James 2: 14-26
(14) What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
(15) If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food,
(16) and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?
If you say that you are a Christian, and you believe in Jesus, then what are you doing to show that He has saved you? If you know someone has a need that you can help with, but refuse to do so, is that loving your neighbor?
(17) Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
Just to say you believe is not enough to save you.
(18) 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."
Whether with works or without, the substance of your faith is really what matters.
(19) You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.
The demons know who God is, and what Jesus accomplished for us, and they know that they are under condemnation.
(20) But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?
When a person has put their trust in Christ to have taken their place in death to pay their sin-debt, then they will express this salvation in love for one another, meeting needs and encouraging.
(21) Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?
(22) You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected;
(23) 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.
(24) You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
The word justified is dikaioo,
which means "to show as just or righteous," not to make righteous. Justify means to show to be just, not to make just. So
he was saved by his faith, which was shown by his works.
When Abraham offered Isaac on the altar, it demonstrated that his faith in God was genuine, many years after it was reckoned to him as righteousness. So he wasn't saved by his works, it was by trusting in God in faith.
(25) 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?
Rahab, also, believed that the God of the Hebrews was trustworthy, and her faith was also demonstrated by her protection of the messengers, and was even included in the genealogy of our Savior.
(26) For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
So, James is not saying that we are saved by our works, because there is nothing we can do to pay off the debt we owe.
He is saying that when our faith is genuine, saving faith, then it will be worked out in our attitudes and treatment of one another in what we do. But if our attitudes have not changed, so that we still treat others the same way we did before we believed, then our faith is no more saving than that of the demons.
Saving faith is trusting Jesus to have taken your death on the cross. We are all the criminals who deserve execution, and Jesus fulfilled the personal sacrifice as the Lamb of God for each of us, individually. His blood has unlimited worth, and is more than sufficient to pay the sin-debt of every person who ever lived.
That is why God is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance, realizing that they deserve that death (II Peter 3: 9). Because He created the human race to be His children.
But He gave us a free will, because He wants us to choose to love Him back. Many have already chosen to refuse His offer of Redemption, because they've decided to believe the lies of our enemy, instead.
Only those who choose to turn to God and accept the sentence we deserve, then let Jesus pay that debt for us, will be born into His family. This is the faith we are to believe with: trusting Him to have done all the work for us.
Then we will have His Holy Spirit in us to prompt us and power us to do the good works He planned before time for us to do. The works that demonstrate that our faith is genuine, saving faith.
But the faith must come first, then the works will follow.
O my Father, please help us to understand what You are telling us in Your written word. We know that Your Love for what You made has caused You to do everything possible, and even impossible, to rescue us from the condemnation we have called down upon ourselves. And when You save us from ourselves, You wash us pristine clean in the blood of Your Son, then place in us Your own Holy Spirit to give life to our dead spirits, and be born into Your own family.
Then in the power of Your Spirit in us, You are molding and making us into the very image of Your Son, as Your sons and daughters resembling our Father; and doing the good things You planned for us to accomplish for Your Kingdom, our benefit, and Your glory.
O Father, send out Your children into the fertile fields of the world to gather all Your harvest, to find all Your lost lambs to rescue them from the brambles and pits that trapped them.
Father, fill Your house with all of Your uncountable children, surround Your great banquet table with Your sons and daughters, to eternally enjoy sweet fellowship with You and one another.
And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, every tongue will proclaim that Jesus is our Christ, the Lord God Almighty, sovereign King over all Creation; to the everlasting glory of Almighty God the Father, for ever and ever. Amen.
Even so, come soon, Lord Jesus!
