Pondering His Holy Word

When I first read the Apostle Paul’s many epistles and the Apostle James’s epistle, it seemed that they present two contradictory manners of achieving salvation. In Roman 5:1, Paul writes, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In Galatians 3:24, Paul writes, “the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.” Both of these passages (and many more), Paul explains that having faith in Jesus’ dying atonement and resurrection is the only way to be saved (or justified) by God. Yet, James exclaims that faith by itself without works is dead (2:17). So must our faith be accompanied by works to be justified? 
Well, no. The simplest explanation is that we are justified by faith and not good works, but good works are evidence of faith and are a fruit of following God. So what does it mean to have real faith, and what works does it produce? 
Well, let’s look at the meaning of real faith and how it justifies us. Well, God justifies our faith through the person and works of Jesus Christ. Again, what does real faith mean? Is it enough to acknowledge Jesus as the son of God and acknowledge he died for our sins? James says, no. Even demons recognize Jesus as the Christ and Satan shutters at the sight of him. So merely assenting to this knowledge about Jesus is not enough. 
In Hebrews 11:1, the author describes faith as “the assurance of things hope for, the conviction of things not seen” To have assurance, you must have full confidence in the promise of God. To have conviction, you must have a firm belief of things not seen. To be clear, having faith is having absolute confidence that God fulfilled the Gospel through Jesus Christ, and we must have a firm belief of things that God has not revealed to us. 
As followers of Christ, we must have a deep-seated faith that God will fulfill all his promises. Through such faith, God justifies and gives grace from his righteousness. Satan and his demons do not have such confidence. Well, he believes in God and Jesus, but he rebelled, and thus he knows his destiny.  As a result, he continually tries to erode our confidence in God’s promise so he can accuse us of our lack of faith. But we won’t let that happen because we know that God revealed himself through Jesus Christ, who died and atoned for our sins. We know Jesus conquered death on the cross. That is evident by the empty tomb.
           So how does our faith produce good works? James says, “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I’ll show you my faith through my works.” Our faith is displayed by the works they produce. It can separated. According to James, it is not enough to profess your faith in Christ, especially if your actions do not show it. Though we are not under the law of the old Covenant, we must walk in the Spirit of Christ. Our walk in the Spirit will produce the fruits of our faith. Jesus tells us that we must take up our cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). Our faith in the Gospel will produce works, fruit in Christ. When we accept and follow Christ, Jesus pours his spirit into us so that we can follow him. The Holy Spirit will manifest Himself in our the fruits that testify to JesusChrist. However, what we do will not save us; works are evidence of our faith, which God justifies through grace. We should not put faith in our works because all fall short. Still, we must follow Christ through our conviction and confidence in God’s promise.

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