Justification By Living Faith Alone: Brief Comments on James 2:14-26
Introduction
When he discusses in his epistle the connection between faith and works, the Apostle James is using a manner of speaking about a faith that is not actually faith, but is a non-faith. How can we know? Because he directly associates that faith with what demons believe.
You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (James 2:19)
James is not saying that the only thing demons lack is good works, and that if only demons would do good works then they would be justified. James is rather saying it is not actual faith if it is merely a verbal or intellectual assent. Otherwise he would be saying that demons simply need good works because their faith is otherwise correct. That would be insane, as if one might share the faith of demons and still do good works. In other words, it is a distortion of what faith means to make it an intellectual assent, much less a merely verbal one. Adding good works to verbal-intellectual assent is not what makes faith living. A pagan may approach a demon for healing and receive that healing, but that good work of the demon does not make it an angel or make its faith a living one by virtue of its good work. A good tree produces good fruit from within, which is analogous to fiduciary faith; it does not merely hang purchased fruit on its boughs with hooks. Faithless people do such artificial good works all the time (i.e. derived from the principle of self), surely their lack of faith is not worse than a demon’s verbal or intellectual assent.
Works demonstrate living faith, which demonstrates justification, but the works do not cause the justification or maintain the justification. Rather living faith (which is itself a divine gift) causes and maintains the good works, thus demonstrating the living faith which has already received a perfect justification because Christ is Himself our righteousness.
The practical effect of this difference is found precisely in the object of faith. For example, if I must work to be justified, then my faith must be in my works, which means in myself. This confuses the Savior with the saved, and magnifies soteriological anxiety in an honest person because they know they can never perfectly accomplish good works or be righteous because they are self-evidently fallible and unrighteous, and as a result their faith can never rise above the level of their self and its fallible works.
Alternatively, if all of my justification is secured in Christ alone through faith alone by grace alone, He being my complete righteousness, then faith's objective Source (Christ and Him crucified and risen) allows my faith to rise with Him above my self and my fallible works to heaven itself. This means my faith is wholly placed off of myself and my fallible works and entirely on Christ. As a consequence I can walk securely in freedom and assurance, working without the anxiety of having to wonder if I am good enough or if my good works and my transformation are good enough to merit, accomplish, or secure justification.
Commenting on James 2:14-26
With the foregoing being said, it will be instructive to take a brief walk through the second chapter of James in order to show the foregoing more directly.
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14)
v. 14. Key words: “says” (λέγω), as in “only says,” which is to say “a faith of mere words.” James is pointing either to self-deceived people (cf. James 1:22-24, 26) or to people who verbally deceive others (cf. James 3:14; 4:16). Thus he adds, “that faith” (ἡ πίστις), which in context refers to a false faith of mere words comparable to that of demons (cf. v. 19). In other words, this “verbal affirmation” is not even “mental assent,” but of mere saying. Rather, it is a form of lying. He is essentially asking, Can that lying faith save him?
If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? (James 2:15-16)
vv.15-16. He then gives an illustration of someone who sees a brother or sister in need and closes up his heart, and thus his absence of faith, his lying faith, is made manifest. Such “faith” is “fino,” faith-in-name-only.
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:17)
v. 17. James capitalizes on this point by saying that merely verbal faith, lying faith, is dead. It does not count as actual faith, just as a dead body is not counted in a census. In a similar way it could be stated that a heart, if it does not pump, is dead. In other words, James is politely pointing out that there is no such thing as a legitimately or rightly dead, empty, merely verbal faith. Such faith is, in short, a lie.
But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18)
v. 18. Here he makes the point clearer, stating that faith is shown (δεικνύω), made visible “by,” “from,” or “out of” (ἐκ) works. There is not a second “thing” (pragma) called “works” being “added” to an otherwise merely verbal faith. Rather, real faith is of such a nature that works manifest out of it, not as a "plus works" but as an outworking and manifestation of the faith itself. The actual contrast is not between works and faith, but lying faith and act-ual faith.
You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (James 2:19)
v. 19. Here James elliptically accuses those who have lying faith as having the faith of demons, i.e. those beings who are paradigmatic of deception. He is not suggesting that demons have a valid form of faith that merely lacks good works to perfect it or make it fully effective.
Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? (James 2:20)
v. 20. The foregoing is why James calls these people foolish, which is one of the most solemn accusations a Hebrew can utter. In the Greek the term for foolish (κενός) carries the meaning of “empty, vain, devoid of truth.” Hence it is a lying faith. He then calls their faith without works (χωρὶς τῶν ἔργων) useless, literally un-working (ἀργός). Thus the contrast is not between faith and works, but a lying faith exposed by its not working, on the one hand, and a true faith shown by works, on the other hand. It is this contrast James has set up as the context for the examples that follow.
Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? (James 2:21)
v. 21. Here people get confused because they read Paul’s soteriological discussion of justification by faith apart from works of the law (Romans 3:28, cf. 1 Corinthians 6:11; Galatians 2:16, 3:11; Philippians 3:9; Titus 3:4-7) and assume that James’s use of the same word must mean he is talking about the same underlying issue. Here the context is not, however, our right standing before God in the larger Pauline sense, but the delineating of a contrast between a lying faith and an actual faith. Thus James is talking about the kind of faith Abraham had when said faith was manifest in the offering up of his son. What is essential to recall is the manner in which James in verse 18 has just stated he will show (δεικνύω), will “expose to the eyes,” his faith, and make his faith visible, “by,” “from,” or “out of” (ἐκ) works - like light shining from the sun. Works are therefore not a second substance or an independent principle; they are the manifestation in the outer world as action of an inner reality called faith, which distinguishes it from a merely verbal, lying, demonic faith. Therefore, in light of James’s actual usage, he is not saying that Abraham was justified by two things or two principles, i.e. by a faith to which was superadded a work, but is saying that Abraham was justified by living faith, a faith which manifested itself in act.
You see that faith was active (συνεργέω) along with his works, and faith was completed (τελειόω) by his works; (James 2:22)
v. 22. Here James is saying that faith was uniting Abraham’s inner and outer actions. Faith, being invisible by nature, is an inner action which, when truly living in the heart, coordinates and therefore synergizes with one’s actions, which is to say one’s total life. In this way faith is “completed” much like a wave is completed when it crashes upon the shore. It is not that something called works was added to faith to make it alive, but that the total motion of faith is “complete” when it manifests in one’s total life of inner and outer activity. The artificial dichotomy asserting that faith and works function as a kind of arithmetic of faith “plus” works, something like two Lego pieces that are incomplete unless united together, thus not only divides the internal organic unity works bear to living faith, it also reads past the context of James’s discussion, even ending up alienating James’s teaching from that of Paul’s. Thus, when James says that Abraham’s faith was “completed” (τελειόω) by his works, it means that Abraham’s faith was “fulfilled in itself” organically, as it were, in its own completed action of offering Isaac. In other words, Abraham’s outward action completes his faith in the sense that it is simply the outward action of his inner faith, a harmony of inner and outer. In essence they are non-different from each other, and so the outer offering was non-different from his inner faith. It was thus not a supplement to his faith, like a hand that needed a glove; it was an organic fulfillment like a light's shining or a heart that completes itself in pumping. Just as we do not take light and add shining, we likewise do not take a heart and add pumping to it; we simply have a shining light and a living, beating heart. In the same way Abraham was not justified by faith “plus” works, but by a faith that worked according to the proper nature of that faith.
And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness"—and he was called a friend of God. (James 2:23)
v. 23. This verse quotes Genesis 15:6 to the effect that Abraham’s faith, as an integral whole with his life and action, was counted to him as righteousness. If one has not already improperly divided faith and works and so treated them like a false dichotomy that must be harmonized and united, then this verse poses no problem. It is not saying that the work per se justified him, and it is not saying that the work was superadded to his "mental" faith. Rather, the kind of faith Abraham had, a living, working faith, was manifested in, by, and through his offering up of Isaac. The offering of Isaac was in this way the demonstration, even an eruption, of the faith that justified Abraham. It is not that offering up Isaac as such justified him merely as act qua act, but that Abraham’s working faith justified him. Remember, the contrast James draws is between a real, actual faith, on the one hand, and a fake, lying faith, on the other.
You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:24)
v. 24. Keeping in mind James’s distinction between actual faith and lying faith, his notion that justification is not by faith alone is understood in its context as a reference to a lying faith. He does not mean “faith alone” at all like the church fathers and confessional Lutherans. The confessional Lutheran means an actual, fiduciary trust in Christ, for a merely verbal faith is not justifying because it is not faith. The works that a Lutheran happily does in freedom are thus accomplished by faith alone, not justifying in themselves but instead the effect of justifying faith. This removes all anxiety from the necessity of works, for such necessity of works emerges not from a need to be justified but from the inner urging of the renewed, regenerate nature that has received justification by living faith alone.
And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? (James 2:25)
v. 25. The example of Rahab reiterates the same point as that of Abraham. Again we see the action not as superadded to her faith, but simply as the outward corollary of her inward faith, not two things but one expressed in two dimensions, inner and outer. In this way to speak of her works is to speak of her faith as an integral whole. James’ point throughout is to distinguish fake, lying faith from authentic, living faith. Justification by works in a Jamesian context is a reference to the integrity of one’s faith in its being actual, not that works as such justify as some sort of second principle added to a merely verbal faith, but that a person’s inner and outer life are integral. The idea of a merely verbal faith is exposed by its lack of works, and as such could not be corrected or perfected simply by adding or supplementing such a faith with works. By that route it would simply become pharisaical.
For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (James 2:26)
v. 26. Here James highlights how works are organically related to living faith. For although the heartbeat is the organic work of a living heart, it is also the case that the pumping as such is not what gives the heart its life. The heartbeat is the action and sign of its life. For it is the sinoatrial (SA) node that supplies energy to the heart and so keeps the heart alive by constantly supplying an electrical impulse to the heart organ, exciting the action of its pumping. The work of pumping is thus the effect of the SA node’s transmission of the bioelectricity necessary for the heart’s continuous working. And so we can say that without the pumping, the heart is dead by way of inference, but it is not the pumping itself that causes the heart to be alive. Analogously, like the SA node giving and sustaining the life of the heart, causing it to pump, faith likewise both gives and sustains the outward working of the believer's inner life. As an effect of the SA node, pumping does not cause or sustain the actual impulse of the SA node. Likewise, works do not cause or sustain faith, they are the effect of faith, the completion of the cycle of faith from inner to outer, from soul to body. Yet without works it must be that the faith is dead, which is to say there is no faith at all. For a dead faith is not faith, like a dead heart is dust and not really a heart. Without faith, then, works are dead, and as such merely adding works to a dead faith would be like doing chest compressions on a corpse. A fake, merely verbal faith just creates a Weekend at Bernie’s scenario where life is simply imitated in an effort to get by unnoticed. Without works faith is dead by way of inference, and without faith works are dead in principle. We might note that James is not advocating perfectionism (cf. James 3:2, 8).
Summary and Conclusion
It is important not to move the goalposts away from what James is talking about. Trusting Jesus as one’s Savior—not just saying or thinking it but believing it—refers to fiduciary trust, which already will do works because it is already regenerated and justified. Works will follow organically as an internal property of living faith as it naturally extends itself outward into act. If I believe Jesus is my Savior, then I am not worried about whether I am going to be saved because the righteousness of Christ is my surety, because clearly I cannot ever be 100% righteous and I trust that Jesus is my 100% righteousness. The faith of demons, however, is not that Jesus is their righteousness, much less their Savior, although they know in a perverse way that He is Lord. In light of this, the point James is making is not to add works to verbal assent, but to have a fiduciary trust that, of its very nature, does and will do good works out of the organic freedom that emerges in the soul after divine mercy has been tasted and the fear of being unsaved has been removed from the soul.
For James, the term “alone” as found in “faith alone,” refers to lying about one's faith, not to mental assent. In a Pauline sense, however, and as meant by the Lutheran Confessions, faith "alone" refers to how fiduciary (non-lying) faith, as the faculty that receives Christ, receives thereby His perfect justification. This is not saying that faith is the only thing happening in the total process of salvation. Fiduciary faith receives a perfect justification because in placing all trust in Christ for its righteousness it receives Christ Himself together with all of His benefits. But this faith also necessarily receives and is the energy that results in good works (even if the believer is an invalid confined to a bed) because that is the very nature of living faith, to do and seek to do good works however small or seemingly insignificant they may be—even if they are imperceptible to other men. Like Paul, for James works are the self-expression of living faith, and so to make faith's self-expression a cause of justification, as if it were a kind of second principle added ex post facto to a first principle, i.e. faith, is to confuse the organic nature of James's much more holistic notion of living faith's harmony of inner and outer (cf. James 1:8; 4:8, 17). If one has fiduciary faith, then they cannot lack works because fiduciary faith, by (partaking of the divine) nature, does and will do works because it supplies the energy of faith so to animate one's working. Justification is therefore by grace alone through living faith alone, not effected or secured by works, rather effecting and securing works.
Paul's and James's respective discourses are using overlapping terminology to emphasize different things in order to achieve distinct rhetorical goals. In a Jamesian sense one is not justified by faith alone if or when by faith alone one means a lying, merely verbal faith, for James’s discourse centers on distinguishing between lying faith and actual faith. In short, lying faith does not do any good works and actual faith does do good works. Works are thus functioning as the litmus test for faith’s authenticity. In this way distinct from Paul, in James’s case the idea of works is being used to refer to and hone in on the question of the integrity of the inner and outer man’s faith (as opposed to its being merely verbal). James is not even talking about mental assent; he is talking about a merely verbal assent that only pretends to be faith, that only says it believes. It would be a false dichotomy to treat James’s idea of works as something fundamentally distinct from the faith which energizes them, for it is one’s faith that is shown through one’s working, not one’s working which is added to one’s faith. According to James it is thus only actual faith, working faith, not a pretending speech, that justifies. James, however, fundamentally agrees with Paul because it is an actual faith that receives justification, for James does not have in view Paul’s distinction between faith and works, but the distinction between lying, verbal faith, on the one hand, and actual, working faith, on the other hand.
In a Pauline sense one is justified by faith alone when by faith alone one means the kind of faith that works by love. Paul's discourse thus centers on distinguishing between authentic faith (which works in love) and authentic faith’s works (considered in themselves and apart from the faith that energizes them). In this case the idea of faith’s works, considered in and of themselves, do not justify because they in and of themselves do not make a person righteous, for they are consequent to the righteousness of faith and are the effect of faith. It is the actual faith alone (even though it works in love) that receives justification and thereby renders the works righteous for the sake of Christ. Paul agrees then with James because it is the actual faith that receives justification, although not on the basis of the works considered in themselves as the effects of faith or as supplementary to faith. Distinct from James, however, Paul does not have in view the distinction between merely verbal faith and actual faith, but between actual faith and that faith’s actual works. Whereas James’s goal aims to highlight the need for integrity such that he distinguishes between lying faith and actual faith, and where works demonstrate the actuality of one’s faith, Paul's goal is different. Paul's goal aims to highlight how faith receives the perfect righteousness of Christ for its justification, as a pure gift on the basis of His atoning death and resurrection, and so he distinguishes between faith as such and works as such, the actuality of the faith being assumed. Therefore, although using similar terms to make different rhetorical points, James and Paul agree with each other and together validate the confessional Lutheran dictum that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone.
Rev. Joshua Schooping is the pastor at St. John's LCMS Lutheran Church in Russellville, Arkansas. He is married and has three children. He can be contacted at pastorschooping@gmail.com.