An old song says,

“Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage–you can’t have one without the other.”

(It’s a very old song, as you can tell for more reasons than just the part about the horse and carriage!) People today have gone to a lot of trouble trying to prove that love and marriage don’t necessarily have to go together. And all they have been able to prove in the process is that God’s plan for marriage and family is best, after all.

But faith and works always go together. Perhaps I can find an illustration that no one could question. What about sunshine and shadow? They always go together, don’t they? You can’t have one without the other! In this world, whenever there is light, there is also shadow–it’s an inflexible law.

Steps to Christ, page 83, speaks of the “unshadowed joy of the life to come.” On this earth, even our joy is shadowed! Perhaps it’s this “shadowed joy” that makes it possible to cry tears of joy. For any joy we have always comes with a shadow. We rejoice when someone accepts Christ into his life, while at the same time we feel the shadow of those who are rejecting Him. We find joy in the beauties of nature, but the shadow of death and decay is always present, no matter where we turn.

Good news and bad news come together. Sometimes we will experience– as a rare gift–a “perfect” day, but there is always the shadow of the day before and the day to follow. Our human relation-ships are shadowed; loving acceptance from one side is coupled with misunderstanding on the other. Our hearts can burn within us when God Himself draws near to commune with us; yet there is always the shadow, even there, of times when He seemed to veil His face and we could not sense His presence.

So whether you’re talking about the physical world or the spiritual, sunshine and shadow always go together.

It’s the same with faith and works. If the works are genuine, their source is faith in Christ. If the faith is genuine, works will inevitably result. When you make the choice to abide in Christ, you have already made your choice about bearing fruit, for whoever abides in Him brings forth much fruit. Faith and works cannot be separated. Selected Messages, bk. 1, p. 397, says,

“Genuine faith will be manifested in good works; for good works are the fruits of faith.”

When we talk about faith and works, someone usually brings up the illustration of the two oars.

Faith and works are like two oars. If you try to row with one oar–either one–you will make no progress. But if you use both oars together, your boat will go forward toward the heavenly shore! And the person using the illustration usually does so to try to prove that we should put forth equal effort on both faith and works.

But the truth is that we are not to work on either! Faith is a gift, and obedience is a gift. What we should work on is staying in the boat–or staying in relationship with Christ through prayer and the study of His Word. When we come to Christ for fellowship and communion with Him, the first byproduct is genuine faith. And the second is genuine righteousness.

The illustration of the oars is a valid one, however, if you understand it correctly–that faith and works are like two oars in terms of importance. Faith and works are equally important. But the method for obtaining both faith and works is through an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ.

In James 2:17, we find it is possible to have dead faith. James says,

“Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

In Hebrews 6:1, we find it is possible to have dead works as well.

“Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God” – Hebrews 6:1

Faith and works must both be present in order for either one to remain alive. Genuine works will follow genuine faith, and genuine faith will come as a result of communion with God, as surely as sunshine is followed by shadow.