Now he turns to history and appeals to Abraham's case. In these verses he goes over the same ground as Paul does in Romans v., and there is a distinct verbal contradiction between James 2:24 here and Romans 3:28; but it is only verbal. Are the two apostles writing in ignorance of each other's words, or does the one refer to the other, and, if so, which is the earlier? These are interesting questions, to deal with which satisfactorily would more than exhaust our space.
No doubt the case of Abraham was a commonplace in rabbinical teaching, and both Paul and James had been accustomed to hear his history commented upon and tortured in all sorts of connections. The mere reference to the patriarch is no proof of either writer having known of the other; but the manner of it raises a presumption in that direction, and if either is referring to the other, it is easier to understand Paul if he is alluding to James, than James as alluding to Paul.
Their apparent disagreement is only apparent. For what are the' works' to which James ascribes justifying power? James 2:22 distinctly answers the question. They are acts which spring from faith, and which in turn, as being its fruits, perfect' it, as a tree is perfect when it has manifested its maturity by bearing. Surely Paul's doctrine is absolutely identical with this. He too held that, on the one hand, faith creates work, and on the other, works perfect faith. The works which Paul declares are valueless, and which he calls the works of the law,' are not those which James asserts justify.' The faith which James brands as worthless is not that which Paul proclaims as the condition of justifying; the one is a mere assent to a creed, the other is a living trust in a living Person.
James points to the sacrifice of Isaac as justifying' Abraham, and has in mind the divine eulogium, Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me,' Out he distinctly traces that transcendent act of an unquestioning devotion to the' faith' which wrought with it, and was perfected by it. He quotes the earlier divine declaration (Gen. 15:6) as fulfilled' at that later time, by which very expression is implied, not only that the root of the sacrifice was faith, but that the words were true in a yet higher sense and completer degree, when that sacrifice had perfected' the patriarch's faith.
The ultimate conclusion in James 2:24 has to be read in the light of these considerations, and then it appears plainly that there is no contradiction in fact between the two apostles. The argument, has no bearing on St. Paul's doctrine, its purport being, in the words of John Bunyan, to insist that "at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruit."It will not be said then, Did you believe? but, Were you doers or talkers only ?' (Mayor, Epistle of St. James 88).
No doubt, the two men look at the truth from a somewhat different standpoint. The one is intensely practical, the other goes deeper. The one fixes his eye on the fruits, the other digs down to the root. To the one the flow of the river is the more prominent; to the other, the fountain from which it rises. But they supplement, and do not contradict, each other. A shrewd old Scotsman once criticised an elaborate Harmony' of the Gospels, by the remark that the author had spent a heap of pains in making four men agree that had never cast [fallen] out.' We may say the same of many laborious reconciliations of James, the urgent preacher of Christian righteousness, and Paul, the earnest proclaimer that' a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.'
