James 2:24: Justified by Faith or Works?

It was the debate at the heart of the Reformation, and people still fight over it today: “To what extent do I contribute to my own salvation?” Historically, Protestants have turned to Romans 3 and 4, or Ephesians 2:8-9: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith; and this not of yourself, it is a gift of God, not by works lest anyone should boast.” In many churches, that’s a popular memory verse. In fact, I just typed it from memory!

On the other hand, there are passages like James 2:24 that seem to contradict this: “You see that it is by works a man is made righteous, and not by faith alone.” Roman Catholics have long appealed to this verse as a clarification of Paul’s teaching. They say it’s not that we don’t need God’s grace to be saved. Of course we do! However, God’s grace is not sufficient to save us. We also need to do good works. It’s God’s grace plus our good works (e.g., giving to the poor, going to Mass, regular confession, etc.) that save us.

Liberal theologians would say that James here is outright contradicting Paul. They begin with the premise that the New Testament is a hodge-podge of human thoughts about Jesus. It’s no surprise, they say, that you have conflicting ideas of who Jesus is, what he did, and what he meant. The author of this letter (they don’t claim to know who “James” is) clearly disagrees with Paul’s ideas about salvation being by grace through faith alone.

At face-value, it does appear that Paul and James are saying different things. But are they really? Let’s dig a bit deeper.

Romans 4:4-5

Aside from Ephesians 2:8-9, a particularly interesting comparison passage is Romans 4. Paul writes:

Now to the one who works, the reward is not reckoned according to faith but according to what that person is due. But to the one who doesn’t work but believes in the one who justifies the ungodly, that person’s faith is reckoned as righteousness.

Paul is simply saying if you work for something, the reward you get is not based on faith or grace; you earned it. Most people don’t work for free. You do your job and get a paycheck. That paycheck isn’t a gift. You earned it. But Paul says that’s not how grace works. When we believe in Jesus, the one who justifies us, that faith is sufficient to receive the reward of salvation.

At the beginning of this chapter, as set-up to this statement, Paul appealed to the example of Abraham. In Genesis 15:6, God made a promise to Abraham that his offspring would be as innumerable as the stars. Abraham believe God and the text tells us that his faith was reckoned, or credited to him, as righteousness. In other words, before Abraham had actually done anything, whether having children or making a covenant, God considered him righteous. God didn’t even give him the covenant of circumcision until chapter 17! All Abraham did was believe.

James and Abraham

It’s interesting that James also makes use of Abraham to support his argument. In the verses prior to 2:24, James points to the example of Abraham from Genesis 22, where God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. In the story, Abraham does the unthinkable and takes his son up one of the mountains in Moriah, puts him on an altar, and raises a knife to sacrifice him. God sends an angel at the last minute to stop him, and provides a substitute offering (a ram caught in a nearby thicket).

We can get into the whys and wherefores of Genesis 22 another time, but James’s point is that yes, Abraham believed back in chapter 15, but in chapter 22 we see a demonstration of that faith. His faith was “completed” by his works. But is James saying that Abraham’s faith in chapter 15 was insufficient? Did he have to do this act of faith in order to be considered righteous? This is what Roman Catholics and liberals would argue. But let’s consider the broader context of these letters.

Who’s the Audience?

Romans and James (along with most of the New Testament) are letters. They weren’t written on a whim, but in response to issues in churches. In Romans, Paul is addressing both Jewish and Gentile Christians of the church in Rome. Each group claimed the other was somehow inferior. To the Jewish Christians, the Gentiles were lesser because they were not of God’s original chosen people. To the Gentiles, since the gospel was going out to them now, the Jewish Christians were no longer part of God’s plan and irrelevant. This much, I think, we can read between the lines of the letter (see my Sunday School Notes on Romans for more).

In Romans 1-3, Paul establishes that both Gentile and Jew are equally sinful and equally fall short of God’s righteous requirements (see 3:9). In chapter 4, Paul addresses the assertion that because of circumcision, Jewish believers have a better claim to God’s righteousness. After all, circumcision is a sign that they are Abraham’s offspring. Paul’s point is that since God considered Abraham righteous before Abraham was circumcised, his righteousness was based solely on his faith. It was not anything Abraham did. The foundation of our righteousness before God, the only way we have peace with God (Romans 5:1) is by faith in Christ, not by any work–even circumcision.

The main issue James is addressing is perhaps summed up in James 1:22: “Be doers of the word, not hearers only.” Clearly this was an issue to the Christians he addresses. Pure religion before God, according to James 1:27, is visiting widows and orphans and keeping oneself unsullied from the world. In other words, James is addressing Christians who are failing to live out their faith in practical terms.

James 2 talks about partiality. If you follow Jesus, you will not honor the rich over the poor. Indeed, you will love your neighbor as yourself. You won’t dismiss a brother or sister in need of food or clothes by saying, “Go in peace! Be warmed and filled!” If your faith in Jesus is real, it’ll be evident in your life. Faith without works, he says, is useless, ineffective.

So Paul and James are addressing different audiences with different issues. They are not answering the same question. Paul is addressing “How are we all, Jew and Gentile, made righteous?” James is addressing “If you have been made righteous, what does that look like?”

Justified by Faith Alone or Not by Faith Alone?

This is all very well, but what do we do with the fact that James says quite explicitly that you are made righteous by works, “and not by faith alone”? He even uses the same Greek verb, dikaioō, that Paul uses for “made righteous.”

I think there are two ways to look at this that honor the context of the letters.

The Meaning of Dikaioō

Words take on different meanings according to context. This is true in any language, no less the Greek of the New Testament. The primary meaning of dikaioō is “to make righteous,” or “to justify,” notably before God. This is the way Paul is without doubt using it in Romans.

James, however, is using the verb in the sense of being justified before men. That is, you are justified before God by your faith, but that faith is justified, or vindicated, before men by your works.

There is precedent for the use of dikaioō in this way. In Luke 7:25 (parallel in Matthew 11:19), Jesus points out to his audience that John the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking no wine and people said he has a demon. The Son of Man, however, eats and drinks, and he’s told he’s demon-possessed and is called a friend of tax collectors and sinners. “Wisdom,” he concludes, “is justified by all her children [or “deeds” in Matthew’s account].” That is, the fruit of wisdom shows what wisdom is truly about. Wisdom is vindicated, or shown to be right, by what wisdom produces.

This fits the context of James: faith is justified, or vindicated, by works. He’s not saying that you are not justified before God by faith alone. He’s saying that the true nature of your faith is not demonstrated by faith alone, but by the works that pour from that faith.

Misunderstanding Paul

Another possibility is that James is not critiquing Paul but rather critiquing people who have misunderstood Paul’s teaching. Some may have taken Paul’s teaching that we are saved by grace through faith and not by works to mean your conduct doesn’t matter. As long as you have faith you can live like the world and you’ll be okay. Unfortunately, we still see evidence of this same misunderstanding in the church today.

It’s not as if Paul didn’t try to address this himself. In his letters there are plenty of exhortations to godly living (e.g., Ephesians 4:17; Romans 12-15). Paul was well aware that a living faith bears fruit in good works. Indeed, the very next verse after Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Perhaps James is reminding his readers of Ephesians 2:10. He’s not denying that the foundation of our righteousness is faith and faith alone. But, as R.C. Sproul often said, we are justified by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.

Good works will always accompany a living faith, not as a requirement for justification, but as a result of justification. Even in the case of Abraham that James uses, it’s evident that what Abraham did was firmly rooted in his faith. God had promised Abraham that his offspring would be innumerable, and Isaac was the son promised. As Hebrews 11:17-19 points out, Abraham was prepared to obey God and still believe that somehow God would fulfill his promise, perhaps by raising Isaac from the dead. Abraham’s faith was real, and this is evident by his act of obedience.

As I said, I think either of these is possible, or maybe an element of both. In any case, there is clearly no contradiction between James and Paul. They are addressing different audiences about different issues. Paul’s concern is the foundation of our justification–faith alone, apart from works. James’s concern is how that faith is lived out.

We are indeed saved by grace through faith alone. And God’s grace is not simply necessary for salvation, it is sufficient.