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Israel also, according to the prophecies of the O.T., are justified without works, for they
will acknowledge that all their righteousness are as filthy rags, and that Jehovah Tsidkenu
is their "righteousness". David, also, knew and taught the same blessed doctrine as Paul
makes evident in Rom. 4: The believers addressed by James could no more attain to a
righteousness by works than we can to-day. Both Paul and James appeal to the record of
the justification of Abraham, and both appeal to the same verse. We are fully aware that
in the process of his argument James goes to Gen. 22: but this is not the basis; it is
rather the "end" or "perfecting" of the faith already manifested without works. Referring
to Gen. 15:, Paul writes:
"For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him
for righteousness" (Rom. 4: 2).
In connection with the same passage James writes:
"And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was
imputed unto him for righteousness" (James 2: 23).
Paul carries us forward in Rom. 4: to Abraham's further exercise of the faith he had
already shown in believing God's promise of a son to a man and woman "as good as
dead":
"He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith,
giving glory to God: and being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was
able to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness" (Rom. 4: 20-22).
Paul concentrates on the question of Isaac's birth, and makes it clear that he has in
mind the kind of faith that includes resurrection, and believes in "God Who quickeneth
the dead". James does not speak of the initial act of Abraham's faith but takes us rather
to the "end", where we stand with the patriarch on Mount Moriah, and see him "tempted"
and attaining "the crown". James exposes the hollow mockery of a "faith" that is in
name only. The A.V. reads:
"What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not
works? Can faith save him?" (James 2: 14).
The R.V. is closer to the true meaning here, and reads:
"Can that faith save him?"
The believers to whom James was writing, had been brought up as Jews to believe that
the mere fact of being a child of Abraham was sufficient to guarantee their entrance into
the kingdom--an evil doctrine that was rebuked both by John the Baptist and the Lord
Himself, ("Think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father"
Matt. 3: 9, John 8: 33-44). James saw that they were now slipping into the error of
regarding "faith" in a similar way. "Though a man say he hath faith", says James, "Can
that kind of faith save him?" The answer is that it cannot, and the answer is illustrated by
the two examples that follow. Try saying to a naked and destitute brother, "Be ye
warmed" and "be ye fed" without implementing these words with necessary materials,