Calvinist Blogger Reads James; Discovers That We Must Do Good Works.

I was making my periodic round of the blogs in order to find out what the anti-Catholics were up to, when I stumbled across this curious post by the dauntless Mr. X. (He calls himself TurretinFan, for weird reasons of his own. I can’t speak for the poor man’s crotchets.)

It seems, at first glance, to be a real snoozer of a post, even by Mr. X’s strict standard for somnolence: It is a very cursory summary of the content of James. That’s it.

But in the middle of all this, Mr. X trips smack over the fact that James sure talks about works a lot. And still Mr. X thinks that James’s true subject is faith alone. No, really.

Let us watch as all this unfolds before our surpriséd eyes. We go to paragraph 4.

“James,” Mr. X says,

points out that the engrafted word is able to save our souls, but immediately distinguishes between a (mere) hearer and a doer.

Yes. James 1:22 reads, again with my own italics: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

Hmm. In sola is self-deception. You must do, you must act, you must have works. Interesting. Mark that.

Mr. X continues:

James 1:26 proposes a specific test—the use of the tongue. A person who seems religious but fails to bridle his tongue is self-deceived and his religion is “vain.'”

This vain religion is then contrasted with a pure religion that results in care for those who have lost fathers and husbands.

Oh. You mean like the corporal works of mercy? Pure religion is actually to be found in works? I find that fascinating. Mr. X, a Calvinist, finds all this in James; he says so.

The verse is James 1:27a:

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction.

So the corporal works of mercy are “pure religion.” Is that what James says? Interesting. Mark that.

“This second test,” Mr. X goes on,

becomes more central in the second chapter. Here James suggests that care of these poor people is a part of obeying the law of God.

He even explains (vs 18) that faith is shown by works in the form of a challenge to a “vain man” (vs 20) who claims to have faith but lacks works.”

Oh. So he “claims to have faith but lacks works.” James is telling us that faith is not really faith—only a mere claim—unless there are works. So if it’s sola fide, it’s not really fide. Does this not strike you, Mr. X?

In fact, here is James 2:14:

What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

So faith is not faith without works. Faith alone is not faith. Interesting. You must mark that, Mr. X.

“James then illustrates the principle,” Mr. X says,

by providing two examples of people performing works that demonstrated their faith: Abraham offering his son; Rahab sending out the spies another way.

Okay, but James is a lot more specific than this. He does not say that their works “demonstrated their faith” but that their works justified them. Here is James 2:21, 25:

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? … Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

So after all of the above, Mr. X wants to tell us that works are a mere demonstration of faith? They’re a stage show for sola fide?

But no. James reaches this conclusion in verse 24: “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” Our justification is not by faith alone; it is not by sola fide.

One senses that, even as Mr. X admits that there is all this talk about works going on in James, he still wishes to avoid the real point of it all, which is that our works contribute to our justification. Mr. X never once uses the word “justify” in his whole post, but James sure uses it in his epistle. (Mark that.)

“James,” says Mr. X, “then compares faith without works to a corpse.”

Shivers and consternation! Sola fide just like a corpse! (That’s James 2:20, Mr. X. Mark that spot.)

But Mr. X continues. “James,” he says,

then returns to his previous example about the tongue (ch 3). He argues that wisdom is demonstrated by—you guessed it—works.

“You guessed it“! Why, even Mr. X can not deny that this funny little thing about works is a real theme with this apostle. But he never once tells us what he makes of it all, as though he can not permit himself more than a scratch of the head and a pale stare. He reads James, says to himself, “You know what, T-Fan? This guy talks a lot about how we need to do works!” writes a blog post to point it all out to the three or four people who read him, and calls the day done. Perhaps he needs a gin and tonic after this revelation.

Now, Reformed apologists (and Lutherans too, for that matter; I don’t mean to leave them out) are fond of saying that no one denies the importance of works, and that James only means to contrast true faith with false faith. True faith (or faith with works) somehow still counts as faith alone, because works get subsumed into faith. Works are mere evidence.

All of which, if true, makes it a mite peculiar why James would say that Abraham’s and Rahab’s works justified them. He does not say that their works showed that their faith justified them. Reformed apologists tend to read the former as though it meant the latter. But no.

Much of the discussion also hinges on the meaning of ἡ πίστις, he pistis, in James 2:14. ἡ is a definite article, and the literal translation would be “the faith.” ἡ means “the.” The article is dropped in English, so that James 2:14 would read, “Can faith save him?”

Some apologists, however, insist on translating ἡ as though it were a demonstrative pronoun, that. James 2:14 would thus be translated, “Can that faith save him?” A.T. Robertson, while admitting that ἡ is an article, insists—by ipse dixit—that somehow it “is almost demonstrative in force.”

The reason to try to translate James 2:14 “Can that faith save him?” is to introduce the argument that James is not contrasting faith with works, but true faith with false faith. In that way they can retain their argument that, even though we must do works, it is still faith alone that justifies. We are saved, not by that faith, but by this faith.

It has always been dubious argument, grounded as it is in an error about ἡ πίστις in James 2:14. And in Mr. X’s article, we can see the humorous fruit of all that: a man who spends a whole blog post on James telling us that we must do works, while at the same time avoiding any talk of what that all implies. This is why he can tell us, in his title, that James’s theme is, not the place of works in justification, but “faith demonstrated.”

Mr. X ends his blog post about works by confidently filing it under the category sola fide.

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