Gospel Guidebook: Getting and Keeping It Right 
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What Is Justification by Works in James 2?
by Robert P. TerryPublished Updated May 11, 2026
Before reading this article, I recommend reading the following three articles in order: New Perspective on James 2:14-26, Relationship Between Faith and Works in Key Passages (especially the sections on Hebrews 11:7 and 1 John 3:14-15), and The Nature of Faith Technically Explained.
In the letter of James, James admonishes believers in Christ to be justified by works. In James 2:21, we read, "Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?" And again, in James 2:25, "And in the same way was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?" At first glance, this might seem contrary to what the Apostle Paul taught, "by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight" (Romans 3:20), but if the nature of faith and the relationship between faith and works are understood correctly, this apparent contradiction immediately disappears.
It is important to notice that James speaks of two separate types of justification: justification by works and justification by faith. He mentions justification by works in the two verses mentioned above and also in James 2:24, and he mentions justification by faith in James 2:23, "and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, 'And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness'" and then again in James 2:24 where he explicitly enumerates these two types of justification. He says, "Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only [justified] by faith" (James 2:24 ASV, with the omitted verb "justified" added for clarification). If taken at face value, James is saying that his readers already knew about justification by faith, but that they also needed to know about justification by works, and by implication, put it into practice. In his letter, James never conflates these two types of justification, nor does he introduce some mysterious and elusive dark matter-like religious faith that supposedly produces works and is evidenced by works while somehow still not being a law of works. In order to understand Hebrews 11, James 2, and 1 John, it is vital to understand the difference between justification by faith and justification by works and to hold firm to the faith that the rest of the world knows as plain old belief.
I have many articles on this website dealing with the topic of faith and its relationship with justification, and I would recommend reading What Is the Gospel and the Nature of Faith?, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and Q&A on Faith, but in short, justification by faith is the inaugural belief (i.e., the inception of belief) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It is basically God giving His elect the eyes to see His righteousness as proclaimed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This is my first article dealing directly with the topic of justification by works, and having already dealt with James 2:14-26 and 1 John 3:14-15 in the articles mentioned in the first paragraph above, I now intend to generally discuss the mechanics of justification by works, as well as look at a few passages, including the "by faith" passages in Hebrews 11 and the "have confidence" and "assure our heart" passages of 1 John 2:28, 3:19, and 4:17. I expect that by the end of this discussion on justification by works, the attentive reader will be able to apply the concepts learned here to other passages of Scripture.
To begin this discussion, it is necessary to understand the purpose of justification by works. Based on what we learned in James 2:14-26, the purpose of justification by works is twofold: to strengthen faith (i.e., the inaugural faith of justification by faith that is now a diachronic faith) and to obtain an experiential ethical righteousness (as opposed to the positional forensic righteousness of justification that was accomplished by Christ for the elect at the cross and the experiential forensic righteousness of justification by faith that the elect enjoy when they believe). This experiential ethical righteousness is part of the experience of eternal life that glorifies God, deepens fellowship with God, enjoys rewards, and benefits others.
As for the mechanics of justification by works, it cannot exist apart from faith. As we are told in Hebrews 11, "without faith it is impossible to please God," meaning that it is impossible to do anything that pleases God apart from faith. However, we must not be hasty to conclude that faith produces works, inherently contains works (similar to how a seed inherently contains fruit), or is evidenced by works. As mentioned above, if faith could do any of these things, it would be no different from a law of works, being the first principle of the very works themselves. Rather, faith is what faith is, the doxastic attitude of being persuaded by the evidence for a thing. Although this "bare faith" or "mere mental assent" (as it is pejoratively called) is disdained by everyone who is ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, those of us who love truth rejoice in what the Lord has done. Therefore, faith, instead of being the first principle of works themselves, plays the role of an essential variable in justification by works. By itself, faith cannot produce works and cannot be evidenced by works, but when nurtured by the will of the believer and combined with other variables, such as desire, that create motivation for works, it helps create the conditions necessary for performing works, and to the extent that there are no confounding variables or constraints, finds itself in a positively correlative relationship with works. This means that justification by works is the effect of several variables getting together under the right conditions to perform a work that is pleasing to God. However, this is not all, because, as mentioned above, justification by works also has the effect of strengthening faith, enabling the performer of the works to have greater confidence and assurance in the justification that was accomplished by Christ for the elect at the cross, as well as in his relationship and fellowship with God as someone who is experiencing eternal life more abundantly (John 10:10). In this manner, faith and works cooperate to create a synergistic effect of strengthened faith in Christ's work and experiential assurance of eternal life.
It is important to understand that this faith that plays the role of an essential variable in justification by works is nothing other than the faith that existed in justification by faith. It is not faith in works, nor is it faith in gaining God's favor through works. It is simply belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. I urge every reader of this article to read 1 John again and see how this faith lies in the background of all his admonishments to "know Him," "abide in Him," "keep His commandments," "walk in light," "do righteousness," "love one's brother," and so on. Right from the start, the Apostle John reminds us that it is the blood of the Jesus His Son that cleanses us from all sin, and then throughout the remainder of the letter repeatedly reminds us that it is Jesus who is the propitiation for our sins and that it is Jesus who is the Christ, the Son of God, who loved us by laying His life down for us. Let's look at an interesting comparison. In 1 John 3:21-22, we read, "Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." From the context, we can see that these verses are primarily addressed to people who keep His commandments, especially acts of love toward one another, which would fall in the realm of justification by works. However, in 1 John 5:13-15, we read, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." In contrast, these verses are addressed to people who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and John wants them to know cognitively (as opposed to experientially) that they have eternal life. Because of the rule of Hebrews 11:6, this indicates that faith is undergirding the confidence of those who keep His commandments in 1 John 3:21-22. In fact, in the very next verse, John reminds them that God's commandment to them is to believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ. Again, the point of this comparison is to show that faith is the essential variable to having confidence with God, and it is works that are added to this faith to create a synergistic effect of stronger faith and a deeper fellowship with God and other believers. Anyone who is experiencing eternal life in this manner can certainly have great boldness in their walk with God. Now, before looking at 1 John 2:28, 3:19, and 4:17, let's first look at Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11
In Hebrews 11, it is quite common for people to interpret the "by faith" passages as if faith produced these great feats. However, this is incorrect. As mentioned in my article Relationship Between Faith and Works in Key Passages, there are several descriptions of faith in Hebrews 11 and none of them describes faith as producing anything. In Hebrews 11:1, we have a description of faith that is entirely consistent with faith being "mere mental assent." In that verse we read, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." This description should be the lens through which we interpret the "by faith" passages. Furthermore, the only other passages that potentially describe faith (and if, indeed, they do describe it, are still much less explicit than 11:1) are 11:6 (where it is described as "believing"), 11:10 (where it is described as "looking"), 11:11 (where it is described as "regarding faithful the promiser"), 11:13 (where it is described as "seeing," "being persuaded," and "embracing" promises; but not as "confessing" themselves to be strangers and pilgrims because 11:14-16 explains that this action involved the intentional state of desire), 11:19 (where it is described as "reckoning"), 11:23 (where it is described as "seeing" in the sense of judging something to be the case, and then as "not fearing" in the sense of overcoming the evidence contrary to belief in the king's edict and the fear it elicited), and 11:27 (where it is described as "seeing the unseen"). These descriptions do not support the idea that faith can produce works. Moreover, what is translated as "by faith" is simply the bare Greek word pistis in the dative case. It is quite ambiguous by itself and can mean several different things, such as "by faith," "through faith," "in faith," "according to faith," or "with faith." In fact, in verses 11:7 and 11:13 this pistis in the dative case is clarified as meaning "according to faith," and in verses 11:4 (2x), 11:7, 11:33 and 11:39 is clarified as meaning "through faith." There is nothing in Hebrews 11 by which we can deduce that faith did anything other than act as as an essential variable (that needed to be combined with other variables, such as desire, to create the motivation) for these great feats. The emphasis is on faith because "without faith it is impossible to please God" (11:6). So, what can we say about these works? For starters, James mentioned both Abraham and Rahab in James 2, and from what we read in Hebrews 11:17-19, we can see that Abraham's works, done in cooperation with faith, strengthened his faith as "he considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him [Isaac] back as a type," and at the same time deepened his relationship with God so that he was praised and called the friend of God. His works gave him greater assurance of faith in the justification that God was going to perform in Christ and a greater experience in his walk with God. Likewise, Rahab is said to have hid the spies by faith. What we see in this chapter is that these "heroes of faith" (as they are commonly called) "died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." Despite what we hear from the pulpits about looking to our works for assurance, or as Heidelberg Catechism says, "so that we may be assured of our faith by its fruits," these people in Hebrews 11 were not looking at their works or inspecting fruit. Their eyes were steadfast on the promises of God, and it was this plain old belief that "considered Him faithful who had promised," by which they gained approval, their faith working in cooperation with their works (11:2, 11:39, 12:1). "According to faith" and "through faith," these people were truly "justified by works" (James 2:21, 25).
1 John 2:28-29
Let's now return to 1 John. In the article Relationship Between Faith and Works in Key Passages, I mainly discussed 1 John 3:14-15, which seems to be a favorite passage among people who think they need to justify their faith by their works (as if Jesus' works were not enough to justify their faith), as well as 1 John 1:3-4, 6, 2:3-5. In this article, I briefly looked at 1 John 3:21-22 and 5:13-15, but will now look at a few more passages. First, let's consider 1 John 2:28-29, And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. If we look a little closer at the context, we can see that the Apostle John said this against the backdrop of false teachers who were denying that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Now, I am not sure exactly how they were doing this and it may be that they were teaching Docetism (i.e., denying that Jesus is human) as suggested by many scholars, but I will say that many people deny that Jesus is the Christ by thinking it too small of a thing to believe it. In other words, like the Galatians were being tempted to do, people are not satisfied with the work of Jesus as the Christ, and thus attempt to add to His work. By doing this, they are essentially denying who He is. It is quite common to hear these people speaking about "true faith," "true Christians," and about how faith is not "mere mental assent." Their own words betray that they are trusting in something other than Christ, for whatever is lacking in "mere mental assent" is exactly that which is lacking in the work of Christ. Now, John was also dealing with doctrinal troubles, and he wanted to encourage his readers to hold firm to the teaching that they had heard from the beginning. He says to let the teaching that they had heard "abide" in them. As I mentioned in the article linked above, John uses the word "abide" to refer to one's experience. He was telling them to make the effort to keep this teaching steadfast. Like I described in my article, The Nature of Faith Technically Explained, once we have a diachronic belief, it is the volition of the believer that explicitly maintains this belief by curating the evidence the mind is exposed to and determining how to deliberate new evidence for or against the belief. Faith itself is not a work (at least no more than digestion, blinking, hearing, seeing, smelling, and going bald are works), nor can it produce works, but as mentioned above, works strengthen faith, and this holds true for the efforts that the volition makes to hold firm to a belief, or as John himself said in a similar context about false teachers, "Watch yourselves, that you might not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward" (2 John 8). So, what we see is that it takes effort to maintain one's diachronic faith amid many temptations to apostatize. This effort is a work. However, this work is meant to maintain and strengthen the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. This effort to maintain faith is clearly not meant, in itself, to be a source of assurance of being justified by faith. Again, as explained above, the purpose is to strengthen diachronic faith and obtain an experiential ethical righteousness, which John refers to as "a full reward." This fits in perfectly with justification by works.
Let's move onto what the Apostle John says next, "you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him." It is unclear whether John is still referring to the practical righteousness of abiding in Him by holding fast to the foundational teaching that Jesus is the Christ, or if he is referring to godly living in general. It may be that he is referring to both. Either way, the general truth that John wants to teach is that born-again people are characterized by righteousness living, just as he says in the next chapter, "Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;" and "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother" (1 John 3:7, 10). Righteousness living includes practicing good works, which according to the Apostle Paul are befitting for people who profess godliness (1 Tim. 2:10). So, what exactly can we say about this practice of righteousness? Are we to suppose that because born-again people practice righteousness that these people can get their assurance of being justified by faith from their works? If so, in what way? If the works themselves are their assurance, then this would be no different from works salvation. If the works somehow justify faith or give evidence of faith, this would be no different from trusting in faith itself (and for many people, their conversion experience). It is interesting how often people will say that we are not justified by the act of faith itself, but by the object of faith (i.e., Christ), and yet, by making works the so-called evidence of their faith (because, as they tell us, "faith produces works" and "faith is like a fruit tree"), these same people betray that their trust is not in Christ, but in their faith, by which they pride themselves for supposedly appropriating to themselves the benefits of the Gospel through the practice of "true faith." If they should try to rebut and say that their faith is in Christ and that the works provide evidence that Christ is in them (alluding to 2 Cor. 13:5), then this only obfuscates the problem, for they would be trusting in "Christ in them" (a type of imparted or infused righteousness) rather than "Christ for them" (imputed righteousness). Besides this, it is obvious from the context of 2 Corinthians 13:5 that the Apostle Paul is using the word faith synecdochically to refer to the pattern of life characteristic of believers of Jesus Christ, not to faith as he describes it in justification by faith. And, if upon reflection, they should grant this synechdocal use of the word faith, they shall have conceded my point that works cannot provide assurance of being justified by faith, for that which we can experience from justification by works is unable to take us any farther than "Christ in us"; provided, however, that we are even able to discern "Christ in us" correctly as opposed to another Jesus, another spirit, or counterfeited works done according to the flesh (2 Cor. 11:4). If we should get this far, the only thing left for them to do would be to repudiate their "true faith" and acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ. Having said all this, what can we say about this practice of righteousness that John refers to? We can say that the practice of righteousness is characteristic of born-again people, but that the practice of righteousness itself is not a ground of assurance of being justified by faith. It can strengthen faith in Jesus Christ and it can give us confidence, boldness, and assurance in our relationship with God as we experience eternal life, but it must never be regarded as a source of assurance of our right standing with God. Our right standing with God is solely because of "what Christ did for us," and not a combination of "what Christ did for us" and "what Christ does in us." If the latter were true, we would be denying the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice and in the process denying Christ (1 John 2:22). "What Christ does in us" is a benefit administered to the elect because of "what Christ did for us" and must not be made to be anything more than that.
Logical Considerations
Before moving on to other verses, I want to discuss the relationship between faith and works from the viewpoint of propositional logic. For this discussion, let's assume that faith is represented by "P" and works by "Q." Because faith can exist apart from works, as was explained by both the Apostle Paul in Romans 3-4 and James in James 2, the conditional statement, "If P, then Q" does not hold true. Therefore, its contrapositive (also known as "denying the consequent") "If not Q, then not P" also does not hold true. Simply, this means that the presence of faith does not imply the presence of works; and the absence of works does not imply the absence of faith.
Of course, the Apostle John said things like "anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God" (1 John 3:10), which might lead us to believe that "If not Q, then not P" does in fact hold true. If this were the case, then we would have to set the Apostle Paul's teaching against the Apostle John's teaching, and if we did this, the New Testament would just become a big smorgasbord of teachings where anyone could just pick and choose what he wanted to believe at his own fancy. Rather, there are a couple things that we need to consider. First, in the letter of 1 John, the Apostle John is keen on speaking in absolute terms regarding light and darkness, life and death, righteousness and unrighteousness, sinning and not sinning, truth and lies, and love and hate. Despite this, for John, these absolutes are really just general truth statements, for he is fully aware that believers are prone to sin and immaturity. For example, in 1 John 1:6, he says "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth," which if combined with verses such as 2:6, and 2:9-10, might give us the impression that walking in light means living in a perfected state, but in the following verses (1:7-2:2), we find out that walking in the light includes repeatedly sinning, confessing sin, and being cleansed from it, and if anyone should say that believers do not continue to sin, he would be a liar. So, it seems that when John speaks in absolute terms, his meaning tends to be different from what we might expect. In fact, when he distinguishes between children, young men, and fathers (2:12-14), he is not only distinguishing between age groups, but also levels of maturity, even needing to warn them in the following verses "not to love the world" (2:15-17). John even imagines a situation where believers sin so badly that they need the prayers of other believers to save them from death (5:16). The reason John keeps telling his readers over and over again to "walk in the light," "love one another," "practice righteousness," and so on is precisely for the reason that they were prone to do otherwise. Therefore, when we read a verse like 3:10, "anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God", this general truth statement doesn't preclude the possibility of there being immature believers who, for reasons known to God, may live contrary to our expectations of "practicing righteousness" for short or extended periods of time. And if this is true, the apparent tension between what Paul teaches about faith and what John teaches about practicing righteousness vanishes. Second, if we were to set Paul and John against each other, this would be due to misunderstanding the relationship between justification by faith and being born of God (i.e., what the Calvinists call conversion, and what non-Calvinists call regeneration). Justification by faith and being born again (and the works performed by born-again people) are not causally related. Justification by faith is experienced by the ungodly man (Rom. 4:5), whereas the eternal life of born-again people is experienced by the godly man (1 John 3:10). Ungodly people cannot perform godly works; that is the Biblical principle (Mat. 7:17-18). By this we know that no causation exists between justification by faith and being born again (and the works performed by born-again people). Rather, justification by faith and being born-again are generally co-extensive and positively correlative. In other words, where one is, so is the other. This is true because both of them are benefits of the justification accomplished by Christ. What this means is that, technically speaking, someone, such as the person mentioned 1 John 3:10, if he were one of the elect, might already be justified by faith as an ungodly person who does not work, despite not having yet been born of God (or, perhaps, having been born again but still living in immaturity). It is God's prerogative how He wants to administer the benefits of the justification accomplished by Christ for His elect, including His ability to make exceptions to the rule in the case of elect infants, the mentally incapacitated, and anyone else for whom He wants to do things differently according to the inscrutable purpose of His will.
Moving on, although the conditional statement "If P, then Q" does not hold true, its inverse "If not P, then not Q" does hold true. In other words, if there is no faith, then there are no works. We know this is the case because "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6). As mentioned above, faith is an essential variable for performing works. This being the case, its contrapositive, "If Q, then P" also holds true. At this point, people who believe that works are evidence of faith are probably shouting "Checkmate!" In this regard, the Apostle John also said things like "Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;" (1 John 3:7), meaning that the presence of the practice of righteousness implies that a person is righteous (i.e., born of God, according to John's standard usage; see 3:10, etc.). However, for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, we cannot easily ignore the distinction between justification by faith and being born again (and the works performed by born-again people). Despite this, because faith is an essential variable of works, the contrapositive of the inverse conditional statement above holds true, and this would seem to be a "checkmate" scenario. But it isn't. Just like we should be careful not to interpret John's absolutes too literally, we also must be careful not to fool ourselves into thinking that we have absolute discernment. Because there are other Jesuses, other spirits, other gospels (2 Cor. 11:4), and because good works can be counterfeited (Mat. 7:21-23), the most we can say is that what we perceive to be the practice of righteousness, whether in ourselves or in others, and what we perceive to be the witness of the Spirit (1 John 3:24, 4:13), in ourselves and from the testimony of others, are suggestive of being born again (and if born again, then also justified by faith, not because of causation between justification by faith and being born again, but due to the deduction that the faith of justification by faith is present as an essential element in the works performed by born-again people). The same may be said for the absence of the practice of righteousness. It would be suggestive that a person has not been born again (and if not born again, then probably, but not definitely, not justified by faith, due to the fact that justification by faith can exist apart from being born again). As indicated above, all of this could also be said about the witness of the Spirit (1 John 3:24, 4:13). Therefore, the discernment of the practice of righteousness and the witness of the Spirit give us relatively sandy ground to build our hope upon because both the practice of righteousness and the witness of the Spirit are subjective experiences. (Just consider Judas who performed miracles by the Spirit and walked with Jesus for nearly three years. But, despite all this, Jesus said that he didn't believe. See John 6:64.) In contrast, belief in the Gospel gives us much firmer ground to stand on because it is based on objective truth and is the only immovable "anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil" (Heb. 6:18-20).
Despite what initially looked like a "checkmate" situation in favor of those who believe that works are evidence of faith, because of the inability of any of us to infallibly discern the practice of righteousness, this "checkmate" suddenly becomes an instance of begging the question (i.e., assuming the truth of one's conclusion in one's premise). Because of faulty discernment, people who believe that works are evidence of faith need to assume that faith was the cause of works from which they supposedly get their evidence of faith. This is circular reasoning. If this wasn't bad enough, what's more disturbing (as described above in the section on 1 John 2:28-29) is that even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that these people can infallibly discern their own heart and the words and actions of others, they are still left with the huge problem of trusting in faith itself (i.e., what they call "true faith") instead of believing in Jesus Christ, the object of faith. This is a total loss for them, and the only thing I can suggest is that they stop looking for evidence of faith and start believing the Gospel. Why look for evidence when you can just believe? All of their talk about looking at their works for evidence of faith simply exposes the fact that they don't believe.
1 John 3:19 and 4:17
Having come this far in the discussion, the interpretation of 1 John 3:19 and 4:17 should be rather trivial for the attentive reader. I intend to only look at these passages briefly.
In 1 John 3:19-21, we read, "We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before Him, in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God". These verses are in the context of loving one's brother not in word and tongue but in deed and truth (1 John 3:18), and this love is in the context of Jesus Christ laying down His life for us (1 John 3:16). Furthermore, we already looked at verses 3:22-24 in the above paragraphs, so we know that this love for one's brother and the assurance that our heart can get from it is in the realm of experiencing eternal life and undergirded by strengthened faith.
In 1 John 4:17, we read, "By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. ". This verse is based on the objective truth that Jesus is the Son of God and the love that God has for us in sending Him. It seems to me that the love spoken of in 4:17 is a love for the truth, and that by abiding in this love, it is possible to have greater confidence due to strengthened faith. Based on 4:20, it may also refer to love for one's brother. If this is true, then my comments in the previous paragraph would equally apply to this verse.
1 John 5:18
In 1 John 5:18 (KJV), we read, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." Although this verse isn't really relevant to our immediate discussion about the justification by works as it relates to experiencing eternal life, since it (especially the translation in the KJV) is one of those verses in 1 John that has been a proof-text for people who like to look to their works for assurance of faith, I think that I should probably make a few comments on it. For starters, it is a general rule similar to the general rule in 1 John 3:10 and 3:14-15. Please see my comments on those verses. Second, although the Apostle John is speaking in absolute terms, the context reveals that he thinks it is quite possible for a brother (i.e., a believer) to sin to such an extent that he needs prayer from other believers to restore him to the experience of life. The fact that a person who is born of God and said to be incapable of sinning can indeed still sin and be restored to the experience of eternal life should give us a hint that maybe John has something other than sinless perfection and "fruit inspection" in mind. It is probably the case that John has positional truth in mind, namely, that a born again person is impervious to sin because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, being born of the imperishable seed of the word preached unto them (i.e., the Gospel — see Matthew 13:3-23, 1 Peter 1:23-25). Along these lines, we read in 1 John 3:9, "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." This is similar to prophecy of Balaam when he said that "He has not observed iniquity in Jacob" (Numbers 23:21 KJV, NASB margin). Certainly, born-again people are characterized as "keeping themselves," but even in this verse, we see that it is not the works of these born-again people, but the objective truth of the Gospel that is their hope (see the context in 1 John 5:9-13, 20).
In this article, I discussed the meaning of justification by works and how it relates to the experience of eternal life and strengthened faith. I also looked at some key passages from Hebrews 11 and 1 John, the interpretations of which can be used as samples for understanding similar verses.