Justification by Faith or Works?

Okay, now for the ultimate question in theology debates. Ephesians 2:8-9 says "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast." But James 2:24b says "…by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." Do Paul and James contradict each other? I know we all probably have the same opinion about faith vs. works, but I wanted to see some people's explanations of how they are not contradicting each other.

I think John Gill would be one of the best men for this job. Here's his commentary on James 2:24:

"'Ye see then how that by works a man is justified'
Not as causes procuring his justification, but as effects declaring it; for the best works are imperfect, and cannot be a righteousness justifying in the sight of God, and are unprofitable in this respect; for when they are performed in the best manner, they are no other than what it is a man's duty to perform, and therefore cannot justify from sin he has committed: and besides, justification in this sense would frustrate the grace of God, make void the death of Christ, and encourage boasting in men. Good works do not go before justification as causes or conditions, but follow it as fruits and effects:

'and not by faith only'
or as without works, or a mere historical faith, which being without works is dead, of which the apostle is speaking; and therefore can bear no testimony to a man's justification; hence it appears, that the Apostle James does not contradict the Apostle Paul in Romans 3:28 since they speak not of the same sort of faith; the one speaks of a mere profession of faith, a dead and lifeless one; the other of a true faith, which has Christ, and his righteousness, for its object, and works by love, and produces peace, joy, and comfort in the soul. Moreover, the Apostle Paul speaks of justification before God; and James speaks of it as it is known by its fruits unto men; the one speaks of a justification of their persons, in the sight of God; the other of the justification and approbation of their cause, their conduct, and their faith before men, and the vindication of them from all charges and calumnies of hypocrisy, and the like; the one speaks of good works as causes, which he denies to have any place as such in justification; and the other speaks of them as effects flowing from faith, and showing the truth of it, and so of justification by it; the one had to do with legalists and self-justiciaries, who sought righteousness not by faith, but by the works of the law, whom he opposed; and the other had to do with libertines, who cried up faith and knowledge, but had no regard to a religious life and conversation; and these things considered will tend to reconcile the two apostles about this business, but as effects declaring it; for the best works are imperfect, and cannot be a righteousness justifying in the sight of God, and are unprofitable in this respect; for when they are performed in the best manner, they are no other than what it is a man's duty to perform, and therefore cannot justify from sin he has committed: and besides, justification in this sense would frustrate the grace of God, make void the death of Christ, and encourage boasting in men. Good works do not go before justification as causes or conditions, but follow it as fruits and effects."

Matthew, I don't know a whole lot about this subject, but last night, I did a little research before I went to bed.
Here's a little of what I found [as best as I can remember]:

James 2:14-17 "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone."

James is using the analogy of compassion without follow-through (dead compassion) to illustrate that faith, without works is dead.

If someone finds a person without anything to eat and says,
"Oh you poor person! Go have some lunch,"
but does nothing to help, it is a dead compassion. It helps no one. Faith is just the same way, if you have faith in God, you will long to please him and do as he commands (John 14:15 "If ye love me, keep my commandments." for example.) If you don't, you have a dead faith. We are not justified by works, works is the sign of faith. When someone takes James 2:24 out of context, it can sound very much like it is saying we are justified by faith as well as works. When Scripture seems to contradict itself, it isn't Scripture, it is our feeble understanding of it. If one find a "contradiction" in the Bible, that person needs to go back and STUDY MORE!!! Scripture NEVER, NEVER, NEVER contradicts itself.

Works are the sign of faith. If you only have faith without any works, faith is dead! (James 2:17 "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." and James 2:20 "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?")

Grace isn't grace if you add works to it. If you buy someone a gift and say,
"This gift is for you, all you have to do is pay 1% of the cost."
that's not a gift. A gift is free. (Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the GIFT of God:" - emphases added-) Here's an analogy the other way, (I got this from someone else:) say you buy a gift, a very costly gift, for someone you love very dearly and they say to you,
"Oh that kind of you. Here I must pay you for it though"
You, "No, no! It's a gift!"
Them, "No, I will pay you for it, here, is $5.00 enough?"
Most likely, you'd be offended. It's the same way with justification by faith v. works. God sent his only Son to die in our stead, how dare we say,
"Is $5.00 enough?"

If one only glances over James, or reads parts of it out of context, it's easy to come up with faith+works=justification. But just a little digging proves just the exact opposite.

Anyway, that's what I think, but I don't know much about this.

Very nicely put. :)

Justification by Jesus Christ :)

Since I am a music lover, I will say something concerning music about this topic: Does good dynamics make someone a good pianist? Of course not. But do you consider a pianist without good dynamics a great pianist? I wouldn't. So dynamics (good works) do NOT make you a good pianist (righteous towards God), but they do come from being a good pianist (being righteous towards God). I've heard it said like this: You are not saved by works, but saving faith always works.

And in another sense, all Christians are justified by works–the works of Christ. ;)

The Bible says that "a good tree cannot produce bad fruit" (Matt. 7:18) and "by their fruit you will recognize them" (Matthew 7:20). This makes it sound as if it's faith that matters; but if you have faith, you'll find yourself doing works, too, because a good tree can't help but produce good fruit. But faith has to come first, just as a young tree has to do some growing before it can start to produce fruit.

Absolutely! Good explanation. :)

My dad has been talking about this lately, since we have been studying Ephesians. Do any of you remember when we studied the three tenses of salvation back in the 2011 Sword Study?? Past - Saved from the Penalty of Sin, Present - Saved from the Power of Sin, and Future - Saved from the Presence of Sin. I think that the past tense is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians, when he says "For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9) James, however, focuses in on the present tense of salvation when he says "Faith without works is dead" (James 2:26). They are talking about two different aspects of salvation.

The way I take it is that James is talking about a justification of faith, i.e. proof that faith is real. This proof necessarily happens in the present, but it also validates (or invalidates) the presence of justifying faith in the past, and of final salvation in the future.

So I would say that "Faith without works is dead" means it's dead now, and it was dead in the past (never saved before)… but of course this hinges on the Calvinism question which does not need to be rehashed again :)