Abraham’s Saving Faith

James 2:20–24 speaks about the saving faith of Abraham. The Bible says that those who believe in Jesus Christ are Abraham’s children and heirs according to the promise. We are the true children of Abraham, not in the sense of being physically descended from him, but because we walk in the footsteps of the faith of Abraham. Our father is Abraham, if we have saving faith.

Though some people would create a contrast between their teaching, both the apostle Paul and James the Lord’s brother agree that without saving faith in Jesus Christ, no one can be saved. Repentance and obedient faith are divine gifts given to those who are born of God. Jesus said, “You must be born again—born from above, born of the Holy Spirit.”

Those who believe in Christ are blessed, James says. They love God by keeping his commandments. They live righteous lives (Jas. 1:20). They hear and do the word of God (Jas. 1:22). They truly believe in their glorious Lord, Jesus Christ. They are rich in faith. They obey the law of love. Their faith in Jesus Christ is not dead, non-saving, worthless, useless, fruitless, or demonic.

True believers demonstrate their true faith by good works. Antinomians are false believers who argue for a faith that has no accompanying obedience. James rejects the unbiblical point of view of antinomians. He asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you?” (Jas. 3:13). In other words, who is a believer? He continues, “Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” Later he says, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (Jas. 3:17).

According to both Paul and James, saving faith is trusting faith, which is also active faith that does the will of our Lord. In Matthew 11, Jesus calls us to come unto him and rest. But that is not all he says. As Lord, he commands us to take his yoke upon us and learn from him, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Jesus is Lord. His subjects must trust in him and do what he tells us, for he has been given all authority by his Father. So his baptized disciples are to be taught to obey all things he commanded them (Matt. 28:18–20).

This is exactly what God commanded Paul to do—to call the Gentiles to the obedience of faith (Rom. 1:5). The Lord Jesus demands trust and obedience from his subjects. Those who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ alone and prove their faith by obedience shall be sent away to the torment of hell.

The Lord Jesus commands us not only to hear his word but also to cheerfully do it. Paul says that true saving faith works mightily through love (Gal. 5:6). And in Romans 3:28 Paul speaks of the initial faith that justifies us, a faith that rests in Christ alone, without any works of the law, such as circumcision. We are justified (declared righteous) by imputing Christ’s righteousness to us. Thus we become members of his church. And James says that those who are members of Christ’s church must live by loving one another with a love that fulfills the law of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So the basis, the ground, the foundation of our justification rests in Christ. But the proof of our justification is the good works that always accompany saving faith. So we want to examine three points from this passage: the faith of a foolish man, the saving faith of Abraham, and a timeless truth.

The Faith of the Empty-Head

First, James gives evidence to the objector who argued foolishly in James 2:18–20 that one can have faith without any works of obedience. In verse 20 he calls this heretic “empty-head” (“Ô anthrôpe kenê!”). Empty heads are those who come to church but turn their minds off. Among evangelicals, there are many empty-heads: they are evangelical antinomians who argue that a person can be justified by a mental-assent faith without any repentance or obedience in his Christian life.

We see such people in many churches today. Jesus called them “blind fools” (Matt. 23:17). Elsewhere, he spoke of the two disciples going to Emmaus, who did not believe in the fact of his resurrection as being “foolish and slow of heart” (Luke 24:25).

Empty-heads are those who refuse to search the Scriptures to know God’s plan of salvation. They are morally and intellectually deficient. Calvin calls them, “O homo inanis!”¹

The faith of empty heads is a sham. Paul says, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually [interpreted]” (1 Cor. 2:14). He also writes, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).

Faith comes by hearing the truth-filled preaching. So Paul says, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor. 4:5). Evangelical mega-churches seek to entertain people. They preach everything but the gospel.

Empty-headed ministers are like the false prophets whom Jeremiah condemned (see Jer. 23). They preach lies, giving people false hope. They always oppose the word of God. They, like some politicians, speak only what people want to hear. They preach a dead, contentless faith.

The Saving Faith of Our Father Abraham

Then James asks, “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend” (Jas. 2:21–23).

Here James is giving proof that a faith apart from works does not save; it is fruitless. To make his point, he cites the faith of Abraham, the father of all believers. James says that Abraham was justified by his costly obedience in sacrificing Isaac (see Gen. 22), which God demanded thirty years after Abraham first trusted in God.

Abraham’s obedience to God’s demand to burn up Isaac in worship on the altar demonstrated and validated the truthfulness and authenticity of the faith by which he trusted God in Genesis 15:5–6. Abraham believed God, who told him, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them” (Gen. 15:5). Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” In other words, God was promising to give Abraham multitudes of children at a time when he had none. And the Scripture tells us that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6).

Then God waited until the bodies of Abraham and Sarah became as good as dead, incapable of having children. What should they do? What could they do? Should they call this God, who had promised them multitudes of children, a liar? What does the Scripture say? “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why ‘it was credited to him as righteousness’” (Rom. 4:18–22).

Against all hope, Abraham and Sarah kept on believing the God who had promised to give them children. They believed God had the power to do what he promised. God is the God of resurrection. In time, he fulfilled his promise by raising Abraham and Sarah from the dead and empowering them to have a son. In due time, Isaac was born, to the great joy and celebration of his parents.

But in Genesis 22, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice the teenager Isaac as a token of his wholehearted devotion for God. So Abraham traveled to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his Isaac, the son whom he loved. By faith, he would do it and prove that he truly did love the Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind (Luke 10:27).

So Abraham told his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while we go over there to the top of Mount Moriah. We will go there, we will worship there, and we will come back to you.” This is a profound faith statement. Isaac wondered where the lamb was for sacrifice. Abraham trusted God, so he said to Isaac, “Jehovah Jireh” (“God will provide”). That is the same idea we find in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Abraham bound Isaac and placed him on the wood on the altar. Then he raised his knife to kill his son in obedience to God. In the nick of time, the Lord stopped him. “‘Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ [the angel of the LORD] said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son’” (Gen. 22:12). Abraham’s faith of Genesis 15:6 was tested and proven true by his implicit, wholehearted obedience.

At this time, God also renewed his promise to Abraham. “The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, ‘I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me’” (Gen. 22:15–18).

Abraham’s faith was tested many times. But the test in Genesis 22 was the last. Yes, God provided a ram for sacrifice, and he spared Isaac. But for Isaac’s sake and for our sakes, he did not spare his own Son, our Lord Jesus.

Abraham trusted God’s promise of Genesis 15:5. And he trusted God’s promise of Genesis 17: “I will bless [Sarah] and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her. . . . Then God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him’” (Gen. 17:16, 19).

So as Abraham was traveling to Mount Moriah, he was exercising his mind in God’s promises. He was reasoning, “God is the infinite, personal, all-mighty God who created the worlds out of nothing by his command. God is truth. God cannot lie. Death to him is no problem. He is the God of resurrection.”

We read in Hebrews 6:13–14, “When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, ‘I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.’” And as he was going to Mount Moriah, he was considering the whole revelation that he received from God. As we read in Hebrews 11:19, Abraham was “reasoning (logisamenos) that God is mighty to raise [his son Isaac] even from the dead,” that God’s promises to him might be fulfilled.

Had Abraham not obeyed this command of God to sacrifice Isaac, his faith of Genesis 15:6 would have been proven to be dead, empty, non-saving, demonic, worthless faith. (PGM) His work of obedience proved that his initial, justifying faith was authentic. James speaks of the testing of our faith: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (Jas. 2:2–4). Our faith in God will be tested many times in our lives.

Professor C. E. B. Cranfield tells us: “Abraham’s works were the product and expression of his faith and they were also its completion—in the sense that without them it would not have been real faith.”² This is what Paul says: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value, but faith that works mightily through love” (Gal. 5:6, author’s translation).

God demands costly obedience, which can even include our martyrdom. He demanded that Peter demonstrate his love for the Master by his death by crucifixion. He calls each one of us to do the same: ‘”If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matt. 16:24–25).

Faith and works are always joined. We are told to trust and obey. They are joined as branches to the vine for fruitfulness. Dead faith has no obedience. Saving faith is trusting faith and, therefore, working faith. He who confesses Christ as Lord obeys the Lord always. Abraham was justified by works in one sense—in the sense that the sacrifice of his son proved that the faith that justified him initially was true and not a false, self-generated, dead faith.

Good works always follow living, saving, dynamic faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. In James 2:22, James asks the empty-head man this question: “Don’t you see, empty-head man, that Abraham’s original faith was helping to produce his works of obedience all his life?” And the empty-head must answer: “Yes, I understand that faith cannot be separated from works of obedience. I am sorry for my ignorance.”

James also says that Abraham’s faith was perfected by his works. So true faith in our Lord Jesus Christ points to works of obedience, and works of obedience makes perfect our faith. Faith and works are complementary; they are two sides of the same coin. Where there is saving faith, obedience follows. It is like the husband being the complement of the wife, and vice versa.

Hebrews 11 tells us that all those who believed in God also obeyed God. How do we make our calling and election sure? There is a simple answer: Do we obey Jesus Christ, whom we confessed as our Lord and in whose name we were baptized? If we say we believe in Jesus Christ, then we must do what he says.

Pastor Daniel Doriani speaks of four ways people look at salvation. Three are false; one is true. First, there is the way of thinking that our own works produce salvation. That is false. Second, there is the view that our faith plus our works produce salvation. That is also false. Third, there is the evangelical, antinomian idea that faith can produce salvation without any obedience, without any good works. This is also false. The true position is that true, living faith in our Lord Jesus Christ produces salvation plus works of obedience.³ That is the correct and biblical position. Trusting faith is growing faith and working faith, and the works which we do are really God’s work. They are works of grace, from which God alone receives glory.

Jesus taught, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). And Paul writes, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).

Our good works are God’s work. Paul states, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). He also says, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil. 2:12–13).

Trust and obey, for there is no other way to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Abraham’s costly obedience in Genesis 22 was fulfilling Genesis 15:6 by validating that his initial faith was true saving, justifying faith. A faith that does not obey Jesus Christ is not justifying faith. Abraham’s obedience proved that he was truly justified when he first trusted in God. He had been reconciled to God and all his sins were forgiven. He enjoyed peace and fellowship with God. So he is called “friend of God” (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8).

All true believers are friends of God. Isn’t that wonderful? God is our friend! Friends walk together and fellowship together. Jesus told his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:14–15). There is communion and communication. Amos asks, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3).

We enjoy fellowship with God and, therefore, with all God’s people. That is what this church practices. We love God and God’s people. We are all friends. And since we fellowship with God and with God’s people, we do not fellowship with the world, which is ruled by the god of this world. James warns, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (Jas. 4:4).

If you are a friend of God, you cannot have friendship with the wicked world. Paul writes, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ ‘Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty’” (2 Cor. 6:14–18).

We are not called to contextualize the gospel and conform to the world. We are called to be transformed to the likeness of Christ through biblical thinking and biblical life. What is required of true believers is not courting the world or conforming to it. We are to be in the world as the light of the world. So, as friends of God, we walk with God, as Enoch did, because we think God’s thoughts and do God’s will.

A Timeless Truth

In verse 24 James teaches a timeless truth: “A man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” James believed that only by faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ are we saved and only by faith in Christ can we experience the blessings of the kingdom. This same faith enables us to love God through works of obedience.

The empty-head man said we are justified by faith alone, without any works. But now he says no. The objector argued for a faith without works. James is teaching that saving faith that justifies is an obedient faith, not a dead or demonic faith. James is not arguing for a justification by works. He is teaching what Jesus and all the apostles taught: justification is by faith alone, but a faith that justifies never remains alone. True, justifying faith works the work of God.

James is opposing ungodly, demonic antinomianism, cheap faith by cheap grace. James also is speaking of a final judgment based on a faith that produces good works. Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).

Luther himself said in his preface to his commentary on Romans, “Whoever does not do such [good] works, however, is an unbeliever.”⁴ A Christian who disobeys Jesus Christ is an unbeliever. Calvin said, “As Paul contends that we are justified apart from the help of works, so James does not allow those who lack good works to be reckoned righteous.”⁵

In conclusion, ask yourself: Do you hear and do the will of our Lord Jesus Christ? Only by answering that question can you make your calling and election sure.

¹ John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of James (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999 reprint), 313.

² Cited by James Adamson, The Epistle of James, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 129.

³ Daniel M. Doriani, James, Reformed Expository Commentary series (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007), 95.

⁴ Quoted by Douglas Moo, The Letter of James, Pillar New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 144.

⁵ John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book III, chapter 17, section 12), ed. by John T. McNeill, trans by F. L Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 816.