Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

equally ringing “Yes!” also without wavering and compromise. After all, salvation
is at stake! 250 Or put in a different way, with the same resolve and
force “Paul denies the need for ‘pre-conversion works’ and James emphasizes
the ‘absolute necessity of post-conversion works’” (Martin, 81).
This removes one of the props from under the notion that James breathes
an anti-Paulism. He is supposedly acquainted with Paul’s way of formulating
things, and combats him in his own terminology. Some hold that he fully understood
Paul and meets him head-on. Others believe that he misconstrued
Paul and fought a straw man. Again others are of the conviction that James
opposed an unintended misunderstanding, a deliberate distortion, or a fiery
radicalization of Paul’s theology. The latter, of course, would be anti-Paulism
in its mildest form, and would actually render the beneficial service of rescuing
Paul (See Martin, 82-84; 95-96, for an extensive discussion of these various
possibilities).
Recent scholarship has strongly criticized any alleged anti-Paulism (See
Penner, 47-75, for a thorough and excellent treatment of this issue). One
commentator properly pleads for an uncoupling of Paul and James, so that
James can be “read in terms of 108 verses rather than 12 verses, in terms of
its own voice rather than in terms of its supposed muting of Paul’s voice”
(Johnson, 114). 251 Of course, by holding to an early date of the Epistle this
Commentary does not need to “loosen the connection.” Paul had either not
yet or otherwise barely come onto the scene. James is fully his own voice!
The fact that he uses the same terms, although in a different context and in
different way, does not need to pose a problem. Both James and Paul “rest independently
on a common tradition in which the connection of ‘faith’ and
‘work’ with ‘justification’ was well established” (Penner, 73).
However, this is not all! Even if in theory “Children of the Reformation”
universally, invariably, and stoutly maintain that there is not the slightest
contradiction or antagonism between James and Paul, in practice they are
much less even-handed. Paul’s doctrine of justification is trumpeted from the
rooftops. “Justification by Faith” is a watchword bigger than life and with
Luther heralded as the inviolable heart of the Gospel. But how does this stack
up with James’ doctrine of justification? Why is his type of “Justification by
Deeds” not trumpeted equally? Why does it lack “watchword” quality, seem
250 See Johnson, 58-64, for an excellent treatment of the relationship between James and Paul.
251 I have come to the conclusion, and argue this below, that the Church has historically
muted James’ message by tilting its emphasis toward Paul’s doctrine of justification, while it
should have illuminated Paul’s message by a robust embrace of James’ doctrine of justification
with the full understanding, of course, that the term “justification” in both settings ought
to be carefully defined so as to show their complementary nature.
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