Dead Faith

James 2:14‑20

We come now to our study of God's Word and how grateful I am in my own heart for this wonderful occasion to look at the precious revelation of our blessed Lord.  Let's open our Bibles to James chapter 2 looking at verses 14 through 20.  Let me read it to you. 

What does it profit, my brethren, though a man say he has faith and has not works?  Can faith save him?  If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled.  Not withstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?  Even so, faith if it has not works is dead being alone.  Yea, a man may say thou hast faith and I have works, show me thy faith without thy works and I will show thee my faith by my works.  Thou believest that there is one God, thou doest well.  The demons also believe and tremble.

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead. 

The psychologist, Dr.  Alfred Adler, holds an interesting theory of individual psychology.  When dealing with people, he says, "Trust only in movement, life happens at the level of action."  In fact, Adler goes on to say, "We are not what we say but we are what we do.  What we do,"  he says, "is the real key to our intentions."  Trust only in movement.  He has discovered what the Word of God teaches.  He has discovered what James is saying here.  He has observed in human behavior from the viewpoint of psychology that the only real revelation of a person is through that person's behavior. 

To sort of paraphrase James, faith plus nothing equals nothing.  James, for example, describes the kind of faith that equals nothing, he calls it "dead faith"  in verse 17, verse 20 and again at the end of the chapter in verse 26...dead faith. 

Now inevitably, people with dead faith always substitute words for deeds.  They want you to believe that they are what they say when you must understand that we are what we do.  Trust not in words, trust only in movement.  True faith will always be seen in works.  Dead faith will not be seen at all. 

Now the point that you want to understand as you approach this passage is that there is a kind of faith that does not save.

There is a kind of faith in God that does not save.  There is a kind of faith in Jesus Christ that does not save. 

In Matthew, for example, chapter 3, the ministry of John the Baptist draws our attention..."And many people were being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River confessing their sins."  In verse 7, "When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said to them, O generation of snakes, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bring forth therefore fruits fitting repentance and think not to say within yourself, We have Abraham as our father."  In other words, don't count on your heritage, demonstrate by your works the legitimacy of your faith.

 In chapter 5 of Matthew and verse 16, Jesus said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."  In other words, the light that shines out of the life of a believer is the light of good works, demonstrated deeds.

 In chapter 7 of Matthew, the same Sermon on the Mount, verse 21, "Not everyone that says, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of My Father."  It is not the sayers, it is the doers.  Trust not in what people say, trust in what they do.

This goes on throughout the ministry of Jesus as an emphasis.  It is particularly emphasized again in the gospel of John.  For example, look with me for a moment at John chapter 2.

In John chapter 2 and verse 23, it says this, "Now when He...being the Lord Jesus...was in Jerusalem at the Passover in the feastday, many...follow this...many believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did.  But Jesus did not commit Himself unto them because He knew all men and needed not that any man should testify of man for He knew what was in man."

Everybody needs a man to show what he believes or to say what he believes but Jesus, He knows what men believe.  And He said they believed but their belief was less than sufficient.

In fact, chapter 3 follows up the same idea.  "There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews."  He is one of those who believed.  "He came to Jesus by night and he said, Rabbi...notice the pronoun..., we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles that You do except God be with him."  Now we just saw back in verse 23 that the people who saw the miracles believed in His name.  They believed He was sent from God.  They may have well believed that He was a Messiah.  And Nicodemus says "we"  believe, it's a whole group.  "Jesus answered and said, Truly, truly I say to you, unless you are born again you won't even see the Kingdom of God."

Now what's the point?  The point is he believed, he may have well have believed in the Messiahship of Jesus Christ.  He believed in the miracles.  He believed in the name.  He believed Jesus was sent from God.  But Jesus said to him and to all like him, believing is not enough unless you are transformed.  There is such a thing then as a non‑saving faith.

In John chapter 8 we find again a graphic illustration of this very same kind of faith.  Verse 30 and 31, "As Jesus spoke again the words relating Himself and His Father,"  it says in verse 30, "many believed on Him.  Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed on Him, If you continue in My Word...that is in obedience...you are My mathetes alethos, My real disciples and then you will know the truth and then the truth will set you free from bondage to sin and death and hell and judgment...all implied."

In other words, they said they believed and Jesus said your belief is not sufficient unless it involves a new birth, a transformation which leads to a life of obedience.  Valid saving faith has always been verified by fruit.  And a false dead faith is indicated by the absence of righteous actions.

Now it's clear that many people possess that kind of faith.

They believe in God.  They believe in Jesus Christ.  But not to the point of salvation.  They may believe the facts about God, the facts about Christ, but they manifest no irrevocable commitment to Jesus Christ.  They manifest no changed life that comes with true salvation marked by repentance and obedience.

The Lord was so concerned with this He spoke about it in the parable of the soils.  He spoke about it, no doubt, eluding to it part with the wheat and tares.  He spoke about it in John 15 with the abiding and the non‑abiding branches.  He spoke about it in Matthew 7 with the professors and the possessors.  This is a common issue in the ministry of our Lord.  Intellectual belief is not enough.

In Hebrews 12:14 it says, "Holiness without which no man shall see the Lord."  No man ever enters into the presence of the Lord without holiness.  So we conclude that justification must have with it more than just a forensic statement about your position, it must have with it a real sanctification so that saving faith is manifest in works.  The Apostle Paul put it this way, that we are His workmanship, Ephesians 2:10, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.

Now, beloved, let me tell you something that burdens my heart greatly.  The church of Jesus Christ must deal with the soul damning impression that a simple knowledge of the gospel is equal to acceptance of saving faith.  We must deal with the deception and the delusion that knowing the truth equals redemption.  It's almost as if people think that what you don't deny, you must believe and that that would be sufficient.  James will not permit any such deception to go unchallenged.  People who believe the facts of the gospel but make no irrevocable commitment to shun sin and serve the Lord Jesus Christ, which commitment is empowered in the saving work itself, must be confronted with the reality of their state.  In fact, the whole of the epistle written by James is a series of tests by which you can evaluate whether your faith is a living faith or whether it is a dead faith.

The first test was the test of trials.  Remember in chapter 1 verses 2 through 13?  The test of trials...and your response to trials is an indicator of dead faith or living faith.  The second was the test of temptation, where you place the blame in temptation was an indicator of living faith or dead faith.  The third was the response to the Word that comes at the end of chapter 1.  And then we have been looking in chapter 2 at the test of your response to the poor and the needy.  James is giving a series of tests by which we can evaluate whether our faith is living or dead.

Now, in this wonderful second chapter and verses 14 through 20, he brings up the test of works.  And by works he means righteous action, righteous behavior, behavior which is obedient to God's Word and which manifests a godly nature.

How we live then, beloved, proves who we are.  This, I believe, is the composite test in this epistle.  It sort of pulls all the other ones together.  For every other test is a righteous work when properly responded to.

Now James has already brought up this issue.  Go back for a moment to verse 22 of chapter 1.  He has already introduced it when he said, "Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving your ownselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like a man beholding his face, his face of his birth, his Genesis face, as it were, in a mirror.  He looks, goes his way, forgets the manner of man he was."  In other words, he looks, sees his problem, does nothing about it, goes away and forgets it.  "But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty‑‑ which means the Word of God‑‑and continues there, he is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed."  In other words, God says you need to be a doer, a continuer in looking into the Word of God and putting it into practice in your life.  And again James brings up the same issue here in chapter 2.

Now may I say that no one is saved by works?  Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says, "Not by works lest we should boast."  We are not saved by works.  If we were saved by works we would adulterate grace and grace would be no more grace.  No one is saved by works‑‑listen carefully‑‑but no one is saved without producing works.  That's the issue.  Without producing works...the work of repentance and submission to Christ being the initial ones.

In Matthew 13:44 to 46, our Lord gives two parables about a man who found a treasure in a field and then a man who found a pearl of great price.  In both cases they sold all to purchase the pearl.  There is a sense in which salvation comes to those who give all they are and have to Christ to take all that He is and has for their own.  But the self‑deceived, for them faith is nothing more than a carnal glance and acknowledgement of the facts about God and Christ.  There's no irrevocable commitment to an obedient life, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to obey His will.

So, James is dealing with dead faith, non‑saving faith.

That is the issue.  And as I told you some months ago, I think I have a great passion for this because of what I've experienced in my life with many of my close friends.  And I gave you some months ago a long list of people that I have known in my life who walked away from everything I thought they believed and gave evidence to me of the deadness of their faith.  They left such an impression in me, they are unforgetable.  I see their faces.  My mind echoes their names again and again and again and again.

They had dead faith.  When it came down to the test of righteous deeds no matter how much they claimed, their faith proved to be dead.

And then I think to myself, "Buy how many other people are like them who in this life will never manifest dead faith?  In fact, they may never know till they wake up in hell that their faith was dead faith because they're so deceived."

Now the background of this text, let me just see if I can't help you to understand that to which James really writes, the epistle was written to Jews.  Back in verse 1 of chapter 1, it says, "The twelve tribes scattered abroad."  He's writing to Jewish readers.  They had identified themselves with the Christian faith.  Some of them obviously were genuine and some of them were less than genuine, hence all of these tests are given in the epistle.  But they had outwardly identified with the Christian faith.

In fact, verse 21 of chapter 2, he says, "Was not Abraham our father?"  And again he embraces the idea that his audience is Jewish.

Let me give you a little bit of an idea of what they were thinking.  Some of these Jews had gone from one extreme to another on the matter of works.  They had experienced in all the years of their Judaism a tremendous amount of stress because Judaism by this particular time had become totally a works righteousness system.  They were raised to believe in the efficacy of works.  And along came the gracious gospel of salvation...the gospel that was to them joyous.  Imagine living all your life under a system of works knowing you couldn't live up to the system.  Imagine being required to keep laws you know you couldn't keep.  Imagine being absolutely overwhelmed with a myriad of rules that no human being could ever live up, and believing that your salvation was dependent on your ability to do what you couldn't do.  A tremendous burden.  In fact, in Matthew 23, Jesus said, "The leaders who espoused that system bind on people burdens far too heavy for them to bear."  And so here are these Jewish people typically oppressed by a guilt producing burden and along comes somebody preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ which is all about grace and all about liberation and all about freedom and all about joy.  And they hear that gospel and they say that's for me...wow, freedom from legalism sounded too good to be true.

And could it be that some of them misunderstood that freedom and went too far the other way?  Going all the way from legalism to an unfounded and abusive liberty.  They were under the mistaken notion that since works were not efficacious for salvation, maybe they weren't efficacious for anything and maybe they weren't even necessary.  And could it be that James was recognizing in the congregation to which he wrote some people who were trying to espouse a salvation that was simply believing the facts and requiring nothing?

That doesn't sound too far‑fetched.  It's been espoused in every generation since.  An illustration of this kind of legalism that these Jews might have been under has come out of some of the ancient rabbinic writings.  For example, one that I found in The Expositor's Greek Testament says, "When Mar(?)  Ukba(?)  lay dying, he asked for his account.  It amounted to 7,000 zuzim(?)  which is the sum total of all of his alms giving."  In other words, that was his account in heaven...all that he had given God had kept a record of and he had 7,000 laid up.  "Then he cried out, The way is far‑‑that is into the presence of God‑‑and the provision is small‑‑he didn't think this sum would be sufficient to insure his justification in the sight of God and thus gain him salvation.

So he gave away half his fortune in order to make himself quite secure,"  end quote.

Typically the Jews were earning their way in with their works.  In fact, early pagans...we have writings to indicate early pagans accused the Jews of joining Christianity because it was a cheaper religion than Judaism.  And the new message of Christianity, grace and freedom and liberty and faith and mercy and forgiveness, looked like total relief, just believe.  What a way to go.  And so they went from legalism to antinomianism.  It may well be that there were some like that in this association to which James writes.  Obviously, whatever the cause and the background, there were some who felt themselves secure just being hearers of the world and were self‑deceived.  They were saying, "Oh yes, that's true...oh yes, that's true..."  but never was it fleshed out in their life.

I daresay you know people like that, don't you?  Do you know people if you approach them and said do you believe in God, they'd say yes?  Do you believe Jesus Christ lived and died and rose from the dead?  Yes.  And you know as well as I do that they're not Christians.  That's not uncommon.  They possess a dead faith.

I remember a song we used to sing as a little kids in church, "Only believe, only believe."  And I've often thought about that song.  Now wait a minute, is that all there is?

Nicodemus believed before he came to Christ