Since the time of the Reformation the doctrine of justification has been a central doctrine of Protestantism. This doctrine is set forth especially in the Epistles of Paul to the Romans and the Galatians and has been summarized as the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Epistle of James, however, has proved to be a problem for Protestantism because James says that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone. Martin Luther encountered the problem and responded to it by denying to James full canonical authority among the books of the New Testament. We must admire Luther’s candor and integrity in dealing with James. It is a manifestation of his steadfast commitment to his basic Reformational insight. But we cannot follow his example. Fidelity to the attainments of the Protestant Reformation requires fidelity to the principle of Scripture alone as well as to the principle of justification by faith alone, and Scripture alone (sola Scriptura) requires obedience to the whole of Scripture (tota Scriptura). We are not faithful to the Reformation if we by-pass the basic truth the Epistle of James is concerned to enunciate.

The message of James is not unique to his Epistle. It carries forward the work of the Prophets under the Old Covenant and has its parallels in the ministries of the other Apostles. Moreover, James is an Epistle, which is faithful to the gospel proclaimed by our Lord himself during his earthly ministry. Our task, therefore, is to appreciate the way in which the message of James is integrated with the message of the New Testament as a whole, and to grasp the structure in terms of which James and related passages are to be understood not as subversive of the gospel but as furthering the gospel. In pursuit of this task we shall look first at the teaching of James and the consonance of his teaching with Paul (1). James will then be placed in the broader context of the Epistle to the Hebrews (2), the teaching of Paul (3), and the ministry of our Lord (4) in order to observe how the specific concern of James has its parallels in the literature of the New Testament.

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