February 9 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 40—James 2:14

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

Devotional:

Genuine faith is a "grace" that our Lord himself works in the sinner's heart. Herein lies a big part of our modern difficulty with this text. For over a hundred years most of us have been indoctrinated with the view that faith is something that we ourselves work in our own hearts. According to this view, God has done his part to save us; now we must do our part. Our part is to use our own ability—our "free will"—to accept the salvation he offers. And if we do accept it, if we do assent that the gospel is true, then we have "fire insurance" from going to Hell, even if we live like the devil as "carnal Christians." This view contains enough truth to make it seem plausible, but in actuality it is a counterfeit.

A fatal flaw in this view is that it ignores the fact that we simply do not have the ability to produce faith in Christ. We enter this world, not somewhat hindered by, but literally "dead in ... trespasses and sins"—inert and helpless when it comes to the things of God. Thankfully, God did not leave us in our helpless state. "By grace" he intervened to "save" (or rescue) us. His work saves us, but we receive it "through faith." But even "this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." In sovereign grace, God changes our hearts in order to enable us to receive and rest on Christ in faith (Eph. 2:1–10).

Second, when God does graciously change a heart, it will always produce the fruit of a changed heart. The other fruits or "graces" that flow along with faith from a born-again heart are not instruments that receive God's verdict of justification. We must be justified through faith alone! Why? Because we can be justified on account of Christ alone! "It depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace" (Rom. 4:16).

Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God—not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but—only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness. –Larger Catechism, #73

But when God does change a sinner's heart, he will also produce those other graces which always accompany genuine saving faith.

In stark contrast, "Talkative" faith is self-produced. It therefore does not involve a transformed heart. Consequently, it does not have any attending graces. It's not saving faith. It's a counterfeit. "What good is it?"

How Talkative at first lifts up his plumes!
How bravely doth he speak! How he presumes
to drive down all before him! But so soon
as Faithful talks of HEART-WORK, like the moon
that's past the full, into the wane he goes.
And so will all, but he that HEART-WORK knows. ^†

^† John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress (Oxford World's Classics paperback, 2003 edition), p. 83

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.