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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
To James 2.14–26 we may give the title, Of true faith. The clue to the understanding of the section is the fact (very often ignored) that in verse 14 (‘What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? can that faith save him?’) the author has not said, ‘if a man have faith’, but ‘if a man say he hath faith’.1 This fact should be allowed to control our interpretation of the whole paragraph. The second ‘faith’ in the verse is to be taken as in inverted commas. By ‘that faith’ (ἡ πίςτις) the writer means that thing which the man in question wrongly calls ‘faith’; he does not imply that he himself regards it as faith. When this is recognised, it is clear that the burden of this section is not (as is often supposed) that we are saved through faith plus works, but that we are saved through genuine, as opposed to counterfeit, faith.
page 338 note 1 Cf. Calvin, op. cit., p. 309f.
page 338 note 2 The meaning of καθ' 
(RV: ‘in itself’) in verse 17 is not certain. Does it mean ‘by itself’ (cf. the Old Latin codex Corbeiensis: sola) and so repeat the idea expressed by ‘if it have not works’ (so Dibelius)? Or does it mean ‘in itself’ (cf. Vulgate: in semetipsa) and so strengthen νεκρά—‘inwardly dead’ (so Ropes)? But, in either case, the general meaning of the sentence will be as we have indicated.
page 338 note 3 The second and first persons are equivalent to ‘one’ and ‘another’ (cf. Ropes, op. cit., p. 209; Dibelius, op. cit., p. 145 and Supplement, p. 16; Blass, F. and Debrunner, A., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament (Cambridge, 1961)Google Scholar, § 281) The two statements are the opposite way round to what one would expect, if ‘Thou’ and ‘I’ referred to James and the objector respectively. For a full discussion of the difficulties and various suggested interpretations of this verse see Ropes, pp. 208–14.
page 341 note 1 Cf. Calvin, op. cit., p. 310.
page 343 note 1 It is important to distinguish between ‘stumble’ in this verse, where it represents πταίειν = ‘trip’, ‘take a false step’, and in Mark 9.42 (quoted in the last paragraph but one), where ‘cause to stumble’ represents σκανδαλίζειν which there is used of destroying someone's faith, causing him to fall away from God.
page 343 note 2 There is a verbal link between verses 2 and 3 formed by ‘bridle’ (
) and ‘bridles’ (χαλινoύς).
page 345 note 1 It is surely time that we asked ourselves, for example, whether clergy who make solemn affirmations and promises with substantial mental reservations, and churches which condone such insincerity, have any reason to expect to be believed.
