Rediscovery of the eternal Bible truth of salvation by grace through faith created Protestant Christianity some 500 years ago, and it remains the core doctrine of evangelical Christians today. But grace and faith are only the beginning of the Christian life, not the all in all. The best-known Bible verses explaining salvation by grace alone through faith alone immediately follow this truth with the admonition that God does not intend us to receive grace and faith and then to leave them alone. God has planned work for us to do. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2.8-10.
The error that faith, freely given to us by God, can be separated from the works God has called us to do inspired Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred by the Nazis in 1945, to call such diluted doctrine “cheap grace.” Alas, however, the mistaken idea that it only matters to God what we think and not what we do has a death grip today on so-called mainstream Protestantism. “After all,” people reason, “since Christians are always forgiven for all their sins, sin cannot really matter, can it?” Or, as the Bible poses the question, “Why not continue to sin, since that causes God’s grace to increase?” Romans 6.1. The answer is to ask back, “Why would someone who has been freed from sin want to become a slave to sin all over again?” Romans 6.2 (6-14, 16-23).
Why indeed? If we believe we are saved but we still prefer our own will and sins to the will and works of God, does such faith really have power to save us? “What use is it, brothers, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?” James 2.14. Merely believing in God intellectually accomplishes nothing spiritually. “You believe that God is one. Good for you. The demons also believe that, and it makes them shudder in fear.” 2.19.
Faith Perfected by Action. The Bible teaches salvation by faith alone. How then do we answer the question, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected.” James 2.21-22.
Study plan. First, we will study three Bible passages concerning faith and works, (a) Galatians 3.1-11; (b) Romans 4.1-25; and (c) James 2.14-26. We will read also Hebrews 11.8-19 and Titus 1.16; 2.7, 11-14; 3.1, 8. Second, we will examine the references to the faith of Abraham in each of the three passages. To assist us, we will create a timeline chart of the life of Abraham (Genesis 12-22; Acts 7.2-4) and plot on that timeline (a) Abraham’s acts (works) of faith and (b) the historical time for each reference to Abraham in the three passages. Third, we will consider the language of the promises restated to Abraham in Genesis 22.16-18 (which James references) compared to the same promises given in Genesis 12, 15 (which Romans and Galatians reference), 16, and 17. We intend to discover how Abraham’s works caused his faith to become “perfected.” 2.22. To understand what it means to be “perfect” in this context helps also to explain Matthew 5.48, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Two experiences are necessary to have “perfect faith,” (a) trials, James 1.2-7; and (b) faith-based works, 2.26 (14-26). Why is that? Abraham’s life of faith and works represents God’s perfect model for perfecting our faith.
The Word of God, and the Faith and Works of Abraham
1. It took faith and acts of faith when God told Abraham in Mesopotamia to move to a land that God would show him. Acts 7.2-4. Abraham went “not knowing where he was going.” Hebrews 11.8.
2. It took faith and acts of faith when God told Abraham in Haran (age 75) again to go to the land that God would show him. Genesis 12.1-6.
3. It took faith and acts of faith when God appeared and spoke to Abraham in Canaan and promised, “To your descendants (”seed”) I will give this land.” Genesis 12.7-8. Abraham lived in Canaan, “the land of promise,” for the rest of his life without ever obtaining rights of ownership to the land, except for a small parcel, the field and cave of Machpelah, which he bought for Sarah’s grave. Hebrews 11.9; Genesis 23.
4. It took faith and acts of faith when God told Abraham in a vision that although he still had no children to inherit the promised land (Genesis 15.2, age 86) he would have countless descendants. Abraham believed God and “it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” Genesis 15.6 (1-6), cited by Paul as proof that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works, Romans 4.3, 9, Galatians 3.6. Abraham waited in faith for thirteen more years (Genesis 16.16-17.1) watching his capacity to procreate die out.
5. It took faith and acts of faith when God told Abraham (now 99) that he would have his promised son by Sarah, 90 years old, both past fertility. Genesis 17.17 (15-21); 18.9-15; Romans 4.17-25. Paul cites this as a second point when his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness,” Romans 4.22.
6. It took faith and acts of faith when God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, the son through whom all of God’s promises were to be fulfilled. Genesis 22.11-18; James 2.21-24; Hebrews 11.17-19. Abraham knew the voice of the LORD and had been tested repeatedly with difficult and even impossible acts of obedient faith. Abraham was so certain that God could not break his promises that Abraham deduced that God would raise the dead (Hebrews 11.17-19), unprecedented insight into the power and faithfulness of God and a prophetic type of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of the blessings of salvation to all the world. James cites Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac to show that justification, begun by faith, is completed by works of faith. 2.22. Scripture was “fulfilled”; faith was “perfected.” 2.21-23. To be “perfect” here (from teleios) means to be “complete,” to achieve the purposes of faith. In this sense, Christians can “Be perfect, as your father in heaven in perfect,” Matthew 5.48 (same Greek word), not by becoming what we are not, God, but by becoming fully what we are, born again sons and daughters of God (Romans 8.29-30; 1John 3.2).
7. Justification begins with salvation, the spiritual transformation of being “born again,” (John 3.1-8; 1Peter 1.22-23), but justification also means being at “peace with God” (Romans 5.1), capable of hearing God, living by God’s guidance, exercising God’s power in obedience to his will, and performing the “good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2.10. Romans 8.29-30; 2Corinthians 5.14-17. Abraham’s eternal salvation was complete but his justification had only begun when he believed and God declared him righteous by faith (Genesis 15.6; Romans 4.3, 9; Galatians 3.6), in the passages cited by Paul. God also had works of faith for Abraham to do, as cited by James, to bring justification to completion and faith to perfection in life and action.
Paul and James agree. All Christians have been justified by faith alone, and yet all are still being justified by faith as, in daily life, faith is perfected by action.
“All Christians have been justified by faith alone, and yet all are still being justified by faith as, in daily life, faith is perfected by action.”
One of the chief problems with setting folks’ thinking about faith on the right path nowadays is the simple pejoration of the term over the years as English has changed. We use the same word to “translate” pistis that the King James translators borrowed from Coverdale et al without re-examining its changing meaning over the intervening centuries. Nowadays, “faith” has come to mean some oogie-boogie, ethereal feeling about something/someone that takes the place of, supplants, rational thought and observation of fact. Not so with the “faith” used by (well, and held by) the early translators of the Bible into English.
*sigh*
Take another scripture from Paul for a pocket harmony of Paul and James: Romans 10:9
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Here, Paul invokes the fides contract common in the Middle East for many hundreds of years and codified into Roman law. It’s a bi-lateral contract commonly used in bonding a servant and a master, a soldier and his captain, a wife and her husband. On the one hand, obedience is pledged; on the other hand, providence (within the terms of the contract), protection and guideance. This “fides” (from whence the word “faith”) contract was well known to Coverdale, et al through its daily use (and *sigh* abuse) in his (their) society. Indeed, it had been a part of English–quite apart from the introduction of “faith” into English by the Normans–society since long before even Roman influence in the “lief-an” covenant of the Celts. Yeh, notice the addition of the Angle intensifier “be” to construct “belief”.
Faith, in the sense that Coverdale and those who followed him used it to translate pistis is exactly that covenantal “trusting obedience” that is invoked by Paul in Romans 10:9 when we have “believe” (from pisteuo, the verb form of pistis) linked to a fides profession.
When Christians use “faith” as some mystical, magical word of incantation instead of with an understanding that biblical faith is action–on our part, trusting obedience to God–then it’s no wonder the world in general thinks of biblical faith as no different from the “faith” of any pagan creed because it really isn’t.
But never forget God’s faith. It is that which is our true salvation. For where our trusting obedience to Him lacks, His faithfulness to His Word and to us never flags. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. Yes, it will take a desire, an intent and our best attempts to participate in that completion, but nevertheless, it is His desire, intent and efforts on our behalf that will accomplish the task.
Faith is, as another Pauline (whether written by Paul or not) work reminds us stuff, not some oogie-boogie, ethereal feeling. It is the very tangible product of our fides contract with God.
So, to take your statement quoted above and approximate a nearer-to-biblical faith statement:
“All Christians have been justified by trusting obedience to God alone, and yet all are still being justified by trusting obedience to God as, in daily life, trusting obedience to God is made complete by action.”
(Note: the above is a half-cuppa-joe response, so fill in the blanks, blue pencil, etc., as you will. ;-))
Comment by David — May 30, 2007 @ 5:20 am