Core Convictions VIII: Faith Without Works by Maxie Dunnam

This is the seventh installment in Maxie’s series on Core Convictions. You can find the first seven articles here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Someone will say “You have faith; I have deeds. ” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, ” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. (James 2:18-24)

As you look closely at this word of James, you realize that James is not asking whether works without faith can save us, but rather, whether faith without works can save us. His answer to that is a resounding no.

Before we take issue with James, let’s look at the similarity between his words in this theme text and Jesus’s parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25:31-46. This is the only time Jesus told us what judgment is going to be like. He says that when the Son of Man comes in his glory and gathers before him all the nations of the world, he’s going to separate the people the way a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats. He’s going to place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on the left. He will say to those on his right hand (the sheep), “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me (vv. 34-36).”

That was a surprise to both the righteous and the unrighteous, because neither of them knew they were guilty of Jesus’s accusation. They asked, “When did we see you hungry?” His response to their question is unforgettable: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (vv. 37, 40).

Nothing about belief, nothing about right doctrine, nothing about proper churchmanship. As is often the case for me, a Charles Schulz Peanuts cartoon speaks to me here. Linus and his sister, Lucy, are having a conversation. Linus says to Lucy, “You think you are smart just because you are older than I am!” Lucy gets up and walks off, but Linus follows, saying, “You just happened to be born first! You were just lucky!” Then he screams, “I didn’t ask to be born second.” And in the final frame, he adds in despair, “I didn’t even get a chance to fill out an application.”

When it comes to the last judgment, there are no applications to fill out. The conditions have been predetermined by Jesus himself. Consider James’s word in light of that. Again, his question is not whether works without faith can save us, but rather whether faith without works can save us. To gain clarity, consider these bold affirmations.

• One, there is no salvation without discipleship. We can’t claim Jesus as Savior without a willingness to surrender to him as Lord.
• Two, an emphasis on faith that does not include fidelity to Christ’s call to walk in newness of life is a distortion of the gospel. This is what James is saying: Faith that does not give attention to ethical issues-to telling the truth, seeking to live morally clean lives, shunning evil, fighting personal immorality and for social injustice, feeding the hungry, caring for the needy, seeking the lost, suffering for those the world has said no to–is dead.
• Three, a faith that emphasizes ethics and good works as a saving way of life is a false faith. Ethics and good works do not save us, but rather are the expression of the transforming work of the Spirit within us.

Faith and works.  Not faith without works nor works without faith.  Our deeds reveal our faith, and our faith comes from following our Lord. Salvation by God’s grace runs through sanctification by faithfully Jesus and arrives at deeds we are empowered to do by the Holy Spirit.