Justified By Faith Alone... Or Not?

Justification by "faith alone" is one of the great truths of Christianity. It's a reminder that we are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone by grace alone. I believe this, preach this, and contend for this on a regular basis. But last Sunday we bumped right into James 2:24: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." It stopped us in our tracks.

What's going on? Here we find the only place in the entire Bible where the words "faith" and "alone" are joined together in the same verse... and it appears to be saying the exact opposite of what we want it to say? How is this possible? Is salvation by "faith alone" the wrong message? What about Ephesians 2:8-9 or Romans 3:28?

The long answer was my sermon last weekend. The short answer is this: The problem is not with the message of the Scriptures, the real problem is with our (often) inadequate or non-biblical definition of the word "faith". Faith is never merely believing a set of facts about God, or Jesus, or the Bible. James says that even demons believe that stuff (and supposedly most Americans do too). Demons aren't atheists. They most certainly believe in God. But that's not that same as biblical faith. James is saying that biblical faith is obvious - you can see that it is real by obedience, by fruit (good works) in a believer's life. That's saving faith. The other kind is mere dead orthodoxy. Can you tell the difference between these two definitions of faith? I hope so.