Are we saved by faith or by works? Paul and James

The passages

Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Romans 3:28

Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

James 2:24

Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

James 2:17

The problem

The two statements look like direct opposites, and both use Abraham as the example (Romans 4, James 2:21-23) and both quote Genesis 15:6. Martin Luther disliked James for this reason and called it, in his 1522 preface, an "epistle of straw", though he dropped the phrase from later editions.

What believers and scholars say

Different questions. The common reconciliation is that Paul argues against people who thought they had to keep the Jewish law, such as circumcision and food rules, to be right with God. James argues against people who said they had faith but showed no change in life. Paul is talking about how one enters a relationship with God and James about how it is shown. Paul also says faith works through love (Galatians 5:6).

Different meanings of "justified." Moo and others note that James may use "justified" in the sense of "vindicated" or "shown to be righteous", and Paul in the sense of "declared righteous". Many scholars think this explanation is tidy but plausible.

The new perspective. Sanders and Wright argue that Paul's "works of the law" refer to the markers that separated Jews from Gentiles, and that his target was not a legalism of earning salvation. If so, the contrast with James is less sharp. Critics of this view say it understates Paul's language.

A real tension. Some historians argue that James and Paul represent different wings of early Christianity, and that James is in part answering a misreading of Paul's teaching. The New Testament, on this view, preserves an argument in progress.

Where this leaves it

The two writers can be read as compatible, and most churches teach them that way. The tension is still visible in the Reformation, when Protestants and Catholics divided over exactly this question. A reader can reasonably ask whether the harmony comes from the text or from the need to have one.