James 2

26,27. Here is presented the point of contact between Paul and James. The one speaks of the essential of Christianity as faith, the other as works. They are only striking the stream at different points, one at the fountain-head, one far down its course among the haunts of men. They both preach that faith must be “faith that worketh,” not a barren assent to a dogma, but a living trust that brings forth fruits in the life. Paul believes as much as James that faith without works is dead, and demands the keeping of the commandments as indispensable to all true Christianity. James believes as much as Paul that works without faith are of none effect. A. M.—The soul of religion is the practical part. This Talkative is not aware of; he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian; and thus he deceiveth his own soul. Hearing is but the sowing of the seed; talking is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life: and let us assure ourselves that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits; it will not be then said, Did you believe? but, Were you doers, or talkers only? And accordingly they shall be judged. The end of the world is compared to our harvest; and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit. Bun.

27. When the apostle here speaks of pure and undefiled religion, he does not set down what is the whole nature of religion, but only some particular evidences of it. Religion requires faith and worship, and the truth of these is manifested by charity and a holy life. A holy life and a bounteous heart are ornaments to the Gospel. T. M.—Before God. All depends on the great principle from which the self-denial and beneficence here demanded proceed, and this principle is with the upright disciple of the Lord indissolubly one with his sanctifying faith. James speaks, indeed, to such as had already by God’s gracious good pleasure been begotten again with the word of truth, which they had believingly embraced, so that they had now passed into a new condition of life as first-fruits of his creatures. Van O.

There have been and are such characters as benevolent worldlings. They are tender-hearted and compassionate by the bent of their dispositions, from impulse and not from principle. Such benevolence may not for a moment be confounded with pure religion. In it there is an essential element not only of love, but also of self-restraint. While it is easily moved by the sight of suffering, and eagerly springs to its relief, it has none of that moral pliancy which lays it open to the seduction of worldly maxims or of fleshy lusts. It keeps itself unspotted from the world. E. M. G.—Conscientious practical activity tends to preserve the inward fervor of the soul, as that fervor again moves and prompts to further activity. The inward and the outward act and react upon each other. Action will not be spiritually beneficial unless it is inspired by what the soul receives through the study of the Word, the light of faith, and the power of prayer—thought and devotion, the clear perception of truth and duty, and the emotions of the heart in relation to both—these are not enough, unless they are combined with the practical endeavor to be what is admired, and to do what is approved. The prayer of the morning must be the precept for the day; and the duties of the day must expand into praise at the evening sacrifice. In this way, song and service will go together. They will blend into one. Faith and works will mutually strengthen and illustrate each other. T. B.

1. My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect 2 of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly ap- 3 parel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that 4 weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the 4 poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: are ye not then partial in yourselves, 5 and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God 6 chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath prom- 6 ised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, 7 and draw you before the judgment seats? Do not they blaspheme that worthy name by 8 the which ye are called? If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt 9 love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, 10 and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole law, 11 and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become

12 a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law 13 of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. 14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? 15 can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one 16 of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give 17 them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, 18 if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and trem- 20 ble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abra- 21 ham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And 23 the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto 24 him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works 25 a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified 26 by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

A MAN of great intellectual powers and ardent but not perfect piety once heard two pilgrims of apostolical authority conversing in the way to heaven. One of them said, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. The other said, Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. The man went away and reported that there was a quarrel between those two, and that the latter of the two was strawy in his sayings. The mistaken man was Martin Luther. Now there is so far from being a quarrel between Paul and James, that there is not even a difference. The two passages are only opposite sides of the same great truth, the great distinguishing truth of the gospel, the truth of justification and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. One text shows the side toward God in Christ, the other the side toward man; both are equally true. It is at one and the same time an undeniable truth, that faith without works is the only true religion, and yet that faith without works is no religion at all, and also that works without faith are no better than sin. G. B. C.—Paul had said, and truly, “Ye are saved by faith.” James added, “Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.” This is the burden of his doctrine: not works independent of faith, not mere external morality, not dry, legal obedience, with no moisture and no root, but works as expressing faith, manifesting it, its natural fruit, and in turn reacting upon it, to confirm and multiply it. Paul proclaims the immortal truth lying at the very heart of the gospel, “By God’s grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves; it is free gift.” James accepts this declaration, but urges us to remember that the spirit must have a body; that God’s free grace is granted only on conditions, and may be detected by certain signs; and that, where it really has a vital seat within, it will inevitably bud and blossom into the pure and undefiled religion, which visits the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keeps itself unspotted from the world. F. D. H.

2-4. These three verses form but one sentence—and the apostle principally complains of a proneness to give honor to worldly greatness merely on account of worldly greatness, and paying more homage to exalted wickedness than to oppressed grace. T. M.—He is deprecating that homage to wealth which implies that it is honorable for its own sake alone, and that poverty is disgraceful however borne; a homage which, while it is sinful everywhere, can not be practiced in the sanctuary without offering peculiar insult to the throne of God. J. H.

5. God is wanting to no creature. Though the

godly rich have goodly portions here, they have God for their portion too. And though the godly poor are without temporal abundance, they have the riches of the gospel, “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” God in mercy warns and teaches (in his word) both rich and poor. Blessed are they who, in lowliness of mind and poverty of spirit, receive the word as from the Lord. Rich in faith. Both poor and rich should aspire after that faith which is God’s gift, and which will make all the recipients of it rich indeed; rich in the pardon, mercy, strength, and righteousness of the Lord!

6. Despised the poor. God never made a creature for contempt. “Whoso reproacheth the poor despiseth his maker”—that is, contemns the wise dispensation of God. The existence of the poor is one of the settled constitutions and laws of Providence; and it is necessary for the uses and services of the world. T. M.

8. The main idea running through the whole Epistle is that of the permanence of the law and of moral obligation under the Christian dispensation. The law is taken in its deepest sense; it is to him the expression of absolute good. He does not speak, in fact, so much of particular precepts of the law as of the law regarded as an indivisible whole, and restored to that unity which is inseparable from spirituality. The royal law is a law of love, a perfect law, and a law of liberty. It is no mere external commandment; it is a spiritual law to be engrafted into the heart of man. It is to be observed that James preserves a complete silence as to the ceremonial law; he says not a single word about it. We find him in his Epistle just as we have seen him in the Acts; he does not attach any universal obligation to the observance of the Mosaic law; he himself conforms to its rites only because of his nationality; but he insists alone on the great and eternal principle of all morality—conformity to the will of God. De P.—Many duties may be done on lower motives without a divine respect to the commands and glory of God. But renewing grace subjects the soul to the whole royalty of the law, uniformly inclines it to express obedience to all its precepts, because they are pure and derived from the eternal spring of purity. It mortifies concupiscence and quickens to every good work from a principle of love to God, and in this is distinguished from the most refined unregenerate morality. Bates.

Thy neighbor as thyself. The term neighbor includes every creature of God that needeth a blessing and can be blessed. Christianity instructs the hearts of her disciples to take home to their warmest charities and prayers every fellow-man, of whatever nation or religious faith. It creates a spirit in man which sends him abroad with both hands full of all that can bless and endow human existence; which sends him especially with proffers of salvation in the name of Christ to the worldly and graceless, who are wont to enter no churches, to read no Bibles, to listen to no mercy. Under the gospel, man is not all inhumanity to man. Heart does meet heart; does warm and grieve at the call of sorrow and need; if another be burdened, feels itself the pressure; if he be delivered, exults in the emancipation. Certainly heaven has not a mightier coadjutor on the earth than man’s feeling for man, when baptized under Christianity with the Holy Ghost and with fire. White.

Ye do well. God has his measuring lines and his canons, called the Ten Commandments; they are written in our flesh and blood. The sum of them is: “What thou wouldest have done to thyself, the same do thou to another.” God presses upon this point, saying: “Such measure as thou metest, the same shall be measured to thee again.” With this measuring line has God marked the whole world. They that live and do thereafter, well it is with them, for God richly rewards them in this life. Luther.

10. This law is the law of perfection. He who understands it resembles that hero so frequently celebrated in history, who believed that he had done nothing so long as anything remained for him to do. No relation of his life, no moment of his career, no part of his duty, can be withdrawn from this universal empire of the moral law. To obey in everything, to obey always, to obey perfectly—such is the unchangeable rule of his conduct. The question with him is not about enjoyment, or power, or life, but about obedience. The laws of nature may change, those of duty remain. The universe may dissolve, the moral law continues. A. V.—Its precepts are not to be taken severally, but altogether, as they make one entire law and rule of righteousness, the contempt reflecting upon the whole law when it is violated in one point, as he that wrongeth one member wrongeth the whole man or body of which he is a part. It is the voluntary and allowed neglect of any part of the law that makes us guilty of the violation of the whole law. All the commands are equal in regard of God; they are all ratified by the same authority which man contemns when he makes his own will the measure of obedience. The law is like a chain which is dissolved by the loosening of one link. True love is called a fulfilling of the whole law; and, on the other hand, one allowed sin is virtually a violation of the whole law. T. M.

When men speak of the consequences of a single sin as unduly severe, they forget the nature of sin itself. To sin is not merely to rebel against a holy and good being—the law, on obedience to which is suspended the happiness of the moral universe—but it is a deliberate rejection of the authority of God and submission of the soul to the desires of the human heart. F. W.—The law demands absolute control where it enters, and when it moves it moves always with the full weight of its command, condensing the whole strength of its blessing on every point of occupation, and accepting none but unconditional submission. If you single out some one chosen indulgence, however secret—a dubious custom in business, a fault of the tongue or temper—and placing your hand over that reply to the all-searching commandment of the Most High: “This I can not let go; this is too sweet to me, or too profitable to me, or too tightly interwoven with my constitutional predilections, or too hard to be put off”—then the quality of a disciple is not in you. There is a portion of your being which you do not mean, or try, to consecrate to heaven. And that single persistent offense vitiates the whole character. F. D. H.—There is no sin so small but it tends to the utmost wickedness that can possibly be committed. An irreverent thought of God tends to no less than blasphemy and atheism; a slight grudge of another tends to no less than murder; and though at first they seem to play only singly about the heart, yet within a while they will mortally wound it. Bp. Hopkins.

11. Here is a proof of the intention of the former sentence: that we are not to look to the matter of the command, as to how far it complies with our desires and interest, but to the authority of the Lawgiver. The apostle gives an instance in the sixth and seventh commandments. God, that hath said one, hath said both. They are precepts of the same law and Lawgiver; and therefore, in the violation of one of these laws, the authority of the law is violated. He proves that the whole law had an equal obligation upon the conscience, because he that said the one said the other. God’s will is motive enough to obedience. Every sin is an affront to God’s sovereignty, as if his will were not reason sufficient; and an affront to his wisdom, as if he did not know what was good for men; and to his justice, as if the ways of God were unequal!

12. The apostle had been mentioning, in the twenty-sixth verse of the first chapter, speech, the guidance of the tongue, and in this chapter actions; and now he joins his directions and says, “So speak ye and so do” (as relating to the case before you) as persons who “shall be judged by the law of liberty.” He was addressing Christians—persons not under the law as a covenant, but under grace. Believers are freed from the bondage and terror of the law, yet not from the obedience of it. The law in the hands of Christ is a law of liberty, not a law of license to sin, for Christ is not the minister of sin. T. M.—There is no proper liberty but under rule, and in the sense of rule. It holds high sisterhood with law, nay, it is twin-born with law itself. Even our existence droops and drags a chain if it can not touch some principled way of order, to be ennobled by it. There is, in fact, no bondage so dreadfully sterile as vagabondage; that which strays and straggles where it will, and finds no hand of discipline ever laid upon it. H. B.—No one denies the perfection, the sublimity of the gospel morality; men indeed seem to feel a sort of self-complacency, a satisfaction in celebrating it, with a view to the conclusion, more or less explicitly stated, that morality constitutes the whole gospel. This is, howhowever, not less than absolutely to mistake the bond that unites in man thought with sentiment and belief with action. Man is grander and less easy to satisfy than superficial moralists pretend; the law of his life is for him, in the profound instinct of his soul, necessarily connected with the secret of his destiny; and it is only the Christian dogma that gives to Christian ethics the royal authority of which they stand in need to govern and to regenerate humanity. Guizot.

13. To be unmerciful is a sin most unsuitable to grace. We pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.” God’s love to us ought to melt the soul, and affect us not only with contrition toward God, but with compassion to our brethren. To be unmerciful is unlike God; he gives and forgives. Unmercifulness is twofold; it neither gives nor forgives. T. M.

14-20. True faith evinces itself in fraternal consideration and charity. Dead and formal faith betrays itself in heartless selfishness. Such is the teaching of this famous passage which many writers have been at pains to “reconcile” with Paul’s doctrine of gratuitous justification. But we have only to observe with common fairness the scope of each apostle, in order to see that the one in no wise opposes or weakens the other’s teaching. Paul, writing against legalists, affirms that a sinner is justified before God by grace through faith in Christ, without deeds of the law. James, writing against formalism, selfishness, and pride within the Church, declares that a Christian who says, “I have faith,” and does not live and act as a believer ought, condemns himself. Paul teaches that we must be in union with Christ by faith, as the branch is in the vine, else we perish. James teaches that the branch which appears to be in the vine must bear fruit, else its union is a mere semblance, and it will be, as so much dead wood, cut away. D. F.—Paul says, Faith only is that which justifies us, not works. But James says, “Not a faith which is without works.” There will be works with faith, as there is thunder with lightning; but just as it is not the thunder but the lightning, the lightning without the thunder, that strikes the tree, so it is not the works which justify. Put it in one sentence: Faith alone justifies; but not the faith which is alone. God reckons the trust in him as righteousness, because it is the fountain and the root of righteousness, being, indeed, the life divine in the soul. He reckons it as such (that is, he justifies the soul that has it) without works—that is, before works are done, and not because of the works. But, then, that faith will not be without works; for the fountain must flow on, and the tree must grow, and the life of God in the soul, sanguine trust in God, must spring up with acts. F. W. R.

14. The apostle does not write, “If any man have faith,” but, “If any man SAY he hath faith”! He that hath faith is sure of salvation, but not always he that saith he hath faith! In this whole discourse the apostle’s intention is to show, not what justifies, but WHO is justified; not what faith DOES, but what faith is: and the drift of the context is not to show that faith without works does not justify, but that a persuasion or assent without works is not faith; and the justification he speaks of is not so much of the person as of the faith. Can faith save him? That is, a pretense of faith. In the words “and hath not works,” the apostle proves it is but saying they have faith, if there be not works and fruits of it. Where there is faith there will be works. Three things incline the soul to duty: a forcible principle, a mighty aid, a high aim; all these are where faith is. The forcible principle is God’s love; the mighty aid is God’s spirit; the high aim is God’s glory! The next two verses show he means such a faith as is in the tongue and the lips, such a faith as is alone and by itself; in the seventeenth verse he speaks of such a faith as the devils may have, and in the nineteenth such a faith as is “dead,” that is, no more to be accounted real faith than a dead man can be accounted a man!

15,16. The apostle compares faith and charity, and shows that pretenses of faith avail no more than pretenses of charity. He says that an excellent way to discover your deceitful dealing with God is to put the case fairly and honestly, and to parallel it with your own dealings one with another. You will not count words liberally, neither will God count pretenses faith. Yet words argue that you have a knowledge of duty, while bare words show that you want a heart for it!

17. A naked profession of faith is no better than a verbal charity; God looks upon it as dead, cold, and useless. By “works,” the apostle does not only intend acts of charity, but all other fruits and operations of faith. If faith have not works, it “is dead.” The allusion is to a corpse or a dead plant, which has only an outward similitude and likeness to those which are living; it is dead in regard of root, and dead in regard of fruits; it is void of the life of Christ, and void of good fruits. Operation or motion is always an argument and effect of life. The words “being alone” denote the emptiness, barrenness, and nakedness of such profession. A living faith will be active, and let itself be seen by some gracious effects. Faith is in truth the life of our lives, the soul that animates the whole body of obedience. Faith is not always alike lively, but where it is true it is always living. T. M.—Our religion is one half the loving adoration of God; the other half is the loving service of the brother whom we have seen—our fellow-man. Get down on your knees, alone, or you will begin no work aright; and then up and be doing! Our Lord gave it for the creed of his Church that faith justifies. He gave it for the life of his followers that faith without works is dead. F. D. H.

18. The dispute lies between faith pretended and faith discovered by works. Works are not a ground of confidence, but an evidence; not the foundations of faith, but the encouragements of assurance. T. M.—The husks of emptiness rustle in every wind, the full eorn in the ear holds up its golden fruit to the Lord of the harvest; a good man’s faith is manifested by his labors, standing not in words, but in the demonstration of the Spirit, a faith that works by love to the purifying of the heart. Whittier.

19. Thou believest that there is one God.** From this single expression it is abundantly manifest that the whole of this disputation is not concerning faith, but that common knowledge of God which no more joins a person to God than the sight of the sun elevates him to heaven; whereas it is certain that by faith we draw near to God. Besides, it would be absurd if any one should assert that the devils have faith; but James here prefers them to hypocrites. The devil trembles, says he, at the mention of God, because, while he acknowledges him as his judge, he stands in awe of him: therefore, he who acknowledges God, but despiseth him, is something worse than the devil. Calv.—Devils believe there is a God, that there is a Christ, that he is the Son of God, that Christ died for sinners; but can the devils be justified or saved? Then never rest in the mere faith of devils. A Christian’s faith must go beyond the faith of devils; nay, beyond the faith of other men—beyond the faith of hypocrites and pretenders, who “say” they have faith! Bare assent to the articles of religion does not infer true faith. True faith unites to Christ. There is not only assent in faith, but consent; not only an assent to the truth of the word, but a consent to take Christ, to receive him into our hearts as prophet, priest, and king; to be taught, redeemed, and governed by him! T. M.—Faith, as a grace in us, severed from the righteousness of Christ, is only a beholder of things, but not a justifier of persons; and that, if it lay not hold of and applieth not that righteousness which is in Christ, it carries us no further than to the devils. Bun.

20. The disputation is not about the cause of justification, but what we should think of an empty faith. Works that are gracious are a proper, perpetual, and inseparable effect of faith; they are such effects as do not give life to faith, but declare it, as fruit does not give life to the tree, but shows it forth! “O vain man,” empty professor, “barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus