Faith and Works

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works…For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” -James 2:18, 26 (ESV)

James was the pastor of the Jerusalem Church. He was the “half” brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. During James’s ministry at the early church, Christians were being dispersed abroad because persecution of Christians was sever. Persecution first came from the Jews who did not believe in “the new way” set up by Jesus and propounded by James and other Christian leaders of the church. A little later, the Roman government also waged severe persecution against Christian believers. Works were very vital to the early church’s ministry, because many lost jobs because of being Christians; men were stoned and killed (recall that Stephen was one of these (see Acts 7); and Paul, before his conversion, stood holding the cloaks of those Jews who stoned Stephen to death.) There were many widows and children starving, homeless and under grave danger of losing their own lives if Christians did not try to help them with getting food, clothing and shelter. Acts of compassion resulted from having faith and love.

James believed very strongly that Christians should “produce works worthy of repentance and belief.” We know that salvation is by grace through faith, not of works. Although the Judaizers were proponents of faith and still keeping the Law to the letter, They argued that Gentile (or non-Jewish persons) who became Christians and joined in the early church movement should still keep the Jewish law strictly. Many held that Gentile men believers should be circumcised. This was a great contention in the early church and a “Jerusalem Conference” was held in the early years of the spreading church’s ministry to try to make a decision on “faith plus works” for salvation, or “faith alone.”

James was not advocating that salvation came through faith plus works. Rather, in this letter to the scattered, persecuted Christians, he said if people did not do good works, such as missions, teaching the word, caring for orphans and widows and others in need, and loving and helping each other, their faith was “dead.” Faith should motivate a Christian to do the works Christ told us to do when he lived, taught and ministered to people’s needs. With love and compassion, one who is saved by God’s grace should be motivated by his/her faith to work faithfully in the Kingdom of God. Even one’s every-day work, whatever the occupation one follows, whether teaching, farming, being a clerk in a store, a doctor, a road builder, a seamstress—whatever the work that occupies one’s time and brings in money for the family to live on—should be done to the glory of God. Persons with faith should ask: “Lord, what will You have me do today?” And that job should be done with sincerity, dedication and a sincere thought of helping one’s fellow man. This seems to be what James’s doctrine of “Faith plus Works” means. Works do not bring us salvation from sin. But works benefit the doers of the works and lends needed aid to recipients of the kindness and graciousness of the workers.

Prayer: Holy God, thank your for my salvation: I learn in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; Not of works, lest any man should boast.” But as James stated in his letter “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” -James 2:26 (KJV) Help me to seek and do Your will, Father, and may I engage sincerely in good works to help my fellowman. In Jesus’ name. Amen. November 04, 2018.