James 2:20-26
2:20-26 – In this section, James gives some concrete
examples of the kind of works that real faith will produce. James consistently
uses “faith” in a slightly different way than Paul does. James uses it to refer
to the act of believing doctrine, much as it was used in the Jewish milieu of
James’ day (and often is still used that way today, despite the way the rest of
the NT treats the term). Paul, however, speaks of “faith” as a full-orbed,
whole-self commitment of loyalty and trust to Christ, which will necessarily
bear the fruit of good works as part of its own nature. But it is not the works
that save us, it is the grace of God poured out with regard to our
transformational trust in Christ’s faithfulness. So although James and Paul use
the term “faith” differently, they’re actually making the same point: real faith includes concrete actions,
not just intellectual knowledge or an internal spiritual act. The evidence
James gives of this is twofold. First, he uses the example of Abraham, citing
two different passages. The first one he quotes, that of Abraham being willing
to obey God and sacrifice Isaac, uses the terminology of “faith and actions
working together” and of “faith made complete” by actions. Again, this
underscores James’ sense that a merely intellectual, internalized faith is clearly
lacking something. True faith will be manifest in obedience to God. If we
really believed that God is who he says he is—the sovereign of the whole
universe, who loves us and has given us commands in order that we may grow to be what we were
truly meant to be—then we will necessarily want to obey his commands, out of holy
duty and love. But if the desire to obey his commands is not present in your life, then you don’t
actually believe in a God that is sovereign and loving; your faith is a
fantasy, ungrounded in the reality of God. James also cites the story of
Abraham’s act of faith in response to God's promise of descendants: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as
righteousness”—the same passage that Paul also uses to prove his own point
about faith and works. By including both passages--about Abraham's belief and his act of obedience--James wants to ensure that
this part of Abraham’s story is not misunderstood. God’s justification of
Abraham, counting him as righteous, was not simply the result of Abraham’s intellectual act; the rest of
Abraham’s story shows that that intellectual act was part of a whole-life
commitment to God. He notes that this kind of true faith is described as being “a
friend of God”: faith is not just assenting to a doctrine, it is a life-altering
relationship of love and trust with the God of the universe, a relationship
that will necessarily be evidenced by the way we live. The second Old
Testament story that James uses is that of Rahab, who offered shelter to two
Israelite spies in Jericho, and then helped them escape. In that story, Rahab
acknowledges her belief in the God if Israel. But imagine if she stopped there,
and made no attempt to help the followers of Israel's God, instead supposing that
her mere act of belief would be enough to save her from the destruction that was
coming to Jericho. The way the story progresses in Joshua makes it very clear
that, had she done things that way, she would have died along with everyone
else in the city. It is her act of assisting the Israelites that demonstrates
her real faith in the God of Israel. It is that whole-orbed faith, of belief and
works together, that leads to her salvation—an act of grace whereby her house
is spared, since it is marked with a telltale red rope (a foreshadowing of
the saving effects of the blood of Christ). Finally, James gives us one more
analogy: in the same way that we, as persons, are only whole because we have
both body and spirit, so too faith is only truly itself when belief is
partnered with actions. Otherwise, your “faith” is nothing but a corpse.