Are we saved by faith alone?

 

Are we saved by faith alone?

This is the topic of whether or not Christians are saved by faith alone or is it faith plus works, specifically what the Bible teaches in regards to James chapter 2. The Protestant position is Sola Fide (faith alone). We believe that we're justified by faith alone apart from works just like it says in Ephesians 2.

The primary verse used to challenge the Protestant position is James 2:24 which says, “​​You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

We can resolve this with a verse-by-verse study through James 2:14-26. So what is James really saying? First, let’s read the whole passage all the way through. I believe we'll see why I do not think this is teaching that you are justified, in the theological sense, by faith plus works.

James 2:14-26:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

18 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. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Let’s break it down!

Now the two verses that jump out to me that kind of apply to this issue, of how we are justified and made right with God, is verse 21 and 24. So let’s read those again to bring them fresh into your mind. Verse 21, “ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?” and then verse 24 “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” 

Before we get any further I think there's something that we need to nail down and is a good biblical principle for Bible study, something we call hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts. Our hermeneutic is: how do we understand the meaning of this and how do I make sure I'm not twisting or changing what it says and I'm just understanding the plain sense? 

One of the problems we have as Christians is we sometimes read theological definitions of words into the words in the text. Let me explain what I mean. I'm going to give an example with the word saved. The theological definition of saved is “the work of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) whereby the sinner heard the gospel, believed in Jesus and was sealed with the promised Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14), is redeemed from the curse of the law (justification),  is increasingly set free from the dominion of sin (sanctification), and will finally be perfected in the image of Jesus Christ (glorification).” But the word saved doesn't always mean that. Sometimes the word saved just means deliverance from some sort of danger or suffering. Philippians 1:19 is an example of this. It says, “for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance,”. The word deliverance is the same word as “saved” or sótéria in the Greek. Paul is speaking about his deliverance while in jail. He's going to be released and he's going to be able to minister more. Paul is using the term deliverance (saved) not in a theological sense but just in a Webster's dictionary kind of sense. 1Timothy 2:15 is another good example of this where he uses the word saved not to mean theological salvation but the dictionary meaning of the word. 1 Timothy 2:15 says, “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” So here, if you're going to take every time the word saved comes up and impose the theological meaning, that would go above and beyond the way people in the culture used it. You would be able to say that women are saved by having kids along with a group of other works that they do, but that's obviously not the case. The doctrine isn't the word. What we do is we have theological doctrines and then we come up with words to describe those doctrines but that doesn't mean that every time the word is used it implies the whole doctrine. That's the key issue in the debate over James. 

Let me give you another example because this is probably the most important thing I'll share with you on this passage. So the word God, we know the theological definition of God right? When I say God I’m generally talking about the eternal omnipotent creator of all things that is transcendent, omniscient, holy, and triune. I'm saying all this when I say God yet the same word god has other meanings that depending on the context and may just mean the simple Webster's dictionary definition of god: “(in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.” In Greek and Hebrew it’s kind of the same way. The Greek has the word “theos” meaning a divine being or one who is worshipped, which is the dictionary definition of the Greek word. Now usually in the New Testament, when the word “theos” is used it's talking about that theological meaning of God but sometimes it just means the word meaning without the theology behind it. 2 Corinthians 4:4 is an example of this it says, “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Now here's a verse where the same word “theos” is used two times in two different ways. One time it refers to Satan (general definition) and the other time it’s referring to God (theological definition).

I labor this point because when James says that we are justified, the question is, does he mean the theological definition of justification or does he just mean justified in the general dictionary sense? The theological meaning of justification is “God’s declaration that a believing sinner is righteous because of the merits of Christ imputed to him. Not that we are righteous in of ourselves, but by the act of God whereby those who put their faith in Christ are declared righteous in God’s eyes and are set free from guilt and punishment for sin (death).” The word itself, justified, even in the Greek doesn't mean that necessarily. It could mean to declare someone and treat them as righteous or it could just mean to show or prove that someone is right or vindicate them. Let me give you an example of this which proves that you don't need to know Greek to know this. Look at Luke 7:29. This verse proves that the term justified (Greek: dikaioo) is used in the Bible in senses other than the theological meaning being given. Luke 7:29 says, “When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just (dikaioo), having been baptized with the baptism of John,”. Nobody in their right mind would think that Luke is saying that tax collectors made God righteous by imputing their righteousness to God or some garbage like that. No! It's clear in Luke 7:29 that justify, in that sense, means that they're saying that God is really true, we're affirming that you're right, we're affirming the truthfulness of what you're doing right now. Declaring God to be valid or vindicated. Do you get the point? I think that makes it pretty clear and I think I've just made a really solid case for this. When we come back to James 2 we can come with this context of justified sometimes meaning it's been made evident or made clear or has been proved right, not necessarily given salvific righteousness.

So, what is James saying here is the passage? Is it saying that you need works to be saved or is it saying that works are simply a symptom that confirms you have a living or real faith? Is it saying that saving faith is the issue or is it saying that faith plus works are the issue? Let's dig back into James 2:14 and let the Bible be the Bible. 

James 2:14 “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” 

This really sets up the whole thing. You really should read the whole book of James to get it all in context but verse 14 really sets it all up by offering a hypothetical situation. James is saying, what good or use is it if (then he gives a description of a situation) someone who says I have faith but he doesn't have works. Notice the situation James is in when he talked about works. He's not talking about the sacraments. You don't even read about the sacraments for the most part in the scriptures. James is not talking about them. James 1 all the way through the rest of the book talks about simple good works. The good works James is talking about here are not Baptism, Confirmation, or the Eucharist. Those aren't in view here. The good works are things like being a doer of the word and not a hearer only. 

James 1:22-27 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

It's basically helping people in need, the use of your tongue (he talks about that again in James 3), in James 4 he talks about carnality and worldliness like he just mentioned here at the end of James 1. James 2 is talking about this hypothetical kind of person who says, “I believe in Jesus, I believe in God, I believe all that, but I don't have control over my tongue, I don't help the people in need, and I don't stay unspotted from this world.” It's not about sacraments, but about the general Christian obedience, godliness, and following Jesus in your life. The person says, “I have faith” but it doesn't actually say he has actual faith. It says that he says he has faith, which is an interesting differentiation, isn't it. I’ve heard people say that they believe in Jesus (intelectually) but that he was not their Lord. James 2 is about that.

The issue in James 2 starting in verse 14 is, “can that kind of faith save him?” Read it again to get it in your heart and mind. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” Can the faith that where you “claim” to believe but you're not actually believing, can that faith save? In fact, I know that for those who know a little bit of

the Greek might say that the word “that” isn't actually in the Greek which is true. It's generally added by translators for the sake of clarity. Out of 16 translations I consulted, 13 of 16 of them added the word “that” including the Catholic approved NABRE translation. What I'm saying here is, can “that faith” save him is a fair translation of the Greek by the weight of these various translators and I think it wouldn't change my translation even if the word that wasn't there. Obviously, this particular guy's faith is what James is all about. This passage in James is about the guy who claims to believe but he shows no evidence of faith. Is that guy saved? That's the question: claimed faith without obedience. He simply asks in James 2:14 “what good is it”. What benefit is a faith like that? Is it going to change your life? How much is a faith like that going to affect your salvation? That's the real question. When you say, “I believe but I don't follow”, is God gonna respond to that kind of belief? That's what James is so far about. 

Verse 15 “If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” It's empty! The parallel here is, I have faith but I don't have works. He goes, you're like a guy who says go be warm and filled but I'm not gonna help you, assuming that you could help them which is implied in the passage. It's empty and actually kind of offensive. It's like I pull over on the side of the road and someone's crying out, “help me out of this pit” and I go, “I hope someone helps you” and I drive away. What a jerk! You obviously don't really mean it. There's something wrong with your “hope you get better” when you're not willing to do anything to help them when you could and should. So, if you believe in Jesus but you don't follow him in practical ways like with your mouth, with a kingdom focus mindset, with an impartial love towards others, with selflessness, then this passage is about you. 

Continuing on to verse 17 he says, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” This is really the main point. He gave an intro, he gave an example, and now he kind of hit to the main point in verse 17: faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead. Works indicate something about the quality of your faith. The quality of the works isn't the thing in question. The quality of the faith is what's in question. Faith is still what’s salvific in James. What do you do when someone says, “I believe” but they don't show any evidence that they have real faith? You say, “well if you don't have works your faith is dead and didn’t result in true salvation.” It’s not teaching that you need faith plus works. So far it’s just talking about the quality of the faith: what kind of faith actually saves versus what some people call easy beliefism. 

Verse 18 “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.” I think here James is doing what Paul does a lot of the time. He's putting a complaint in the mouth of someone else in his writing so he can respond to that complaint. If you really believe, you're going to live it out and if you're not living it out that's dead faith. What good is that? Iimplication: you're not even saved. James assumes the response (it's in quotes for reason). He says, “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.”” That “you” here is the dead faith person and the “I” there is James. Let me put it this way, someone will say, “you dead faith person, you have faith and James over there has works so James is preaching works. That's exactly what the Catholic, the Jehovah’s witness, and the Mormon assumes about James. So James in verse eighteen brings up that issue and he rejects it. James isn’t saying one of you has faith and one of us has works, he’s saying that it's all about faith but “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” James is gonna demonstrate faith by works. Faith is still the issue here, but how do you prove that there's faith? James rejects the idea that this is an issue between: am I saved by faith or saved by works. He’s presenting the idea that we are saved by faith but is the faith real. God sees your faith and you're saved but how do I show you my faith? Then James sarcastically says, “Show me your faith apart from your works.” You can't show that you have faith without works. The only way to demonstrate what I believe is by how I live. Read verse 18 again because many people misunderstand this verse. Verse 18 “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.” Faith is the issue, not works, but works are how you demonstrate the faith.

 Verse 19 “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” It's as though James is responding to the person who's slowly backing away from what he’s saying and they’re accusing James of preaching works. James is refuting this and is trying to point out that he’s just showing his faith by my works. They're giving a profession of faith even though their life doesn't live out the gospel and his response to them is, that's good and I'm really glad you “believe” but so the demons. They know who God is, they know Jesus is real, and they shudder because they know that wrath and judgment are coming. The implication is that a belief that only exists in a sense of personal, intellectual assent is dead faith. If your faith doesn't result in works in your life then what kind of faith do you have: you have dead faith. This isn't about salvation by works but show me your faith without works. If you have faith that doesn’t bring about works, you've got dead faith and you're not saved. James says, that's great because so do the demons. It is hard to shake people out of this sort of self-deceived thing. That's why he earlier said in James 1:22, if you're a hearer of the word but not a doer you deceive yourself. These kind of people don't even realize they’re not saved because they are deceiving themselves. It's not, do these works and you'll be saved, it's you haven’t really truly turned in faith to Jesus (dead faith).

Continuing on, James decides to further shake the person out of their slumber. He says in verse 20 “Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless?” He calls them a fool not because he's trying to be insulting but because he's trying to help them see it. Some people claim or think they believe but they’re not living it out or following Jesus. They say that deep in their heart they believe it's true but what does that really mean? Oh foolish person, do you want to be shown that faith apart from works is useless? In the context, he's not saying you need this many works to get saved. He's saying this kind of faith that doesn't motivate action, that doesn't lead you into living a life for Christ, that kind of faith is useless. It is of no benefit and it does not produce salvation. James even uses an Old Testament passage to demonstrate it. If you don't hear me really carefully you might feel like I'm dancing on salvation by works even though I’m refuting it.

Verse 21 “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.” There's a bunch of stuff that's all now kind of coming together. Let me point out something in case you've missed it. As I've been going through or maybe I didn't share it well enough, James is not talking about how you get saved because it’s already assumed it's by faith. James is talking about how you show you have faith. He's not talking about how salvation is accomplished but how salvation is demonstrated. That is a massively different issue, it helps us understand the passage, and it works so perfectly with what he quotes from Abraham in verse 21,”Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?” So again, the theological meaning of justified means you're made righteous but the word itself just means to show or prove to be right, it can also mean to make righteous, just to proclaim someone who's righteous, or to vindicate. I think we have clear indicators in James 2 that the term justified is not being used in the theological sense. It can not mean the theological sense. What it's saying is very important but it's not justification in the salvific sense. How do I know that? Let's read verse 21 again, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?” This justification of Abraham happened at a specific moment according to James and that justification, whether it was salvific or if it just met proven to be true (proving that he had real faith), whichever one he meant, it happened when Isaac was offered on the altar. That's what rules out the salvific meaning because Abraham was justified in a salvific sense decades earlier in Genesis 15. 

Read the passage and consider this, is this a salvation justification in Genesis 15? It certainly is! Genesis 15:4-6 “And behold, the word of the LORD came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Abraham believed in God and faith was accounted to him for righteousness. Clearly, this is not justification in some sense of Abraham was proven to be a true person, but justified in that God accounted it to him for righteousness. This is of course what Romans and Galatians talk about with the theological meaning. So, when was Abraham justified or accounted as righteous? It was in Genesis 15, decades before the Isaac incident that James talks about in James 2. What's the Isaac incident? It’s the story where Abraham is told to offer his son and he prepares to do the sacrifice. God stops him and then tells him this in Genesis 22:12 “He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” What justification happened with Abraham when he offered up his son? His faith was proven true and shows that he really did believe in God.  This fits exactly the theology of James, Galatians, and Romans. 

Read James again so you can see it in this context, knowing those decades of difference between when Abraham was accounted righteous and when he was justified in the James sense. James 2:21-23 “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says (going back decades), “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.” So yes, you're saved by just faith but you demonstrate that faith by works even though they may come years later (like Abraham). If you really believe, just give it some time, you will bear fruit that shows that you have that faith. What justification happened when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? Abraham was demonstrated or shown to be true in his faith. That’s the justification. It’s not even possible that the theological meaning is meant there. It's ruled out by the context of Genesis.

Verse 24 “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Again, the word justified here means vindicated or demonstrated connecting it to earlier in James where he says “I will show you my faith.” A person is shown to another person their faith. It's not about how I'm saved before God but it's how I demonstrate that before people (how I show it to them). The justification of my claim to be a Christian is by works. So I'll show you my faith by my work just like Abraham was justified by works when we saw his faith played out in his offering of Isaac. This is definitely not Catholic, Mormon, or Jehovah’s witness teaching.

Verse 25 “And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” Obviously, whatever sense in which Abraham was justified Rahab was also justified in the same sense. That's the context of the passage. If Abraham was justified, in the sense of a demonstration that his faith is real (he's validated) then Rahab was given that same validation to show that she has living faith because she took action based upon those things.

Verse 26 “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” He's describing two different kinds of faith: faith that's alive or faith that’s dead. And how does one tell which faith you have? Faith that results in works must be the faith that's alive. Faith without the works is dead just like a body without the spirit. The symptoms of life are that the spirit is invigorating the body just as the symptoms of living faith are that works are coming from that person's life. This is the theology of James. So what kind of faith do you have? Do you have this faith that saves or that faith that doesn't? If you don’t know, you might want to check it by your works (the fruit) in your life. Dead faith doesn't save but living faith does. It's by God’s grace through living faith that you are saved just in James as it is in Galatians as it is in Romans as it is in reality.

Summary

I think this is a systematic way of thinking about James 2 and hopefully was helpful for you. This passage does not combat or contradict the idea of salvation by faith apart from works, meaning that you can’t work to become justified. I can be fully assured that I can say I'm saved by faith alone apart from works. That's definitely biblical teaching and this does not challenge it. It combats the idea of dead faith resulting in salvation (I believe even though I don't follow Jesus with my life). James would say that you don't really believe in the way that Jesus is asking you to in a salvific way. Your faith is dead. 

James 2 is not about how you get saved because he already assumes you know the gospel: salvation by faith. It's how you show you’re saved to someone else. How do I prove to you that I'm a Christian? Look at my life and does my life prove it. If not, then maybe I'm not actually saved. Works demonstrate saving faith, so mere intellectual belief is not what's meant by saving faith although we have an intellectual belief in that sense. No, that's not what it's about. Real saving faith is living faith that results in works and the works themselves don’t save you. Works are the result, but they're not the cause. In the formula for salvation that I would get from Catholicism, not every Catholic would agree but I think the Council of Trent would agree with me on this, is that faith plus works equals salvation, in that our works are what justify a person in the salvific sense. The Christian definition, and James would agree, is faith equals salvation plus works. I prove that I’m really saved, that real faith is there, because it will result in works. Now listen to what I did not do. I did not rely on quotes outside the Bible just now to subvert a simple study of the text. We just studied the text. I did not offer pretty analogies to move away from the meaning of the text in its context. I didn't read deep theological or specialized meanings into words that are used in a variety of ways. I just let the word mean what it means: justified as in validated. I didn't use one observation to distract from the context. I just demonstrated the text and harmonization helps me because now when I go back to Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians it’s all perfectly harmonized and goes together.

If you disagree with my points what do you do with Romans 11:6 where it says “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.” Is it by grace or works because the two are diametrically opposed? If you're gonna say it's faith plus works well Romans 11:6 tells you that's not an option. It's by grace not works otherwise grace isn't even grace. Romans 4 gets the same point across. Romans 4:4-6 says, “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works.” What do you do as a Catholic with that passage? I see James in total harmony with Romans and Galatians, but I don't see how you could if you believe that you have to work in order to be justified in the salvific sense. If you take James out of context and read theological meanings into justified instead of just the word, I don't know what you do with Ephesians 2. In fact, Ephesians 2:8-10 seems to be echoing James by saying, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, (here’s the similarity to James) created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” So I'm saved by grace apart from works but that results in works. So how do I show I'm saved? I show the result of salvation in my life.

 Justification is God’s declaration that a believing sinner is righteous because of the merits of Christ imputed to him. Not that we are righteous in of ourselves, but by the act of God whereby those who put their faith in Christ are declared righteous in God’s eyes and are set free from guilt and punishment for sin (death). It is only by genuine living faith alone, one that is demonstrated by and results in good works (fruit), put in Christ that possesses any power to justify man in the salvific sense. Faith that is devoid of and doesn’t result in good works (fruit) is dead faith, is merely just intellectual belief, and is in God’s eyes insufficient for justification.