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CHAPTER 6

FAITH AND WORKS, GRACE AND CONFIDENCE

James and Paul are dealing with two separable subjects. One is interested in the fact that the justification freely without works, before God, on the part of sinners is a gracious, liberal, unqualified and unconditional act, accomplished and applied; whereas James is interested in the authentic or bogus status of what some call faith. He points out this, that living faith, like anything else that is alive, has results, fruit, amplification of its seed in life.

He insists that Abraham, though indeed justified by the very statement of God, from whom every good and perfect work comes, and in whom is no shadow of turning, yet had even more to show. The living character of his faith in the living God meant that there would be results. These as well as the faith, are attested. These justified him in the nomenclature of "faith" which had justly been applied to him by God, at the stated and far earlier time, its fruit then became manifest; for what is real, functions.

This did not MAKE it faith, for this it already was, and had been accepted as such, with the resulting justification already applied. The accounting of faith to him for righteousness was from that time, when it occurred, a past act just as Paul has it in Romans 5:1, and in Titus 3. Faith flowing on in its lively way gave a good account of its reality, and this James notes distinguished it from the bogus. Justification of life by faith, this is one type of justification by grace with attribution to the forgiven soul, of the very righteousness of God (Romans 5:1-20). Being justified as a faith possessor, vindicated in terms of faith, this is another concept covering another domain. They relate but are entirely separable. The one is not made dependent on the other, for in the very case noted, it is first stated to be present, and then stated to evidence itself.

James explains himself even further. A body, he indicates, without the spirit, is dead. Call it what you will, that is the case. So faith, like a body, must be dead if it does not live, and so act. The actions perfects the faith, by giving it scope for fulfilment.

The soul then is justified and proclaimed such by God as with Abraham, the Spirit testifying with our spirits as in Romans 8:16, and the inheritance is already ours, who believe (Ephesians 1:11), and as John 5 affirms so incisively. The access to the grace of the Gospel is by faith. The faith itself, in a category where the bogus also exists, the misnamed, what has a seedy nomenclature, and an improper place, becomes a topic when many deny the Lord in practice and pursuits. James has a word for that.

Entirely of grace as salvation is, as a good and perfect gift from God, and as Abraham, following the cited scripture, illustrates in James selection and inspection, yet bogus pretence and pretension is merely faith misnamed. Faith like light is a thing of beauty, of reality, that relates a soul to the good pleasure of God Almighty. Indeed it relates a soul as a child of God (Ephesians 1). THIS is no merely formalistic adoption (I John 3:9), but one which involves the ground of it, in the pardon and procurement of a new 'seed' in terms of which the person is born again.

Naturally, such things attest themselves, and so works develop which, whether known to man or not, are the fruit of faith, justifying a person in this aspect, the faith is no phoney thing, meretricious pre-occupation. It is a source of life in Christ to the believer, and faith thus as in working order, attests that person.

It is in the evidencing of the authenticity of faith that this one is justified. It does not relate in James to the concept of non-justification, but rather to non-authenticity. It is faith's day here; just as in Paul, it is salvation's day. The latter has the result of faith in view; while James has the specifications of faith in view, conceiving that someone is justified as a faith-recipient, when the faith works. It is not a CONDITION for judgment; rather sin is, such as persistent adultery. With James, its condition is under review; with Paul its acquisition is in view. James is looking at disease, and evidencing that it is not present; Paul is looking at the operation of actual faith, trust, the development of disease here not the issue.

Of course people should examine themselves relative to their faith, and moral declension calls for that. If your car is left with flat tyres and no oil, there is REASON for inspection! However, the nature of faith is its own, is eloquent, does not assume perfection, nor does it allow recalcitrance. You trust in God, according to His word, and in this, His free and final salvation (as in Romans 8:29ff.), or you do not. If you do not, where is faith ? If you do, where is the problem!

There is no question, in James, of testing the faith in its effectuality with God, for that faith in one by which he acknowledges Abraham is ALREADY justified, and that by the direct fiat and frank declaration of God. He is not wanting to SEE if it is real, this saving faith which he had. God gave it and Abraham received it, and questioning this is to undo the entire ensemble, reverse the situation in view. In James, it is a question is not that you are not justified till your works justify the authenticity of your faith; it is not so argumentative, indeed alienated from free justification by faith once and for all. Rather he is declaring that faith without function is dead. IF it is real, it WILL function. WHEN it is seen so to do, then it is seen to have been the right nomenclature. However, man is not judge: God is, and has judged already in the case in view.

James is dealing with principles of life; Paul with the gaining of eternal life by action, ultimately divine, and correspondingly secure. James deals with diagnosis of delinquency, what is inoperative because dead; Paul with prognosis of saving faith, what it attains, gains and is accorded.

James is showing that the admittedly justifying faith of Abraham is shown to have been correctly named "faith" . EVEN Abraham, he is declaring, unquestionable possessor of wholly justifying faith to the salvation of his soul forever, is nevertheless not without the attestation of time: it DID work. He was willing to surrender his beloved, and for faith, crucial son, the son of faith, to death, even Isaac as in Genesis 22. He did not quibble or equivocate.

Marvellously, the two conceptions, the saving power of faith in receiving God's own righteousness (Romans 5:1-19), and the lively characteristic of actual faith, not one that is not merely misnamed in confusion, while in fact a dead article, are not set to justify themselves, the one against the other. James, for example, is NOT saying, Look out! you garish and self-assured oddments of mortality that imagine you have had dealings with God Almighty. Work a bit, and THEN we will see IF you have the faith that saves. Until then, live in suspense, on probation, not knowing, only hoping, and call this humility.

It is indeed unfortunate that much that is not faith is willing to have itself so treated, not because of James, but because of the humility tradition, the off-putting approach, which does not give to faith, as James does, the totally saving power which it has by its acceptance of what God is freely offering without works.In this unfortunate tradition, the investigatory approach over time makes the very STANDING of the believer something in suspense, an like an escrow account perhaps. If that were to be the procedure, then it COULD not BE faith in the first place, because faith believes and receives, and one is actually SAVED because it IS faith, by which through grace without works, one is a member of the saved-persons group of persons.

Faith KNOWS that its Redeemer lives, and whom it has believed, and is persuaded that He is able to keep what is committed to Him against the jars and horrors of the day of judgment. It trusts His word, HIS work, which is the saving criterion, and knows that He is faithful who calls, who also will do it. He trusts Him, and in Him, this to be so. That is the norm of faith: it takes what God has said to heart, and bears it in mind, as in kind, its own ilk and mode.

If it is in DOUBT subjectively, so that it awaits something ELSE before it is to be styled or conceived of as faith, then by that same token, it is NOT faith. How then is a person to be saved, as with Paul, if - in a way also unlike what James is declaring, based on Abraham - he has to have his 'faith' verified at some later time by someone else! "I do trust you, mother, but I will have to wait till the school-master comes to assure me that my faith in you is genuine." How utterly ridiculous is this! You either trust her or you do not, whatever anyone says. Even many a dog, if it could speak, would know this very clearly! It is written in its face, known in its works, however many times its lustre may lose its sheen, or its disquiet may dull its perception. It is elemental, beautiful, enduring, of its own kind.

Now some may have an abiding inner faith, and merely accept that the church has the right to wait till it is assured that the thing is real, but STILL HAVE IT. That is a different case. If ANY Church, Protestant or Romanist, presumes to intimate that the reality of the faith is yet to be proven, and that one will be notified or advised that it is found genuine, at which one is entitled to believe that one's believing is actually by faith, then it comes between man and God, is a second mediator, is presumptuous in action, making things harder for those who are entering in, and is on this issue, confused at best!

One's confidence in someone is not at all the same as one's confidence in someone else, in this case, the Lord God, on the one hand, and the Church or the pastor, on the other. ANYTHING which one does or says, gratuitously, to call in question the reality of that faith, systematically, as distinct from an initial discussion to ensure that the biblical parameters are clear and unconfused, can be mere obstruction, if not obstreperous obstruction. In Luke 11:52, we see the danger of this style of thing. It is necessary to withstand a whole army, as Luther did in effect, in such issues (as in Psalm 46 in general), even if the mountains be thrown into the midst of the sea. Faith is like that. It may be weak and need stimulus, waver a little, and need support, be challenged and need strengthening, but it grasps its goal and its God, more than by permission: in fact it proceeds by EXHORTATION to do just this (Hebrews 11), even in the most adverse circumstances.

A Church has power to proclaim the Gospel and teach the commandments, the Great Commission; but it has no power to become a second mediator between God and man, vying or competing or taking over the unique authority of Jesus the Christ in so doing. It may discipline where there is sin, it may clarify where there is confusion, it may teach where there is rebellion, it may denounce where there is heresy, but it has one mandate: the scripture in the power of the Spirit of God. Just as Christ came and spoke the words commanded by His Father, as sent, being so authorised (John 12), SO HE SENT those called to proclaim as they were instructed, specifying in what and for what purpose. Any body which uses the standing to offset the standing, and uses His authority to diminish His authority, is clearly recidivist, or even rebellious. It becomes ridiculous. ONE MEDIATOR and here is another (I Timothy 2).

The Church is not greater than Christ, and just as HE kept to the instructions, so does any authentic Church (John 6:57), and keep His word, and not commandeer it for assemblage with its own traditions, as if Christ were not enough and His commission too narrow. The way IS narrow (Proverbs 30:6), and the Gospel is unalterable, whether in extent or quality (Galatians 1), and Jesus Christ is unduplicable, His entire authority being for His entire work and word, whether in Matthew 5:17-20 or elsewhere. Abiding in Him is not abiding in yourself, whether you be individual or institution. What makes itself a measuring device is unauthentic, contrary to faith, and moves into the realm or regime of false apostles (II Corinthians 10:12-11:15).

Who is he who extends the warrant beyond this in John 15:7, "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it will be done for you." HIS words are His and not those of another. ADDING one's own traditions as a religious institution's right or power, is expressly abominated by Him (Mark 7:7ff.), and subjected to the severest condemnation. A Church may correct by the word, or discipline by the word of God; but its own word is merely a matter of making it the servant of something or someone else.

Very simply, you either trust in God according to His word, or you do not. If you do, then GOD is in it, GOD has set your faith in Him according to the free grace Gospel which is His (Romans 3, 5, Ephesians 2, Galatians 3, 5), centred in Christ who has given you eternal redemption by His own naming of it (Hebrews 9:12), based on ONE offering, ONCE made, or you do not. You may be confused somewhat, and wait ONLY on God for this and that confirmation, which may be confident expectation or concerned disquiet; but if the latter, then faith itself is a question that needs an answer. You may call in question His word, which is not the same as faith. You may be confronted by the Church, if you do so and make a stand as a teacher in some unbiblical domain.

Phases may occur; but faith lives; it may be scratched with brambles, and blood may come forth; but it works. Its work is because it is donated, real, actual, God-given, God-sustained and one DOES trust in the Lord, that one has already received an inheritance because HE has said so (Ephesians 1:11). It knows its domain, or is ready to learn, and trusts accordingly. It is ready for instruction, but not for obstruction. When confronted, faith has to flame from smoke to liveliness, and not languish forever (Isaiah 42:1ff.). God is very gracious to those seeking Him through the smoke, but in the end, once again, one is either actually trusting Him as SAVIOUR, to accomplish all needed for the salvation of one's soul, or NOT.

If then one has faith in God, and not in man, a cursed alternative (Jeremiah 17:7-10), and if one actually relies on Him ONLY as Saviour, according to the Gospel of grace, there is no internal question when the thing is born. Then you are, and HIS SEED stays in you, like a gene (I John 3:9). There is no other way, nothing of outage (I John 5:11ff.), so that with Paul you see that HE BEING your Shepherd and Saviour, for THAT REASON, you will not perish (John 10:9,27-28). You trust Him as the apostles did.

Then BOTH you and He long for good fruit from you: and if you ask anything according to His will, even the removal of the mountains which obstruct due service, it will be granted (Mark 11). If however, the whole thing is NOT of the seed of Christ, and you are but some other stock showing through in the vine, giving 'sport' branches, then of course it is all fallacious, and your reliance is somewhere else, and you cannot abide since you do not belong. The way is narrow, but it is Christ, and Christ is most capacious, and as Creator, most knowledgeable, and as Saviour, most wise, and reliable, and ato be followed at any cost, BY FAITH, according to His word and its promises. He has very high standards, but a very gracious lowliness, and between the two, His way fosters exuberance and enlivens life.

You may be chastened, even rebuked like David before Nathan, but God does not forsake you. You may have to walk over barbed wire, as was something like the case of young David, but the LORD is your strength, fortress, high tower, and in Him you will trust, with Job, though He slay you (Job 13:15). You may have a period of burning fire, as if to scorch off the corrosion and burnish you ( I Peter 4:12ff.); it is not a question of ease but of faith which is in view. As you see, even in an extreme case like that of Job, in the end the Lord is merciful and gracious (James 5:7-11). Surprisingly severe may seem the test; and it may be BASED on a demonstration of the reality of faith to all generations, as there, so that one may even feel sorry for Job. Yet the correction may come even to the amazingly kind and gracious such as was Job in many ways; it may rub hard, but the result may reinforce multitudes for millenia.

It is a lustrous act of grace of the Lord, that Handel's Messiah has brought the rich result of Job's trial, in terms of saving faith, to the attention perhaps of millions, year by year, even century by century!

So be it. We are not BY FAITH in the business of trying to tell God what is a fair go; HE knows our weaknesses, not to push too hard, and our faults, to insist on their cleansing, and it is all well, and in the end, one receives these things BECAUSE one trusts Him ... though He slay me, as Job put it. Note the persistence of this man, amidst all his various waywardnesses under test (allayed and restored in the movements of his troubled soul); and observe how after his thrusts of distemper, like a patient moving awkwardly under light anaesthetic, he is yet not taken entirely out of bounds. He is being tested, but also in some things cleansed. He HAD for example, been strangely aware of the degree of respect which many gave, in his presence.

On this see the set on Job, published in this site, the Trials, Tests and Triumphs in Temptation,

and in SMR, see pp. 520-532.

From these pages, two segments are excerpted here.

1)

What then is a Christian ?

It is a man, woman or child (^*1) who,
having repented of sin and
acknowledged him/herself a sinner without hope, except in Christ,
is converted,
receiving as Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
crucified and bodily risen, the Son of the living God,
through trust in Him,
according to His written* and reliable Word.

Born all over again spiritually,
forgiven all sins,
redeemed and founded thus as an eternal member of Christ's kingdom:
on Christ's return, each such person will be resurrected.

2)
You and your faith

Very well: Christ tells us in Matthew 7:15 ff. that frauds, false prophets - indeed, this is the topic - are detectable. That is the first proposition.

Then He states that good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bad fruit. That is the second proposition.
Thirdly, He states that bad trees are cut down and propounds the general principle: by their fruits you will know them.
Fruits are impossible for the false prophet in the area of sound doctrine. It will be shown up. Good fruits will be given by the good trees. This is their functionality and their inheritance. It comes because of what they are, and that comes from the way they are made; for trees are a creation, and a Christian is a 'new creation' (II Corinthians 5:17). You do not work up to being a good tree; you are made and then planted, and the rest follows.
Follow it does (James), but what follows is not (Paul) what plants the tree! A child could see that; but vested ecclesiastical interests are blind in this case! Did not Christ speak to the Pharisees, and did they not get quite an uncomfortable feeling that, though they were high and lifted up in the opinions of both their own hearts and of men, filled with works, yet they were being given the rating of blind by Christ! (See John 8:35-41.) That was not a very good rating, for all their works!
That is why it is so very imperative not to argue falsely, and allege that because workless faith is fiasco, therefore working parts argue genuineness. They don't: God is a Spirit and has given clear notice about trusting in works in any way, regard or respect, as we have seen at length (*2). He does not revoke that here. On the contrary, it is emphasised in Matthew Chapters 7 and 23: Christ as fraud squad on the wonders of 'my works'! The judgment is clear: 'works' are unspiritual, coming from the blind. (Cf. Proverbs 15:8.)
This judgment is in fact what they were given, with the frank avowal: "If you were blind, you would have no sin: but now you say, 'We see', therefore your sin remains" (John 9:41).
Their presumption and gratuitous assumptions that Christ could not by grace alone save the blind man, how and when He would, marked them out as meddlers, doing the final, fatal thing: "teaching for doctrine the commandment of men" (Mark 7:7). That, as Paul also shows in Galatians 1, that sort of a gospel merely damns the preacher; it does nothing for the pew.
Thus, to revert to Paul (as in Romans 3:23; Ch.6; 8:5-10): he is teaching that

your life is justified by faith; but your faith is justified by your works.

If it is you who are in question: are you saved, are you pardoned, are your sins remitted, are you justified: then with the clarity of the dew of heaven on the fresh mown grass (Psalm 72), you find that it is in the finished work of the bodily risen deity, Jesus Christ that you rest, being assured (Romans 8:1 6) and sure (Romans 5:9) and uncondemnable (John 5:24, Romans 8:31 ff., John 3:18, 1 John 5:1,13, John 10:9).

If, on the other hand, it is your assessable faith which is in question: is it there ? Are there visible grounds for your conviction that it is there, in the eyes of others ? The answer is: faith works, because living. That is its nature! By its works, it distinguishes itself from what is dead. It justifies the claim to be faith by its working; and being faith, is granted salvation freely, as James also makes clear (2:22-26, 1:17-18). This is a gift, as James calls it. Every good and perfect gift comes from God above, says James, who by His own will begot us again. This is free, in James as in Paul. It is unconditional, divorced from flesh, unattainable by the best efforts of man, but givable by God. In fact, Christ prescribes what He will do, in response to the request of faith, the entry by faith. He does it; and faith is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5).
So Abraham had a faith which was not still, stultified and inoperative, dysfunctional, dead, and merely nominal: no, his faith, like a sports car that runs, a boat that floats, did what it was good at. It believed. Hence it got results. This shows to eyes that can see, and that can look. His faith was shown to be such by its operational manifestness; and being thus shown to be faith, it was a faith which justified.
No bogus faith can do that. No works can justify the person. But faith - properly so-called - justifies the person; and works, allied to, expressive of, the lively correlate of faith: these are a result of the faith which is there, if indeed it is there; for the spiritual nature of the works is often not known to others, with the left-hand not knowing what the right hand does; and if it were 'seen', yet it is readily misconstrued, as shown by the disappointed good-works rejects, noted by Christ in Matthew 7:22-23. Good works simply show that faith is fruitful (James 2:26, 1:17-18).
James would show his faith by his works, because he knew he had faith. Works attest faith; but for man, they do not determine. It depends what sort of works (spiritually), they really are. You can show your works; but only God will know your works. Yet false prophets are readily distinguished, being incapable of truth ... though sometimes making excellent paper-flower substitutes for the real thing. You however can know that you have acted thus and so in faith. You do not learn of faith in this way, but by receiving Christ (John 6:53-54, 4:14, 10:9); yet you do see it in action. Take Abraham for example.
In Abraham's case (*2), the very nature of the episode noted in James 2, exhibited on the one hand, faith, and so had its reward, reality. Now if Abraham had not had faith, then he could not have offered up Isaac ; thus Hebrews 11:17 tells us that it was by faith that he was prepared to do this. Believing, like anything else that is real, does what its function is, over time. This does not make it what it is - you do not make a knife by cutting for example: this exhibits what it is. A blind person might not see what it does; but it does it.
That, finally, is the danger of judging. You may be blind to the hidden works of a person and hence judge unjustly; or you may in envy misconstrue them, and so on. But they are there, and it is God and not man who is the judge (1 Corinthians 3:3; 1 Corinthians 4:3-5). It is a small thing for me to be judged by you, says Paul, and again, Judge nothing before the time.
Nevertheless those false prophets noted by Christ, these are evidenced by their false doctrine. This however gives no one liberty to play God subjectivistically, or any other way! becoming judge and jury with Christians, to assign judgment "before the time"! No one, not even a church has this power (although as noted, flat contradictions of required teaching are observations, not judgments - the false prophet case). That is why it should not be done; and cannot be done: it is forbidden, and that by Christ. If only this were better realised, how changed would false churches and assemblies and men, become. Their 'nukes' would be muted... the nuclear waste would also dissipate with the disarmament of the nuclear works of dissatisfied, judgmental... flesh. (Cf. James 2:3-18!)
Thus it is you being justified by faith, apart from works (Romans 3:23-28, 4:3-6,16-18,24), by grace that leads to your salvation; and you, being alive, live, not perfectly, but effectually as a Christian, believing.
Faith now ? James recommends the authentic article: it works; and Paul tells you what that authentic article does: it justifies the one who has it, freely.