Why do some, like Chris, not understand, "We are Justified by Grace Through Faith and Works" ?

Question

James 2:24 – compare the verse “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” to Gal. 2:16 – “a man is not justified by works of the law,” and Rom. 3:20,28 – “no human being will be justified in His sight by works of the law.”

James 2:24 appears to be inconsistent with Gal. 2:16 and Rom. 3:20,28 until one realizes that the Word of God cannot contradict itself.

This means that the “works” in James 2:24 are different from the “works of the law in Gal. 2:16 and Rom. 3:20,28.

James is referring to “good works” (clothing the naked; giving food to the poor)

and Paul is referring to the “Mosaic law” (which included both the legal, moral and ceremonial law) or any works which oblige God to give us payment.

Why is it so hard to understand the difference between Works of Law versus Good Works?

We are not “Once Saved, Always Saved”.

We can be believers but believe in vain.

We can receive the grace of God in vain.

We cannot assume salvation. We need to work it out to the end with fear and trembling. If "once saved, always saved" were true, why would the great apostle Paul have to work his salvation out in fear and trembling? What is there to fear if salvation is assured?

Answer 1

You are saved by faith alone. Works are a sign that you are justified. James is talking about sanctification, not justification.

Answer 2

You're interchanging the meanings of "justified" with "saved" and that's not correct.  Salvation is not given to anyone based on anything they do - it is the free gift of God, not by works, that any man should boast.  Salvation is only due to the complete and finished work of Jesus Christ.  Good works do factor in to your final reward, but not for salvation itself.

Answer 3

The thing is, once you are saved, you are to SHOW your salvation by performing good works.  If you have a good relationship with Christ, you will WANT to perform good deeds rather that HAVE TO perform good deeds. The Spirit of God dwelling inside of us  will have up doing good works as EVIDENCE of our salvation.

After all, how can good works make up for sin against God?

Answer 4

Eph. 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

- - - Explain that, Once saved always saved! That's what the Bible says, nothing we could have done and now nothing we can do could get or keep us saved. It is all by the Blood of Christ.

Answer 5

Anyone who believes that works get you into heaven is a fools. You cannot "earn" your way into heaven. The bible says "I am the way the truth and the light. No man cometh to the father except through me"

For god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that WHOSOEVER BELIEVED IN HIM should not perish but will have everlasting life.  Good works come on your own accord.

Answer 6

I understand, it's just nonsense. The Bible is fiction, and God and Jesus are myths.

Answer 7

That's an interesting thought, but that's not what I see in other passages.

Did you notice that James is talking to people ALREADY saved?

James 2:1  My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism.

Those people should do works, BECAUSE they are saved. Faith saves us. Faith also produces works. Works don't do anything to save us though - it's a by-product. This is spelled out nicely here.

Ephesians 2:8-10  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— (9)  not by works, so that no one can boast.  (10)  For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

If we go by what you say, clothing the naked and stuff can help save us from sin. If we do enough of that, Christ did not need to die. What I see in the Bible is that we can't add anything to what Christ did on the cross. Our righteous acts are just filthy rags good for nothing. (Isaiah 64:6)

Here is what Jesus said to those wanting to do works for salvation:

John 6:27-29  Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval." (28)  Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"  (29)  Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

Let's look at the next passage you bring up. Philippians 2:12-13  Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,  (13)  for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Again, Paul is talking about those ALREADY saved. They continue to work, BECAUSE God works in us. God starts to work in us when we are saved by faith. This passage is not talking about losing salvation.

If we are truly saved, we will want to do works. Works are a sign of being saved then, and not a way to become saved.

Answer 8

You are partly right regarding "We are not once saved, always saved."

Yeshua said, "My sheep know My voice and they follow Me."  In other words, we are only His sheep if we follow Him.  And it's possible to fall away from that and become "lost."

But Chris is quite correct that we are saved by God's Grace through faith.  We do good works and good deeds BECAUSE we are saved, not so we will be.

D1

Answer 9

This is to my mind a very weak defense against the heresy of Paul.

Answer 10

Yet again the light shows up the Darkness!

last week a guy said he was saved even though he was having an affair on his wife? that's how far they have sunk into the lie.

And paul also said as long as you share in his suffering.

chris said earlier he was 100% sure he was going to heaven ????

this boggles the mind.So if he doesn,t feed the hungry or give to the poor , it don't matter? like Jesus said beleive in me and do what ever ya like after?

It is nonsensical.

your right in the difference of laws, Jesus gave us new laws, in which he made clear they had to be done. Even the demon's believe in him!

God Bless.

Answer 11

Chris,

Nice to see you again!!!  (Sincere)

"""""""""""""""James isn't talking about salvation from h**l. He's talking about being saved from having no rewards in heaven.""""""""""""""

So, you are saying that Heaven is not Perfect?  We need to do works to get the "Extra Special Room" in heaven?  How can that be?  That assumes that there will be jealousy and greed in Heaven.  

""""""""James addresses already saved believers, and he says so. He's not talking to unsaved people about how to be saved. Works cannot be added to Christ's salvation, and works can't be used as "proof" that anyone is saved. """"""""

We don't need "Proof" of Salvation because we are not to judge the Salvation of others.  Works are outward signs of our Salvation through Jesus Christ, they can also atone for some of our shortcomings on earth.

"""""""Salvation from h**l is only by faith alone. Works don't save. Works are only for rewards in heaven for the already saved. So you're twisting James.""""""""""

Catholics mostly agree on this!  Works don't save by themselves, but, how can you claim to have faith if you are doing no good works?  "By their fruit they shall be known"

Peace and God Bless!

Answer 12

Over the last four hundred years, James 2:14-26 has been one of the most controversial passages in the Bible. It is important for understanding Scripture's teachings on faith, works, and justification.

Protestants have often thought that Catholics appeal to this passage to prove that one must do meritorious works in order to come to God and be forgiven.

Catholic theology claims it is completely impossible to do anything meritorious whatever prior to being justified.

Instead of trying to understand the Catholic view before criticizing it, they have simply repeated malicious falsehoods concerning Catholic teaching--usually ones they heard from the pulpit or on Protestant radio--and at most have skimmed Catholic works looking for snippets to support the rumors they have heard.

It goes wrong in assuming James is criticizing the kind of faith under discussion. This is the common theme of all the hypotheses examined so far. They all incorporate some kind of pejorative reference into the description of the faith--false faith, dead faith, mere intellectual faith.

The tendency to interpret the form of faith James is discussing as a bad faith is so strong in some circles that it has warped the translation of this passage in some major Bible translations.

Since Protestants preach that faith and faith alone does save, the natural inclination is to impugn the kind of faith being discussed here and imply that something is wrong with it.

The meaning of "Works" unfortunately,  James does not give us nearly as much material to work with concerning the meaning of this term as he did the previous one. However, one this is clear: He is not talking about the same kind of works that Paul does when discussing justification in his epistles.

He does not use the phrase "works of the Law," and in any event could not, especially in the Christian age, say that we are justified by intellectual assent and works of the Torah, no matter in what sense the term "justification" is taken. Thus he is not talking about the same type of works Paul is when he discusses justification.

The term "justified" in this text means "justification before God." However, because Protestants have the unbiblical notion that there is only one kind of justification before God this creates a problem for them with the text. James clearly states that man is justified before God by faith plus works in this text, but if the only kind of justification before God that is available (on the Protestant view) is initial justification by which one comes to God then one ends up with the false statement that one is initially justified and has one's sins forgiven by faith plus works.

The Catholic is able to allow the text to flow naturally and recognize that this is a subsequent form of justification, one which applied to Abraham years after he was justified in Genesis 15:6, and still further years after he left Haran by the faith which obtained for him a good report (justification) with God (Heb. 11).

So in this passage James tells us that a Christian is further justified -- that is, he continues to grow in righteousness -- not just by intellectually assenting to the truths of the faith but by doing the good works God's grace leads him into and which God chooses to reward.

This happens to be exactly the sense in which the Council of Trent takes the text  that in James 2:24 we are being told about the growth in righteousness that occurs over the course of the Christian life.

Answer 13

James isn't talking about salvation from h**l. He's talking about being saved from having no rewards in heaven.

James addresses already saved believers, and he says so. He's not talking to unsaved people about how to be saved. Works cannot be added to Christ's salvation, and works can't be used as "proof" that anyone is saved.

Salvation from h**l is only by faith alone. Works don't save. Works are only for rewards in heaven for the already saved. So you're twisting James.

Answer 14

Chris is a fundamentalist Christian.  That says it all, I think.

Answer 15

endemic to the fundemantalism in any religion is that first is a social/political point of view.  Scripture is then "used" to support the "fundamental" pholiosophy.  so indivdivual verses are quoted and twisted from their orginal meaning in order to support the pphilposphy of these groups, however, it is the philopshy social/political that is fundemental, faith and scripture are only useful as they support the philopsophy.  Many fudnemantalist apprea religious becuse some of their fundemantal pholiosphy matches up to thereligion that they use as a smoke screen for their real values.  this is very subtle.  But hte eproof of the pudding comes in questions like you ask, they will absolutely not see the truth even in what tehy propoert to be and the scripture that they use to support their smoke screen religious beleifs, if that truth is counter to their socio/political philosophy which is what is  fundamental.  This makes them dangerous.  Adn the worst kind of hypocrits.  Too many rank and file the differrence and defficiency is so subtle that they do not see it.

This can be contrasted to genuine religion, which takes scripture, history, tradition, the cacctula words of the religious leader and conformis their belif system or pholisosophy to that.  It is the religon, leader, histroy tradition sripture that comes first and the pholisophy is these things.  so, a catholic will not quote scripture out of context and a verse at time in order to support some action or point of view, because we knowthe context and we know that a verse can be twited to support just about anything including the opposite of what jesus actully meant to convey, so we getting into the ccontext the history the intent of our lord which we know from our history of tradition and look at the whole of what Jesus was trying to convey at any given point and not take a verse and hammer people into our ppiont of view or judge them based on a verse or coendem them based on a verse.

What is more all of what the bible means all of what jesus meant has been assimilated into doctrine and this was done years ago.

So, there is no room for altering hte meaning of a veser in orderr to serve a particular socio/political philsosphy.

Answer 16

The Protestant misunderstanding of justification lies in its claim that justification is merely a forensic (i.e., purely declaratory) legal declaration by God that the sinner is now "justified." If you "accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior," he declares you justified, though he doesn’t really make you justified or sanctified; your soul is in the same state as it was before; but you’re eligible for heaven.

A person is expected thereafter to undergo sanctification (don’t make the mistake of thinking Protestants say sanctification is unimportant), but the degree of sanctification achieved is, ultimately, immaterial to the question of whether you’ll get to heaven. You will, since you’re justified; and justification as a purely legal declaration is what counts. Unfortunately, this scheme is a legal fiction. It amounts to God telling an untruth by saying the sinner has been justified, while all along he knows that the sinner is not really justified, but is only covered under the "cloak" of Christ’s righteousness. But, what God declares, he does. "[S]o shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Is. 55:11). So, when God declares you justified, he makes you justified. Any justification that is not woven together with sanctification is no justification at all.

The Bible’s teaching on justification is much more nuanced. Paul indicates that there is a real transformation which occurs in justification, that it is not just a change in legal status. This is seen, for example, in Romans 6:7, which every standard translation—Protestant ones included—renders as "For he who has died is freed from sin" (or a close variant).

Paul is obviously speaking about being freed from sin in an experiential sense, for this is the passage where he is at pains to stress the fact that we have made a decisive break with sin that must be reflected in our behavior: "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?" (Rom. 6:1-2). "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness" (6:12-13).

The context here is what Protestants call sanctification, the process of being made holy. Sanctification is the sense in which we are said to be "freed from sin" in this passage. Yet in the Greek text, what is actually said is "he who has died has been justified from sin." The term in Greek (dikaioo) is the word for being justified, yet the context indicates sanctification, which is why every standard translation renders the word "freed" rather than "justified." This shows that, in Paul’s mind, justification involves a real transformation, a real, experiential freeing from sin, not just a change of legal status. And it shows that, the way he uses terms, there is not the rigid wall between justification and sanctification that Protestants imagine.

According to Scripture, sanctification and justification aren’t just one-time events, but are ongoing processes in the life of the believer. Both can be spoken of as past-time events, as Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 6:11: "But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." Sanctification is also a present, ongoing process, as the author of Hebrews notes: "For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Heb. 10:14). In regard to justification also being an on-going process, compare Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6 with both Hebrews 11:8; Genesis 12:1-4 and James 2:21-23; Genesis 22:1-18. In these passages, Abraham's justification is advanced on three separate occasions.

Scripture teaches that one’s final salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. As Jesus himself tells us, "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Matt. 24:13; cf. 25:31–46). One who dies in the state of friendship with God (the state of grace) will go to heaven. The one who dies in a state of enmity and rebellion against God (the state of mortal sin) will go to h**l.

For many Fundamentalists and Evangelicals it makes no difference—as far as salvation is concerned—how you live or end your life. You can heed the altar call at church, announce that you’ve accepted Jesus as your personal Savior, and, so long as you really believe it, you’re set. From that point on there is nothing you can do, no sin you can commit, no matter how heinous, that will forfeit your salvation. You can’t undo your salvation, even if you wanted to.

Answer 17

The Catholic Church and Her Bible condemn the idea that one can work his way to Heaven on his own merit or that God "owes" a person for doing the right things.

Works have no merit in themselves -- and faith without works is not enough.

We are saved by grace alone -- a grace that we accept neither "by faith alone" nor "by works alone," but "by faith that works in charity" (Galatians 5:6).

Many Protestants tend to see salvation in legal terms: "I believe, therefore, I am saved because that is God's promise to me. As long as I believe, I can't lose my salvation because the terms of the contract are that I simply believe and I will be saved." Catholics see salvation more in terms of kinship, our adoption into God's very family, our becoming, literally, true children of God and inheriting Christ's sonship through Jesus' sacrifice. We see "working out our salvation" as those things we, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are called to do as children of God, in the same way that a child honors an earthly parent -- and we see God's gift of eternal salvation to us as an inheritance from our Father rather than a "pay-off" for having fulfilled a "contract" by a simple assertion of faith.

Each and every deed I do that is pleasing to God is nothing other than the work of Christ active in me through the power of the Holy Spirit. St. Augustine said as a result, "When God rewards my labors, He's merely crowning the works of His hands in my life." As Paul says, "We are not competent of ourselves; our competence is from God who has made us competent." It isn't me but the Holy Spirit in me enabling me to cooperate and operate. So we are justified and made holy by God's grace alone.

Paul is saying that we are saved by grace through faith, but nowhere ever does Paul say "alone." Luther consciously added the word to Romans 3. He, in his translation of the Bible into German, deliberately and knowingly added a word that was not there in the Greek. He thought that it should be and that it was in spirit, but he added it. Justification by faith alone, first defined after 1500 years -- first defined by Luther -- was done so and defended by adding a word to the Bible that was not there.

James is talking about there is not just cooperation of faith and works unto justification. He is talking about those who already are saying, Yes, I'm saved by faith.

But he's telling them that this is a faith that must show itself, must manifest itself in works.  Indeed our works do speak.

in the Catholic tradition, following James and Paul, denounce any works-righteousness, any notion whatsoever that we are justified by works. We are justified by faith, and as James says, we are justified by faith and works, as Galatians tells us, we are justified by faith working in love. Neither circumcision counts for anything, neither uncircumcision, but faith working in love.

Answer 18

People like Chris have swallowed the fundamentalist heresy of "Once saved, always saved, " hook, line, and sinker. The devil has blinded them to the truth that you've explained so well.

That's why they presume upon God's mercy, even as they fall deeper and deeper into lies and falsehood. And to make things even worse, they spew their hatred of  Catholicism, Christ's true Church on earth, which can mislead others to their destruction.

Pray for people like Chris. Anyone with that much hate in their heart can't possibly be following in Christ's footsteps.  

Answer 19

From most of the answers, this seems to be their stumbling block.

In fact they seem not to even read your question or go look up the passages you quoted.

They all kinda remind me of the movie, The Time Machine, where they hear a siren and become in a trance.

Their brains are so brainwashed that they can't even open scipture and read what it really says.

I guess that's why they are coined with the phrase "cherry pickers". They choose only what meets their agenda.....and then pass it on to their flock.

Answer 20

Alright, this is just a speculation... I think he's into some kind of church that has a preacher that spends a lot of time talking rubbish against the Catholic Church. He's trying to assure his flock they are just and righteous. They don't want the parishioners converting to (especially) Catholic. They have to push scripture taken out of context, faulty interpretation, twist the vernacular and condemn Catholics to achieve their goal.

More $$$ in the plate for that new car and their wives fancy hairdo.

Hey, I'm from Louisiana...what would I Know?

At least that's my suspicions.

Answer 21

Ephesians 2:8,9

Because you're not! He's sayin' you CAN'T be. He's sayin' "fish or cut bait!" He's tryin' to tell you it's either "by faith" or by works" "but if it be of works, then is it NO MORE of grace.." Paul said it, sorry guys! It' just plain old scripture, not Catholic, not Protestant.. just plain old BIBLE doctrine. Paul even bawled out Peter and the other Apostles publicly about this for getting so mixed up and trying to drag the old law back into the "perfect liberty" of grace. (Romans 7,8) (Galatians) "Oh foolish Galatian´s.."

Actually James was one of the main ones who had gotten so mixed up with the "concision" and got the "bawling", But eventually even HE simmered down and got the point, and they agreed that they DIDN'T need to lay all these trips on the new believers

He already said "by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."

Nobody can EVER do enough good works to justify themselves so that they'll be saved. It's only the blood of Jesus  shed for your sins and mine that justifies me from anything at all! No matter how good you try to be, you'll NEVER, ever be good enough, perfect enough, to earn, merit , or diserve the heavenly perfect gift of His heavenly  salvation. But if you ARE saved (by grace and faith in Christ Jesus) you'll be as good as you can and you'll work like everything to give it to others.

Maybe "some like Chris" are thinking, "Why doesn't  she understand?"                    Sionarra