Faith and Works

Read James 2:14–26 before proceeding. Read it carefully, at least twice. Keep your Bible open throughout this session.

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

James 2:26

The Passage That Shaped a Reformation

We now arrive at the most famous, most contested, and most misunderstood passage in the Epistle of James. If you have been in Christian circles for any length of time, you have probably encountered these verses, and you have probably encountered them being used in ways James did not intend. This is the passage Luther struggled with. This is the passage Roman Catholic apologists cited against the Reformation. This is the passage the Lutheran Confessions address at length. And this is the passage that, more than any other single text, has shaped how the Lutheran Church reads the Epistle of James.

We are going to take our time. There is no hurry. The question at stake is not a trivial one. It is the question of how a sinner is saved, and the question of how genuine saving faith shows itself in the life of a believer. These are different questions, and much of the historic confusion about James 2 has come from collapsing them into one. Our work in this session is to keep them distinct, to hear what James is actually saying, to hear what Paul is actually saying, and to see how the two apostles, writing to different churches in different moments with different concerns, are in fact speaking the same Gospel from complementary angles.

A word of pastoral warning before we begin. If this passage has given you trouble in the past (if you have wondered whether James contradicts Paul, whether Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone is really biblical, whether you can trust what your Lutheran pastors have taught you about grace) let that trouble be welcome in this session. Bring it into the open. The answer is not to suppress the question but to let it be asked clearly, and then to answer it carefully. At the end of this hour, I believe you will see that there is no contradiction, and that James, rightly understood, is one of the Gospel’s most powerful witnesses to the nature of saving faith.

The Question James Is Asking

Before we examine what James says, we have to be clear about what he is asking. James does not open the passage with a theological treatise on justification. He opens with a question: what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?

Look carefully at the question. James is not asking whether faith saves. He is not asking whether works save. He is asking about a specific claim to faith that is not accompanied by any corresponding life. Can that kind of faith (a faith that is merely claimed but never visible, merely spoken but never lived) save anyone?

This question is crucial, and it determines the meaning of everything that follows. James is not addressing the question Paul addresses in Romans and Galatians, which is: how is a sinner declared righteous before God? Paul’s answer to that question is that the sinner is justified by faith alone, apart from works of the Law, on account of Christ. James is not contradicting this answer; he is not even in the room when that question is being asked. James is asking a different question: what kind of faith actually saves? Is it any and every faith that wears the label? Or is there a particular kind of faith, a faith with a certain character, that saves, over against a counterfeit faith that does not?

Once we see that this is the question James is asking, the whole passage opens up. Everything James will say from verse 14 to verse 26 is an answer to this question. And his answer, which he will make in several different ways, is that the faith which saves is the faith that shows itself in a life. Dead faith, faith that is merely claimed and never lived, is not saving faith at all.

A Concrete Example

James’s next move is to illustrate. He imagines a brother or sister who is poorly clothed and without daily food. A Christian sees them and says, go in peace, be warmed and filled, but does nothing about their actual condition. James’s question is devastating: what good is that?

The parallel is exact. If someone claims to have faith but does not have any corresponding action, his faith is like that pious wish to the hungry brother. The words are there. The claim is there. But there is no substance. The person has not actually done anything for the hungry brother, and the so-called faith has not actually done anything in the life of the one who claims it. In both cases, the words are empty.

James draws the conclusion plainly: faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Note the verb. James does not say faith plus works equals salvation. He says faith without works is dead. That is a different claim. He is not describing a mathematical formula in which faith is one element and works is another, both needed for the sum. He is describing the condition of a faith that lacks works: such a faith is dead. It is not a living thing. It has the shape of faith without the life of it. It cannot save, because it is not alive to do the saving work faith does.

A Faith That Even Demons Have

James now makes one of the sharpest points in the whole letter. You believe that God is one, he says. Good. The demons also believe, and shudder.

Pause on that sentence. The demons have faith. They believe that God is one. They know perfectly well who Jesus is; the Gospels record their correct theological identification of Him more readily than most humans could manage. The demons have not failed a test of cognitive belief. They know the facts. They even know the implications: they shudder, which is more than many human hearers do when confronted with divine truth.

But the demons are not saved. Their faith, such as it is, does not rescue them. Why? Because it is not the kind of faith that saves. It is the faith of cognitive assent alone, without trust, without love, without surrender, without living relationship with the God whose existence they acknowledge. It is dead faith, faith that knows about God but does not cling to God, does not rest in God, does not give itself to God.

This is exactly the kind of faith James has been warning his readers against. When someone claims to have faith but lives a life indistinguishable from the world around them, what kind of faith does that person actually have? Perhaps a faith very much like the demons’. They believe the right things. They may even feel something when they confront the truth. But their faith is bare cognitive assent, and it does not save.

Three Dimensions of Faith

The Lutheran theologians of the Reformation era noticed this distinction and gave it careful names. They distinguished three dimensions of true saving faith, traditionally identified by their Latin terms.

Notitia is knowledge: knowing the content of what God has revealed. A person must know who Christ is, what He has done, and what the Gospel proclaims. Without this knowledge, there is nothing to believe in. But notitia by itself is not saving faith. It is the faith of someone who has read a catechism carefully but never embraced what the catechism teaches.

Assensus is assent: agreeing that what God has revealed is true. A person must not only know the content of the Gospel but also judge it to be true. Without this assent, the knowledge is mere information. But assensus by itself is also not saving faith. This is the faith of the demons. They know the content, and they assent to its truth, and they shudder. But they do not have the third dimension.

Fiducia is trust: personal reliance upon Christ for salvation. A person not only knows the Gospel and agrees that it is true, but throws himself upon it, casts himself upon Christ, trusts his own person and soul to the Savior the Gospel proclaims. This is the heart of saving faith. It is the clinging, the resting, the throwing-ourselves-upon that makes faith more than mere opinion. It is what the demons do not and cannot have, because it would require the very surrender they refuse.

When James condemns the faith that even demons have, he is condemning notitia and assensus without fiducia, knowing and agreeing without trusting, clinging, resting. Such a faith is dead because it lacks the very thing that makes faith alive. And a faith without fiducia will never produce works, because fiducia is the thing that transforms the heart; and apart from a transformed heart, there is no transformed life.

This is why James can say that faith without works is dead. He is not requiring us to add works to faith as a second ingredient. He is telling us that the absence of works reveals the absence of fiducia. If genuine trust in Christ were present, the life would show it. When the life shows nothing, it is not because the works have failed to be added but because the trust was never there in the first place.

Abraham and Rahab

James now does something remarkable. He brings forward two Old Testament examples to illustrate his argument. The first is Abraham, the same Abraham Paul uses in Romans 4 and Galatians 3 to prove that we are justified by faith apart from works. If there is any apparent contradiction between Paul and James, it is here at its sharpest, because both apostles are appealing to the same man as their witness.

James says: was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works. This language sounds, at first, like a direct contradiction of Paul. Paul says Abraham was justified by faith; James says Abraham was justified by works. How can both be true?

The answer lies in recognizing which moment in Abraham’s life each apostle is appealing to. Paul is referring to Genesis 15:6, the moment when God promised Abraham a son, and Abraham believed the promise, and his faith was counted to him as righteousness. That was the moment of Abraham’s justification before God, years before Isaac was even born. Paul’s point is that Abraham was counted righteous through faith alone, before he was circumcised and long before Mount Moriah (see Romans 4:9–10).

James is referring to Genesis 22, the moment, many years later, when God tested Abraham by commanding him to offer Isaac on the altar. By this point, Abraham had been justified by faith for decades. His faith had already been counted to him as righteousness. What happened at the altar was not the beginning of Abraham’s right standing with God; it was the demonstration, the vindication, the public showing-forth of the faith that had long since justified him before God. James’s word, translated as completed or perfected, means brought to its intended end. Abraham’s faith was brought to full expression through his obedience. His faith was not created by his obedience; it was shown by it.

Justified in Different Senses

This is the key to resolving the apparent contradiction. The word justified (in Greek, dikaioo) can mean different things in different contexts. It can mean declared righteous in a legal or judicial sense, which is how Paul uses it. Or it can mean shown to be righteous, demonstrated to be righteous, vindicated as righteous, which is how James uses it.

Consider a parallel from ordinary speech. When someone says, I was justified in my decision, they usually mean that events proved them right. They were vindicated. What they had done was shown to be the correct course of action. That is not the same as being declared right in a courtroom. These are two different senses of the same word, and context tells us which is which.

When Paul says that Abraham was justified by faith apart from works, he is using the forensic, declarative sense, the courtroom sense. God declared Abraham righteous on the basis of his faith alone, at Genesis 15. When James says that Abraham was justified by works when he offered Isaac, he is using the demonstrative sense: Abraham’s faith was vindicated, shown to be real, proved genuine by the fact that he actually did what God asked. Both statements are true. They are about different things.

Rahab

James then reinforces the point with a second, very different example. Rahab the prostitute (a Canaanite, a woman of ill repute, about as unlikely a figure of faith as one could imagine) was also justified by works when she received the Israelite spies and sent them out another way.

Why does James choose Rahab? Precisely because she is so unlike Abraham. Abraham was the patriarch, the friend of God, the father of the faithful. Rahab was a pagan prostitute. And yet both are named in James’s argument as examples of the same truth: a faith that shows itself in works is the faith that is vindicated as real. Rahab’s faith in the God of Israel was made visible by her action of protecting the spies, at great personal risk. Her faith was not created by her action; her action revealed the faith that had already taken hold.

The two examples together, the great patriarch and the Gentile prostitute, tell us that James’s principle applies universally. It is not limited to the spiritually elite. Every believer, from the greatest to the most unlikely, demonstrates the reality of faith through action. Where there is genuine faith, there will be visible fruit. Where there is no fruit, there is reason to suspect that the faith being claimed is not the kind of faith that saves.

The Lutheran Resolution

How then do we hold Paul and James together? Not by suppressing one in favor of the other, and not by pretending the tension is not there, but by seeing that they are addressing different questions about the one Gospel. The Lutheran Confessions worked this out carefully, and their resolution has been the standard Lutheran position for nearly five hundred years.

The Formula of Concord addresses this question directly, in Articles III and IV, building on what the Apology had already said about James 2. Its answer can be summarized in a few related statements. First, we are justified before God (declared righteous, received into His favor, granted eternal life) by faith alone, on account of Christ alone, by grace alone. Works contribute nothing to our justification before God. This is the teaching of Paul, and it is the teaching of the Lutheran Church, and it is the Gospel without which Christianity collapses into moralism.

Second, good works certainly and without doubt follow true faith, if it is not a dead but a living faith, as fruits of a good tree. True saving faith is never alone. It is always accompanied by its fruits, because faith is a living and powerful thing that cannot help but produce the life of love and good works. This is the teaching of James, and it is also the teaching of the Lutheran Church, and it is the natural consequence of the Gospel working in the heart of the redeemed sinner.

Third, these two truths do not contradict. They belong together. Saving faith is alone in justifying us: in the courtroom of God, faith is the only instrument by which we receive Christ’s righteousness, and works add nothing. But saving faith is never alone in the life of the Christian: the faith that justifies always, always, always produces the fruit of a transformed life. To deny the first is to abandon the Gospel and fall into works-righteousness. To deny the second is to abandon the Gospel in a different way, falling into what some have called easy-believism or cheap grace, a faith that produces no life and therefore is no faith.

Luther’s Own Testimony

What is remarkable is that Luther himself, despite his 1522 reservations about James, taught exactly this doctrine of the relationship between faith and works. His famous description of faith from his Preface to Romans, written in the same year as the infamous preface to James, captures the matter perfectly. The Formula of Concord thought so too; it quotes this very passage in Article IV.

O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them.

Read that slowly. This is Luther on faith, the same Luther who worried that James did not preach Christ clearly enough. And what is Luther saying? He is saying precisely what James says. Faith is living. Faith is active. Faith cannot help but do good works. A faith that is not doing good works is not really faith. This is James’s teaching in different vocabulary, and it is Luther’s teaching, and it is the Lutheran Church’s teaching, and it is the Gospel’s teaching. The apparent tension between Luther and James dissolves when we see that Luther, on his own terms, is saying the same thing James is saying.

What This Means for Us

Several practical implications flow from this resolution, and it is worth stating them clearly.

First, we are not saved by our works. Not by any of them. Not by their quantity, quality, or consistency. Our standing before God is entirely the gift of His grace, received through faith, on account of Christ’s finished work. Every attempt to contribute to our salvation through our own effort must be rejected as a denial of the Gospel.

Second, saving faith produces works. Always. Not perfectly, not completely, not without struggle, but really. A faith that never shows itself in the life is not the kind of faith James and Paul and Luther are describing. If a person claims faith but shows no fruit, this is cause for concern. Not cause for despair, because God is patient and saving faith may be small and hidden, especially in its early stages or during seasons of difficulty. But cause for honest reflection, because a faith that is truly alive does not remain invisible forever.

Third, the fruit of faith is not the basis of our assurance; Christ is. When we doubt whether we have saving faith, we do not remedy the doubt by examining our works. We remedy it by returning to Christ, to the promises of the Gospel, to Baptism, to the Word, to the Supper. Our works can confirm our faith when we look at them, but they cannot create the faith we need. Only Christ does that, through the Word and Sacraments.

Fourth, the Christian life is not a project of self-improvement. It is a life of ongoing reception: receiving mercy, receiving forgiveness, receiving the Spirit, receiving the Word, and then, as that reception takes hold in us, producing fruit we did not manufacture. The fruit flows from the reception. The reception comes first.

The Body and the Spirit

James closes the passage with one of his most vivid images. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

Consider what James is saying. A body with no spirit is a corpse. It may look like a person from a distance. It may even bear a strong resemblance to the living person it once was. But it is not a person anymore; it is a dead thing, and all the dressing up in the world cannot make it alive. The body that was meant to house a living soul is now empty, and that emptiness is the difference between life and death.

So it is with faith and works, James says. Faith that produces no works is like a body without a spirit, a corpse that may wear the outward appearance of living faith but is not living faith. The works are not, in James’s image, a second thing added to faith; they are the evidence that faith is alive. Just as the breath and movement of a body tell us the person is alive, so the fruit of a faith tells us the faith is alive. A faith that produces no fruit is not a faith with one element missing. It is dead faith, which is no faith at all.

This is how James closes the passage, and it is the perfect summary of what he has been arguing. He has not added works to faith. He has not made works a second basis of salvation. He has told us how to recognize the faith that saves, by its visible life, and he has warned us that a faith without life is a faith without salvation. The two apostles, Paul and James, are one in the Gospel they proclaim, one in the Christ they worship, one in the salvation they teach. They speak from different angles for different purposes, and the Church that hears them both becomes strong in places where either alone might become weak.

Gathering the Threads

We have covered a great deal of ground in this session, and it is worth gathering the threads before we close.

James 2:14–26 is not a contradiction of Paul. James asks a different question from Paul. Paul asks how a sinner is justified before God; the answer is faith alone. James asks what kind of faith actually saves; the answer is living faith, which is always accompanied by its fruits. Both apostles teach the same Gospel. Neither contradicts the other. The Lutheran Church has always read them together, and the Formula of Concord, following the Apology, articulates the harmony clearly.

The faith James rejects as non-saving is the faith of the demons: cognitive assent without trust, knowing without clinging, agreeing without resting in Christ. Such a faith cannot save because it is not the kind of faith that saves. The faith that does save, the faith of true fiducia, always shows itself in the life of the believer. Abraham’s faith at Genesis 15 was vindicated at Genesis 22. Rahab’s faith in the God of Israel was vindicated when she protected the spies. And our own faith, if it is real, will be vindicated in the life it produces.

We are saved by faith alone, but saving faith is never alone. That old Reformation saying is not a quotation from the Confessions, but it compresses into one line what the Confessions teach and what James and Paul together proclaim. Remember it. It is the key that unlocks this passage and keeps James in harmony with the rest of Scripture.

And one more word before we close. If this session has been, for you, an occasion of concern, if you have wondered whether your faith is the dead kind James describes, return to Christ. The remedy for dead faith is not harder trying; it is fresh reception of the Gospel. Hear the Word preached. Remember your Baptism. Come to the Supper. Cling to Christ, who alone makes faith alive. The same Christ who will vindicate the living faith of His people at the Last Day will not turn away the trembling believer who comes to Him for mercy. Indeed, that coming is itself the sign of the faith He has already planted.

For Discussion

The following questions are for group discussion or personal reflection. Session Five is one where the discussion may take longer than usual. Do not rush it.

1. Had you ever encountered the apparent tension between Paul and James before this session? If so, how had it been resolved for you (or had it been resolved at all)? Does the distinction between the two questions they are answering help you see them in harmony?

2. James says that the demons believe, and shudder. What makes the demons’ faith insufficient for salvation? In your own words, what is the difference between faith that merely believes the right things and faith that actually saves?

3. The Lutheran tradition distinguishes three dimensions of faith: notitia (knowledge), assensus (assent), and fiducia (trust). In your own Christian life, which of these three most needs attention? Do you know the content of the Gospel, assent to its truth, and actually trust Christ with your whole life?

4. Abraham and Rahab are a striking pair: the patriarch and the prostitute. What does James want us to see by choosing two such different figures as his examples? What does it suggest about who can be a person of living faith?

5. “Saving faith is alone in justifying us, but it is never alone in the life of the Christian.” In your own words, what does this statement mean? Why do both halves of the sentence matter?

6. When you doubt your faith, where do you go for assurance? Do you look inward to your works for evidence, or do you return to Christ and the Word for fresh reception of the Gospel? What difference does this question make?

Looking Ahead

You have just worked through the theological heart of the whole study. Everything else in James, from here to the end of the letter, should be read in light of what we have established today. James is not a moralist. He is a pastor describing the visible life of those who have been justified by faith. The exhortations that remain are not ladders to salvation but portraits of what saved people actually look like when their faith is alive.

Next week we turn to the tongue. James 3:1–12 gives us one of the most vivid and searching treatments of Christian speech in all of Scripture. The bit, the rudder, the fire: James’s images are memorable, and his diagnosis is devastating. But like everything else in the letter, his concern is pastoral: the tongue of the Christian is to be shaped by the Word that has shaped the Christian, and a tongue that remains unbridled is a warning sign that the Word has not yet done its full work.

Before next session, read James 3:1–12 at least twice. Notice the images. Pay attention to how James ties speech to the deeper issue of the heart. And as you read, remember what you have learned today: the life of the baptized Christian is the fruit of a faith already planted, and even our speech, hard as it is, can be transformed by the Word that has made us new.

Closing Prayer

For a session on the heart of the Gospel, we close with the prayer our Lord Himself gave us, the prayer that contains every petition of the Christian life, including the forgiveness of sins on which our whole standing before God depends.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.