Leader s Guide This guide is designed to aid in preparing and leading your group in discussion. Please note that all material contained herein may not be needed or applicable for your group. QUICK REVIEW Looking back at your notes from this week s teaching, was there anything that particularly caught your attention, challenged or confused you? Summary Are you ready for some good news? Your life in Christ, a life that is built on faith, is not a dead faith. It is alive. It is active. This faith is not in conflict with works, but faith without works is dead. In other words, good works is the evidence of authentic faith. This means that the glorious revelation of the Gospel does not lead to laziness but instead to energy. In the end it means the grace of the gospel fuels world missions because God s grace is the source of our faith, which works. And that s the gospel! Getting to Know Each Other 1. How have others done good works and blessed you as a result? What comes to mind? What stands out? Getting into the Bible Read James 2:14-26 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. 2. This passage has some statements that (if taken alone) could lead someone to believe our standing with God is something we earn. Explore the overall context of this passage and the wider context of scripture to help you interpret some of the more difficult statements made by James. a. Overall Context: i. What is the big issue James seems to be addressing based on this passage?
The big issue James seems to be addressing is the true nature of authentic faith. To answer that question James makes the overarching point that good works always accompanies authentic faith. In other words, saving faith cannot exist by itself. Good works always accompanies it. Keeping this context in mind will help your group rightly interpret some of James statements, such as 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? o Reading this verse in isolation could promote the false notion that we earn our place with God by our good works, apart from faith. Reading the overall passage, however, shows that faith apart from works and works apart from faith are impossible! o James focuses in v. 21 on Abraham s works because it is this aspect of the patriarch s life that he needed to highlight for his rhetorical purposes. 1 22 faith was completed by his works o Reading this verse on its own could lead us to believe Abraham had faith for a time and then his good works were added to it. But James has already shown us that it is impossible to have faith apart from works. So, completed cannot mean that it was added to his faith. Rather, it must mean that Abraham s faith in God s promise reached its intended purpose when Abraham was willing to offer Isaac as a sacrifice in response to God s word. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. o Some would read this verse and (mistakenly) say that the Protestant Reformers were unbiblical when they say that justification is by faith alone. On the surface that statement seems to contradict James 2:24. However, the wider context shows that when James speaks of faith alone he means faith that is all by itself without any accompanying works. The famous statement attributed to Martin Luther helps us see how James 2:24 and the classic statement of the Reformation fit together Justification is by faith alone, but faith that justifies is never alone. Reading these verses outside of their larger context could lead someone to believe that our works are the basis for our acceptance before God. Rather, James is using them to support his wider thesis that true, saving faith is never apart from good works. ii. How do the examples James gives help you understand the issue he was addressing? (e.g. someone saying he has faith, but no works, demons who believe God is one but still shudder, etc.) Person who says he has faith apart from works o This person says a benediction over the poor, but gives them no material help. James obviously uses this example to show how unhelpful the false idea of faith separated from good works would really be. He gives the example and then says, what good is that? Person who says they have works apart from faith o James is dismissive of this argument to make the point, authentic faith and good works are inseparable. Demons who believe God is one but still tremble before Him 1 Moo, 136
o Here is an example of how wrong it is to think we can affirm intellectual truths about God and that be enough to save us. This is James definition of faith all by itself. Abraham justified in offering up Isaac Rahab justified in helping the Israelite messengers o James gives 2 examples of people from the OT who had true, saving faith. He highlights the works, which accompanied their authentic faith. Read Ephesians 2:8-10 b. Wider Context of Scripture: i. How do these verses from Paul about our standing with God help to inform your understanding of James 2:14-26 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. On the one hand, Paul separates faith and good works when it comes to our salvation. Our salvation is by grace through faith. It is not a result of works. Paul very clearly wants to separate these two realities. On the other hand, Paul brings these 2 realities together. He does this by focusing on our status as new creations in Christ. God has good works for us to do not to earn our place with Him but instead as an expression of our new identity in Christ. Read Romans 3:28-31 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. Here Paul uses the same justification language as James. As in Eph. 2 he is careful to separate these 2 realities. Our justification is by faith apart from works of the law. While that is true, regardless of being a Jew or Gentile, it is also true that as justified people we uphold God s law. Here again Paul separates faith and works, on the one hand, but brings them together, on the other hand. 3. Based on this passage how would you summarize the relationship between faith and works? How would you put it into your own words? The saying mentioned earlier is one option, Justification is by faith alone, but faith that justifies is never alone. 4. Read Gen. 22:1-14 and Heb. 11:17-19. How does the Hebrews text help you understand the Genesis passage?
The Author of Hebrews adds in the note that Abraham believed God was even able to raise the dead. In other words, Abraham knew God would do whatever it took to keep His word of promise, through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This still leaves the question of how God could call Abraham to offer his son as a sacrifice. While it does relieve some of the tension here that Abraham believed God could raise the dead (i.e. He knew God was good and God s goodness would prevail), there is also mystery. At the end of the day we do well to trust that God is the standard of right and wrong and we are at our best when we trust Him. Application 5. Paul writes that God has good works for us prepared in advance that we would walk in them (Eph. 2:10). How have you seen God s good works unfolding in your life recently? Any sense of how He is calling you into new good works as a way to live out your faith? To simply think about doing good works can be daunting. Maybe it will help your group to first see how God has opened doors and helped them do good works in the past. With this in mind they will hopefully have faith to move forward into what He has next. 6. If your group has not been able to participate in an outreach together this month what is a way you could do good works together? Taking up a collection for Crisis Control (Winston or Kernersville) is one simple option. Visit the Crisis Control website for details. They are collecting cooking oil in November and Sugar/Flour/Baking Items in December. Please contact Brandon Williams (bwilliams@rcstaff.org) for a complete list of opportunities for your group to serve together. 7. The relationship between faith and works can be tricky. What questions has this study left you asking? What could be a good next step in finding answers? Right thinking leads to right living. If people in your group still have questions about how faith and works fit together it may be important for them to get answers. We want to be careful that people don t get overly focused on the academic, theological nuances of the question. The point is to make sure people understand that their standing with God is a free gift, which is not earned through works but received through faith. That said, good works always accompanies true authentic faith. If spending some time to better understand how faith and works fit together would help people in your group do more good works (or learn to rest from trying to earn God s favor) then it would be time well spent! Contact Pastor Barrett (bjohnson@rcstaff.org) or Pastor Brandon (bwilliams@rcstaff.org) for help on resources in this area. Extra
8. How does this quote from the ESV Study Bible help you fully harmonize the way James and Paul both talk about justification? On the surface James may seem to contradict Paul. I.e., Paul denies that Abraham was justified by works (Rom. 4:2), arguing from Gen. 15:6 that Abraham s faith was counted to him as righteousness (Rom. 4:3). However, James s assertion in this verse (that Abraham [was] justified by works ) is based not on Gen. 15:6 but on Gen. 22:9-10, where (many years later) Abraham began to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. Thus James apparently has a different sense of the word justify in view here, as evidenced by the different Scripture passages, and the different events in Abraham s life, to which James and Paul refer. The primary way in which Paul uses the word justify emphasized the sense of being declared righteous by God through faith, on the basis of Jesus atoning sacrifice (Rom. 3:24-26), whereas the primary way that James uses the word justify here in James 2:21 seems to emphasize the way in which works demonstrate that someone has been justified, as evidenced by the good works that the person does (Matt. 12:33-37)