Living Faith
James 2:21‑26
As you know, we are in the midst of a study of the epistle of James. As we have been moving through 1 Timothy on Sunday morning, we've been moving through James on Sunday night. And I would invite you to open your Bible to James chapter 2 as we come for our study this evening to verses 21 through 26...James chapter 2 verses 21 through 26. This is the second half of a portion of Scripture on the subject of dead faith.
Now one of the most important and at the same time one of the most frightening truths in all of the Scripture, I believe, is that there is a faith in God, there is a faith in Christ, there is a belief of Scripture, there is a belief of the gospel that does not save from hell. Let me say that again. There is a faith in God, there is a faith in Christ, there is a belief of Scripture and a belief of the gospel that does not save one from hell.
It is possible to believe in God, to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to even believe that what Christ did He actually did, to affirm the cross and the resurrection and never be delivered from sin and never be given eternal life. That is what James would call "dead faith." He mentions it in verse 17, "Faith if it has not works is dead." He mentions it again in verse 20, "Faith without works is dead." And he mentions it a third time in verse 26, "Faith without works is dead." And in verse 26 he identifies it like it were a corpse without life, a corpse lying in a casket all dressed up, all made up, looking very life like but with no internal life principle, no breath, no movement, nothing but a mannequin with a painted smile.
Now James is very exercised in his spirit that no one under his care would escape the understanding of this great truth. As any faithful pastor would want to warn his people about the reality of non‑saving faith, so James has that desire as well.
He has already brought it up back in chapter 1, do you remember verse 22? "Be ye doers of the Word," that means whatever has happened in your life produces obedience to Scripture, "and not just hearers deceiving your ownselves." In other words, don't be under the illusion that because you hear truth and your mind affirms truth that that is enough. What is enough is when you begin to produce truth in your living, those are the works that he has in mind here in chapter 2. Faith, says James, without a corresponding change of life, without a transformation, without a product has no evidence and therefore is not real.
The point then that he's making is very clear. Non‑saving dead lifeless faith is known by the absence of righteous deeds.
Now let me take it a step further. Faith is invisible. You can tell me you have faith but I can't see that faith unless you show me that faith. And you can't show me that faith unless you show it to me in a transformed life. It is not enough to say you have faith, that proves nothing. That's merely an affirmation which may or may not be true. Faith in a sense is like the wind, you can't see it, you only see its effects. It's like electricity, you can't see it but you can feel and enjoy and appreciate its effects. It's like radio waves, you can't see them, they're invisible but you can appreciate their effect.
Faith is not known to be real until it is evident in action, deeds, in doing. As chapter 1 verse 22 put it, or in works as we see here in chapter 2.
Faith in James' mind, you must understand this, is a statement equal or a word equal to spiritual life. When he says "faith without works is dead," what he really means to say, if we can clarify it that way, is spiritual life without works is dead.
There's no real life there at all. Unless you show me a transformed life, there is now way that your faith can be verified to me or in fact to you.
Now James is setting forth as you well know a crucial teaching regarding true salvation. Because as we've been learning all along, Christ and all the New Testament writers are very concerned about people who may be self‑deceived as to their faith. And that ought to be a major preoccupation of every pastor today because churches are literally filled with people who are under the delusion that they have saving faith and are looking forward to heaven when the fact is there has never been a transformed life and therefore there's never been a justifying change in their inner most being.
In Ephesians chapter 2 it says, "For by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast." And there the indication of Scripture is you're saved by grace through faith not of works. But then he says in verse 10, "God has created you unto good works which God has before ordained that you should walk in them." Saved by grace through faith unto good works.
The absence of good works is an indicator of the absence of real saving faith.
At the end of the tenth chapter of Hebrews, you are familiar I know with this text, it says in verse 38, "The just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him, we are not of them who draw back unto perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." And what the writer of Hebrews is saying is there is a belief that is not to the saving of the soul. There is a belief that goes so far and falls back. There is a belief that goes all the way to the saving of the soul.
In Matthew, we remember very well chapter 7 where Jesus in verses 21 to 27 deals with those people who have a false faith.
"Many shall say unto Me, Lord, Lord, have we not done this, done this, done the other? He says, Depart from Me, I have never known you, you workers of iniquity." In other words, it isn't what you say, it's what you produce and what you produce is iniquity therefore what you say is meaningless. It is the life pattern that validates or invalidates the claim to salvation.
I can look back to my college days. And I had a very close friend in college. We were really buddies in every way. He was a son of a pastor, I was a son of a pastor. His father and my father were very close friends. In fact, they were very often ministering in the same environment. They were committed to the same theological perspective. He and I were very active in youth ministry. I was involved as a youth pastor, he was involved as a youth pastor. I had designs to go to seminary, he had designs to go to seminary. He played one running back, I played the other running back. He played one cornerback, I played the other cornerback. We played basketball together. We did things together. We talked together. We ministered together. We served the Lord together. I had ever indication in my heart that this guy really knew Christ and was headed for a life of service to Him.
We parted after college and I hadn't seen him in a long time. I picked up the L.A. Times one morning and read that he had been defrocked as a professor of philosophy at a local university for parading a group of naked people across the stage of his classroom and pointing out their private parts in public and putting on a sexually deviated display. I then found out later that he got into setting up rock concerts, after which he had divorced his wife, got involved in some crime and was involved in serving a sentence to pay for his crime.
As far as I know to this day, he flatly and overtly denies the faith. Every thing that I saw or everything, I should say, that he told me he believed when he was young turned out to be empty words because the character of his life demonstrates that there's no reality in his heart. That's a very frightening thing because you have to ask yourself the question, how many more people do I know like that? And how many more people are there who will ultimately demonstrate in this life the deadness of their faith? And beyond that, how many people are there who will never know their faith is dead until they face their maker only to find out in horror that that which they assumed to be saving faith is nothing more than damning faith?
I'll tell you, as a pastor of a church for 18 years, I'm not into the "hit and count heads" kind of evangelism. When you're in the church for a long period of time, you don't just have people parade through, make an indication of salvation, write them down on your list and leave town. You stick around long enough to find out whether the faith is real and the way you know the faith is real is by what you see in the life.
Now that's exactly what James is after in this text. The first thing he does in verse 14 to 20 is describe dead faith. He says it has three characteristics. Number one, an empty confession, verse 14, "What does it profit, my brothers, though a man say he has faith and has not works? Can that kind of faith save him?" What's the answer? No. And that's implied in the question. That kind of faith can't save him, can it?..is the Greek design of the original text.
First of all, dead faith is an empty confession. It is a faith without a product. It is a man who simply says and never does. It is a claim without verification. There are no works.
There is no patient endurance in trials. There is no true holiness, purity, humility and open reception of God's truth.
There is no obedience and submission to the Word. There's no control of the tongue. There's no godly compassion. There's no brotherly love. There's no abstinence from worldly things.
There's no impartiality. And all of those things are the issues he discussed in the first two chapters.
As Hebrews 6:9 says, he must show...quote: "The things that accompany salvation." The saving work of God provides in a soul repentance and love for God and love for Christ and hunger for righteousness and desire for the Word and hatred of sin and obedience to God and submissiveness to His will. In fact, if you look at Hebrews chapter 11, you'll meet all the heroes of faith and you will find that all the heroes of faith were known by their...what?...their works. Every one of them is characterized by what he or she did because that's the only way faith can be demonstrated.
A poet puts it this way. "Let all who hold this faith and hope in holy deeds abound, thus faith approves itself sincere by active virtue crowned."
The second thing James says is that false faith is indicated by a false compassion. In verses 15 and 16, he talks about a brother or sister being destitute, naked, cold and hungry without food. Somebody coming along and saying to them, "Be warmed and filled," if it's in a middle voice as we saw last time, he's saying warm yourself and fill yourself, don't bother me with your problems. If it's a passive voice, he's saying I hope you can be warmed and I hope you can be filled by somebody else, certainly not me. And he goes on his way.
What does that profit, he asks at the end of verse 16? What good is that kind of faith that knows no compassion? What good is that kind of faith that knows no brotherly love? What good is that kind of faith that does not act toward another as Christ would act toward another? Don't tell me that's saving faith because there's no changed nature because a redeemed soul will respond as the Redeemer would respond for the redemption brings about the life of God in the soul of man. And the life of God is expressed in the attitudes of God. So false compassion can be added to empty confession.
Then in verse 17 and 18, "Even so, faith if it has not works is dead being alone. If a man says you have faith and I have works, show me your faith without your works and I'll show you my faith by my works." He says if a man just walks up and says, "I'll show you my faith without my works," James as if debating with some imaginary antagonist who would say that, there must have been some in the assembly to which he writes, says you say you have faith, do you, show me your faith without your works.
And the man stands there unable to do it. You can't do it. It's impossible. Faith is invisible. So you say you have faith, do you, and you don't need works, then you show me your faith...impossible.
So, the third element of non‑saving false dead faith is a shallow conviction. It's brought out in verse 19. A man says, "Well, I believe in orthodox truth." James says, "You believe in God, do you? You do well. The demons also believe and shudder."
In other words, at best your faith is demon faith. Don't pat yourself on the back because you believe orthodox truth. Demons are orthodox.
Do you know the demons are orthodox? Let me give you a little insight into that. In Matthew 8, one of the demons said to Jesus, "Why are You here to torment us before the time?" You remember that statement? A demon said, "Why are You here to torment us before the time?" Do you know what that tells me?
The demons have a very established orthodox eschatology...they have an orthodox eschatology. They also have an orthodox Christology...Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you?
They understand the church. They understand the work of the Spirit. They understand the trinity. They understand everything, they're all orthodox as we've been seeing. And they know the truth and they believe the truth but they shudder...they don't love the truth, they don't love righteousness, they don't love God, they don't love purity and love holiness, they love everything rotten, everything evil. So demon faith is orthodox, it just doesn't save.
And what he's saying is, at best just being orthodox is no better than demon faith. And demon faith is damning faith. So verse 20, he repeats, "Will you know then, O empty‑headed man, that faith without works is dead." Don't give me some shallow conviction about your orthodoxy, don't try to indicate some false compassion by wishing well on people, wishing well to people who are in need, and don't make some empty confession to have a faith that produces nothing. This is a dead faith. No spiritual life.
No true love of God. No love of holiness. No pursuit of holiness, godliness, righteousness, no hunger for the Word.
Second Corinthians 5:17 says, "If any man be in Christ he's...what?...new creation, old things have passed away and behold all things have become new."
In dead faith there's no spiritual triumph in trouble.
There's no living faith that evidences itself with endurance, with joy and difficulty. There's no eager readiness to respond to the Word. There's no hunger and longing for purity. There's no close self‑examination to see sin. There's no continual driving internal desire to be exposed to the cleansing of the Word, there's no control of the tongue to be used for the glory of God and the edification of others. There's no true compassion, love and generosity to those in serious distress.
And there's no broken, humble, meek spirit. It's a lack of real transformation. That's dead faith.
Now in verses 21 to 26, and that was just a quick review, in verses 21 to 26, we have the contrast of living faith and I want you to see this, this is so marvelous and so powerful a text because the illustrations are so very graphic. Let's look at verses 21 to 16, the contrast of living faith. James has shown us what dead faith is, now he wants to show us by contrast what living faith is. And he is still structuring his argument as if it were a debate with a Jew in the assembly who is arguing that a faith with no works is still a saving faith. That's really behind this, as we pointed out last time, and I'm trying not to go over everything. But somebody in the assembly is going to say, "Well, all we need is faith and all there needs to be is grace and it doesn't have to show up in your life, it's not by works and, boy, we're out of legalism into antinomianism, doing our thing, faith is enough. And so James structures his argument against that kind of thinking, that kind of thinking that says faith alone is enough and if there's nothing every produced in your life it really doesn't matter, it's simply a matter of believing and salvation is nothing more than forensic and justification is nothing more than God saying you're justified, it doesn't necessarily include a transformed life. That is so foreign to Scripture. But that's the kind of thing James is debating as he talks with this antagonist that he has hypothetically created.
Now to make his point of what really constitutes living faith, he uses three illustrations. As he had three elements or characteristics of dead faith, he has three illustrations of living faith. Number one, is Abraham. And this goes from verse 21 to 24, let's begin at verse 21. "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?" Now that verse has really caused paroxisms for many people. Abraham justified by works...this is what Martin Luther got all mixed up about and then called this an epistle of straw because he couldn't figure out what that was really saying.
Let's take it carefully and I want you to understand what James is saying. "Was not Abraham our father?" Now there is a sense in which Abraham is the father of all Jews, and since James, a Jew, the brother of our Lord, the half‑brother of our Lord, is writing to scattered Jews, as chapter 1 verse 1 says, he could be saying "Abraham our father" in a Jewish sense. Our father in a racial sense. In fact, in Romans 4:1, Paul says, "Abraham, our father," pertaining to the flesh. In John 8:33, Jesus said to the Jews, "You are of Abraham's seed." And then in verse 37, He says, "I know that you are Abraham's seed." So there's a sense in which James can be saying Abraham, our father, in a physical natural racial sense. The great patriarch was certainly the symbol of all that was Jewish and all that was to be honored among Jews since he was their honored progenitor. He was also the standard of righteousness for all of the Jews.
But James has in mind more than that. And when he says "Our father, Abraham," he has in mind that Abraham is the father not only of the Jews racially but of all people who believe in God unto salvation, whether they are Jew or Gentile. He is in a sense the father of all the faithful, of all those who believe.
This is a very important emphasis that the Apostle Paul wants us to understand in writing the epistle to the Galatians. And so in chapter 3 and verse 7 Paul says, "Know ye therefore that they who are of faith, the same are the sons of Abraham." So then verse 9 says, "They who are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham."
There is a spiritual sense in which all who believe are somehow connected to Abraham. He is the model of faith and we sort of follow that model. He is the classic illustration of saving faith. In that sense, he is the father of the faithful.
You often hear people say, for example, the George Washington is the father of our country. Now we don't mean by that that George Washington fathered every person in America. We don't mean