Part 8

James asks again: “Can that faith[71] save him?” He does not scoff at faith but at such hollow “faith” as this. James here speaks for the practical man of the present day who wishes to see some real difference in the life of a man who becomes a Christian. It is an old demand, as we see in 1 John 1 and 2. There is no escape from this appeal to life, nor ought there to be. Men are judged by their conduct in business during the week as much as by their attendance at church on Sunday. James does not say that a Christian has no faults and never sins or is a hypocrite if he sins once. He does say that he should have some faith.

His illustration in verses 15 and 16 is very forcible and shows that he was probably a striking and popular preacher (Oesterley). It is a problem that is constantly presented to our modern Christians and churches. A brother or sister is in need of food and clothing. They are out of work because of the economic conditions beyond their control. They are not professional beggars. One may pause to admit the serious difficulty of knowing how to render real assistance to those who come to our doors for help. The modern social workers tell us not to give money and clothing but to investigate the case or to have the charity organization or some of the rescue workers to do it for us. The great number of tramps and professional beggars with false stories tends to harden our hearts to the many cases of real need all about us. Some of these are too proud to make their real condition known and actually starve to death or perish from disease and cold.

James here assumes that the case is one of real need that deserves sympathy and help. The man who prides himself upon the correctness of his professional creed and pious standing bestows kind words of sympathy and nothing else, sending the suffering brother or sister, “ill-clad and short of daily food” (Moffatt), out into the bitter cold and shutting the door with a sense of satisfaction after such pious platitudes as, “Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled.” He calls his cheap words Christian sympathy. It is enough to make demons laugh. The irony of James is keen. “The things needful to the body,” the ordinary necessities of life, now become rare luxuries to the poor brother or sister. So James repeats his query: “What doth it profit?”

It is pertinent per contra to quote Paul on the necessity of love even in beneficence: “And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3). What, indeed! One recalls the compassion of Jesus for the hungry multitudes whom he fed. His heart was not hardened. He did not ask them to be satisfied with honeyed words and the aroma of dinner. The pious pretenders actually think that the needy should be grateful for kind advice when sent away without a mouthful to eat. James applies his illustration to the point discussed (v. 17). Mere professional faith that talks and does not “is dead in itself.” There is no life in it, no reality. It is dead on the inside and is a mere empty shell of pious pretense. There are people who today turn to our churches for help in the hour of need and get only empty words. It will be in vain then to speak about the grace of God.

Not Mere Intellectual Assent (2:18-19)

It is extremely difficult to follow the thought of James in verse 18. He is usually wonderfully perspicuous, but here we are in doubt as to the punctuation and the reference in “a man.” Some scholars think that it is a delicate way that James has of referring to himself, but then James is emphasizing works, not mere faith.

Is the sentence a question or an assertion? Shall we say “but” or “yea”? Hort has shown a way out that is partly followed by Moffatt. Take the “man” as an objector, but let his objection cover only the first sentence, the point being to challenge the faith of James, since he has put such accent on works. “Thou, James, hast thou faith? I also (as well as thou) have works.” The objector thus claims to have both faith and works but implies that James has only works and no faith.

The rest of the verse is then the reply of James to the objector.[72] James bursts in with the answer to the challenge and rests his claim to faith on works as proof. “Show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.” Here James pits over against each other the two sorts of faith—the true faith which James claims to possess and which is proved by works and the false faith which is mere profession and entirely apart from works. The antithesis is complete. The dispute turns on how one knows that he has faith. James rests his case on his works and in turn challenges the objector to prove his faith apart from works.

Now James is ready to drive the point home. He proceeds to show that such an empty faith as his objector has is mere intellectual assent to propositions and is not saving trust that bears fruit in the life. “Thou believest that God is one.” This is one of the statements of the unity of God. The usual formula occurs in Deuteronomy 6:4 and in Mark 12:29 (“The Lord our God, the Lord is one”). The recitation of this phrase was not merely the orthodox creed but was supposed to have saving efficacy (cf. the Moslem repetition of “Allah”). From the time of the exile the repetition of the _Shema_ (Deut. 6:4 ff.) each morning and evening was the duty of every pious Israelite. “Whoever reads the _Shema_ upon his couch is as one that defends himself with a two-edged sword” (Meg. 3_a_). “They cool the flames of Gehinnom for him who reads the _Shema_” (Ber. 15_b_). Oesterley (_in loco_) adds that “the very parchment on which the _Shema_ is written is efficacious in keeping demons at a distance.”

These statements will help us to understand the atmosphere from which James draws his illustration. And yet James does not ridicule this mental assent to the oneness of God. “Thou doest well.” Orthodoxy is better than heresy. Orthodoxy is “thinking straight,” and that is what we all need to do. Every man is right in his own eyes, and the rest are a bit “off.” But good as monotheism is, it is not enough (cf. Mohammedanism again).

What James criticizes is mere intellectual assent with no vital union with God. “The demons also believe,” as well as you. The demons know only too well that God is and that he is one. They are monotheists, not polytheists. They recognized Jesus: “What have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). Compare Matthew 8:29 and Luke 4:41. The demons are thoroughly orthodox on this point, have intellectual assent (“faith”), but they are still demons. They even shudder at the fact and the power of God as they feared Jesus (Mark 1:24; Luke 8:29). The word means to “bristle,” like the Latin _horreo_, with the hair standing on end. “Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up” (Job 4:15). So Daniel (7:15) says, “My spirit was grieved.” The argument is as complete as it can be.

The Obedient Trust of Abraham (2:20-24)

But James applies his illustration again. He hammers the objector while he has him. “But wilt thou know, O vain man?” (“you senseless fellow,” Moffatt). The word is used like the Latin _vanus_ of boasters or impostors, men whose word cannot be depended upon. You can know, if you wish to know,[73] “that faith apart from works is barren,” “faith without deeds is dead” (Moffatt), according to some manuscripts. One may note 2 Peter 1:8, “not idle nor unfruitful.” Faith without works is like a barren woman, without children to comfort her. “Children” and “works” are sometimes used as parallel. “Wisdom is justified by her works” (Matt. 11:19); “wisdom is justified of all her children” (Luke 7:35).

James thus shows irritation at the dulness of his objector, but he hopes to make even such a man see the point by appealing to the axiomatic case of Abraham. The faith of Abraham was one of the commonplaces of theological discussion in the rabbinical schools (Oesterley). See Sirach 44:20 ff.; Wisdom 10:5. It is no wonder that Paul (Rom. 4; Gal. 3:7) makes use of the case of Abraham. He considers it so important that in Romans he devotes a whole chapter to the subject. Paul lays chief emphasis (Rom. 4:17-21) on Abraham’s faith in the promise of a son. Paul also proves that Abraham had the justifying faith before he was circumcised. James shows that Abraham lived up to his faith when put to the test. Both points are true.

There was abuse of the faith of Abraham. Thus Rabbi Nehemiah (_Mechilta_ on Ex. 14:31) says: “So Abraham, solely for the merit of his faith, whereby he believed in the Lord, inherited this world and the other.” The Jews came to rely so much on the “merit” of Abraham’s faith that they felt that all they had to do was to say, “We have Abraham to our father” (Matt. 3:9). They leaned[74] on “Father Abraham.” In 1 Maccabees 2:52 the same use is made of the case of Abraham that we have in James: “Was not Abraham found faithful in trial, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness?” In Hebrews 11 the same exposition of faith is set forth by the glorious list of heroes who exemplified faith. Among these heroes is Abraham, who obeyed to go out (11:8) to a distant land and who offered up his only begotten son (11:17).

James appeals confidently, therefore, to the example of Abraham in offering up Isaac upon the altar (cf. Gen. 22:9). He had shown that he served God from love and not merely from fear. His faith had stood the severest of all tests—believing that God would go with him down into the darkness of death and make plain his command that was so hard to obey.

James interprets the case of Abraham with his usual pungency. “Thou seest,” or at least, “thou oughtest to see.” The deduction is inevitable. “Faith wrought with his works,” “faith cooperated with deeds” (Moffatt), just the opposite of “apart from works.” It is thus clear that James did not mean to say that Abraham had only works and not faith. It is faith and works with Abraham, as he had contended in verse 18. It is like Paul’s “faith working through love,” energetic faith. So James adds: “by works was faith made perfect,” “completed by deeds” (Moffatt).

Thus with Abraham faith was shown to be alive, not dead; fruitful, not barren; brought to a good result or end, not cut short with mere profession or promise. So the Scripture was fulfilled (made full or complete) in the case of Abraham: “And Abraham believed God, and it [the faith] was reckoned [set down to his credit] unto him for righteousness.” Paul in Romans 4 lays emphasis on the verb “believed,” and James stresses the obedience which proves the reality of the trust.

Both points are justly made. In each instance faith precedes the works. We are set right with God by trust, but the life must correspond to the new relation with God. It was so with Abraham. He was called “the friend of God.” Compare 2 Chronicles 20:7. “Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do?” (Gen. 18:17). With the Arabs the term “Khalil Allah” (Friend of God) is the current name for Abraham. Epictetus (bk. II, chap, xvii, § 29) speaks of looking “up into heaven as the friend of God.” Plato calls the righteous man “on terms of friendship with God.” Jesus calls his disciples “friends,” no longer “servants,” in John 15:14 f. There cannot be such friendship without trust of the most absolute kind, a trust that means loyalty to the end.

One must not think that James discredits faith. He does not. He assumes the need of it. In verse 24 James uses “justified” more in the sense of final approval (set right at last) than of the initial restoration of peace with God. And even so “the faith as a ground of justification is assumed as a starting point” (Hort).

“Ye see,” says James, leaving his imaginary opponent and turning again to his readers. They can see the point, whether the empty-headed disputant does or not. It is hard for a controversialist to see anything but his own side of the question. It is “not only by faith” that a man is justified. The case of Abraham shows that works must follow faith in the natural order of grace. James has administered a severe rebuke to the antinomians who deny any responsibility for holy living and disclaim the force of the moral law. There has always been a curious type of pietism that runs easily into immorality with no compunctions of conscience, a sort of emotionalism without ethical tone or flavor. Abraham was not simply the father of the Jewish people but the father of all the spiritual Israel—the believing children of God in all the ages since, who form the elect of God and of the earth.

The Case of Rahab (2:25)

One wonders why James selects a case like this after speaking of Abraham, the father of the fruitful and God’s friend. Oesterley doubts how this verse could come from the pen of a Christian. But James may have wished to select another example at the furthest possible point from Abraham, a heathen and a proselyte, “the first of all the proselytes” in the land of Canaan (Hort). Certainly if a woman like Rahab could be saved, no one else need despair. She expressed her faith in God: “I know that the Lord hath given you the land ... the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath” (Josh. 2:9, 11, AV). Besides, she showed her courage by avowing the cause of Jehovah and of Israel, by protecting the messengers (spies, in reality), and by a life of uprightness thereafter.

It was a crisis in the history of Israel as they came to Jericho, and Rahab took her stand for God at the start; hence the high honor accorded her. She is mentioned in Hebrews 11:31 in the famous list of heroes of faith. In Matthew 1:5 she appears in the genealogy of Christ. She was counted one of the four chief beauties of Israel along with Sarah, Abigail, and Esther (Mayor). “Eight prophets who were also priests are descended from the harlot Rahab” (_Megilla_ 14_b_). Certainly there is no desire in James nor in Hebrews to dignify her infamous trade, which she renounced, but only to single her out as a brand snatched from the burning by the power of God.

The Union of Faith and Works (2:26)

This is what James pleads for, not the divorce between creed and conduct, which is alas only too prevalent even today. There should be an indissoluble marriage between faith and works, a union as close as that between spirit and body. “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.” By “spirit” here James means simply the breath of life, without which the body is dead. “False faith is virtually a corpse” (Hort).

By this striking paradox James attacks the root of the whole matter and has his last word on the subject. Hort remarks that James by the use of the phrase “justified by works” seems to be answering Paul in Romans 4:2 or a misuse of Paul’s “justified by faith” (Rom. 5:1), though he does not see how James could have seen Paul. I have already expressed my own conviction that James and Paul are not really answering one another. They are discussing different aspects of the subject and touch only at points and go off along other lines. In all probability each would agree to the statements of the other if the language of each were put in the proper perspective. Certainly they agreed when they were together in Jerusalem (Acts 15; Gal. 2:1-10). But it is important for us that our faith shall be real and vital, not hollow and dead.

VIII The Tongues of Teachers

James carries on the discussion of “slow to speak” (1:19). He has just been writing about idle faith in 2:14-26, and now he proceeds (Plummer) to expound the peril of the idle word, “wrong speech after wrong action” (Hort). Indeed, in 1:26 he has already mentioned the failure to bridle the tongue as a sure sign of vain religion. Now he expands the matter in a remarkable paragraph.

The transition is thus not so abrupt as at first seems to be the case, and apparently from the first he planned this discussion of the tongue. Probably it comes here (Plummer) because controversies about faith and works were already rife. Here James speaks “against those who substitute words for works” (Plummer), a rather large class. “In noble uprightness, he values only the strict practice of concrete duties, and hates talk” (Reuss), if it is _only_ talk. James has the gift of condensation. He can write on talk without taking twenty volumes, like Carlyle, to prove that if speech is silvern, silence is golden (Plummer). The “overvaluation of theory as compared with practice” (Mayor) condemned in chapter II is still present with James as he discusses the tongue.

An Oversupply of Teachers (3:1a)

We are not here to think simply of official teachers like Paul’s apostles, prophets, teachers (1 Cor. 12:28 f.; Eph. 4:11). In the Didache (xiii. 2, xv. 1, 2) teachers are placed on a par with prophets and higher than bishops and deacons. There is no doubt that teaching received tremendous emphasis in the work of the early Christians. Jesus is the great Teacher of the ages and is usually presented as teaching. In the Jewish “houses of learning” (synagogues) teaching was as prominent an element as worship. The official teachers passed away, and the modern Sunday school movement is an effort to restore the teaching function in the churches.

The true preacher should be a teacher also, but many preachers are more evangelistic and hortatory than didactic. The best preachers combine all these elements and build up the saints in the faith to which they have been won. The mission work of modern Christianity also has had to lay new emphasis on the educational side of Christian effort. There is no reason why the morning service in public worship should not be a teaching service and the evening service more evangelistic. Teachers are necessary. People “having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts” (2 Tim. 4:3).[75] Epictetus (bk. III, chap, xxiii, § 29) says: Rufus “used to speak in such a way that each of us as we sat thought that someone had accused us to him.”

But James here is thinking of the unofficial teachers in the churches. In the Jewish synagogues there was wide latitude allowed for strangers and others to speak. Jesus took advantage of this opportunity and taught freely in the synagogues (Matt. 12:9 ff.; Mark 1:39; Luke 6:6 ff.). There would be interruption and violent opposition at times (cf. John 6:59-66). Paul used the courtesy to strangers to speak in the Jewish synagogues and met with open opposition at times (cf. Acts 13:15, 45; 18:6).

In Corinth we have a striking instance of the evil of promiscuous teaching, unrestrained and unregulated (1 Cor. 14). It became necessary for Paul to rebuke the church for unseemly disorder. There were many who were only too ready to be carried away by any newfangled doctrine. There is safety in free discussion, which acts as a safety valve and also leaves a deposit of truth. But the acrimonious spirit had a fine opportunity to display itself. Men of arrogant convictions and little knowledge felt that they “had no need to learn anything from their brethren, but were fully equipped as teachers” (Johnstone), “desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor whereof they confidently affirm” (1 Tim. 1:7).

Some men with a certain fluency of speech really had no message and only spoke out of vanity and really “thought more of the admiration which they might excite by a display of their powers than of the light and strength which through Gods grace they might give their brethren” (Dale). Evidently James is here concerned with these promiscuous, officious, irresponsible, self-appointed teachers, men with a cocksure explanation of all difficulties, not afraid to rush in where angels fear to tread.

The world was full of roving teachers with every sort of patent ism to dispense to the public. Both Jews and Athenians were eager for something newer than the last stale theory (the very latest fad). The synagogues of the Jews and the churches of the Christians offered a fine platform for these cranks to air their notions. Besides, some of the best of men, earnest Christians, have a “lust for talk” (W. Robertson Nicoll) that leads them into all sorts of excesses.

James, therefore, is pleading for restraint and moderation when he says, “Be not many of you teachers,” “do not swell the ranks of the teachers” (Moffatt). Teachers are absolutely necessary, but the thing can be overdone. Some learners (disciples) are needed. Liberty within reasonable limits must be allowed, but not rank license. Men must not be too eager to teach what they do not know.

There is no danger of an oversupply of well-equipped teachers, who are masters of the message of Christ. There are still too many who are incompetent, and therefore the accent on teacher-training in the Sunday schools is most timely. The caution of James is pertinent today, but we must not discourage timid souls who can learn to teach and who ought to undertake it. The greatness of the teacher’s task must not be overlooked. James warns us against its abuse. There is a mental sloth that is as bad as this eagerness to be teachers, a lazy satisfaction with the elements of Christianity and failure to grow into the position of teachers of the doctrines of grace, continuing as babes unable to digest solid food (Heb. 5:12).

The Peril of Teachers (3:1b)

Teaching has to be done. There is no escape from that, but those who teach must understand their responsibility. They are doctors (from _doceo_, to teach) of the mind and heart. They cannot escape their responsibility as spiritual surgeons, for they deal with the issues of life and death, “knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.” In seasons of religious excitement it is particularly desirable that men shall bear this fact in mind. There is danger for the teacher and for those that hear and are led astray by foolish talk.

Feeling was probably running high in some of the churches, and there was occasion for the sobering words of James. “The penalty of untruth is untruth, to imbibe which is death” (Taylor). One has only to recall the words of Jesus: “And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. 12:36 f.). It is easy to be overconfident, like the complacency of the Jews of whom Paul said that each was confident that he was “a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babes” (Rom. 2:20). “Blind leaders of the blind” (Matt. 15:14) are they. It is bad enough to break one of the least commandments, but whoever does “and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).

There is no escaping the fact that a heavier penalty rests on preachers and teachers who leave a trail of error behind them. This point of view explains Paul’s anxiety in the pastoral epistles for the future of Christianity, as it had to confront Pharisaism, Gnosticism, Mithraism, the emperor cult, and the hundred and one vagaries of the age. Certainly a teacher must speak his mind. He must be intellectually honest and tell what he sees, but he is not called upon to give his guesses at truth as truth. He ought to be interesting if he can, but not at the expense of truth. Freedom of teaching is quite consonant with fidelity to truth. One does not have to be a mere traditionalist in order to escape wild speculation. He must bring forth things new and old if they are true.