James 2:19 “You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.”
What does this passage mean?
I’ve heard many well intentioned believers use this passage as a defense against the doctrine of justification by faith. The argument is that only believing isn’t enough for salvation because even demons can believe, they just can’t obey.
On the surface this seems compelling. But context matters.
James is considered Wisdom literature. In chapter 1 he says things like don’t just hear the word, do what it says. Starting in chapter 2 he’s teaching about how to treat people. He shows that partiality towards certain people is a sin.
Context is always important. I forget who said it but I like the phrase, “Never read a Bible Verse by itself.” Read the verses before and after to make sure that you are understanding the context. I think that we will do well do to that here.
Verse 18 is important to understand verse 19, “But someone will say, you have faith; I have deeds. Show me your faith without deeds and I’ll show you my faith by my deeds.”
It’s important to notice what James is NOT saying. He’s not saying that salvation depends on works. Again, this is a common misconception of the book of James, and not a new one either. Martin Luther questioned this book and even called it an epistle of straw due to his misunderstanding of what James was writing.
If we back up a few verses to verse 14, we see where the confusion comes from.
James 2:14 “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone use this to try to prove that it’s impossible to be saved by faith alone.
Is this what James is saying? Notice the wording, “Can such faith save you?” In other words, can this kind of faith save?
This isn’t attacking the doctrine of justification by faith. This is contrasting living faith, or what I would consider genuine faith, with dead faith, or simply lip service.
Again, context matters.
Verse 15-17 “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
Here’s a question we have to ask ourselves, Does feeding the hungry or clothing those without clothes save us? Of course not, but what it does is demonstrate my salvation.
Let me explain, Paul is very clear in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
James and Paul are not at odds over this. These passages do not conflict with each other. Paul is addressing our salvation before God. How does an unrighteous person stand before a just and holy God and be justified? By grace through faith.
But how does that faith work out in the life of a believer? In other words, what does genuine faith look like?
Often, the accusation hurled at those who believe in justification by faith is that they just think all you have to do to be saved is believe. You can live any way you want as long as you claim to believe and you think your saved.
Here’s the deal, obviously people abuse the doctrine of justification by faith. People will look for the bare minimum in anything. What’s the bare minimum that I have to do to go to heaven? If that’s your mindset then don’t even bother.
Christianity isn’t about rules and regulations, but it’s also not about getting by with as little as possible. Try building a great marriage on legalism. You won’t have a good one. Now, try to build that same relationship on doing as little as possible. You think thats going to go any better?
Of course not, with anything in Scripture, there’s tension here. Tension is good. On one hand we see that our good works, our righteous deeds do nothing to move God. All the work of our salvation happens outside of us through the work of Christ.
That’s why salvation is dependent on faith and not on works. There’s nothing we can do to earn it, it has to come by grace, it has to be a gift.
But, at the same time, Jesus is clear, “if you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
James is also clear, don’t just hear the word, do what it says also. Tension.
The thief on the cross is a great example of salvation by grace through faith. However, I want to warn my fellow Christians that it is dangerous to build your theology on the thief alone. But I also want to warn my brothers and sisters who scoff at this story or exclude him from their theology as well.
If your theology does not make room for the thief on the cross, you don’t have a good theology. In other words, if you have to explain away how he was saved by saying things like, he was saved under a different covenant, or he was saved before the book of Acts. Your theology doesn’t make room for him and your theology is bad.
Likewise, If you make him the poster of your theology you’ve made an error too.
Let me explain, the thief on the cross is a beautiful picture of how simple the gospel is. He didn’t have anything to offer Christ, he didn’t have a chance to be baptized or go through a Bible study. Yet he made it. How? Because like I’ve already said, salvation is something that happens outside of us.
But what happens when he because the blueprint of what the gospel is instead of a blueprint of Christ’s grace and mercy? We mistakenly think that nothing else matters after that conversion moment.
Ephesians 2:8-10 explains this beautifully.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
God didn’t save us so that we could continue our old lives. Christ saves us and expects us to walk in the good works that he has prepared for us.
What does this look like? We come to God with nothing to offer. We play no part in our salvation, the only thing we contribute is the sin that nailed him to the cross.
His good works, his obedience, his righteousness is passed to us through our faith in him.
Romans 5:19 “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
Just like we didn’t have to participate in the disobedience of Adam to be made sinners, likewise we don’t have to participate in the obedience of Christ to be made righteous.
2nd Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Here’s where it is important to define our terms, faith is not just a belief.
The Greek word for faith is pístis, it means more than “mental assent” or a belief in something. It’s a trust, a confidence, it’s assurance.
In other words to have saving faith means that you not only believe that Jesus was God, but you believe and trust that what he did on earth as a man. That dying on a cross for our sins and raising from the dead to defeat death, hell, and the grave was completed completely and totally in him and it’s in that assurance that I place my trust and confidence in, it’s in that trust and belief that he will save me.
But there’s an implication to this word pístis that a lot of people ignore. It’s an implication that actions based on that trust will follow.
This means that saving faith is never alone. While works play no part on my salvation, works should naturally flow from a faithful follower of Christ.
Paying lip service to the gospel doesn’t save you. Genuine faith involves a surrender to Christ as not just our savior, but Lord also.
For those who cling to legalism, the gospel sounds like antinomianism. To the antinomian, the gospel sounds like legalism.
So what does James 2:19 mean? It doesn’t mean that we need more than faith. It means that faith is more than a generic belief. Demons know who Jesus is, it’s impossible for demons to place their trust and hope in him as a savior.
That’s why we need to make sure our faith is genuine.
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