The aim of this arti­cle

In the fol­low­ing arti­cle we will explain why we believe and how we under­stand that we have been saved by grace through faith. Is there a con­tra­dic­tion between faith and works?—Faith with­out works is impos­si­ble.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph­esians 2:8–9)

In this pas­sage Paul points out that a Chris­t­ian has eter­nal life sole­ly by God’s grace and not as a result of his own works. God sent His Son to the Earth out of com­pas­sion on and love for the peo­ple so that they may be saved from their sins.

Chris­tians before their repen­tance were dead in their sins, they lived accord­ing to the lifestyle of the world fol­low­ing the desires of their flesh (Eph­esians 2:1–3). It was God who brought them to life so that they leave their sins and walk in holi­ness:

Now this I say and tes­ti­fy in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gen­tiles do, in the futil­i­ty of their minds. …you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your for­mer man­ner of life and is cor­rupt through deceit­ful desires, and to be renewed in the spir­it of your minds, and to put on the new self, cre­at­ed after the like­ness of God in true right­eous­ness and holi­ness. (Eph­esians 4:17,21–24)

I there­fore, a pris­on­er for the Lord, urge you to walk in a man­ner wor­thy of the call­ing to which you have been called. (Eph­esians 4:1)

God saved mankind by send­ing Jesus who pro­claimed God’s for­give­ness, and called the peo­ple to repent from their sins and to have a deep, joy­ful rela­tion­ship with God, bear­ing fruit for Him (John 10:10).

Sin sep­a­rates us from God:

Behold, the Lord’s hand is not short­ened, that it can­not save, or his ear dull, that it can­not hear; but your iniq­ui­ties have made a sep­a­ra­tion between you and your God, and your sins have hid­den his face from you so that he does not hear. (Isa­iah 59:1–2)

There­fore, Jesus calls all those who want to live with God for a con­sis­tent fight against sin. We have received grace and for­give­ness from God so that we do not live in sin any­more.

Nei­ther do I con­demn you; go, and from now on sin no more. (John 8:11b)

For just as you once pre­sent­ed your mem­bers as slaves to impu­ri­ty and to law­less­ness lead­ing to more law­less­ness, so now present your mem­bers as slaves to right­eous­ness lead­ing to sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion. (Romans 6:19)

Work­ing togeth­er with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. (2 Corinthi­ans 6:1)

For the grace of God has appeared, bring­ing sal­va­tion for all peo­ple, train­ing us to renounce ungod­li­ness and world­ly pas­sions, and to live self-con­trolled, upright, and god­ly lives in the present age…. (Titus 2:11–12)

In fact, all admon­ish­ments and encour­age­ments of the New Tes­ta­ment could be quot­ed which show that God gives His grace to live a holy life. By neglect­ing this, one takes God’s grace in vain and gives a false tes­ti­mo­ny about God to oth­er peo­ple, as he does not reflect in his life God’s pow­er which can puri­fy from sin.

In the same way, let your light shine before oth­ers, so that they may see your good works and give glo­ry to your Father who is in heav­en. (Matthew 5:16)

So the opinion—shared also by Mar­tin Luther—that Chris­t­ian life is out­ward­ly invis­i­ble is not accept­able.¹ Empha­sis­ing the fruits of Chris­t­ian life and holi­ness can­not be called legal­ism. It is not about the law of the Old Tes­ta­ment nor a mere human effort or per­for­mance but a fight for holi­ness by the pow­er of Jesus’ sal­va­tion, the rela­tion­ship with God and the help of the Holy Spir­it. In fact, faith with­out works is not pos­si­ble:

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:17)

James’ thoughts are not in con­tra­dic­tion with Paul’s teach­ing in the Let­ter to the Romans. Paul in Romans 4 con­trasts the works of the Old Tes­ta­ment law with the grace and faith freely giv­en by God in Jesus, where­as James speaks about the worth­less­ness of believ­ing in God’s exis­tence with­out works. Paul writes against those who still want to be jus­ti­fied by keep­ing the Old Tes­ta­ment law; James writes against those, who tes­ti­fy their faith only by their words but do not fight for holi­ness in their lives and it is not vis­i­ble that they are fol­low­ers of Jesus. As faith in God does not only mean acknowl­edg­ing His exis­tence (James 2:19), faith in Jesus Christ can­not sim­ply mean acknowl­edg­ing the his­toric­i­ty of Jesus’ life and believ­ing some facts about Him (includ­ing His death and res­ur­rec­tion).

Who­ev­er believes in the Son has eter­nal life; who­ev­er does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

Jesus iden­ti­fies faith with obe­di­ence. Note that Jesus speaks about obe­di­ence and not about a life improved in some points (giv­ing up bad habits, sins con­demned even by world­ly laws; kind­ness, human­i­tar­i­an or reli­gious acts etc.). Jesus calls peo­ple to fol­low Him, as He called the rich young man, who lived a life accord­ing to God in sev­er­al points but was not ready to give the first place to Him and fol­low Jesus. (Matthew 19:16–26) As John says:

Who­ev­er says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:6)

Jesus com­plete­ly devot­ed His life to those who need­ed help; he want­ed to show them God’s love and lead them to God. He calls all those who want to fol­low Him to do the same.

A new com­mand­ment I give to you, that you love one anoth­er: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one anoth­er. By this all peo­ple will know that you are my dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one anoth­er. (John 13:34–35)

As Chris­tians we want to live wor­thy of the call of Jesus. This does not mean that we are sin­less or per­fect; yet, it is a whole­hart­ed endeav­our to be holy and blame­less like Jesus and not just a pow­er­less attempt. It is a fight which Paul describes in a very encour­ag­ing way in his first let­ter to the Corinthi­ans:

Do you not know that in a race all the run­ners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every ath­lete exer­cis­es self-con­trol in all things. They do it to receive a per­ish­able wreath, but we an imper­ish­able. So I do not run aim­less­ly; I do not box as one beat­ing the air. But I dis­ci­pline my body and keep it under con­trol, lest after preach­ing to oth­ers I myself should be dis­qual­i­fied. (1 Corinthi­ans 9:24–27)

We can­not excuse our­selves with the weak­ness of man as Jesus was also aware of it (Hebrews 12:1–4), yet He spoke clear­ly about what He demands from His fol­low­ers:

If any­one would come after me, let him deny him­self and take up his cross and fol­low me. (Matthew 16:24b)

Sin can­not become nor­mal for a Chris­t­ian. If we fall, we should stand up again tak­ing strength from God’s for­give­ness (1 John 2:1) and fight against sin till the end (Hebrews 12:1–4).

No one can make him­self wor­thy of the eter­nal life sim­ply by his deeds. But the deeds show if some­one has real rela­tion­ship with God, if he has real­ly repent­ed, if he has accept­ed God’s grace, if he believes in Jesus, if the pow­er of Jesus’ sal­va­tion has become real­i­ty in his life. If yes, then it will be vis­i­ble in his life.

…show me your faith with­out the works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18b, NASB)

This is the rea­son why the New Tes­ta­ment often speaks about the last judge­ment as being based on what we have done.

For we must all appear before the judge­ment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Corinthi­ans 5:10)

So, the opin­ion that faith in Jesus’ death and res­ur­rec­tion is enough in itself for sal­va­tion is wrong; but so is the oth­er extreme that we can gain mer­its in front of God by good works. The lat­ter is refut­ed also in Jesus’ para­ble of the unwor­thy ser­vant:

So you also, when you have done all that you were com­mand­ed, say, “We are unwor­thy ser­vants; we have only done what was our duty.” (Luke 17:10)

Conclusion

The word of God is real­i­ty also today and is able to change the lives of those who want it, who freely decide to serve Jesus tak­ing the easy yoke of Jesus (Matthew 11:30) sub­mit­ting them­selves to the law of free­dom (James 1:25 and 2:12) and not to the law of the Old Tes­ta­ment, bear­ing fruits for God, tes­ti­fy­ing about the pow­er of His grace. They are those who hear and under­stand the word of Jesus:

I am the good shep­herd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have oth­er sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will lis­ten to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shep­herd. (John 10:14–16)

1. “A Chris­t­ian per­son is not made up of his out­ward con­duct; Nor does he behave accord­ing to the exter­nal sit­u­a­tion, but accord­ing to the inner one. That is to say, it is a dif­fer­ent heart, a dif­fer­ent courage, will and mind, which does the same works as anoth­er does with­out this kind of courage and will. For a Chris­t­ian knows that every­thing depends on faith. There­fore he behaves, stands, eats, drinks, dress­es, works and lives like any oth­er com­mon man in his posi­tion, so that you won’t notice his Chris­tian­i­ty….” (Wei­h­nacht­spos­tille 1522: Luther deutsch, Erg.Bd. Luther­lexikon, p. 57 f)

   “A Chris­t­ian can­not be dis­cerned accord­ing to his exter­nal life. For it is no less impure and dilap­i­dat­ed than the life of an non-Chris­t­ian. There­fore they have to pray dai­ly, ‘For­give us our debts.’ Who­ev­er wants to see and dis­cern a Chris­t­ian right­ly, let him do it accord­ing to faith. For accord­ing to our flesh and blood we are sin­ners and, like all peo­ple, must suf­fer death and expect all man­ner of trou­bles here on earth, yes even more than oth­er peo­ple who are non-Chris­tians. For Chris­tians feel the sin much more than oth­er peo­ple.” (Haus­pos­tille 1544, Von der Frucht der Aufer­ste­hung Christi: Luther deutsch, Erg.Bd. Luther­lexikon, p. 58).  ↩