Henry Krabbendam - James - World Evangelical Alliance

2. The first half, to the effect that “faith cooperated, was active along
with his deeds,” follows naturally upon James 2:21, especially when it carries
a demonstrative punch. Faith goes hand in hand with deeds. There is no faith
without deeds. Faith in the heart must come to expression and be on display
in outward deeds (Zodhiates, II, 44). But neither are there deeds without faith.
The latter is emphasized here. “Faith enabled him (Abraham) to perform acts
of obedience, here called works. The fact that the verb is in the imperfect
tense suggests that this cooperation was always going on” (Tasker, 69).
Without faith (Abraham’s or Rahab’s) “justification by deeds” could never
have come about, neither can anyone else’s! Faith is a “constant partner” of
(Moo, 1985, 112), and “actively collaborates with” (Cheung, 179), deeds. It is
the source and ground of deeds, just as deeds are the expression, the manifestation,
of faith (Cranfield, 341). In short, faith ever is, and ever will be the
only effective driving force behind works. If faith ever would go on strike,
deeds would vanish instantaneously and by definition. Faith is essentially the
embrace and appropriation of the promise of God, without any hesitation.
This is rooted, in turn, in a total commitment to the God of that promise,
without any reservation.
Incidentally, in the context of Genesis 15 Abraham had not much of a
choice, given the content of God’s promise. It was total surrender, total commitment
and total embrace ... or nothing! At any rate, such embrace, rooted in
such surrender and commitment, seems unimaginable without deeds, and
cannot but produce deeds. This is the thrust of James with reference to Genesis
22. “Here is definitive proof that faith and action go together” (Kistemaker,
96). The faith that justifies is alone, but does not remain alone. This
is the test of its veracity! Therefore, while faith justifies sinners, deeds “justify”
their faith. In short, a person is justified by faith, all right, but it is a person
who expresses this faith in deeds (Kistemaker, 98). Faith only? YES
(Paul)! “Faith” only? NO (James)!
Once again in the vivid terminology of one commentator, in all this
“Paul and James do not stand face to face fighting against each other, but
back to back, fighting opposite foes” (Zodhiates, II, 11). In standing back to
back they were not each other’s antagonists, but each other’s defense. This
even beats standing shoulder to shoulder! Their relationship must have been
more than cordial. Each of them trusted the other with his life. How else can
we explain Acts 21:18? Paul had the steel beam of the Gospel driven next to
his spine. This insured that he would never cave in, not for Peter (Gal.
2:11ff), nor for James, nor for anyone else (2 Cor. 4:8; 2 Tim. 4:16ff). However,
for the sake of the Gospel he was willing to bend over backwards. This
is exactly what he did (Acts 21:18)!
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