Is It Faith or Works? Or Both?

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"18 Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds. 19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?" James 2:18-20

One of the longest standing tensions in the Christian faith is the relationship between faith and works. Remember James was writing Jewish Christians. For Jews who had been taught that obeying the Torah was the only way to have a relationship with Yahweh, the freedom from the law was life changing. But a problem was developing. They minimized the fact that good works flow out of saving faith. They go together like birds of a feather.  

James wrote to Christians from a Jewish background that discovered the glory of salvation by faith. They knew the exhilaration of freedom from works-righteousness. But they then went to the other extreme of thinking that works didn’t matter at all. - Guzik

Here is the most helpful statement I have heard regarding the relationship between faith and works. "We don't do good works to earn God's approval but because we have His approval." Doing good works in an effort to be saved is clearly judged as meaningless by the apostle Paul in Romans, Ephesians, Galatians, and the other books he wrote. 

But here are a couple of verses that remind us that even for Paul good works were essential to living out our Christian faith. 

Ephesians 2:8-9 is his most quoted verse on the doctrine of "Justification by Faith". 

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

But we can't stop there, as Ephesians 2:10 says, 

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

In Galatians, Paul says something similar about faith. "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love." Galatians 5:6

Importantly though, we don't manufacture our works. It is Jesus working in us through the power of the Holy Spirit that results in true good works.  Paul says this about his own Christian life,

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

So what can we conclude? Martin Luther said it the best,

"It is as impossible to separate faith from good works as it is separate the heat and light from fire." 

Click here to read the rest of Luther's teaching on this!

Luther on Faith and Good Works

Is your faith naturally producing good works? If not, what does this say about the quality of your faith? Where is God calling you to step out in faith to do the things he has called you to do? Remember we sin against God not only by the things we do, but the things we don't do!