St. James on justification by works

Hi Zule,

You asked a good question on Good Friday.

What we ‘do’ does not count towards our salvation.

Only what Jesus Christ ‘did for us’ by His sinless life, His shed blood on the cross, and His glorious resurrection from the dead was able to pay the just penalty that our sins deserve. He did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

There is nothing we can do to add to that to earn any part of our salvation.

However, what we ‘do’ is important as the necessary evidence of our faith. If we are saved, we will follow our Lord and obey His teachings out of love. Those who are saved are led by the Holy Spirit. They hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow Him.

We are saved to DO good works, we are not saved BY our good works.

Good works are the FRUIT of our salvation, never the ROOT of our salvation.

You quoted Mt 7:21-23:

>>21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'<<

What is the will of the Father? What works must we do, to do the works God requires?

This is answered in John 6:28-29

>>Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"
Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." John 6:28-29<<

The work we are required to do is to believe in Jesus Christ.

However, it is important to note that there are two kinds of ‘belief’. One is mere intellectual assent, whereby people simply ‘acknowledge’ that God exists, but they don’t have true saving faith. They don’t look to Christ as the Lord of their life. The Bible teaches that even the devil ‘believes’ God exists, but he certainly isn’t saved. The verse you quoted is a grave warning to all of us that there will be some 'professing' Christians that will find out that they never really knew our Lord when they stand before Him.

The second kind of belief is true saving faith. True saving faith is trusting in Christ ALONE and what HE did for us to get us into heaven, not trusting in our own works of righteousness in any way to get us into heaven.

Zule, the Good News we are joyously celebrating this joyous weekend is that Jesus Christ paid it all. The Bible alone sufficiently reveals that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone—to God alone be the glory!


>>For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Eph 2:8-10<<

>>I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." Romans 1:16-17<<

>>He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." Acts 16:31<<

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The second verse you listed from James was also excellent to study. I’ll let Joe Mizzi answer that one at the link below. I am in agreement with him.

I will also post a bit from Martyn Lloyd Jones on Mt 7:21-23 next.

St. James on justification by works