In a joke of
an article Abusing
James: Why the Book of James Doesn't Support Mormon "Faith Without Works
Dead" Arguments, Susan Grape wrote:
The meaning of the “faith without works”
phrases is based in this background, and also the examples they are embedded
in. Each phrase is explained with an example of a person being “justified” (Gk.
dikaioo) as in to verify or vindicate. “dikaioo” means:
dikaioo (1344) primarily “to deem to be
right,” signifies, in the NT, (a) “to show to be right or righteous”; in the
passive voice, to be justified, Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:35; Rom. 3:4; 1 Tim. 3:16;
(b) “to declare to be righteous, to pronounce righteous,” (1) by man,
concerning God, Luke 7:29 (see Rom. 3:4, above); concerning himself, Luke
10:29; 16:15; (2) by God concerning men, who are declared to be righteous
before Him on certain conditions laid down by Him.
(W.E. Vine, “Vine’s Complete Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words: With Topical Index (Word Study)”,
Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition, position 32421; also see Strong’s #1344)
Abraham’s “work” was justified as in
verification, not salvation (2:21-23) and Rahab was vindicated, not made
righteous (2:25-26). Why verify and vindicate, and not salvation? Because human
sacrifice, lying, and betrayal are not “good” works, and therefore could never
EARN eternal life! (They do, however, prove where one stands.)
This (the "vindication" understanding of James 2) is
dead-wrong on many counts:
(1) If James were teaching a concept of vindication, he could have chosen a word that solely and clearly refers to a vindication or exoneration, rather than a word that is commonly used and understood in Scripture to refer to salvific justification. Such words are commonplace in Koine Greek. For example, James could have used such words as δοκιμαζο, δεικνυμι, παριστημι, περιαζω, συμβιβαζω, φανερος.
(2) The addition of “and not by faith [alone]” in Jas 2:24 introduces a specific element and direction to James’ argument, for it clearly shows that his primary concern is to show that faith alone cannot justify a man, not merely to suggest that Abraham was vindicated by works. If his concern were to teach that works are added to faith only as a demonstration of a previous justification, there would be no reason to add “not by faith only,” for “faith [alone]” is not demonstrating anything in order to be negated, and thus it would be unnecessary to eliminate it from the works that are demonstrating
(3) If James were arguing for Abraham’s vindication, this line of argumentation would only make sense if in the context of Jas 2 one of James’ opponents had claimed that Abraham was “vindicated by his faith only.” If so, James would have easily refuted the argument by saying something to the effect of “you see, a person is vindicated by his works and not by faith alone.” But this phraseology would have required James to use the notion of “vindicated” in the early part of his argument (vv. 14-23) in order for him to use it in the latter part (v. 24); otherwise, the concept of vindication would have no referent in the context. Moreover, the syntactical structure of Jas 2:24 would require that the phrase “not by faith only” have its referent in “is vindicated,” and thus the text would have to mean: “you see, a man is vindicated by works and not vindicated by faith only.” It would assert that one is vindicated not only by faith but also by works. Consequently, by injecting the concept of vindication into Jas 2:24, the Protestant argument has actually done more damage to its case than would have otherwise occurred, for the concept of vindication must then apply to both faith and works, which then destroys faith itself as being salvific.
(4) The Protestant argument must assume that Paul and James are using two entirely different definitions of justification, the former referring to a forensic and salvific justification, the latter referring to a demonstrative vindication of a prior justification. But two definitions are unsupported by the context. This is noted as James quotes from Gen 15:6 (“And [Abraham] believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness”) in Jas 2:23. Gen 15:6 is the same passage from which Paul quotes in Rom 4:3. The Greek word for “righteousness” in both passages is δικαιοσυνη. Since both James and Paul quote from Gen 15:6, both must have the same definition and understanding of the word δικαιοσυνη. That being the case, it would be totally incongruous for James to suddenly inject a different meaning of δικαιοσυνη’s verbal form, δικαιοω (“justified”), which appears in both Jas 2:21 and 2:24, and surrounds the reference to δικαιοσυνη in Jas 2:23. To support its thesis, the Protestant argument is forced to conclude that James begins with a definition of the δικαιοω word group which means vindication (Jas 2:21), switches to another meaning which refers to salvific justification (Jas 2:23), and then switches back to the meaning of vindication (Jas 2:24).
(5) That vindication cannot be James’ meaning of the word δικαιοω is proven further by his addition of Rahab to the discussion of justification. As James opens up the review of Rahab, he introduces her account by the phrase, “Likewise” or, alternatively, “in the same way” (Jas 2:25). By this wording, James is equating the justification of Abraham to the justification of Rahab and declaring that they are the same. We must conclude then, that there is no theological difference in the way these two people were justified in the eyes of God. If there were a difference, then God would have two systems of justification, one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles, but this cannot be, for God shows no favouritism between Jew and Gentile, and there is only one name under heaven by which men and women are saved. The importance of understanding the correspondence between Abraham and Rahab’s respective justifications becomes clear when we consider that James certainly does not view Rahab’s justification as a vindication. Using Protestant terminology, we cannot say that Rahab was given a forensic imputation of justification prior to the hiding of the Israelite spies. Rahab was a prostitute who lived an immoral life until she encountered God through the Israelites. Her justification comes on the heels of her acceptance of the God of Israel and his laws, which would necessitate that she immediately repent of her evil ways and decided to live righteously. An active event took place in Rahab’s relationship with God, not a demonstration of a previous justification. Hence, if Rahab is not vindicated but is salvifically justified during her encounter with the Israelite spies, and since James insists that Abraham was justified “in the same way,” then we can only conclude that both Abraham in Gen 22 and Rahab in Josh 2 was salvifically justified before God, not vindicated.
Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great: He was revealed in the flesh, vindicated (ἐδικαιώθη) in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, Believed on the world, taken up to glory. (NRSV)
This text shows that δικαιοω has, not just a legal/declarative meaning, but also a transformative meaning. The underlining Greek translated as “vindicated” is ἐδικαιώθη, the indicative aorist passive of the verb δικαιοω. While one can (correctly) argue that δικαιοω has the meaning of "vindicated," it also shows that the verb also have a transformative sense too, by the mere fact that Christ in His resurrection was literally transformed from a state of death to a state of life. I bring this up as many Protestant apologists use the following text to support their understanding of δικαιοω:
But wisdom is justified (ἐδικαιώθη [δικαιοω]) of all her children. (Luke 7:35; cf. Matt 11:19)
While it is true that δικαιοω is used in a sense of "vindication" in this text, it is being used as a metaphor and, furthermore, is not being used in a soteriological context. It is only because the context of these verses does not concern themselves with justification and related issues. Something similar happens in English--if you refer to your wife as "the apple of my eye," such clearly uses "apple" in a metaphorical sense, not the "normative" sense of "apple"--to claim otherwise would result in utter inanity! Obviously, "wisdom" cannot be justified in a soteriological sense, as it is a virtue, so "justified" changes from its "normative" meaning to be accommodated to the metaphorical context it is used in.
On the response from the likes of James White et al. that Jas 2:18 "proves" the vindication understanding of Abraham's justification in this chapter, Robert Sungenis, a Catholic apologist who has debated (and defeated) White on the topic of justification (youtube video) interacted with this (eisegetical) interpretation of White of Jas 2:18 which informs his approach to the rest of the chapter (link):
First, let’s get a proper translation of vr. 18 from the Greek: “But someone will say, You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
Obviously, there are two positions: (1) one person has faith with no works and he is apparently not justified, and (2) a person who has faith and works who is apparently justified.
The sticky point is that person #2 is said to “show his faith by his works,” so that the works are not understood as independent from the faith, but actually “show” the faith.
So the next question is: how does work “show” faith? Well, let’s answer that by dealing with the negative first. The way that works do not show faith is when someone does a good work without believing in Christ. For example, there are many moralistic people who perform good works to other human beings, but are atheists. Obviously, their works are not “showing” their faith.
Hence, works can only “show” faith if the work is done in the name of the faith, or more precisely, in the name Jesus Christ or the Christian faith. If the Christian person does a good work in the name of Jesus Christ, he does so because his Christian faith requires him to do so. He does not have an option to do good works. In other words, to have “faith” in God means that we believe what God has told us about our obligations both to love Him and our neighbor, the two greatest commandments. (Incidentally, this is also why James mentions in vr. 8 the “royal law, to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” It is required to love one’s neighbor, otherwise, as he says in vr. 13, one “will be judged without mercy”).
Hence, if we perform our good works because, as Christians we want to follow the dictates of the Christian faith, we are “showing” our faith by doing our good works. Our faith in God requires us to work, hence, we perform work to display the faith we have in God.
You will notice, however, that doing works to show our faith does not mean that we are qualifying the faith as “saving faith,” since James never uses that phrase in his epistle.
The proper way to phrase it is that “faith by itself” (vr. 14), or “faith alone” (vr. 24) cannot justify, not that works qualify faith so that faith alone can justify. Rather, James insists that BOTH faith and works, working together, will justify a man, not that a qualified faith will justify a man.
Although the two position are close, the fact that Protestants use the “saving faith” phraseology precisely because they want to reject the idea that works need to be added to faith for justification (for they believe that justification is faith alone in the “alien righteousness of Christ” – a position that is not taught in Scripture) is the very reason we must reject their “saving faith” formulation.
The bottom line is this: Just because works “show” faith, that does not mean that faith alone justifies. It only means that works “show” that someone has faith (and only if the work is done in the name of the Christian faith).
If faith were really “alone,” no works would be required at any level. We must insist of the Protestant that, if he is going to claim that faith is “alone” in justification, then no works can enter into the discussion, not even to qualify the faith. The minute he insists that works can be used qualify the faith, then faith is not alone, and thus he should cease using the “faith alone” phraseology. He cannot speak out of both sides of his mouth. Either faith is alone or it isn’t.
Luther believed in the pure “faith alone” doctrine, that is, a faith that was not dependent on works in any way, shape or form. The reason he wanted to eliminate works is that if one tries to qualify his faith by the kind of works he does, then he will always wonder whether his works were good enough to qualify his faith, and thus he is back to the very problem Luther was trying to escape, that is, having to judge his works as good enough to meet God’s standards of righteousness. This is precisely why Luther, before he had is “faith alone” revelation, used to whip himself with chains – so that his works would be good enough (so he thought).
Luther certainly would have rejected the idea that works should be used to qualify faith as “saving faith,” for he knew that such a position would be more Catholic than Lutheran. This is precisely why he wanted to jettison the book of James. He didn’t want to have James insisting that faith and works worked together in any way.
It was only the later Lutherans, under Philip Melanchthon, who rejected Luther’s pure “faith alone” doctrine and began to integrate James back into the picture. They thought they did so by claiming that James was merely speaking about qualifying faith by works, but once they did so they came right back to the Catholic position, yet they camouflaged it by using different phraseology than what was used in Catholic doctrine. But they were really only fooling themselves. As a Protestant, one cannot use works to qualify faith, since one can never know whether his works were sufficient to do the job of qualifying.
In effect, pure Lutheranism only survived in Luther’s generation. No Protestant since Luther has ever really believed in the original “faith alone” doctrine, but they keep using the phrase to make it appear as if they are distant from Catholic doctrine, and few have caught on to it.
Obviously, there are two positions: (1) one person has faith with no works and he is apparently not justified, and (2) a person who has faith and works who is apparently justified.
The sticky point is that person #2 is said to “show his faith by his works,” so that the works are not understood as independent from the faith, but actually “show” the faith.
So the next question is: how does work “show” faith? Well, let’s answer that by dealing with the negative first. The way that works do not show faith is when someone does a good work without believing in Christ. For example, there are many moralistic people who perform good works to other human beings, but are atheists. Obviously, their works are not “showing” their faith.
Hence, works can only “show” faith if the work is done in the name of the faith, or more precisely, in the name Jesus Christ or the Christian faith. If the Christian person does a good work in the name of Jesus Christ, he does so because his Christian faith requires him to do so. He does not have an option to do good works. In other words, to have “faith” in God means that we believe what God has told us about our obligations both to love Him and our neighbor, the two greatest commandments. (Incidentally, this is also why James mentions in vr. 8 the “royal law, to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” It is required to love one’s neighbor, otherwise, as he says in vr. 13, one “will be judged without mercy”).
Hence, if we perform our good works because, as Christians we want to follow the dictates of the Christian faith, we are “showing” our faith by doing our good works. Our faith in God requires us to work, hence, we perform work to display the faith we have in God.
You will notice, however, that doing works to show our faith does not mean that we are qualifying the faith as “saving faith,” since James never uses that phrase in his epistle.
The proper way to phrase it is that “faith by itself” (vr. 14), or “faith alone” (vr. 24) cannot justify, not that works qualify faith so that faith alone can justify. Rather, James insists that BOTH faith and works, working together, will justify a man, not that a qualified faith will justify a man.
Although the two position are close, the fact that Protestants use the “saving faith” phraseology precisely because they want to reject the idea that works need to be added to faith for justification (for they believe that justification is faith alone in the “alien righteousness of Christ” – a position that is not taught in Scripture) is the very reason we must reject their “saving faith” formulation.
The bottom line is this: Just because works “show” faith, that does not mean that faith alone justifies. It only means that works “show” that someone has faith (and only if the work is done in the name of the Christian faith).
If faith were really “alone,” no works would be required at any level. We must insist of the Protestant that, if he is going to claim that faith is “alone” in justification, then no works can enter into the discussion, not even to qualify the faith. The minute he insists that works can be used qualify the faith, then faith is not alone, and thus he should cease using the “faith alone” phraseology. He cannot speak out of both sides of his mouth. Either faith is alone or it isn’t.
Luther believed in the pure “faith alone” doctrine, that is, a faith that was not dependent on works in any way, shape or form. The reason he wanted to eliminate works is that if one tries to qualify his faith by the kind of works he does, then he will always wonder whether his works were good enough to qualify his faith, and thus he is back to the very problem Luther was trying to escape, that is, having to judge his works as good enough to meet God’s standards of righteousness. This is precisely why Luther, before he had is “faith alone” revelation, used to whip himself with chains – so that his works would be good enough (so he thought).
Luther certainly would have rejected the idea that works should be used to qualify faith as “saving faith,” for he knew that such a position would be more Catholic than Lutheran. This is precisely why he wanted to jettison the book of James. He didn’t want to have James insisting that faith and works worked together in any way.
It was only the later Lutherans, under Philip Melanchthon, who rejected Luther’s pure “faith alone” doctrine and began to integrate James back into the picture. They thought they did so by claiming that James was merely speaking about qualifying faith by works, but once they did so they came right back to the Catholic position, yet they camouflaged it by using different phraseology than what was used in Catholic doctrine. But they were really only fooling themselves. As a Protestant, one cannot use works to qualify faith, since one can never know whether his works were sufficient to do the job of qualifying.
In effect, pure Lutheranism only survived in Luther’s generation. No Protestant since Luther has ever really believed in the original “faith alone” doctrine, but they keep using the phrase to make it appear as if they are distant from Catholic doctrine, and few have caught on to it.
Only by engaging in eisegesis (as seen in White’s comments above from The God Who Justifies), and then using that as the interpretive framework for the subsequent verses can one salvage belief in Reformed soteriology. Reformed theology, instead of being reflective of “biblical Christianity,” is instead, a perversion thereof.
It is common for Protestants to make the following apologetic about Abraham in Gen 22 and James' use of this event in Jas 2:
When James reads the story of Abraham, he does not sip past Abraham’s faith in God’s promises or ignore the status that God granted Abraham through his faith. Abraham really did believe that God’s promises were true and God really did count Abraham as righteous and therefore a part of His covenant people (Gen 15:6). The moment he believed God’s promises, Abraham’s status before God was “righteous.” But this righteous status had to be “fulfilled.” If Abraham claimed to believe God but failed to obey Him, then he would have proven that his faith was fake and that his justification was a scam. (Chris Bruno, Paul vs James: What We've Been Missing in the Faith and Works Debate [Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2019], 105)
The problem with this attempted reconciliation of Reformed theology with the Bible’s teachings about Abraham and his justification is that it is utter nonsense. Responding to a similar apologetic by R.C. Sproul, Robert Sungenis wrote the following devastating refutation of this argument:
First, we must object that appealing to God’s omniscience is not the way the Scripture argues the case for a specific individual’s justification. Although it undergirds its handling of justification from a general predestinarian perspective (cf. Rm 8:29-30), Scripture argues its case with regard to named individuals, e.g., Abraham, preponderantly and specifically in temporal terms. In other words, Scripture is not in the habit of naming individuals who are predestined to justification, let alone attempt to secure that justification by an appeal to what God already knows the individual will do. Second, if we follow Sproul’s argumentation to its logical conclusion, it simply proves too much, and ends up nullifying his hypothesis. For example, taking the argument back one step we could say that it was not really necessary for God to draw out even the faith of Abraham in Genesis 15:6, since by his omniscience God would have known all along that Abraham was going to have true faith. If Sproul can use divine omniscience to explain why it was not necessary for Abraham to perform works for God, then, to be fair, Sproul should allow the use of divine omniscience to explain why God really doesn’t need to draw out the faith from Abraham in Genesis 15:6. In the end, argumentation appealing to God’s omniscience is a double-edged sword and does nothing to advance the discussion. If the omniscience argument is used, everything about Abraham, including his act of faith, is superfluous. We all accept that from the very beginning God already foreknows how things will turn out, but that is not the basis from which Paul and James defend their respective doctrines of justification. Neither Paul nor James appeals to divine omniscience to argue his case, rather, they confine themselves to the temporal and chronological account of the Genesis record. Granted, Paul’s argument in Romans 4 hinges on Abraham’s having true faith prior to his circumcision (Romans 4:10-11). The text, however, is absolutely silent about how we know it was true faith other than its appeal to the spiritual disposition of Abraham himself. It does not appeal to God’s omniscience prior to the event. In fact, Scripture often makes a concerted effort to avoid appealing to divine omniscience to explain the actions of God or man (E.g., Gn 6:6; Ex 32:9-14; 33:3-5, Jh 3:10, et al.)
In the end, Sproul’s argumentation destroys itself. It not only makes Abraham’s works superfluous, it also makes his faith superfluous since Sproul must admit it was inevitable that Abraham would manifest both faith and works in his life. We must insist that theologians not appeal to the incomprehensible attributes of God in an effort to explain the enigmas of their theology, especially when Scripture chooses to explain them in very ordinary ways. Scripture explains Abraham’s faith and works on a purely phenomenological level. Genesis 22:12 makes this clear when it describes Abraham as ready and willing to plunge the knife into his son Isaac. The angel of the Lord, speaking for God, says: “Do not do anything to the child. Now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” The angel’s temporal analysis of this event is clear and unambiguous. It is only when Abraham actually performs the act of raising the knife that God makes absolute his knowledge of Abraham’s intentions. The necessity in Gn 22:10 of Abraham’s raising the knife is just as absolute as the necessity in Genesis 15:6 of Abraham’s believing. In fact, Gn 15:6 comes back to haunt Sproul in another way. For if God sees in Abraham’s heart the faith he exhibited in Gn 15:6, and from this knows that Abraham is a firm believer, why should God have to peer again into Abraham’s heart in Genesis 22? Hence we must insist that while God certainly maintains the divine prerogative of foreknowledge, he nevertheless in creating a temporal world has also determined to shape the course of history coincident with the events occurring in the temporal world (This area of theology touches upon what is known as “secondary” or “contingent” causality in the realm of God’s dealing with men). Though this is a mystery, we cannot side with one dimension of God’s attributes at the expense of others to give ourselves a palatable answer to anomalies in our theology or in Scripture. The point in fact is that James, when speaking of Abraham, uses the same word, justification, that Paul uses. Appealing to God’s omniscience to allow oneself to change the definition of justification between Paul and James is something Scripture never does and never even remotely teaches us to do. Scripture presents and understands doctrinal propositions concerning justification at face value, and thus that is the way we should analyse and teach them.
Another problem, and probably the most dangerous one, with appealing to God’s omniscience in such cases is that the reciprocal of that appeal leads the individual to think that it may not be necessary for him to do good works because “God knows my heart.” If we conclude that Abraham’s works were not really necessary because God knew he was already faithful and that he would have done the works in any case, the temptation is very great to view ourselves in the same light. It is exactly this kind of thinking, however, that James warns us against. We cannot “think” we have faith and then ignore a brother or sister in desperate need (Jm 2:15), claiming that “God already knows my heart.” Within that context, James specifies the necessity for Abraham to act on his faith, as well as the necessity for God to be a witness to that act. Nowhere does James entertain the notion that it was not really necessary for Abraham to perform his act in front of God, nor does Abraham, or any other biblical character, ever appeal to God’s foreknowledge of his heart in an effort to spare himself the necessity of work. No example of this is more profound than that of the Lord Jesus himself, who prayed at Gethsemane that the cup of God’s wrath might pass from him. Jesus did not appeal to God’s omniscience of his faithful heart. He understood that he had to accomplish the work of the atonement and without it there would have been no salvation. The Scripture treats the works of Abraham in the same way — without them there could have been no justification. The works have a specific causal and ontological necessity in regard to justification. In fact, God knows that we know that he knows our heart, yet insists that we perform the deed that he desires. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing Inc., 2009], 212-15)
One has to realise that, informing this and other eisegetical comments by Grape and other Protestant apologists, is the blasphemous doctrine of imputed righteousness. To see a full response to a recent attempt to defend this doctrine, see:
Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness (this is a response to John Kauer, “Are You Considered as Good as Jesus? The Imputation Approach” in Eric Johnson and Sean McDowell, eds. Sharing the Good News with Mormons (Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest House Publishers, 2018), 273-81, 339.)
For articles that address and refute Sola Fide, see, for example:
Dave Bartosiewicz vs. Transformative Justification and Refutation of Dave Bartosiewicz on justification and the atonement being forensic
Jimmy Akin vs. Protestant Interpretations of James 2
Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30
Synergistic Soteriology and Philippians 2:12-13
Chris VanLandingham on Philippians 3:9
An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology
Refuting Mike Thomas on Soteriology
Gracious Merit in the Bible
Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30
Synergistic Soteriology and Philippians 2:12-13
Chris VanLandingham on Philippians 3:9
An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology
Refuting Mike Thomas on Soteriology
Gracious Merit in the Bible
And, of course, to see a full refutation of the other pillar of Protestantism, Sola Scriptura, see:
Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura