Some years ago, a cousin of mine who is a believer was trying to encourage my mother to go to church. She did so by repeatedly telling my mother that it is not difficult at all and all that my mother had to do was to just believe. She also added that there was nothing else that needed to be done but to receive the love of God and dwell in His blessings. Nothing was mentioned about the need to be baptised into Christ’s death for the remission of sins in order to be added into the Lord’s church (Acts 2:38, 41). Nor was there anything mentioned about the need to demonstrate one’s faith through works and actions. All that was said was you just needed to believe and subsequently enjoy the blessings and love of God.
In his epistle, the apostle James asked two questions - “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him” (James 2:14)? In the following verses that follow these two questions, James answered them in his exhortation about the importance of faith and works, and that faith without works is dead. It is necessary for us to remember that James had earlier written in James 1:27 that “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world”. He had also written about the sin of partiality in the earlier part of Chapter 2. As such, James is saying that there needed to have a proper demonstration and manifestation of what true religion is.
There is a need for the demonstration of faith (James 2:14-19) beyond just saying one has that faith. Action speaks louder than words, and so there is a need to put whatever that is said into action, otherwise it is just empty talk. We remember how the Lord told Simon Peter that he would deny Him three times but Peter rejected what Jesus said. It turned out that Jesus’ words were true, that Peter denied Jesus after the arrest of Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75). Although Peter acknowledged Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), yet he denied Christ at a time when He was arrested and falsely accused. James was making the point that faith must be put into action. If someone comes to us and says that he has some financial need, do we tell him that we will pray for him that things will get sorted out and turn for the better as time progresses, but yet not extend financial help to him although it is within our means to do so? This is definitely not faith in action. There must be some concrete action to address that particular need expressed by the person. Thus there is a warning about having good intentions or good thoughts but not going beyond and doing anything.
James said that “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone” (James 2:17). A young Christian may start off being very zealous about working for the Lord and then gradually, that zeal may die off. He may thus no longer be very concerned in submitting in obedience to God after that, which could eventually result in him not doing what is right at all. Sometimes, those who have a dead faith will replace work with words. They may know the scriptures well and what verse to use in any circumstance. However, whatever they say will not meet with approval from God as they have replaced works with their words. It will not be any use if one has faith but not works. Yes, it is true that faith saves (Luke 7:50) but James said that it is impossible for someone to show his faith without works. We cannot believe someone who says that he or she is a person of great faith but yet who has no works to justify that great faith. James continued to add that even as we believe that there is one God, the devils also believe so and tremble (James 2:19). There are indeed some things that the devils do which include praying (Matthew 5:10), having the knowledge about God and Christ (Matthew 8:29), having faith and confessing Christ (Luke 4:34). However, these devils or demons do not show signs of repentance nor seek to do the will of God. The question to ask ourselves then is if we want to have a faith which is similar to that of the devil.
We will continue exploring this topic about a working faith in next week’s issue.