back to the Sermon on the Mount, which would have been about 15 years earlier, Christ is saying, be merciful.

Don't show partiality. Creeping into the church now 15 years later is this spirit of partiality. So in verse 13, which we read, let me read it again quickly. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy.

Mercy triumphs over judgment. In verse 13, the mercy that we need is conditional upon showing mercy. In the plan of salvation, and this is what we concluded with last week, in the plan of salvation, justice demands, right, to take care of our sins.

Mercy pleads. Christ pleads in our behalf, and mercy prevails. And then MacArthur's concluding comment. Partiality is inconsistent with the Christian faith because the Christian faith is consistent with the nature of God, and God is wholly impartial.

Partiality is inconsistent with the purpose and the plan of God in choosing the plural of this world to be spiritually rich. Partiality is inconsistent with loving your neighbor as yourself. That brings us then, finally, to point five, the test of righteous works.

And our key word for this section would be thing. So we're going to break this into a couple of different sections. There's two main things that we want to cover today. What we want to talk about is the dead faith in verses 14 through 20, and then the living faith in verses 21 through 26.

And it's marvelous how James has packaged this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So I'd like to read, if you have your Bibles handy, read verses 14 through 20 as an overview. And catch what James is trying to share with these folks, his heart again.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 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 needed for the body, what good is that?

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. You believe that God is one.

You do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? That's some pretty strong language. So let's tear that apart and unpack it and see what we say, see what we see.

So in the introduction in verses 19 through 27, and I won't go back and read it, you can check that out on your own, Paul, even back then, is arguing that hearing must be accompanied by doing. In this section, he says that faith must be attended by doing.

So hearing must be accompanied by doing and faith must be accompanied by doing. In other words, what we do reveals who we are. Evidently, some Jews had gone from an extreme, legalistic Judaism to a Christianity, quote-unquote, with no laws or rules.

So let's look at that. What were the Pharisees basically saying? All you needed was works, legalism. It was a works righteousness. And as the Jews were initially being exposed to the gospel, they found that it was liberating because they realized that they didn't have to be saved by works.

But what some of them did is they took that little G word, grace, and they took it too far. And they said, well, if grace is really there, then we don't have to do any works at all. So do you see the two extremes?

One is saved by works. The other one is you have faith, you don't need works. Now, the $12 word that theologians have invented for that last thing is called antinomianism. Have some of you heard of it?

And that was, I mean, that was just, they weren't kicking that word around back then. The theologians have introduced it since then. But it reminds me, now some of you might remember this. Back in the 80s, there was one seminary in particular that began to say, you are totally saved by faith, period.

And initially, we'd wanna sign on to that. But what they meant in that package deal was that you can, at some point in time, commit your life to Christ and then go on in life for the rest of your life and have no change in your lifestyle.

That was attacked. And it came to be known as the Lordship Controversy, where others were saying, no, if you're truly saved, Christ has to be not only Savior, but also Lord, and coming out of that will be works.

You're not saved by the works, but the works have to accompany a true faith. And so this battle raged on for about a decade, and then it kinda calmed down. But you know, every few years, there's this guy called Satan, and what does he do?

He repackages the truth far enough away from the truth to cause dissension and distortion within the church. So this isn't something that James was just dealing with. We saw it 30, 40 years ago. And if you're old enough, you see new heresies coming out all the time, which says we need to be on our toes.

So they misunderstood the gospel of salvation through grace alone and faith alone. The book of James is about faith. Now catch this. You might think, okay, throw him off the pulpit here. He's gonna go heretical on us.

The book of James is about faith, but it is not about saving faith. It is about the role that faith plays in the life of a person who is already a believer. Do you see the distinction there? So James, as he's addressing this, is not talking about saving faith, which we have to have.

He's talking about the role that your faith will play as a believer and that faith has to be accompanied by works. That's his thrust. So in verses 14 through 20, we see the three characteristics of such a false, dead, and worthless faith.

Verse 14 again, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but not have works? Can that faith save him? Let's unpack that. Faith is not in question here, but the lack of works. And again, in the form that the Greek is written here, it's talking about a continual lack of evidence.

Now you can go along as a Christian for an hour or a day or even a week or whatever period of time. I'm not gonna put parameters on it. And we're not manifesting the works that we really need to. James is saying if there's no evidence of works at all in our lives, then rightly so, our faith can be called into question.

And James has already talked about many of the works that need to be evident. He's talked about things like endurance and perseverance and purity and obedience and compassion and impartiality. He's already covered those.

Now he puts it in a nice perspective. If you have faith, show me your works. And then he asks this rhetorical question. Can that faith save him? Literally, we could read it like this. This faith can't save him, can yet.

So just so many challenges that he puts in the laps of the believers. So that is offered to oppose the idea that just any kind of faith can save. Let's look at a couple of quick passages. We'll go back to Matthew 7, 16 through 18.

Matthew 7, 16 to 18. So verses 16 through 18, you will recognize them by their fruits. He's talking about the false prophets. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. There's not a lot of wiggle room there. Then we'll jump over to Romans. Romans, of course, was written by Paul. Did Martin Luther love Paul?

Oh, he was right up his alley. That's kind of a teaser. We'll come back to that in a second. But in Romans 2, verses 13 through 16, this is what we read from the pen of the Apostle Paul. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secret hearts of men by Christ Jesus.

And then, probably the most powerful passage, go back, please, to Ephesians. Ephesians 2, verses eight through 10. Ephesians 2, eight through 10. A very, very, very familiar passage. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

One more verse. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So this little quote that we have now from Larry Richards, and he's talking about the verse that we read in verse 14, what kind of faith is this?

He says, this kind of faith does exist as intellectual acknowledgment of God, God exists, but does not exist as a trust in God that generates response. This kind of faith is seen in human beings who, despite their claims to believe in God, are unresponsive to the needs of their brothers and sisters, it is not linked with response either to God or to God's children.

Does that sound like that group called the Pharisees? Exactly so. So, and this is critical. Paul opposes works righteousness legalism, right, as we kind of summarize this section. James opposes easy believism.

Salvation does not produce immediate perfection, but a new direction. So again, if you look at this works righteous legalism that Paul talked about, and the easy believism that James talked about, aren't they the opposite evil twin extremes of a distorted faith?

The opposite evil twins. One says, just believe, you don't have to have any works. The other one says, you're saved by works. They just keep getting repackaged and thrown into the churches of today. So, let's go on to false compassion.

I wanna read verses 15 through 17 again, please, of chapter two, the false compassion of worthless faith. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one says to him, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. So what James is doing here is he is comparing faith without works to words of compassion without corresponding acts of compassion. The observation, poorly clothed and lacking in daily food is a hyperbolic statement.

He is saying, I'm gonna give you a ludicrous example, people, not me talking to you, but James talking to them. I'm gonna go so over the top on this that this is gonna stick in your brain. The word for clothed here is the word gymnoi.

And pastor alluded to this not too long ago in one of his sermons, I believe. Do you know what the gymnasium was in the day of the Greeks? Yeah, so the athletes competed naked. Now, pastor pointed out that they competed naked because they would not be encumbered by any clothing.

I would take a different tack on that. I would say if I had to run the half mile in a stadium, I could break a world record because I wouldn't want to be in there too long. Did you get the idea? So poorly clothed really means naked.

It is a hyperbolic statement stating that these people are deprived of necessities. I can go back to Africa and give you a couple of quick stories. Story number one, towards the end of our time, we lived in a really small concrete block house.

And typically what you would do with most of your garbage that you would accumulate, they would have these little dumps out at the edge of your property. And so we would go and we, I mean, that's what they did.

They didn't have a republic to pick up the out in the middle of the jungle to pick up your garbage. So we noticed about the last two weeks that we were there, this little itty bitty African, he would go and he would rummage in our garbage, taking cans and things of that.

And my wife noticed that all he had was a pair of shorts and these things were absolutely obscene. They were 2 away from being totally naked. And so she went out, which scared him off. And then he finally came back and she gave him a pair of shorts that our eight year old son had.

They were way too big. And he just got this big smile on his face, disappeared in the jungle, came back out about a minute later. And he has these things, they were too big. So he'd pulled them around and he was clenching them with his hand, but he was no longer naked.

And we continued to see him almost every day clenching. I mean, he had to do that, but at least his nakedness was taken care of. Didn't cost us anything, but it meant the world to him. It meant the world to him.

So what is James saying here? He's saying these people, poorly clothed, this hyperbolic situation and lacking in daily food. And what was the response of some of the Christians of the day? Oh, go in peace, be warmed and be filled, literally warm and feed yourself.

What a preposterous statement. But do you see how much this is in our face? So it reminds me of occasion where maybe there's a plea from a pastor, we need to raise money for this. And so well-meaning, pious people might say, oh, God will provide.

Well, who does he provide through? Who does he provide through? So these are sobering thoughts and challenges. Though not verbalized, do we imply that sentiment by a selfish disinterest that does not supply things needed?

In our day, that would be equivalent to saying, oh, God bless you, God will take care of you. But we say that without being a channel of provision. So as much as it was a challenge then, it's a challenge for us today.

MacArthur says this in response to that phrase, what good is that? Worthless, just as they professed compassion without kindness and care is phony, so is that faith which is nothing but an empty claim.

This is a well-chosen analogy because compassion is one of the evidences of true regeneration. Sadly, and this might be an indictment on many of us, we can become emotional with TV programs, incensed with injustices, yet show no or little concern and compassion for the plights of neighbors with real needs.

In our artificial, self-centered world, fantasy often becomes more meaningful than reality. Let's look at Matthew 25, please, Matthew 25. Again, a very familiar passage, but it sits in the context here with what James has written.

In Matthew 25, starting with verse 35, we read this. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me, then the righteous will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirst you or give you drink?

When did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, truly, I say to you, as you did it one to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me.

So the summary of verse 17, let me read verse 17 again. So also faith by itself, it if it does not have works, is dead. Calvin summarizes it this way. It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies can never be alone.

Well, well stated. So now we move to shallow conviction. I wanna read verses 18 through 20 back in James chapter two. 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.

You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? So that someone in verse 18 is probably James.

He says, you claim to have faith and that it is by itself is sufficient for salvation. The truth is, you cannot show me your faith without works. You can't, because faith always gives practical evidence.

Living faith produces good fruit. Lots of passages, again, back in Matthew 7, 21 through three, we won't go back and look at that again. But then in verse 19, that little phrase, you do well, that is not a commendation, that is a condemnation.

This is a touch of sarcasm. Again, James, that loving pastor, so concerned for the souls of these folks scattered, he just kind of jumps on their backs. Back in Deuteronomy 6, four, let's go ahead and look there again.

Again, a real familiar passage. In Deuteronomy 6, four, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Of course, from the Jewish perspective, that is called the Shema, right? And any Jew worth half his sense, they would accept this.

But now we get to verse five, and in verse five, it says this. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. So, Jewish orthodoxy embraced the Shema. Oh yeah, we've got one God, we're monotheists, and boy, oh boy.

But then by the time they got to verse five, they might not wanna love that God that they so adhered to in verse four. In fact, what James is saying, that kind of distorted belief, the demons also believe.

They believe there's one God. Do you think, by and large, and I have to word this carefully, do you think, by and large, the demons are kind of theologians? Yeah, they know a lot of scripture. They know all about God.

They know about the Trinity. But when they contemplate the Shema, verse four, that there is one God, rather than embracing it and loving it and being humbled and accepted by it, they shudder. So even the demons believe the Shema, but their response is also evidence that their faith is not a saving faith, but a faith of fear.

Do you think Satan believes that? Yeah, well, why doesn't he just say uncle and give up? It's this little five-letter word begins with the letter pride, right? Does pride distort us? You know, ah, pride, what a nasty thing.

And the king of pride is, of course, Satan. So their response is evidence that their faith is not a saving faith, but a faith of fear, for they are terrified at the thought of God. Belief has not brought them peace with God, which it has to us.

Verse 20, back in James, chapter two, verse 20. Do you want to be shown you foolish person? Now, one of these days, my wife and I are gonna be gone for a few weeks, and that's the time that I've given pastor permission to reference this congregation as being foolish.

How would that sit with you guys? No, it wouldn't sit well. This is really in-your-face stuff that James, again, out of his love and his concern, he refers to them as being foolish, which means morally and spiritually empty and deficient and useless, which means that they have no fruit and they're lacking in productivity.

Strong words, folks, as he's talking about dead faith. But as we conclude the chapter, verses 21 through six, we move on to living faith. So let me read that for you, please. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works, and the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God.

You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way, was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. Well, let's look at this. The big stumbling block to Martin Luther was verse 21, Abraham justified by works. Again, we need to understand where Martin Luther was coming from.

He was doing battle with the Roman Catholic Church. What was their salvation all about? It was all about works. So he had a bit, as good of a theologian was, he had a little bit of a misperception, and so he was so anti-works that when he saw the word, he just disregarded.

James uses that several times, and Martin Luther wasn't quite getting it initially, okay? In fact, he referred to James, the book of James, as an epistle of straw. Again, James is not dealing with the means of salvation, but with its outcome, the evidence that it had genuinely occurred.

So do we need to give Martin Luther a little bit of slack? Yeah, he wasn't perfect. He was good, but he wasn't perfect. Justified by works, justification by faith pertains to a person's standing before God, whereas here, the justification by works pertains to a person standing before other men.

God knows our heart. You don't know my heart. So the litmus test, as you observe me, is to look at my works, and if my works match what I say, then you're thinking, probably he's okay. God doesn't need my external works.

He knows my heart. Do you see the difference there? So the word justification, we're gonna get a little technical here, but don't let it scare you. Justification has two major definitions used in the Bible, and it depends on the context so we know how to use it.

First and most common is it pertains to acquittal, declaring and treating a person as righteousness. So we are justified by faith, okay? We are acquitted of our sins because our sins have been covered by the blood of Christ.

From God's perspective, he knows that. From our perspective, I don't know for sure about where any of your hearts are because can't we be good little hypocrites once in a while? Okay, so the second definition of justified pertains to vindication or proof of righteousness.

Do you follow what is being said here? So as I observe you folks, not that I look for this, but as I observe you folks or you observe me, your little telltale indicators of if I'm walking with the Lord are not my heart which you can't see, but it's my works which you can see.

So those are the indicators or proof of righteousness. That's the second definition of justified. Okay, follow me here. So you got one finger in James chapter two, and then I want you to go back to Genesis 22.

Let's go back to Genesis 22. That still leaves you eight fingers. So we're gonna look at 2 23. In verse 23 of James, it says, and the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness and he was called a friend of God.

Now as it says in your handout, he quotes Genesis 15 six, which you don't have to look up because he's quoting it. He's declaring that God imputed or transferred righteousness to Abraham solely on the basis of his faith.

But now let's go back and look at verse 21 of James. 2 21 of James. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son on the altar? You're saying I'm getting confused. I have that effect in people.

So he was declared righteous because of his faith, but he was justified by his works. Ah, let's go look at Genesis 22 nine through 12. In 22 nine through 12, we read this. When they came to the place God told him, Abraham built the altar there, laid the wood in order and bound his son Isaac, laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then Abraham reached out his hand, took the knife to slaughter his son. I don't know, folks. How many times have you struggled with this? Could you do that to a child? Or in my wife's case, could she do that to a grandchild?

That's rhetorical, don't answer it. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here am I. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, for you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

Do you follow this? He was saved by faith, he was justified by his works. Did God need to see that? No. Did Abraham need to see that? Yes. Do we need to see this in the biblical account for all generations?

Absolutely. So in 21, an event that occurred many years after he was declared righteous by God. Do you follow this? So in order, he was declared righteous by God years before this incident occurred. He was already saved, he was already declared righteous, but what a faith this guy had.

So was he saved by faith or was he saved by works? Answer according to Kim, yes. The works for our benefit, for God's, from God's perspective, did you see it? Just, they're so nice. What faith he had.

Now I have this listed in your notes. We won't read it. In Genesis 22, five, as Abraham is leaving, what does he say to his servants? We will return. In Hebrews 11, 19, which we won't read, what does it basically say?

Abraham knew that if he slew his son, that God was gonna raise him from the dead. What a faith, what a faith. Verses 22 and 23 are key. Despite Abraham's limited theological knowledge, his trust in the Lord was sufficient in tantamount to belief in Christ becoming Messiah.

It was a faith of friendship. The summary's in verse 24. A person is justified by works and not by faith alone. In Zondervan, the Expository Dictionary, they do this helpful thing to talk about justification.

What is particularly significant to us here is that James joins Paul in suggesting that justification is something more than a judicial declaration. True, in response to faith, God does declare sinners acquitted and righteous before him, but he does more than that.

He acts within the believer to make righteousness a reality. Thus, the gospel offer of salvation by faith includes more than a pardon. It also includes a transformation. God will declare the sinner righteous, and then God will act to make the sinner what God has declared him to be.

Okay, let me summarize the last couple of verses. The familiar thing in Joshua chapter two talking about Rahab. So we've already talked about, this is our second example of live faith or living faith.

The first example was Abraham. How do we get from Abraham to Rahab? What a contrast. Well, think about. Abraham was a major Bible figure. Rahab was a minor. He was the father of the faithful. She was a foreigner.

He was respected. She was disreputable. He was a man. She was a woman. That's a big deal back in that culture, right? So why the contrast? Why these two examples of faith? Because it shows us the broad scope of God's mercy.

Rahab acknowledged that the God of Israel was the true Lord and from God's perspective, she had a heart that was right and he graciously accepted her faith for righteousness. Again, concluding briefly with this from MacArthur.

Abraham's and Rahab's justification by works was not demonstrated by their profession of faith, their worship or ritual or any other religious activity. In both cases, it was demonstrated by putting everything that was dear to them on the line for the Lord, entrusting it to him without qualification or reservation.

Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these marvelous words penned under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit by James. May we take these truths to heart, understanding that we are saved by faith, but Lord, that you continue to empower us for works which are visible to other people, which speak of the faith that we hold so dear.

So help us to be true believers, unabashedly worshiping and praising you and giving glory to you in all things. We pray in your son's name, amen.