Let us turn to Galatians 2. I am just going to read one verse. Galatians 2:16 says:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
We have come to realize that the Bible is not an easy Book nor is it a simple Book as has been said, “The Gospel is so simple.” People quote John 3:16 and feel that this is all there is to the Gospel, but the Bible is actually a difficult Book. It is the most difficult Book in the world.
One reason for this is because God has an infinite mind and He is the author. He wrote all of the Scripture. He used people to do this, but He wrote it. It comes from Him. He says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” which means that He inspired all of the words of this Book.
He moved His people over centuries to record this information, to compile it in a Book, and now we are blessed. We are privileged to have it all together in one Book and to know that this is the complete Word of God from Genesis through Revelation, the sixty-six books of the Bible. We know that God will not add anything further; this is it.
Yet even though we are greatly blessed to have Bibles and to be under the hearing of the Bible, still we have to admit that the Bible is the world’s most difficult Book to understand. Even though God is brilliant, He could have written it in a simple way; but He did not. He instead wrote it in a very complex way.
It is so complex that when we read simple statements, we think that we understand, like John 3:16. But the truth is that very few people, if any, through history up until our day, understood John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son…
We did not know what it meant that Jesus was “the Son.” This word itself, this designation that He is the Son, is teaching us that He was already laden with sins and had died to pay for those sins. Then He rose from the dead to be “declared to be the Son of God.” And all of this occurred before the world began.
But this is just one phrase in John 3:16 that we can recognize. Actually, the whole verse is very difficult. What does it mean to believe, as the verse continues to say:
…that whosoever believeth in him should not perish…
We have learned what it means to believe. We have learned that this is not something that man can muster up to the satisfaction of God. We cannot do this. God has to do all of the work in the matter of salvation.
But the Bible is so difficult, as we read here in Galatians 2:16:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law…
Then it restates this towards the end of the verse:
…not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
As another example of the difficult nature of the Bible, go to James 2:20-21. It says:
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
But God just said in Galatians 2:16 that a man is not justified by works. Then here in James, He is referring to Abraham and a wonderful work that Abraham did in offering up his son Isaac, and then God asks the question, “Was not Abraham justified by works?”
So what is the answer? The answer is yes, he was, but not in the way that the churches of our day would present this idea and not in the way that many people think. It appears to be a contradiction, and this is how God has written much of the Bible.
In many instances, you can read a verse in one place, read something else in another place, and they do not seem to agree; and so it seems like it is a contradiction. But the Bible is perfect. It is without mistake and without error of any kind, which means that there cannot be contradictions.
Man, however, is full of contradictions between the things we say and the things we do. Sometimes even in just the things we say. One day, we can say one thing. A couple of days later, we can say something else that contradicts what we had said earlier.
This is the nature of man, but this is not the nature of God. God is pure and holy and perfect, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” He is the author of the Bible, and so there are no mistakes or contradictions of any kind.
What we need to do first in order to understand how to harmonize these two verses is to understand the Biblical definition of works. What is a work?
We read again in James 2:21:
Was not Abraham our father justified by works…
But Galatians 2:16 says:
…man is not justified by the works of the law…
And this is referring to all people. So what is a work?
The definition from the Bible is that a work is obedience or attempted obedience to the Law of God on any point. Where God said to do something and people did it, that was a work. Where God said to do something and people did not do it, that was an evil work.
Working has to do with hearing the Bible, learning the Law of God, and then responding in obedience to the Law of God, which would be a work. This is a definition of a work. It is said of the believers, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”
So the Lord saves a person, He gives them His spirit, they learn the Law, they obey the Law, and when they are obeying, that is good works. But this is after salvation and it has nothing to do with obtaining salvation.
Let us go to a couple of verses that will help us see that the definition of a work is to attempt to obey the Law or to actually obey the Law. In Romans 3:19-20, it says:
Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds…
This word for “deeds” is the same Greek word as “works” that is in James or that is in Galatians. It is the Greek word ergon and it is #2041 in the Strong’s Concordance. Here it is translated as “deeds,” but it is the identical word in Galatians 2:16 where it says:
…a man is not justified by the works [or deeds] of the law…
And it says again in Romans 3:20-21:
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight…
So God is reiterating and emphasizing this point. It continues:
…for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Here we read that “the deeds of the law” cannot justify anyone.
Go to Romans 9:31-32 where it says:
But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;
Israel tried to get righteous with God through obedience to the Law of God, and this was their stumblingstone that they tripped and fell over. This was why God cut them off from being a nation. They were seeking to get right with God through their own acts and through their own deeds, through the things that they were doing in obedience to the Law, but God is faulting them here. He is saying that this is not how one becomes righteous.
For instance, we read in Galatians 3:10-11:
For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
So no man can keep the Law satisfactorily enough and obey the Law enough to become saved or to become righteous or to enter into Heaven. This is what God is saying. It is impossible for man to do this.
This is because the moment that a person declares that they are going to keep the Law—like the Jews who attempted to keep the seventh-day Sabbath holy by not doing any work on that day—the moment that they say this, they are obligated to keep the whole Law, all of the Law. They would not be able to fail at anything, as James 2:10 says:
For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
This is why this is impossible for man. There is no person since the fall that does good. God tells us exactly what we are like, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.” None are righteous, not one of us, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
The glory of God is that perfect standard. We all have sinned; therefore, we cannot reach or obtain this standard and we fall short. Because we fall short, we are guilty and we have to pay the penalty that the Law demands, which is death, “For the wages of sin is death.” This applies to any one in any way who is trying to get right with God through obedience to any Law.
We will talk later about what exactly the Law is, because a work is an obedience to the Law. Is this just relating to the Ten Commandments? We will try to define this a little later.
But God is saying here that no one can obtain righteousness through their own effort, their own labor, their own work. God tried to illustrate this repeatedly in the Bible. This is why when they were building the temple, there was no sound of a hammer at the construction site and all of the stones had to be cut somewhere else.
Why? It illustrated that no work was to be performed. It was teaching us that no work was to go into putting together the temple.
The Lord also spoke of the clothing for the priests in relation to this. They were to be clothed in linen so that they would not sweat as they went about their ministerial duties in the temple.
Why? Because it is work that causes sweat. We are to labor in this world by the sweat of our brow. A priest was not to sweat, and so he had to wear some light clothing in order that he would not sweat and even give an appearance of doing any work.
Yet God says in another place in relation to the priest and the fact that they worked on the Sabbath day that this was okay. This is because in giving the Law that a priest was not defiling the Sabbath by working, it allowed Christ to do His work. This is because Christ has placed Himself under His own Law. He could, therefore, do the work that was necessary to save His people.
Let us now look at 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 where it says:
We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love…
Here God is speaking of faith and He calls it a “work.” He says that it is “your work of faith.” This is not an accident. This is a very definite and true statement.
Why is this a true statement? This is a true statement because of what the definition of a “work” is. The definition of a “work” is to seek to obey God on whatever point that He has spoken.
God told Abraham, “Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac…and offer him there for a burnt offering.” This was God’s command to Abraham. Abraham obeyed God, therefore, James 2:21 says:
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
There was a command. Then there was an act of attempted obedience to the command, which is the Biblical definition of a “work.”
Is there any command involved with faith? Yes. Yes, there is. Go to 1 John 3:23:
And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
This is God’s command. Are people not obeying this command just like they are not obeying any other command? Yes, but it does not change the fact that it is a command from God to believe. God commands, “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt…believe.” “Thou shalt…believe” is just as much of a commandment as any of the Ten Commandments.
People tend to think when they read of “the law,” as in, “man is not justified by the works of the law,” that it is referring to keeping the Ten Commandments. It is, but it is also referring to much more than this, to a lot more than the Ten Commandments.
Let us go to one more verse about faith being a work. In 2 Thessalonians 1:11, it says:
Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power:
Again, we read of “the work of faith.” This is the same Greek word ergon. It is a “work of faith.”
Now we have a problem, because the Bible says, “a man is not justified by the works of the law.” So we are not justified by works, and yet God commands us to believe. To attempt to obey this command would be a work.
But people say, “No, you have this all wrong. You are confused. The Ten Commandments are the Law of God.” They might even allow the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, because the Bible does refer to “the law and the prophets.”
We know that Moses wrote the first five books, and these statements are true in relation to the Law. Turn to Exodus 24:12 where we read a reference to the Ten Commandments:
And JEHOVAH said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.
God said to Moses:
…I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments…
So the Ten Commandments are rightly called “the law.” There is no problem with this. The problem is limiting the Law to just or to only the Ten Commandments.
For instance, let us look at several verses that mention “the law.” We read in Leviticus 6:9:
Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering…
Then in Leviticus 6:14, we read:
And this is the law of the meat offering…
Then we read in Leviticus 6:24-25:
And JEHOVAH spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, saying, This is the law of the sin offering…
All of these sacrifices were commanded by God. Therefore, they were laws and Israel was bound to obey them. However, we know that God gave the Law in order to teach the need for salvation due to man’s sins and that “Christ is the end of the law.”
So all the sacrifices were to teach us that we cannot keep God’s Law perfectly. We cannot do this. However, there is a way of salvation, which is in Christ who did keep the Law perfectly.
Let us also look at Leviticus 12:5-7, which is speaking of childbirth:
But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days. And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest: Who shall offer it before JEHOVAH, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.
You will not find this Law in the Ten Commandments. This one is not listed there, but it is a Law. It was a Law for Israel. Many of the laws that God gave—the sacrifices, the seventh-day Sabbath—many of these laws were fulfilled in Christ because He is “the end of the law…to every one that believeth,” which also has a meaning that is related to salvation. God gave these laws to teach us about man’s need for a Saviour, and He gave many laws.
Leviticus 13 mentions laws having to do with leprosy. Then Leviticus 14:2 says:
This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
Jesus referred back to this Law when the ten lepers came to Him and He said, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.” Then the Bible tells us, “As they went, they were cleansed.”
They were obeying the Law, and this is a good time to point this out. Jesus had said, “Go show yourselves unto the priests,” and the Law commands that “the leper in the day of his cleansing…shall be brought unto the priest.” However, the deeper and spiritual meaning is that Christ is the High Priest because those who have leprosy, which is a figure of our sin-sick nature, are to go to the great High Priest, the Lord Jesus.
This is why when the one Samaritan out of the ten went back to Christ and fell down that Christ asked, “Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.” This is because the other nine took the Bible literally because they were seeking after fulfilling the Law. They went to find a priest according to the Law. But “Christ is the end of the law,” and that one Samaritan was an illustration of this as he went back to Jesus.
Let us also go to Deuteronomy 31:24-26:
And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of JEHOVAH, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant…
This was all the writing of Moses. This was the first five books.
So the information in Genesis, the historical accounts, are the Law of God. They are part of Moses’ writings, and yet God calls it His “law.”
We can prove this fact by going to Galatians 4. It says in Galatians 4:21-24:
Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants…
So this historical record of Abraham and his wives and their sons is called “the law.” He asks, “Do ye not hear the law?”
We have to listen to the Law. We cannot just listen to the letter of the Law and try to obey this or that. Instead, we have to ask what the Law is teaching us. In this case, it is teaching us about two covenants, one that leads to bondage and one that leads to Heaven by grace.
The one that leads to bondage was typified by Hagar who was an Egyptian, because Egypt is used in the Bible to point to those who are under Satan’s rule in the “house of bondage.” They are still in bondage with their sins, and so they are under the Law and obligated to obey the Law perfectly until Christ would save them and free them from this situation.
We now know that the first five books are called “the law.” At this point, let us turn to Joshua 24. In Joshua 24:26, after admonishing Israel that they were to obey God and not to seek after false gods, it says:
And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak…
So Joshua wrote the words in the Book of the Law of God, and the book of Joshua is part of the Law. It is part of the Law, just like the first five books.
So what is the Law of God? How far does this stretch? What does it encompass within the Scriptures? It is not just the Pentateuch now, but it is Joshua also. Joshua’s writings are also part of the Law, and Joshua’s writings had to do with the conquest of the land of Canaan.
The book of Joshua was not to give statutes. It was not to give commandments like in the books of Deuteronomy or Leviticus. Joshua was mostly an historical account. It speaks of the fall of Jericho, their defeat at the little city of Ai, and on and on as they conquered this king and this city until the land was taken, and yet Joshua is called “the book of the law” and it was added to the writings of Moses.
One more place is 2 Kings 17. I will start in verse 6 to set the context. We read in 2 Kings 17:6-8:
In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against JEHOVAH their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, And walked in the statutes of the heathen, whom JEHOVAH cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.
Then we read in 2 Kings 17:12-13:
For they served idols, whereof JEHOVAH had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. Yet JEHOVAH testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.
God is indicating that the word that came through the mouth of the prophets was His commandments. It was the Law. The Law of God was what came by “all the prophets.”
This was written at the time when Israel of the North was destroyed, but we can understand this to mean all Scripture. All of the prophets spoke God’s words. It came from His mouth and it is considered “the law.”
The Bible is a Law Book. We say this all of the time and it is true. It is a Law Book, but some people do not like to hear this because they connect it with legalism. If the whole Bible is a Law Book and we are seeking to obey the laws of the Bible, then this is being legalistic.
We are being legalistic if we are trying to become saved in this way. But for the true believers who understand that God does all of the work that is necessary in salvation, we are just understanding the nature of the Book. This is the way in which God has written it. The whole Book—all sixty-six books—are the Law of God.
For instance, go to Psalm 78:1. It says:
Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
“My law” and “the words of my mouth” are synonymous. “Give ear…to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.” It is God who gave the Scripture; it is all His Word. The whole Bible is the Word of God.
You can also read Psalm 119 where you will find, again and again, that God uses synonyms to refer to the Bible. He calls it “the word,” “statutes,” “commandments,” “the law,” and “judgments.” There are a couple of other synonyms that God uses as well. These words that have been translated into English all teach us the same thing, which is that the whole Bible is a Law Book.
Jeremiah 6:19 is again teaching the same thing. It says:
Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.
The Word of God is equivalent to the Law. We just refer to it differently, but it is saying the same thing.
If anyone is concerned about all of these references to the Law, we are not to worry. For example, go to Psalm 19. This will show us that there is nothing to worry about. We read in Psalm 19:7-9:
The law of JEHOVAH is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of JEHOVAH is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of JEHOVAH are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of JEHOVAH is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of JEHOVAH is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of JEHOVAH are true and righteous altogether.
This is a mini summary of Psalm 119 in one verse. It is using the same words that Psalm 119 uses in verse after verse and stanza after stanza. God is just indicating, “This is my Word. I am God. I am ‘Lord of lords, and King of kings.’ When I speak, it is a decree, just as much as any decree of the Medes and Persians that cannot be altered or changed. Everything that I have said is to be obeyed on every point throughout the Bible. If you can do this, you will live. If you cannot do this, you will die and you will perish.”
We, therefore, need a Saviour because there is no way that we can be justified by the deeds of the Law, by keeping the Law of God. Even if we could manage to obey the Ten Commandments and make no other image of God and keep the Lord’s day holy and commit no adultery and not murder or steal, and on and on, still, God has more, as the rich young ruler found out because God had another commandment for him, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast…and come and follow me.” It was just a little additional commandment for him since he thought that he was keeping all of the others. God just says, “Here is something else.”
This is exactly what God has done in the whole Bible. Do you think that you can keep all of these commandments? Then there are more on top of these. For example, when the Word of God is being taught, “Let the woman learn in silence” and not “usurp authority.” Also, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands” and “Husbands, love your wives.” On and on and on, these are all laws and commandments that God has given us.
If anyone is being honest, they will realize that it is impossible to get to Heaven through these acts of obedience to the Law of God. This is what God points out as He says “a man is not justified by the works of the law.”
The moment that we try to do one good work and think that it will earn us any kind of credit or justification in His sight, we have just placed ourself under the whole Bible. We are then responsible to obey all of the Bible, all of Scripture, which is an impossible thing.
This is why Jesus said in that same passage where the rich young ruler went away sorrowful because he had many possessions, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” The disciples were shocked and said, “Who then can be saved?” Then Jesus said, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
God is the answer. He is the solution to the whole dilemma, the whole situation that we find ourselves in, which is that we are breakers of the Law. We find that we are transgressors of the Law and subject to the penalty of the Law, and so we need a Saviour.
Let us go to the Gospel of John in the New Testament. The Law is not confined to the Old Testament. It is not just found there. In the New Testament, it says in John 10:34:
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
Do you know in which book of the Bible this quote is found? It says here, “Is it not written in your law?” Is it in the Ten Commandments? Is it in the Pentateuch?
No, this is found in the Psalms; therefore, the Psalms are the Law of God. They also give commandments that are to be obeyed. Jesus is referring to them here where He says:
…Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
Let us also go to Romans 7. We know that the first few verses of Romans 7 lay out the truth that every human being is married. Yes, even little children. Every human being is married. We are all in a marriage relationship right now. Even if you do not know this, it does not matter because God knows this. The fact is that God has married man to His Law.
When Jesus died to pay the penalty of the Law for His elect people, He redeemed His elect from under the Law. They, therefore, were no longer married to the Law. This is why God typifies His people as “widows,” because they became dead to the Law. However, they were not yet saved. They were not yet the bride of Christ. This is because while His elect live in this world before the time of salvation, they are like a “widow” who is dead to the Law. Then when Christ does save them, they become part of the bride of Christ.
So each one of us is married to the Law and we are obligated as a wife to submit to the Law in this spiritual marriage that God has placed each human being in. God says to do this. In relationship to God through His Law, we are to submit and obey. Whenever we fail to obey, we are “adulterers and adulteresses.” This is what the book of James says. He refers to us as, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses,” because there has been a lack of faithfulness in this marriage relationship due to the fact that we have broken the Law.
The Law says that the adulterer or the adulteress is to be stoned to death, and God is that angry husband who is going to bring destruction on His adulteress wife—each unsaved human being—on May 21, 2011, Judgment Day. Then finally, October 21, 2011 will be the actual day of utter destruction when He will destroy everything. In this figure that is used, He will put to death His unfaithful bride.
Yet we read of a solution in Romans 7:4:
Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another…
This means that if we have been married to another, we have been married before. We are married to the Law of God. We have to become dead, which frees us as a widow because a widow can marry again. It is only a divorced person who is not to marry again.
So according to the Law, a widow can remarry justly; and this is a Law that God gave because He is under His Law, as we read according to Psalm 138:2:
…for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
God has placed Himself under His own Law. This is why there had to be a Melchizedek, because Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi. Therefore, it says in Hebrews 7, “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.” He did this in the Psalms when He spoke of “the order of Melchizedek.” Christ came after “the order of Melchizedek,” which was another Law that now permitted a priest to come from a different order or tribe than Levi. So we are married to the Law and the Law is what is going to condemn us for our transgressions.
There is one more thing in Romans 7 about the Law. We read in Romans 7:14:
For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
The Law is spiritual because the Bible is a spiritual Book. We compare “spiritual things with spiritual,” as it tells us in 1 Corinthians 2. As we rightly understand this, it means that we compare Scripture with Scripture.
To clear one thing up, after which I will give a summary, we read in James 2:18:
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.
The man speaking is Jesus. He is the only one who can make this kind of statement, and He is speaking to all those who make a profession of faith, all Christians:
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.
Christ is the one who performed the works necessary for salvation, as Hebrews 4:3 says:
…the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
He took the sins of His people upon Himself and He paid for those sins. This means that He performed the work necessary to save His elect people.
Then we read in James 2:19:
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
This statement is here because Jesus performed no works for the devils, for Satan or the fallen angels. He only took upon Himself “the seed of Abraham” and not “the nature of angels.”
Then it says in James 2:20-21:
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
The way that God has written this, it really sounds like what Abraham did caused him to become saved and made him just in God’s sight.
God says the same thing a little further in James 2:25 about Rahab:
Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?
This really shows us the nature of the Bible and how God has written it. It shows us just how easy it is for someone to get a wrong idea and then to run with it.
The Muslims point out verses like these and say, “We are justified by works because it tells us that Abraham was justified by works.”
There are also other verses that are written in such a way to where you might get the idea that it was the work of an individual that saved someone, like Cain and Abel. God makes a point of saying that Abel’s works were accepted but Cain’s works were refused.
So what is the solution? Regarding Abraham, the solution to being justified by works is that he was saved when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar. It is the same thing with Rahab. God saved her when she hid the spies. Rahab had already heard the Word. She heard about the great deliverance that God had wrought in Egypt. The Word was applied to her and she was given faith, as the Bible tells us, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So she was saved at that point when she hid the spies.
In other words, God is referring to great acts of obedience to His command, like Abraham, and then He says when that happened, “Was not Abraham justified by works?”
People think that it is because of his act of offering up his son Isaac and being ready to plunge the knife. However, what if God had said, “When Abraham saddled his ass that morning, was not Abraham justified by works?” What would the answer be if God had written it in this way? Yes, he would have been justified by works.
What if when Rahab took out the trash on the day that she received the spies or on any other day after God had saved her, was she justified by works when she took out the trash? Yes, she was justified by works when she took out the trash.
Was not Lester, for example, justified by works when he handed out a million tracts? Yes; do you see? When the object is in view and it is a spiritual object or something good, a good work, then people think of the work itself, for example, of handing out a million tracts.
But was not Lester justified by works when he did his dishes in his apartment? The same answer is yes. This is because at a certain point in Lester’s life, God applied the work of Christ to save him, work that was finished from the foundation of the world. Thereafter, God could take a snapshot of any point in a true believer’s life and ask this same type of question, “Was not Abraham justified by works?” And the answer would be yes.
So this is how we understand this. There is no contradiction. If any man thinks, like Cain, that they can offer up a sacrifice or a good work or any act of obedience, like Abraham in the case of his own son, the Bible says, “man is not justified by the works of the law.” A work does not apply to any individual. It is only the work that Christ has done.
I wanted to go through this because we say all of the time that the Bible is a Law Book, and there is no reason to be concerned by this statement because Psalm 19:7 says:
The law of JEHOVAH is perfect, converting the soul…
How can the Law convert anyone? The Law can do this because it is the Word of God and “faith cometh by hearing.”
So the whole Bible is the Word of God. It is a Law Book that is full of commandments. When God says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” it is a commandment. Therefore, the moment someone says, “I believe; I am going to obey this particular commandment to believe,” they have now placed themselves under the Law. They have placed themselves in a spot where they are bound to obey all of the laws of the Bible, which God lays out in Galatians 3:10 that we read earlier.
Those in the churches today are still being baptized and partaking of the Lord’s Table. In the case of those who have remained in the churches, they are not obeying God because He has commanded, “Come out of her.” But if anyone thinks that any act of obedience on their part to any Law of God will save them and justify them, then they have placed themselves under the Law. They have just gone back into Egypt and they are now under bondage. This means that their covenant head is Hagar, and they are now subject to keep the whole Book, the whole Bible.
So here is a summary of statements that the Bible teaches:
1. The whole Bible is the Law of God.
2. Work, as the Bible defines it, is attempting to obey the Law, the commandments of God.
3. God commands us to believe on Christ, as we read in 1 John 3:23. Let me read this one more time because this is very important. We read in 1 John 3:23:
And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ…
So this is a commandment and it is a Law.
4. Attempted or actual obedience to the command to believe would be defined as a work by God because the Bible defines faith as a work.
This fits in with all of this, does it not? The whole Bible is a Law Book. God gave a command that we are to believe. In 1 Thessalonians 1 and in 2 Thessalonians 1, God indicates “the work of faith,” which is the Greek word ergon.
5. Man is not justified by works in any way.
6. When an individual says, “I will accept Christ; I will believe,” they are putting themselves under the works of the Law and they are now required to keep the whole Bible because attempting to obey God’s command to believe puts one under the obligation to obey the whole Law, which places a person under the Law’s curse.
7. This means that man cannot do anything to get himself saved, including the work of believing on Christ. No one can satisfactorily obey this command because then they would have to obey all the commands of the Scriptures.
Let us close here.