5. THE CHRISTIAN AND WORKS (2:14–26)

The word “mercy” in 2:13, expressing as it does the “law of liberty” in 2:12 (cf. 1:25) and the law of loving one’s neighbor as oneself in 2:8, both contrasts with the partiality of the messianic community’s behaviors (2:2–4, 9) and leads James to a robust defense of works. In brief, “mercy” is expounded in 2:14–26 in the term “works” and, because James connects faith and works, one can also say that “mercy” is expounded in what James means by a proper faith. 2:1 established that “faith” in the Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious one, is inconsistent with prejudicial behaviors against the poor. What James meant by “faith” there was not entirely clear, but he now clarifies it: faith involves works of mercy.1 All of this to say that the prejudicial, partial behavior of the messianic community (2:1–4) is inconsistent both with Judaism and the gospel of Jesus.

James drives his conclusion home repeatedly in 2:14–26, beginning with an interrogation (2:14–17) in which the questions imply sharp rebuttal and then proceeding to a set of challenges (2:18–26). He begins with two questions about the saving inadequacy of a faith that is not simultaneously at work in deeds of mercy (2:14): “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?” The implied answers to these questions—“no good” and “no”—are then elaborated with a graphic, almost comic, example (2:15–16): “Go in peace.…” The example is couched in a conditional sentence, the concluding apodosis being a question that repeats what was asked in v. 14: “What good is it?” James then draws his conclusion (2:17), which becomes the focus of yet more questions and repeated conclusions in 2:18–26.2

An issue of form and style arises in 2:18–19. The letters of the New Testament, especially those of Paul, occasionally reflect a response to a question, leading readers today to think we are hearing one end of a conversation. James 2:18–19 evidently is a response of James to a question. Even if James gives us his version of the query in 2:18 (18a or 18ab?), scholars remain unsure just what James understands the question to be, despite many efforts to resolve the issues. If we are unclear about the questions his opponents are asking, we are nonetheless on firmer ground in discerning his response, even if there is some debate where it begins (2:18b or 2:19?). The impact of 2:18–19, though, is clear: faith and works are an inseparable couple. What James implied in 2:14 remains the single conclusion throughout 2:20–26.

Once again, James furthers his argument with questions in 2:20: “Do you want evidence that faith without works is useless?” James answers this question by appealing to two figures—a most likely candidate, Abraham, and a most unlikely candidate, Rahab. Following his sketch of how each of these two illustrates the necessity of works, James concludes yet again: “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead” (2:26). He is making one point in this passage, and we will do well to stick to his point, which he makes with four words. Faith without works:

is useless (ophelos, 2:14, 16),

cannot save (2:14),

is ineffective (argē, 2:20), and

is dead (nekra, 2:17, 26).

It fascinates theologians, pastors, and lay persons to tease out the relationship of faith and works: Is the former the foundation of the latter? If so, why does James not say it quite that way? Are works a dimension of faith? Is faith nearly the same or identical with works? Is faith a work? Are works faith itself or a demonstration of the presence of faith? Why, then, do non-followers of Jesus have as many works as faith-focused Christians? These are important questions, but they do not drive what James is arguing here.3 He is arguing that faith without works is useless, unable to save, ineffective, and dead. Whatever relationship there is between faith and works or works and faith, there is a relationship—but what concerns James is not analysis of the relationship but the ineradicable necessity of works in faith.

5.1. INTERROGATION (2:14–17)

14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if youa say you have faith but do not have works? Can faithb save you? 15If4 a brother or sister is nakedc and lacks5 daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your filld,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17Soe faith by itself, if it has no worksf, is dead.

James 2:14–17 begins with two questions, each of which assumes its answer: (1) What good is it … if people claim to have faith but have no deeds? (2) Can such faith save them? The first assumes the answer that such faith is no (saving) good and the second that such (workless) faith cannot save. Then James elaborates the answer he has assumed—the uselessness of faith without works—by offering a graphic, comic example (2:15–16). I say “comic” because we hope (and trust) that no follower of Jesus would behave this way in an overt, conscious manner. Then James, in 2:17, draws his conclusion—the conclusion he assumed in the answers to his questions in 2:14.

2:14 The “good” in “What good is it?” is ophelos,6 which could also mean “benefit,” but the more important observation is that it draws its meaning from its context. That is, it draws on the word “save” in the last part of v. 14 to clarify what kind of “good” is involved. Thus, the “good” or “benefit” in James’s question is salvation or saving benefits for the messianic community.7 “What good is it?” assumes the content of the conditional construction “if you say.…” James challenges throughout this letter the assumption, or the claim,8 of faith that is not accompanied by works (1:22–27), and many other places in the New Testament show that faith must become manifest in love and obedience (Luke 3:7–14; Matt 7:15–27; Rom 1:5; 2:6–8; 6:17–18; 1 Cor 13:2; 2 Cor 10:5–6; Gal 6:4–6; Heb 5:11–6:8; 1 John 1:6).

This universal person claims “faith,”9 but does not have “works.”10 James 2:14–26, not to mention the whole of James, is concerned with the disparity of this claim and this absence. The disparity was demonstrated by the prejudicial behaviors of the messianic community (2:1–4), but the issue runs deeper and may also have been seen in the sorts of insensitivities mentioned in 2:14–17. The disparity is expressed by the contrast of two verbs, “claim to have” (legō echein) and “have” (echō). There is perhaps a subtle distinction between claiming to have and just claiming, but the emphasis in the text emerges in the word echō/echein: it is about what one has or does not have. James knows that his universal person does not have works, even if he or she claims to have faith.11 James knows this, in this context, because of what happened in the encounter with the poor person (2:2–4). And, no matter how hard we Protestants might try to work this out, the bottom line for James is having works. Works may well indicate the presence of faith, but the absence of works proves the absence of a faith that can bring about what James calls the “good.”

There are basically two options for what James means by “works”: either he means “works of the Torah,” as in Paul, which would bring James into material conflict with Paul, or he means generally good “works,” which means James and Paul could be harmonized. There can be no dispute that James does not speak of “works” as does Paul, for whom “works” often refers to boundary markers between Jews and Gentiles and represents covenant fidelity.12 Nor can there be dispute that James’s essential angle is good works in general or that these general good works are mapped out in the Torah and expressed in Torah observance. This is what we find in texts like 1:25 and will find in 2:14–26. For some this seems to let James off the hook, but I am unconvinced it is as simple as an either-or. James is Jewish, and he writes to a messianic Jewish community. It would be impossible for such a person or such a readership to hear the word “works” and not connect it to the Mosaic Torah. In fact, I propose that James means “works of the Torah” when he says “works,” but he understands works through the lens of the Jesus Creed, and that means he generalizes “works” into a life shaped by following Jesus’ teaching about doing Torah through love of God and others. That is, for James “works” means a life of loving God and loving others, and loving others means deeds of compassion toward those in need. This rendering of “works” is established by 2:8–13.13

The second question functions to clarify the first one. If “good” could be general enough to mean little more than “what good is it?” the second question narrows the meaning of “good” to the most crucial question the messianic community can ask: “Can [that kind of workless] faith14 save you?”15 The answer is an assumed “No, that kind of faith cannot save that person.” So we are left to define what James means by “faith.” In this context, and we need to keep our eye on both 2:1 and 2:19, “faith” evidently means—for the one with this kind of faith—“confessional” faith in God as one and Jesus as the Messiah as sufficient for redemption but not necessarily accompanied by deeds of mercy toward the marginalized. In 2:19 James will make it clear that this person confesses monotheism, and here James refers to the Shema (Deut 6:4–5: “God is one,” Hebrew echad). If the emphasis in 2:14 is not on what one believes but on the claim to believe, that emphasis entails the absence of mercy, love, and compassion for the poor. In James’s view, that kind of faith is not able16 to save that kind of person.

What does James mean by “save”?17 God is the Savior because God is also the Judge (4:12), and God saves, at least in part, through the “implanted word” (1:21), James’s early version of the theology of regeneration. In light of 1:21, we can say that “save” involves moral transformation, but clearly for James salvation is eschatological since it is connected to the final judgment (4:12). This is spelled out more concretely in 5:20, where it is the “sinner’s soul” saved “from death” because salvation will “cover a multitude of sins.” Salvation, then, is regenerative, morally transforming, and eternal18—and the tragedy for James is that those who claim to have faith but do not have works will not be saved. Most Protestants do not believe this today.

2:15–16 James now offers a comic example, and it would be humorous if it were not so tragic. These two verses are one long conditional sentence, and can be diagrammed like this:

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs,

then what is the good of that?

The protasis (“if”) clause contains three elements: the condition of neediness (2:15), the condition of response to the needy (2:16a), and the summary evaluation of the response by James (2:16b).

The neediness of the “brother and sister,” family terms for the messianic community,19 is clothing and food. The need for clothing comes to expression with a graphic image: “If a brother or sister is naked.”20 Inasmuch as blatant nudity was shameful in the Jewish world (e.g., Rev 16:15; 17:16),21 this expression is merely a graphic image of the inadequacy of clothing, or it refers to being poorly dressed (Matt 25:36, 38, 43–44) or incompletely dressed (John 21:7).22 Nakedness is an image of shame and defenselessness. The need for food (“lacks daily food”)23 focuses on the basics—“daily.”24 This brother or sister does not have even a daily allotment (see Acts 6:1; 1 Tim 5:3–20).

James contrasts25 his description of the neediness of someone in the messianic community with the incomprehensible response on the part of others in the community as he turns to the second of three elements in the protasis: the person both wishes the poor well and does nothing to help them. James spares finger-pointing by saying “one of you.” If the specific persons are not clear, such a person’s “faith” is: this is the person who has faith but no works (2:14). As the person with this kind of faith “claims to have faith” (2:14), so now this kind of person “says” to the naked and hungry brother or sister three things: “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill.”26 Following the person’s speech will be the person’s behaviors (2:16b).

“Go in peace.” This common Jewish form of greeting, farewell and blessing also emphasizes confidence that a person’s wishes will be granted (Judg 18:6; 1 Sam 1:17; 20:42; 29:7; 2 Sam 15:9; Mark 5:34; Luke 7:50; 10:5; Acts 16:36). Though we should be wary of overtheologizing the word “peace” (Hebrew shalom), the common usage of this expression suggests the peace and blessing of God upon a person.27 Because “keep warm” (Greek thermainō) is either passive or middle, and because the “go in peace” connotes God’s peace, many read this as a divine passive in the form of a prayer: “May God warm you.” This may be overinterpretation but, if so, not by much: the false piety, the false claims, and the false religion of those who have faith but do not have works are palpable in this letter (e.g., 1:26–27) and so a more religious reading of “keep warm” is not far from the mark.28 The brother or sister is in need of clothing and food; the pious-sounding but cold-hearted messianists respond to the first with “keep warm” and to the second with “eat your fill.” The word suggests eating to the point of being sated (Matt 5:6; 14:20; 15:37; John 6:26; Phil 4:12; Rev 19:21). Again, there is an air of piety surrounding the community’s response: “May God’s peace be upon you; may God warm you; may God fill you up.”

The neediness of the brother or sister shocks us when we see the contrasting behaviors of the messianists: they say things that sound pious (2:16a) but do nothing (2:16b): “and yet you do not supply their bodily needs.”29 Their lack of “daily” food (2:16a) is met by a fierce refusal to respond to the needs requisite to the body. The description here is tragic: the messianic community is connected to the Messiah who became poor in order to make others rich and who taught in word and deed to show mercy to those in need; the community is connected to the Scriptures of Israel, which from beginning to end advocate mercy and compassion for those in need; and the community is filled with poor who know the underside of oppression. Yet—and this is what perplexes James into strong words—this group of those who say they have faith in Jesus the Messiah, the glorious one who became poor, does nothing for those who make their needs obvious.

“What is the good of that?” James asks. This question rounds off 2:14–16 by framing the whole with the same question. The “good,” again, is the “saving good.” The implied answer is “No good, none whatsoever.”

2:17 James now draws his conclusion in 2:17, and it is the conclusion that has quietly lurked behind everything James has said from the beginning of this paragraph: “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” This conclusion is clearer than the implicit answer of 2:14 and is spoken of in four ways: faith without works is useless (2:14), cannot save (2:14), is dead (2:17), and is ineffective (2:20).30 It is wiser to synthesize the four than to drive wedges between them. Perhaps the most weighty is the second: faith without works cannot save.

“So faith.”31 As claims and wishes and prayers that are not met by actions do no good for those in need (2:15–16), so faith that does not have works is dead. What is the meaning of “faith” (pistis) here? As in 2:1, the word here is neutral. In 2:5 and 2:22 (and 1:3, 6; 5:15) “faith” does what faith is designed to do: it trusts God and obeys God. But, in 2:1, 14, 17, 18, 20, 24, faith is the right word but is stalled in its design from moving into full-blown works. It is best to understand this kind of stalled faith as a claim of faith that, because it does not manifest good works, cannot save. That faith was in God as one and Jesus as the Messiah.

The NRSV moves forward the last two words of the Greek sentence: “by itself.”32 This raises an interesting, if minor, question: Does “by itself” modify “faith” in “So faith [by itself]”? Or does its suspension until the end lead to a different kind of modification, namely, “Faith is dead by itself [or on its own or in itself]”? There is a subtle difference between the two and the grammar of the Greek sentence favors the second option. The major point, though, is that faith here stands alone with no works. There would be (and are) precious few who would (do) claim to have faith and have absolutely no works, so it is wise for us to understand James describing an absolute condition in order to make his appeal more persuasive. Had he moved into how many works are requisite, the point would die the death of nuances.

Faith, “if it has no works,”33 is dead. For James, the options are two: either one has the kind of (claimed) faith that does not live out in works or one has the kind of (saving) faith that lives out in works. The former (claimed) faith is dead. As sin is “dead” without the Law to give it life (Rom 7:8), so faith is dead without works. Again, the focus here is not so much that such faith is simply ineffective in this life alone, which it is. It is “vain” (1:26), “useless” (2:14), and “ineffective” (2:20). But there is more: James stretches the now into the eternal—“dead” means “cannot save” (2:14). As Rob Wall puts it, “those whose confidence rests on routine professions of faith in God but whose lives do not embody the mercy of God are destined for ‘death’ instead of ‘life’ at day’s end (cf. 5:19–20).”34 We must also respect what James is saying: there are those who claim faith, who are connected to the community of faith, who confess an orthodox faith, and who may well be supports of the faith, but who do not have works—and their faith cannot save.35

James now turns to a rhetorical, imaginative debate with an unidentified (and perhaps unidentifiable!) interlocutor. His main point is already clear from 2:17, but he must deepen his argument, sharpen the polemic, and lay bare his objections to the kind of faith that does not produce works. Martin Dibelius, it should be observed as we enter into this next little room in James, once said that James 2:18 “was one of the most difficult New Testament passages.”36 Even if it is easy to get lost in the thicket of problems, we cannot lose sight of James’s major point: that faith without works cannot save.

5.2. CHALLENGE AND RESPONSES (2:18–26)

18But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart37 from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19You believe that38 God is one;a you do well.b Even the demons believec—and shudder. 20Do you want to be shown, you senselessd person, that faith apart from works is barrene? 21Was not our ancestorf Abraham justifiedg by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckonedh to him as righteousness,”39 and he was called the friend of God. 24You see that a person is justified by worksi and not by faith alone. 25Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justifiedg by works when she welcomedj the messengers and sent them out by another roadk? 26For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without worksl is also dead.

James 2:18–19 interrupts the flow by providing the response of an imagined interlocutor to whom James then responds, and this style is a form of ancient rhetoric.40 I begin with an outline of our section which will guide the comments.

1. The Interlocutor’s Challenge (2:18a).

2. The Responses of James (2:18b–26)

2.1. Regarding faith and works (2:18b)

2.2. Regarding creedal faith (2:19)

2.3. Regarding biblical proof (2:20–26)

The debates on vv. 18 and 19 are legion, and it would gobble up space to list the options and their proponents. Since it is unlikely that any theory will dispel all the problems, I will do my best to make my view clear.41 These questions have been raised: (1) Is the speaker in 2:18a (Greek tis, NRSV: “someone”) an interlocutor, James himself, or an ally of James? (2) Where does this speaker’s statement end? With 2:18b or 2:19? Or from the other angle, where does James begin to respond? At 2:18b, 2:19, or 2:20? (3) Are the personal pronouns of 2:18a to be given full weight? Does “you” mean James or someone he is facing and the “I” refer to himself? Or, are they generic personal pronouns? (4) What is the logical relationship of 2:18b to 2:18a and 2:19 to what precedes? (5) The most significant question, and one not asked often enough, is this: Why does the interlocutor, who supposedly is speaking in 2:18a, use the term “works” (erga) for himself when one would expect the interlocutor, because he or she must disagree with James, to use “faith” and assign the word “works” to James or his allies? I suggest that the answer to this question provides the clue to answering, at some level of probability, the other questions.

5.2.1. The Interlocutor’s Statement (2:18a)

This verse stands in strong contrast to the preceding (“but”)42 and, as is commonly recognized for a diatribe format,43 introduces an interrupting interlocutor. Who is this “someone”? The options include: (1) James or an ally of James,44 (2) a Jew who affirms a former generation’s understanding of Jewish theology and who sees Christian works as different from works of the Torah and therefore unacceptable,45 (3) an imaginary opponent,46 (4) an objector who actually speaks James’s mind,47 or (5) someone who either affirms the validity of two approaches to redemption48—“one has pre-eminently faith, another has pre-eminently works,” and both are equally valid in the way that different gifts are valid in 1 Cor 12:9–10, or affirms that faith and works are completely distinguishable—“one has faith, and then again, another person has works, but the two are separable and different.”49 Furthermore, what is the extent of the interlocutor’s statement? One would think there would be more debate on this, since clarity evades us at every turn in these two verses, but nearly everyone agrees that the interlocutor’s statement is no more than the opening line: “You have faith and I have works.”50

To resolve the issues in 2:18–19, I propose the following vantage points and a brief translation to clarify each point. The first is that the “someone,” since the grammar clearly favors a diatribe style,51 is an opponent of James and the words that immediately follow are from that opponent and reflect that opponent’s view.52

Now my opponent will respond …

Second, if we consider the words of 2:18a and 2:18b, it is clear that 2:18b expresses the view of James. Thus, it is safe to conclude that the opponent’s view is found in 2:18a.53

2:18a “You [James] have faith, and I [your opponent] have works.”

2:18b James: “Show me your faith apart from works and I will show you my faith by my works.” (2:18b)

But seeing 2:18a as the view of the opponent presents a problem. One expects the opponent of James to take the view that he or she has “faith” and James has “works,” since that is what James has argued from 2:1 on. Thus, we would expect “You have works and I have faith.” And it is not clear how James’s response in 2:18b contests what is said in 2:18a.

This leads to a third vantage point: the personal pronouns need not be taken as referring to specific persons or to different persons. J. B. Mayor argued that the two pronouns, “You” and “I,” “may be a more vivid expression for ho men and ho de,” that is, “on the one hand one person says … and on the other hand another person says.…”54 And J. H. Ropes fully supported Mayor by observing that “With any other mode of interpretation [than Mayor’s softening of the pronouns] it seems impossible to gain a satisfactory sense from the passage.”55 Martin Dibelius, too, and he translates “the one has faith, the other has works.”56 What this position deals with is the incomprehensible nature of the opponent’s words if those words are a quotation of James’s view and his/her view. In the simplest of terms, one cannot reasonably say James has faith and the opponent has works if his opponent opposes his belief in the ineradicable connection of faith and works—that makes no sense of the context. Since it is a near certainty that 2:18a introduces an opponent and since the opponent’s words are found in 2:18a, then we are driven to ask if the prima facie reading needs adjustment, which is what Mayor, Ropes, and Dibelius do. If we let the pronouns be more general, we are let off the hook and sense flows in all directions. So, instead of “You [James] have faith, and I [your opponent] have works,” I propose, building on the work of these three scholars, something like this: “One has faith and one has works.” Now we have what looks like an abstract but analytical claim of some kind of pluralistic views on faith and works:

2:18a Interlocutor: “One has faith and one has works.”

2:18b James: “Show me your faith apart from works and I will show you my faith by my works.”

For 2:18b to make sense, James must have understood 2:18a as separating faith and works.57 Thus, something like this: “One has faith and one has works and both are equally acceptable ways of living out the covenant God has with Israel.” James responds with a “No!” because he will not accept a workless faith as an acceptable way of life before God.58 Thus, when James says “Show me your faith apart from works,” he believes he has the opponent on the hook because it is impossible to have saving faith and not have works. The interlocutor, who stands in for the messianists of 2:2–4 and 2:15–16, believes one can have faith and no works. The interlocutor, therefore, believes faith saves and works are an option or, put differently, that faith and works are two different things. Perhaps the interlocutor believes something like this: “Some Christians have only faith; others have (both faith and) works.” It is likely that the interlocutor believed that a Jesus-shaped confession of the one God of Israel (2:19) was enough for salvation. However one wants to work out the particulars, the opponent separates faith and works, and James will now show that faith and works are not only inseparable but the former without the latter cannot save (2:21, 24).59 James, it should be observed, does not personally prove his faith by appealing to his own works. The absence of that kind of proof indicates that the “I” of this verse is more representative than personal.

5.2.2. The Responses of James (2:18b–26)

James now responds to the claims that faith and works are separable items and that some persons have only faith while others have (faith and) works. James offers two stiff challenges. First, he challenges the interlocutor to show his faith without works; James, for his part, will back up his words by showing his faith by his works. The second challenge concerns creedal faith. Having creedal faith alone, James states, is not enough; even demons have that. The third response concerns biblical proof for his point, which he finds in both Abraham and his unlikely ally, Rahab.

5.2.2.1. Regarding Faith and Works (2:18b)

This is a face-to-face, rhetorically speaking, challenge. James says “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”60 He challenges his opponent, who represents the workless believers who have no deeds of mercy, to show (prove by revealing)61 his faith without works. James knows that the opponent, should he try, would be attempting the impossible. He knows this because he believes that genuine, saving faith is inseparable from works. James could be asking his opponent for either of two things: that he show James his faith-without-works or that he show his faith without pointing to any works.62 The second is more likely. The first option would be a stalemate. James would be saying, “Show me your workless faith and I will show you my working faith.”63

In contrast to his opponent, who without works simply cannot prove his faith, James will show his faith by, on the basis of, or out of his works.64 We should listen to what James says here: James proves faith by works. Faith for James cannot be reduced to trust or to creedal orthodoxy; faith for James flowers into full-blown acts of mercy toward the poor and marginalized, or it is not saving faith.65

5.2.2.2. Regarding Creedal Faith (2:19)

Once again James gets in the rhetorical face of his interlocutor: “You believe that God is one.” This challenge, too, responds to the interlocutor’s claim that faith and works are separable and that faith alone is saving. What that faith is now seems clear: it is faith that there is one God, the God of Israel.66 This text, even with all its variants (see above), witnesses to the daily presence of the Shema in the lives of Jews and of ordinary messianists. The Shema, a later liturgical rendition of not only Deuteronomy 6:4–5, but also including 6:6–8: 11:13–21; and Numbers 15:37–41, supplemented evidently in the first century with the Ten Words (Exod 20:1–17; Deut 5:6–21), was a daily confession.67 Observant Jews recited the Shema at daybreak, at the time of the afternoon sacrifice, and in the evening—and probably whenever they entered or left their homes. More importantly for the messianic community, Jesus affirmed the Shema and attached to it an important, and horizontalizing, reminder from Leviticus 19:18, the command to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mark 12:28–32), in what I call the Jesus Creed.

The Shema, in its Jesus Creed form, figures more prominently in James than in any other book in the New Testament, witnessing again to the Jewish location of this book. Only James has all of the Jesus Creed. There are traces of it in:

1:12: “to those who love him.”

2:5: “to those who love him.”

2:8: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

2:18: “You believe that God is one.”

More schematically, it looks like this:

God is one	Deuteronomy 6:4–5	James 2:18
Love God	Deuteronomy 6:4–5	James 1:12; 2:5
Love others	Leviticus 19:18	James 2:8

With this context, then, James’s challenge to his interlocutor, “You believe that God is one,” is probably more than the simple creed of Judaism but is instead a lead-in for someone who not only recites the Shema but recites it in the Jesus Creed form. His concern is with someone in the messianic community, someone who recites the Jesus Creed daily, who thinks that a person can affirm the one God and follow Jesus and yet remain oblivious to the needy around him or her.68

The claim to believe69 that the God of Israel is the one and only God is insufficient. James turns to biting sarcasm or at least irony: “you do well.”70 Some suggest James means to agree with the interlocutor as in, “So, you are right.”71 James, however, is not kind to his opponent—2:14–16 uses words like “useless,” and 2:20 calls the opponent a “senseless person.” It is more than likely that “you do well” is a biting comment.72 The next two lines pull the legs out from under the opponent. First, he says, “Even73 the demons believe,” and then he adds, as if adding a kicking blow to a wounded body, “and shudder.” Demons, too, believe that there is but one God—and they know that the one God is YHWH, the God of Israel (see Mark 1:24; 3:11; Acts 16:17; 19:15). But—and here one must fill in the lines to express James’s tone—at least they shudder and shake74 in God’s presence! James’s example is ad absurdum. While it is possible that James uses the shuddering of the demons as evidence that faith produces some kind of action (works),75 it is more likely that he is casting the interlocutor—and therefore the workless followers of Jesus—in negative light.76 They are worse than demons! Demons shudder in the presence of God, but the workless messianists are seemingly oblivious to the superficiality of their faith and the doom they face if they do not turn from their callousness.77 James has tied together genuine faith in God, loving God, and loving others.

5.2.2.3. Regarding Biblical Proof (2:20–26)

James continues his diatribe in 2:20–26 with a third response to the interlocutor’s challenge. He now turns to proving the ineradicable connection and inseparability of faith and works in Scripture, and he finds two unlikely allies: Abraham (2:21–24)78 and Rahab (2:25).79 Before these two examples, James asks the question he wants to answer (2:20), and afterward he concludes the entire chapter, section, and subsection with the conclusion that has been shaping everything (2:26).

5.2.2.3.1. Question about Proof (2:20)

James’s opening words, “Do you want to be shown?”80 come from the world of rhetoric, persuasion, and argumentation. One finds similar expressions in Paul (Rom 6:16; 11:2; 1 Cor 3:16; 5:6; 6:2–3, 9, 15, 16, 19; 9:13, 24). This style is not prone to wait for the interlocutor’s answer. James’s question, in other words, is not genuine. I have for more than a decade wondered how the author of James 3:1–12, where we find strong warnings about strong words, can say things like “You senseless person” (2:20) or, even more accusatory, “Adulterers!” (4:4), which is followed shortly by “Do not speak evil against one another” (4:11). The only satisfactory solution is that the rhetoric of that world saw no disrespect or problem in moral denunciation of those in the wrong. However one explains the language, James calls the interlocutor “You senseless person.”81 He thinks the interlocutor’s attempted combination of faith in Christ (2:1) and monotheism (2:19) with indifference toward the poor and needy is “senseless,” which of course it is. The kind of senselessness he has in mind is both intellectual and moral (see e.g., Judg 9:4).

The question James asks the interlocutor concerns, once again, the supposed separability of faith and works: Is it not true that “faith apart from works is barren”? The question betrays James’s answer: he thinks such a faith is useless (2:14), unsaving (2:14), dead (2:17), and futile (2:20).82 Furthermore, his pitting of faith against works is structurally parallel to his pitting of hearing against doing in 1:22. As with hearing without doing, so faith without works: they are “useless.” The word behind “useless,” argē, combines “non” and “working”83 to be both a play on words (“works” that are “workless” are worthless) and a deconstruction of the interlocutor’s theological position. It means “workless” in the sense of “ineffective” or “barren” in production.84 What James has in mind, then, is that faith without works cannot save (2:14) and does not effect God’s will in this world either. Not only does he have it in mind, he has proof: Abraham and Rahab prove his point.

Before we proceed to those examples, though, a comment about how to express the relationship of faith and works in James. I see a tendency, which seems to me to be a subtle attempt to let the Reformation have too much influence on exegesis, to prefer this formula: faith is demonstrated by works.85 What this does is salvage faith as the sine qua non of salvation, which may well be sound theology, but it lacks the nuance of James. (Some have argued that it is James who lacks the nuance and is in need of help.) Instead of locking into the term “demonstration,” I suggest we use each of the four terms James himself uses, and I suggest we use these terms liberally:

Works show faith (2:18).

Faith works with works (2:22a).

Faith is perfected by works (2:22b).

Works fulfill faith (2:23).

While we may be most comfortable with the first and least comfortable with the second, both the third and fourth are instances as much, if not more, of the second as of the first. Yes, works demonstrate faith, but they also perfect and fulfill faith and, as James goes to great pains to emphasize, the two work together to produce a working faith that saves. His emphasis is on their inseparability, not on distinguishing them or on their sequential relationship.86

What needs reiteration is that James interprets both Abraham and Rahab through his own theological grid of how faith and works work together to produce salvation.87 Neither the Aqedah, the binding of Isaac, nor the story of Rahab, uses the word “justify,” and that happens to be the term James uses to summarize how he understands their stories. In other words, James cannot and does not prove from those texts that the word “justify” is present to support his argument. Instead, assuming he has the relationship right, he illustrates how both Abraham and Rahab evince a faith—and Rahab’s faith is not even mentioned by James—that works with works to produce justification and salvation. James finds the words “faith” and “justification” in Genesis 15:6 and ties that text to Genesis 22; the glue that holds them together is how he understands the saving faith that justifies. That Abraham and Rahab were justified by their works is James’s interpretation. No one doubts that both had faith, or that both had works. James interprets that relationship between faith and works as the kind of relationship that justifies. That Paul could interpret Genesis 15:6, or the Aqedah for that matter, for other purposes would neither surprise James nor upset his argument.

5.2.2.3.2. First Proof: Abraham (2:21–24)

2:21 Since Abraham is the “father”88 of Israel, appeal to Abraham is not only first but also perhaps the weightiest argument James might find. Most New Testament writers found a way to appeal to Abraham in either theology or polemic, and they did so within fundamentally covenantal and Judaistic categories, but by the time of Justin Martyr Abraham became a figure of intense separation and supersessionism.89 The NRSV’s “ancestor” is not enough; Abraham is more than an “ancestor.” He is the ancestor—in other words, the “father” of Israel90 and the father of the messianic community.91 Not only is he the primordial ancestor, for James goes one more step to ask: Was not Abraham “justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?” (2:21).

Our understanding of justification has either gone a revolution since the publication of E. P. Sanders’s Paul and Palestinian Judaism in 1977 or has been under attack since that time. How one sees this shift in understanding will impact what one sees in James 2:21–24.92 Every commentator on James is tempted to write a minor dissertation on the relationship of James 2:20–26 to Paul’s theology of justification. Few resist. I shall try, because my focus here is on what James says in his context and not on battles best fought elsewhere.93 I begin with this: To be called “righteous”94 is to be described, in general, as one who conforms to a standard. But life is not lived simply in the general; we live in particular worlds. So, to be called “righteous” in the Bible means that one’s behavior and life conform to the Torah, the standard of God (Gen 38:26). To be called “righteous” in Judaism means that one’s behavior and life conform to the Torah as interpreted by one’s authorities—e.g., the Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran or Hillel or Shammai. To be called “righteous” in the messianic community of James means that one’s behavior and life conform to the Torah as interpreted by Jesus (Luke 18:14) and the leaders of that messianic community, most especially James (1:26–27; 2:8–13, etc.). To be called “righteous” in the world of Paul means to be conformed to the standard of God by union with Christ (Gal 3:11–12; Rom 2:13; 3:23–26; 4:5). Even if Paul uses this term in an innovative way, the sense of judgment by God and moral conformity to God’s will are in one way or another always present.

Some question here whether “Was not our ancestor Abraham justified … ?” means that he had eschatological, judicial salvation95 or, in a more limited sense, was “declared righteous” or “approved” as one who is in the right in how he lives.96 The difference is probably minimal since most will admit that, even if one can distinguish God declaring that a person is righteous—like the one who does deeds of mercy—from the one who is forensically declared righteous in the final courtroom (or even in an inaugurated manner at conversion)—that final court’s decision is undoubtedly connected to the more earthly recognition by God. If we keep in mind the thrust of James’s argument, namely that faith and works are inseparable and that faith without works is non-saving faith, then we can answer the focus of the word “justified” by returning to James’s own words. “Justified” is the opposite of “useless” (as in “what good is it?” in 2:14), unsaving (2:14), dead (2:17), shaken in God’s presence (2:19), and barren or ineffective (2:20). To be justified, then, is to have useful, saving, life, delight in God’s presence, and fruitfulness—all with an eye to the final courtroom in which the work-full believer is declared in the right by God (on the basis of what one has done?).97 To be justified is to be brought into a saving relationship with God through the new birth (1:18), in which one lives out God’s will as taught by Jesus, particularly in showing mercy to those in need.98

What shocks the post-Reformation reader of James 2:21 is “by works.”99 James says Abraham was justified—brought into a saving relationship with God or declared righteous by God—on the basis of his works.100 And James tells us exactly which work (singular) of Abraham’s it was that justified him: “when he offered his son Isaac on the altar.”101 We need to understand the “binding” (Hebrew aqedah, from Gen 22:9) of Isaac in order to understand why James says Abraham was justified “by works.” “The extraordinary prominence of the story of the binding of Isaac in Gen 22:1–19 in rabbinic Judaism,” Jon Levenson observes, “stands in stark contrast to the utter absence of direct references to it anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible.”102 James fits somewhere along the line from the rather clear unimportance of the Aqedah to the obvious major significance of the Aqedah in later Judaism. To see where James fits, we need to sketch some of this evidence.

It begins with Genesis 22:1–19, known for the haunting question of Isaac, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” and father Abraham’s believing response, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” Attached to this scene is the angelic commentary on Abraham’s faithfulness: “Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you … because you have obeyed my voice” (22:16–18). The theme of the faithfulness of Abraham is found in Nehemiah 9:8 (“you found his heart faithful before you”) but even more completely in Sirach 44:19–20:

Abraham was the great father of a multitude of nations,

and no one has been found like him in glory.

He kept the law of the Most High,

and entered into a covenant with him;

he certified the covenant in his flesh,

and when he was tested he proved faithful.

And in Wisdom 10:5:

Wisdom also, when the nations in wicked agreement had been put to confusion, recognized the righteous man and preserved him blameless before God, and kept him strong in the face of his compassion for his child.

And in 1 Maccabees 2:51–52:

Remember the deeds of the ancestors, which they did in their generations; and you will receive great honor and an everlasting name. Was not Abraham found faithful when tested, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?103

And Jubilees 17–18: “And it came to pass … that words came in heaven concerning Abraham that he was faithful in everything which was told him and he loved the LORD and was faithful in all affliction. And Prince Mastema came” and asked God to test Abraham by requiring the sacrifice of his son. God knows that Abraham is faithful because he has already “tested” him in regard to land, famine, wealth, the taking of Sarah, circumcision, and the departure of Hagar and Ishmael. “And in everything in which he tested him, he was found faithful” (17:15–18). Jubilees goes on to give a slightly expanded version of Genesis 22 with the notable addition that the incident takes place on “Mount Zion” (18:13).104 And in Hebrews 11:17–19:

By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

These texts repeat over and over the theme of God’s testing of Abraham in the Aqedah and the emphasis is squarely on Abraham’s faithfulness. This incident, then, became the summary act of obedience in Abraham’s life of faith.105 Abraham’s pistis, his faith, was faithfulness.106 The Aqedah, then, is not just an important act of faith in a series of acts of faith, but the primordial or preeminent or capstone act of faith: that is, it is this act of faith and obedience that the angel says led to the blessing of Abraham. All of this now leads to this point: when James says Abraham was justified by works when he acted as he did in the Aqedah, James is drawing on a deep Jewish tradition that this act of obedient faithfulness by Abraham was the singular event in Abraham’s life that led to God’s blessing him (a variant on “justified”) and to the formation and blessing of the people of Israel.107

But why then does James use the plural “works”? Perhaps because the one act of the Aqedah sums up all the other works in the testing of Abraham’s faith—and Jewish tradition (Jubilees 19) finds ten such tests of Abraham.108 In particular, and this is why I think James also brings up Rahab (see below),109 we need to recall that just prior to the Aqedah was an incident in which Abraham showed hospitality to strangers (Genesis 18) and it was this incident that led to the birth of Isaac.110 It is not fanciful to think of Genesis 22, then, as another instance of God providing (22:8) for the one who was merciful to others by providing life’s necessities. Once we connect Abraham’s “works” back to the hospitality theme in Genesis, we realize that James has touched on a moment of brilliance: Abraham, the one who was hospitable to those who had needs, was tested by God the (hospitable) Provider. The Jewish tradition famously saw Abraham as an example of hospitality.111 Abraham survived the test by remaining faithful and God provided for him. God the Provider justified Abraham on the basis of that kind of faithfulness (works). And what lies latent in all of this is that James has urged since 1:19–27, but especially in ch. 2, that the messianic community—like Abraham—should be acting with compassion and mercy toward those in need.

Justification by works, then, is not by “works of the law” so much as it is by “works of mercy” as the way to interpret genuine Torah observance. As James calls the messianic community to such (1:19–27; 2:1–4, 14–17), so he appeals to Abraham as one whose entire life came to expression in acts of hospitality that led to his own act of sacrificing his son to God the Provider. For James, Abraham’s faith, his lifelong faithfulness, is found in that word “works.” What James will not tolerate is a kind of “faith” that is not like Abraham’s faithfulness.

2:22 James wrote before the intense debates about works and faith developed in the Reformation. But in some ways James 2:22 anticipates the important distinction the Reformers drew between faith and works. Even if James wants to affirm strongly that saving faith couples faith and works, his words show that faith and works are distinguishable. Since James can assume agreement with his point that Abraham was not justified until he laid Isaac on the altar, he can assume that his readers will draw the conclusion he has drawn. That is the point of “You see that.”112 And what should they see? Abraham’s faith113 “co-worked with his works”114 in the sense that they intermingled with one another (Rom 8:28; 1 Cor 16:16; 2 Cor 6:1). It is not so simple that we could say first he had faith and then he had works, and once he had both he had what it takes to get salvation. The faith of Abraham, the faith itself, worked itself out in works and it is the faith itself that is completed by works. It was a working faith, not a faith plus works.115 As a side point, Peter Davids is probably right: James fastens onto Abraham’s faith because, like that of his interlocutor and those he represents, Abraham’s faith was monotheistic (Jubilees 11–12; Philo, Legum Allegoriae 3.228; de Virtute 216; Josephus, Ant. 1:154–57): “You believe that God is one” (2:19). But, unlike the interlocutor and those who think works are unimportant, Abraham’s faith was a working faith.

It was on the basis of his works that Abraham’s faith was “brought to completion.” Again, as in v. 21, why does James use the plural “works”? Possibly he is responding to the sorts of things said by Paul or by those around Paul, and Paul often used “works” to express commitment to the Torah (Gal 2:15–21). But more likely he is simply reusing the term he used in 2:20. Or we should back up some and wonder if we can explain this simpler: perhaps the instinctual term is plural. Still, James belongs to the Jewish tradition that sees the Aqedah as the summation of all of Abraham’s works, including his hospitality to strangers. We should observe again how ingenious this example becomes in James’s context: the combination of the father of Israel, overt confession of monotheism, and works of mercy to those in need is exactly what James needs. It is worth observing that great rhetoric and preaching trades in this sort of insightful example.

Everything in James’s logic hinges on “brought to completion.”116 To begin with, a more accurate term would be “brought to perfection.” Faith finds its intended shape when it is working; the idea is something being brought to its full realization, its divinely-intended design and form. We see this idea at work in 1:4 and 1:15. This sense is also found in Philo’s description of Jacob as “him who was made perfect through practice.”117 James’s point is not unlike what Paul says in Gal 5:6: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” And it is like that of John in 1 John 4:12: “If we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” As the sacrificial system finds its intent in the cross and as the Torah finds its intent in the teachings of Jesus (Matt 5:17–20) and life in the Spirit (Gal 5:18), so faith finds its intent when it becomes active in deeds of mercy (Jas 2:14–17).

2:23 What perhaps surprises Protestants the most is that James does not think the job was complete when Abraham trusted God in Genesis 15:6; it was the Aqedah that brought the trust of Abraham to its intended goal. Genesis 15 finds its perfection in the narrative of Genesis 18–22. Simple trust and believing the right things is not saving faith in the mind of James.

Paul used Genesis 15:6 as potent evidence that justification occurs solely by faith, by trusting in the word of God, apart from works. Because Abraham was justified (Gen 15:6) prior to circumcision, Paul says, the promises to his seed were received by faith alone (Gal 3:6, 16; Rom 4:9–11, 18, 22). Therefore, since justification occurred prior to circumcision and prior to any works, works do not figure into the act of God in making a person righteous (Gal 3:10–11; Rom 3:20, 28; 9:31–32). Furthermore, because the proper response is trust in the word of God, Paul knows that justification can occur for Gentiles without them having to enter into Judaism through circumcision (Gal 3:7–9; Rom 4:11–12). Having had his say in this way, however, Paul still knew the importance of works (Gal 5:22; Rom 12:1–2; 1 Cor 3:13; 2 Cor 5:10).

James comes at this topic from a different angle.118 Paul faces some who think of Jewish status as sufficient or even as an exclusive privilege, but James faces those who think confessional/creedal faith is sufficient. These different issues lead to different uses of both the faith versus works language and the example of Abraham, even if both can appeal in their own way to Genesis 15:6. For James, Abraham is not the model of faith-before-works but of faith-with-works. Paul wants to show justification prior to circumcision, and James wants to show that Abraham’s justification was not perfected until the Aqedah. It was there, and here James banks on the potency of the Jewish traditions about Abraham’s testing, that Abraham’s faith reached the divine intent. It seems to me that James knew of Paul’s teaching.119 This is not a matter of who got Abraham right; this is a matter of hermeneutics in a Jewish world.

Hence, James says, it was at the Aqedah that Genesis 15:6 was “fulfilled.”120 The verb means to fill up (Matt 13:48; John 12:3) but it could also mean to “fulfill prophetically” or “confirm” in the sense that this text confirms the point James is making. It seems that another view is more likely: since James is showing that Abraham’s Genesis 15:6 faith was “perfected” (Jas 2:22) in the Aqedah, it stands to reason that “fulfilled” means nearly the same. That is, the Aqedah consummated or brought to full realization (“fulfilled”) the faith of Genesis 15:6. This view approximates “fulfill prophetically” (see Matt 2:17; 5:17).121 Thus, the Aqedah brings to full completion the faith Abraham exercised in Genesis 15 when he complained that the promise of a child was unfulfilled. YHWH showed him the stars in the sky and declared that Abram’s progeny would be as numerous, and Abram simply trusted that YHWH would indeed do what was said. The faith that trusted YHWH’s word came to completion when Abraham lifted Isaac to the altar.

When Abram so trusted God, YHWH “reckoned” his faith as righteousness.122 It could be that Abraham’s faith was considered a kind of work and that it was that kind of work that was reckoned in the divine tribunal as righteousness (a life of Torah observance). But this is not how James is using these terms: for James, faith is distinguishable from works. Faith is not a work. Rather saving faith works or moves into acts of mercy. So, it is more likely that Abraham’s trusting of YHWH’s word was an act that YHWH considered good and so therefore assigned Abraham to the class of those who were “righteous,” that is, those who did God’s will.123 What James is emphasizing, though, is that this act of trust by Abram did not come to its perfection or completion until the Aqedah.124

Not only is Scripture fulfilled, but Abraham was “called the friend of God.”125 James sums up God’s view of Abraham with the summary word “called.”126 “Friend” (philos) brings together three words James has already used that express divine approval: “justified” (2:21), “brought to completion” (2:22), and “fulfilled” (2:23a). When James calls Abraham the “friend of God” he could be quoting verses like 2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8; or Wisdom 7:27, or, more likely, he simply sums up the Jewish view of Abraham.127 To be God’s friend is to be in the people of God (cf. Luke 12:4; John 3:29; 11:11; 15:13–15; 3 John 15), to be in the right, to be saved, and to be a person who in fellowship with God lives out the life God designs for those on earth. Inasmuch as friendship with God (cf. Jas 4:4) involves love, one can find echoes of the Jesus Creed as the friend of God acts in friendship toward others (2:8–13).

2:24 James now sums up his point one more time and repeats what he said in 2:20. Here we are justified in hearing James responding either to Paul or to someone around Paul. From the perfection and fulfillment of Abraham’s Genesis 15:6 faith in the Aqedah, James concludes128 that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” James now universalizes with “a person,”129 which is used in the same way in Galatians 2:16, along with the equivalent “flesh.”130

James’s conclusion has a positive and a negative element:

A person is justified:

positive:	by works
negative:	not by faith alone

Justification is forensic: it is to be declared in the right by God in the courtroom of God. Those who are in the right are so by virtue of works (like Abraham in Genesis 18–22). And, like Abraham, no one can be justified by “faith alone.” “Faith alone” is confession of monotheism (2:19) and thinking one is in the right before God even if one does not respond to those in need (2:1–17). It is confessional, creedal, and workless faith. This point should not surprise the reader of the New Testament: Matthew 7:15–21; Galatians 5:6; 6:4; 1 Corinthians 13:2; 2 Corinthians 9:8, Hebrews 11; 1 John 2:3–6. Saving faith, then, is a trusting faith that flows into deeds of mercy; non-saving faith is creedal faith without deeds of mercy. In this setting, James may distinguish faith from works, but he leaves no room for a saving faith that does not involve works. Faith finds its perfection and fulfillment in acts of mercy.

5.2.2.3.3. Second Proof: Rahab (2:25)

It is not clear that James returns to direct confrontation with the interlocutor. Still, we can infer that moving from his first example, Abraham, to a second, Rahab, indicates the interlocutor is at least in the corner of his eye. His intent is to demonstrate the inseparability of faith and works and to deconstruct the arguments of those who think one can have faith and not have works (deeds of mercy). The perfection of Abraham’s faith in the Aqedah now gives way to the active faith of Rahab. This shorter example then is followed by a summary conclusion (2:26).

“Likewise”131 ties what James has to say about Rahab to what he has said about Abraham as a second proof that faith and works are inseparable. The Canaanite prostitute Rahab, whose story of hospitality is told in Joshua 2 and whose reward is described in Joshua 6:16–25, creates problems for modern interpreters and historians while she resolves a faith-works relationship for James.132 The writer of Hebrews also saw Rahab as an example of faith and hospitality (11:31), while Matthew seems to depict her as a sinful Gentile woman who played a role in the Messiah’s genealogy (1:5). Josephus makes her an innkeeper instead of a prostitute, and therefore the spies are only there for dinner (Ant. 5.7–15). In 1 Clement 12 we discover a prophetic type of atonement in the red cord, and in later Judaism Rahab was classified as a proselyte, but none of this is James’s point.133 For James, Rahab was (1) a prostitute,134 (2) justified by works, who (3) welcomed the spies135 and sent them off surreptitiously.

What does James mean here by “justified”?136 It means to be judged in the right by God or to made righteous or to be vindicated before God. And, as with Abraham, James boldly claims—in the face of his interlocutor—that God judges Rahab to be in the right on the basis of works. Once again, James uses the plural “works.” He could be referring to the double act of reception and sending away in safety, but it is more likely that he is using typical language, whether he has one thing in mind (hospitality) or more. It is not without significance that James sees Rahab’s works in her hospitality,137 that is, in her treatment of Israelites in need, and sets her behavior before the messianic community as a standard (cf. 2:1–4).

5.2.2.3.4. Conclusion (2:26)

There is nothing new in James’s conclusion because he has made his point implicitly and explicitly since he opened this section at 2:1.138 Furthermore, the same point was made in 1:19–27, especially vv. 22–27. Implicitly, James has argued that, since faith and works are inseparable, (1) the messianic community’s prejudice against the poor and favoritism toward the rich are contrary to faith (2:1–4), (2) experience itself should inform the community’s members that God is with the poor, while the rich are oppressing the community (2:5–7), and (3) the royal law to love one’s neighbor as oneself demands care for the poor, while the community’s disrespect for the poor proves that its members are transgressors (2:8–13). Following this implicit argument, which is hardly subtle, James turned more aggressive at 2:14. Faith without works is useless (2:14a) and it cannot finally save (2:14b). With the help of an exaggerated example, James asserts that such a workless faith is dead (2:15–17). The interlocutor now interrupts with a question that assumes that faith and works are totally different responses to God and that the former without the latter saves (2:18a). James responds with three points: faith can only be shown to be saving by works (2:18b), creedal faith is not enough because even the demons have that (2:19), and the examples of the unquestioned faith of Abraham (2:21–24) and Rahab (2:25) prove that they had the kind of faith that worked. Explicit statements that faith and works are inseparable and that only a working faith saves can be found, then, in 2:14, 17, 20, and now 26.

James concludes this last time with an analogy:139 “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” The anthropology at work in this analogy assumes that the spirit animates and gives life to the body (Gen 2:7; 6:17; Ps 31:5 [LXX 30:6]; Ezek 37:8–10; Luke 8:55; 23:46; 1 Cor 7:34).140 It would stretch the evidence to suggest that we must strictly compare faith (alone?) to the body and works (as the perfection of faith?) to the spirit, with in this instance works being what gives life to faith or what brings faith to its completion, since James is comparing one whole situation with another and not dissecting. From beginning to end this chapter has had one central theme: the inseparability of faith and works if the faith is to be saving and the works justifying. One can clearly discern a difference: faith is confessional and works behavioral, but for James a saving faith is one in which the confession is manifest in works of mercy toward those in need. Faith alone, by which he means a minimal creedal faith, cannot save. It is useless, ineffective, and dead. Christian theologians might synthesize James and Paul with this line: “as faith without works is dead, so are works without faith dead.”141 True enough, but neither James nor Paul was in situations where the niceties of such theological syntheses were needed.

BRIEF EXCURSUS: JAMES AND PAUL142

We perhaps need to remind ourselves that neither James nor Paul defined their terms; they used words that came from various settings with meanings that were assumed, and sometimes they tweaked the assumptions. We are in constant need of reminding ourselves that we do our best with our mental lexicons to approximate the lexicons of the earliest Christians, but our definitions are not the same as theirs.

There is nothing distinctly Pauline about calling that first generation of beliefs “faith in Jesus Christ” (cf. Jas 2:1), nor is there anything distinctly Pauline about speaking of “works.” Once we accept that “faith” and “works” are not exclusively Pauline words, that all Christians expressed themselves with these terms, and that the terms grew rather naturally out of Jewish soil, we can no longer leap to the conclusion that, since both James and Paul are talking about faith and works, they must be talking at one another, with one another, or past one another.

Furthermore, at issue in this passage is not “faith” or “works” but “faith without works” over against “faith with works.” James fashions a theology in which the Torah remains in force and therefore works remain in force, but he does so in a way that sets faith and works into a tension. And as Don Verseput has recently reminded us, we cannot explain James by simply appealing to a causal relationship of faith and works.143 For James they are distinguishable realities, connected to be sure, but not simply as cause (faith) and effect (works).

The need to exhort Jews or messianic Jews to a working faith was not a Pauline problem. John the Baptist does it in Matthew 3:7–10, and Jesus did it frequently (7:21–27; 25:31–46). John does the same much later in 1 John. In fact, the entire theme is Jewish to the core.

It is likely that Paul and James knew one another (Gal 1:19; 2:9; Acts 15; 21:17–26). Galatians suggests that their first encounter came very early in Paul’s career (Gal 1:18–19, ca. 37 AD). Paul later encountered some “men from James” who were concerned about his teaching (Gal 2:12), and Paul also visited Jerusalem in approximately 48 AD. The opportunities for encounter were many and varied, and we can surmise that the two men had serious discussions, probable compromises, and firm convictions. This point is often ignored in the discussion of the relationship of James 2:14–26 and Paul’s distinctive theology and makes it much more difficult to argue for the independent interpretation of Abraham faith traditions by both James and Paul.144

The concentration on “faith” and “works” and on their relationship is a peculiarly Pauline problem, and James has the same problem. No one else in the New Testament enters into this verbal and theological struggle as do James and Paul. Both also appeal to Abraham and Genesis 15:6, even if they use texts and terms differently (a fact not always given its deserved space). This commonality is there even if we embrace an early date for James (prior to Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem): the Pauline problem (e.g., something like Galatians 2 or Acts 15) surely raised its head in Jerusalem before Paul wrote his letters. Therefore, what we see in James would be another manifestation of the reception of and response to Paul’s message, whether in its earliest oral forms or its later more mature written forms. James could well represent one reaction among others to Paul’s teachings or to an exaggeration of his teachings, not unlike the themes and circumstances we see in Galatians 2:4–5, 7, 10 and Acts 15:1–5. If we assume an early date, we must also assume an oral form of Paul’s teaching, and we cannot be certain what that looked like. We can assume that it would have been easier at that date to misrepresent and use strong rhetoric. It is more than probable that Paul’s teaching was often misunderstood and misrepresented (e.g., Rom 6:1–12).

It is therefore unwise, in our estimation, to see James 2:14–26 as responding to the more mature and fuller and written presentations of these issues in Galatians or Romans. It might be more accurate to see a four-step development at work in the relationship of James and Paul:145

1. Paul’s conversion and early articulations of theology (33–48 AD),

2. James’s response to what he was hearing (ca. 45+ AD; cf. Gal. 2:12!),

3. a public discussion at which James endorses Paul (Gal 2:9),

4. Paul’s later more mature articulation, taking into consideration his discussions with James.146

Once one admits this connection, that James 2:14–26 articulates a fundamentally important theme in James—namely faith and works, and that this theme appears in various locations in the letter, we are driven to conclude that the “response” to Paul that emerges with forcefulness in 2:14–26 actually appears throughout and shapes the entire letter.147

The following two-line comparison serves to illustrate an important point: James and Paul are using language so close to each other and in such different ways that one must posit some kind of connection:148

James 2:24
A person is justified by works	and not by faith alone.
Romans 3:28
a person is justified by faith	and not by works of the law.

Regardless of how one works to harmonize or compare these two early Christian leaders, the fact remains that James does not cede to the word “faith” the same importance as is found in Paul. Or, from the other angle, Paul does not cede to “works” the same importance as is found in James. These two authors come at things from two different settings with different theological orientations and intents, making their teachings more complementary than identical or contradictory.149 In the words of Sharyn Dowd, “James is using Paul’s vocabulary, but not his dictionary.”150 And one should not ignore Romans 2:6–16 in this discussion, a text that connects Paul more closely to James and that many have done their best to reinterpret or ignore.151 More reflection needs to take place over the significance of a proto-Augustinian or overtly Augustinian anthropology for framing and defining the debates that occur among Christians and theologians when it comes to comparing James and Paul. I suspect that James did not operate with that sort of anthropology.

Something that deserves more elaboration than can be given here but must be mentioned is that James shows more connection in these issues to the rest of the New Testament, say Jesus (or Matthew), Hebrews, and 1 John in their own ways than does Paul. Paul is the outlier here.152 If post-Reformation Christians struggle with James, the earliest Christians would have had the same struggle at times with Paul.

My conclusion is that James is responding either to Paul in the flesh or, which is slightly more likely, to the early Paul or to early followers of Paul who had embraced his message and driven it to some distortions,153 or, which is safer but less likely, to a common Jewish Christian environment where the emphasis on faith provoked conversations and poor theology concerning how faith and works are related. It is not impossible, but less likely, that both James and Paul independently developed the Jewish traditions about Abraham and faith.