I. Faith, Works, and Justification

sistent. And God’s law focuses on love for the neighbor (2:8). Therefore, “pure and faultless” religion will manifest itself in loving concern for the helpless in society (1:27), in a meek and unselfish attitude toward others (3:13–18). It will renounce discrimination (2:1–13) and not speak evil of others (4:11–12).

Many, if not most, of James’s exhortations involve habits that directly impact the life of the community: welcoming the poor (2:1–13), being careful in speech (3:1–12), having wisdom that is “peaceable” and avoids quarrels (4:1–3). As Bauckham says, then, “James’s way is neither merely the transformation of individuals nor change in the structures of the dominant society . . . but the formation of a counter-cultural community which lives out alternative social and economic relationships in advance of the coming of the Kingdom.”129

Prayer is another component of the Christian life that receives attention in James. He encourages us to approach God by reminding us that he is a Father who gives good gifts (1:17) and who delights to answer the requests of his people (1:5). But James is especially concerned that we understand the condition for receiving our requests from God: faith (1:6–8; 5:14). Selfish asking will not move God to respond to our requests (4:3). Still, God does not make impossible demands on us when we pray; Elijah, a person with all our human frailties, received spectacular answers to his prayers because he was a “righteous person” in relationship with God (5:16–18).

I. Faith, Works, and Justification

The most important, and controversial, contribution of James to NT theology comes in his teaching about the importance of works for justification (2:14–26). Indeed, many theologians mention James only because he seems to contradict the critical doctrine of “justification by faith alone” taught by Paul. But this is not fair to James. He has his own point to make, and it must be appreciated for what it is and not shunted aside in a wrongheaded or hasty insistence on theological integration. James condemns any form of Christianity that drifts into a sterile, actionless “orthodoxy.” Faith, not what we do, is fundamental in establishing a relationship with God. But faith, James insists, must be given content. Genuine faith always and inevitably produces evidence of its existence in a life of righteous living. Biblical faith cannot exist apart from acts of obedience to God. This is James’s overriding concern in the passage in question, as he makes clear repeatedly: “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied

129. Bauckham, James, 198.

Context of Thought and Theology

by action, is dead” (v. 17); “faith without deeds is useless” (v. 20); “faith without deeds is dead” (v. 26). As I have suggested, James makes such a point of this because he has come to realize that some Christians, misunderstanding Paul’s teaching, had come to believe that works of obedience were an optional extra in the Christian life. Some, perhaps, thought that faith involved verbal profession alone (v. 19). Such “faith,” James responds, is not really faith at all. It is an imposter, masquerading as true biblical faith. And, therefore, it can neither justify sinners (v. 24) nor save them at the judgment (v. 14).

Because some scholars have given the wrong impression at just this point, we need to stress that this sterile, verbal-only “faith” is not James’s own understanding of faith. He presents faith as a firm, unswerving commitment to God and Christ (2:1) that is tested and refined in trials (1:2, 4) and grasps hold of the promises of God in prayer (1:5–8; 5:14–18). James by no means has a “sub-Christian” or “sub-Pauline” view of faith. In fact, on the meaning and significance of faith, James and Paul appear to be in complete agreement. For Paul also, in the famous words of Gal 5:6, it is “faith expressing itself through love” that secures the inheritance of God.

On another point, however, resolution between James and Paul does not seem so easy. Paul insists that “a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Rom 3:28), while James contends that “a person is considered righteous [the verb is dikaioō] by what they do and not by faith alone” (2:24). Furthermore, each cites Abraham to illustrate his point, Paul arguing that God’s pronouncement of Abraham’s righteousness (Gen 15:6) came solely on the basis of faith, before he was circumcised (Rom 4:1–12), and James claiming that Abraham’s justification came as a result of his obedience in being willing to sacrifice Isaac and that in this act Gen 15:6 was “fulfilled.” These viewpoints are often thought to represent two different, even conflicting, tendencies in the early church: the law-free gentile mission (Paul) and the law-affirming Jewish Christianity (James).130 If this were true, we would be faced with a disturbing situation. On an issue as vital as the question “What must I do to be saved?” the NT would speak with conflicting voices. They agree in making faith fundamental to justification; but they disagree on the place of “works.”

Resolution between Paul and James is not easy—even with all the sympathy in the world. Luther threw down the gauntlet in his day: “Many sweat to reconcile James with Paul, as for example does Philip [Melanchthon], in the

130. See, e.g., J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 251–52. See also A. Chester and R. Martin, The Theology of the Letters of James, Peter, and Jude (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 20–28, 46–53.

Apology, but he cannot be serious. They are contradictory claims: Faith justifies; Faith does not justify. Whoever can put these together, I will put my cap on him and let him call me a fool.”131 Luther’s pessimism has not dissuaded theologians. The history of Christian theology is littered with the debris left over from intense theological debates on precisely this issue.132 One might point here, for example, to the controversy among Anglican theologians in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries or to the 1980s debate between, among others, Zane Hodges and John MacArthur over the relationship between obedience and assurance.133 The suggestions that follow, therefore, must be viewed as a very modest contribution to an ongoing theological agenda. Before I sketch the options and my own view, we must recall two points made earlier: (1) the distinctive language of Jas 2 suggests some contact with Paul’s teaching, but (2) that contact is probably indirect, since what James says does not fairly address Paul’s actual theology.

The first thing to be noticed is that Paul and James are combating opposite problems. In Paul’s statements about justification in Galatians and Romans, he is countering a Jewish tendency to rely on obedience to the law (“works of the law”) for salvation. Against an overemphasis on works, Paul highlights faith as the sole instrument of justification. James, on the other hand, is combating an underemphasis on works, a “quietistic” attitude that turned faith into mere doctrinal orthodoxy. As Oliver O’Donovan remarks, Paul’s understanding of faith as a disposition that inevitably leads to works is being challenged, split apart into “believing” and “doing.”134 Against this perversion of faith, James is forced to assert the importance of works.

The second point to be mentioned is the need to reckon with the possibility that James and Paul are giving different meanings to some of the key

131. The quotation comes from Luther’s “Table Talk”: original German in Tischreden 3 Weimarer Ausgabe (Weimar: Böhlaus, 1912), 253; English translation from Stuhlmacher, Biblical Theology, 501. 132. For a brief history of interpretation with an outline of key approaches to the problem, see Allison, 426–41. 133. See, e.g., Z. C. Hodges, Dead Faith: What Is It? (Dallas: Redención Viva, 1987); J. F. MacArthur Jr., The Gospel according to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988); Z. C. Hodges, Absolutely Free! (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1989); J. F. MacArthur Jr., “Faith according to the Apostle James,” JETS 33 (1990): 13–34. This modern version of an old debate could have profited from greater reliance on viewpoints and considerations hammered out in the course of the earlier controversies. 134. O. O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 110.

Context of Thought and Theology

vocabulary. Three words need to be considered: works (erga), justify/consider righteous (dikiaoō), and the preposition ek, usually translated “by.”

In the quotation of Rom 3:28 above, Paul refers not to “works” (erga) but to “works of the law” (erga nomou). Many interpreters find this difference to be the way to reconcile James and Paul on this point. One of the features of the “new perspective” on Paul is an emphasis on the degree to which Paul is interacting with the Judaism of his day. In his context, it is argued, “works of the law” would have referred to the doing of the torah—especially as it was seen as a way of maintaining Israel’s exclusive privileges.135 These works, because they are tied to an outmoded covenant, cannot justify. James, on the other hand, does not use the phrase “works of the law”; he refers simply to “works”—indeed, perhaps especially to “works of mercy,” as the context might suggest (2:12–13, 15–16). Therefore Paul is not arguing that “works” in general should be excluded from justification, and James’s insistence that the verdict of justification takes works into account would not contradict Paul.

However, while this interpretation of “works of the law” is popular, I think it ultimately cannot be sustained. Paul’s polemic cannot be confined only to torah obedience. Romans 9:10–12 is the closest we get in Pauline literature to a definition of “works”: “Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’” In these verses, it is clear that “works” includes anything that is done, “good or bad.” Likewise, the “works of the law” in Rom 3 (vv. 20, 28) give way in Rom 4 to “works”—the two appear to function in Paul’s argument in exactly the same way. When Paul refers to “works of the law,” then, he does indeed refer to works done in obedience to the torah; but these specific works are at the same time a subset of the larger category “works.” Paul intends to exclude all works—not just certain works or works done in a certain spirit—as a basis for justification.136

135. See, among many writings, J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 354–66. It should be noted that a restrictive significance to Paul’s “works of the law” has been given to the phrase by a number of theologians throughout church history (e.g., Pelagius [noted by Allison, 430]). See, on the early church’s interpretation of the phrase, M. J. Thomas, Paul’s “Works of the Law” in the Perspective of Second Century Reception, WUNT 2/468 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018). 136. On this issue, see D. J. Moo, “‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” WTJ 43 (1983): 73–100; Moo, The Letter to the Romans, 2nd ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 216–20; Moo, Galatians, 21–31; Moo, Theology of Paul and His Letters.

On the other side of the fence, it is not clear that we can confine James’s “works” to acts of charity. To be sure, he has just been speaking about activities that fulfill the law of love and cites as an illustration acts of charity in 2:15–16. But his specific examples, drawn from the lives of Abraham and Rahab (2:21–25), do not clearly involve acts of charity. Particularly in Abraham’s case, the focus is on his obedience to God per se, with no inkling of any charity shown to others. Thus it would seem that both Paul and James are operating with an understanding of “works” that is basically similar: anything that is done in obedience to God and in the service of God.

A second key word to consider is dikaioō, “justify” or “consider righteous.” Paul uses this verb to denote the divine declaration that a sinful human being is, because of Christ and through their faith, “in the right” before God. James, however, it is suggested, uses the verb in a different sense. One option is that he refers to God’s recognition of a person’s “righteousness” in the judgment.137 However, the most popular option is to think that James, in contrast to Paul, uses dikaioō to mean “demonstrate to be right.” Distinguishing between these two meanings of “justify” is probably the most popular approach to reconcile Paul and James on this point. And it certainly has points in its favor. In the context of James’s claims about justification, he taunts his opponent: “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds” (2:18). The idea of demonstrating one’s relationship with God seems to be the point. Moreover, the verb can certainly have this sense, as Matt 11:19 reveals: “But wisdom is proved right [edikaiōthē, “justified”] by her deeds [erga].” If James is using the verb with this sense, then, he would be referring to the demonstration of righteousness, while Paul is referring to the declaration of righteousness.

As attractive as this option is, I am not certain it should be accepted. As I point out in the detailed notes on 2:21, it is unlikely that “demonstrate to be right” is the meaning of this key verb in James. Rather, both he and Paul appear to use it in the general sense, well attested in the OT and Judaism, of a divine declaration of “right” status. To be sure, Paul invests the word with a great deal more significance than does James, tying it to some of his key theological themes in a web of meaning that shifts its ultimate theological sense a bit. Paul, for instance, in contrast to Judaism (and to James), often insists that a person can be justified before God the moment that they believe. James, on the other hand, focuses on what we might call final justification, God’s vindication of a person on the day of judgment.138 But these differences in nuance

137. E.g., Davids, 132. 138. See, e.g., G. K. Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 519–22.

Context of Thought and Theology

and focus between Paul and James are not great enough to explain the tension between them.

A third option is to assume that dikaioō has the same meaning in Paul and James but that the two differ over the “moments” of justification. Paul, on this view, refers to what we might call “initial” justification. He insists that people get into relationship with Christ only by faith. James, on the other hand, is using “justify” to refer to the ultimate verdict over people at the time of the judgment—and this ultimate verdict is based not on faith only but also on works.139 Certainly “justify” can have this temporal reference. In a text that might well have influenced James, Matthew, reporting the teaching of Jesus, uses dikaioō this way and relates it to works: “For by your words you will be acquitted [dikaioō], and by your words you will be condemned” (12:37).140

I conclude, reluctantly, that we can’t reconcile James and Paul by appealing to different meanings they might be giving to key words—or can we?

I suggest, finally, that we might be able to bring the two authors together on this issue by appeal to the broad semantic range of the preposition ek, usually meaning “out of” or “from,” but in the key Pauline and James texts having a general instrumental sense, “by.” As I argue in more detail in the comments

139. The idea of “two justifications” was taught by the Reformation-era Roman Catholic theologian Robert Bellarmine, the reformer Martin Bucer, the seventeenth-century divine James Ussher (Sermon XV, XIII, p. 239) (for these, see A. E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2 vols. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, 1987], 2:34–35, 109), and J. Wesley (The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion and Certain Related Open Letters, ed. G. R. Cragg,vol. 11 of The Works of John Wesley [New York: Oxford University Press, 1975], 105). N. T. Wright is not ultimately clear on this issue, but he does, famously, claim that ultimate justification in Paul is “based on the whole life lived” (e.g., Paul in Fresh Perspective [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005], 111–13; see also Wright, “Justification: Yesterday, Today, and Forever,” JETS 54 [2011]: 60–61). See also the first edition (1985) of my TNTC commentary on James (44–48) as well as, e.g., Blomberg and Kamell, 136. 140. For this general approach, see esp. G. Eichholz, Glaube und Werke bei Paulus und Jakobus (Munich: Kaiser, 1961), esp. 24–37; J. Jeremias, “Paul and James,” ExpTim 66 (1954–1955): 368–71; T. Laato, “Justification according to James: A Comparison with Paul,” TJ 18 (1997): 43–84. This perspective also has affinities with N. T. Wright’s view of justification. He asserts that people are initially justified by “faith alone” but are ultimately justified by Spiritinfused, faith-generated works of obedience; see, e.g., Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009), 251. I took this view of the matter in the first edition of my TNTC commentary on James (114–16). See also Blomberg and Kamell, 136. John Wesley cited the difference between “initial” and “final” justification to explain the apparent conflict; see his sermon “On the Wedding Garment” (1790). Another possibility is that James views the crediting of righteousness to Abraham as the approval expressed by God during his lifetime and a consequence of his obedience; see R. T. Rakestraw, “James 2:14–26: Does James Contradict the Pauline Soteriology?,” CTR 1 (1986): 33.

on 2:24, it is possible that James and Paul may be thinking of different kinds of instrumentality when they use this preposition—and related words and constructions—in their linking of justification or related language with “works” or “faith.” It must be admitted that this difference cannot be established explicitly from the texts themselves. But, as I note below, I think that James’s teaching in his letter overall provides at least some basis to make the distinction we are suggesting.141 However, before we explore this option further, we must back up and set James’s teaching in ch. 2 in its Jewish framework.

Contemporary views of first-century Jewish soteriology are strongly marked by the impact of the “new perspective on Judaism” inaugurated in 1977 by E. P. Sanders.142 The label given this new paradigm, “covenantal nomism,” summarizes its main emphases. “Covenant” was basic to Jewish life. Jews viewed themselves as the chosen people, a nation selected by God to be his own and to carry out a mission to the world. Because God freely entered into this covenant with Israel, grace is at the heart of the Jewish view of salvation. Far from being a religion of “works” or “law,” then (as it often has been portrayed), Judaism was a religion of grace. But what, then, do we do with the obvious emphasis among the Jews on doing the law? Here is where the second term in the label, “nomism,” comes into play. As an obvious counter to the typical accusation that Judaism was “legalistic,” “nomism” signifies that Jews obeyed the law as a grateful response to God’s electing grace. They did not think that they needed to do the law to get saved—because they already were saved through the covenant. They did not do the law, then, to “get in” but to “stay in.”

In its main lines, covenantal nomism is an accurate and helpful picture of Jewish soteriology in the NT period. But it does require two important adjustments. First, as is the case with many such general “paradigms,” covenantal nomism fails to recognize adequately the diversity of Second Temple Judaism. It may accurately portray the viewpoint of certain Jews and perhaps even the most influential Jewish theologians of the time. But Jews in the NT period differed quite seriously over many rather basic theological issues. Study of the literature Jews wrote during this time shows many quite basic differences over the way in which covenant, grace, and the law were integrated. We must therefore reckon with the strong possibility that many Jews, and perhaps even

141. See Painter and deSilva, 107. 142. The fountainhead for this new paradigm was the monograph by E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977).

Context of Thought and Theology

some major Jewish groups, were more “legalistic” than the generalized picture of covenantal nomism would suggest.143

Second, we must adjust the usual way in which obedience to the law is related to salvation in covenantal nomism. While the distinction between “getting in” and “staying in” may be valid enough when applied to the covenant, we cannot necessarily apply the same distinction to the issue of salvation. For belonging to the covenant (in the sense of being born into the people of Israel) was not a guarantee of salvation. Jews viewed salvation as a decision made by God at the time of the judgment. God’s grace in the covenant provided the sufficient means for salvation, but the individual Jew still had to commit himself or herself to obey the law in order to be saved in the last day. To put it another way, Second Temple Jewish soteriology was synergistic: it required human beings to cooperate with God’s grace through obedience to the law for salvation.

Here, then, is the possible point of intersection between Jewish views and Jas 2. For the teaching of James seems to match this synergistic interpretation of salvation. James implies that the Christian life begins through an act of God’s grace: as one of his greatest gifts, he “chose to give us birth through the word of truth” (1:18). Faith in Christ is the foundation for our relationship to God (2:1); like Abraham, Christians believe God and thereby find righteousness (2:22–23). But, James insists, final salvation, deliverance in the judgment of God—the focus of “justification” in Jas 2—takes into account one’s works. Here, we might conclude, we find the basic pattern of covenantal nomism reinterpreted in “new covenant” terms: one “gets into” relationship with God by faith in Christ, but “stays in” that relationship through obedience to the “royal law” (2:8).

Many interpreters are content to let matters rest with this conclusion. But anyone who takes seriously the place of James within the canon of the NT must ask further about the relationship of this apparent synergism in James to soteriological viewpoints elsewhere in the NT, especially Paul. To be sure, such an enterprise is frowned on by many modern scholars, who seem to believe that any attempt at theological integration is a betrayal of history and sound exegesis. Everything depends, of course, on one’s view of Scripture as a whole. Taken as a series of relatively independent historical attestations of the development of early Christianity, the NT letters can—indeed, must—be interpreted without reference to one another. Indeed, so resolutely opposed

143. On this point, see esp. D. A. Carson, P. T. O’Brien, and M. A. Seifrid, eds., The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, vol. 1 of Justification and Variegated Nomism, WUNT 2/140 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001).

to any “dogmatic” interpretation of the Bible are some interpreters that they dismiss the kind of application of larger conceptual categories to various documents from the same movement that is typical in the study of other religions. Scholars who adopt this approach often push James and Paul to extremes in their views of soteriology. They conclude that Paul and James present contradictory viewpoints on this matter and that the NT does not therefore teach a single, unified viewpoint on salvation.144

But if the NT is, as it claims to be, a revelation from God, if the NT letters are not just independent writings but part of one larger book with one ultimate author, then the search for a unified view within Scripture is not only appropriate but necessary. This is not the place to outline, let alone defend, such a view of Scripture. But this is the perspective that we adopt in this commentary. One must, of course, pursue integration of the diverse witness of the NT, while maintaining the integrity of each of the passages under discussion. Forced harmonization of Scripture is both bad exegesis and bad theology. But it is not “forced harmonization” to seek underlying theological categories that might enable one to conceptually bring together texts that apparently go in different directions. We now return to the suggestion that different nuances of instrumentality, signaled by the preposition ek, might help reconcile James and Paul on this issue.

As Protestant theologians have argued for many years, Paul uses the preposition ek in the relevant texts to indicate the instrument of justification: we are justified before God through our faith and not through our works (see, further, the comments on 2:24). James, I suggest, is using the preposition in a looser sense, to say that works are necessarily involved in, or related to, God’s justifying verdict. In this way, James can be squared with the monergistic perspective on justification in Paul. It is clear, for instance, in ch. 2 that James is not arguing that a Christian must “add” works to faith; rather, he insists that true saving faith will “work.” The reason that faith has these practical effects is not something James discusses. However, we can suppose that James would assume that faith has this power because it is given by and empowered by God and his Spirit. Moreover, as Timo Laato has shown, James suggests a monergistic view of justification/salvation in his emphasis on the creative power of the new birth in 1:18.145 At the theological level, then, I think that Paul and James are com-

144. See, for instance, Dunn, Unity and Diversity, 251–52. 145. Laato, “Justification according to James,” 47–61; Laato, Rechtfertigung bei Jakobus: Ein Vergleich mit Paulus (Saarijärvi: Gummerus Kirjapaino, 2003). On the other hand, A. Stewart argues that “synergism” in some sense is an appropriate description of James’s soteriology (“James, Soteriology, and Synergism,” TynBul 61 [2010]: 293–310).

Context of Thought and Theology

plementary rather than contradictory. Faith alone brings one into relationship with God in Christ—but true faith inevitably generates the works that God will take into account in his final decision about the fate of men and women.

It is true that “Paul and James move in this matter in different circles of thought, and the attempt to superimpose one circle on the other in order to determine their agreement or disagreement in detail is futile.”146 But what can be done is to understand the point each is making from within his own sphere of thought and word usage, and then to bring them together. When this is done, a unified, theologically coherent picture emerges. Paul fervently maintains that faith is the only human condition for the transfer of the sinner into the sphere of God’s grace. James says little about this initial transfer. What James is concerned about is the attempt to eliminate works from having any role in the verdict rendered over our lives. While our union with Christ by faith is the sole basis for justification in God’s sight, the works necessarily produced as a result of that union are taken into account in God’s ultimate judgment over us.147

Finally, we must keep clearly in view the contrasting rhetorical purposes of Paul and James. Unlike Paul, who was faced in Galatians, and to a lesser extent in Romans, by “Judaizers” insisting on obedience to the law as a condition for salvation, James was facing professing Christians who were dismissing the importance of obedience in the Christian life. As Udo Schnelle puts it, James “is possibly arguing against Christians who practiced a faith without works and who appealed to Paul to justify their practice.”148 Works, claims Paul, are never the basis for our salvation, for a positive verdict in God’s justification/ judgment. Faith, which grasps hold of Christ, the ultimate basis of our righteousness, is “alone” the means of justification. But, if not the basis, works, insists James, do have a role in securing God’s vindication in the judgment. In this way, James is guarding against an “open flank” in Paul’s strong assault on Judaism.149 Paul strikes at legalism; James at quietism. Each message needs to

146. Ropes, 36. 147. See J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. F. L. Battles, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), 3.17.12. John Wesley takes a similar approach in his explanation of the difference between Paul and James. He contends that James is speaking of final justification and that, while works are not the causal basis of this justification, it does take into account the evidence of works (Works 8:277, Q. 14; see also “A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion,” articles 12 and 13 [T. Jackson, ed., Addresses, Essays, Letters, vol. 8 of The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed. (1872; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958)]). 148. Schnelle, Theology, 625. 149. Wilckens, Die Briefe des Urchristentums, 365.