Does James Contradict Paul on Faith and Works?
Why “justified by faith alone” (Paul) and “justified by works and not by faith alone” (James) actually agree and what this means for real, everyday Christian faith
Paul and James: The Great Debate
The relationship between James 2:14–26 and Paul’s teaching on justification by faith alone has troubled many thoughtful Christians through the centuries. On the surface it can sound as though James is directly opposing Paul. After all, Paul declares that “one is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Romans 3:28), while James insists that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). Yet when we listen carefully to James in his own setting, we discover that he is not contradicting Paul at all. James 2:14–26 teaches that the faith which justifies is necessarily a living, active, obedient faith, one that is “completed” by works. Not because our works earn or add to our justification, but because union with Christ by faith produces a life that cannot remain barren. James’ argument therefore complements, rather than contradicts, Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith alone, when both are understood in the light of the Spirit’s regenerating work, the inseparable bond between faith and repentance, and the new life that flows from being united to Christ.
James is writing as a pastor to scattered believers who are facing trials and temptations. Throughout his letter he calls them to integrity, to be “doers of the word” and not hearers only who deceive themselves (James 1:22). That same pastoral concern shapes chapter 2. Some in the congregation were claiming to have faith, yet their lives showed no evidence of it. James therefore asks a pointed and searching question: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” (2:14). Notice the little word “says.” As Douglas Moo observes, James is not questioning whether genuine faith saves; he is exposing a faith that is only a claim, a faith without fruit. To drive the point home he paints a simple but piercing picture. Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” but gives them nothing. “What good is that?” (2:16). Such faith, James concludes, “is dead by itself” (2:17).
He then imagines an objector: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works’” (2:18). James will not allow faith and works to be separated into different compartments. True faith can be seen. “Show me your faith apart from your works,” he challenges, “and I will show you my faith by my works” (2:18). Even the demons have correct belief, they “believe that God is one” and shudder (2:19). Orthodox assent by itself is not saving faith; it is demonic faith. James is pressing us to see that the faith which justifies is never a dead, inactive thing.
He turns next to the clearest example in all of Scripture, Abraham. “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?” (2:21). At first this sounds startling, until we remember that James has already quoted Genesis 15:6: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” What James is showing us is that the faith by which Abraham was justified was the very same faith that later obeyed God on Mount Moriah. “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works” (2:22). As Douglas Moo notes, James is not describing a second justification but the vindication of Abraham’s already-existing faith. The obedience did not earn the justification; it demonstrated that the faith was genuine. Rahab receives the same testimony (2:25). Her risky act of hiding the spies was the fruit of a living faith in the God of Israel. James sums it all up with a vivid closing image: “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead” (2:26). A faith that does not work is not a living faith at all.
What James is teaching, then, is not a different way of justification but the true nature of the faith that justifies. Paul speaks of the root: we are justified by faith alone, apart from any works of our own. James speaks of the fruit: the faith that justifies is never alone; it is always accompanied by works of obedience. Both apostles assume the prior miracle of new birth and the inseparability of faith and repentance. When a sinner is united to Christ by faith, that union brings the whole Christ, his righteousness for justification and his life for sanctification. This living faith is the outworking of the new covenant promise, in which God not only forgives His people but writes His law upon their hearts and causes them to walk in His ways (cf. Ezek 36:26–27; Jer 31:31–34). Faith working through love is what counts (Galatians 5:6), and it is this living faith that James is eager for the church to possess.
The great teachers of the church have long seen this harmony. John Calvin, for instance, insists that the faith which justifies is never a solitary or barren thing. In the Institutes he reminds us again and again that true faith is always joined to repentance and issues in good works. James, Calvin says, is simply exposing the empty profession of those who claim faith while living in disobedience. John Murray makes the same careful distinction. Faith is the instrument by which we receive and rest upon Christ alone for salvation; yet this faith is never an abstract or inactive reality. It is always accompanied by repentance and the beginning of new obedience. Murray helps us see that James is not speaking of works as the ground of justification but as the necessary evidence that the faith which justifies is real.
Sinclair Ferguson’s lectures on these themes are especially helpful here. In Lectures 19–22 he shows how saving faith and repentance belong together as two sides of the same turning to Christ. Faith is never “non-contributory” in the sense of being passive or fruitless; it is the living response of the new man in union with Christ. Ferguson’s emphasis on union with Christ as the great integrating reality beautifully draws James and Paul together. The same is true of Herman Bavinck. In The Wonderful Works of God he insists that justification is a forensic, declarative act received by faith alone, yet the justified sinner is never left unchanged. The covenant gift of righteousness flows into a life of grateful obedience.
Ferguson’s lectures, in particular, helped me see an observation I might otherwise have missed: that the inseparability of faith and repentance is the living bond that draws James and Paul into perfect harmony, while Murray and Bavinck articulate with special clarity the forensic character of justification and the new obedience that necessarily flows from union with Christ.
James 2:14–26, then, does not challenge the gospel of justification by faith alone. It protects and clarifies it. It calls every professing believer to examine whether the faith we claim is the living faith that unites us to Christ, a faith that necessarily works because Christ himself is at work in us. In a day when it is easy to subtitute verbal profession for vital union with the Savior, James’s words come to us with fresh urgency. They summon us to the kind of faith that does not merely assent to the truth but lives it out in love and obedience. And when we grasp this, we see that James and Paul stand side by side, both calling us to rest entirely on Christ and both calling us to walk worthily of the gospel we have received.
Bibliography
Bavinck, Herman. The Wonderful Works of God. Translated by Henry Zylstra. Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2019.
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill. Translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vols. Library of Christian Classics. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1960.
Ferguson, Sinclair B. Lectures in ST611: Faith and Repentance, Biblical and Reformed Doctrine of Faith, Character of Faith, Repentance. Westminster Theological Seminary, 2026.
Moo, Douglas J. The Letter of James. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
Murray, John. Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015.