James 2:14–26

Original Meaning

The Poor Christian Brother or Sister (2:14–17)

JAMES NOW TURNS from the contrast between judgment and mercy to the contrast between faith and deeds. He offers an example of a response to a sister or brother in need in order to argue that true faith is proven by a willingness to step forward and offer concrete assistance.

The passage opens with two rhetorical questions: What good is faith without deeds? Can such a faith issue forth in salvation? The phrase “What good is it” (ti to ophelos) marks the start of a form of style that is modeled on the diatribe. James introduces the players in the diatribe: the author and the fictional “someone” (tis) who represents the position James opposes. While this “someone” is fictional, the position as stated clearly represents an errant position actually held in the church. James has set his sights on this errant belief. It is likely that he has in mind the false teachers to which he refers in chapter 3.

The issue is not new in this letter, seeing that it was introduced in chapter 1. Can authentic faith find expression in a confession of right doctrine alone? Can authentic faith be expressed merely as sentiment that never reaches the point of action? Or is it by necessity a faith that goes beyond these to include practical action? The thrust of James’s argument here (the use of ti to ophelos in verses 14 and 16 suggest that the expression serves as a bracket; i.e., verses 14–16 consist of a position that some within the church hold but James rejects) is that such a faith is without profit and without advantage; it does not issue forth in eternal life.

The use of the phrase “my brothers” in both 2:1 and 2:14 indicates that the people described in 2:1–13 are guilty of holding to a faith that will not issue forth in eternal life. In other words, the issue is not only moral, it is also soteriological (related to salvation). Both Paul and James see faith as a confidence in God’s saving act along with the effect of that act in the lives of the followers of Jesus Christ. Neither Paul nor James see faith as the mere assertion of doctrine. The NIV rightly translates erga here as “deeds” and not “works,” even though it translates this word as “works” in Romans 11:6. Much needless headache and heartache has resulted from a misunderstanding of this term. Paul often employs erga to mean “works of the law”; for James erga means “deeds of Christian righteousness,” a practice that Paul would both expect and demand. The Bridging Contexts section will have more to say on this.

The “faith” in view in the second question of verse 14 is workless faith, not faith per se. James is loathe even to dignify this position with the term “faith.” The use of sosai (“save”) demonstrates that once again the soteriological sense is in view. Here is another clear link to 2:1–13, for this thought makes sense of 2:13. Those who show partiality to the rich at the expense of the poor are performing deeds not of faith, but of the wisdom and standards of Roman culture. Faith without deeds will not only not issue forth in salvation, but it also has nothing concrete to offer to the poor and the needy, for it is essentially self-interested.

Such a position is not unique to James. According to Luke 3:7–14, John the Baptist argued that deeds must accompany true faith. Moreover, after claiming that faith and deeds go together (“a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit”), Jesus in strong terms warned that many who call him “Lord” will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 7:15–23).

James then offers an illustration from the life of the church. He envisions a situation in which church members fail to display even the most basic forms of charity to one another. The fact that this situation is pictured within the community makes it plausible that the “wealthy” of 2:1–13 includes some within the community. With “brother or sister” James may have in mind a married couple, or he may consciously mention a woman in order to highlight the contrast with Roman culture.1 In any event, here is a clear case of ill-clad members of the community.

The example is stylized and so obvious that the point cannot be missed. Both the conditions of being ill-clothed and hungry are the stuff of stock phrases, having numerous Old Testament parallels (Job 24:7; Isa. 58:7). From this self-evident general example James will build his case. If the poorly clothed person of 2:2 is a visitor, James may here be reminding his readers of the parable of the Good Samaritan—they are to care for not only their own, but also others who are needy. They are not only without the necessary clothing, but also without the proper food.

Having given a hypothetical example of crystal clarity, James surprises his readers with a response that seems unbelievable (v. 16). Who could respond to such a clear need in so deficient a manner, so obviously motivated by an empty heart! Yet for James the position of his opponents in the church is equally shocking and unbelievable, even though it does not seem so obvious to the church. The verse presents a series of verbs in the imperative: “Go, be well, get warm, be well fed.” James refers to a group of empty greetings or blessings: “Go in peace! Be well! Good luck!” The serious charge that he offers here is one of offering empty words with a failure to meet the basic human needs of others, perhaps even to become jaded to such needs.

James goes on to say that faith without deeds is dead (nekra). By this he means, of course, that such a faith fails to accomplish the aim of true faith. That kind of faith may have a type of power, but it is not the power proper to faith.2 As Ropes notes, the contrast is not so much between faith and deeds (although this stands in the background) but between dead, useless faith and living faith.3 Faith alone without works is as dead as a body without breath. Deeds are not something extra to be added to faith; they are a necessary constituent part of faith. Without deeds faith is not really true faith—it is only a shadow, a shade, an impostor of true faith.

Bridging Contexts

TWO MAIN ISSUES lodged in this text require careful attention before the lessons James has for us can be applied to the modern world: the relationship between faith and deeds in the New Testament, and the meaning of the term “belief/faith” in the New Testament. Both of these have to do with fidelity to the call of Jesus. Both are also about integrity, that is becoming an integrated person, one in whom beliefs and actions are linked.

Faith and Deeds

THIS IS THE one place where, more than any other, James has achieved notoriety. By all appearances he contradicts the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, which constitutes an apparent theological problem of no mean stature. It is for this reason that Martin Luther issued his famous condemnation of James.16 G. E. Ladd says that “the admission of verbal contradiction is unavoidable.”17 It is this “contradiction” that renders this passage perhaps the most discussed in the entire letter.

Summarily put, here is the problem. In Romans 3:28 Paul says “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” But in James 2:24 we read, “You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone.” It used to be popular for scholars to posit that James knew Romans and Galatians and was here making a deliberate attempt to refute them.18 But this is unlikely. Once we move beyond the superficial, the evidence will show that Paul and James are in essential agreement. Because of the historical interest in this issue, as well as its theological importance, a generous amount of space is here allotted to its explication.

The relationship between the free gift of grace and Christian responsibility is less difficult than the limited ability of human language to express it with facility. The problem is threefold: confusion over the meaning of terms, confusion of the use of Genesis 15:6, and the confusion that results from the failure to understand which of the three tenses of salvation are in view.

(1) The first problem, that of verbal similarity, is perhaps the most vexing. It can be resolved once we recognize that words can carry various meanings and that Paul and James intend different meanings in their use of the same terms. For Paul as well as for James, “saving faith” means acceptance of the gospel and includes a personal commitment to Jesus Christ and his mission. Ladd, following Jeremias,19 understands faith for James as the mere assertion of monotheism.20 While this is certainly a component of the definition of faith that James embraces, it is insufficient. James argues that the monotheistic “belief” of the demons, while it is a form of faith, is insufficient because it is not salvific. Faith is this monotheistic belief, plus a determination to nurture the word planted within, resulting in acts of Christian love.

When our attention shifts to “deeds,” however, the landscape becomes more problematic. Within the Protestant tradition “deeds” are looked on askance, for reliance on deeds is misguided and dangerous. “Faith,” however, is good, for we are saved by grace through faith. There is a decidedly anti-Jewish timbre to this received interpretation. Careful scrutiny of the evidence, however, will not support this received tradition. For Paul “deeds” most often, but not always, meant acts of obedience to the Jewish law, which, he argued, were done in order to demonstrate one’s election and status in the family of God. Since he came to view this belief as erroneous, it, like the “faith” of the demons in James, was not salvific; it was unable to accomplish the purpose of faith. This is Paul’s point in Romans 8:1–4.

For James “deeds” are not the “deeds of the law,” but are those deeds of Christian love that fulfill the royal law. A word of encouragement when more is plainly needed is not Christian love. Action is the key, such as visiting widows and orphans (1:27) or standing against any show of favoritism. For James, “deeds” are the acts of charity that flow from a life lived in concert with God, for God is a God preeminently of mercy. Recalling 2:13, James says that any other “faith” will result in not mercy but judgment. That this is the correct interpretation is sealed by the statement of Paul in Galatians 5:6, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

(2) The second problem involves how both Paul and James use Genesis 15:6.21 Paul believes that the justification granted to Abraham was the result of the promises of God given to him and sealed by circumcision, the sign of the covenant. Justification was something God did in the past, absent any worthiness on the part of Abraham. James, by contrast, passes over the circumcision of Abraham and instead seizes on the near-sacrifice of Isaac. This event he sees as an example of Abraham’s faith, a present demonstration of what God had done in Abraham.

It is striking that the question is almost always posed in terms of James’s disagreeing with Paul, as if James might somehow be deficient. In any supposed conflict between Paul and James, we easily and automatically cast James in the role of defendant. Of course, among Protestants there are historical reasons for this, traceable to Luther. But the real question is whether or not the Pauline view is consistent with Jesus’ view. It was Jesus who said, “Each tree is recognized by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44), and who also said that many will say, “ ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matt. 25:44–46). The standard here is the equivalent of James’s “deeds.”

(3) The final complicating factor involves the temporal location of the “salvation” and therefore the “deeds” in question. In the New Testament generally, and in Paul in particular, salvation is a threefold experience:

It is an accomplished fact: We have been saved (see Eph. 2:8).

It is a present experience: We are being saved (see 1 Cor. 1:18; Phil. 2:12).

It is a future hope: We will be saved (see Rom. 13:11; Phil. 3:20).

Part of the difficulty in rectifying the Paul/James question over deeds is that Paul in Romans 3:28 is speaking of salvation as past event; nothing human beings can do can earn God’s forgiveness. But James, when speaking of deeds, has in mind present activity. When he speaks of salvation as past event, he employs the language not of human merit, but of divine providence: “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth” (James 1:18). The thrust of Paul’s writings is in total agreement with James here.

To be a Christian, in Paul’s mind, is to be alive, to be full of rich, abundant, and pulsating life.22 It is to enter the service of the living God, “the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were” (Rom. 4:17). In this newness of life Christians are made competent by God to be “ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). This Spirit, Paul says, “lives in you” (Rom. 8:11). Here Paul clearly has in mind a life marked by the kind of heart and therefore behavior that marked the life of Jesus. It is to walk a new path, to live “a new life” (6:4).

Paul’s insistence on salvation by faith through grace alone stemmed from his own previous experience in Judaism, in which he claims to have misunderstood the Law as the talisman of nationalistic pride. It also came in the context of his long battle with the Judaizers. Once Paul understood that Jew and Gentile are on equal footing before God relative to election and that election could not be based on merit, either personal or national, he was committed to the proposition that grace was a free gift (Rom. 11:5–6). Paul and the Judaizers agreed that the Cross was God’s act of salvation, but Paul went beyond this to argue that grace must govern every feature of the Christian life:

Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace. (2 Cor. 1:12)

For Paul the grace of God is a potent ethical force:

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened in the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son … in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3–4)

Here Paul paints an image strikingly similar to James, although the vocabulary palate is different. The “righteous requirements” of the law are to be met, just as James argues for “the perfect law that gives freedom” (James 1:25), the “royal law” (2:8), the “law that gives freedom” (2:12). Both Paul and James have an idea of life lived under the direction of God, whether “the Spirit” with Paul or the implanted word with James (1:21).

For Paul a life under grace and in the Spirit is a life of transformation, beginning with the mind (“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,” Rom. 12:2), and continuing to the death of the old life and its patterns (“We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? … our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin,” 6:2, 6), in favor of a new life lived in emulation of the life of our Lord (“count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus,” 6:11; “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son,” 8:29).

Again, the imagery is different, but Paul’s thrust is thoroughly consonant with the thought of James. When Paul pleads with the Roman Christians to put aside their conformity with the pattern of this world, he is making the general case of which the plea of James to avoid favoritism is the particular expression. Even the Pauline language of election and conformity to the image of Jesus Christ rings true to James, where in 1:18 he says, “He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.” So between James and Paul there is no disagreement of substance, but only one of vocabulary and emphasis. Paul was trying to argue against a false doctrine that deeds of the law apart from faith lead to salvation. James does not see faith by itself as deficient; rather, he argues that true faith always results in good deeds.23

But amid this flurry of theology it must be remembered that James, like Jesus, calls us to obedience—a radical obedience. To paraphrase Bonhoeffer, when Christ calls you, he calls you to come and die.24

“Belief” and Its Range of Meaning

THIS MULTIFORM RANGE of meanings for the same theological concept is operative not only in drawing comparisons between two different authors or books in the Bible, but it is sometimes present in a single book. In James we encounter various uses of the term “faith.” The demons have a “faith,” as do the opponents of James. But James would hardly consider either of these a saving faith. Now this variety in meaning might appear troublesome and awkward.

But there is a parallel in the Gospel of John that may shed light on James. In that Gospel the word group pisteuo/pistis (“believe/belief”) has this character. In John 2:11, after the miracle at Cana, the disciples “put their faith in” Jesus. This belief, we assume, is a saving faith. This assumption appears to be confirmed in 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But in 6:66 many of the disciples who had believed in him “turned back” because of a hard saying and “no longer followed him.” So the “belief” of some of the disciples was not salvific. In John 11 is recounted the story of the raising of Lazarus. Jesus waits to travel to Bethany until Lazarus has died, and he provides this explanation to his disciples: “For your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe” (11:14). Jesus apparently holds that the faith the disciples possess is growing toward, but is not yet, saving faith. In 12:42–43 we learn that “many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith … for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.”

In other words, John, like James, can use the word “faith” to plot locations along a continuum. For John there are those who recognize that in Jesus God is at work but refuse to believe. There are those who believe at first, but turn away. There are those who believe but whose desire for worldly praise overpowers their belief. There are those who are growing toward saving faith. Finally, there is saving faith that is manifested in obeying the commands of Jesus (John 15:9–10). For James at least two kinds of “faith” are not true “faith,” for they cannot save: the “faith” of the demons and the “faith” of the antinomian party that says there is a “faith” without deeds (James 2:18–19). James holds to only one kind of “faith” that deserves the name, that is true, that has the power to save, and that manifests itself in deeds. This “active faith” flows from a life lived in concert with Jesus, just as in John Jesus asks us to “remain in [his] love” (John 15:9).

Contemporary Significance

THE TEACHING OF James in this passage is a call to integrity, a call to live out the gospel. This “living out” is seen not only in the persuasive power one life can have over others in terms of evangelism, but also in the potency of the gospel of Christ to confront structures of evil that, like the stratification of Roman social culture, infect our world. It is with matters such as these that the following discussion is concerned.

One of the crucial aspects of the teaching of James here is the importance of living lives of Christian integrity. Stephen Carter, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University and the author of the influential book The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion, has written a new book titled Integrity.25 Carter says that the definition of integrity in the philosophical literature, which is “living life according to a consistent set of principles,” is inadequate. The leaders of the Nazi regime, after all, were consistent in following their warped convictions. Instead, Carter says, integrity means living life according to a “deeply discerned set of principles.”26 Carter is aware that this definition does not guarantee “morality,” but he is writing in and for contemporary pluralistic American culture, and one can no longer assume a common religious or Christian moral framework. However, he does point out that the current popular definition of tolerance as the suspension of moral judgment is erroneous, foolhardy, and dangerous. Tolerance in a democracy, he says, means to be open to dialog with those of different opinions, and in contemporary America it ought to mean an openness to dialog with those who embrace an ethic based on religious principle.

James calls us to live consistently according to Christian principles. We need to do this for at least three broad reasons. (1) It brings glory to God. Augustine said of God, “You have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you.”27 Our living consistent with his teachings brings God pleasure.

(2) Such a pattern of life is our rightful heritage. James says growing up in faith is what makes us mature and complete (James 1:4). It is ultimately to our benefit that we grow into what God intends for us.

(3) There is something that others find attractive about lives that are lived with consistency. A reporter for the CBS news program Coast to Coast staged an experiment.28 He “lost” his wallet in the back seat of a cab several times in order to see how people would react. In the wallet he placed a business card with his cellular phone number, $23.00, and a shopping list, including a notation to get a “present for dad.” Nearly everyone who noticed the wallet in the back seat of the cab called him within minutes and returned it to him with every item intact. Even though some of these “good Samaritans” were working at minimum wage jobs, each refused his offer of the $23.00 as a reward. And so we found Mohammed, Sonia, and the rest attractive because of their honesty and integrity.

Recently I spoke at a conference for people involved in ministries of prayer and evangelism. During one of the breaks I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine who had been to an evangelism training seminar. After a session one day he had returned to his hotel “pumped up,” in his words, to put some of what he had learned into practice. “So that night I prayed that God would put an opportunity before me,” he said.

God answered his prayer. The following morning found him in the hotel hot tub. Soon he was joined by three men, all of whom knew each other. Immediately he sensed that God was answering his prayer. But then these companions began to drink Jack Daniels and to snort cocaine. Suddenly, the scenario did not seem so promising. But my friend entered into conversation with them, which eventually turned to the matter of the professional life of each. Not knowing what to expect, my friend told the men his line of work and that he was in town for a training session in evangelism. One of the men then responded, “That is really interesting. I have a question for you. Can you tell me what ‘born again’ means? I really do not know. Until recently I laughed at people who said they were ‘born again,’ but some people I have known for years talk that way now, and the thing is, I have watched them and I know that their lives have been transformed. So, what is ‘born again’? I really need to know.” The consistent model of Christian living has the power to draw others to the kingdom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers an interesting view on the issue. In his book The Cost of Discipleship, this modern martyr29 draws a distinction between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” “Cheap grace” is a type of faith that does not necessarily lead to actions, because it does not demand a changed heart. “Cheap grace,” he says, means

grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian conception of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins…. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.30

In contrast to cheap grace, Bonhoeffer defines “costly grace” as “the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble…. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.”31 Bonhoeffer makes the point that “cheap grace” convinces the sinner that only those who believe can obey, and thus the sinner is able to engage in the self-delusion of absolution. Since they do not believe, they cannot obey. This, Bonhoeffer claims, is one of the sadly twisted results of cheap grace. Christians must remember and live by both sides of the proposition, “Only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.”32 When Jesus called his disciples, it meant that faith “can no longer mean sitting still and waiting—they must rise and follow him. The call frees them from all earthly ties, and binds them to Jesus Christ alone. They must burn their boats and plunge into absolute insecurity in order to learn the demand and the gift of Christ.”33 Obedience both precedes faith and is the consequence of faith.

Bonhoeffer worked out his salvation in the midst of the Nazi regime in World War II. Americans face a difficult crucible, although we are not always aware of it. It is a crucible with elements to which we have perhaps become jaded, because we distance ourselves from them and claim they bear no relation to our lives. But they are a part of the American landscape. James said we have no business saying to those in need, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed….” So perhaps we should open our ears and our eyes. Eazy-E, the now-deceased lead rapper of NWA (Niggers With Attitude), consciously “pushed the envelope” of imagery, brazenly rapping lyrics that feature “gunshots as backdrops to their brutal and ugly X-rated tales of drug-dealing, gangbanging and police confrontations.” As Eazy-E tells it, gangster rap is something of the alternative press for the underclass in Los Angeles:

We’re telling the real story of what it’s like living in places like Compton. We’re giving [the fans] reality. We’re like reporters. We give them the truth. People where we come from hear so many lies that the truth stands out like a sore thumb.34

Critics of American culture rightly decry the untrammeled violence and sexual malevolence that gangster rap employs like grease on the skids of its antinomian crusade not for justice, but for commercial success.35 But we should be careful to point out that there are issues that have given rise to this hostility. James provides us with the examples of Abraham and Rahab, both of whom perceived a need and sought to meet it. Their faith was not dead but living. Perhaps the evangelical community has been too slow to recognize the real needs in our society, a complex of factors that can crush those affected. Who will be Abraham or Rahab today?

Recently I had Pastor Willie Jemison of the Oakdale Covenant Church in Chicago speak to one of my classes. When Pastor Jemison came to this church on the south side of Chicago in the early 1970s, he realized that education was the greatest need in the community. Under his leadership the church began to implement a series of educational programs tailored to meet the particular needs in that community. Currently 99 percent of the young people at Oakdale graduate from high school, while the figure is about 50 percent for the community at large; 85 percent of the young people from Oakdale graduate from college, while the figure is about 20 percent for the community at large. Here is a church that has perceived a need and decided to step in and address it.

South-central Los Angeles was, by the mid-1980s, well on its way to becoming a wasteland, deserted by the rest of the economic and social powers of southern California. The area experienced double-digit unemployment, overcrowded schools, and deteriorating housing. A special report in the Los Angeles Times claimed that “the Black ghetto is not a viable community … it is slowly dying.”36 The Los Angeles Unified School District, then the second largest in the nation, served 600,000 students in classrooms more crowded than those in Mississippi, and with a drop-out rate of between 30 and 50 percent. As California suffered from a regional recession in the 1980s, its per capita student expenditure plunged to thirty-third place among the states, with a per student amount one-third that of the state of New York. A 1989 UCLA study found that poverty was increasing more rapidly among Los Angeles Latinos, especially the youth, than any other urban group in the United States.37

There were other inequalities. Southern California experienced a service industry job boom in the 1980s, but the boom was in the suburbs. Young suburban women and men could find work readily available at fast-food establishments and at malls. But for young people in the ghetto, the jobs were as unattainable as if they were on the moon. As Mike Davis points out, there was another product ready to attract the developing business acumen of ghetto youth.38 A social historian who writes in biting and elegant prose, he says, “Through ‘crack’ they have discovered a vocation for the ghetto in L.A.’s new ‘world city’ economy.” The same story is chronicled by Bruce Springsteen in his song “Sinaloa Cowboys,” which he wrote after reading an article in the Los Angeles Times about two Mexican brothers who worked in a drug lab in central California. In their eyes this option was more attractive than the conditions experienced by migrant workers. When he introduced the song during a concert in Fresno, one of the major cities in California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley, he said, “Sixty years after John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath, people are working under conditions in the Central Valley that as Americans we really shouldn’t tolerate.”39

The ghetto knows violence that is raw, inhumane, despicable. But in Los Angeles the rhetoric of safety has served to stratify, not unify. In 1965 the legendary Chief Parker of the LAPD told a television audience, “It is estimated that by 1970 45% of the metropolitan area of Los Angeles will be Negro; if you want any protection for your home and family … you’re going to have to get in and support a strong police department. If you don’t do that, come 1970, God help you.”40 Davis relates how in the spring of 1989 the “bad parent” provision of the Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act of 1988 (STEP) was tested in the arrest of a thirty-seven-year-old South-central woman, whose fifteen-year-old son had been arraigned for gang rape. The triumvirate of press, city attorneys, and police portrayed her as a “welfare queen,” who was contributing to the rise of a generation of baby street terrorists. But some reporters dug deeper and found that the official version was faulty. The police had arrested and publicly humiliated a hard-working single-parent mother of three.41 Davis offers this comment:

As a result of the war on drugs every non-Anglo teenager in Southern California is now a prisoner of gang paranoia and associated demonology. Vast stretches of the region’s sumptuous playgrounds, beaches and entertainment centers have become virtual no-go areas for young Blacks or Chicanos….

Don Jackson, an off-duty policeman from Hawthorne, precisely in order to make a point about de facto apartheid, led some ghetto kids into the Village. They carefully observed the law, yet, predictably, they were stopped, forced to kiss concrete, and searched. Jackson, despite police identification, was arrested for “disturbing the peace.” Afterwards at a press conference, Chief Gates excoriated him for “provocations” and a “cheap publicity stunt,” descriptions more aptly applied to the LAPD. Similarly, a few weeks later, a busload of well-dressed Black members of Youth for Christ were humiliatingly surrounded by security guards and frisked for “drugs and weapons” at the popular Magic Mountain amusement park. Park managers adamantly defended their right to search “suspicious” (i.e., Black) youth as a matter of policy.42

As Christians we bear a responsibility to those caught in the grip of systemic evil and neglect. We also must recognize that at times we also are caught in the same net. Our desire for status and wealth is but one example. We are called to be Abraham and Rahab to our world.

Of course, the mere presence of systemic evil does not condone the acts of the sinner caught in the system. In his book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, Cornelius Plantinga quotes Jack Beatty:

Even poor youths, even poor, ill-educated youths, even poor, ill-educated youths who live in a society suffused by racism, must be responsible for their acts. To believe otherwise is to espouse an environmental determinism nearly as offensive to reason and morality as racism itself. Crime, arson, running amok in the streets, have social contexts, not social causes. The [media blare about] the contexts is an insidious distraction that rests on the presumption that society is responsible for the crimes against it. That is legal and moral nonsense.43

Plantinga then asks if society does not at least share in responsibility. I believe he is right. Individuals must be held accountable for their actions. If not, then the grace of God is a sham. But a society in which schools are unequally funded, when public instruction is marked by a legal mandate to avoid attempts to clarify morals, when the judicial system protects rap groups that glamorize the murder of police and inhuman violent behavior toward women, then, Plantinga says, perhaps society does bear some responsibility.

Augustine said that evil is, in effect, the absence of good.44 Systemic evil may provide a context in which sin is more likely to thrive. But it does not “cause” the decision of a young man to murder a convenience store clerk. One of my childhood friends was shot by the police a decade ago. He had robbed a convenience store using a realistic looking squirt gun. When cornered by the police and ordered to stop, he turned and raised his pseudo-weapon. It was his last mistake. He had turned to robbery to pay for his drug habit. The social conditions in which he lived did not “cause” his death. He made the decisions that led to it. But social conditions made those decision more likely.

Christopher Lasch, the influential, iconoclastic historian and critic of American culture, once offered his take on the matter relative to religion. According to Lasch,

[Religion] is a challenge to self-pity and despair, temptations common to all of us, but especially to those born into the wrong social class…. Submission to God makes people less submissive in everyday life. It makes them less fearful but also less bitter and resentful, less inclined to make excuses for themselves. Modern social movements, on the other hand, tend to rely on resentment…. They distrust any understanding that would seem to “blame the victim.” In this way they discourage the assumption of personal responsibility.45

It is the expression of sentiments like this that earn Lasch the ire of liberals. His condemnation of corporate capitalism has earned him the ire of conservatives. The Bible affirms that systemic evil is a reality. Paul refers to this evil as the principalities and powers (Rom. 8:38), and James refers to the power of hell (James 3:6). But the Bible also affirms that human beings bear personal responsibility for their actions. Further, James issues a call to Christians that is simple, yet awesome in its scope. What good is faith if you turn your back or close your eyes to others in need. Where are the Abrahams and the Rahabs, whose faith is proved in action?

Perhaps one of the most eloquent and powerful examples of faith in action is that of John Perkins. John Perkins was born in rural Mississippi in 1930. His family was not religious, but in fact, he says, was known for its tough disposition. Growing up in Mississippi he experienced racism and hatred firsthand. As a teenager he watched his older brother die after having been severely beaten by a white deputy sheriff. Shortly thereafter he moved to California and felt he had escaped the crushing conditions of racial hatred and economic oppression of the South.

In 1957 Perkins became a Christian. Shortly thereafter he became involved with a group of Christian businessmen. Two of them asked John to go with them to visit California youth prison camps. These camps were for young men, ages thirteen to seventeen. Most of them, says Perkins, were black.

A black witness was needed. And that black witness was me…. These boys in prison camp often had backgrounds just like mine. Their voices and their accents sounded like guys I grew up with…. Like me, they came without many skills, without much education. Like me, they didn’t have a strong religious background.46

But, Perkins realized, he had escaped by God’s grace. “So if God had done all this for me, and if He loved these others no less than He did me, what did all this mean? What did it say to my plans for my ‘good’ Christian life?”47 A conviction began to grow in him.

Real soon the conviction became a command. I remember the night it happened—the night God spoke to me through His Word about going back to Mississippi and starting a ministry for Him there. I was giving my testimony that night to an all-white church in Arcadia, California.

Standing before the crowd of people gathered there, I used as my text Romans 10:1,2, where Paul says, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”

God took the power of Paul’s love for His people and shot it through me, saying, “John, my desire for you is that you go back to Mississippi, because I bear your people witness that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened.”48

Armed with the “full gospel,” a message of new life in Christ, and the biblical call to justice, John Perkins, his wife, Vera Mae, and their children, started Voice of Calvary Ministries, beginning in the town of Mendenhall, Mississippi. They started Bible classes for young and old; developed programs to send young people to college; inaugurated a child care center, voter education and registration programs, and leadership development programs; established a housing cooperative, a farmer’s cooperative, and a retail cooperative, as well as a health center and a legal aid center—all of this because John Perkins understood that social and economic problems will never be solved until hearts are changed, and that changed hearts do not rest until justice and hope come to full flower. He saw the truth of the gospel, that God in interested in the whole person.

In tones that are characteristically gentle yet probing, John Perkins writes that maybe “evangelical Christians, black and white, were confusing theology with the status quo.”49 In this he stands as a prophet both to the white church, which he accurately says too often ignores its responsibility to all those created in the image of God, and to the black church, which in his judgment had too often failed to speak out. He describes it this way: “If Voice of Calvary is a model, it is because it is one of the few times that evangelism, social action and community development have been put together in the black and poor community of the United States.” Although he was nearly beaten to death in 1970 while in the custody of law enforcement officials following a civil rights demonstration, John Perkins has never lost sight of his vision, his hope, his courage, and his compassion. In the crucible of self-reflection following this torture, the truth of these principles was reified for him.

I began to see with horror that hate could destroy me…. This whole business of hating and hating back. It’s what keeps the vicious cycle of racism going…. Jesus looked at the mob that lynched him … [and] he forgave them. It’s a profound, mysterious truth, Jesus’ concept of love overpowering hate. I may not see its victory in my lifetime. But I know it’s true … because it happened to me. On that bed, full of bruises and stitches—God made it true for me. He washed my hatred away and replaced it with a love for the white man in rural Mississippi.50

John Perkins has replicated this effective model of community development in Jackson, Mississippi, and Pasadena, California. He is the cofounder and chairman of the Christian Community Development Association, and the publisher of Urban Family magazine. He has sought tangible ways to address the social, economic, and spiritual needs of people who, through a combination of personal choice and systemic indifference, are at the margins of our society. These are people who, in his words, God loved “no less than He did me.”

John Perkins has taken the call of James seriously and worked to create a place where casual or systemic favoritism finds no home. James warns his readers against empty words, against the pious chant, “Be well, be warm, be fed.” Perkins has taken up the struggle to meet these needs and to empower people to meet them for themselves. In the foreword to Dr. Perkins’ book Let Justice Roll Down, Senator Mark Hatfield wrote:

This is the story of a black man who was nearly a martyr, and is surely a modern saint. Most of us have never known any of the ruthless poverty, the raw violence and hardened injustice that were inflicted upon John Perkins as a black person in Mississippi. And there are few whom I have ever known whose lives have responded to such overwhelming indignities with such a witness of miraculous compassion, vision and hope.

The story of John Perkins reveals the transforming and revolutionary power of Jesus Christ…. [It is a story] about the costs of discipleship … [and] the relentless hope and the limitless love which can be born in the hearts of those who follow Jesus.51

In the hallowed halls of universities and colleges, in the sanctified confines of churches, issues such as community development, social action, and justice are studied. John Perkins and his family have lived them out in the concrete, with their blood, their sweat, their tears, and their joy. They offer to us a living monument to the potent caliber of hope for what can be—careful study that results in action, a passion for the good of others, and compassion that flows from the very heart of God. These virtues James would have lodge in our hearts and minds, verities whose pursuit is worth the commitment of a lifetime.

Original Meaning

True Faith, Dead Faith (2:18–20)

JAMES NOW OFFERS a rational argument in order to show that while there may be a type of “faith” that does not issue forth in deeds, such faith is dead; it has no saving power. True faith, he insists, always changes the heart and therefore results in acts of mercy and compassion.

“But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do” (v. 18). Here is a bold challenge, one that has the tone to make many evangelicals nervous.4 There is also a serious grammatical difficulty here. Clearly with verse 18 the diatribe style is in play, but where does this end? Who is the “someone” who is quoted? There are five basic options.

1. An ally to James is introduced at this juncture, and the ally engages in dialogue on behalf of James; James resumes speaking in verse 19.

2. The speaker in verse 18 is an opponent of James, and James resumes speaking in verse 19. Even though this option is not without its difficulties, it seems to be the best one, particularly in modified form.

3. Verse 18 is comprised of an imaginary dialogue between two fictive persons.

4. James resumes speaking midway through verse 18, “Show me your faith without deeds.”

5. The opponent of James is the speaker through verse 19, and James resumes speaking in verse 20.

The first option is championed by James Adamson,5 among others. This position posits the introduction of an ally to James, a supporter of his position. If it is an ally of James, most of the grammatical difficulties are settled, and “you” refers to the believer of “faith without deeds,” and the “I” refers to the ally of James. To resolve the grammatical difficulties so neatly is no mean accomplishment. James 2:17–18 then reads, “Faith without deeds is dead. But if someone who believes that faith without deeds is dead says, ‘You have faith, I (you admit) have deeds,’ show me your so-called ‘faith’ apart from deeds (I know you cannot), and I will show you my faith by what I do.” The problem with this interpretation is that the verse begins with an adversarial term alla (“but”). There is no apparent parallel for alla introducing anything but the opposing position; it seems unlikely that James would provide the only exception known to us. In addition, it is difficult to discern what James would gain through the use of such a device. In short, it is grammatically possible, but unlikely.

The second option (that the objector is an opponent of James’s position) is the natural conclusion, given the style of a diatribe or even a homily. The difficulty is that this objector does not object, but simply restates the position offered by James. One suggestion is that the phrase ought to be taken as a question: “Do you have faith?” to which James responds that he has deeds.6 This solution is fraught with difficulties and has won few supporters. A variant possibility is the suggestion that the case made by the objector has been lost, so that all that remains is the response of James.7 This too is a solution with limited merit.

The third option is perhaps the weakest. While this solution seems to avoid the problems associated with the second option, it is unlikely, given the extremely awkward construction. If this were the situation the more natural construction would probably have been allos … allos (“one has faith, another one has deeds”).8

Martin offers the fourth option, and while it may not negotiate the rather difficult grammatical woods with the skill some would wish, it does preserve the basic intent of the verse.9 In Martin’s interpretation, James begins his response to his opponent with the words “Show me” in verse 18. But this requires James to have altered the words of his opponents, so that the “you” in “you have faith” is the opponent of James, and the “I” of “I have deeds” is James himself. While this solves the grammatical problems, it is a rather laborious solution. It does possess, however, the happy benefit of a straightforward reading of the second half of verse 18. According to this view James challenges his opponent to demonstrate faith apart from works—which, of course, is impossible. James then claims to demonstrate faith through deeds. This is consistent with the thought of the letter: Only faith that issues forth in deeds is true faith.

In the final option James allows his opponent to separate faith from deeds, arguing that each is a component of genuine religion. The great difficulty here is that verse 19 is more naturally read as supporting the position of James. However, it is not inconceivable that verse 19 can be construed as an attempt to support the position of the opponents of James. In either case, the view expressed at the end of verse 18—that there is a legitimate faith without deeds, and another faith with deeds—is consistently denied in James.

”You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” If this is still the voice of the opponent of James, then his argument is simply that a type of faith exists as faith without and distinct from deeds. This opponent then refers to the Shema,10 the ancient confession used by Jews and then by Christians (“Hear, O Israel, there is only one God, and no other,” cf. Deut. 6:4). He notes that even demons believe this, and this, therefore, is a faith without deeds. To our eyes this seems a tortured reading of verse 19, but it is a possibility. Such a reading would allow for the response of James in the verses that follow, that such a “faith” is so useless as to be no faith at all.

But it is also possible to read this verse in light of the fourth option—that is, that 2:19 continues the response of James to his opponents.11 If so, he then remarks that to believe in the one God is an excellent starting point, but such an intellectual conclusion is not true faith, for even the demons know this much. Religion that is worth something involves action that grows from the heart. This view has the advantage of nicely picturing those members of the Christian community who refuse to offer concrete assistance to the poor. Instead, they show favoritism by offering only pious verbal nothings. Their sense of spiritual security is false, and their faith is no more salvific than the knowledge that even the demons possess, that there is only one God.

Laws wisely points out, however, that to suppose the belief of the demons in God is merely intellectual is greatly to undervalue the point.12 The belief of the demons is no mere intellectual assent of passive consequence, for the demons believe “and shudder.” The demons believe something about God that occasions a response. Laws argues that James is here referring to the rite of exorcism. By this interpretation there are, then, three types of faith held up for consideration: faith separate from deeds; a faith which is marked by evil deeds (the “faith” of demons); and the faith that James champions, one that results in good deeds.

Whether or not Laws is right, we may summarize the argument as follows. The speaker of 2:18 holds a position in opposition to that of James (option 2, above). His argument is: (1) Faith and deeds are separate entities; for (2) if faith is validated by deeds, then it can be said to have some existence prior to this validation; thus, (3) faith is both prior to and superior to deeds; and (4) the demons believe without deeds, so therefore a nonsaving faith does indeed exist. While both James and his opponents believe that a faith with deeds exists and is a saving faith, James cannot agree with his opponents that there is a saving “faith” that exists without deeds.

In response James argues that (1) faith and deeds cannot be sundered; (2) the only faith that is worthy of the name is faith that expresses itself in deeds; and (3) faith without deeds is false, since it “does not work”; it fails to accomplish its purpose. This last is a potent point and is able to survive the interpretation of Laws. Faith has a purpose, and that purpose is for the word to grow within us (1:18) until we are mature and complete (1:4). Any “faith” that does not move toward the goal of salvation is therefore not “true” faith.13 The idea is similar to that of Isaiah 55:11, where God declares that his word always accomplishes the purpose for which he sends it. Anything less is evidence that what is in view is not the word of God.

In understanding verse 20 we are on firmer grammatical and exegetical ground, for this verse clearly contains the words of James. The de grants to James’s words the force of incredulity: “Don’t you understand? Do you need to be convinced?” The pejorative nature of his response is captured in his use of “foolish” (kene) as the term can mean both foolishness and deficient moral standing. The point, obviously, is that “faith” without works is “faith” in name only. It cannot be saving faith, because it lacks the strength either to attain the proper end of faith (salvation) or the ability to understand that biblical faith is always tied to character and therefore to action, as the great prophets of the Old Testament demonstrate. James even makes his point with a bit of wry humor in the form of a wordplay: Faith without works (ergon) does not work (arge= a + ergos).