James 2:14-17 – “The Man and His Arm”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁴My brothers, what [is] the profit if someone should claim to have faith but not have works? That faith would not be able to save him. ¹⁵If a brother or sister becomes poorly clad and lacking the daily sustenance, ¹⁶but someone from you (pl.) says to them, “Go in peace. Be warmed and be filled,” but you (pl.) should not give to them the necessities of the body, what [is] the profit? ¹⁷Even so, that faith is dead according to itself, if it should not have works.

There are a lot of thoughts I could record regarding these verses, but one in particular stands out to me. These verses, as we’ve discussed before are a theological battleground. However, I would suggest they only become a battleground for people who would unnaturally separate faith and works. Certainly there is a sense in which we must separate the two, “for by the works of the law shall no man be justified” (Gal 3:11). Rather “By grace you are saved through faith … not of works …” (Eph 2:8,9). But having established that faith itself is the root of salvation, we then are free to see that that root bears fruit.

It is sort of like studying a man throwing a ball. One may say he throws the ball with his arm. Someone else says the man throws the ball. So does he throw it or does his arm? Let’s cut off his arm and study it and then perhaps we can decide which it is. Do you see how foolish the discussion is? We can accurately say that in fact the ball is propelled by the man’s arm, but it is ludicrous to even discuss the throwing of a ball somehow separated from the man himself. There are some things which can and should be studied separately. If someone wants to be an ophthalmologist, they study eyes. If someone else wants to be a podiatrist, they study feet. Fine. But a study of genuine faith invariably must include a consideration of works. Like the man and his arm, they are organically inseparable.

I say all that because I want to record the one point that stands out to me from this passage, and that is this: Because of what genuine faith is, it cannot not produce works. Genuine faith is not assent to a creed, acknowledgment of certain “beliefs,” association with a particular group, or any of the things we are more than happy to accept. Nicodemus “believed” but he still didn’t “get it.” And what was Jesus advice to him? “Except a man be born again, he will not see the Kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Born again. Even in those familiar words is the key to this whole discussion. To be genuinely saved, to come into genuine faith, is to be born … again. To be born is to be alive. And to be alive is to breathe and move. Even a comatose person’s body still moves. The heart beats, the lungs breathe, the blood flows. When the graphs all flat line, when there ceases to be detectable movement, what do we conclude? The person has died. If we can catch them quickly and do CPR or hit them with defibrillators, perhaps we can revive them. But we’d better do it quickly!

Born again. Every Easter I am excited by the thought that, in a sense, the whole point of Christianity is resurrection. The whole point is life from the dead! In a sense, I came to Christ because I was so tired of dying. I wanted to live. And what a life He has given me! “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

To have genuine faith is to live. This is what Ezekiel spoke of:

“Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes …” (36:26-27).

To understand all of this is to see the folly of unnaturally separating faith and works. It is genuine faith that saves us and faith alone, but that faith itself is a living thing, a living thing that imparts life, a living thing that means the very Spirit of Christ Himself takes up residence in our hearts. If you push a stone into the ground what will happen? Nothing, of course. But what if instead you pushed a seed? A seed is a seed. It is, in a sense, not a tree. But the seed is a living thing. Give it earth, water, and warmth, and suddenly a tree grows! But why? Because the seed itself was a living thing. So genuine faith is life itself. It brings life. It is life. And so those who “have” it live!

And as Paul noted in Galatians 2 (quoted above), it is Christ who lives in me. It is His life I am living. …Which brings us back to our text. Could Jesus ever see a person poorly clad and hungry and say, “Go in peace. Be warmed and filled,” and walk away? No. Then neither can I. Oh, I can, and perhaps James is acknowledging that even born again people are capable of crass insensitivity. But his point is that such behavior is completely out of character for people indwelt by the Spirit of Jesus. Born-again people have Jesus living in them. In the long run, they cannot be happy unless they let Him live through them.

I am so, so, so glad all of this is true. It is so exciting to have this life that lives in me, this life that wants to live, that wants to live Jesus, that wants to see the world through His eyes, to have His heart, to sincerely try to be His hands, His feet, His mouth to the people He places around me. … And to actually have the power to see it happen! Not because I make it happen but because I am indwelt by the very 3^rd Person of the Trinity and His life lives in me. I so enjoy the freedom of just letting Him live and then enjoying the love and joy and peace that comes with His life.

I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone else, but all of this is why to me, the whole discussion of faith without works is really ludicrous. It’s not a matter of “adding” works to faith. It is a matter that genuine faith is alive -- to have genuine faith is to be alive. And to be alive is to move. Faith in Jesus is to be alive in Him, to have Him alive in me. And the “works” that naturally follow are simply the “moving” of His life in me.

All of this is how it is possible that “faith alone saves” but “faith that saves is never alone.” The two belong together … like the man and his arm!