James 2 has become a proof text for a concept that is known in Russian as “Salvation Through Lordship,” which supposes that saving faith must be accompanied by works (or submission to the lordship of Christ) in order to be truly salvific. There are several problems with this view, but one problem in this context is that James 2 is saying precisely the opposite, that it is possible to be saved through faith alone, not through lordship, and still lack works. Obviously, James wants his audience to have both faith and works, so in James 2:21–24, he appeals to the life of Abraham to distinguish between faith and works and to show that faith and works have two different results.
There are a few basic grammatical concepts that are clear in the Greek text but may not be so obvious from the English, so I thought I would bring up some of these issues for folks who are familiar with James, but unfamiliar with the Greek language. Here is the text in question in Greek, King James, and NIV:
21 Ἀβραὰμ ὁ πατὴρ ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη, ἀνενέγκας Ἰσαὰκ τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον; 22 βλέπεις ὅτι ἡ πίστις συνήργει τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἔργων ἡ πίστις ἐτελειώθη, 23 καὶ ἐπληρώθη ἡ γραφὴ ἡ λέγουσα· Ἐπίστευσεν δὲ Ἀβραὰμ τῷ θεῷ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη αὐτῷ εἰς δικαιοσύνην, καὶ φίλος θεοῦ ἐκλήθη. 24 ὁρᾶτε ὅτι ἐξ ἔργων δικαιοῦται ἄνθρωπος καὶ οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον. (James 2:21–24 SBLGNT)
21 Was not Abraham 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?
23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. (James 2:21–24 KJV)
21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone. (James 2:21–24 NIV)
“Both… and” in vs. 23
The NIV translates vs 23:
And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend.
The word, “and” occurs three times and each time it is the Greek word, “kai” (καὶ). English readers might miss that each of the three occurrences means something slightly different. Let’s look at that second “and” first.
James paraphrases Moses, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Here, the word, “and” could be replaced with “and as a result,” so that “Abraham believed God, and as a result, it was credited to him as righteousness.” No real controversy there.
Let’s look at the phrase “And the scripture was fulfilled… and he was called God’s friend.” Here we have two statements that begin with “kai.” In Greek, “καί used twice in a sentence [has] the meaning ‘both…and.’”1 This means that two disconnected things are happening, so another way to translate it would be, “Both the scripture was fulfilled… and also he was called God’s friend.”
In the first case, “Abraham believed God, and as a result, it was credited to him as righteousness,” God declared Abraham as righteous instantly, at the moment when he believed. But in the broader, “both… and also” context, the two events were removed by several years. There is some debate as to when Abraham was declared righteous, but it was certainly before he had Ishmael with Hagar when he was 86 (Gen. 16:16). It was before Abraham laughed at God when he was 99 (17:17 cf. 17:1, 21), and before his treachery with Abimelech soon after (20:2).
Abraham in his 80s and 90s is a good example of what it looks like to be justified by faith, but still unsubmissive to God’s lordship. To say that Abraham was called God’s friend as a result of his justification is to be ignorant of the things that he did! However, Abraham finally got it right in Genesis 22, when he offered Isaac on the altar.
Two disconnected events occurred that are separated by time and by actions. The first was Abraham being justified by faith and the second is that he was called God’s friend because of his work. As James puts it, “Both the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and as a result, it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and also he was called ‘God’s friend.’”
“Justify” means “to declare as just or righteous”
The Greek word for “justify” is dikaioō (δικαιόω). People often see this word and think of passages such as Romans 3:21–4:4, wherein Paul speaks of man’s salvation from hell in terms of justification:
21 But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. 29 Or is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also, 30 since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
4 What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. (Rom. 3:21–4:4 NKJV)
It is true that Paul used the word in reference to God’s judgment and influenced later writers,2 but it must be remembered that James predates Paul and that the word, justify, has a wide range of applications.
The word, “justified,” cannot mean “save from hell” in this verse: And all the people when they heard, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John. (Luke 7:29 ASV). God was never at risk of being separated from God for eternity and the people and publicans did not save Him from hell.
So what does “justify” mean? In short, it means “to declare just or righteous” or “to make just or righteous.” God has always been righteous and in Luke 7:29, the people and publicans came to this realization. Hence, the ESV translation, “When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John.”
In James’ example, we see Abraham being “declared just” in two ways: “‘Abraham believed God; as a result, it was credited to him as righteousness,’ and he was called ‘God’s friend.’” The first justification is when God “credited to him… righteousness.” The second justification was when Abraham offered Isaac on the altar, people called him “God’s friend.”
Word order and case in vs. 24
In English, we use word order to denote who is doing what to whom. In English, we would say “The dog chased the cat.” “The dog” is the subject because he does the chasing, and “the cat” is the direct object because he receives the chasing. If we change the word order to “The cat chased the dog,” then it completely reverses the meaning of the sentence.
In Greek, words have endings that change. It’s more complicated than this, but a common ending is –os (called “the nominative case” for a subject), which will change to –on (called “the accusative case” for a direct object). Let’s pretend that the Greek words for “dog” and “cat” are “dogos” and “catos.” We could translate the sentence like this:
The dog chased the cat. = The dogos chased the caton.
Since cases tell us who is doing what, that means that the word order can change without switching the subject and object:
The dog chased the cat. = The dogos chased the caton. OR The caton chased the dogos.
In the sentence, “The caton chased the dogos,” we still know that the dog does the chasing because he has an –os ending. Likewise, we still know that the cat receives the chasing because he has an –on ending. So, there are two ways to say “The dog chased the cat” in Greek, but only one way in English.
This does not mean that the word order has no meaning; actually, it gives us meaning that is often missed in the English text!
Generally speaking, if the author deviates from the subject + verb + object order, it means that he is emphasizing something.3 So, in the case of “The caton chased the dogos,” the author would likely be emphasizing that it was indeed the cat, as opposed to the mailman, that the dog was chasing. This would probably become more evident in an actual conversation where we had a context to explore:
Did the dogos chase the mailmanon?
No, the caton chased the dogos.
In James 2:24, there is an adverb that has been moved to the end of the sentence, far away from the verb that it is modifying.4 The intention is probably to emphasize this adverb as related to the verb, but often it is misconstrued as an adjective that modifies a noun. Before we get into all of that, let’s talk a bit more about cases.
The adverb, “only,” in vs. 24
James 2:24 contains the phrase, ouk ek pisteōs monon (οὐκ ἐκ πίστεως μόνον), which the Jehovah’s Witness bible mistranslates as “not by faith alone,” perhaps with the agenda of attacking the doctrine of salvation sola fide. The first three words are fine: ouk means “not” ek means “from” or “by,” and pisteōs means “faith.” But, remember how we talked about cases? When it is a subject, the word “faith” is pistis (it ends with –is instead of –os because it’s feminine), but next to the preposition, ek, it changes to the “genitive case” with the ending, –eōs.
The word, monon, has an –on ending, which typically denotes an accusative singular neuter adjective, but this does not align with the genitive singular feminine noun, pisteōs, so it is best understood as an adverb.5 Adverbs describe verbs and adjectives describe nouns. If James had intended monon to describe pisteōs, then he would have needed to write a different phrase, ek pisteōs monēs (“not by faith alone”). Instead, he used ek pisteōs monon (“not only by faith”), which means we need to go back to the verb, “justified” to apply monon (“not only justified by faith”).
The best mainstream English translation of James 2:24 that I have found is the ASV, which has, “Ye see that by works a man is justified, and not only by faith.” Perhaps a more modern, and admittedly redundant, English translation would be, “You see then, that a man is also called ‘righteous’ by works, and not only made righteous by faith.”
A new dynamic translation
Taking these nuances into account, I offer the following as a dynamic translation of the text:
Wasn’t Abraham our father called, “righteous,” by works when he offered his son, Isaac, on the altar? You see how faith cooperated with his works and by his works, his faith was matured? Both the Scripture was fulfilled, which says, “Abraham believed God, and as a result, it was imputed to him into righteousness,” and also he was called, “God’s friend.” You see then, that a man is also called ‘righteous’ by works, and not only made righteous by faith.
So, how does this fit into the greater context of James? The audience consists of believers in the Jewish diaspora who are going through trials that could mature them (James 1:1–3), hence the reference to a Jewish hero like Abraham (James also goes on to discuss Rahab next). This bit on Abraham develops James’ point that faith and works are two separate entities (2:14–26) as a conclusion to a section that begins with the command, “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only” (1:22). It is possible that James offers an outline of his epistle with the words, “But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath” (1:19), in which case this is likely the end of the “swift to hear” section and next the “slow to speak” section begins with a warning to teachers (3:1).
- George Aristotle Hajiantoniou, Learning the Basics of New Testament Greek, James H. Gee editor, PC Study Bible version (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 1998), 6.7
- Walter Bauer, William Arndt, F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), δικαιόω.
- William Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009),30–31.
- By the way, when it comes to moving adverbs, the English language is a bit more free than it is with the order of nouns and verbs.
- Дж. Грешем Мейчен, Учебник Греческого Языка Нового Завета, 2-ое издание. А.А. Руденко, перевод (Москва: Российское Библейское Общество, 1995), 144–145.
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