Justification in the Book of James (Different from Paul?)

The following was drawn from my debate / book, Justification: A Catholic Perspective (Aug. 2023), vs. the Brazilian Calvinist Francisco Tourinho. We discussed the book of James at great length, and for some time I’ve been meaning to compile those portions, because the topic often comes up in debates on justification. I will be excerpting my words only, with slight editing. I use RSV for Bible citations. Breaks in the texts / citations will be noted by five asterisks.

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Why go to the “trouble” of asserting that “only x justifies” while at the same time asserting, “y must always be with this x that alone justifies, lest x cease to truly be x“? This strikes me as a distinction without a difference. I understand the fine distinctions of standard Protestant soteriology with which I am very familiar, but it still seems to me to be straining at gnats. If y (works) is always — and should always be — there with x (faith), then is there not a sense in which y has some connection with justification, too? And that relationship between the two things is what Catholics think James 2 is dealing with.

I shall argue that the Bible teaches an organic connection between faith and works: not merely an abstract “partnership” where “never the twain shall meet” in some respects. Two sides of a coin are also distinguishable from each other, but they both have to be there for the coin to be what it is, don’t they? We don’t say that “only one half of the coin bought the bubblegum in the machine.” We say that the coin (which contains two distinct sides by nature) bought the bubblegum.

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James 2:24 You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

The phrase “faith alone” appears exactly once in the RSV: in this verse. Justification by “faith alone” is expressly denied! This is one of three times (along with James 2:21 and 2:25 further below) that the Bible also expresses the notion of “justified by works” (in context, along with faith). Four other passages in James directly, expressly contradict “faith alone” but with different words:

James 2:14 What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?

James 2:17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

James 2:20 Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren?

James 2:26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.

From these five passages in James 2, we learn that:

1) Faith alone doesn’t justify.

2) Faith alone is “dead”.

3) Faith alone is “barren”.

4) Faith alone cannot save.

And these are only the best and clearest Bible passages, in my estimation, that refute “faith alone.”

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James 2:20-26 also refers back to Genesis 15:6, and gives an explicit interpretation of the Old Testament passage, by stating, “and the scripture was fulfilled which says, . . .” (2:23). The previous three verses were all about justification, faith, and works, all tied in together, and this is what James says “fulfilled” Genesis 15:6. The next verse then condemns Protestant soteriology by disagreeing the notion of “faith alone” in the clearest way imaginable.

James 2 is usually applied by Protestants to sanctification, but that is not what the passage says. It mentions “justified” (dikaioo: Strong’s word #1344) three times (2:21, 24-25): the same Greek word used in Romans 4:2, as well as 2:13; 3:20, 24, 28; 5:1, 9; 8:30; 1 Corinthians 6:11; Galatians 2:16-17; 3:11, 24; 5:4; and Titus 3:7. If James actually meant sanctification, on the other hand, he could have used one of two Greek words (hagiazo / hagiasmos: Strong’s #37-38) that appear (together) 38 times in the New Testament (the majority of times by Paul himself).

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The problem is Francisco’s contention that James was dealing with “libertines”: ones who “were like demons who have a dead faith.” That would seem to me to be non-Christians, who don’t have an authentic, living faith, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and God’s grace, rather than a dead belief akin to that of the demons. But the actual text (in its overall context) doesn’t assert these things.

James refers in 2:1 to his readers as “My brethren” who “hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Then he calls them “my beloved brethren” (2:5) and “my brethren” again in 2:14. This is in line with the epistle before and after chapter 2. James refers to them as “brethren” (4:11; 5:7, 9-10, 12), “my brethren” (1:2; 3:1, 10, 12; 5:19), and “my beloved brethren” (1:16, 19). St. Paul also massively used the title of “brethren” to all the Christian in the congregations that he loved and wrote to and shepherded.

So this is Francisco’s problem: the text doesn’t support this particular argument of his. When James refers in 2:19 to “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and shudder” he is referring to the same people that he called “my brethren” five verses earlier. It’s no doubt a rhetorical flourish, but it seems to me that it still relates to what was before.

It’s much like Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He calls the Galatian Christians “brethren” ten times. . . .

These are undeniably fellow Christians in the book of James as well; therefore, the argument that James is writing to libertines or some form of antinomians is not supported. Thus, when faith and works are written about, it’s related to fellow Christians, just as Paul does in, for example, Romans 2:5-13, which is all about the necessity of good works, or in Galatians. There is no reason that I can see, for James to write his entire letter to “libertines”; he’s writing to Christians. And so what he says to them won’t be substantially different from what Paul writes to those in his charge. He’s not going to write about faith only in terms of what other people think of them, but of authentic faith in God.

The Navarre Commentary observed about James 2:23:

“It was reckoned to him as righteousness”: St. Paul (cf. Gal 3:6 and note) uses these words of Genesis 15:6 to explain that righteousness is attained not just by Abraham’s descendants but by all who believe the word of God, whether they be Jews or not; St. James, from another perspective, quotes this text to show that Abraham’s faith made him righteous, that is, holy. Both teachings are complementary. Abraham believed in the divine promise that he would be the father of a great people despite his age and his wife’s sterility; but that faith was reinforced and manifested when it met the test God set — that of sacrificing his only son, while still believing in the earlier promise. The same thing happens in the case of the Christian: his initial faith is strengthened by obedience to the commandments, and he thereby attains holiness.

St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, writing when he was still an Anglican in 1838 (Lectures on the Doctrine of Justification: rev. 1874; London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 3^rd edition, 1908), has several insightful things (as always) to say about this general issue and James in particular:

St. Paul says, we are justified without works; what works? “works of,” or done under, “the Law,” the Law of Moses, through which the Law of Nature spoke in the ears of the Jews. But St. James speaks of works done under what he calls “the royal Law,” “the Law of liberty,” which we learn from St. Paul is “the Law of the Spirit of Life,” for “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;” in other words, the Law of God, as written on the heart by the Holy Ghost. St. Paul speaks of works done under the letter, St. James of works done under the Spirit. This is surely an important difference in the works respectively mentioned. Or, to state the same thing differently: St. James speaks, not of mere works, but of works of faith, of good and acceptable works. I do not suppose that any one will dispute this, and therefore shall take it for granted. St. James then says, we are justified, not by faith only, but by good works. Now St. Paul is not speaking at all of good works, but of works done in the flesh and of themselves “deserving God’s wrath and damnation.” He says, “without works;” he does not say without good works; whereas St. James is speaking of good works solely. St. Paul speaks of “works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of His Spirit;” St. James of “good works which are the fruits of faith and follow after justification.” (ch. 12)

St. Paul never calls those works which he says do not justify “good works,” but simply “works,”—”works of the Law,”—”deeds of the Law,”—”works not in righteousness,”—”dead works;” what have these to do with works or fruits of the Spirit? Of these latter also St. Paul elsewhere speaks, and by a remarkable contrast he calls them again and again “good works.” For instance, “By grace are ye saved through faith, … not of works, lest any man should boast; for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” This surely is a most pointed intimation that the works which do not justify are not good, or, in other words, are works before justification. As to works after, which are good, whether they justify or not, he does not decide so expressly as St. James, the error which he had to resist leading him another way. He only says, against the Judaizing teachers, that our works must begin, continue, and end in faith. But to proceed; he speaks elsewhere of “abounding in every good work,” of being “fruitful in every good work,” of being “adorned with good works,” of being “well reported of for good works,” “diligently following every good work,” of “the good works of some being open beforehand,” of being “rich in good works,” of being “prepared unto every good work,” of being “throughly furnished unto all good works,” of being “unto every good work reprobate,” of being “a pattern of good works,” of being “zealous of good works,” of being “ready to every good work,” of being “careful to maintain good works,” of “provoking unto love and to good works,” and of being “made perfect in every good work.” [2 Cor. ix. 8. Eph. ii. 10. Col. i. 10. 2 Thess. ii. 17. 1 Tim. ii. 10; v. 10, 25; vi. 18. 2 Tim. ii. 21; iii. 17. Tit. i. 16; ii. 7, 14; iii. 8, 14. Heb. x. 24; xiii. 21.] Now surely this is very remarkable. St. James, though he means good works, drops the epithet, and only says works. Why does not St. Paul the same? why is he always careful to add the word good, except that he had also to do with a sort of works with which St. James had not to do,—that the word works was already appropriated by him to those of the Law, and therefore that the epithet good was necessary, lest deeds done in the Spirit should be confused with them? St. Paul, then, by speaking of faith as justifying without works, means without corrupt and counterfeit works, not without good works. (ch. 12)

“By works,” says St. James, “a man is justified, and not by faith only.” Now, let me ask, what texts do their opponents shrink from as they from this? do they even attempt to explain it? or if so, is it not by some harsh and unnatural interpretation? Next, do they not proceed, as if distrusting their own interpretation, to pronounce the text difficult, and so to dispose of it? yet who can honestly say that it is in itself difficult? rather, can words be plainer, were it not that they are forced into connection with a theory of the sixteenth century; . . . (ch. 12)

Similarly, he wrote again on 26 January 1840: still over five-and-a-half years before becoming a Catholic:

The way of salvation is by works, as under the Law, but it is by “works which spring out of faith,” and which come of “the inspiration of the Spirit.” It is because works are living and spiritual, from the heart, and by faith, that the Gospel is a new covenant. Hence in the passages above quoted we are told again and again of “the law in our inward parts;” “a new heart;” “a new spirit;” the Holy “Spirit within us;” “newness of life,” and “circumcision of the heart in the Spirit.” And hence St. Paul says, that though we have not been “saved by works,” yet we are “created unto good works;” and that “the blood of Christ purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Salvation then is not by dead works, but by living works. . . . And thus there is no opposition between St. Paul and St. James. St. James says, that justification is by works, and St. Paul that it is by faith: but, observe, St. James does not say that it is by dead or Jewish works; he mentions expressly both faith and works; he only says, “not faith only but works also:”—and St. Paul is far from denying it is by works, he only says that it is by faith and denies that it is by dead works. And what proves this, among other circumstances, is, that he never calls those works, which he condemns and puts aside, good works, but simply works: whenever he speaks of good works in his Epistles, he speaks of Christian works; not of Jewish. On the whole, then, salvation is both by faith and by works. St. James says, not dead faith, and St. Paul, not dead works. St. James, “not by faith only,” for that would be dead faith: St Paul, “not by works only,” for such would be dead works. Faith alone can make works living; works alone can make faith living. Take away either, and you take away both;—he alone has faith who has works,—he alone has works who has faith. (Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 5, Sermon 12: “The New Works of the Gospel”)

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James 2:10 has to be interpreted and understood in light of related verses (cross-referencing and systematic theology). The Bible does not teach that all sins are absolutely equal. This is easy to prove. . . .

James 2:10 deals with man’s inability to keep the entire Law of God: a common theme in Scripture. James accepts differences in degrees of sin and righteousness elsewhere in the same letter: “we who teach shall be judged with a greater strictness” (3:1). In 1:12, the man who endures trial will receive a “crown of life.” In James 1:15 he states that “sin when it is full-grown brings forth death”.

Therefore, there must be sins that are not full-grown and do not bring about spiritual death. James also teaches that the “prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (5:16), which implies that there are relatively more righteous people, whom God honors more, by making their prayers more effective (he used the prophet Elijah as an example). If there is a lesser and greater righteousness, then there are lesser and greater sins also, because to be less righteous is to be more sinful, and vice versa.

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Genesis 15:6 can’t have anything to do with “works of the [Mosaic] law” (which is the Catholic and NPP view) because the Mosaic Law did not yet exist. Romans 4:3, 5, referring to Abraham (Gen 15:6) was Abraham’s second justification: “. . . ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ . . . [5] And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” As Jimmy Akin argued (cited by me), he had also been spoken as having been justified in Genesis 12:1-4, when he was obedient to God’s instruction and left Haran.

We know this because Hebrews 11:8 states that Abraham had faith “when he was called to go out to the place he would afterward receive”. So that had to be justification by faith, according to Protestant belief. But then James 2 refers to a third justification of Abraham when he was willing to sacrifice Isaac:

James 2:21-24 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? [22] You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, [23] and the scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness”; and he was called the friend of God. [24] You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

So we have Abraham being justified at least three times, according to the Bible. So much for the Protestant one-time justification that (in the Calvinist brand of soteriology) can never be lost, either. But none of my reference to Abraham (or that of James) has anything to do with the “works of the law” controversy. James never uses the phrase “works of the law” in his entire book. Nor does Paul in Romans 4, when he refers back to Abraham.

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Bengel’s Gnomen: The equality of Christians, as indicated by the name of brethren, is the basis of this admonition.

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Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” wrote St. Paul to the proud and wealthy men of Corinth (2Corinthians 8:9), “that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich;” and, with more cogent an appeal, to the Philippians (James 2:4-7), “In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves: look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God”—i.e., Very God, and not appearance merely—nevertheless “thought not His equality with God a thing to be always grasped at,” as it were some booty or prize, “but emptied Himself” of His glory, “and took upon Him the shape of a slave.” Were these central, nay initial, facts of the faith believed then; or are they now? If they were in truth, how could there be such folly and shame as “acceptance of persons” according to the dictates of fashionable society and the world? “Honour,” indeed, “to whom honour” is due (Romans 13:7).

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Meyer’s NT Commentary: In close connection with the thought contained in chap. Jam 1:27, that true worship consists in the exhibition of compassionate love, James proceeds to reprove a practice of his readers, consisting in a partial respect to the rich and a depreciation of the poor, which formed the most glaring contrast to that love. . . . their faith should not be combined with a partial respect of persons.

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Calvin’s Commentaries: [H]e does not simply disapprove of honor being paid to the rich, but that this should not be done in a way so as to despise or reproach the poor; and this will appear more clearly, when he proceeds to speak of the rule of love. Let us therefore remember that the respect of persons here condemned is that by which the rich is so extolled, wrong is done to the poor, which also he shews clearly by the context . . .