Study in the Epistle of Jude # 11: Verse 3

by Chris McCann

EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study time. We are continuing in our study of the Epistle of Jude. Recently, we have taken a slight detour into James chapter 2 to further study saving faith and what exactly it is that saves a sinner. As we have been taking a closer look at this question, we have seen that whenever the Bible is speaking of saving faith, it always has the Lord Jesus Christ in view, not man. We began in James 2:14, and we have worked our way up to verse 18, which states:

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Here, as we have seen, the “man” who is in view is Christ Himself. There are a few places in the Bible where God just speaks of a man without identifying that man at all, but yet we know, by the context, that the “man” who is being spoken of is Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 32:2, we read:

And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ qualifies as this “man.” Who else could be a “hiding place” or “as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land”? Only Jesus is in view by this language of “a man.” God does not get specific here or give any information about the man, He just says that he was “a man.” In Ecclesiastes 9:14-15, we find this language:

There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.

This “poor, wise man” is also a picture of Jesus Christ. He is the One who delivers the city by His wisdom. We could also go to other places to show that from time to time, God speaks of Christ and calls Him a man. Here in James 2:18, that is exactly what is happening:

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works…

Jesus is putting the question to all those who say that they are Christians, “Okay, you say that you have faith, and you say that you are one of God’s children. You have that profession of faith, but I have works.” Then He says:

…shew me thy faith without thy works…

Of course, nobody can do this without the work that accompanies faith. God has said that faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone (James 2:17). No one truly does have faith without works. The works in view are not works that men do. They are not the works of keeping the law—that is not the work that must accompany saving faith. The work that must always accompany saving faith is the work of Christ Himself as He paid for the sins of His people. The last part of verse 18 states:

… shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

We remember that Jesus is the One who is speaking. He is saying, “I will show thee My faith. How will I do this? By My works.” Is this not so, as we take a look at the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as we see Him bearing the sins of His people, as we see Him entering into the Garden of Gethsemane and then experiencing the wrath of God? We see His works, and we see Him suffering greatly. We see Him in agony with great drops of sweat dripping off Him as blood (Luke 22:44). We see His soul heavy unto death. These are the works of Christ, and as we see these works, we know that this is His faith which is in view. We see both faith and works hand in hand. This is the work that saves, and when we read the Gospel accounts of the atonement, Christ’s faithfulness is in constant view. This is the work that must accompany anyone’s profession of faith in order for it to be a genuine profession of faith.

Let me say this another way. If someone says that they believe in Christ and that they are a Christian, a child of God, and yet Christ’s work on the Cross does not accompany their faith, nor did Jesus take their sins upon Himself and pay for those sins, then their faith is dead. It is therefore alone, and regardless of what they say or think in their minds about their relationship to God, they do not have salvation. If we now look at someone else, and this is someone whom God has saved, and they also profess to be a Christian and to know God, but their sins were placed upon Christ, then they have faith and works. They have the work that Jesus provided, and that is true salvation. It is true salvation in a case like that, when someone professes to be a child of God and then the work of Christ backs up that profession of faith.

Now in James 2:19, we go on to read:

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

We want to know why this interjection is here, and if all of a sudden we are really to focus on devils. Why is God directing our attention to devils? Because He is looking at those who profess with their mouths. He is speaking of those who would acknowledge that there is a God. He is saying, “Thou believest that there is one God. That is good; you do well. That is proper and right and it is true that there is one God, but that is not salvation. For example, look at the devils. The devils also believe that there is one God and tremble.” In Mark 5:6-9, we have an account of this. It says there:

But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

Here we see that the devils believe. They recognize that Christ was God. They recognize that He was the Messiah, He was the One who came from God and had the power of God. Therefore they are beseeching and adjuring Him that He torment them not, as Matthew 8:29 says, “before the time,” before the Day of Judgment. Intellectually, devils acknowledge the existence of God. They confess God in the sense that they recognize that there is one God. Satan knows that there is one God, but this knowledge, or even the profession that devils sometimes made as Christ would approach to cast them out, did not save them. It did nothing for the devils. The devils also believe and tremble just like some people say that they believe in God. But what is the point that God is making? Why should we turn our attention to the devils? The point is that Christ did not pay for the sins of any of the devils. He did not pay for the sins of Satan or any of the fallen angels who later would be identified as devils, and so they have no work of Christ regardless of what they believe about God. Even if they recognize Him to be the true God, and even if they say with their mouths that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, none of that could ever save them because their words would not be accompanied by the work of Christ. Jesus did not pay for the sins of any devil. That is the point; that is what God is saying.

Many people fall into this same category. Christ went to the Cross for a certain number of people. He did not die for everyone, yet many people are making their claim on God and saying that they are a believer. However, if Jesus did not die for them, then they have no works. They will be in the same boat as the devils. The devils have no provision for their salvation, and so they will definitely end up under the judgment of God and will be cast into Hell on the Last Day. God is pointing the finger at them, and He is saying, “Okay, you are saying that you believe, and that is good; but take a look at the devils.” Just speaking words does not save anyone. Intellectually, acknowledging the existence of God does not save anyone. It does not save the devil, and it will not save a man. God is really hitting hard on the point that we must have works. We must have works that accompany our faith, and that work cannot be our work. It cannot be anything of man, but it must be the work of Christ alone.

It goes on to say in James 2:20:

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

Again, God is reiterating what He said in verse 17:

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

He will say it again at the end of this chapter for three times total—this is the second of the three times here in verse 20. Faith without works is dead, O vain man.

What is a vain man? Vanity means that something is empty, that something is of no profit. Therefore, a man who professes to know God and yet does not have works is a vain man. He is an empty man because He has not experienced the salvation of God—his whole profession of faith is vanity. It is as vain as the things of the world. Everything in the world really is vanity, as Solomon said, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). Why are they vain? Why are all of the things of the world vain? Because they are temporal and will pass away. Anything that does not last, that does not continue on into eternity, is vanity. Our houses, our cars, our riches, the beauty of a man or a woman—all these things are vain and they will pass away. Everything that we can see in this world is vanity.

God is making a point here in James 2:20. He is speaking about someone who professes faith without works, and says that their profession of faith is vanity, it will pass away. There will come a point in time when God will usher forth this individual to be in front of Him to stand for judgment, and then it will be evident that this man’s faith was vain. It was a vain faith, because there was no work of Christ involved in this person’s salvation at all. It was his own doing, it was his church’s doing, it was worked out between him and the pastor. It was something developed by the deceitfulness of his own heart and mind even as he lived his life calling himself a Christian. It was all complete vanity because, at the end, he is going to have to be cast away and thrown into Hell.

This is the worst type of vanity that there is. It is bad enough to be involved with the vain things of this world, but a vain profession of faith is the most horrible form of vanity because individuals are fooled and deceived into thinking that this is something that will last and will endure forever. Most people recognize that this world will not last. They know that they cannot take anything out of this world when they die, but they think, “My faith will sustain me, my faith will endure, my faith will continue on forevermore.” But God is saying, “No, you have never been born again, and you have never truly been blessed by Me.” He is saying that a man’s faith without works is dead. Then in James 2:21 we read:

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

This is the verse that first attracted us to James 2. How could God say or imply here that Abraham’s faith, or his work which would go hand in hand with faith, somehow justified Abraham? God even gives the occasion when Abraham had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar. But, in Romans 4 we find something that offsets this verse, something that God has placed here to protect anyone from getting the wrong idea about Abraham and his works. We read in Romans 4:2:

For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

God is indicating here in Romans 4 that Abraham was not justified by works, that he had not “whereof to glory.” We have to take this into consideration as we read James 2:21:

Was not Abraham our father justified by works…

The answer is absolutely not. No way was Abraham justified by his own work. To be justified means that someone is saved, that someone is just and righteous in the sight of God. It means that someone is a child of God, clean and pure in God’s sight. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works?” No, if we are trying to say that it was Abraham’s works—Abraham’s works played no part in his justification. However, if we understand these works to be the works of Christ, then the answer is yes. Yes, Abraham our father was justified by work, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. How then could that be, when the second part of the verse says:

…when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

Let us turn back to Genesis 22:3-12 and read this dramatic historical account. We read:

And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

Here we can see the situation that God is talking about in James 2. It was a dramatic situation, because Isaac was Abraham’s son of the promise, the son he had waited so long for, the son that was born to him when he was 100 years old and Sarah was 90, the son which was almost impossible that he would have. He was the son through which God would bring the many blessings to Abraham that He had said He would do, so that Abraham would be a father of many nations. It would all work itself out through Isaac. So God, in telling Abraham to offer up Isaac, was providing a great test to Abraham, and Abraham was obedient to this test. He took his son and laid him upon the altar, and he was going to kill him.

In the book of Hebrews, we read that Abraham accounted that God was able to raise him up (Hebrews 11:19). Abraham had faith that God would resurrect Isaac once he had killed him, and definitely he was going to follow through and slay his son. We can see how God has set up this trap in James 2. God picked perhaps the most incredible act of a man’s faithfulness and obedience to God’s command that we might find in the Bible apart from Christ’s, and then God worded James 2:21 in such a way as to make it seem as if it was Abraham’s action that was justifying him.

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

“Who can say no to that? Of course Abraham was justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.” So many theologians wax eloquent about this, and they speak of the great faith of Abraham and go on and on to say what a tremendous example of faith Abraham is.

Even though it is true that Abraham was a faithful man, and that he was obedient to God’s command, his action of laying Isaac his son upon the altar had nothing to do with justifying him in the sight of God. Galatians 2:16 says that a man is not justified by the works of the law, no matter how tremendous the works might be. A man is not justified by the works of the law. How then can we understand this?

Lord willing, we will take a look at that in our next study as we continue to work our way through James 2. We will see that there is a very Biblical solution to this question and to this problem. We will see the solution that we do offer harmonizes everything in the Bible, and we will find that, once again, the work in view here that justifies is that of the Lord Jesus Christ.