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The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
O God, who hast prepared for those who love thee such good things as pass man's understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards thee, that we, loving thee in all things and above all things, may obtain thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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The Sixth Sunday Of Easter
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A Sermon by
✛
Salvation through Faith, or Good Works?
I attended seminary in the Midwest at a decidedly Anglo-Catholic school. In the midst of my training, a fellow classmate, for family considerations, transferred to a decidedly Evangelical seminary back east. Her new classmates teased her by saying, there’s that catholic girl who hasn’t been saved. To which she would reply, Yes, I just haven’t accumulated enough good works yet.
This good-natured repartee, between two great expressions of the Christian faith, serves to illuminate a perennial question in the body of Christ. Are we saved by faith or by good works? The Epistle of Saint James, from which our second lesson was taken proves central to our grappling with this question.
James writes, What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. 2.14-17
So, we might say, that settles it. The bible says that faith without works cannot save. Therefore, we cannot be saved by faith alone. Works are necessary for salvation.
But elsewhere in scripture, particularly in his epistle to the Ephesians, Saint Paul writes, For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2.8 And also in his epistle to the Romans, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Romans 3.28
So which is it? Are we saved by faith which is the free gift of God? Or are we saved by works of faith?
To complicate matters, James and Paul both make appeals to the same figure from the Old Testament to support their assertions, Father Abraham.
Do you want to be shown that faith apart from works is barren, James writes. Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. James 2.20-24
But here’s Paul making his appeal to Abraham in his epistle to the Romans. What then are we to say was gained by Abraham our ancestor 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? (here Paul is referring to Genesis 15.6) Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through works of the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Romans 4.1-3,13
James and Paul are mere mortal man, no different than you or I. Can’t we just dismiss one, and agree with the other, as though registering for one party affiliation over and against another? I’m a Jamesian, let’s get to work. I’m a Pauline, let’s just believe harder.
Perhaps we could, if Jesus didn’t first say a fair amount himself on the matter…
Teaching one of the rulers of the Jews, Jesus said, Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
And I could go on in this vein with a list of passages as long as my arm where Jesus commends faith and believing as the means of salvation.
But on another occasion, while Jesus talked with the people, his mother and his brethren desired to speak with him. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? And who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. Matthew 12.46-50
And I could go on in this vein with a list of passages as long as my arm where Jesus commends good works just as necessary as faith as means of salvation.
What to make of all this?
Our Anglican formularies, or those prescribed prayers and oaths that provide structure for Anglican thought, particularly the thirty-nine articles caution that it is “not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s word written, neither may it expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” Article XX
So, it would seem that one cannot interpret James as authoritative when he posits that faith alone cannot save us, if that interpretation makes Paul’s statement that we are saved by faith repugnant. Nor can we interpret the teaching of Jesus where he commends faith as the means of salvation if it makes repugnant that his teaching that commends doing good works as necessary.
It doesn’t help that article XI of the articles of religion says, “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not by our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by faith is a most wholesome Doctrine, and very full of comfort.”
So much for Saint James, and half the teachings of Jesus.
If, it weren’t for article XII which goes on to say, “Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith: insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.”
In other words. You know an apple tree by the fact that it has apples growing on it. You know a real and lively faith that has saved a Christian, by the good works that faith produces.
One of the most well-known disputants in this matter of faith/works righteousness was Martin Luther, who loved Saint Paul, and was more than indifferent to Saint James such that he would have altogether removed, as he put it, “this epistle of straw.”
But in the end, I think the breadth of scripture, and our own Anglican formularies are helpful to showing us, who should all be students of the bible, how to “rightly divide the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2.15
For the Christian, it is our faith that saves us. But if we haven’t accumulated enough good works, how will anyone ever know that such a lively faith dwells within us?
