If some Evangelicals (“born-again” Christians) are ever given the option to vote one verse from the Bible, I suspect it would be James 2:24: “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”
At face value, James 2:24 flatly contradicts the cardinal evangelical doctrine of “salvation by faith alone.” And that is the primary reason Reformer Martin Luther referred to the book of James as “the epistle of straw.” His disdain set the tone for all Evangelicals who followed him.
The trouble with cutting out James 2:24 from the Bible is that the entire passage of James 2:14-26, minus just one sentence, would still remain. Here’s how it would then read:
What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.
But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God…. [James 2:24 removed]…. In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead (italics added).
So, even if verse 24 was removed from James 2, the entire passage of James 2:14-26 still resonates with the identical message: Faith without works is dead, useless, and cannot save anyone. End of discussion.
And, of course, if some Evangelicals ever voted to remove that entire passage from the Bible, the rest of the New and Old Testaments would still remain, which, of course, both resonate repeatedly with the same message.
Does it seem to you that the cardinal evangelical doctrine of “salvation by faith alone” might slightly contradict James 2:14, which says, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone”?
It is obvious to honest readers that James was attempting to correct a grave doctrinal error of his day (that also exists in our day). Some had twisted the very-biblical idea of “salvation by faith” by perverting the definition of faith, advocating the absurd idea that one could possess faith without works. James called them “foolish fellows.” Their modern counterparts are equally as foolish.
It may surprise some, but the only verse in the Bible that contains both the words “faith” and “alone” is James 2:24. And it clearly says that we are not justified by faith alone. You would think that would give all those who parrot the Evangelical phrase, “We are saved by faith alone” a reason to pause and think. But no. Rather, they resort to worn-out and self-contradictory “explanations.”
One of those explanations is the claim that James was actually talking about “being justified in the sight of people, rather than being justified in the sight of God.”
Really? That is not only absurd, it is patently dishonest. The context affirms otherwise. And are we really to think that James was correcting a prevalent misunderstanding among the early Christians, who for some reason all believed that one could be justified by faith alone in the sight of people? Who would even care about such an “issue”? It is utterly insulting to anyone’s intelligence to suggest such a far-fetched interpretation of the passage. Yet I’ve heard it many times over the years.
Perhaps you have heard another “explanation”—that is nothing more than dishonest doublespeak: “We are saved by faith alone but not by a faith that is alone.” Think about how silly that self-contradictory statement is. It could be paraphrased, “We are saved by faith alone but we are not saved by faith alone.” Yet it is practically a mantra in some Evangelical circles, stoically spoken by seminary professors and degreed pastors to the nods of people who fear to question if the emperor is wearing any clothes.
Paul wrote that we are saved “by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8). Both grace and faith are essential components for salvation. And Paul, just like James, believed that faith produces obedience. He wrote of “the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). Just two verses after he wrote in Ephesians 2:8 that we are saved “by grace through faith,” he wrote that we have been “created in Christ for good works.” Paul believed that we are saved by grace through a faith that obeys.
But didn’t Paul pen, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified”?
Yes, Paul certainly did pen those words, in Galatians 2:16. But he wasn’t contradicting James 2:14-26, saying that faith without works can save. He was arguing against the Jewish idea that salvation is by “works alone” apart from faith in Christ. He never claimed that works aren’t always the product of a saving faith. He and James had no debate.
As long as Evangelicals continue to advocate the foolish and unbiblical idea that salvation can be possessed by fruitless faith, they’ll keep filling the pews with fruitless, false Christians who are destined for a rude awakening when they stand judgment before the Lord Jesus Christ. And out of love and concern for them, some of us will keep harping on this until our final breath!
