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GALATIANS 3:6-9

What do we do when we have two passages of Scripture which seem to contradict each other? Many Liberal Protestant theologians would use such situations to suggest that the Bible is not inerrant (without error). In Galatians 3:6-9, Derek Wilder and the Lives Transforming panel just such a seeming conflict, giving an excellent example of how digging a little deeper into the meaning of various passages of Scripture can shed a great deal of light on how seemingly contradictory concepts work together.

In Galatians 3:6-9, Paul refers back to Abraham as an example of someone who believed and was justified by faith rather than by circumcision (or following the Law). For many Jewish believers, this must have seemed strange, since the practice of circumcision started with Abraham and was given to him as a sign of his covenant with God.

In James 2:21, James refers to the same Old Testament example of Abraham and comes to what appears to be (at least on the surface) a very different conclusion. Whereas Paul says that we are saved by grace apart from works, James says that we show our faith by our works.

If we take everything on the surface, this seems to leave us a bit of a quandary. Are we saved by grace through faith apart from works, or do works need to be added to our faith to earn salvation? Historically, and even today, the Catholic Church has contended for the latter position.

Lives Transforming borrows from such theological greats as Calvin and Luther, as well as the more contemporary theologians behind the Dallas Theological Seminary commentaries, in examining the meaning behind these passages.

  • Luther suggests that we are made righteous by a transfusion of God’s righteousness to us through our belief in Jesus Christ which is necessary to deal with the original sin which lingers inside of us.
  • Calvin believed that there was a difference between being declared righteous by god and actually being righteous. Holding to the ideas that God is completely Sovereign and that man is completely depraved, he balked at the idea that we are actually righteous, suggesting instead that we are simply declared righteous.
  • Dallas Theological Seminary’s (DTS) commentaries suggest that Paul and James were talking about different things when referring to justification. Paul was focusing on what causes you to become justified (faith) and James was talking about the natural result of becoming justified by faith (works)

Drawing most heavily from Luther and DTS, and from one of the important concepts used in Lives Transforming’s cognitive therapy webinars, Derek shows how both of these important parts of Scripture complement one another rather than being contradictory.

When it comes to justification, faith is like the root system of a tree. Without the root system, the tree would die. More accurately, it would never have grown in the first place. Works are like the fruit which grows on the tree. They are the natural result of a tree growing from its root system. A tree does what it is designed to do by virtue of being what it is. In other words, our “do” flows naturally from our “be.”

Trying to point to a person’s fruit as what justifies him is kind of like taping apples onto a tree. If they didn’t grow there naturally, they’ll only die and show themselves for what they truly are. When works (or fruit) come as a natural result of his faith, on the other hand, they are evidence of his justification which can be clearly seen.

Of course, we must be very cautious about judging other people’s fruit. It isn’t our place to play God and suppose that we understand what is going on inside of someone else. When someone else fails to behave as we believe they should, it does not mean that anything is wrong with their faith. Rather than thinking this way, we are to trust God to help them to grow, just as we trust Him to help us grow, not so we can have better works to become justified, but because the fact that we are justified and made righteous by God will naturally lead to better works.