By Conrad Gempf
One of the most common arguments against the trustworthiness of the Bible is that it contains contradictions. Perhaps, like me, you have had skeptics tell you that James and Paul have irreconcilable differences. To the Galatians and Romans, Paul famously argued that people are “justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:28 ESV). While, on the other hand, James wrote in his letter, “Faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26) and “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24).
But epistles are letters. And letters are written to specific audiences and questions. When we read New Testament letters, it is almost like we are hearing one side of a telephone conversation. And different questions can produce different answers.
If two people were talking to you and one said, “Mars is uninhabitable” and the other said, “The inhabitants of Mars intend to take over the Earth” you would be certain that both cannot be true.
But if those same two people were both talking on the phone, answering questions you could not hear, it is possible that both were being perfectly factual — the first answering the question: “Can humans survive on Mars?” and the other answering the question: “What is the plot of the book The War of the Worlds?”
Often, if you listen carefully to the rest of the conversation, you’ll hear clues that help you put the individual statements in context. As we will see, this careful attention to detail is one of the keys to understanding Paul and James.
For Protestants in particular, the conversation in Galatians and Romans is the easiest to understand. In both letters, Paul is writing about the difference between Christianity and a brand of Judaism that misrepresents the Old Testament. The Galatians have been told that they cannot be saved unless they do certain things, keep certain rituals, and so on.
The question that is on the other end of Paul’s telephone is “What does God want from us?” And Paul characterizes the two different possible answers as (1) Faith or (2) Works.
In a conversation that frames two mutually exclusive alternatives, then clearly we want (1) Faith. In fact, trying to add (2) Works as a requirement for salvation gets the Gospel wrong. So Paul would say that saving faith is (1) Faith alone.
But listening carefully to chapter 2 of James’s epistle shows us he is responding to a slightly different question. James does start the discussion as if faith and works were separate things, linking them with additive words like “and” and “with.” But as the argument continues, James shifts the connecting words to “through” and “by,” words that imply a working connection. Eventually, we read the famous declaration which uses the connecting word “without” or “lacking” (chōris): “Faith lacking works is dead” (James 2:26 paraphrase).
From the beginning, James is clear that the question he is answering is not about whether you need two different things—(1) Faith and (2) Works. Instead, the subject of the discussion is the kind of faith or the quality of faith one claims to have. “…If someone claims to have faith but no deeds… Can such a faith save them?” (James 2:14, NIV emphasis mine).
Can you see the difference? James is not answering a question about whether we need faith, but about what kind of faith we need. We need a faith that is genuine, that isn’t just talk.
If you read James carefully, he clearly is not saying, “There are 2 things: (1) Faith and (2) Works, and what God really wants from people is (2) Works.” He is rather saying, “faith is completed by works” (James 2:22).
So the subject of the discussion isn’t really people at all, as much as their faith. For James, it’s not that people are lacking if they have no works. It is, rather, our faith that is lacking if it doesn’t have works. James assumes these are people who have faith.
The kind of faith that is without works is like Black Forest cake without any cherries. It ain’t a Black Forest cake if it’s chocolate cake alone.
The kind of faith that is without works is like a Banana Split Sundae made with only bananas. It ain’t a Banana Split if it’s a split banana alone.
The kind of faith that is without works is a deficient faith. Something is lacking. Faith ain’t a whole, saving faith if it’s faith alone (James 2:24).
If “faith is completed by works” (James 2:22), then what James is talking about is an incomplete faith. James’s question is about the quality of faith, its genuineness. “Can such a faith save them?” (James 2:14 NIV).
The faith inside a person is the important thing. But if what’s inside is genuine, it will show.
James and Paul agree on all of this—look how they both use the same verse to illustrate their points: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6; James 2:23; Galatians 3:6; Romans 4:3 NIV).
They both know that faith in God is what saved Abraham (and what saves us). James is not disputing that; James is making sure we know the genuine faith that truly trusts God’s promises is active and genuine faith, not merely lip-service.
James specifically refers us to a stunning example of Abraham’s working faith. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Spoiler alert: the deed was not accomplished; Isaac was not killed. In fact, God did not want Isaac to be dead, did not want the accomplishment. God always intended to provide a sacrificial substitute, instead (Genesis 22).
Does that mean that Abraham could have said, “OK, God” and then sat at home doing nothing? To paraphrase James 2:14, if Abraham had the kind of faith that did not take Isaac to the altar, could such a faith have saved him?
God did want Abraham to be willing, to trust God’s promise so much that he would take his son up the hill, that he would lift up the knife. But at that stage, bringing the knife down—actually finishing the (2) Work—was no longer necessary. God doesn’t necessarily want the deed as much as God wants (1) Faith, but the active kind! The actual Black Forest cake. The whole Banana Split Sundae.
So if God wants the kind of faith that is accompanied by works, what kind of deeds or accomplishments are required of us to prove that we actually do have the right kind of faith?
Here’s the cool thing: no accomplishment is required. None. Zero. Abraham received God’s favor even though he did not accomplish the sacrifice of Isaac.
James uses the Abraham example to show us that God does not want works that are accomplishments or results, but wants the genuine kind of faith that is working — active and willing.
And Paul is in total agreement. The questions he tackles in his first letter to the Corinthians are very different to the questions he tackles in Galatians or Romans. Like James, Paul also knows about the failure of incomplete faith.
With the Corinthians on the other end of the phone call, Paul sounds a lot like James’s “faith without works is dead”: “If I have all faith… but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2 ESV).
And, at one of his trials preserved in the book of Acts, Paul explained that his goal was to tell people: “that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance” (Acts 26:20 ESV).
In fact, even in Galatians and Romans, it is clear that Paul wants people to work out their faith through their actions and character (Galatians 6; Romans 12).
For the Christian, faith and works should not be two separate things, but a single thing—a faith that is not lacking or hollow, one that includes actions and a willingness to live it out.
Not that we have to be successful.
We do not need hundreds of victories, but a consistency of attempts.