Over the past two years, I have found myself repeatedly chewing on the doctrine of salvation. I had chewed previously, but—perhaps similar to how I usually chew actual food—I would fall far short of the recommended 20-32 times before swallowing. In other words, my reflection was not terribly deep or broad in scope.

As it relates to the Catholic/Protestant divide, I had not really questioned the typical Protestant understanding of “salvation by grace alone through faith.” Paul basically says it repeatedly (Eph. 2:8-9, Rm. 3:22-24, Rm. 4:4-5, Rm. 5:1-2, and Ga. 2:16), and James’ single verse to the apparent contrary could easily be explained away. Plus, Paul had far greater standing in my eyes than James. Catholics were clearly wrong, point blank.

Within Protestant theology, I had considered the Calvinist/Arminian divide of unconditional election vs. freewill. That is, is our salvation totally free and clear of our own volition such that God does not even offer us a life raft that we decide to take hold of, but rather hoists it over top us on his own accord (the Calvinist perspective)? Or is there an element of freewill (the Arminian perspective)? I leaned toward the latter. The Bible clearly states that God does “not wish[] for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (1 Pt. 3:9), and Jesus said that some are clearly “not willing” (Mt. 23:37).

I also reflected on Jesus’s words that “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will save it.” I tried to square these strong words with the popular Christian idea that recognizing your own sinfulness, coupled with a believe that Jesus died for your sins, is sufficient. Put differently, is discipleship a prerequisite for salvation, or is discipleship optional and essentially akin to being a super Christian? The former seems more consistent with Jesus’s words. But perhaps it was the latter—Paul did mention that some “will be saved—even though as one escaping through the fire.” (1 Cor. 3:15). I suppose I leaned towards a more inclusive view of salvation while never entirely making up my mind. God is a merciful God, is he not?

Then, a couple of years ago, I began dialoguing with a thoughtful Catholic landscaper I had hired. (From his company’s website, I reckoned he was evangelical, as the website quoted the Parable of the Sower and noted that the company’s values were “rooted in our Christian faith.”) Unlike my perception of many Catholics, his faith seemed to very much transcend cultural Catholicism and to be driven by a personal communion with and trust in God. Before I knew it, we were in engaging in an extended back-and-forth on the doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. As it related to salvation, he wrote:

If men are justified by faith alone (Sola Fide) then what does James 2:24 mean when it says, “See how a person is justified by works and not by his faith alone.”. . . . Also, when you say “Even the demons believe in God and shudder.” Jm. 2:19. It seems to help prove the point that faith alone doesn’t it?

The most typical Protestant response to Catholics’ use of James 2:24 to justify—no pun intended—the doctrine of salvation by faith alone can be summarized as follows: True salvific faith naturally produces works—it’s not that works themselves justify. Just read Paul—“For it is grace you have been saved, through faith. . . not by works, so that no one can boast.” Eph. 2:8-9.

Admittedly, James’s and Paul’s respective comments on salvation are harder to reconcile than most Protestants admit. James states “a person is justified by works,” whereas Paul says man is saved “not by works.”  These are facially contradictory statements. Perhaps it was primarily because of these words by James that the reformer Martin Luther referred to his book as an “epistle of straw” and that “it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it” because it “does nothing more than drive [men] to the law and to its works.”  He was no less critical of the author himself: he wrote that James “throws things together so chaotically that it seems to me he must have been some good, pious man, who took a few sayings from the disciples of the apostles and thus tossed them off on paper.”

So, how can we in fact square James with Paul, as that is required to uphold the principle of divine inspiration, let alone inerrancy. While I believe it is important to realize that James and Paul were addressing different audiences or issues—Paul was writing against the backdrop of Judaizers who insisted that Gentile converts must be circumcised or follow Jewish law, whereas James was addressing complacency in the Church—their language remains hard to reconcile.

Most Protestants basically take the position that James did not really mean what he said: that “a person is justified by works and not by his faith alone.” Whereas Catholics seem to do the same thing with Paul or, alternatively, assert that Paul was referring strictly to “works of the law,” i.e., the Mosaic law.

My working theory is this: both the “works” and the “faith” to which Paul and James are respectively referring are different types of works and faith. Paul is referring to (i) works that are performed in an effort to comport with the law (whether the Mosaic law, our own church’s written or unwritten law, or a law written on our hearts) and (ii) faith that is more akin to personal trust and allegiance. James is referring to (i) works that arise out of trusting and obeying what God has personally moved or communicated to you to do and (ii) faith that is mere intellectual assent or grasps for cheap grace.

As to works, when Paul uses the term “works” to assert that salvation is “not by works,” there is good evidence to believe he is referring to following the Mosaic law. Remember, Paul does spend significant time in his epistles combating the Pharisaical notion that a legalistic following of the Mosaic law is required. In fact, in no less than six passages Paul refers to “the works of the law”:

• “no one will be declared righteous . . . by the works of the law” (Rm. 3:20)
• “we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Rm 3:28)
• “a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ” (Ga. 2:16)
• “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard.” (Ga. 3:2)
• “So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?” (Ga. 3:5)
• “all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse” (Ga. 3:10)

While he does not use the phrase “works of the law” in Ephesians 2:8-9, there is reason to believe that is what he means considering these other passages.

Now, here, Catholics may step in with wholehearted agreement and suggest this supports their position that works are in fact necessary for salvation—just works of a sort different from those done under the Mosaic law. But while Paul may have had the Mosaic law in mind, he almost surely would have applied the principle to virtually any law.

First, the Mosaic law included provisions that comport with the modern, even secular, notions of love and care.  For example, Leviticus 19:33–34 directs the Israelites to “love [immigrants] as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”  Leviticus 19:9–10 commands the Israelites to “leave [food] for the poor [on the edge of their property] for the poor and the [immigrant].”  Second, Paul’s writings, taken collectively, arguably show that he was condemning “works” arising out of a desire merely to comport with a law. Such works are self-serving, like those of the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal God—they are done in order to get something. The law holds “us captive, so that we [need to] serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” Rom. 7:6. “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law and do them.’” Regardless of which sets of law a given person subscribes to—Catholic teaching, the unwritten rules of their particular church, etc.—they will undoubtedly come up short.

On the other hand, when James uses the word “works”, he does not allude to works of the law at all. Initially, he talks about works of love and charity (giving to people in need). Then, in the next paragraph wherein he explicitly states that “a person is justified by works,” he provides just two examples of such works: (i) Abraham’s intent to sacrifice his son and (ii) Rahab’s helping of Jewish spies. Neither of these “works” had anything to do with the Mosaic law or even what we see as moral good works. Rather, they were the sort of “works” born out of faith or personal trust in God. They are unique to the particular person and that person’s relationship with God.

James’s examples remind me of those provided in Hebrews 11, which is known as the “Hall of Faith” or “Hall of Heroes.” There, we see a litany of works listed—but not works of the Mosaic law or of good moral works—but rather works of faith:

• Abel “brought God a better offering than Cain did”;
• Noah “in holy fear built an ark”;
• Abraham went “to a place he would later receive as his inheritance . . . even though he did not know where he was going” and later “offered Isaac as a sacrifice”;
• “Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau”;
• Joseph “spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions concerning the burial of his bones”;
• “Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born”; Moses “refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter” and ultimate “left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger”;
• The Israelites “passed through the Red Sea”;
• The Israelite army “marched around [the walls of Jericho] for seven days” to make it fall  

The chapter then references Rahab (helping spies), Gideon (whittling his army down to 300), Barak (went to war against the Canaanites), Samson, Jephtah, David, Samuel, and others who “through faith” did a variety of things—most of which were not codified in the law.

As to Paul’s and James’s use of the word faith, the word “pistis” (πίστις) is the Greek term that each of them used. The New Testament commonly translates it as “faith” or “belief.”  In his book “Salvation by Allegiance Alone,” Matthew W. Bates argues that pistis, “as it pertains to salvation, quite simply has little correlation with ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ as these words are generally understood and used in contemporary Christian culture, [but rather] much to do with allegiance.”

What does Bates mean? In the modern vernacular, “faith” and “belief” connote little more than intellectual assent. According to Dictionary.com, the first three definitions for “faith” are: 1. “confidence or trust in a person or thing”; 2. “belief that is not based on proof”; and 3. “belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion.” The first three definitions for “belief” are: 1. “something believed; an opinion or conviction”; 2. “confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof”; 3. “confidence; faith; trust.”

Collectively, these definitions predominantly suggest intellectual assent or belief that God will do something. Through these definitions, the closest we get to the notion that we, as the possessor of faith, will do something is the term “trust.” But, arguably, even trust primarily suggests that the person or thing in which we trust will prove trustworthy, not that we will follow their instructions or suggestions, thereby proving ourselves as trustworthy.

Bates argues that “rather than speaking of belief, trust, or faith in Jesus, we should speak instead of fidelity to Jesus as cosmic Lord or allegiance to Jesus as king.”  “[T]rue pistis,” he writes, is an “action oriented response” or “enacted obedience.”

I asked an older friend/mentor of mine—who is a self-described fundamentalist and loathes anything resembling works-based theology—for his opinion on Bates’ book. After buying and reading it, he wrote:

[Bates’] analogy that identifying the gospel as simply oriented around one’s salvation is apt—it is the rotten core in the apple of today’s Christianity. Most churches (he is saying this, which as you knew, I would agree with) have simply turned to an easy, self-centered definition of the ‘the gospel’ and completely missed the gospel, which I think is another of his very strong point. . . . [He] helps any person understand WHY Jesus says, “who do you call me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I say?” and “if you love me, you’ll obey me,” and a host of other similar obedience centric scriptures which he very faithfully points out. An alternative title for the book could easily have been “Salvation by Obedience Alone.” Most Christians have forgotten (or never learned) that obedience is what we are called to.

Like the Old Covenant, then, the New Covenant demands faithfulness from us. God “is the same yesterday and today, and forever.”

Like any Christian blog post worth its salt, 😉, we’ll conclude with a C.S. Lewis quote:

To have Faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him.