Here is a conundrum. What do you do with this?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. 5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
The
verses seem to say, works has no place in salvation (his believing was
“accounted to him for righteousness”).
On the
other hand, you have these verses, James 2:21-24:
Was not
Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the
altar? 22 Do you
see that faith was working together with his works, and by works
faith was made perfect? 23 And the
Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted
to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man
is justified by works, and not by faith only.
Whoa,
these verses (using the same Gen. 15:6 base, even) seem to say, Abraham was
saved (“justified”) by faith PLUS WORKS.
James says “a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.”
Are these
saying there are two different methods of salvation, to obtain heaven? If you really believe in inspiration of
Scripture, that’s not possible; since it would cause confusion, especially on
such an important issue.
It
doesn’t seem to help that Scripture has backup for each of these seemingly
conflicting views, too.
Added Scriptures that seem to say, “Works Has No Place” in Salvation”
Ephesians 2:8-9a: For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and not that of yourselves. It is a
gift of God. Not of works, lest anyone should boast.
II Timothy 1:9:
Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to
our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in
Christ Jesus.
Titus 3:5: Not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he
saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Now, how about the other view? Here are verses that
seem to say,
“Salvation is Faith Plus Works”
Matthew
7:24-27: “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does
them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 and the
rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and
it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.
26 “But
everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a
foolish man who built his house on the sand: 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the
winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Hebrews
10:26-27, 29: For if
we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a
certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will
devour the adversaries…29 Of how much worse punishment, do you
suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God
underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a
common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
I John
2:3-5: Now by this we know that we
know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His
commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps
His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know
that we are in Him.
What do we do when we have two parts of the New
Testament, that seem to say the exact opposite thing? Let’s first look at how Martin Luther “resolved”
this dilemma. His solution was to say, and I quote him, “Some New Testament
books have precedent over other books. They’re not all on the same level.” That
would be a surprise to people today who say they believe every word of
Scripture is important—see II Tim. 3:16, “ALL Scripture is inspired.”
When he translated the Bible into German so the common people could read it, he
included prefaces to each book and a New Testament preface as well. In those prefaces, he indicated his favorite
books—books that agree with his Reformation salvation theology, I might add. Here’s a few things he said in those
prefaces, translated. “John’s Gospel
and Saint Paul’s Epistles, especially…Romans, and Saint Peter’s first Epistle
are the true kernel and marrow of all the books. They ought rightly to be the
first books, and it would be advisable for every Christian to read them first
and most.”
But this instruction was anti-Scriptural. It gets worse: “John’s Gospel is the one
understandable, true, chief gospel, far, far to be preferred to the other three
(Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and placed high above them. So, too, the epistles of
Saint Paul and Saint Peter far surpass the three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and
Luke.”
Does that seem rather bold, downgrading three Gospels? But folks, these three Gospels are where you
read more of the words of Jesus Christ. The Teacher of all Scripture, all
of which is for our education, was God. God wanted us to read the Sermon
on the Mount, for instance, which was only contained in Matthew. His prophecies
that he quoted from the Old Testament, showing where they were fulfilled in
Jesus, was an important mode of evangelism--for us today as well. That
desirable explanation of Old Testament was not in John, which Luther liked so
much—it was in Matthew, the one that he disparaged.
He continues, “Saint James' Epistle is really an
epistle of straw, compared to them, for it has nothing of the nature of
the gospel about it.” What hubris, to
say: “Throw away James; it’s not gospel.”
But James was already decided, over a thousand years before; the early
church fathers had made the final decision that James was God-inspired
Scripture. So, shall we make up our own “Bible?” Luther didn’t like some New
Testament books, again, because they differed from his salvation theology,
which was “have faith, or believe, in Jesus as the Christ.” His key phrases included
“sola gratia,” or “by grace alone;” and “sola fide,” or “by faith alone.” He
didn’t like to confuse the issue about works after you got saved; he was afraid
of being “too Catholic” by doing that.
In the introductions to Hebrews and Revelation, he degraded
them as well, and said that they were not apostolic. Well, we suspect that’s because these books also
didn’t agree with his salvation theology. Hebrews (see 10:26-29 above) has
those verses that say that if we sin willfully (those verses imply AFTER you
are saved), and insulted the Spirit of grace, we will be bound for hell. And in
Revelation, in the seven letters to the churches, what does Jesus say first
each time? “I know your works.” Just to note a relevant set of verses,
look at 2:18, addressed to one church:
…you
allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to
teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things
sacrificed to idols. 21 And I gave her
time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not
repent. 22 Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and
those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent
of their deeds. 23 I will kill her children (certain church members included) with death, and all the
churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts.
And I will give to each one of you according to your works.
So it does seem that works following salvation are
important to God, does it not?
Getting back to James, “the book of straw;” did you
know that the oldest Bible we have, the oldest complete Bible that is bound as
a book, the order of the books is different than in our Bibles? In today's
versions, when you get through with Acts, you go right to Romans. But in the oldest Bible we have, when you get
through with Acts, guess which book you’ll go to – the book of James. The
switch in order to lift Romans and demote James is because of Luther.
So we conclude that Luther’s solution to the
“contradictions” that we brought up at the beginning, is to avoid books, and
verses that are contrary. Pick and
choose. This is called “proof-texting,”
and not an honest way of making theology.
We could learn much from secular courts--they have
the honest approach here. If they are
studying a document to resolve a dispute, they don’t focus on just part of a
document and ignore the rest; they examine the whole of it so as to construe it
as a whole without reference to any one part more than another. Another
approach courts take is to see if a word is being used in a particular sense in
one paragraph but in a different sense in another one, because the same word
can have different meanings. For instance,
look at this sentence: “Tom ran fast to reach Tim who is stuck fast in the
ice.” Same word “fast,” but two entirely different meanings—so, how do we know
which meaning for a verse? Look at their
context. That means reading the whole Bible—avoiding partiality.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if Paul
said Abraham was not saved by works and James says he was saved with the help
of works, the two men are using the word “works” in two different senses.
So, if the document doesn’t give a direct definition of the word, we should
look at the context.
What’s the context of James? When he uses the term
“works”, what is James talking about? Or I should say, what is the Holy Spirit
talking about here? Read James 2:14-16:
What does it profit my brethren, if someone says he
has faith but does not have works? If a
brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to
them, 'Depart in peace. Be warmed and filled,' but do not give them the things
which are needed for the body, what does it profit?
Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
With the word “works,” James is talking about acts of love, acts of
faith, acts of obedience, acting to avoid sin. It dovetails with Matthew
25, when Jesus tests who are saved-you cannot avoid vv 44-46:
44 “Then they also
will answer Him (Jesus), saying, ‘Lord, when did we
see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did
not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will
answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you
did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not
do it to Me.’ 46 And these will go
away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
James is saying, I suggest, that
without works, as proof of salvation, (there are many other such proofs
required elsewhere in all the New Testament) you will not remain saved.
Now let’s look at Paul: What’s his meaning of works? Well,
what’s the context of his letters? The background of all of them can be
discerned. Acts 15:1 reveals the big
issue that surrounded much of Paul’s ministry.
And certain men (Jews who thought they accepted this new Christianity)
came down from Judea and taught the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised,
according to the custom of Moses, you could not be saved.”
In verse 5 it says: Some of the sect of the
Pharisees who believed rose up saying, 'It is necessary to circumcise them, the
Gentiles and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.' ”
Jewish Law was given by God; it was a big issue. You
have these Gentiles suddenly coming in, claiming they understood some of the
Old Testament can be ignored, and yet for 1500 years in Jewish history the way
to God was to the Law of Moses--so naturally they want to include that in this
new Christianity. In Galatians, I won’t
quote it, but read chapter 2 sometime. It is so clear that the issue is, Paul
has preached to these Galatians that they can come into the church so they can
be saved without being circumcised, without keeping the Law (i.e., Moses’ Law).
But what happens? Some men came from Jerusalem and next thing you know, they’re
telling them, “You guys have got to keep the (Jewish) Law. You must be
circumcised.” Shall we put Moses’ Law on them?
This was putting a pretty heavy burden on them—not only circumcision,
but every one of the other 613 commandments in the Old Testament. So works,
to Paul, means "circumcision" and keeping the Jewish Law.
So there you have it:
two meanings to the same word. That helps to reconcile the “conundrum.” Luther,
however, decided to ignore James and go with Paul. But putting James “under the
rug” is no way to solve this. James is correct in insisting works—pruning,
fruit, sanctification—are necessary. (I have a series of blogs; one is named “Do Peter, Paul and James disagree with Jesus?,” that cover this in more detail).
People don’t care enough about context; they like to
go straight to Romans on where works doesn’t seem to belong. I suggest a
conspiracy of seeking the lazy way out. When reading chapter 4, they prefer
Luther’s definition of “works”--by saying to themselves, “ignore works. I’m
good with God since I got saved last week. My latest sins shouldn’t cause me
any grief.” But…but…what about all those
other verses that don’t agree? It amazes me; how can you just ignore Romans 2
and 3, which lay out the context for chapter 4? Paul, in chapter 2, is talking to the
Jews. He says,
Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the Law, and
make your boast in God and know his will and approve the things that are
excellent, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself
are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness.
The
Jews were feeling superior to the Gentiles, saying, “We’ll tell you the way to
do things because we know the Law and you don’t.” But Paul admonishes that
thinking by saying: “Where is boasting then? It is excluded by what Law, of
works? No, but by the law of faith.
This is the context to Romans 4. When the Bible says,
“We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law,”
the “works of the law” means the dead works of the Mosaic Law—they didn’t have
to follow those works. (PS: I will capitalize “Law” when Paul uses
it from now on—earlier Greek texts did not capitalize anything. Translators that
got around to capitalizing later, made a mistake, I think, by not separating
Moses’ Law with a capital letter “L”).
But this is my point: The meaning of "works" is different in
the minds of the two Apostles. Paul’s is clearly not the kind of works that
James is talking about.
For more on Paul’s use of the term “works,” you go to
Ephesians. it’s the same thing, trying to straighten out the Jewih approach to
Christianity. In fact, it affects his whole ministry because he has the same
issue every town he goes to--the Jews are always on the scene (they tracked
him), and wanted the Gentiles to come under the Law of Moses. The church
fathers figured this out; there was nothing complicated then. Everyone understood the proper use of works for
1500 years, but Luther comes along in 1517 and says, “No. He’s saying that God
doesn’t want you to try to be good, just have the faith of Jesus and His
righteousness will be imputed to you anyhow.”
Well, he took it too far; he has, in effect, wiped out works
completely. This was wrong.
So we come to the resolution of our problem: Salvation is faith, but faith has a
commitment tied in. Works of love and obedience will follow, IF you are
truly saved, as the James quartet of verses pointed out. Your pastor should
spend a lot of time discussing this additional commitment in sermons. He should
explore each sin, giving the evil effects—now and into eternity—for ignoring it.
We need this kind of indoctrination. We have a tendency to want to sin, but we
must stomp it out. Reading Scripture daily, praying daily, all help to maintain
our love relationship with our Lord. THIS IS REQUIRED for salvation (I just don’t
have the space to explain further in this blog).
Big “IF” here.
You cannot begin the process of going to heaven with works. Any effort you make to reform yourself, by
yourself, to get “brownie points” with God, will fail. Any effort to say “I did
enough to earn heaven,” is pride--and God hates pride. Without Christ in you,
such an effort only results in newer sins, like judgmentalism and pride. No,
you begin the process by faith--understanding from Scripture how Christ died to
relieve you from the grip of the hell we deserve, AND will remove us from the shackles
of recurring sins in our life-- Jesus made you continually acceptable to God IF
you walk in Him. You must accept Christ as Lord of your life,
to be saved at the end. His Lordship requires that we love His saving us, we
are His for life, and eager to follow His commands, which we believe are best
for our life. By His death for you, He
redeemed you and owns you—if you claim to be saved. Jesus says several times that we must obey
Him. Sure, our efforts will be imperfect—but He does require that we be
“pruned,” that we “grow,” that we “bear fruit,” that we abide, that we are on a
mission to sanctification. Some of His
decisions are hard, or strange; they may lead us to sacrifice, or to build patience;
but thereby you build fruits of the Spirit. This is much easier than the
failures before you knew Christ. The Holy
Spirit and your brothers and sisters in the faith will keep you on the narrow
path. (Committing to fellow believers is important).
The problem with people is, they assume “getting
saved” is a one-shot deal. Pastors emphasize initial salvation, but not the long-haul
maintenance. Most of us can cite the date of our salvation. But truth is, salvation
is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. People
don’t want to believe it, but remember the verse that says Few are saved (it’s
in Matthew 7, the degraded Gospel). I suspect most people will be surprised who
enter hell. If you don’t read Scripture, how will you know His commandments in
the New Testament? Do we think little of God during the week? Then how can we
say we love Him? When you first fell in love, did you only think of your love-interest
on one day a week? That’s not love, I say. In the three books of John, loving
Him is also explained as necessary—not as an option.
True, if you died right after exercising faith in
Jesus, you would go to heaven. But
assuming you continue living, you must have a loving, faith-relationship to Our
Lord. If you become enmeshed in the
world, emphasizing materialism, you could lose salvation (see the Sower parable). With proper repentance from a serious sin, and
carry that out in your behavior, you could regain your salvation. That reminds
me: a word for those “once saved, always
saved” pastors: you leave the mistaken impression on proselytes that faith is the
only thing, or even that faith is enough.
Do not assume that everyone’s appreciation of God is so strong from the
get-go that they will “naturally, out of love” do good works. The Holy Spirit
will see to it, you say. But life is
free choices, and we still have the sin-nature.
We’re supposed to suppress it, but we may choose not to. I’ve seen too many people who managed to
distort or ignore Scripture, so they never think five minutes about what their
Lord wants them to do—but they still think they’re saved. This theology not only is wrong because of
verses above, but it was never followed by our church fathers. It has too often
a bad result: People get complacent,
they often minimize sin. Maybe they
haven’t really followed what Jesus bluntly said in the Gospels about salvation
(such as Matthew 5-7). How many people
who initiated divorce are in church, having never reconciled that with God, who
think they are saved? Jesus repeatedly says, we must have mercy, we must
forgive, we must help the poor. These are obedience. Sin goes far beyond the
Ten Commandments. Sins of omission count.
Our capacity for self-deception is so great that
maybe we should frequently introspect by ourselves, asking the Holy Spirit’s
help. God can be stricter than we realize.
And, yes, we will have uncertainty about our
salvation some days, after a terrible sin. Don’t hide from God. Confess it. David’s
psalms address that. We sin without even knowing it because we are inured.
Well, even Paul had uncertainty. We all have bad days; but if we go to Him,
because we developed a love for Him, knowing that He loves us, we can get back
on the path of growth quickly and grow on.
Modern "Christian" pastors have a new
take: "Yes, you made the prayer of taking Jesus in your heart.
So you're saved. Yes, you can do works and try not to sin; they're not
necessary for heaven, but doing them will give you more fellowship or crowns with
God, which is nice; and doing them will improve your life, make you more
joyful. That's the reason you do them." Folks, this is
un-Scriptural. Their version of "salvation" often does not
address the necessity of growth, or sanctification. They don’t speak of
repentance or confession, beyond initial salvation, how bad our sins are, and
how great God is to rescue me. It almost never speaks of hell, and the
requirements of the Kingdom, and Lordship, and the real meaning of
Redemption.
I’ll bet this is new stuff to you, but I have many
more blogs that look at this important doctrine of salvation from other
angles. I pray you’ll read them. Obviously first read Scripture yourself. Try this idea: Read the Gospels. When Jesus says something about
heaven or hell, or makes a command, keep a list of these. If you have an open
mind, you’ll be surprised at the conclusions you draw.
Acknowledgement: David Bercot, AIC meeting, March 2015, Indiana
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