The Justification of Our Faith

Good works of service to God and neighbor flow from saving faith as it is “completed” or brought to maturity. Abraham shows us this. It is not that his faith was inadequate to save him when he first believed and that his justification—the declaration that he was righteous in God’s sight—was incomplete until he showed himself willing to sacrifice Isaac. Certainly, Abraham was justified the moment he believed the Lord’s promises. Faith is not merely for the purposes of securing a righteous legal status, however; its goal or fulfillment is ultimately communion with God. That Abraham’s faith made him a friend of God became especially evident on Mount Moriah. This has been the point of James 2:20–23 (see Gen. 15:1–6; 22:1–19).

When we grasp James’ point, we must reject two different views of today’s passage. First, many liberal scholars have said that James 2:24 contradicts Paul’s teaching on justification by faith alone (see Gal. 2:16). Second, while Roman Catholicism does not teach that James and Paul contradict, the Roman church does argue, based largely on James 2:24, that both Apostles teach that we are declared righteous before God by faith and the charity, or love, graciously infused into our souls in baptism. This charity makes us perform good works to “increase” our justification, and the sacrament of penance restores this charity after our mortal sin kills it. These two different errors both assume that Paul and James mean the same thing when they speak of justification. The only difference is that liberals give up on reconciling the Apostles and Rome imports a nonbiblical sacramentology to harmonize them. Both options fail as viable interpretations once we recognize, with John Calvin, that “when Paul says that we are justified by faith, he means no other thing than that by faith we are counted righteous before God. But James has quite another thing in view, even to show that he who professes that he has faith, must prove the reality of his faith by his works. Doubtless James did not mean to teach us here the ground on which our hope of salvation ought to rest; and it is this alone that Paul dwells upon.”

When discussing justification, Paul emphasizes the grounding of our salvation (Christ’s righteousness received by faith) and James focuses on the fruit of our salvation (good works). Thus, as many people have said, James is really talking about the justification of our faith. How do others know that the faith we claim puts us in a right relationship with God? By observing the good works that we do.