Faith Alone

Be not conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Hi, and welcome to Renewed Mind. I'm your host, Romuald Gossein, and today we have with us Dr. James White, who will be discussing with us what it means, faith alone.

First of all, welcome to the show, James. Good to be with you. Now, if you can describe to us or define to us, how does the Bible use the word or the term faith?

The Nature of Faith as a Response to God

I think the Christian answer to the question of what is faith could be defined by this. It is the natural response of the creature to the promises and commands of the Creator. Now, what does that mean?

Well, when I say the creature, it means that we as human beings recognize that we are created beings, that we have a God, that He has made us, and how then do we respond when He reveals Himself to us, when He makes promises to us, when He tells us things that are beyond the realm of our knowledge and beyond the realm of how He has created us to know things.

If God tells us what He was doing in eternity past, and you and I didn't exist in eternity past, then when we believe what He says, we are acting in faith. It is not a turning off of the mind. It is an acceptance of everything that God has revealed.

But it is something that involves the mind as well as the will, because especially when it is an act of faith in regards to God's promises, it's an acceptance of the trustworthiness of God as God to make the promise and to have the ability to follow through on the promise.

But it also involves, on my part, an act of the will in accepting, assenting to the nature of the promise that this is good, and then acting in light of that commitment that I've made in this act of faith.

I think the Bible gives us a multifaceted, deep, beautiful picture of what faith really is. Unfortunately, it's normally flattened out, not only in false teaching from false religious groups, but especially when it's, I think, misrepresented by a lot of secularists as Christians turning their minds off and just simply accepting what they're told by a religious authority.

That's not what biblical faith is really all about.

And so, in the Reformation period, what does it mean when the word, or the words used, solified mean?

Sola Fide and the Empty Hand of Faith

Solifede is one of the five solas of the Reformation. They emphasize, for example, soli deo gloria, to God's glory alone, solus Christus, by Christ alone, sola scriptura, scripture as the sole rule of faith alone, and sola gratia, by grace alone.

So, solifede really addressed the human response to the sovereign grace of God in salvation and said that the only means of being made right with God is by true and saving faith, not by anything added to that.

So in other words, faith is not just a first step that is deficient in itself and has to have things added to it over time before one even enters into the right relationship with God. Instead, faith is the only appropriate response to the sovereign power of the grace of God.

I've likened it to this. The hand that reaches out for God's assistance, that includes within it our works, our attempted righteousness, some type of payment to God, is a hand that can never grasp the extended hand of God's grace because there's something in the way.

The hand that can grasp God's grace is an empty hand that brings nothing in it. It says, I have nothing that I can bring, I have no merit of myself, I have no goodness of myself. I recognize that all of that is as filthy rags before a holy God.

And so I come needy, I come without anything of my own, and this empty hand reaches out for that sovereign hand of grace. And that's how they fit together. I think that flows directly from Paul's discussion in Romans chapters 3 and 4.

It really helps us to understand what true saving faith is. I made that distinction earlier and I didn't really define the difference. There are clearly those who have a non-saving faith. In John chapter 8, there were people who said they believed in Jesus.

By the end of John chapter 8, they're picking up stones to stone Jesus. There is an excellent example of non-saving faith. It's not an abiding faith, it's not a faith that is the result of the work of the Spirit of God in a person's heart.

And it's only saving faith that brings the proper relationship with God, and I believe that's because it's the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of an individual that brings about that kind of faith.

And there's a good example, I think, in Romans chapter 4, if I could look at it, that sort of differentiates these kinds of faith. In Romans chapter 4, beginning of verse 4, Paul says, Now to the one who works, it's literally, now to the working one, the wage, what is paid, is not imputed or reckoned to that person as a gift, but instead as something that is owed.

So everyone can understand what Paul is saying here. If you go to work and you put in your 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week, whatever it might be, and your boss comes up to you and hands you your paycheck, he's not going to say, Well, here's a gift I have for you.

Because you're going to feel pretty badly if he thinks he's given you a gift and you've worked a full-time job that week. You might be looking to fill out your resume because that might not be a good sign, I assure you.

But it's not given according to a gift, but it's given to what is owed. In fact, if he doesn't pay you, you can take him to court and sue him because you have rendered a service to him. So the first example Paul gives is of someone who's doing something with the idea of receiving something back.

Then in verse 5, But to the not working, but believing upon the one who justifies the ungodly one, his faith is imputed or reckoned to him as righteousness. So he actually uses the exact same forms. In fact, if you put verse 4 and 5 in parallel to one another, you can see exactly how he does this.

And he's contrasting the working one, who what he gets is what he's owed, with the not working, but believing in the God who justifies the unrighteous one. There's a difference between the two. And what it illustrates is that the faith that saves is not a faith that thinks that it has some type of merit or worth in and of itself.

It's not looking inward and saying, I've done enough. It's not working inward and saying, my religious acts, my religious deeds will be sufficient to bring me eternal life. Saving faith looks away from the self, remember that empty hand again, away from the self to the God who justifies the ungodly.

So it's a sense of unworthiness and making Jesus the object of your faith.

Would that be correct? Not only unworthiness, but I think we need to recognize that grace, we frequently define grace as unmerited favor. Grace is actually demerited favor. I mean, if we got what we deserved, then all we would get would be the wrath of God.

But instead, we are really looking to the God who justifies the ungodly. We are looking to the God who has extended himself so as to bring about a means by which we can be made right before God. We've used the term justified a couple of times now, I haven't defined it, I apologize.

To be justified in the New Testament, you think of the law court, and you think when the judge, I'm not sure if here you use gavels and things like that, but we share a common English heritage at that point, so I would imagine it's the case.

And when the judge brings down the gavel and says, not guilty, you have been justified, you have been declared right in the sight of the law. Well, how can I ever hear that verdict? Because I know my own heart.

I know the standard of God. I know the holiness of God. How can I ever hear that verdict? Somehow we are justified. The means is by faith alone. But how can God do that and still remain holy? I mean, has the judge put on a blindfold so he can't see my sin anymore and says, well, you're holy?

And so it's a lie? It isn't really true? No. The argument that he then goes on to make, actually in verse 6 of Romans chapter 4, is just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

So somehow a righteous standing has been credited, imputed to me. Well, how did that happen? Where could I find a perfect righteousness that can be imputed to me so that I can stand before a holy God?

And rather being seen in all of my depravity and my sin and my uncleanness, I can stand before a holy God clothed in perfect righteousness. Where could I find a righteousness like this? Because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So no matter who I would go to, they have to be concerned about their relationship with God first. They don't have any righteousness they can give to me. So where can I go? Well, we know what Paul's statement is.

We know what his message is. This righteousness is the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ. And as I am united with Christ, then my sins are imputed to him. He bears them on Calvary's cross. His perfect righteousness, which means he committed no sin, but also there's a positive element to this in that Christ lived a perfect life.

The greatest commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Have either one of us done that perfectly today? No, we've not. So there is a need for a positive righteousness as well, which Christ accomplishes in his life.

He lives the perfect life. He obeys the Father perfectly every day. He loves the Father perfectly every day. And so his righteousness, which is a full righteousness, not just a lack of sin, but a positive fulfillment of the commands of the law of God, his righteousness is imputed to me.

It's that great exchange that the Apostle Paul speaks of in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. He who knew no sin, God made to be sin in our behalf so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, but only in him.

And so that righteousness then becomes mine, and therefore I can stand in the presence of a holy God clothed not in my filthy rags, but in the spotless garment of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That's the message of what the gospel is.

How do I get that righteousness? Can I purchase it? Can I buy it? Do I earn it? Is it an installment plan, a credit plan? No. There is only one way. The empty hand of faith is the only hand that will ever be grasped by the hand of grace.

That's right.

And you used that key word declared when you were defining justification. That's not something that we're made into, but we're actually declared righteous. And it's something that was received from Christ through God, or I should say from God through Christ.

Now, I mean, you touched on a few different things there, and I wanted to talk about the alternative view. And some people have this idea that, you know, yes, you are saved by faith, but once you're saved, you need to maintain your salvation by your obedience.

And by that specifically, we mean our works. Now, can you have it both ways? Or are we just simply justified either by works or by faith?

Justification Apart from Works of the Law

Well, we need to understand that when we talk about justification by faith, the specific contrast that Paul makes is over against works. In fact, he said in Romans 3, verse 28, he said, For we maintain that a man is justified, declared righteous, by faith apart from works of the law.

Now, some people say, well, that's just works of the law. That's just the mosaic works. The law is the revelation of—the highest revelation of God's will for our behavior. There could be no works that could be greater than the fulfilling of the works of the law.

And so the apostle specifically denies the role of any type of law-keeping, any type of merit. In fact, he says if it's by grace, it's no longer the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace.

In other words, if you take a pure, pristine glass of water and then you take even a single drop of food coloring and drop it into that water, what's it going to do? It's going to permeate the entirety of that water.

The purity is gone. Grace is only grace as long as it is free. As soon as you add a single drop of human merit to it, it's no longer grace. That's his point in Romans 11, 6. And so while Paul will say that the perfect balance is struck by him in the book of Ephesians, he will say it is by grace you've been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.

What is the that not of yourselves? Well, people argue about it, but I think it's very, very clear that when he uses the form language he uses there, he's wrapping up everything before that. The grace, the salvation, and yes, the faith.

It's not drawn from ourselves. It's the work of God. All of salvation comes from God's grace. But he doesn't stop at the end of verse 9, and I'm awful glad he didn't. A lot of folks quote Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, and they stop.

I say to people all the time, if you're going to memorize that passage, memorize verse 10. For we are his workmanship, created in or by Christ Jesus. For what reason? That we, these good works God has before ordained, good works, that we should walk in them.

So when God saves us by faith alone, he doesn't then just leave us there. He has a purpose in giving us this righteous status, and that is he now is conforming us to the image of his Son. That's the process of sanctification.

He will fulfill his plan in us, yes.

He will fulfill his plan in us, and that's where good works come in. But what is the motivation of those good works? The motivation of those good works within us is love for God and what he's done for us.

It's a response. And it is a fulfillment of God's purpose in that he is conforming his people to the image of his Son. Why would he join a people to Christ and then leave them unlike Christ, leave them unholy?

No, there is going to be a conforming of his people to the image of Christ, so that there is really a justification of all that God is doing. Because what he is doing, he's glorifying himself, but he's also redeeming a particular people.

And he's renewing the creation in that process. It's a beautiful picture we find in Scripture.

Now, I noticed, James, that you're sticking to the Pauline epistles, and that's all good and well. A lot of people say, I shouldn't say a lot, but some people say that the apostle Paul was the apostle of faith.

But why don't we look at James? He's the apostle of works, so they declare him to be. And specifically, if we can look at James 2, verse 24, where we read there, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

So this implies that we're saved by works. Is that true?

James 2 and the Difference Between Living and Dead Faith

It's a shame that over the years, the second chapter of James has been cut into little pieces. And James 2 .20, faith that works is dead. James 2 .24, the only place where faith alone appears. Well, see, you're not saved by faith alone.

And believe me, that is a very common argument that I've heard from many, many people. What I like to try to do, and we don't have a lot of time to do it as fully as I would like to, I went deeply into this in my book, The God Who Justifies, so that we can follow the text.

But I'd like to back up in looking at the context to James 2 .14, where James says, what use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? James is talking about a particular kind of faith, and he is decrying a particular kind of faith in this text.

He's talking about someone who says, they say the words, I have faith, but they have nothing in their lives that demonstrates the reality of that, in direct violation of Ephesians 2 .8 through 10. He's talking about someone, if someone says he has faith but he has no works, can that kind of faith save him?

And the expected answer to the question is, no. Now, that's not the kind of faith that Paul's talking about in Ephesians 2. That's not the kind of faith he's talking about in Romans 3 and 4. So we immediately have to recognize that James is addressing a different issue.

And in fact, I believe James and Paul would have answered our questions in the exact same way. But James is addressing people who, in the church, make vocal claims to faith in Christ, but by their actions demonstrate that they have no interest in obedience to Christ.

For example, he goes on saying, if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warmed and filled, and yet you do not give him what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. So the point is, he spoke a word, be warmed, be filled, but didn't provide any reality to back up the emptiness of the words. The words have to have a reality.

And so if faith is alone, then that's not saving faith. As it has been well said, we are saved by faith alone, but that faith that saves is never alone, because it is the work of the Holy Spirit of God.

And so when you follow that through, especially when you look at the example that he uses of Abraham, Abraham was justified before God in Genesis chapter 15. The illustration that James uses in James chapter 2 of Abraham showing his faith is in the sacrifice of Isaac, but that's at least a couple of decades later.

And so it is after that time where he's already entered into a righteous relationship with God, and James knew Genesis 15 -6, he knew what the story was. So what he's saying is, Abraham's claim to faith was backed up by the actions that he gave.

Those actions perfect his faith in a sense that true saving faith comes from the Holy Spirit of God. And what's the Holy Spirit of God doing? We just said, he's conforming us to the image of Christ. And so we're saved by faith alone, but a saving faith is never alone.

And you can always see, this is truly a dividing line. If you want to see where a church is, or a denomination is, or a person is, this is the dividing line. You will have all sorts of people over on this side, there has to be something more than faith.

I have to do something. I mean, I want a part in my salvation here. But then you'll even have people on the other side that will say, if you preach James 2, you're violating faith alone. There are those who actually, and I personally consider this teaching a heresy.

There are people who teach that you can be saved by just simply tipping your hat toward Jesus. You never have to repent. You never have to be concerned about what God's will for your life is. As long as one time you said, all right, I believe Jesus died on the cross.

I believe rose again from the dead. Boom, your ticket is punched and you're going to heaven. You can go and become anything you want. You can go become a mass murderer, join any religion you want, become an atheist, doesn't matter, you're saved.

James, nor James, or Paul, had any concept of an ideal.

I mean, that's exactly what I was just about to ask you, is that it's not a magic formula that saves us, it's God who chooses or elects us. But there are those that when you do say that it is as simple as placing your faith in God, they'll say, okay, fair enough.

What happens if you stop believing? What happens if tomorrow you just say, I'm not going to believe anymore, or some circumstance or tragedy confronts you and you go, I just can't go on anymore.

Perseverance, Apostasy, and the Enduring Faith of the Saints

Jesus said, he who endures to the end shall be saved. Now, a lot of folks who would think, wait a minute, you're one of those grace theologians. You believe in justification by faith. You've defended it and written about it, you bet.

And you just said, he who endures to the end shall be saved. Yeah, I believe all the Bible. If Jesus said it, I believe it. He who endures to the end shall be saved. What does that mean? Is it my enduring to the end that saves me?

Or do I endure to the end because I am truly saved? Who will endure to the end? I've had the sad experience as an elder in the church. We've had to excommunicate people because they have left the faith.

And they were people who sat next to us during the Lord's Supper, people who we had visited in the hospital. It's a sad reality that you have to face that that happens. Well, was that Christ failing to save one of his own?

I don't believe so. What do we have? The Apostle John put it this way. He said, they went out from us that it might be demonstrated they're not truly of us. If they had been of us, they would have remained with us.

There is a promise there. If they had been with us, if they had truly been of us, they would have remained with us. True saving faith is the work of the Spirit of God in a person's life.

It's true. I mean, we also have the example of Peter, don't we? One that denied Christ. Three times. Three times. With an oath. It was the Lord's prayer. You know, what was it that the devil wanted to do to him?

He wanted to sift him. But it was the prayer of the Lord, the intercessory prayer of Jesus that kept him going. And the Lord met him afterwards, didn't he?

Oh, and lifted him up and restored him. The point is that true saving faith is an enduring faith. That's why I believe that when Jesus says, He who endures the end shall be saved, that in no way, shape, or form makes my endurance something added to the sacrifice of Christ.

So that I can have a pat on the back.

You endured well. And I don't have to maintain my salvation.

Well, Christ maintains my salvation because I'm united with Him, and He's staying in the presence of the Father. That's where my salvation comes from. If I ever start looking at myself, if I ever start looking to myself, the source and origin of my salvation, I'm in deep trouble.

Now, works are not a bad thing.

No, works are the result of the Spirit of God in our hearts.

The evidence of the Spirit of God in our... Exactly, exactly.

That's what I mean by faith alone saves, but a saving faith is never alone. That is, it will be accompanied, as James says, by the evidence that puts the reality into the words. Because, again, that person who said, Go in peace, be warmed and filled.

Those are empty words if you don't provide the warming and the filling. And to say, I have faith, but then not to act in such a way as to fulfill that, means the words are empty. It's the Spirit, though, that provides the filling of those words.

In the sense that even if I provide the food, you know, there's atheists that will give somebody a buck on the street. That doesn't mean that it reflects a changed heart. But a changed heart, of course, can only be accomplished by the Holy Spirit of God.

It's wonderful to be able to realize that God wants us to do good works. And He's not against, He's not anti-good works. And I think sometimes when we do discuss the role of grace, God's election in a person, sometimes people get this impression that, OK, if God chooses you and He saves you, well then, you know, if you do some bad things, then unless you confess them, you're not going to be saved.

And so it's wonderful to be able to see that God saves us according to what He has done and not what we do. It's Jesus' behavior that saves us, not my own behavior towards Him.

And we need to remember, as the Apostle Paul put it, he talks about the writing of ordinances that was against us. It's sort of like if someone were to sit down with a recording of our life and were to record out every time we were selfish and every time we were hateful and every time we were lustful.

And so you've got this massive volume of testimony against you. And what does the Apostle Paul say? He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to His cross. And so, again, the foundation of my right relationship with God is not to be found in my self-examination.

Self-examination is a good thing. Paul says, examine yourselves. But it's not to be found in my going, yeah, I've done a good enough job. Because anyone who examines themselves in that way, if you think you've done a good enough job, you're self-deceived.

There's no two ways about it. The origin and source is to be found in my looking away from myself to Jesus Christ and seeing that accomplished work. Hearing Him saying, it is finished.

That's the source. And it's interesting that God has made it so simple. I mean, all you've got to do is trust and believe. And, you know, I mean, you could look at so many other religions where there is a whole list of things that need to be done.

You need to go to a particular place. You need to circle yourself around or climb up, you know, on your knees. Climb up, kiss this, do that. Oh, yes. Yes. And I think that is a wonderful thing. The simplest thing that you can think of.

What is it? It's just to believe. Trust. You know, and that's all we can really do, not to merit ourselves, but it's almost the simplest thing that someone can do.

And yet, because it involves believing the promises of God and bowing the knee before Jesus Christ and trusting yourself fully to Him, it involves the entirety of your person. While it is simple, it is likewise profound.

Yes.

James, thanks for your time. Thank you. To our viewers, we really hope that you found this episode enlightening. What we're talking about here is from the Scriptures. It is God who says that you have to put your faith in Him, that you would trust Him alone.

He is the one that saves. Please stay in tune for the very next episode of Renewed Mind, and may God bless you.