Faith and works

About good works, faith and salvation James 2:14 tells us:

James 2:14 

“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him?”

Many brothers are perplexed with this passage, thinking that James contradicts Paul, who so many times said that a man is saved and justified freely, without any works, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection (see the articles: “Righteousness and the Bible” and “Saved and righteous by faith”) Something that we need to make clear right from the beginning is that the Word of God never contradicts itself. What is usually happening, and is happening also with this passage, is a problem of understanding what the Word of God tells us. The purpose of this article is to help the reader in the understanding of this passage of James 2 as well as to give him a more complete view about salvation.

Faith and works: he who has true faith he will also have works.

Starting from the first part of James 2:14, we see that James is speaking for “someone that says he has faith”. The verbal expression of one’s faith i.e. If someone says he has faith, is not enough to save him. In fact, Paul tells us the same too, in Romans 10:9-10, where we read:

“if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

For somebody to be saved what is required is real faith, faith from the heart. Such faith the Word of God means when it speaks about faith. Faith that is simply in the mouth, i.e. does not exist in the heart is not real faith. As the Lord said: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). The confession of faith is meant to be a confession that comes from a heart that has believed. Otherwise it is a fake confession. If therefore as James 2 says “someone says he has faith”, two things may happen:

His confession is genuine i.e. what he says is true, or what he says is not genuine i.e. though he says that he has faith he actually does not have. Let’s get the first case, the case of a genuine confession. This confession being genuine is a confession of the faith that is already in the heart. In this case natural consequence of this faith is the fruit, the works. To say it differently: though the works do not precede salvation and faith (i.e. we are not saved through works), they are however natural consequence of salvation, they are coming as a fruit, as a result of the faith present in the heart. As the Lord said:

Luke 6:43-45 

“a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”