The Epistle of James

Part 10

Hang on! For the second straight week we’re taking on a "larger-than-usual" portion of Scripture, but again, the context requires it. Be warned again, HANG ON! This portion of Scripture has caused a lot of debate for the last almost two thousand years and I don’t think we will resolve that debate in our discussion today, but I would like to have you consider what I believe to be the two main perspectives on this text. Let’s begin by reading it together:

What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, "You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works." You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. 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? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. (James 2:14-26 NASB95)

Here’s the question: Are humans saved by a combination of faith (trusting God) and works (responding to God in obedience) or are humans saved solely and exclusively by faith (trusting God)?

Interestingly, both Paul and James use Abraham as an illustration of the point they are trying to make. I can’t for the life of me see how scholars can claim that James and Paul are saying the same thing when it seems so obvious they are not! My spiritual mentor argues that James is not saying that it is a combination of faith and works, but faith that works.

Here’s a quote from Believer’s Study Bible that illustrates this position:

This passage (vv. 14–26) is often cited as evidence that James was teaching a doctrine of justification contradictory to that of Paul (Rom. 4:1–12). This imaginary conflict between James and Paul can be resolved by a careful reading of the relevant passages. First, the faith of v. 14 is described as useless, demonic (v. 19), and "dead" (vv. 20, 26). A proper understanding of the text, then, sees James’ question as meaning, "Can that faith save him?" Thus James is stating that not everything which is claimed to be faith is genuine. Second, Paul and James cite different incidents in Abraham’s life which illustrate the point each is making. Paul is referring to Abraham’s absolute reliance on God’s promise, however improbable it seemed (Rom. 4:1–12). Abraham’s faith was reckoned or counted to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6), resulting in a right standing with God. James (v. 21) is referring to the time when Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac, the miraculous son of promise, on Mt. Moriah (Gen. 22). In Paul’s example, Abraham had righteousness and salvation "reckoned" unto him because he believed God. In the example used by James, Abraham demonstrated the life-changing nature of his earlier experience by his action of preparing to offer his son in obedience to God. To put it another way, Paul views the matter from the heavenly or divine perspective and asserts that we are justified in a legal, positional sense and that faith is the ground of that justification. James views the situation from the earthly or human perspective and asserts that works are the evidence before men that salvation indeed has occurred. A faith that saves will result in good works. Ephesians 2:8–10 reveals clearly the agreement in theology which exists between Paul and James. We are not saved by faith plus works, but we are saved by a faith that does work.

When this approach is taken, the focus inevitably becomes egocentric and believers begin to wonder if the faith they have is "saving faith"…instead of looking unto Jesus, they focus on the quality of their faith! Here’s an illustration of this rationale from Wiersbe:

In this paragraph, James discussed the relationship between faith and works. This is an important discussion, for if we are wrong in this matter, we jeopardize our eternal salvation. What kind of faith really saves a person? Is it necessary to perform good works in order to be saved? How can a person tell whether or not he is exercising true saving faith? James answers these questions by explaining to us that there are three kinds of faith, only one of which is true saving faith.

This, in my opinion, is the crux of the debate, because The Apostle Paul says, For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 NASB95)

In his book, Why Christian?, Douglas John Hall recounts an experience from his adolescence that took place in his Sunday School class where the teacher was commenting on this text:

Our teacher, one of the most stalwart of our church pillars, was as usual impressing upon us young men the importance of our being decent, serious, law-abiding, responsible Christian gentlemen. Well, I don’t say that is the worst sort of thing that we could have heard. Of course not! But we—or at least a few of us—needed to hear something more than that. Young men and women even now can benefit sometimes from moral pep talks, though for the most part they soon learn how to compartmentalize life’s "should-be" and life’s "is". But what of the young who aren’t so clever about keeping moral strictures in a drawer marked "Sunday"? Who really do want to be serious people, responsible citizens? Who are nevertheless hung up on bad consciences that have as much to do with their apparently good as with their obviously questionable thoughts, words, and deeds? Like me.

So I began—much to the consternation of most of my classmates, who had learned that bored endurance was the best way of passing the time—to take issue with the teacher. I pointed out that our scriptural text was not talking about what we should and should not do. In fact, it was critical of our "good works", because when we use them to "justify" ourselves we are just, well, bragging. The text said, didn’t it (?), that what was really important was "faith"?

Reluctantly, the teacher had to agree that that was what this text seemed to be saying. But then he did what (as I later learned) is done pretty regularly by the religious: he turned faith itself into a "work". Certainly we should have it! Certainly we should try to cultivate it! Certainly we should believe in the Bible and God and Jesus and so on. "But remember," he said with a triumphant smile, "faith without works is dead." He was quoting the Epistle of James (2:14ff,), a portion of the Bible far more familiar in our milieu than Romans or Ephesians!

I didn’t know how, at that point in my life, to counter him. (I know I have spent a lot of time doing so since!) But that didn’t matter, because I had begun to find out something new about that "strange, new world within the Bible," as Karl Barth called it. I had begun to discover a road (to be sure it’s "the road less traveled") that went beyond good and evil, beyond morality, beyond dogmas and neat divisions of humanity into sheep and goats. And that is the road that I have kept traveling for a very long time now. I’m still a long way from the end of it. But it has never become boring, and I’ve never quite succumbed to the temptation to think that is leads nowhere.

We make a mistake when we turn "faith" into a work! Salvation is a gift…it is not earned either by works of obedience or by "saving faith"!

In our verses for today, James plainly distinguishes between faith and works…he sees then as "two halves" of a "whole" and in several places points out that one without the other is incomplete and useless, but there are two verses that seem particularly clear: Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself (v. 17) and You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone (v. 24).

Young’s Literal Translation reads: so also the faith, if it may not have works, is dead by itself. (James 2:17 YLT) and Ye see, then, that out of works is man declared righteous, and not out of faith only (James 2:24 YLT).

Is James arguing for a faith that works or a combination of faith and works?

In the illustration of a person who needs clothing and food, in the example drawn from Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac and in Rahab’s hiding the Israelite spies, the emphasis is on the act of "doing" as opposed to some sort of mental exercise. A person can "believe" without actually doing anything about their belief. I cannot escape the conviction that, at this point in his life, James understood that salvation was received by trusting in God AND by responding in obedience…that unless there was visible evidence in the life of the believer that he was trusting God, salvation was not assured.

If Paul and James were not saying the same thing, how does that impact the credibility of the Bible?

Where do some get the idea that if the main characters in the Bible don’t all say the same thing, the Bible is not inspired?

One of the most persuasive attributes of the Bible is its faithfulness in describing even the great men of God as being flawed. The Bible account does not "gloss over" the warts and blemishes in the lives of its most prominent characters…its account is honest and trustworthy. In my mind, faithfully recording the disagreements between James and Paul builds my confidence in the inspiration of the Bible. I cannot help but believe that in his later life, James came to understand that salvation is a free gift…not of works…not even of "saving faith"…but unearned, unmerited and maybe even universal.

Click Here to Go Back