Are we justified by faith, or are we justified by works?
Last Sabbath, in the PM, at least, there was a good sermonette from a gentleman who I see in the back, at least, I thought I saw him, Paul Wasilkoff. I'm sure I saw him. Anyway, he is... there he is. Oh, there he is, yes! He did a very good sermonette last Sabbath in the PM on a supposed contradiction. Now, I don't whether he gave it in the AM I think it was PM only, so maybe you didn't hear it.
My intention is not to go over it all over again, but his sermonette was about Proverbs 26 where we're told — answer not according to his folly, and then — to answer a fool according to his folly... I'll leave you to go back and review those scriptures, if you'd like to. But it was a very good sermonette.
People are quick to seek contradictions in the Bible. It's amazing how many people believe that the word of God is almost schizophrenic, and you come up with supposedly opposing declarations in the pages of the Bible, things that can't possibly be reconciled according to many. You even find this in the writings of some of the so-called biblical scholars.
What I want to do this morning in the Bible study is look at an alleged contradiction written by two apostles of God. This is another area, a fairly complicated area, I hope I have time to pull it apart, where supposedly, these two apostles say things that are completely in opposition to each other, and some of the Bible scholars have thrown their hands in the air in futility. "We cannot possibly reconcile what these two passages say. They're irreconcilable; they couldn't make up their mind," and of course, in the minds of some, then, of course, it brings down the seriousness with which we should approach the Bible.
Now, the two apostles that I'm speaking of are Paul and James. Paul and James. If you check some of the writings and some of the commentaries, there is allegedly a "problem," I'll put that word in quotes, between the apostle Paul and the apostle James on something that's really pretty fundamental to Christian doctrine. The so-called contradiction revolves around the question of justification.
Let's look at a few of the scriptures before we actually define the term - justification. Turn with me, please, to James 2:21-24. Both of these apostles, New Testament apostles, have something to say about the subject of justification. At first glance, it might appear that they are, in fact, contradicting each other, but let's dig a little bit deeper.
James 2:21 — James writes, in this wonderful book by the way; the book of James is beautiful, beautiful book. It's full of very practical Christian living teaching, one of my favorite books of the Bible. He writes: Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Abraham was justified by works when he did that according to James.
Verse 22 — Don't (Do) you see that faith was working (together) with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
Verse 23 — And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.. . ." Now, we'll turn back shortly into the Old Testament and read that scripture, because that scripture is also quoted by Paul, but it's important to look at context both in the Old Testament and the New. Anyway, then continuing here. . . . And he was called the friend of God.
Verse 24 — You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Note that James says it twice that we are justified by works. James makes a very important point that a Christian has to do certain things in order to be justified.
Now, let's look at the supposedly opposing passage in Romans 3:28 through Romans 4:3. Paul writes:
Romans 3:28 — Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.
Verse 29 — Or is He the God of the Jews only? Isn't (Is) He (not) also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.
Verse 30 — since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
Verse 31 — Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law. The whole subject of Paul and the law is a big subject. I don't want to try to take on the whole thing in the Bible study. It's a big subject. But then Romans 4:1, Paul goes on to say:
Romans 4:1 — What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh?
Verse 2 — For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
Verse 3 — For what does the Scripture say?. . . And then Paul quotes the same verse from Genesis that James quoted. ". . . Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." . Paul says Abraham was justified by faith; works didn't enter into it, at least in the center of it, according to Paul. James says Abraham was justified by his works; his works manifested his faith. Is it a contradiction? Is it irreconcilable? Is God inconsistent? Do we, in fact, have a Paul/James problem?
I was thinking about this for the last few days; when we speak, often, we're preparing ahead of time, and something struck me as I was turning this subject over in my mind, and that is, probably for a Church of God audience, this is much less of a burning problem than for many people in other religious traditions. For people in Protestantism or Judaism, they might read these two scriptures and see, "Oh, there is a contradiction here, or we don't know how to stitch it all together." For a Church of God audience, maybe not so much of a big challenge to our faith, and our understanding of things, but first, let's begin with a definition of justification.
I discussed this with our little group in the Dominican Republic two weeks ago, and I jumped right in, and I began talking about justification, and one lady said, "Please define justification." So, giving a definition is always a good thing to do. Let's define justification. Justification is being made right with God, declared innocent because sins have been forgiven and blotted out. Justification is being made right with God, being declared innocent because sins have been forgiven and blotted out.
I was struck by a sermon I listened to, one of the sermons by one of our ministers a few weeks back, I was listening to a sermon he gave around the Passover time, and he made a very nice, concise little point. He said, "All sin is either judged or forgiven. All sin is either judged or forgiven." I thought it was a good point. All sin either gets judged, or it gets forgiven.
Remember what you were told when you come back up out of the water. We generally tell people this when they are baptized. "Congratulations. Your sins are now forgiven." When we emerge from that water at baptism, our sins have all gone, and at that moment in life, we're completely clean. Unfortunately, we have to, you know, go onwards, and we sin again; we rely on God's mercy and on His justification; it's an ongoing thing.
Anyway, to get back to the question, are we justified by faith, or are we justified by works? Answer to the question: yes. And that's the end of the Bible study, and we can finish the service early and all drink more coffee, right? (Chuckling in the crowd.) No, that's not enough. ABC students are used to my answering questions that way. It is a one word answer to the question, but we've still got some time to go, so let's take a deeper look at some of this because when we see apparent contradictions in the Bible, the big key to understanding biblical passages is always context. Context, context, context. Context helps us to solve so many of the apparent Biblical difficulties, always looking at the context.
So, let's stay in Romans, and let's pick up a little bit more of the context that we didn't read. Let's begin in Romans 3:19 to see what's going on and what Paul is saying, and perhaps more importantly to whom he's saying it and what the opposition was saying. When we read Paul's writings, one of the big keys, you have to sort of have to look at them as if they're a mirror. He's very often opposing someone who's trying to cause a problem in the church, and you can figure out what the opposition is saying by looking at what's implicit in Paul's argument. So:
Romans 3:19 - Paul says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped, (and) all the world may become guilty before God. This is one of Paul's favorite points that the law alone defines sin and therefore, condemns us. Paul makes that point in many places. Interesting, in when we get to James, James will not use that word — law. Paul uses the word — law.
Verse 20 — Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Law defines sin. When we know about sin, we stand condemned. The law can't save us out of it. God will save us through Jesus Christ.
Verse 21 — But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the Prophets,
Verse 22 — even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
Verse 23 — for all have sinned. . .those who knew the law, those who were not exposed to the law. . . . . .and fall short of the glory of God,
Verse 24 — being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Verse 25 — whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance. . .His patience. . . God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
Verse 26 — to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Note: Paul's use of the word — law. When we look at the broader context in Romans, and for that matter, in Galatians, we can see that some of the opposition in the church propounded the idea that you could be justified by doing certain things, in particular by doing certain things prescribed in the law. It was a sort of a twisting of the correct understanding of the Old Testament.
Some Jews believed that you could be justified by law-keeping. Galatians indicates that some of the Jews in the church had taken up with the idea that you could be saved by law-keeping. Can you? Does our law-keeping save us? It's not the teaching of this church, brethren. Never has been, never has been. By the way, if you look back into the history of writings of this church, going back over decades, you'll see it very plainly stated at times we've been accused of preaching salvation by works. We do not teach salvation by works. Our works cannot save us.
Some of the Jews taught that you were made righteous by doing certain things, and you can see that some of the things that they believed had to be done went way beyond the ten commandments, and even some of the laws of Moses into all kinds of do's and don'ts and oral law and things that the Pharisees came up with that had to be done, that might not be done.
When I was brought up, I didn't have a terribly religious background, but my recollection of what little understanding I had of Judaism at the time, was the list of rather odd do's and don'ts, like not writing on the Sabbath, and other . . .driving certain distances, or not driving at all, for that matter. The oral law of do's and don'ts came to be very, very important, and some of the Jews, maybe not all of them, came to believe you could be justified by oral law, by doing certain things.
Paul, on the other hand, stresses God's acceptance of us on repentance and belief. Romans 3:20, which we've read.
Romans 3:20 - . . .by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Paul emphasizes justification. He emphasizes God living in us. In other passages, Paul's emphasis is very clear. He stresses that sin must be avoided and that good fruit must be produced, and that after faith, good works follow.
Let's turn over to Romans 6, and maybe just pick out a few verses here. Romans 6:1-7, but maybe we'll just pick a few verses here.
Romans 6:1 — What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? You know, does grace mean that you just keep living the way you always have lived? Of course now.
Verse 2 — Certainly not!Mei genoito, in the Greek. Is that any good? Mr. Johnson smiled, so I guess I got the Greek maybe right. Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
Verse 3 — Don't you know (. . .or do you now know) that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.
Verse 4 — Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we (also) should walk in newness of life. We have faith and then good works follow.
But let's go back to Genesis 15, because that was the scripture that both Paul and James quoted. They quoted the same scripture, neither of them twisted the scripture, but they had slightly different purposes in quoting the scripture. Let's go back to Genesis 15. I teach Old Testament, so the Old Testament passages I'm really much more familiar with. Genesis 15:1-6, we won't read all of it. Let's pick it up, Genesis 15:4. Here's where Abram, his name has not been changed, here's where Abram is talking to God about his lack of offspring.He's not had a son, and God promises him a son, which went against, you know, what seemed impossible to him. It seemed completely impossible, physically speaking.
Genesis 15:4 — And behold, the word of the Eternal (LORD) came to him, saying, "This one shall not be your heir,. . ."This one" was his Eliezer of Damascus, the steward of his home. ". . .but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir."
Verse 5 — Then He, God, brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "So shall your seed (descendants) be." The Hebrew uses the word — seed. It means offspring, direct, physical descendants.
Verse 6 — And he believed in the Eternal (LORD), and He accounted it to him for righteousness. Verse 6 is the verse that gets quoted, I think, some three or four times in the New Testament. It's quoted all over the New Testament because Abraham is the father of the faithful, so what he did at that moment, when God gave him that promise, and he said, "Well, if God says that it's true, it must be true." That, of course, is an example for us. When God says it's true, it must be true. Both Paul and James quote it. They both quote that verse.
However, Paul's emphasis is that Genesis 15 precedes Genesis 17. Paul emphasizes Genesis 15 precedes Genesis 17. What happens in Genesis 17? Let's turn forward to Genesis 17 where something very important happens. Abraham, his name now changed, and his entire household, the males in his household, all accept circumcision as the token of the covenant.
Genesis 17:9 — (And) God said to Abraham: "As for you, you shall keep My covenant, (you) and your descendants after you throughout their generations.
Verse 10 — "This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;
Verse 11 — "and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it'll (it shall) be a sign of the covenant between Me and you." Now, the significance of circumcision from Abraham's time down to the time of the New Testament changed. By the time of the New Testament, many of the Jews were wearing circumcision almost as a badge of superiority. And one of the things Paul had to teach them was no, no, no, that wasn't the purpose of it. The purpose of it was a symbol of religious responsibility.
But when we get into Romans, Paul makes the point that justification comes on the circumcised and on the uncircumcised. That's what we just read in the book of Romans. So, Paul, notice that Paul emphasizes Genesis 15 preceding Genesis 17. Circumcision came AFTER Abram confessed his faith, as God gave him the promise.
Paul does not mention Genesis 22. On the other hand, James emphasizes that Genesis 15 precedes Genesis 22. What happens in Genesis 22? I don't know that we need to read the entire section, but let's at least turn over there and be reminded of what takes place. This was very important to James' argument. Genesis 15 preceded Genesis 22, and Genesis 22 is this very famous section where God called on Abraham to sacrifice his own son. And Abraham proved an enormous point which confirmed that he is the father of faithful, and he was willing to do it. And you remember at the very last minute there, Genesis 22:11 -
Genesis 22:11 - But the Angel of the Eternal (LORD) called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!". . . Abraham was going to go through with it, you see. . . . So he said, "Here I am."
Verse 12 — And He said, "Don't (Do not) lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son from Me." James' emphasis is that Abraham believed, and then he followed through with something, the ultimate sacrifice because for Abraham, the sacrifice of his own son was a bigger sacrifice than his own life. He would rather have died himself than have had his son sacrificed. It was huge.
I want to quote a little bit from William Barclay — the Barclay Commentaries are, in many places, quite good, actually. This is The Letters of James and Peter, by William Barclay. I liked the way Barclay described this with reference to James 2. This is just an extract from it. He says, this is on page 74:
He says, "There is still a difference between James and Paul," he says. "They begin at different times in the Christian life. Paul begins at the very beginning. He insists that no man can ever earn the forgiveness of God. The initial step must come from the free grace of God. A man can only accept the forgiveness which God offers him in Jesus Christ."
Of course, we might interject there, I think it's an important point that the New Testament scriptures do talk about fruits meet for repentance, but the fruit meet for repentance doesn't earn God's favor in that sense.
"James begins much later with the professing Christian, the man who claims to be already forgiven and in a new relationship with God. Such a man, James rightly says, must live a new life for he is a new creature. He has been justified. He must now show that he is sanctified. With that, Paul would have entirely agreed."
And I like the way Barclay puts this. "The fact is that no man can be saved by works." . . .or we should add, woman. "No man (or woman) can be saved by works, but equally no man can be saved without producing works." I like the way he puts that.
So, let's go back now to the book of James, James 2, one more time with that as a little bit of thought and background. I hope we're beginning to see that the heresy that Paul was opposing was a different heresy from the one that James was opposing. Different ideas. They're both engaged in the battle.
James 2:14 — James says, What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he doesn't (does not) have works? Can faith save him? What does James mean by — faith — here? You know, you can say, well we believe E=MC squared. Intellectual belief. Intellectual acquiescence. But does that belief change the way we live and make us more Godly? James has in mind that kind of just simple intellectual acquiescence that he's criticizing here.
Verse 15 — If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food,
Verse 16 — and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give to them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?
Verse 17 — Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Good will is not enough, James says. It's impossible to specialize in faith alone. Action follows advocacy. Action follows advocacy. That, of course, is true. We have to act; we have to change our way of life.
Verse 18 — (But) someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. The works are evidence of my faith, James says.
Verse 19 — You believe (that) there is one God. You do well. . . Big deal. . . . Even the demons believe — and tremble! I'm reminded of a conversation that I had many years ago when I was in California. One of our ministers, I don't think he's living any longer, but I remember the conversation I had with him in which he described going into a high security prison. Something I've never had to do. I've been into low, maybe medium security prisons, but he had to go visit someone in a high security prison. And the way he told me, he ran into someone, and think this person, if I remember the story correctly, this person was holding onto the bars of the jail cell, and he'd never seen this person before. This person came and looked right at him and said, "I know who you are. You are — I'll take out the name — You're "John Doe." You're God's minister."
You see the point there. The demons know an awful lot. They have intellectual acquiescence, but of course, they can't repent; they can't change; there's no reforming demons. That kind of thing happens. They understand; they know, perhaps, more than we realize.
Verse 20 — But don't you (do you want to) know, O foolish man,. . . foolish here is sometimes translated — empty-headed — you empty-headed individual. . . .that faith without works is dead? James is fighting a different battle from Paul. James is looking for fruits, and he doesn't see any fruit on the tree.
Verse 21 — Wasn't (Was not) Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Notice that James goes from Genesis 15 to Genesis 22.
Verse 22 — Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?
Verse 23 — And the Scripture was fulfilled which says,. . . And there he quotes it again. . . . "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness," And he was called the friend of God. James's concern is practical morality above antinomianism. James looks for fruits, and he finds leaves only, and he's disappointed as God is when we profess and don't follow through.
Paul emphasized God living in us. James says we still have to produce fruit. Faith was confirmed through the testing of Abraham's obedience.
For James, the two are tightly connected. Faith leads to obedience. Anything other than that is a contradiction. James believes in living faith demonstrated in people's lives, the tree that must produce fruit, and that, of course, is the way it must be in our lives as well.
Verse 25 — He takes one more interesting example. James 2:25 — Look at this one. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? Let's go back, maybe we'll stick our finger here in James 2. I'm going to return to James 2. Let's go back to Joshua 2:8-11. We'll come back to James 2. Joshua 2, where Rahab, a very, very unusual individual. It's interesting. She gets an honorable mention in the Hebrews 11 hall of fame.
Joshua 2:8 — Now before they lay down, she came up to them on the roof. This is the spies.
Verse 9 — and she said to the men: "I know that the Eternal (LORD) has given you the land,. . . She's professing faith. . . .that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are fainthearted because of you.
Verse 10 — "For we have heard how the Eternal (LORD) dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the (two) kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. That all took place back in the book of Numbers. It's interesting how the victories of the Israelites echoed, and the other nations in the near east knew what had taken place. But she goes beyond that. She says she has faith in the God of the spies.
Verse 11 — "(And) as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted; neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Eternal (LORD) your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath. We can read right over that and say, "Well, we know that." Of course we do. Yeah.
But it was a pretty big thing for Rahab to say - ". . .the Eternal, Yhwh, your God, the God of you, the spies, He's the God." That was a confession of faith. She was a Gentile; she was a sinner who came to believe, and she was justified. She'd heard of God, and she knew He had the power to fulfill His promises.
And then her actions manifested her belief. What did she do? She sheltered the spies. She sheltered the spies. That, of course, was very important. It was a very important step toward the conquest of the land back then.
Back in James 2:26.
James 2:26 — James says: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. If you just profess intellectually, and you don't follow through with a changed, Godly way of life, it's dead. It's meaningless, says James.
So, where do we end up? I'm reminded of a story from when I was a kid, me, playing in the backyard with my cousin. My mom gets a kick out of telling this story. I would argue with my cousin, Joe, about all kinds of things, and I have a vague recollection of this story. We were arguing about what would kill a person. What would render the end to someone's life.
And I advocated that the heart was most important for keeping someone's life going. And my cousin, Joe, advocated the brain. And we argued over this, see. He said, "No, no, no, you're wrong. If the brain stops functioning, you die. If it doesn't work, you die."
I said, "No, no, no, you're wrong. If the heart stops functioning, you die."
Now, okay, who was right? Answer, yes, we were both right. You need both the heart and the brain for your life to work, for the entire system to work properly. It's very similar with the matter of faith and works.
Paul decries the notion of justification by works. He decries the perversion of the correct understanding of the Old Covenant. It was kind of a spiritual pride that Paul had to face down.
"I can win my way into God's favor by doing things."
The apostle Paul had to teach some of the Jewish section of the church, in particular, "Oh, no, you can't. No, you can't do that."
James decried another perversion of the faith. It could be put into words like this: "I can have God's favor and do nothing."
James said, "No, you can't. You can't have an unproductive, lazy, fruitless faith. No, you can't." You see the opposition was different in both cases. What we have then is two apostles standing back to back in defense of the true faith.
The faith of Jesus Christ is central to both Paul and James. Faith is critical. Faith is fruitful. Faith is central to what they both advocate. Galatians 5:6. Look at how Paul puts it here, one of these lovely "nutshell" verses.
Galatians 5:6 — For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Faith works; faith produces. So how are we justified? We're justified by faith, but not by an empty faith, not by an unproductive faith, not by faith alone, in that sense. We're justified by faith that is living and that produces something. Ephesians 2:8-10, Paul writes again:
Ephesians 2:8 - For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, Faith is the gift of God.
Verse 9 — not of works,. . . No, you can't be saved by your works. . . . lest anyone should boast.
Verse 10 — For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,. . . Was Paul schizophrenic? I don't think so.When you really get all the juice out of what Paul had to say, it makes wonderful sense. The works can't save us, but we're created for good works, and faith is the starting point. . . .which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
True faith produces fruit in the life of the Christian. So, is there a conflict? No. There is no conflict. Paul and James stand back to back in defense of the true faith. There are different adversaries and the same conviction. You and I have to stand there too, having real, believing, fruitful, living faith as the center of our lives.
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