As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:
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.
In this verse, I believe James is continuing his
consideration of “religion which God approves.” I would suggest that such a
subject is very important to genuinely born-again people – not because they
fear being disapproved but because they deeply love the Lord and want very much
to understand those things that make Him happy.
That being said, I think there is one important point we can
make while camped on this verse. Before discussing that, however, I want to
acknowledge that this verse is one of the theological battlefields of the
centuries. This verse in particular and the discussion which follows would seem
on first pass to contradict salvation by faith alone. The discussion has been
billed as a conflict between James and Paul.
Here’s what I think: Back in 1:25, we pointed out the words:
“But whosoever looketh into the perfect law …,” with the idea being one
stooping down to peer at something, and that idea being contrasted with someone
glancing in a mirror and promptly forgetting what they saw. I noted then, in
order to really understand God’s Word, there needs to be stooping down and
peering. The Scriptures may seem to say a lot of things on a passing glance,
but our admonition is to be “rightly dividing” (“correctly handling”). All that
said, personally I don’t think there is any reason to even suggest a conflict
between James and Paul. Even Martin Luther, who early in life called the book
of James an “epistle of straw” later on, after having studied and matured
himself, acknowledged its value.
There are mountains of commentary on this very discussion
but suffice it for me to make one quote:
“Paul wrote Galatians to deal with
the error of adding some outward work, such as circumcision, to faith alone for
salvation. James wrote this text to confront the problem of those who profess
to believe in Christ, but do not have any fruit to show for it. If we lose
sight of this, we will err” (Steven J. Cole).
Some of the battle may have been encouraged by the old KJV
translation, “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith,
and have not works? Can faith save him?” The translation of the last question, “Can
faith save him?” seems to turn Sola Fide on its ear. However (and once again, hundreds
before me have pointed this out), the KJV failed to acknowledge an article attached
to the Greek word for faith, so that a better translation is something like, “Can
that faith save him?” or “Can such faith save him?” To include the emphasis of
the article shows that James is not tackling faith itself but rather “that
faith,” a faith that someone claims to have yet has no works to show for it.
That is one last exegetical point I wish to make, that what
is at issue here is not faith but rather the fact that someone “says” he has
faith. That same thought occurred back in 1:26, where James considered a person
who “seems to be religious.” Unfortunately all of this is a very necessary
discussion, since everywhere faith goes it will always find false adherents. Faith
has always found many who “draw near Me with their mouths, but their hearts are
far from Me.” As Jesus warned, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will
enter the kingdom of Heaven.” He said, “By their fruits you will know them."
And so this whole discussion is necessary, the matter of
faith and works. Clearly, as someone has said, “Faith alone saves but faith
that saves is never alone.”
Now, back to my “one important point we can make while
camped on this verse:” I think it is worthwhile to pause and consider what “works”
He’s talking about. This is a point where I think we need to set aside whatever
pre-conceived notions we may have and let the Lord Himself tell us what He
means.
What would most of us think of when we hear those words, “Faith
without works is dead?” What would we immediately presume are “works?” I would
suggest our minds go immediately to “church work,” or what we call “ministry.”
At minimum it would mean something like teaching Sunday School or perhaps even
going to the mission field. It might mean trimming the bushes around the church
building. Perhaps when we think of “works” that accompany salvation, we think
of regular church attendance and carrying one’s Bible, of living a “separated”
lifestyle, wearing certain clothes, not listening to certain music, etc. If
someone has stumbled across these feeble thoughts, pause and consider the
question – really, down deep in your heart, what do you think of when you see
the word “works” in this verse?
Now look around the text and, in fact, the Bible itself.
What “works” has James already called attention to? He started with learning to
“Consider it pure joy, … whenever you face trials of many kinds.” He’s
mentioned “bridling your tongue.” Then he very specifically held up “looking
after orphans and widows in their distress.” He’s just come off a discussion of
avoiding favoritism toward other people. And, reading ahead, the very specific
illustration he will use is the problem of a “brother or sister without clothes
and daily food.” My mind goes back to Isaiah 58 and the Lord’s words, “Is not this
the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice … to set the
oppressed free … to share your food with the hungry …?” When Jesus commends His
people, the “sheep on His right,” what He commends is “When I was hungry, you
fed me …”
Here would be my observation: when the Lord thinks about “works”
He’s thinking of the real day to day issues of loving Him and loving others.
Learning to see joy in trials is something very personal and very private,
something that develops between our heart and His in the quietness of our own
lives. Learning to bridle our tongues doesn’t just happen in a church building.
It is something that starts as soon as I wake up and bears on how I speak to my
wife and children as we all get up and go to work and school. It bears heavily
on how I talk to and about people all day at work and how I talk to the cashier
at the grocery store on my way home. The love of “caring for orphans and widows
in their distress” is a work that means all day every day I’m trying to be
sensitive and observant to see people in their very real needs and to do
whatever I can to help them.
Those are the kinds of things the Lord says He means. The
things we call “ministry” may in fact be works of love, but I would suggest
there is great danger in automatically equating those things with the love
Jesus longs to see in us. And I would go on to suggest there is perhaps even greater
danger in limiting our definition of “works” to those ideas of “church
ministry,” of mentally “checking off the list” when we’ve done those things. I’ve
simply known too many people who may have been great “servants” at church but
didn’t have a drop of love in their
hearts.
We believers need so desperately to see our faith as
something we live all day every day everywhere we go. It isn’t something that
happens at the church building. We talk about taking the Gospel to the lost and
yet every single person sitting in the pews spends all day every day in that
world, rubbing elbows with those very people “we’re trying to reach.” That’s
why Jesus told us to “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your
good deeds and praise your Father in Heaven” (Matt 5:16). That is why someone
might “come and ask you a reason of the hope that is in you” (I Peter 3:15),
because they actually see in your day to day life something truly different
about you.
It is a sad commentary that “faith without works is dead” –
to think that someone can actually believe they have faith, can think they actually
have a relationship with God, and yet one day hear Him say, “Depart from Me,
you workers of iniquity. I never knew you.” But I think, practically speaking,
it is just as serious for believers to fail to realize just how simple and
day-to-day are the kind of “works” that accompany salvation. The “works” which
accompany salvation all come down to love, and love is something we live … all
day every day.
Everyone who’s dying knows that all that ever really
mattered in life was relationships. The wonderful thing about knowing God is
that He helps us see that while we’re still quite alive. I don’t think He at
all intends to scare us with “faith without works is dead.” Rather He wants to
encourage us that the love we know down deep in our hearts is most important …
really is!
May we all live in the joy of His love and may it flow out
of our blood-bought hearts into the people He places around us … all day every
day.
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