They’re
Both Right
September
1, 2020
James 2:14-26
The scene is set
in the German city of Wittenberg early in the 16th century. An
Augustinian monk named Martin Luther is in spiritual agony. In good medieval
fashion he is terrified over the eternal fate of his soul. He’s been told all
his life that the eternal torments of hell await the souls of sinners. Again in
good medieval fashion he’s convinced to the marrow of his bones that he is one
of those sinners. It’s never been very clear to me just what he thought his sin
was, but he certainly believed he was guilty of it whatever it was. He had done
everything the Roman Catholic Church, which was his church and essentially the
only church in western Europe at the time, told him to do to atone for his sin
and be saved. None of it worked, or at least Luther didn’t believe that it did.
He poured over the Bible trying to find an answer. How can I be saved? How can
I avoid those eternal fires of hell that I read about and that artists have
such fun depicting in lurid detail?
He finally found
his answer in the theology of St. Paul. Salvation doesn’t come from works. It
doesn’t come from anything we do. It comes from God. Salvation isn’t our doing,
it is God’s doing. Being right with God doesn’t come from us, it comes from
God. We aren’t saved by our works. We’re saved by God’s grace, which we access
through faith. Finally Luther could find some peace. He didn’t have to save
himself. Indeed he knew that he couldn’t save himself. God saved him. It was
all God’s doing not his. Yes, in Luther’s theology faith can sound a lot like a
work that we must do to be saved, but at least it was possible to have faith.
Whew! Now Luther could rest easy. He could rely on God’s grace and not on his own
works to save his soul.
He still had a
problem though. Actually he still had many problems including how upset he was
about the Church’s sale of indulgences, but he had another one that goes (or at
least appeared to him to go) straight to the heart of his theology of grace. It
was the biblical book of the Letter of James. There, in what he believed to be
God’s word, he read:
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if
you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother
or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in
peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily
needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
James 2:14-17.
Of course James also cites a
passage from Genesis that was one of Paul’s favorites and probably was one of Luther’s
too: “Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it
was reckoned to him as righteousness.” James 2:23.[1]
But what Luther heard in this passage was “Can faith save you?” James says no.
Luther screamed “Yes!” James says that “faith without works is dead.” Luther
screamed “No!” He’d be more likely to believe that works without faith were
dead, for faith can save us but works can’t. Luther so disagreed with James
that he called it “a book of straw” and would have thrown it out of the Bible
if he could have. I am convinced that Luther misunderstood James. Luther and
James are both right. Let me explain.
Luther and James
are both right. Luther had a problem with James mostly because he misunderstood
James. See, Luther and James aren’t talking about the same thing. Luther was
hung up on fear of eternal damnation. Like everyone of his time and place he
believed in the reality of judgment after death and in horrific, never-ending
punishment of the souls who had not lived up to God’s standards during their
physical lives on earth. That’s what the Church of his time taught. Sadly it’s
what far too many Christian churches still teach today.[2]
Luther turned to Paul’s theology of justification by grace through faith as the
solution to his existential dilemma of fearing hell and believing there was
nothing he could do to avoid it. Luther’s concern was about the next life far
more than this life.[3]
James on the
other hand is much more about the effect of faith in this life than its effect
in the next. True, James asks, “Can faith save you?” His answer is no, which is
why Luther hated this letter so much. Yet in the passage quoted above we can
see that the author’s concern is about what faith means in this life not about
what it means for the next life. For James faith is alive not dead when it
leads the believer to do good work in the world. He says, “Show me your faith
apart from works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” James 2:18. James
uses charity as the work to which faith leads as his example. For him faith is
alive when it is shown through good works.
You like I may
love Luther’s theology of justification by grace through faith. Luther was
right about that. We can’t save ourselves through good works. The great good
news is that we don’t have to. Salvation comes from God not from us. But James
is right too, isn’t he? Religious people so easily become smug in their conviction
that they, and perhaps only they and
people like them, are saved. It’s so easy to accept God’s grace, say thank you,
and call it good. But as James says, “What is the good of that?” It’s a rhetorical
question of course. Having faith then doing nothing does no one any good.
The believer with
inactive faith may think her faith is a very good thing. She may believe that
her faith has saved her. Indeed God surely has saved her, since God saves
everyone; but that great truth doesn’t change the fact that the world is full
of need. God’s people suffer across the globe. We Christians just sitting smug in
our belief that we’re saved does nothing to address the needs of God’s people
for food, water, clothing, health care, education, and so many other things.
Our call from God is indeed to show our faith in our works, in what we do in
and for the world. “I by my works will show you my faith.” James says that’s
God’ call to us. You say you have faith? Great, God says. Now get up off your
duff and go do something to make your faith effective in the world. It’s easier
not to of course, but if we do no good works, as far as the world is concerned
our faith is indeed dead. James and Luther are both right. So let’s bring our faith
alive shall we? I pray that we will.
[1]
The quote is from Genesis 15:6.
[2]
One church teaching it would be one too many, but never mind.
[3]
About issues in this life Luther said some truly awful things. He savaged the
German peasantry when they rose up against their feudal overlords. He took the
side of the wealthy over the side of the poor, a very un-Christian thing to do.
He was a horrible anti-Semite. There is much to like in Luther and much
strongly to dislike too.
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