James 2:24

Ye see then The better MSS. omit the then. The Greek verb may be indicative, imperative, or interrogative. The English Version is probably right in giving the preference to the first.

not by faith only There is, it is obvious, a verbal contradiction between this and St Paul's statement in Romans 3:28, but it is verbal only. St James does not exclude faith from the work of justifying, i. e. winning Good's acquittal and acceptance, but only a faith which stands " by itself," " alone," and therefore "dead," and assumes that "works" have their beginning in the faith which they ripen and complete. St Paul throughout assumes that faith will work by love and be productive in good acts, while the works which he excludes from the office of justifying are "works of the law," i.e. works which, whether ceremonial or moral, are done as by a constrained obedience to an external commandment, through fear of punishment, or hope of reward, and are not the spontaneous outcome of love and therefore of faith. It will be felt that St James presents the more practical, St Paul the deeper and more mystical aspect of the Truth, and this is in itself a confirmation of the view maintained throughout these notes, that the latter was the later of the two, and therefore that so far as one corrects or completes the popular version of the teaching of the other, it was to St Paul and not to St James that that task was assigned.