Are faith and works two different words?

One day when Jesus was on the road to Jerusalem a young man of the ruling class came running up and knelt down at his feet. He asked, ”What good thing can I do to be sure of life in the age to come?” Jesus answered by reciting a number of the commandments which pleased the young man because he had carefully obeyed them ever since he was a child. Then Jesus looked him straight in the eye and said, ”There is only one more thing that you have to do, and that is to sell everything you have, give the proceeds to the poor and then come and follow me. It turns out that the young man was very rich, so his face fell and with a sad heart he went away (Matt. 19:16 – 22).
       The incident indicates that the cost of discipleship is to relinquish all you have in order to be a follower of Christ. But wait a minute – doesn’t Paul teach that salvation is the result of faith in Christ, not works? And of course that is true, as the great old hymn puts it, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling.”
       “But,” you say, “How could that be true since scripture, which is inspired and without error, wouldn’t teach contradictory ways to get right with God.”
       What we need to do at this point is to define some terms. Let’s back up and be sure we are on common ground. Jesus seems to be saying that one finds favor with God by doing helpful things here on earth. But Paul is arguing that it doesn’t matter how many good thing you do because the basic requirement for heaven is faith.
       “Okay. Then you are saying that for Jesus, salvation depends on works, but for Paul, it’s a matter of faith.”
       Granted, it looks like that, but let’s look at context and consider the nature of language. Remember, “Words take their meaning from context,” so once you put them together in a single context, each maintaining the meaning of its former context, you are bound to run into problems.
       Jesus is saying to the young man that to “qualify for the coming kingdom” he is to “keep the commandments” (Mark 10:17, 19) while Paul maintains that “works” wont get you there (Gal. 3:11). But following a strong affirmation by the young man that he has kept them all since child-hood, Jesus tells him that there is one more thing – he must sell all his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and then he can come and follow him. So, keeping the commands is not enough after all. “To be sure of a place in the life to come” he must give himself totally to Christ. No one would ever make such a life-changing commitment if he were not convinced that Jesus was who he said he was and that his requirement for discipleship was absolutely valid. In other words, he would have to have “faith” in Jesus. So Jesus teaches salvation by faith after all.
       Now let’s look at Paul and his insistence that works will never get you into heaven. Paul, the Jewish Rabbi, came out of a religious system that had developed a huge labyrinth of legal instructions designed as the way to earn God’s favor. His professional culture was the “supreme court” to judge the merit of anything a person might do or say. So the way to get to heaven was to follow in detail all the “laws” that the religious clerics had devised for their lay subordinates. Now that is legalism, pure and simple. But Paul was struck blind on the Damascus Road and learned how absolutely wrong he was; people do not get right with God by keeping a vast multitude of laws, but by faith, the free offer to believe in Christ,
       Then what would Paul say about Jesus’ emphasis on “works” (“Do not murder, Do not steal,” etc.)” He would say that what you do to be saved will not get you into heaven. Jesus said the same thing when he told the young rule that there was “one more thing”  – and it turned out to be faith. Faith is believing, but it’s the kind of believing that works. The term “faith works” emphasizes that “faith” and “works” belong together and cannot exist apart from the other. No works and that kind of faith is useless: No faith and any number of good works will get you to heaven.  Genuine faith must of necessity produce good works. It’s that simple.