James 2:24

Jam 2:24 . Ὁρᾶτε , ye see ) So βλέπεις , seest thou , Jam 2:22 .— ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται , is justified by works ) See Jam 2:21 , note.— ἄνθρωπος , a man ) whether Jew or Greek.— μόνον , only ) The Scripture has foreseen and marked out here the error of those gospel-bearing Cyclopians, as Erasmus terms them, and degenerate disciples of Luther, who have for their banner faith only , not as taught by St Paul, but apart ( desolatam , separated) from works. James 2:24

24. justified and, not by faith only—that is, by "faith without (separated from: severed from) works," its proper fruits (see on [2606]Jas 2:20). Faith to justify must, from the first, include obedience in germ (to be developed subsequently), though the former alone is the ground of justification. The scion must be grafted on the stock that it may live; it must bring forth fruit to prove that it does live.

Ye see then; an inference either from the instance of Abraham, or from the whole preceding discourse. How that by works; works of new obedience. A man is justified; declared to be righteous, or approved as such, and acquitted from the guilt of hypocrisy. And not by faith only; not by a mere profession of faith, or a bare assent to the truth, without the fruit of good works. Question. How doth this general conclusion follow from the particular case of Abraham? Answer. Abraham’s faith and justification, both before God and the world, are set forth as the exempars of ours, to which the faith and justification of all believers, both Jews and Gentiles, is to be conformed, Romans 4:11,12,23,24 . Question. Doth not James here contradict Paul’s doctrine in the matter of justification, Romans 4:1-25 ? Answer. The contradiction is but seeming, not real, as will appear, if four things be considered: 1. The occasion of these apostles’ writing, and their scope in it. Having to do with different sorts of persons, they had likewise different designs.

As Christ speaks one way when he dealt with proud Pharisees, whom he would humble; another way, when with humble hearers, whom he would encourage. and Paul carried it one way when among weak brethren, in condescension to whose infirmities he circumcised Timothy, Acts 16:2,3 ; and another, when he was among false brethren, and men of contention, who opposed Christian liberty, seeking to bring believers into bondage, and then would not suffer Titus to be circumcised, Galatians 2:3-5 . So in the present affair. Paul’s business lay with false apostles and Judaizing Christians, such as did, in the matter of justification, either substitute a self-righteousness instead of God’s grace, or set it up in conjunction with it; and therefore his scope is (especially in his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians) to show the true cause and manner of justification, and vindicate the freeness of grace in it, by the exclusion of man’s works, of what kind soever; to which purpose he propounds the examples of Abraham and David, in their justification, Romans 4:1-1-25 .