Martin Luther started the Reformation ... sort of by accident. His 95 Theses were put on that Wittenberg door as a standard call for academic debate. It turned into so much more. Luther's primary position was "justification by faith alone." This was breathtaking in a way because who thinks that people get to heaven by ... faith? Everyone knows that good people go to heaven and bad people go to ... the other place. So Luther bucked the unbelieving and believing world with his position ... that he conveniently got from Scripture. The Roman Catholic Church strongly opposed the idea. They warned that this doctrine would allow people to sin at will. The doctrine of "Justification by faith apart from works" was what was called a "forensic justification" in which God simply ... declared the sinner justified without any deeds in view. It was a legal or judicial act on God's part. Rome protested. At some point, Luther countered: We are justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone.
James writes about a faith that is "dead, being alone" (James 2:17). That faith, he says, is useless (James 2:20). "What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" (James 2:14). No ... it can't. So how do we distinguish dead faith from ... saving faith ... because dead faith isn't just dead ... it doesn't save. And I suspect a lot of people have "dead faith." James points out that dead faith believes the facts just fine. "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder" (James 2:19). Someone once pointed out that just believing in God simply qualifies you to be a demon. It's not believing facts. What is it? It's works. James says that faith is demonstrated as genuine ("justified") by works (James 2:24). And not just James. Paul gave us his memorable and definitive, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Eph 2:8-9), followed immediately by "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" (Eph 2:10). It's not "either-or" ... it's "both-and." Salvation is by faith alone, but it's a faith that is shown to be alive by the changes wrought in our hearts and, subsequently, our lives.
Over against the Catholic complaint that justification by faith apart from works would create bold sinners, Scripture argues that justification by faith apart from works produces changed sinners. It's a heart change. It changes our "want to." It might even rightly be said we can sin all we want to ... as long as we mean that our "want to" has changed and we won't want to sin at all. Paul expresses this in Romans. "The good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want" (Rom 7:19). Living faith ... saving faith ... looks like that ... a change in our "want to" and a gradual shift from sin to obedience. It's not a wish or a possibility. Paul wrote, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Cor 5:17). How about you? Is your faith living or dead? Do you sin freely or hate it? Does your life reflect a living faith, one accompanied by works, not to activate or accomplish faith, but as a sign of it?
5 comments:
It seems to me that the RCC is so close to accurate, but the deviation is stark without seeming so. We agree that faith without works is not saving faith. I think the difficulty is that they are defining "justified" in James as meaning the same thing Paul means by the same word. But we can clearly see from Scripture that the word has a couple different meanings. Justified could mean "made just". But it can also mean a proof. When Wisdom is justified by her children, it doesn't mean that Wisdom is made just before God, but that the fruit of Wisdom proves the truth of Wisdom. Same in James, "justified by works"means that the works price the truth of the faith. Where as Paul says "justified by faith" to mean "made just in the sight of the Lord." Sometimes, the English language is a mess, but we must parse these things accurately lest we cause Scripture to contradict itself.
It has struck me recently ... this idea of "dead faith" ... because of various people I know who are close. They believe they believe, but their works say otherwise. Some have already strayed. And I think of John's "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us" (1 John 2:19) and Jesus's "On that day many will say to Me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'" (Matt 7:22-23) and I feel like I should offer a warning ... I suppose to all of us.
I think Matthew 7:22-23 is one of the most worrisome verses for me. We can do easily deceive ourselves.
David, You are correct that “justification” is one of the terms (among many others) that is interpreted differently by the Roman Catholic Church from how we would understand it. (I would assert that “the deviation is stark” also regarding what constitutes a “saving faith” and how “faith and works” relate properly.) For a helpful article on the good point you mentioned--and how James 2:14-26 is then misunderstood by Catholics--see the following link. (I actually just commented there regarding works as the fruit of salvation and not the root.)
https://answeringcatholicclaims.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-catholic-churchs-false-concept-of.html
I concur that considering whether our faith is “dead” or “alive” is absolutely essential, so that we can know we have a saving faith and will not hear those dreadful words from Jesus recorded in Matt. 7:23. The Matt. 7:22-23 passage (as well as other Scripture) lets me know, too, that the presence of good works in and of itself is not conclusive proof of a saving faith, since even those “who practice lawlessness” do great things for God and others (as do countless unsaved “religious” people). (Thus the warning in your comment above is important.) I like your point that after we are saved “we can sin all we want to” … because [we’ll get to the point in our sanctification journey where] “we won’t want to sin at all.” That repugnance towards unrighteousness in our life--and the conviction that it grieves the Lord to see it--is one true evidence of a living, saving faith.
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