Here is the whole passage:
James 2
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way,** faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead**.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless[d]? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,”[e] and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? 26 As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
I think that faith and works must be connected. True faith produces works. I have always been taught at my “Protestant” churches to live a life of faith – which means trusting in God and therefore worshiping and serving God with my whole life. This whole concept seemed pretty natural and straightforward. I think the confusion can come in when somebody goes too far to one extreme and tries to separate faith and works.
When I read about the system of penances and indulgences at the time before the reformation, I just see an image of a legal balance. On one side of the balance is all of the sins one has accumulated in his life; on the other side is all the good works including penances and indulgences that were earned. When one dies the weights are checked. If the person is a saint, the extra merits can be transferred to others by the form of an indulgence. Most people have more weight on the sin side and they must go to purgatory to make up for the balance of sin remaining. I understand that this system has been reformed, but is still present in some form today. This system seems to reflect a notion where people can work-off their sins by doing good deeds. However, no amount of good deeds can ever remove the stain of sin. The only way sin has ever been removed has been through the shedding of the blood of a sacrifice. If we think we can somehow do enough good deeds to erase our sins, then we seem to be reflecting an understanding that we don’t need Jesus’ sacrifice – we can just be “good enough.” This is clearly not the understanding of the Gospel.
On the other hand, if one defines faith as an occasional insincere verbal affirmation, then we are also mistaken. From verse 19 above we see that even the demons ‘believe’ in God. We need to do more than verbally affirming that we believe in God. We need to put our trust in Him and follow Him wherever He calls. It would be nice if I sent my mom a fancy, sparkly card for Mother’s Day that states that I love her. But if my mom later calls me and asks me to help her, but I decide I would rather watch TV instead of helping her, would it seem that I really love her? If all throughout the year I repeatedly disregard her requests for help, but just send occasional nice sentiments at holidays, would anyone think that I truly love her? This is just an imperfect earthly mother. If we say we love the perfect God and make our faith in Him the first priority in our lives, we would expect to see that reflected in the lives we lead. If we pursue a relationship with God and continually seek Him, our faith will produce evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
I had never had any problem with this passage in James. Living a life of service to God was always something I assumed would be natural for anyone who TRULY puts their faith in God. I think most Christians’ beliefs are somewhere in between the 2 extremes. I think many of us would agree on this more than they realize, despite phrasing it in different ways.
“We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.” - credited to Martin Luther
