# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_April 1855_S119
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

James's Teaching on Justifying Faith. 119

...he already uses in verse 21, and to this he was compelled by the character of the people whom he addresses. They had, as clearly emerges from the following discourse, the doctrine of justification by faith in their mouths, in the very expressions which Paul in particular uses to set it forth; they claimed to be justified by their faith, and against anyone who reminded them that their faith had no works, they objected that one is justified precisely without works — appealing in doing so to Abraham, in whom Paul so beautifully sets forth justifying faith, or perhaps to Rahab, who is on the one hand declared a harlot and on the other a model of faith (cf. Hebrews 11:31). Would their mouths have been stopped if James had merely shown them that living faith is never without works, and that their faith was therefore dead? Would they not have continued to insist that faith justifies without works, so also theirs, and that it was therefore not dead? What he had to prove to them was precisely this: that justifying faith is never without the fruit of good works, and that their faith, which had no such works, was therefore also not the justifying faith; once they recognized this, they could no longer resist acknowledging their faith to be dead. James did not seize upon the occasion to speak of justification without cause, but was compelled to it.

If he surprises us, however, with that sudden attack upon the lazy Christians' chatter about their justification by faith, he surprises us still more by the manner in which, in verse 21, he begins to bring to light the vanity and mendacity of that chatter.

Verse 21.

We are to picture Abraham as he lifts his son Isaac onto the altar for the sacrifice, thus performing the highest of the works of his obedience — the very one which God especially acknowledges. Genesis 22:16 and 18. "When father Abraham offered his own son Isaac on the altar, was he not then justified by works?" James asks, choosing the form of a question so that the lazy Christians, by their own answers, might testify against themselves and convict themselves. It says "by works" — as by many — with an allusion to the general rule which is to be drawn from Abraham's example and is stated in verse 24: that man is justified by works. As the answer James expects a "Yes"; shall we answer yes?

In any case we must first of all inquire into the meaning of the word which Luther here, and at Romans 3:28 and elsewhere, translates as "gerecht werden" [to become righteous], and elsewhere, as at Matthew 12:37, as "gerechtfertigt werden" [to be justified], and whose active form he renders as "gerecht machen" [to make righteous] at Romans 3:30, and as "rechtfertigen" [to justify] at Luke 10:29. He could not have rendered it more literally than with "gerecht machen," for it is formed from the Greek word meaning "righteous" by means of an ending which we render with "machen" [to make], and in other cases by the addition of