Faith and works

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Ro.3:28). "Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?" (Ja.2:21). Some Christians have then jumped to conclude that the Letter of James should not be in the Bible! This is an example of reading the Bible superficially and then finding contradictions! Since both these verses tell us truths of God, we need to see how they can be reconciled with each other.

Most religions believe that it is by accumulating good deeds or religious activities that one can please God and qualify for His acceptance. A common description for this approach is that one banks on his works of the law – whatever law a man thinks he has to follow in order to find acceptance with God. So then we can see that what Paul is trying to bring out is that no matter what we do in this way, it is of no use, but faith in God is what is required to please Him.

But when we look at that, we can see that a lot of people have misunderstood 'faith' to be just a set of beliefs about Christ. They believe that Jesus is the Son of God who took the form of a Man, lived on earth, died and rose again from the dead, and that if someone believes this, God will accept him. They may also believe that this sets Christianity apart from all other religions, and start showing allegiance to the Christian religion. Then, holding on to the verses that talk about faith as the only way we can be saved, they believe that any mention of works is contrary to faith.

Isn't it easy to see here that it is possible for people to just agree intellectually with such ideas and then assume that they have been accepted by God? It may be in order to correct such wrong ideas that James balanced faith with 'works'. He is not talking about works that are aimed at getting acceptance from God, which we referred to earlier as works of the law, but works which result from having genuine faith and which prove that such faith is genuine (Ja.2:21,22).

Isn't this something which needs to be specially addressed these days? Churches nowadays have lots of people who profess faith in Jesus but whose lives do not show any real change towards godliness after they professed faith. The chances are that their faith is merely of an intellectual kind, and they have not experienced being born again. They need to see themselves as sinners, repent and yield their life into the hands of the Saviour who gave Himself as a sacrifice for their sins.

James points out that because Abraham believed, he was willing to obey God to the extent of sacrificing his son. When Rahab knew that Yahweh was the true God, she was willing to risk her life and support the spies of Israel who had come to see Jericho. So the kind of works that must be seen in our life after we have come to Jesus can be understood as our willingness to give up our old way of life and submit to God in every part of our life (2Co.5:15).