What’s the point, fellow Christians, when one of you claims to have faith, yet doesn’t act
upon it ?What ability does such faith have to save? Take a
Christian brother or sister: Say they become destitute, and run out of daily food. Say one of you tells them, “Go in peace. Be warm and well fed.” Yet they’ve given nothing to them they can use. What’s the point? This shows how faith—by itself, when there’s no action—is dead.But someone’ll insist you have faith, whereas I have actions. So show me what your actionless faith looks like. I’ll show you my faith out of my actions. You believe, “God is One.” Good job. But demons believe that—and bristle at it.
You silly people; do you want to know why actionless faith is useless? Abraham, our ancestor: He was declared righteous by his action of offering up his son Isaac on the altar. See, his faith cooperated with his actions, and by his actions his faith produced something. That’s the full meaning behind the scriptures which say, “Abraham believed God, who considered him righteous.” He was called God’s friend. See? People are declared righteous by their actions—not just their faith. Likewise Rahab the prostitute: She was declared righteous by not accepting
the Jericho king’s messengers, and kicking them out, down another road.Just as the body separated from the spirit is dead,
so faith separated from action is dead.
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Faith is a fruit of the Spirit, and I began with James to make clear how faith-works are a fruit of faith. Because faith without works is dead.
Not just any good works.
This passage is quoted out of context so often, it’s become kind of a cliché. People point out, “Faith without works is dead,” yet they never get into what kind of works. They just assume these are good works—because we’re Christians, and we’re supposed to be good, right? So if we have faith, we’ll do good deeds.
But when James gave examples from the scriptures, he didn’t pick just any good deeds. ’Cause any pagan can do good deeds, and many pagans do many good deeds. James picked the distinctive sort of deeds which would only be done by a believer: He picked faith-works.
Starting with Abraham. Which good deed did James point out Abraham did? Right: He tried to kill his son in an act of human sacrifice. Wait, what?
Remove the LORD from the picture—remove his test of Abraham’s faith, remove Abraham’s motives—and his attempted sacrifice of Isaac is evil. It’s not a good deed. It’s not anything which would deserve commendation. God does not approve of parents sacrificing their children for any reason. It completely offends him.
They built a place to worship Ba’al in Gehenna,
to have their sons and daughters “pass through” to Molekh.
I never commanded this.
It never entered my mind:
This disgusting act,
this error of Judah.
—The LORD,
Remove the LORD from the picture—remove his plan to topple Jericho and hand it over to the Hebrews—and Rahab’s act of sending the king’s messengers away and hiding Joshua’s spies is evil. It’s treason. It’s taking the city which has housed you and provided you business (though she was a prostitute, so y’know, not that noble a business), and turning it over to an invading army, simply to save your own skin.
These deeds James pointed to are not good deeds unless they’re based on faith in God. If Abraham didn’t trust God with all his heart, and know God would do something despite his actions—the writer of Hebrews even figured Abraham believed God would raise Isaac from the dead —his actions would have been entirely misguided, wrong-headed, and wrong. Skeptics mock Abraham for trying to sacrifice Isaac: They figure only a fool would believe “the voices in his head” so much he’d endanger his son over it. They don’t see it as an act of faith—because they don’t trust God, and because their definition of faith undermines their ever trusting God.
So again: James wasn’t just writing about any good deeds. ’Cause not just any good deed will be representative of our faith in God. If I hold the door open for someone, that doesn’t point back to my faith any: It only means I am courteous. If I get back a $10 bill in change for a $5, my correcting the cashier’s error doesn’t point back to my faith any: It only means I don’t use someone’s slip-up as an excuse to rob them. (Even if I hint, with a “God bless you” or something, that I believe in God, and he’s why I won’t steal.) The actions James pointed to are based on trusting God more than our circumstances, trusting him more than we trust our own beliefs. If I pray for a sick person to be cured, knowing my words alone cure nothing, knowing there’s nothing else to be done for this person, yet knowing the Holy Spirit ordered me, “Go pray for that person,” that’s a faith-work. And the miracle which follows is proof of the faith-work.
If you’re looking at any old works as proof of faith, go back to Genesis and read about Abraham. You aren’t gonna find too many good deeds. You’ll be surprised; I was. Abraham has this reputation as a great man, but according to the scriptures, he didn’t do jack squat for his neighbors or the poor. He rescued Sodom from the Philistines, but only because his nephew Lot lived there. He tithed his plunder to Melchizedek, but big deal; we should tithe anyway. He begged God to not destroy Sodom; again, only because Lot lived there. The rest of it is stupid behavior, like tricking foreign kings into marrying his wife, and using a slave girl to have a son because his faith that God would give him offspring, at that time, was seriously lacking.
Abraham wasn’t generous, benevolent, or anything special. But the one thing he had in spades was trust in God. God told him to go to Palestine; he did. God told him he was going to be the ancestor of nations; he believed. God told him to sacrifice Isaac; he totally would have, had God not stopped him. Abraham was often selfish—but when God said hop, Abraham jumped. For this reason, God called Abraham righteous. He was called his Friend, a title Roman emperors gave their closest advisers (note how God took Abraham’s advice about Sodom ). How many humans are actually allowed to advise God? The idea is astounding. Yet God allows it for those who trust him wholly.
Good deeds must stem from our faith.
It’s one thing, James points out, to say things. It’s another to do them. James’s brother Jesus was fed up with hypocrites who were all talk. James seems to have the same attitude—probably developed after years of observing Jesus.
If we claim to believe in miracles, yet we never pray for one, nor listen for the Holy Spirit’s prompting and act on it—and command the sick to be well—we really don’t. If we claim we trust that God cleansed us of sin, yet we excuse our every sin because “everyone sinned,” we really don’t. If we say we believe in prophecy, yet we refuse to repeat what God told us because “maybe I made it up in my own head,” we really don’t. We’re all talk. It’s dead faith.
And we don’t make up for it with good deeds. As many Christians do, hoping no one will notice their utter lack of faith. Cessationists obviously lack faith in miracles, yet lots of them do plenty of good deeds. Big deal. Those good works don’t reflect their trust in God. They reflect these people’s goodness, which is itself a fruit of the Spirit, but they don’t reflect faith. Any schlub can go work in a soup kitchen. Any moron can buy clothes for the needy. Any fool can give money to charity. Many fools do. You don’t have to be Christian to give to the poor.
But you do have to be Christian in order to trust the Holy Spirit to guide you, and follow his leading. And if you don’t—if you’re all talk, but you have nothing to show for it, and charitable acts don’t count—your faith is separate from faith-works. It’s dead. Period.
So bring it to life.