Did James Really Contradict Paul?

DID JAMES REALLY CONTRADICT PAUL?

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

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

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

DID JAMES REALLY CONTRADICT PAUL?

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

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

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

DID JAMES REALLY CONTRADICT PAUL?

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

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

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.

Faith, Works, and Justification in the Epistle of James

BUT WHAT ABOUT JAMES?

This article grew out of a thoughtful response to our earlier consideration of Peter and Paul.

The question was essentially this:

What about James?

If Peter had come to understand that salvation rested upon the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, what did James understand?

The question becomes especially interesting because Acts presents an intriguing picture.

Peter had been prominent throughout the opening chapters of Acts. He preached at Pentecost. He confronted Israel concerning the rejection of her Messiah. He healed the lame man. He stood before Israel’s rulers. And when God determined to send him to the Gentile Cornelius, Peter required a vision repeated three times before he would go.

Peter was unmistakably identified with Israel and her prophetic expectation.

Yet by Acts 15 something appears to have changed.

Peter gives crucial testimony:

“But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:11

But Peter does not render the concluding judgment of the Jerusalem council.

James does.

“Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God:”

— Acts 15:19

James’s prominence at Jerusalem is also evident elsewhere. Paul later speaks of men who:

“came from James”

— Galatians 2:12

And when Paul returns to Jerusalem in Acts 21:

“Paul went in with us unto James; and all the elders were present.”

— Acts 21:18

Something has clearly developed in the leadership at Jerusalem.

We need not speculate beyond what Scripture tells us about precisely why that development occurred. But we should recognize that Peter and James need not have occupied identical positions within this changing situation.

Peter had personally been brought through a remarkable progression: from his proclamation of Israel’s prophetic hope in Acts 2 and 3, through the divine intervention that sent him to Cornelius, to his declaration at Jerusalem that:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

James, meanwhile, remained prominently identified with Jerusalem, the circumcision, and Israel’s continuing kingdom expectation.

Those different responsibilities may help explain their differing emphases without requiring us to conclude that they held contradictory views of righteousness before God.

James could remain intensely occupied with Israel’s responsibility under her kingdom expectation while fully recognizing that righteousness itself was never something Israel could earn from God.

That distinction is important.

James does not have to become Paul in order to understand grace.

Neither does James have to abandon his responsibility toward Israel merely because God is revealing and accomplishing something different among the Gentiles through Paul.

This raises the question we really need to answer.

Did James believe that works had to be added to faith in order for righteousness to be imputed?

If not, what did he mean when he wrote:

“Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

— James 2:24

Few statements appear more difficult to reconcile with Paul:

“Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

— Romans 3:28

Paul says:

“justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

James says:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

What are we to do with that?

One solution is simply to make James say what Paul says. James, we are told, really means precisely the same thing as Paul, only expressed differently.

Another solution is to push the distinction so far that James and Paul are allowed to contradict one another—as though righteousness before God could be earned by works in one setting but received by faith in another.

Neither solution is necessary.

As we observed when considering Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction. Harmony does not require identicality.

The question is not how we can make James sound like Paul.

The question is:

What is James actually saying?

And the place to begin is not James 2:24.

It is James 1:1.

TO WHOM DOES JAMES WRITE?

James identifies his audience immediately:

“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.”

— James 1:1

That statement should be allowed to mean what it says.

James writes to:

“the twelve tribes.”

His audience is Jewish, and his epistle belongs naturally within Israel’s kingdom expectation.

That setting appears throughout the book.

He speaks of:

“your assembly”

in James 2:2—the underlying word being synagogue.

He speaks of:

“the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him”

— James 2:5

He calls Abraham:

“our father”

— James 2:21

He invokes:

“the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord”

— James 5:10

And the expectation throughout the latter portion of the epistle is unmistakable:

“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.”

— James 5:7

And:

“Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”

— James 5:8

That context matters.

James is not writing Romans before Paul writes Romans.

He is not explaining the Body of Christ.

He is not setting forth Paul’s gospel of the grace of God.

And we should not import Paul’s later and distinctive revelation into James merely because James uses words that also appear in Paul’s epistles.

Content, context, and intent matter.

James must first be allowed to speak within James’s own audience, expectation, and purpose.

A PEOPLE PREPARING FOR TRIAL

James begins his epistle with trial:

“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”

— James 1:2–3

The subject is not incidental.

James is preparing his readers to endure.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”

— James 1:4

Again:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life…”

— James 1:12

And by the end of the epistle James has returned to the same theme:

“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job…”

— James 5:11

This is an epistle concerned with faith under pressure.

That observation becomes important when James speaks of salvation.

He writes:

“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.”

— James 1:21

It would be easy for a reader accustomed to Paul’s terminology to see the word save and immediately hear:

justification from sin by grace through faith.

But James’s context gives us good reason not to make that assumption.

At the conclusion of the epistle James writes:

“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him;

Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”

— James 5:19–20

Notice that James is addressing:

“Brethren.”

And the soul is explicitly saved:

“from death.”

Within an epistle concerned with trial, endurance, the coming of the Lord, and deliverance, salvation language need not automatically mean Pauline justification.

The language also fits naturally alongside the Lord’s teaching to Israel concerning endurance:

“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”

— Matthew 24:13

And:

“In your patience possess ye your souls.”

— Luke 21:19

We should therefore be careful not to enlist James 1:21 as though James were explaining Romans 3–5.

James’s salvation language must be understood within James’s own context.

And that context includes the coming Tribulation and the necessity of faithful endurance in anticipation of the Lord’s return.

ALREADY BEGOTTEN BY THE WORD OF TRUTH

Immediately before James 1:21, however, James has said something important about the people to whom he writes:

“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

— James 1:18

Whatever further deliverance James anticipates for them, he describes these people as already:

“begat…with the word of truth.”

And then he exhorts them:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

— James 1:22

That is the point important to our discussion.

James is not addressing pagans who know nothing of God and telling them to perform works so that God might finally make them righteous.

He is addressing people who have received the word of truth and are now being tested concerning whether they will do what they have heard.

That prepares us much better for James 2.

James is deeply concerned with works.

But he is concerned with works in the life of those who profess to believe what God has said.

The question becomes:

Will their faith act?

“THOUGH A MAN SAY HE HATH FAITH”

James asks:

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

— James 2:14

Again, we should resist the temptation to hear Paul’s question merely because James uses the words faith and save.

James has already established his setting.

He is concerned with endurance.

With obedience.

With doing the Word.

With the coming of the Lord.

And now with the profit of a professed faith that produces no corresponding action.

One word deserves particular attention:

“say.”

James does not merely tell us:

A man has faith.

He says:

“though a man say he hath faith.”

A claim is being made.

A profession is being examined.

And James immediately gives us an illustration:

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,

And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

— James 2:15–16

Notice again:

“say.”

Someone says:

“be ye warmed and filled.”

The words sound good.

But the hungry person remains hungry.

The naked person remains unclothed.

James asks:

“what doth it profit?”

Words that produce no corresponding action accomplish nothing for the person in need.

Then James applies his illustration:

“Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

— James 2:17

James is confronting a profession of faith that produces nothing.

That is why he continues:

“Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

The issue is something that can be:

shown.

Faith itself is invisible.

James says, in effect:

Show it to me.

How?

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

Works make faith visible.

They demonstrate what a man actually believes.

And that prepares us for Abraham.

ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD

James writes:

“Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?”

— James 2:21

Paul writes:

“For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:2–3

There is no benefit in pretending those statements do not create a difficulty.

James says:

“justified by works.”

Paul says:

“if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.”

But before declaring contradiction, we should ask a simple question:

When did these things happen?

Paul reaches back to Genesis 15:

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”

— Genesis 15:6

Abraham believed God.

God counted righteousness to him.

James, however, points to another event:

“when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar.”

That is Genesis 22.

These events are separated by years.

Abraham did not first believe God when he raised the knife over Isaac.

He had already believed God.

Righteousness had already been counted to him.

And James himself knows it.

Indeed, James quotes the very same Scripture Paul quotes.

But notice how James describes its relationship to Abraham’s later work:

“And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness…”

— James 2:23

That word deserves our attention:

fulfilled.

James does not say that Abraham’s offering of Isaac caused Genesis 15:6 finally to become true.

Genesis 15:6 was already true.

Abraham had believed God.

Righteousness had been imputed to him.

Years later Abraham acted upon his confidence in what God had said.

James explains:

“Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

— James 2:22

Notice the relationship.

James does not say:

works replaced faith.

He says:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The faith worked.

And:

“by works was faith made perfect.”

The word perfect fits James’s argument from the beginning of the epistle:

“But let patience have her perfect work…”

— James 1:4

The idea is completion, maturity, something brought to its intended expression.

Abraham’s faith did not remain merely a confession.

It acted.

Genesis 22 demonstrated in action the confidence Abraham had already placed in what God had said.

WHAT DID ABRAHAM BELIEVE?

This becomes even more significant when we remember what God had promised Abraham.

Isaac was not incidental.

God had said:

“for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.”

— Genesis 21:12

Yet God subsequently commanded Abraham to offer Isaac.

Abraham’s obedience therefore required him to act upon his confidence that God’s word concerning Isaac could not fail.

Hebrews explains Abraham’s reasoning:

“Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead…”

— Hebrews 11:19

Abraham acted because Abraham believed God.

His work did not substitute for faith.

His work expressed faith.

That is precisely what James has been arguing:

“I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

FAITH WAS NOT ABRAHAM’S WORK

James does not oppose faith and works as though Abraham could choose one means of acceptance or the other.

He joins them:

“faith wrought with his works.”

The works proceeded from the faith.

That matters when we compare James with Paul.

Paul writes:

“Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:4–5

Paul is answering a particular question:

Upon what basis can God justify the ungodly?

The answer cannot be human works.

If righteousness is earned, it becomes:

“debt.”

James is addressing a different problem:

What value does a professed faith have if the person will not act upon what God has said?

Those are not identical questions.

Consequently, we should not demand identical answers.

EVEN THE DEVILS BELIEVE

James presses the point:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”

— James 2:19

This verse is sometimes treated as though James were saying:

Faith cannot save because even devils have saving faith.

But that is not what James says.

The devils know something true:

there is one God.

They do not dispute His existence.

Indeed:

“they tremble.”

But intellectual acknowledgment of a fact is not the same thing as faithful confidence in what God has said.

Abraham believed God sufficiently to act upon God’s word.

The devils’ acknowledgment produces no faithful obedience to Him.

Again, James is testing the character of a professed faith.

Is it merely something said?

Or does the person actually act upon what he claims to believe?

RAHAB MAKES THE SAME POINT

James’s second example is Rahab:

“Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?”

— James 2:25

Why did Rahab receive the spies?

Joshua records her confession:

“I know that the LORD hath given you the land…”

— Joshua 2:9

And:

“for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath.”

— Joshua 2:11

Rahab had heard what God was doing.

She believed what she had heard concerning Israel’s God and Israel’s coming possession of the land.

Then she acted accordingly.

Think of the alternative.

Suppose Rahab had said:

I believe the LORD has given Israel this land.

And then immediately delivered Israel’s spies to the king of Jericho.

Her actions would have contradicted her profession.

Instead, her actions demonstrated that she actually believed what she had confessed.

Again:

faith acted upon what God had said.

Her works did not create the truth.

Her works demonstrated her confidence in it.

WHAT, THEN, DOES JAMES MEAN BY “JUSTIFIED”?

We should allow James to use the word within his own argument.

James is not writing an exposition of Paul’s gospel.

He is not discussing an ungodly Gentile asking:

How can I receive the righteousness of God apart from the law?

That question is central to Paul’s argument in Romans.

James is writing to the twelve tribes in a setting characterized by trial, endurance, kingdom expectation, and the approaching coming of the Lord.

He confronts people who say they have faith.

He asks:

“what doth it profit?”

He challenges:

“shew me thy faith.”

He points to Abraham, whose obedience:

“fulfilled”

the Scripture which had already declared:

“Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James is concerned with faith demonstrated—faith brought to completion in action.

Paul is concerned with the basis upon which the ungodly can be declared righteous before God.

The distinction allows both writers to say exactly what they say.

We do not need to rewrite either one.

BUT JAMES IS NOT PAUL

Here we need the same care that was necessary when considering Peter and Paul.

Recognizing harmony does not require us to eliminate distinction.

James is not writing Romans.

His audience is:

“the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad.”

His readers stand within Israel’s expectation.

His epistle prepares them for trial, endurance, and the coming of the Lord.

His language concerning faith, works, salvation, and endurance must first be understood within that setting.

Paul’s distinctive apostleship and the revelation committed to him should not simply be read backward into James.

James does not give us Paul’s developed explanation of justification in Romans 3–5.

He does not develop our identification with Christ as Paul does in Romans 6.

He does not explain the one Body as Paul does in Ephesians.

He does not unfold the believer’s heavenly position in Christ.

And we should not require James to teach revelation God entrusted particularly to Paul.

But neither does that require us to conclude that James teaches sinful men can accumulate works sufficient to place God in their debt for righteousness.

James can be different from Paul without being contrary to Paul.

James does not have to be Paul in order not to contradict Paul.

JAMES AND THE JERUSALEM COUNCIL

There is another piece of evidence that should not be ignored.

In Acts 15, the apostles and elders gathered at Jerusalem over the controversy concerning Gentiles, circumcision, and the law.

Peter stood and said:

“Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.”

— Acts 15:10–11

That is an extraordinary statement.

Peter does not say merely that Gentiles can somehow be fitted into Israel’s existing arrangement.

He says:

“we shall be saved, even as they.”

And the basis he names is:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then Barnabas and Paul speak.

And afterward:

“James answered, saying, Men and brethren, hearken unto me:

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles…”

— Acts 15:13–14

James heard Peter’s declaration.

He heard the testimony of Barnabas and Paul.

And James did not rise to correct Peter’s statement concerning salvation through:

“the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Instead, he accepts Peter’s testimony and proceeds to give his judgment concerning the Gentiles.

That does not make James a Pauline apostle.

It does not make his epistle Pauline.

It does not erase the distinction between Israel’s kingdom program and the revelation committed to Paul.

But neither can James’s words in chapter 2 legitimately be made to mean that faith was insufficient and that works had to be added to faith in order for God to impute righteousness.

James himself has already told us otherwise.

Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

That imputation occurred in Genesis 15.

The work to which James appeals occurred years later in Genesis 22.

James does not say that the later work completed an otherwise insufficient imputation of righteousness.

He says:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

Abraham’s work demonstrated and brought to expression the faith already present when righteousness was imputed to him.

And at Jerusalem James heard Peter declare that salvation was:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

He did not contradict him.

James’s insistence upon works must therefore be allowed to serve the purpose James himself gives them: not as an addition to faith required to obtain imputed righteousness from God, but as the necessary expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

James teaches a faith that works. He does not teach faith plus works as the means by which righteousness is imputed.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO “CAME FROM JAMES”?

That still leaves an uncomfortable incident.

Paul tells us concerning Peter:

“For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

— Galatians 2:12

Why were men “from James” associated with an incident in which Peter separated himself from Gentiles?

First, we should be precise about what Paul actually says.

He does not say that Peter feared James.

He says Peter was:

“fearing them which were of the circumcision.”

Neither does Paul tell us that James had instructed these men to require Peter to separate from the Gentiles.

They:

“came from James.”

We should not make that statement say more than it says.

But neither should we minimize the tension.

Peter had been eating with Gentiles.

When these men arrived, he withdrew.

And Paul tells us that Peter knew better.

Paul calls his behavior:

“dissimulation.”

Indeed, Barnabas himself:

“also was carried away with their dissimulation.”

— Galatians 2:13

That word is significant.

This was not simply a theological disagreement in which Peter sincerely believed one doctrine and Paul another.

Peter’s conduct ceased to correspond with what he already knew.

The incident therefore demonstrates something important about this transitional period.

Doctrinal understanding did not instantly erase deeply rooted Jewish distinctions, customs, social pressures, or sensitivities surrounding fellowship with Gentiles.

James remained at the center of a strongly Jewish believing community in Jerusalem.

Peter had been compelled by God Himself to cross a boundary he initially resisted crossing.

Paul had been commissioned as the apostle of the Gentiles.

Those realities could produce genuine tension without requiring three contradictory doctrines of justification.

That is why we must distinguish between:

how righteousness is imputed

and:

how believing Israel was expected to live and respond within her kingdom program.

Confusing those questions creates much of the apparent contradiction.

HARMONY WITHOUT IDENTICALITY

We therefore need not choose between two unnecessary alternatives.

We do not have to say:

James and Paul are saying exactly the same thing.

And we do not have to say:

James and Paul contradict one another.

James writes within his own audience, context, and purpose.

Paul writes within his.

Paul tells us:

“But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”

— Romans 4:5

James tells us:

“shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”

— James 2:18

Both statements should be allowed to stand.

Paul excludes works as the ground upon which the ungodly are justified before God.

James insists upon works as the expression of a faith that acts upon what God has said.

Paul takes us to Abraham in Genesis 15:

“Abraham believed God.”

James takes us years later to Abraham in Genesis 22 and says that through his obedience:

“the scripture was fulfilled.”

One does not cancel the other.

One need not be made identical to the other.

Abraham believed God.

Righteousness was imputed.

Then Abraham acted upon what God had said.

The harmony is real.

The distinction is equally real.

WORDS MEAN THINGS

Perhaps the difficulty with James teaches us something larger about reading Scripture.

Words mean things.

But words do not exist in isolation.

They must be understood according to their:

content,

context,

and:

intent.

We have already seen this with the word save.

To see:

“save your souls”

in James 1:21 and automatically substitute Paul’s doctrine of justification is to allow familiar theological usage to override James’s context.

The same care is required with:

faith.

works.

justify.

The word justify cannot simply be lifted from James, placed beside the same word in Romans, and required to carry every shade of meaning and theological purpose Paul develops there.

Nor can the word works automatically be assumed to address precisely the same issue every time it appears.

We must ask:

Who is speaking?

To whom?

About what?

Under what circumstances?

For what purpose?

And what argument is actually being made?

When we do that, the apparent contradiction begins to disappear without diminishing either writer.

James can say:

“by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”

Paul can say:

“a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.”

And Scripture need not be embarrassed by either statement.

The problem arises when we demand that two different writers, addressing different audiences and different questions within distinguishable dispensational settings, must use theological vocabulary in precisely the same way.

LET JAMES BE JAMES

Perhaps that is ultimately the safest conclusion.

Let James be James.

Let Peter be Peter.

Let Paul be Paul.

Do not make James a premature Pauline apostle.

Do not make Paul merely a later commentator on James.

Do not erase their audiences.

Do not erase their expectations.

Do not erase the progress of revelation.

And do not take salvation language belonging naturally to Israel’s Tribulation and kingdom expectation and automatically redefine it according to Paul’s later explanation of justification.

But neither should we manufacture contradiction where Scripture does not require it.

James knew that God had:

“begat…us with the word of truth.”

James knew that Abraham:

“believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness.”

James knew that Abraham’s later obedience:

“fulfilled”

that declaration.

James heard Peter confess salvation:

“through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

And James insisted that a faith merely professed with the lips but never acted upon was:

“dead, being alone.”

James could remain devoted to Israel’s kingdom expectation and insist upon the obedience appropriate to that expectation without believing that those works purchased righteousness from God.

That distinction allows us to take James seriously without turning him into Paul.

There is distinction.

There is context.

There is development.

And there is harmony.

As with Peter and Paul:

Difference does not require contradiction.

Harmony does not require identicality.

And sometimes the best way to demonstrate the harmony of Scripture is simply to allow each writer to say exactly what God gave him to say.