FAITH
WITHOUT WORKS.
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
Thou has
faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew
thee my faith by my works. – James ii:18.
In conversing with some on the
subject of healing by prayer, the above-quoted text has often been brought up
as a warrant for their using medicine at the same time that they are trusting
the Lord to effect a cure.
But there is a vast difference
between resting our faith (or rather the lack of it) on the foundation of our
works; and, again, showing forth our works as a natural and inevitable result
of our faith.
The whole line of argument is
presented in James ii:14-26, teaches us that those who profess to have faith in
God, show by their works whether or not that faith is more than a mere profession.
On the same principle, if I really have faith to accept to promise of healing
in James v:14, 15, I shall consider medicine superfluous (to say the least),
and my giving it p will be an evidence of my faith.
On the other hand, it would be entirely
inconsistent to argue that the use of medicine is a mark of faith. What would
we think of one who said, “See how much faith I have because I take such a
quantity of medicine?” And yet such a speech would be in accordance with the
erroneous view of this passage which many are inclined to take.
The very fact of our continuing the
use of medicine, when we are depending on “the payer of faith,” would imply a
lack of faith either in God’s power or willingness to heal. And thus we hinder
the wok of healing, by clinging to that which indulges our unbelief. Of course
the medicine, itself, could not Hinder God’s work in our bodies, but our unconscious
dependence on it prevents our exercising full faith to grasp the promises.
If I rely on medicine, I limit
myself to the natural efficiency of medicine; if, however, I have faith to cast
aside these remedies (so often, of necessity, imperfectly applied), and obey
the instructions in James v:14,15, I do not oppose natural laws, but get beyond
and above them into the infinite resources of an Almighty Creator.
He Word reads: “Shew me thy faith
without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” We can readily
see that if we attempt to show our faith without our works, it must be a mere
profession of faith, having no life or reality and therefore it “is dead, being
alone.” But again true faith says, “I will shew thee my faith by my works.”
Our works prove not only to others,
but to our own hearts also, whether or not we have faith. If I say I have faith
that I am healed in the name of the Lord, and yet do not show forth my faith by
acting as I were healed, it is apparent to myself and to others that my faith
is without works and dead. If I say that I believe in a certain thing, my
actions must testify to that belief, and thus I shall show forth my faith by my
works.
There are no works so real and so
constant as those proceeding from faith, but they differ from the works
proceeding from sight and sense, in that they are no longer our works,
but the fruit of the Spirit Who worketh in us, and the faithful disciple learns
to say with his Lord, “I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while
it is day.”-(St. John ix:4.)
Sense looks at things seen
and presumptuously dares to present its own works as a help to God’s work;
faith looks at “the things not seen,” and works upon the promises of God
as “the substance of things hoped for.”
Sense works as a means of
attaining a desired end; faith works as having already attained that which
God has wrought for us.
If I have faith that my Saviour died
for my sins, and was raised again for my justification, I am ready to yield
myself unto God as one “alive from the dead,” and my “members as instruments of
righteousness unto God.” Then the fruit of this resurrection-life will be apparent
in good works, not as the means of obtaining salvation, but as the fruit
of the salvation already ours in Christ Jesus.
Again, if I have faith that Jesus
Christ Himself took my infirmities and bare my sickness (St. Matt. Viii: 17), I
know that my body is thereby made free from sickness, and as a result of
this faith (not waiting for feeling) I begin to exercise the new life which I
have claimed as mine, and thus I show forth my faith by my works.
There are some who sit grieving over
unanswered prayers, and marvel that it is not done unto them according to their
faith, when, in reality, they have exercised no faith, but have indulged in
that timidity of belief which waits for sight before it ventures to act. Let us
remember that we walk by faith and not by sight; and that “as the body without
the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
