As an instance in proof, take the case
of the jailer at Philippi. Paul and Silas, after having been
inhumanly beaten, were placed in his care. Notwithstanding their
lacerated backs and their manacled feet, they prayed and sang
praises to God at midnight and suddenly an earthquake shook the
prison, and all the doors were opened. It was not alone the natural
fear produced by feeling the earth rock beneath him nor yet the
dread of Roman justice if the prisoners in his charge should
escape, that caused the jailer to tremble. But he felt in that
earthquake shock a premonition of the great judgment, concerning
which the apostles had preached; and, trembling under his load
of guilt, he fell down before Paul and Silas, saying, "Sirs,
what must I do to be saved?" Mark well the answer; for here
was a soul in sorest extremity and what was sufficient for him
must be the message ot all lost ones. To the jailer's anguished
appeal, Paul replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:30, 31. This agrees exactly
with the words which we quoted from Paul to the Romans.
On one occasion the Jews said unto Jesus,
"What shall we do that we might work the works of God?"
Just the thing that we want to know. Mark the reply: "This
is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."
John 6:28, 29. Would that these words might be written in letters
of gold and kept continually before the eyes of every struggling
Christian. The seeming paradox is cleared up. Works are necessary,
yet faith is all-sufficient, because faith does the work. Faith
comprehends everything and without faith there is nothing.
The trouble is that people in general
have a faulty conception of faith. They imagine that it is mere
assent and that it is only a passive thing to which active works
must be added. But faith is active and it is not only the most
substantial thing but the only real foundation. The law is the
righteousness of God (Isa. 51:6, 7), for which we are commanded
to seek (Matt. 6:33), but it cannot be kept except by faith,
for the only righteousness which will stand in the Judgment is
"that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith." Phil. 3:9.
Read the words of Paul in Rom. 3:31. "Do
we then make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we
establish the law." Making void the law of God by man is
not abolishing it; for that is an impossibility. It is as fixed
as the throne of God. No matter what men say of the law, nor
how much they trample upon it and despise it, it remains the
same. The only way that men can make void the law of God is to
make it of none effect in their hearts by their disobedience.
Thus in Num. 30:15, a vow that has been broken is said to have
been made void. So when the apostle says that we do not make
void the law through faith, he means that faith and disobedience
are incompatible. No matter how much the law-breaker professes
faith, the fact that he is a law-breaker shows that he has no
faith. But the possession of faith is shown by the establishment
of the law in the heart, so that the man does not sin against
God. Let no one decry faith as of little moment.
But does not the apostle James say that
faith alone cannot save a man and that faith without works is
dead? Let us look at his words a moment. Too many have with honest
intent perverted them to a dead legalism. He does say that faith
without works is dead and this agrees most fully with what we
have just quoted and written. For if faith without works is dead,
the absence of works shows the absence of faith; for that which
is dead has no existence. If a man has faith, works will necessarily
appear and the man will not boast of either one, for by faith
boasting is excluded. Rom. 3:27. Boasting is done only by those
who trust wholly in dead works or whose profession of faith is
a hollow mockery.
Then how about James 2:14, which says:
"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath
faith and have not works? Can faith save him?" The answer
necessarily implied is, of course, that it cannot. Why not? Because
he hasn't it. What doth it profit if a man say he has faith,
if by his wicked course he shows that he has none? Must we decry
the power of faith simply because it does nothing for the man
who makes a false profession of it? Paul speaks of some who profess
that they know God but who deny Him by their works. Titus 1:16.
The man to whom James refers is one of this class. The fact that
he has no good works--no fruit of the Spirit--shows that he has
no faith, despite his loud profession, and so of course faith
cannot save him; for faith has no power to save a man who does
not possess it.
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