James 2:26

26. As the body… so faith Reciprocally, we may make faith the body and works the spirit necessary to its life; or works the body of which faith is the spirit. Faith is the dead body without works; for it is truly without the active will-power, without which it is the mere dead speculative belief, like that of the demons in James 2:19.

St. James’s paragraph here on faith and works has, from its marked antithesis to Paul’s language of the same point, furnished a fruitful topic for discussion to commentators and theologians. Huther, in a brief excursus, summarizes its history. Before the Reformation no difficulty of reconciliation was felt. Luther opened the query with a strong and repeated rejection of the epistle from the canon as contradictory to Paul, unapostolic, and unauthentic. The consistency of James with Paul has, nevertheless, been recognised by the German scholars, Neander, Wiesinger, and Hengstenberg; but denied by De Wette, Baur, and other rationalists. Huther reconciles the two (as Fletcher of Madeley, in his “Checks,” did before him) by saying that Paul speaks of present justification, which is truly by faith, and James of our justification at the day of Judgment, which is “according to” our works, as is attested by many Scripture passages. But so far as time comes into view this distinction fails; for God’s judicial estimate of us is ever now, “according to” our present moral state. The final judgment is but the closing public pronunciation of the final sum total of our character. God’s present judgment is as much “according to” our works as his final. And in this, our moral sum total under God’s adjudication, faith is properly viewed as one of the works “according to” which we are judged. And thus we are justified by works. And yet this is not precisely the view that St. James in this paragraph presents.

Huther places in contrast the words of the two apostles thus: James says, “By works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” (James 2:24.) Paul says, (Galatians 2:16,) “A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by… faith.” Again, James, (James 2:21,) “Was not Abraham… justified by works?” and Paul, (Romans 4:2,) “If Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory.” In regard to which we remark: (1.) James does not here, or any where else, deny, but does assume, that we are justified by faith. (2.) Nor does he deny that it is faith which alone, and in itself, justifies; he only denies that the faith which alone justifies is ever alone and unattended by works. (3.) And even in the alone justifying faith there is a virtual inchoate work which (James 2:22) requires to be verified and perfected in the consequent external work. Works, therefore, though never justifying without faith, do have, as inhering in faith, an auxiliary justifying effect. And that view Paul never denies, but frequently implies. See our notes on Romans 2:6; Romans 3:27. With Paul it is working faith, faith with work present and prospective in it, that justifies. It is only merit-work that he denies. But so pointedly antithetical are James’s propositions to Paul’s, that we hold them as intended by him to be the corrective of the effect of Paul’s trenchant statements in the mind of the Church. 4. That there was a standing antithesis, without real contradiction, between Paul and James, is evinced by the “from James” of Galatians 2:12, (where see note, with our note on Acts 15:6;) and we believe that antithesis is here stated, and was, on James’s part, intentional and wise.

(5.) How truly James’s statements do stand as a perpetual corrective of the antinomianism often inferred from Paul’s language in successive periods of the Church, is well illustrated by Wesley’s experience with the Moravians, given in our vol. iv, p. 209. So antinomian had they become by implicitly following Luther and overstraining Paul, that he took to expounding James to bring them to the right position. Not one moment do we hesitate to place the words of this illustrious apostle, James of Jerusalem, the brother of the Lord himself, lineal son of David, and hereditary king of the twelve tribes, as coequal in authority with Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles. Both were apostles, but neither of the twelve. (6.) All this indicates that the Epistle of James is subsequent to that to the Romans; long enough subsequent for that great epistle to have powerfully influenced the mind of the Church. And this passage, like 2 Peter 3:15-16, is a clear allusion to the doctrinal statements of Paul, implying their perversion by many of his readers.