Yesterday I participated in a discussion with one other Orthodox person and two Protestants on the question of Justification, and in particular, about whether the Scriptures teach the Protestant doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone (Sola Fide).
One point that I raised was the parallels between Romans 3:27-4:22 and James 2:18-24, according to the Protestant Biblical commentator Dr. James D. G. Dunn, who as it turns out was a Wesleyan Biblical scholar, though I bought his commentary on Romans, I simply bought it because I knew many consider it to be the best Protestant commentary on Romans. Here is the chart that he included in his commentary, laying out the parallels, which he of course discussed in far greater detail:
Romans James
Issue posed in terms of faith and works 3:27-28 2:18
Significance of claiming “God is one” 3:29-30 2:19
Appeal to Abraham as test case 4:1-2 2:20-22
Citation of proof text – Gen 15:6 4:3 2:20-22
Interpretation of Gen 15:6 4:4-21 2:23
Conclusion 4:22 2:24
(James D. G. Dunn, Word Biblical Commentary: Romans 1-8, vol. 38a (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1988), p. 197).
The fact that James 2 so closely and precisely parallels Romans 3 and 4 cannot be merely coincidental, and so what we have is St. James commenting on what St. Paul wrote -- not to contradict St. Paul, but to correct a misunderstanding of what St. Paul was saying. And so when St. James says "You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone" (James 2:24), he is directly contradicting the notion that St. Paul taught justification by faith alone. He did teach that we are justified by faith, but not by faith alone. Rather, as he says in Galatians 5:6, true faith is faith that "works by love," or as St. James also says, "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James 2:17).
What Dunn and many of the Fathers who comment on Romans point out is that St. Paul was not talking about "works" in general, as Protestants have generally taken it, but he is dealing with Jews (both those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah, and those who did not) as having a privileged position with God because of their adherence to the Law of Moses, and the ceremonial aspects of that Law in particular. His point in Romans 3 and 4 was that it is only on the basis of faith in what Christ did for us on the Cross that anyone is saved, and not on the basis of "the works of the law," which was the observance of the rules and rituals of the Mosaic covenant. He was not arguing that we are saved by "Faith alone," regardless of whether we are faithful to God's commandments, as they are properly understood in the light of the Gospel.
