James 2:14-26
Faith and Works

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.

New Revised Standard Version

If we are too sloppy in our thinking, we might see a contradiction between the passage above and Paul's strong statement about grace in Ephesians 2:8-9:

For by grace have you been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God--not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

By grabbing only a few words, we might conclude that James requires works for salvation, contradicting Paul's assertion that works have no part in salvation--and our conclusions would be wrong!

Instead both Paul and James reached the same truth, but they came to it from different directions. Paul was writing to believers who have always been taught that they have to earn the good graces of the gods, so he needed to make the strong statement that we have done nothing to cause the one true God to extend grace to us. At the same time, Paul added in the very next verse, Ephesians 2:10:

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Throughout this letter, it appears that James wrote to a society of Christians who had developed a sense of privilege and arrogance about themselves. Just a few decades before, Jesus taught in a society where the religious leaders were eager to criticize others, slow to care for the less fortunate, and reluctant to associate with less pious people. James expressed outrage at the idea that those traits from the Pharisees would be assimilated into the practices of the Christians!

One of the struggles we have with this passage is that the word "saved" has a different context in contemporary evangelical circles than it did when James used the word. The question that asks "Can faith save you?" could also be translated "Does that faith as described have the power to make you well?" In other words, if someone claims to have a faith that is so weak that it cannot be observed in that person's actions, how can that faith be strong enough to make that person whole?

James follows up with parallel examples in practical terms. How does telling a hungry person to be fed make any difference? How does telling a cold person to think warm thoughts stop the shivering? Physical needs are not met by empty words, and spiritual needs are not met by declaring one's self to be part of a church.

Instead, when we accept God's Grace, we are changed and we continue to be transformed as God's Spirit works in us to make us more obedient to God and move capable of showing God's Love to other people. If accepting God's Grace makes no changes, either the person was already perfectly holy, or there is no faith.

We must be careful, too, how we choose to interpret the "works" that James mentioned. The word does not mean "results" but "actions". We are not called to achieve great things for the Kingdom, a reality that deflated my ego once I came to understand it. We are called instead to act when and how God calls us to act. Sometimes God's intention is for that action to be private, never seen by another person. Sometimes God calls for what appears to be as illogical and senseless, as when Philip was called to go into the middle of the desert to witness. Often times, we will not see in this lifetime what God does with the actions we take in faith, and sometimes that is the only way God can have the proper glory for what the Word does in changing someone's life.

James is not claiming that salvation comes only to those who have enough spiritual victories notched in their leather Bible covers. Instead, James is saying that when we have accepted the gift of God's Spirit living in us, we will live like the Spirit is in us. We will act differently, we will show love differently, we will have different priorities and different ways to make decisions, for we will be new creations. If we do not see those changes in ourselves, we need to check our spiritual health.