Faith and Works; Eternal Life and Eternal Death. Matthew 25:31-46

We are continuing our study in Matthew 25:31-46, the passage that is known as the judgment of the sheep and the goats, and want to focus on this question that arises out of this passage on the connection between faith and works. Before we begin, I want to read to you a quote I ran across yesterday. This was a statement that was made by Sir Lancelot Andrews who was considered the second most brilliant man in the British Empire in the early 1600s. The man who was considered the most brilliant was a man named Usher. You have read in the middle column of the Scofield reference Bible of the Bible Ushers Chronology. He was the Archbishop of Ireland and he was actually brilliant, spoke a number of different languages, and many people don't really know much about him other than that they think, Well who is this idiot who thought that the earth was created in 4004 BC. Well he was considered the most brilliant man of his generation. Sir Lancelot Andrews was considered to be second to him and was the chief editor and translator of the King James Version. Part of his responsibility at one time was as the preacher for the Court of St. James. So it was the court of King James of England who was his congregation.

He has a number of interesting and insightful quotes, is a brilliant writer and master of the English language, and I ran across this yesterday because it is something we all need to be reminded of every now and then as we are part of a congregation that focuses on the teaching of God's Word, and that we put an emphasis on the importance of studying and learning and knowing God's Word—very different from many congregations today that seek the popular, seek that feel-good, seek to go to churches where they are motivated.

Five hundred years ago, Lancelot Andrews said: "It is not our task to preach what people wish to hear, but what one day in some sad future they will wish that they had heard." Teaching the Word of God is not always something that is accepted that is pleasant, that is a feel-good experience; but it is the truth that we need to learn to conform to and to live our lives by.

As we come to this judgment passage it raises certain questions, and one of those is this question of the relationship of faith and work; something that is very misunderstood today. At this judgment on the Gentiles at the end of the Tribulation period Jesus makes the statement that all the Gentiles will be gathered before Him, the Son of Man:

Matthew 25:32-45 ^NASB "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me {something} to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me {something} to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You {something} to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, {even} the least {of them,} you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me {nothing} to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’"

That passage is frequently quoted, as I understand, because several people informed me of this after last week that that is quoted at every Roman Catholic funeral. It is quoted in many other denominational funerals as well, because there are many people who think that this is the gospel; that if you do not take care of the sick and the poor; if you are not feeding the hungry of the world then you will not go to heaven. And it is used as a threat; it is used to intimidate people to give money, and it is used in many cases to be the so-called Christian rationale for socialism, for social justice, for feeding the poor; all of these things. Not that some of those things, such as taking care of those who are going through difficult times, being compassionate and generous; that has nothing to do with this passage.

That's not talking about the poor people, the destitute people, or the lower socio-economic groups of the world; that is talking about something very different. In fact, this socialist view that has come to be the dominant view today is the minority view throughout church history. But there are other views that are equally erroneous.

I am taking time to work our way through this a little bit so we understand what is Jesus is teaching us here. Last time I had these six questions we were going to look at: the review question, number one; secondly, the connection to the previous three parables. Before this there are three parables; this is not a parable. It has specific individuals named: the Son of Man, the only metaphor that used here is that of the sheep and the goats, but after the initial reference there they are treated as individual human believers, so it's not parabolic at all. Third, what's the significance of Son of Man? That is a term for the Messiah who comes to take his kingdom on the earth. And so this is talking about a future time when He comes to establish His kingdom on the earth which will then last a thousand years, the end of which will see the great white throne judgment which is described at the end of Revelation chapter 20. So this is a distinct judgment.

He will come when He comes at the end of the Tribulation to establish His kingdom and sit up on His throne in a literal geophysical kingdom centered in Jerusalem, a Jewish kingdom with a Jewish Messiah who is ruling the world. That is so crucial to understand.

Then we got to the fifth question. So what I want to try to do now is to look a little bit at the context and understand a little bit more about what Jesus meant by "the least of these my brethren".

Secondly, to address the question, what is the gospel? A lot of people are confused today about the gospel. Those who take this as a gospel passage or saying that we are saved by works, we are saved by social action, we are saved by social justice, saved by helping people. Is that the gospel?

Third, what is the relationship then between faith and works? Because there are a lot of people who say there is this necessary connection between genuine belief that works itself out in certain overt works, and if the works aren't there you don't really have genuine faith, and so the reason these sheep are saved and enter into the kingdom is because they have the right kind of works that validate their faith, and so they have saving faith. Is that what this is talking about?

Fourth, we have to understand how the sheep became become righteous, because in verse 37 they are then identified as the righteous—"then the righteous will answer them". So the sheep are sheep because they are righteous, not because they did good deeds. How do we become righteous in the sight of God?

And then there is the punishment aspect that comes at the end: we talk about those who are consigned to eternal fire. And in verse 46 they will go to everlasting punishment but the righteous into eternal life. And there are folks who have problems with this. This just sounds so terrible and so harsh that God would consign people to eternal, never-ending fire because they have rejected the gospel, and yet that is taught throughout Scripture.

And then there are the implications for us. So, a quick reminder. The question is, what is the sign of your coming? The PAROUSIA, when He would come in His kingdom. And so this whole passage, all of Matthew 24 and 25, the upper room discourse, is Jesus answering the question about what it will be like when He comes to establish His kingdom. Now that coming is at the end of the Tribulation. It is not the rapture, which is when the church of God's people today, where there is no distinction between Jew and Gentile—anyone who believes in Jesus is a member of the church—are taken to be with Him in heaven. First Thessalonians chapter 4 says that the dead in Christ will rise first and we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds and thus we shall ever be with the Lord. That comes before the Tribulation. So he's answering questions related to that future time.

He talks about how "the least of these my brethren" are treated. That is at the very center of the interpretation of this of this particular passage. In verse 40 we read, "And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren'."

I have pointed out that the term "my brethren" in Matthew, and how Matthew uses the term, how Jesus uses the term, is to refer to his literal physical brothers; those who were actually His half-brother's in His humanity. They were the sons (and there were also daughters) that were born to Mary and Joseph following the birth of Jesus. Because Jesus is the firstborn He is born of a virgin conception and birth, but Mary does not remain a virgin. She begins to have relation with her husband and then she has other brothers and sisters. Now that's the literal meaning of the term.

But another term that you see here is "the least", and this is used in passages that refer to the disciples. So He is talking about his physical brethren, which would relate to those who are genetically related to him in terms of his immediate family, but also to those who were Jewish, but the term least of these is a term that is used to describe the describe the disciples. So when you put them together this is talking not just about treating Jews in the Tribulation (and you will hear some people limit it to that), it is talking about the treatment of Jewish believers. Jews will come under intense persecution and assault by the Antichrist in the second half of the Tribulation as he attempts to completely destroy and eradicate all Jews from the earth. Why does he want to do that? He wants to do that because he is empowered by Satan, and Satan knows that if that if he can prevent God from fulfilling his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and if he can prevent God from fulfilling the promise of giving the Jewish people the land, restoring them to the land and establishing a kingdom, then he can win the war against God. And so Satan is seeking to destroy the Jewish people and all anti-Semitism is a product of satanic thought and opposition to the plan and the purpose of God.

So the Jewish people, whether they're believers or not, are still God's chosen people, even though during this church age they are out of the land—they are in what is called the Diaspora; they are in under punishment, under divine discipline. But in the Tribulation they are going to be the refocused part of God's plan. God will be returning them to the land and there will be a huge response to the gospel among the Jews. But they will come under persecution, and that's what we see when we look at verse 35: "I was hungry and you gave me food". Now He is not himself, He is talking about "If you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." These Jewish believers are going to be hungry, they are can be thirsty, they are not going to have water, the basics of food and water. They are going to be strangers, wandering; they are going to be public enemy number one. Gentile believers are going to have the opportunity to hide them, much as Christians and even many non-Christians during the time of the third Reich in Europe hid Jews who were under assault by the Nazis.

They are referred to as the righteous among the Gentiles. If you go to the Holocaust Memorial and in Jerusalem there is an avenue at the museum walkway lined with trees, and those trees are dedicated to people like Oskar Schindler and Corrie Ten-boom, and many others who risked their lives to save Jews from the gas chambers of Auschwitz. If they were caught hiding or protecting a Jew, not only would they immediately lose their life but their whole family. All of their friends and extended relatives would all lose their lives.

Would we be willing to do that? Would we be willing to hide a Jewish person or Jewish family in our home if we knew that everybody that we were related to would be killed for our decision if we were caught? That's what takes real courage. This is going to be mirrored in a much greater level during this time of the Tribulation. And so this description of these is a description of what will be taking place in terms of the persecution of Jewish believers in the Tribulation period. Naked: they have no clue, shelter, clothing, anything. They are sick as a result of that, and they are in prison. Jesus describes them, and this indicates the level of persecution and torture for Jewish background believers during the Tribulation period.

And yet there is praise for those who will give one of them just a cup of cold water. We see that this is this idea of the little ones, as disciples, as seen in verses like Matthew 10:42. Remember Jesus use the analogy of a little child to picture the humility of a disciple. He only used that illustration to begin with, and from that point on little child doesn't refer to the physical little child in front of him anymore. It refers to the disciple who has become humble, who has recognize that his life is of no consequence, it's the service to the Lord that is significant. That's the point of the analogy here because a little child in that culture had no value and no significance. It wasn't just that the children were better seen and not heard; they were better not seen and not heard. It's not a recognition that they're inherently humble, it's that they have no social standing in the culture, and a disciple is someone who is not concerned about his social standing.

Remember what the question was, who's going to be the greatest of us in the kingdom? They were all about who's going to be sitting in Jesus, left-hand and right-hand when He comes in his kingdom. And Jesus says no, you have to be like a little child. Then after that He uses the term "little child" to refer to a disciple who has that mental attitude. So Matthew 10:42, whoever gives one of these "little ones"—He's talking about a disciple. So this term refers to disciple in Matthew 18 verse 6, 10 and 14, "whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin". That's talking about a disciple who has that correct mental attitude. Matthew 18:10, "take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones". He is not talking about despising children; He is talking about despising a truly humble disciple.

Matthew 18:14, "Even so, it's not the will of your Father is in heaven that one of these little ones …" He's talking about disciples. When Jesus takes this word and combines it … the word that is used there is the comparative, the word that used here is the superlative of that word. If you know Greek you're going to say, well that's not the same word. It's like the difference between good and best. You can't see how they're connected. But best is the superlative of good. The words don't look like they are the same but they actually are.

So Jesus is talking about how disciples, Jewish believers, are treated by Gentiles.

That brings up the next question. What is the gospel? Because we would think that well, the Gospels believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, and works on involved at all. Isn't that what the gospel says? What's going on here? This is what confuses a lot of people. We have to understand there are three gospels—basically the same, but it depends on the dispensation because there are slight differences. Salvation Scripture is always by faith alone in the promise of God. But the promise of God changes from dispensation to dispensation. What we have in the first gospel is the gospel of the Old Testament. The gospel of the Old Testament focused on a future provision of salvation. It's depicted in the sacrificial system, the Levitical system: it is pictured in Passover, it's pictured in many other types and foreshadowing's in the Old Testament, that the Messiah would come and he would pay the penalty for sin. So it's a faith in the future promise of God to provide complete salvation for my sins and his promise of the Messiah. And as more revelation came along down through the centuries then that picture of the Messiah became a little more in focus and you come to the time of Isaiah 53, and you get a picture of the suffering servant who would justify many. It becomes much more clear than perhaps it was at an earlier time.

Then you have the arrival of Jesus. Jesus comes on the scene and His the forerunner to His ministry is John the Baptist John the Baptist doesn't preach believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. What does he preach? Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So it's a message that is focusing on the coming of the Messiah who will save us from our sins, but that now includes the idea that he is coming to present to establish his kingdom. It is the gospel of the kingdom. So what is the kingdom? The kingdom is the promised Davidic kingdom that would be fulfilled by the greater son of David who is the Messiah. And so it is a focus on the fulfillment of the promise of a Jewish king, a Jewish kingdom, and the Messiah who would provide complete and total redemption. That is what person's understanding was at that time.

Jesus had the same message in Matthew 4:23. After John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. That verse is virtually repeated word for word in Matthew 9:35 a little later on. So the first part of Jesus mood ministry is teaching them "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand".

Mark says it this way, "After John was put in prison Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel". It's related to that immediate offer of the kingdom. Now what happened? The Pharisees rejected the offer of the kingdom, so it was postponed. It was taken from them and it's not here yet. It will not come until Jesus comes in His glory at the end of the Tribulation period. But the Tribulation period is going to be a lot like that period before the cross. It is a focus on the Jewish people and the coming of their Messiah, who is a descendent of David. It's a Jewish Messiah presenting a Jewish kingdom that is going to be a geopolitical kingdom with its with the throne of the Son of Man in Jerusalem.

So this is the kingdom, and in Matthew 24:14, which is in our context of the Olivet discourse, Jesus is talking about how the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations—notice, to all the Gentiles. The gospel of the kingdom is preached in all the world as a witness to all the Gentiles. This is what's happening in the first half of the Tribulation. Revelation chapter 6 tells us 144,000 Jews are saved, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes. There will also be the two witnesses that appear that are in the power of Moses and Elijah and they will go forth, and their message is the message of the kingdom to the Gentiles. There's a Jewish Messiah coming. He's going to establish a Jewish kingdom. It will be centered in Jerusalem, which is the capital the in-store capital of Israel. It's all Jewish. You want to get saved? You have got to accept a Jewish Messiah, and He is coming for a Jewish kingdom that will be ruled from Jerusalem. It's a package understanding. It's a little different content. It is still faith alone in Christ alone, but the content that is reemphasized is that He is coming to establish this Jewish kingdom.

Now the gospel of the church age is minus that kingdom emphasis because it's not about to come. It's not being offered today. We have passage of passages like Ephesians 2:8, 9 "For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God". It's a free gift; you take it. If you can lose it, it's not a gift. If it can be taken from you by the person who gave it to you it's not a gift. It is a free gift, not as a result of works, that no one should boast. Titus 3:5, he saved us, not on the basis of works which we have done in righteousness, "but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration renewal by the Holy Spirit". And then in Romans 1:16, Paul says, but if it is by grace, that is, if salvation is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, that is, out from works. Otherwise he says, grace is no longer grace. So these three passages, among many others separate works from faith, and it's just something that is totally different.

What we learn from this is the gospel, by which people are saved in the Tribulation period is the gospel of the kingdom. And that gospel of the kingdom focuses on a Jewish messianic kingdom that will have a Jewish king, a descendent of David, and a Jewish throne in Jerusalem. It's all Jewish.

So what is your response going to be to a Jewish believer? If you understand that this is what you're anticipating, this is what you waiting for, this is what you think is about to happen, how are you going to treat Jews? Are you going to be anti-Semitic? Not at all. See, this isn't a faith plus works kind of thing, it's an understanding of what the nature of the gospel and the message is in the Tribulation period. You're not going to be a believer in Jesus and hate Jews. This just isn't going to happen, because the Jesus that you are understanding about is a Jewish Jesus, because the Jews are the centerpiece of that dispensation.

Again, it's all about salvation and establishing this throne. At the end of Revelation we have this stated: "He showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb". One throne and it's the throne of God and the throne of the Lamb. Before the Lamb was sitting on the Father's throne; by this time He has been given the throne of the Son of Man, and He is on His throne with the Father.

Verse three says, "There shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb …" It's now unified. Up until this point in Revelation it's just the throne of God. It isn't until Jesus comes in His kingdom that it changes to be the throne of God and the throne of the Lamb. The Lamb is the favorite term John uses to refer to Jesus in the book of Revelation. Twenty-seven times he refers to Jesus as the Lamb.

What then is the relationship of faith and works in this passage? They are called the righteous. What's the relationship here? And the righteous do something; they feed the hungry, they give drink to the thirsty, they clothed the naked, and they go visit them in prison. This is the first question we have to ask. There are basically two approaches to justification.

The first view is that where's the view that we believe that we are justified by faith alone. It doesn't involve works. We believe in faith alone in Christ alone. That's a little motto that people have been using for about 25 years to emphasize a free grace salvation. It's faith alone; it's not faith plus works; it's not faith plus anything. All that is needed to be saved is to believe in Jesus only. It is not to believe in Jesus and the church, not to believe in Jesus plus good works, not to believe in Jesus plus anything else; it's faith alone in Christ alone.

But there are many who believe in an upfront works: that we are saved by faith plus something, faith plus be a member of our church, our denomination. There are others who believe that that salvation is based on faith plus baptism, and that if you're not baptized and you're not saved. They call that baptismal regeneration. There are others that will make it that if you don't believe in Jesus and live a certain way. There are some sins that he can commit but other sins that if you commit them then you lose your salvation. Then there's a third group, a much more subtle group, and we usually refer to this as Lordship salvation. That has just become the term for it, it is those who believe that if you have true faith in Christ, then you will live a different life, and the way you know if you have true faith in Christ is by your works. And they will quote Scripture out of context and say by your works they will know you. But Jesus isn't talking about justification at that point, He is talking about knowing whether or not somebody is a false teacher by their works, by what they say, what they teach. The Scripture is clear that it's not as a result of works—Ephesians 2:8-9; Titus 3:5. It's not on the basis of works, Romans 11:6. It's no longer on the basis of works. Works are not part of the equation to determine where our eternal destiny is.

What is the role of works? We are saved, according to Ephesians 2:10, which is usually not ever quoted with Ephesians 2:8, 9. We are saved unto good works. That's a purpose, but it's not to get to know we are saved. How do you know you saved? Are you saved by looking at your life? No, you are saved by the promise of God; your confidence is in the promise of God, the gospel promise. I'm not looking to my works as assurance, or a sign that I'm truly saved.

A passage that we all go to, and I want to spend the rest of the time this morning looking at it, is in James chapter 2. And were going to do a kind of a fly over. I'll just hit the high points. This is a passage that people go through. In my new King James Bible it says faith without works is dead. The implication for many people is if I don't have works then I don't have saving faith. Is that what is going on here? In verses 14-17 we see the basic principle laid out, and what is being taught here is doctrine, and doctrine is a term that means that teaching the instruction of God's Word, and that doctrine without application is useless.

Doctrine is a word that a lot of people use around here and some people use it correctly, some people don't use it correctly. It is a word that was used in the King James version, and it just means teaching, the instruction, which includes not only theology but also application. But you may know a lot. Some people have doctrinal notebooks that kept all their notes from other Bible classes for years and their up on a shelf; but doctrine is designed to be internalized. The instruction of Scripture is to be internalized, and no matter how much we know—and we all know a whole lot more than we apply—

doctrine that isn't applied really doesn't do any benefit to our spiritual life. It doesn't mean that were not saved. That's the point here. What is difficult in reading this in the English—and also it's not always obvious, even if you're reading in the Greek—is that there's an objector that comes along, that that James is going through this making his points, and then he introduces what someone may say is an objection to what he is saying in verse 18 where he says, "But someone will say", and that introduces the words of the objector. People usually just think that's verse 18, but it's actually 18 and 19 that is the voice of the objector. And then James comes back to make his point in verses 20-26.

The objector is saying, look, doctrine is all you need; you don't need application. All you need is to know what God's Word says, and you are okay. James' point is all that you are just learning a lot, but it doesn't do you any good spiritually unless you apply it in your life. And then there are two illustrations given in verses 20-26. Abraham and Rahab are the two different illustrations and it's talking about applying doctrine. But there it uses the terminology of justification and we will look at that briefly.

So this is the layout here. James starts off with this question: "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but he has no works. Can that faith save him?"

We have to understand the terms here. First of all he is talking to believers. He calls them "my brethren" again and again and again in the epistle he addresses them as my brethren. Their salvific status, their position in Christ, is not in question. The issue is they are not applying the Word, and he raises this question: What use is it if someone says he has faith? The word faith here is standing for what is believed. You can say, I am of the Methodist faith; I am of the Presbyterian faith; I am of the Roman Catholic faith. We use the word faith many times to talk about that which we believe.

So you say, if a man says that he has faith, that is, that he believes certain things that he has doctrine, he has the teaching of Scripture, but he has no works; what he means by works isn't Christian service, its application. That's what James 1:18, all the way down through this section is all about. He is critical of the person who hears, but doesn't do. That's what he talks about the first part of this section from James 1:18-27. You need to not only hear the Word but also do the Word. That means to apply what you hear. He is carrying that on in this section, but now instead of hearing and doing is talking about hearing or faith, what you have heard and say you believe, and your application, what you do with it. Can that faith save him?

Now the word saved is used three different ways in Scripture. It is used a lot of nonreligious ways, such as healing, or being delivered from a difficult situation; but in some passages like Ephesians 2:8, 9 it talks about being saved from the penalty of sin. And that's how we often think of it. We say: Are you saved? And we mean, are you going to go to heaven when you die? Are you justified by faith alone in Christ alone? Then the word saved is often used of our spiritual life: being saved from the power of sin in our life today. We are saved from the penalty of sin when we trust Christ as Savior, but spiritual life is a growth process where we are saved from the power of sin. In that sense I was saved yesterday; I'm being saved today; I'm being saved tomorrow; I will be saved tomorrow. It is used that way. Then it is used when we are ultimately saved from the presence of sin, when we go to be with the Lord.

When James asked his question, he says, can that faith save him? Is he talking about faith to get into heaven? Why would he need to do that? They are already saved in phase 1; they are brethren. He is asking the question: Can that faith provide spiritual growth for them? If all you do is learn a lot about the Bible and you have doctrinal notebooks that line up shelves but you're not applying it, he is saying, can that kind of faith sanctify you? Can that kind of faith provide spiritual growth for you if you are not applying the Word. He says as a paraphrase, what spiritual benefit is it, my brethren, if someone claims to have doctrine but he does not apply it, can that doctrine deliver him from the destructive and deadly consequences of sin on a day-to-day basis? That's the question now.

Then he gives an illustration. He says if a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them go in peace, be warm, be filled and yet you don't help them, you don't give what is necessary for the body, what use is that kind of Christianity?

This is a passage that validates that it's part of our spiritual life, our love for the brethren, to help those who are in difficult times. It is similar to what Jesus is saying in Matthew 25:35, 36 about how Gentile believers helped their Jewish brethren who are under intense persecution during the Tribulation period. James says that if you have a faith that doesn't help others, it's dead.

If you're driving on the highway… the first time I developed this I was living up in Connecticut. I'm never seen it anywhere else but you get into the spring time and all these critters are coming out of hibernation. And if you have lived up north Pennsylvania, Michigan, anywhere like that, you see that they are disoriented. They get disoriented out into the highway and I've never seen as much road-kill in my life as I would see in Connecticut in the spring. But whether it was a dead raccoon, or whether it was a dead possum or whatever it was that was dead, there's one thing you could say about every one of those critters: it used to be alive. A dead faith is not a nonexistent faith; a dead faith is a faith that is no longer living, which means at one time it was a living faith and they were saved and living out their salvation. So it's not saying that they're not saved because they don't have works, it saying that their once-living faith is now non-operational and it's not of any value to them. It's not benefiting them in their spiritual growth.

So this objector comes along. He's using a debater's technique and he says: Well somebody's going to come along and say, "Well, look, you have faith and I have works. You show me your faith without the works and I will show you my faith by my works". Basically what he is saying is there's no connection between faith and application. And he's arguing to James and says no, it doesn't matter if you have doctrine or you works it's all the same, there's no connection between the two; you're just making a false point.

And then he uses an illustration. He says, "You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe…" You hear all kinds of people say, "Well see, the demons believe in God, but they're not saved because they don't have works". It doesn't say anything about salvation here. It's not talking about that, it's talking about the fact that the demons knew who God was, and they knew he was God, and they chose to disobey him. And their belief in God really didn't do them any good because they chose to rebel against him. But this is the voice of the objector; this isn't the voice of James, and he's not talking about salvation.

And then James responds and says, "But you foolish fellow, don't you recognize that faith [doctrine, what you believe] is really of no value without application".

Then he uses an illustration from Abraham. James 2:23 ^NASB "and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS …”

That is Genesis 15:6. That's talking about what Abraham had done before God called him—he had believed in God's promise of a future salvation, and because he believed in God, it was imputed to him as righteousness.

But if you go back and listen to the series I did on Abraham within the Genesis series, from Genesis 12 in Genesis 22, I identified 10 separate tests. There are many more, of course, but those of the 10 tests that are described that are part of Abraham spiritual growth. Now at the beginning of that is when he believes the gospel and its imputed or credited to him as righteousness, and he becomes righteous. He is called the friend of God. But then he is going to be justified again in another sense as a result of what happens in Genesis 22. Genesis 22 is near the end of his life, much, much later, when God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac and he is willing to do that. He now has a mature faith. He has finally understood. God is going to give him a seed, a descendant, and it is going to come through Isaac. And so he says, "Whatever I do (the writer of Hebrews tells us) God is going to raise him from the dead, even if I kill him". Now his faith, his salvation faith, justification faith, is validated by application. So it's a different sense of justification here.

James is not saying that the way we know we are saved is by our works, and that the works, if they're not there we were not really saved. This has nothing to do with what Jesus is saying about treating these Jewish believers under persecution, that what they are being judged for has nothing to do with their response to the gospel; it is just their social action. Now there's more to this will come back and look at that next time.

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