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Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Hi, this is Robert Jeffers, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program on today's edition of Pathway to Victory. One of the objections people have to the inspiration of the scripture is the so-called contradictions in the Bible. But if we're honest, we would have to say that there are some passages that seem, at least at face value, to contradict one another. And that is true of the passage we're going to look at today.
I call it the biggest contradiction in the Bible. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffers. Perhaps the biggest so-called contradiction in Scripture concerns how we're saved. The Apostle Paul declares that we're saved by faith alone, while James insists that faith without works is dead.
Now why do they seem to contradict each other? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shows that both writers are actually in agreement. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory.
Just before we resume our study in the practical book of James, I want to tell you about something that's become a treasured resource for our Pathway to Victory friends, Pathway Magazine. Christians today are facing an unprecedented assault on biblical truth, but God's promises remain our unshakable foundation. And Pathway Magazine is designed to help you stay immersed in those hope-filled promises.
So why not contact Pathway to Victory to receive this uplifting periodical? To request your free startup editions, just follow the simple instructions at ptv.org. Our topic this month is this, how to know if you're really saved. And to provide this assurance, the book of James teaches us that genuine faith produces genuine fruit.
Well, what does that mean? It means this. If you're truly saved in Jesus Christ, your life will show it through strength during personal trials, godly speech that honors Christ, humility in your relationships, compassion for those in need, and the ability to resist temptation and endure hardships. I want to send you my brand new book, How to Know if You're Really Saved. It'll help you identify this spiritual fruit in your own life.
And a copy of my book will be sent to your home when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'll say more about this book and other helpful Bible study tools later in today's program. But right now, let's turn in our Bibles to James chapter 2. I titled today's message, The Biggest Contradiction in the Bible. How can a person be made right with God?
That's not theological nitpicking. That is the essential question. What must I do to be right with God? Paul says in Romans, it's by faith alone in God's grace, faith apart from any works. James seems to say just the opposite.
He said faith without works is a dead, non-existent faith. It's faith working together with our works. Which is it?
Well, today we're going to unravel this contradiction by going through this passage in James chapter 2. James, in this passage we're looking at, is not talking about living faith. He's talking about dead faith. He is not saying living faith is not sufficient to save you. He's saying dead faith that has no visible results in your life is not enough to save you.
He is giving you some characteristics of dead faith. First of all, he says in verse 14 that dead faith is fruitless. Look at verse 14. What use is it, my brethren, if somebody says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that Faith, save him.
James says a faith without results is a dead faith.
Now, there are many illustrations he could have chosen to use. He uses this illustration in verses 15 to 17: If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, Go and feast, be warned, be filled, and yet you don't give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by myself. A non-existent faith has no fruit. It is fruitless.
Secondly, it is powerless. It is powerless. Look at verse 18. But somebody may well say, You have faith, I have my works. Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith.
By my works. He's imagining somebody who boasts that they have faith. But they have no works to go along with it. A fruitless faith is powerless. Thirdly, James says that a dead faith is orthodox.
It is theologically sound. Look at verse 19. James says, You believe that God is one? You do well. The demons also believe and shudder.
The devil is very orthodox in his beliefs. He's theologically sound. You can believe all the right things about Jesus. You can believe that Jesus is a Son of God. You can believe He died for the sins of the world.
You can believe He rose again on the third day. You can believe all those things and go straight to hell when you die. It's not enough to believe the right things about Jesus. It's only when you believe that Jesus died for you. for your sins.
It's only when a moment of desperation you said, God, I know I'm a sinner. I know I deserve eternal punishment. I know I have no hope apart from Jesus Christ, but I am trusting in, leaning on, depending upon what Jesus did for me on the cross for my salvation. It is only then that you are born again and have the assurance of heaven forever and ever. That's why I say a dead faith can be very, very orthodox.
Look at the context. James is not talking about saving faith. He's talking about a dead faith, a dead faith that is fruitless, powerless, but orthodox. When you're trying to interpret Scripture, look at the context. Secondly, look at the composition.
By that I mean The meaning of key words. What do the words mean? Obviously, the key word in this passage is justified. Look at verses 21 to 24. Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac, his son, on the altar?
You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of his works, faith was perfected. Shown to be mature. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see, that a man is justified by works and not by faith. alone.
When James talks about Abraham being justified, he points as an example of that Abraham's willingness to offer his son as a sacrifice. We're going to look at that next time. He said, that is the moment Abraham was justified. But notice how Paul uses that same word in Romans 4:1 through 5. What shall we say then?
About Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh. For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Uses the same man, Abraham, but a different experience.
Remember that experience? Abraham had just been called by God for a unique purpose. He was 75 years old. He said, Abraham, Genesis 12, I'm going to give you a land. I'm going to make you a father of a great nation, and in you all the nations of the world will be blessed.
Obviously, Abraham had some doubts about that. He was 75 at the time. He wasn't the father of one, much less the father of many. But Genesis 15 says that God took Abraham out one night and said, Abraham, look up at the stars in the heaven, count them if you can. One, two.
Two, three, four. Quickly, he realized it was impossible. And God said to Abraham, Abraham, as many are the stars in the sky, so shall your descendants be. And Genesis 15:6 says, And Abraham believed God. And his faith was reckoned, it was counted as righteousness.
The moment Abraham believed in the promise of God, God took his little bitty faith, and in the great courtroom of heaven, he exchanged it for righteousness. God said, Abraham, you are declared righteous because of your faith. It had nothing to do with Abraham did or didn't do. He simply believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Now, James, when he talks about Abraham was justified, he talks about an experience Abraham had 30 plus years after that Genesis 15 experience when Abraham was told by God to deliver his son Isaac as a sacrifice. And the Bible says Abraham obeyed what God said to do up until the last moment. And God provided the sacrifice. And James said, and Abraham was justified.
So which is it? Was he justified in the Genesis 15, 6 when he believed the promises of God? Or was he justified thirty years later when he offered Isaac as a sacrifice? The answer to that question is yes. He was justified both times in a different sense.
When I go to look up the word translated justified, I go to a resource like Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament words, I find the word justified can mean one of two things. It can mean, first of all, to make righteous, to declare righteous, a person is justified when God declares him righteous in a right standing with him. It can mean to declare to be righteous, or it can mean. To be shown to be righteous, to be proven to be righteous. And I'd submit to you that when Paul uses the word justified, he's talking about that initial experience that made him righteous when he believed the promises of God and God said, Abraham, you are righteous.
But his Genesis 15:6 righteousness was proven to the world and to others to be true when he offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He was shown to be righteous. That's what it understands. We are made righteous by faith in God's promises alone. We are shown to be righteous by our obedience to God.
Now, how do I know that's the right interpretation? The third C of interpretation. You look at the context, you look at the composition. The third C is comparison. You compare scripture with scripture.
Do I have any other clue in the Bible to what James thought about the relationship between salvation and works?
Well, as a matter of fact, there is. It's found in Acts chapter 15. Remember, James was pastor of the church in Jerusalem. And pretty soon after the formation of the church, an argument. Arose in the church.
Can you believe a church had an argument? They had an argument, but this wasn't some peripheral issue. It was about these Gentiles, non-Jews, that were getting saved and coming into the church. Peter was against it, at least at first, until he participated in the salvation of Cornelius. But a lot of Jewish Christians in that Jerusalem church thought it wasn't right for Gentiles just to come into our church without going through the portal of Judaism.
They ought to have to be baptized into Judaism. They ought to become Jews first. They ought to get circumcised. They ought to keep the dietary laws. They need to do these things before they can come into the church.
And so there arose an argument in the church. And finally, Peter said, I used to think that until I saw all these Gentiles being saved. And in Acts 15, 10, he said, but we believe we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they are also. In other words, we shouldn't put an extra burden on these Gentiles. We're all saved the same way by grace.
And then Acts 15 tells us, James stood up. And he agreed with Peter. He agreed that salvation is by God's grace alone. James believed in justification through faith in God's grace, no doubt about it. In the same way, we can know what Paul thought about the importance of works in the Christian life.
He wasn't saying at all works aren't important, but he made the point that works are important not for securing our salvation. but by forliving out our salvation. Notice Ephesians 2, verses 8 through 10. Paul made it clear, For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not as a result of works, lest any man should boast. Listen, if salvation is something you earn, then salvation is a debt that God owes us.
And God refuses to owe any man or woman salvation. It is a gift. We are not saved by good works, but Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 2:10, we are saved for good works. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we should walk before them. The Bible says there's no contradiction.
James and Paul are both saying the same thing. We are made right with God by grace and grace alone. It's received as a gift. But we are shown to be righteous by the fruit in our life, by the results of our Christian walk. There's one final stage in interpretation, and that is consultation.
When you think you've arrived at the right interpretation, consult. A trusted source, a trusted Bible teacher, a trusted commentator. You know If you come up with some unique interpretation that nobody has ever heard of or voiced before, it probably didn't come from God. God is not revealing new truths to people that are in opposition to his word. Check a trusted source.
I pulled down a commentary I have last week that explained it this way. I thought this was so good. James and Paul are not antagonists, facing each other with crossed swords, but they stand back to back, confronting different enemies of the gospel. Paul is combating those enemies who would try to add to the finished work of Christ on the cross, saying that salvation is something we earned. James is fighting against those who have been lulled into a false security with a faith that has no results.
I use the Ryrie Study Bible written by Dr. Charles Ryrie, our former member here. He has this note and this passage from James. At the bottom of the page, he writes: Abraham's justification. In Paul's sense, is recorded in Genesis 15, 6.
Abraham's justification in James' sense took place 30 or more years later in the patriarch's crowning act of obedience in offering Isaac. And that leads us to the author's concept. What does James mean when he says faith without works is dead? Write these two comments down. I think Martin Luther had it right when he said.
Here's the relationship between faith and works. Faith alone saves. But saving faith. is never alone. Let's take that one phrase at a time.
Faith alone saves. James believed that. You know, the great preacher of yesteryear, H.A. Ironside, was one time asked, How do you explain the hundreds and hundreds of different religions in the world? How do you explain that?
And Ironside said, there aren't hundreds of religions. There's only two religions in the world. One of them covers all the other religions outside Christianity. It's all those who expect salvation by doing. The other religion That is Christianity.
Covers all who have been saved by something being done for them.
So he says, the question is very simple. Can you be saved by yourself? Or must somebody else save you? Every other religion is spelled DO. Do this, do this, do this.
Only Christianity is spelled D-O-N-E. Done. It's all been done by Jesus Christ. James believed that. He believed faith alone saves, but he also believed saving faith is never alone.
Where there is genuine faith, there will be visible fruit in a Christian's life. Young girl became a Christian, and she presented herself to the local church for membership, and a deacon was questioning her. And he asked her, has your faith in Christ? made a difference in your life. She said, oh, it most certainly has.
He said, well, do you sin now that you're a Christian? She looked down and confessed, sometimes I do. The deacon said, Well, I don't understand. You said your faith has made a difference in your life, and yet before you were a Christian, you sinned, and now that you're a Christian, you sinned. What difference is there in your life?
She thought for a moment. She said, I guess I would explain it this way. Before I was saved, I ran after sin. But now that I'm a Christian, I run from it. though sometimes it still overtakes me.
I disdain a hatred for sin in our life. A hunger for God's word, a love to be with God's people. These are the results. of a saving faith. that guarantees us entrance into heaven one day.
Faith alone saves. But saving faith. is never alone. Do you have that kind of saving faith? That you are confident.
will usher you into heaven one day. Before you answer that question too quickly, Ask yourself, what evidence is there in my life that I'm truly a believer? This is the time to be honest with yourself. If there's not that real evidence there, the answer is not to try harder, try to produce the fruit yourself. It's to go back.
and taking advantage of that saving faith. To receive the forgiveness of your sins by placing your faith in Jesus. Because when you sincerely turn to, lean on, depend upon Jesus to save you from your sins. He'll do it. And he'll give you his Holy Spirit who will produce that fruit in your life.
And today, if you would like to receive God's unconditional gift, Of forgiveness in your life, I want to invite you to pray this prayer with me right now. Whether you're here, whether you're watching or listening to this service, pray this with me, dear God. Thank you for loving me. I know I have failed you in many ways. And I'm truly sorry for the sins in my life.
But I believe what I've heard today that you love me so much. You sent your son Jesus. to die on the cross for me. to take the punishment I deserve to take. And right now, I'm trusting in what Jesus did for me, not in my works, but in what Jesus did for me.
to save me from my sins. Thank you for forgiving me. And help me to live the rest of my life for you. In Jesus' name. Amen.
It thrills me to realize that right now, at this very moment, men and women around the world are taking this giant step of faith and entrusting their lives to Jesus Christ. Gratefully, there's much more teaching in the book of James to discover, and I look forward to walking this journey with you. Our subject this month is very straightforward. How to know if you're really saved. Along those lines, I want to address a serious concern many Christian families are facing today.
Students, young people, even teenagers are encountering professors and teachers who deliberately plant seeds of doubt about Scripture's reliability. They love to point to so-called contradictions in the Bible. Don't let your loved ones be blindsided by these attacks. In my new book, How to Know If You're Really Saved, I provide credible biblical answers to these challenges. This isn't just about defending scripture.
It's about helping young believers understand that genuine faith produces genuine fruit. Send your students into the world prepared. Request a copy of my book, When You Give a Generous Gift to Support the Ministry of Pathway to Victory Today. Thank you for your generous giving because we receive so many affirming comments from our global listening family. I can assure you that your gifts are truly making a difference.
God is using your generosity to pierce the darkness with the light of His Word. Here's David with all the details. When you get in touch with Pathway to Victory and give a generous gift, you're invited to request How to Know If You're Really Saved. That's the brand new book by Dr. Robert Jeffers.
Just give us a call at 866-999-2965 or visit our website, ptv.org.
Now when you give $75 or more, you'll also receive the complete set of unabridged messages for this new teaching series, How to Know If You're Really Saved. They come on both DVD video and MP3 format audio discs, so you can watch them with a small group Bible study or listen to them in your car. and you'll also receive the Companion Study Guide. Again, call 866-999-2965 or visit our website, ptv.org. If you'd prefer to write, here's that mailing address, PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's PO Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. What does it mean to have extreme faith?
Next time, Dr. Jeffress finds the answer in one of the most challenging stories in all of Scripture, when God asked Abraham to offer his beloved son Isaac as a sacrifice. That's coming up Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.
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