Is faith without works dead or is faith enough without works?

Question

1. In the book of Romans 3:28 the apostle Paul says that a man is not justified by the deeds (works or obeying) the law but by faith alone.
James 2:14,17-18, 20 says that faith without works is dead.
Can someone please explain the two different views.

2. Ro. 4:1-2 states that Abraham's faith was counted as righteousness. But he didn't just believe what God said to him, he acted upon that. Is this not works to indicate that he believed what God said?

3. Ro. 4:20 says that Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith...
What would you consider him lying about his relationship with his wife as; or him giving in to her suggestion to sleep with Hagar to produce child as?

Why do we call Him God, and will we continue to call Him that when we discover His true name? This question came up as a result of studying Ps. 105:1 O give thanks unto the LORD; call upon his name: make known his deeds among the people.



:1b ...call upon his name;... The original meaning of this phrase is call (Him) by His name, i.e, call Him by the name that describe His divine perfections, or more specifically, call him by His name Yahweh.



Our heavenly Father has a name, and God is not one of them.

Answer 1

This is perhaps the most important question in all of Christian theology. This question is the cause of the Reformation - the split between the Protestant church and Catholic church. This question is a key difference between Biblical Christianity and most of the "Christian" cults. Is salvation by faith alone, or by faith plus works? Am I saved just by believing in Jesus, or do I have to believe in Jesus and do certain things?

The question of faith alone or faith plus works is made difficult by some hard-to-reconcile Bible passages. Compare Romans 3:28, 5:1 and Galatians 3:24 with James 2:24. Some see a difference between Paul (salvation is by faith alone) and James (salvation is by faith plus works). In reality, Paul and James did not disagree at all. The only point of disagreement some people claim is over the relationship between faith and works. Paul dogmatically says that justification is by faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9) while James appears to be saying that justification is by faith plus works. This apparent problem is answered by examining what exactly James is talking about. James is refuting the belief that a person can have faith without producing any good works (James 2:17-18). James is emphasizing the point that genuine faith in Christ will produce a changed life and good works (James 2:20-26). James is not saying that justification is by faith plus works, but rather that a person who is truly justified by faith will have good works in his life. If a person claims to be a believer, but has no good works in his life – then he likely does not have genuine faith in Christ (James 2:14, 17, 20, 26).

Paul says the same thing in his writings. The good fruit believers should have in their lives is listed in Galatians 5:22-23. Immediately after telling us that we are saved by faith, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9), Paul informs us that we were created to do good works (Ephesians 2:10). Paul expects just as much of a changed life as James does, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)! James and Paul do not disagree on their teaching on salvation. They approach the same subject from different perspectives. Paul simply emphasized that justification is by faith alone while James put emphasis on the fact that faith in Christ produces good works.

Recommended Resource: Faith Alone: The Evangelical Doctrine of Justification by R.C. Sproul.

Answer 2

Luke 6:45 The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks...

What a person says or does, for that matter, are just manifestations of the abundance within a person at a given moment.

In many ways, the faith verses deeds debate stems from the contradictory teachings of Paul to the other biblical authors. One reason is that when the catholics put the bible together back in the 4th century, they took scriptures from different sect or 'denominations'.

Paul continually says that man shouldn't follow the 'old ways' or the 'old laws' instead resting their 'faith' on 'Jesus'. Which is in contradiction to the teachings of 'jesus' who repeated says to uphold the old laws.

Mat 19:17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.”

Mat 5:18-19 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven...

One of the reasons for this contradiction is that if the followers of paul start looking at the 'old laws' they find that pretty much every tenent of Christianity is listed as an abominaiton to god.

Hosea 13:2 Human Sacrifice as a sin offering---ABOMINATION

Jeremiah 32:35 Offering up such sacrifice on HIGH PLaces, like Mt. Calvary---another ABOMINATION

Leviticus 7:22 Eating of Blood, Communion---another ABOMINATION

Deut 13/ Matt 23:15 Converting People--ABOMINAITON

Deuteronomy Chapter 13 deals with 'false prophets'. Basically, a 'false prophet' is a person that preaches that you don't have to follow the 'laws of god' and advocates an OTHER god, like Paul does with 'Jesus'.

As far as the name of god, there are several differrent traditions and groups that claim different names to be 'truth'. One should note though that at the time period, it was considered blasphemous to write the name of god unless you were bringing the attention of god upon them to 'bear witness'.

In the older scriptures, the authors would use 'representatives' for the name of god. In the OT scriptures, names like Adonai, Jehovah, Elohim, even YHWH are used by various authors as REPRESENTATIVES of the name of god.

Answer 3

1) I admit I've struggled with that, but here's what I finally figured out. Paul was talking about doing good deeds like the Boy Scouts. He was saying that just because you go out and do good deeds all the time doesn't mean that you have faith. James was talking to a different group that believed that all you have to do is sit around and have faith. You don't have to do anything else, just sit. James' answer was "prove it". Here's an example of what he was talking about: two people believe that God will give them the money to buy property for a church. Person number one just sits around, waiting for money to land in his/her lap. Person number two goes out, finds a piece of land and puts a down payment on it, trusting that God will provide the rest. Now, who really had faith that God would provide? Person number two, because that person went ahead and bought land. Person number one didn't trust God enough to step out in faith to buy the land. BTW, James did not say you had to do works in order to be saved, you just need to act on that faith to show others (and yourself) that you do indeed have faith.

2) That’s correct. Remember Abraham going to sacrifice Isaac? He had faith that God would somehow save Isaac because God had already told Abraham that Isaac would be the heir to his blessing. Abraham trusted God enough that he went through with the sacrifice; in fact, an angel had to stop him from actually killing Isaac.

3) The verse doesn't say that Abraham wasn't human. Yes, he half-lied about his relationship with Sarah (she WAS his half-sister), and it was a big judgment error on his part. As for Hagar, in those days, if a woman's handmaiden and husband bore a child together, it was considered the woman's child, not the handmaiden's kid. I would say it was less of a lack of faith and more of a "OK God, hurry up now!" type thing. Once again, Abraham was only human.

4) The tradition stems from the Israelite exile into Babylon. One of the reasons that God exiled them was because they used His name in vain. They were saying "as surely as YHWH lives", then either making a vow they had no intention of keeping or making a vow to do something evil. When the Israelites came back from Babylon, they sat down and looked at God's laws and wrote up a bunch more laws to make absolutely sure no one could even come close to breaking God's laws. (These were the traditions of the elders that Jesus kept breaking.) One of the laws that they made was that no one was allowed to say YHWH any more. They substituted Adoni (Lord) instead. When they finally added vowels to the OT text, they put the vowels for Adoni every where they found YHWH to remind people to say Adoni instead. That's why we have LORD in English translations and where we got the word Jehovah (mix of the consonants from YHWH and the vowels from Adoni, originally found in German texts).

BTW: God was called God long before He gave Moses the privilege of using His name, which is another reason why we still call Him God.

Answer 4

This is a complex question...
But I do think it is reasonable to infer that faith and being born again will lead a person on a path of righteousness. If one is baptized and leads an outrageously sinful life, wouldn't it be reasonable to infer their faith was based in deception? Man is by nature weak, and even the strongest in faith fail at times. But, being strong in faith, we rebound and return to God with a sorrowful heart seeking forgiveness and healing.

I think "faith without works is dead" means if a man claims to be Christian but is not outwardly living the Christian life of goodness and charity is being deceptive about their faith.

Answer 5

The Bible teaches that faith in Jesus developes good works towards others. A faith that does not develop good works is a dead faith.

Answer 6

The Greek of John 3:16 points that eternal life is based not on faith, but as one bible commentator stated 'living faith'

In other words 'true faith' like love is alive.

Both causes a person to do things.

The faith Jesus had in his Father, caused him to come to the earth, and die for mankind.

Where would we be today if Jesus had just sat back and said, "Yes, Father I believe in you." James said the demons do that.

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Answer 7

I am one of very few Christians who have been convinced that James was as wrong about salvation as a Christian can get. I am in a minority by saying so, but I don't care, the truth is the truth. James belongs in the cannon as much as Judith.

James didn't understand something, which I find is inherit in most legalists: a lack of understanding as to the workings and power of the Holy Spirit.
So James does two things in his Epistle and his actions in Acts 15 and 21:
1) He proves that he is a Legalist,
2) Loudly proclaims an errant teaching of the Gospel message, and his lack of understanding as to the workings of God's Spirit through His saints.

So faith without works is not faith for one thing, and faith in God through Christ brings the ONLY kind of works that have eternal implications. It is the ONLY condition from which a person is capable of doing a work which has eternal implications.

James understood none of that.

Answer 8

Its a poor kind of faith that doesn't result in good deeds. Remember the words of Jesus: "Clean the inside of the cup and the outside will be clean as well." and "By their fruit you shall know them" A good person does good things because of the good stored up in his heart. See to it that you aren't like the pharisees and aren't doing good things just to impress people. Good deeds should flow from a strong faith.

Answer 9

faith without works = dead .

biblically , faith is the thing that get you saved , and that works itself doesnt get you saved.

but you must know that to prove your faith is true , you would have to show good works to prove it.
else it's nothing but lip service.

think of this , a cinema ticket is the thing that get you into a theatre . however if you aren't wearing any clothing , i cant let you enter.

thus , if you must wear clothes + ticket to enter my theatre right ? it's not the clothes that get you in , but i need to see you wear it to enter.

and ya there are also verse indicating non-believer can get saved too . as usual , not mention anywhere

Answer 10

They're tied together. The problem is we get it backwards. We do works thinking it's our faith. Our faith should create a desire within us to do the works.

Eph 2:8-10