James 2:1-10 (11-13), 14-17 Commentary

“Faith without works is dead.” In a world where so many things divide Christians, nearly all sides unite to claim this famous verse for themselves. Both “progressives” and “traditionalists” cling tenaciously to this profession. While some see it as a call to a strict(er) obedience to God in response to God’s grace, others focus on its summons to be especially attentive to people whom society marginalizes.

So, preachers might let the Spirit help us create more light than the heat this passage often generates by humbly asking and exploring just what it means if faith is “dead.” Is such faith still the kind of faith that gratefully receives God’s grace? Or is faith that’s unaccompanied by works just some kind of counterfeit of true faith?

James 1:17’s nekra can mean, variously, “dead,” “lifeless,” or even “mortal.” Virtually all English translations of the Scriptures render its meaning in that verse as “dead.” However, the New Testament’s limited use of the word nekra makes it hard to fully understand. It appears only other appearance outside of James 2 is in Romans 7:8.

There Paul’s use of the word is also generally translated as “dead.” But his use of nekra there is mysterious. “Apart from law,” the apostle asserts, “sin is nekra.” While Christians struggle to fully understand this, Paul seems to be suggesting that sin somehow derives some of its power from people’s awareness of the law. The law somehow makes sin more attractive. So Romans 7 at least seems to suggest that without the law, sin loses some of its influence over us.

So, might James be saying something similar about faith that doesn’t go hand-in-hand with obedience? That faith without works is lifeless in the sense that it has limited power to make a difference in either the lives of Christians or our neighbors who are vulnerable? That faith without works is faith that’s been stripped of its power to have any real positive impact? Or might James even be implying that faith without works isn’t very attractive or compelling?

Such an understanding might, by the power of the Spirit, limit James 2:17’s ability to terrify Christians who wonder if they do enough good works to validate our faith. This text certainly ought to sober and challenge Jesus’ friends. But it need not send us rummaging through our “closet” of good works to see if we’ve done enough to impress God. We don’t need to try to impress the God who saved us by grace through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But Christians do long for the kind of faith that impacts our lives in ways the Spirit can use to make it and, most importantly, the living God in whom we believe, attractive to our neighbors.

In this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson James uses examples of unattractive faith to make some points about attractive faith. In verse 1 he summons his brothers and sisters in Christ not to “show favoritism” [prosopolempsais eche].” It’s an invitation to Jesus’ friends to treat and view each person in the same way as we do anyone else. James implies that we faithfully receive God’s grace in part by viewing each person as an image-bearer of God whom we treat as someone God deeply loves.

The Message paraphrases the apostle’s call as, “Don’t let public opinion influence how you live out your glorious, Christ-originated faith.” We might say that Jesus’ followers don’t let the labels people attach to each other or even themselves negatively impact the way we think of and deal with people.

In verses 2 and following James offers a concrete but negative example of lifeless, unattractive faith that’s attached to labels: “Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring [chrysodaktylios] and fine clothes [estheti lampra], and a poor man [ptochos] in filthy clothing [rhypara estheti] also comes in. If you show special attention [epiblepsete] to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ‘Here’s a good seat [kathou kalos] for you,’ but say to the poor man, ‘You stand there,’ or ‘Sit on the floor by my feet [hypo to hypopodion],’ have you not discriminated [diekrithete] among yourselves and become judges [kritai] with evil thoughts [dialogismon pomeron]?”

Eugene Peterson’s The Message’s paraphrase of verse 3 raises a specter of discrimination that haunts Americans’ past. When Christians either “ignore the street person or say, “Better sit here in the back row, haven’t you segregated God’s children?” This, of course, echoes the shameful way white Americans often segregated by race their houses of worship.

In verse 14 the apostle makes a similar point about lifeless faith. “What good [ophelos] is it, my brothers [and sisters], if someone claims to [lege] have faith but has no deeds [erga]? Can such faith save [sosai] them? Again, The Message’s paraphrase of this is lyrical: “Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?”

James continues by offering an example of faith in inaction: “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes [gymnoi] and daily food [ephemerou trophes]. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace [hypagete en eirene]; keep warm [thermainesthe] and well fed [chortazesthei],’ but does nothing about their physical needs [epitedeia], what good [ophelos] is it?” Such refusal to share material goods with people who are needy is a kind of favoritism that manifests itself in inaction. It’s faith without deeds that can’t save either the one who is selfish or the one who is needy. Such faith is, quite simply, lifeless and ineffective.

Notice that James uses the same terminology to refer to both the people to and about whom he writes. Both are his “brothers [and sisters].” Both Christians who are needy and well-off share the same status before God and with each other. We are God’s adopted children who are also each other’s adopted siblings.

However, James reminds his readers that failures to properly respond to God’s amazing grace aren’t just symptoms of lifeless, ineffective and ugly faith. They also run completely counter to God’s ways in Jesus Christ. After all, God “has chosen [exelexato] those who are poor in the eyes of the world [ptochous to kosmo] to be rich in faith [plousious en pistei] and to inherit [kleronomous] the kingdom [basileias] he promised [epengeilato] those who love [agaposin] him? But you have dishonored [etimasate] the poor [5-6].”

In other words, while God has chosen to graciously honor people who are materially poor, it seems that some Christians to whom James writes have deliberately dishonored them. We haven’t just shamed them. We’ve also failed to properly care for and about them the way God does.

Yet such materialist favoritism is more than just characteristic of a lifeless faith that contradicts God’s ways. It’s also, adds the apostle downright foolish. After all, he asks in verse 6b-7, “Is it not the rich who are exploiting [katadynasteuousin] you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court [helkousin hymas eis kriteria]? Are they not the ones who are blaspheming [blasphemousin] the noble name [kalon onoma] of him to whom you belong [epiklethen]?”

Here James paints an absurdist picture of what some people call Christian faith but is lifeless and unattractive. Such faith just doesn’t make any sense. After all, some of Jesus’ friends aren’t just discriminating against those whom God loves and favoring those who earn God’s anger. They also favor the people who treat abominably both their living God and them. In siding with such oppressors, Christians align ourselves against our fellow Christians – and the living God of heaven and earth.

What, then, does faith that’s accompanied by works look like? What’s the shape of Christian faith that’s lively, impactful and attractive? It’s certainly characterized by love for God above all. Yet James reminds us that lively faith also “keeps [teleite] the royal law [basilikon nomon] found in Scripture, ‘Love [agapeseis] your neighbor [plesi Thon] as yourself’.”

Faith that manifests itself in lively love always models itself on our loving King of kings. It’s unconditional and self-sacrificing. It persistently prays and works for the well-being of the beloved. Lively love pays attention to no labels but the label God attaches: image-bearer of the living God.

The biblical scholar Kelsie Rodenbiker summarizes her commentary on this passage in this way: “James has explained what faithful action entails. Faithful living, in this sense, is a two-sided coin: inaction is also faithlessness. Belief without works is not faith; conviction without action is emptiness. The author presents a challenge: show me your faith without action – I dare you – and I will provide confirmation of my faith through action (2:18). The rhetoric is clear: this separation is impossible because faith works.”

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Even the most theologically orthodox Christians are always tempted to shrink faith to belief in a set of professions. They even seem to find some support for that in the Heidelberg Catechism. There, after all, Reformed Christians profess, “True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed to us in Scripture; it is also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me by the gospel, that God has freely granted, not only to others but to me also, forgiveness of sins, eternal righteousness, and salvation.”

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s James might argue that this is a good description of faith … as far as it goes. However, he might also resonate with James K.A. Smith’s, How to Inhabit Time. In it, after all, the philosopher writes, “Being a Christian … is not so much a matter of believing something about God as much as living in light of this event’s cascading effects on history. Christian faith is ongoing participation in the Christ-event which continues to rumble through human history. Christianity is less of a what and more a how, a question of how to live given what has happened in Christ.”