understanding of the relationship between faith and works.
A Look at the Issues
tell "converts" that any doubt about their salvation is satanic and should be dismissed. It is a widely held misconception that anyone who questions whether he is saved is challenging the integrity of God's Word.
What misguided thinking that is! Scripture encourages us to examine ourselves to determine if we are in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5). Peter wrote, "Be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you" (2 Peter 1:10). It is right to examine our lives and evaluate the fruit we bear, for "each tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:44).
The Bible teaches clearly that the evidence of God's work in a life is the inevitable fruit of transformed behavior (1 John 3:10). Faith that does not result in righ teous living is dead and cannot save (James 2:14 – 17).3 Professing Christians utterly lacking the fruit of true righ teous ness will find no biblical basis for assurance of salvation (1 John 2:4).
Real salvation is not only justification. It cannot be isolated from regeneration, sanctification, and ultimately glorification. Salvation is the work of God through which we are "conformed to the image of His Son" (Rom. 8:29; cf. 13:11). Genuine assurance comes from seeing the Holy Spirit's transforming work in one's life, not from clinging to the memory of some experience.
Some Historical Background
In a study of Jesus' gospel, we cannot be concerned primarily with academic systems of theology or the views of specific theologians on a given doctrine. Nevertheless, in seeking to understand the issues, we must look at how the contemporary perspective of the gospel has evolved.
Prior to this century, no serious theologian would have entertained the notion that it is possible to be saved yet see nothing of the outworking of regeneration in one's lifestyle or behavior.4 In 1918 Lewis Sperry Chafer published He That Is Spiritual, articulating the concept that 1 Co rin thi ans 2:15 – 3:3 speaks of two classes of Chris tians: carnal and spiritual. Chafer wrote, "The 'carnal' Chris tian is . . . characterized by a 'walk' that is on the same plane as that of the
3. James asks the rhetorical question, "What use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?" (James 2:14). One branch of contemporary theology seems to be saying yes. Cf. Hodges, Gospel Under Siege, 19 – 33.
Nevertheless, James's message seems clear. Even the demons have faith enough to grasp the basic facts (v. 19), but that is not redeeming faith. "Faith without works is useless" (v. 20) and "faith without works is dead" (v. 26). Putting those three verses together, we must conclude that this is a description of ineff ectual faith, not faith that was once alive but now has died. (See further discussion in chap. 18, n. 5.)
4. See appendix 1, "Th e Gospel According to the Apostles," for an overview of the historic church's understanding of the relationship between faith and works.