Faith described by James, in its essence is works. James primarily talks about faith in chapter 2:14-24, where he says,
"What does it profit, my brethren if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitue of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 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. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect?"
This being the case, then what Paul said in Romans 1:17 makes a little more sense. "as it is written, 'the just shall live by faith'." For it is by good works that the true believers will live and be justified. However, good works isn't what saves us, it is the fruit of our belief. This now erases even the slightest conception of using Christ as a crutch. It is by grace alone that we are saved. Not so that we can keep on sinning but that we would realize how wretched we truly are, and recognize the need for Christ in our lives.
Faith I believe also plays a part in our own personal conversion. Sheldon Vanauken in the book, "A Severe Mercy," describes to CS Lewis the frustraiting gap that he is dealing with. The gap between paganism and Christianity. In a letter to CSL he writes, "My fundamental dilemma is this: I can't believe in Christ unless I have faith, but I can't have faith unless I believe in Christ. This is 'the leap'."
Faith now has been established as an action. The paganist must then have faith to believe. After the initial act of believing, his faith will be stregnthend as he begins to grow and mature in his walk with Christ. God will slowly remove those desires for worldly things as long as the former paganist continues to keep his faith alive. Hence the reason why the Christian walk is so hard at times. It takes self-control and a self-will to supress the desires which are contrary to Christ's standards.
To summarize, faith is an action. It is the by product of our own personal relationship with Christ. Faith is not something one says he has, but something that must be proven over and over. "Faith without works is dead..."
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"He who is our very life came down and took our death upon himself. He slew our death by his abundant life and summoned us in a voice of thunder to return to him in his hidden place, that place from which he set out to come to us when first he entered the Virgin's womb." ~St. Augustine
1 comment:
Well said that faith is a work. As James puts it in fact, that works are the body of the spirit of faith; as such that without the body, the spirit of faith is dead. Now let us consider what “works” he considers to be faith’s “clothing” as it were. James gives two examples. The first example is in Abraham: “Was not our forefather Abraham [shown to be] justified (made acceptable to God) by [his] works when he brought to the altar as an offering his [own] son Isaac?” and the second is found in Rahab: “So also with Rahab the harlot- was she not shown to be justified (pronounced righteous before God) by [good] deeds when she took in the scouts (spies) and sent them away by a different route?”
These works are in cooperation with their faith, indeed they do “act out” what they believe. They both believed in, adhered to, trusted in, and relied on God.
Now, let us consider what this means, and indeed, what it does not. Abraham’s good work that clothed his faith was not some right conduct of behavior, striving for some form of godliness to offer before God. No, it was an act of believing in the promise he had received from God. Likewise, it does not say that Rahab (the harlot) began to live a life of piety and change her ways in order to be justified before God, but rather that she believed the promise of God spoken by the two men of God; a very interesting metaphor to hang a scarlet thread in her window to save her and her entire house. Not at all unlike the blood of the Lamb that was to be put around the door on the first Passover to save all in that house. Her trust was in God by means of this scarlet thread. Our trust is in God, by means of the blood of the Lamb.
Now how does this affect us in our lives? Are we to consider that, along with faith, good works are necessary to save us? This would depend on what we are calling good works.
If we consider the works of faith to be nothing other than living a life of striving for godliness, morality, and indeed perfection, I would say that we are nullifying our faith in Christ’s redemptive work by seeking justification by our labors.
If on the other hand, we believe that we are saved by our scarlet thread, the blood of Christ, then our work of faith would be to hang that upon our door and rest, waiting on the Lord for His promised salvation and redemption.
To go beyond what I said on my own blog, I would like to draw attention to a few of your statements.
(a) “For it is by good works that the true believers will live and be justified”. Romans 3:28 “For we hold that a man is justified and made upright by faith independent of and distinctly apart from good deeds (works of the Law). [The observance of the Law has nothing to do with justification.]”
(b) “It is by grace alone that we are saved. Not so that we can keep on sinning but that we would realize how wretched we truly are, and recognize the need for Christ in our lives.” For one, grace does not show us how wretched we are, it was the Law that was given for that function (as seen in Romans 3:20) and secondly, to say “It is by grace alone that we are saved. Not so that we can keep on sinning” sounds to me like putting a disclaimer on the Gospel. As though if someone were to put their full trust in Christ’s blood, they would somehow be in danger of going astray by not working as well; do we need a back up plan for if grace doesn’t “work out” do you think?
(c) Here is the real killer: “This now erases even the slightest conception of using Christ as a crutch”. I must say that I see an enormous problem with using Christ as a crutch: if we think He is a crutch, then we have the misconception of thinking we could actually walk AT ALL on our own. Christ is of an infinitely greater necessity than a crutch for us. We are as children who cannot even care for themselves. We are, for all intensive purposes, on life support. Indeed, our infirmities go far beyond a broken leg. If we are truly in faith, then let us not be in the least concerned of relying too heavily on Christ. In Him do we live, move, and have our being. Let us be through with thinking that if we fully grasp the gospel "oh, heaven forbid, we will become lax". If this is our concern: that our being lax will change the outcome, then this is further evidence that we still think ourselves contributing to our own salvation. God forbid.
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