An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
You’ve probably heard it alleged that Paul and James taught something very different in regard to faith, works, and justification. And perhaps you’ve been puzzled yourself over some of the remarks James makes in chapter two of his epistle. Chris Bruno has written to clarify all this in his new book entitled, Paul vs. James: What We’ve Been Missing in the Faith and Works Debate.
I’m Fred Zaspel, editor here at Books At a Glance, and Dr. Bruno is with us today to talk about his new book.
Chris, welcome, and congratulations on your new book!
Bruno:
Thanks so much, Fred, it’s great to talk to you again and I’m looking forward to the conversation.
Zaspel:
Okay, your title – just what is missing in the debate?
Bruno:
(Laughing) You know how titles work, they can be a little bit rhetorical. I certainly don’t want to claim that I’ve discovered the missing key that the church has been missing or that the church has lost for 2000 years, as if I’ve solved something that all these great minds before me have missed. Let me put that up front and center.
I think the only thing that’s missing or the thing that’s missing that I wanted to contribute to was finding an accessible resource that men and women in the church could grab and read and get a handle on some of these issues. I certainly don’t want to claim that I’ve somehow unlocked the missing secret to understanding faith and works or anything like that. But rather, as I’ve taught on this subject over the last several years and have taught Galatians exegesis and James exegesis, and even while I was sitting in those courses in my own education, I never found anything that I could hand to a pastor or a Sunday school teacher or just somebody that’s interested in the topic. As I have done with other things, sometimes when you can’t find a book on a topic, you have to try to write it yourself. So that’s what I’ve done here. I’ve tried to write up an accessible summary of some of the key issues in this debate, historically, exegetically and theologically. There is certainly much, much more to be said that what I’ve said here, but my goal was to try to give something a little more accessible for some folks in the church.
Zaspel:
I really appreciated and enjoyed the way you approach your topic. Give us a brief overview of your book so our listeners can know what to expect.
Bruno:
I divided the book into three parts, basically historical, exegetical, and theological/pastoral. The first part, what I mean by historical… And they all kind of bleed together, so it’s not as if these are discrete sections altogether. But in the first section, what I wanted to do, was take a look at James and Paul and their lives. Actually, when I was talking to Doug Moo who was my PhD supervisor, and he kindly wrote a forward for the book, not to name drop there (laughing)
Zaspel:
(Laughing) It didn’t hurt, though!
Bruno:
Doug’s name doesn’t hurt!
Dr. Moo gave me the idea, or helped me develop the idea of doing what he’s called a dual biography. That is, he’s seen in other places, and other historical figures, and I’ve read several of these myself, where you’re dealing with two figures and kind of telling their story back and forth and then bringing them together. So that’s essentially what I was trying to do in the first chapter. Very short, nothing exhaustive, but a short dual biography of Paul and James, which is tricky, because we have so much more source material for Paul than we do for James. But what I discovered, or what I emphasized, was the similarities between these two men. In their upbringing, they both grew up in homes where they learned the Old Testament, where there was some kind of Torah observance. Certainly there were differences, but they both grew up reading the Old Testament and they both rejected Jesus. They rejected the claim of Jesus to be the Messiah. We know from the Gospels that Jesus’ brothers did not believe him while he was in his earthly ministry, before his crucifixion and resurrection. And we certainly know Paul’s early encounters with the church, his persecution of the church. So, they both had these things in common. They knew the Old Testament, yet they rejected Jesus as the Messiah, and then they both had this encounter with the risen Christ that really transformed them and set them on the trajectory toward life and ministry. And then the rest of their lives are given over to gospel ministry. They are emphasizing a lot of the same things in their letters as far as the fulfillment of the law, Christian obedience, the fulfillment of the new covenant. In different ways, but they are coming at a lot of the same topics.
In the second section I move to exegesis and just do brief overviews of some of the key passages. Before I even get to Paul and James, I spend some time on Genesis 15:6 which is foundational for both of them.
Zaspel:
Yes, I want to ask you about that in just a minute.
Bruno:
Okay, well, I won’t unpack it now, but they both quote Genesis 15:6. So, just spending some time looking at that and its context and then moving through James and Paul and their letters.
And then in the last section I’m kind of pulling some threads together, looking a little bit at history, making some theological summaries and then moving toward some on the ground pastoral questions and application.
Zaspel:
I read the book; I started reading it on the airplane on vacation this summer, and I wasn’t through the first section and I was already thinking, okay, this biographical section by itself is already worth the price of admission. It was just really good! I loved it! It was just an enjoyable read.
Bruno:
I appreciate that.
Zaspel:
Talk to us about Genesis 15:6 and how this bears on the teachings of both Paul and James.
Bruno:
Genesis 15:6 is Abraham. It says Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. This is really the foundational verse for the doctrine of justification throughout the rest of the Bible. It’s interesting that both Paul and James quote it; and they quote it in its context, but they are looking at it from different angles. And I’ll come back to that, maybe, in a minute, but in Genesis 15, I imagine most listeners to this know the story of Abraham. He’s called in Genesis 12; God gives him these promises. And then in Genesis 15, it’s been sometime later, and his promises are reiterated and we have this statement of Abraham’s belief. Whether that’s the first time he truly believed or it’s just kind of a summary statement, there’s some debate about that, but what is clear is in that moment Abraham believes God’s covenant promises. He trusted God’s covenant promises; he trusted that what God said to do for him and through him was true, and because of that God justified him. That is, he granted him righteousness, the status of righteousness, I should say. But then as we continue to read Abraham’s story, and this is what James is picking up on, we see that that status that Abraham had been declared righteous is confirmed, or there’s evidence for it and what follows. So, the fundamental example of Abraham’s works in Genesis is in Genesis 22. Us modern people and many people throughout the centuries have felt uncomfortable with this story, and there are some questions we have to answer about the sacrifice of Isaac (that’s what’s going on in that chapter.) But in the context of Genesis, this is the fundamental example of Abraham’s obedience. In Genesis 15, Abraham believed God; in Genesis 22, Abraham obeyed God. And those two things go hand-in-hand. And there’s a sequence to those; Genesis 15 comes before Genesis 22, which is important to recognize in the context. Paul and James pick up on that Abraham story in different ways, but they both recognize that in Genesis 15, Abraham believed; in Genesis 22, Abraham obeyed.
One other thing to note: in Genesis 22 this is decades after God had first called Abraham in Genesis 12, and after that moment of belief in Genesis 15. Abraham was probably 75 years old or so when God called him; he was 100 when Isaac was born; and then it’s not clear how old Isaac was in Genesis 22, but certainly old enough to carry the sticks up a mountain, so a lot of scholars suggest he’s probably a teenager or young man. So we’re talking about maybe 40 years after God had first called him. Genesis is showing this pattern of obedience that flows from Abraham’s faith.
Zaspel:
Yes, and if there were any doubt, Hebrews 11 confirms that, that his act of obedience was an expression of his faith.
Bruno:
Exactly.
Zaspel:
James 2:14-26 – the big passage on works and justification and faith. Just what is James saying here?
Bruno:
James is saying several different things. One of the key things that I think people need to understand in order to grasp what James is saying here, is what he is saying about faith. He says in verse 14, “what good is it my brothers if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” I think that’s a good translation; I just read the ESV. That last question, can that faith save him, is talking about a specific kind of faith, a kind of faith that doesn’t have works. So, in the context of the rest of these paragraphs James is explaining what that faith, and you can almost put scare quotes, that “faith,” can that kind of faith save him? And he goes on to explain that the demons believe that God is one, in verse 19. You believe that God is one, good job, but guess what? The demons believe that. So, he’s saying we can believe something is true, we can have some kind of intellectual assent. We can, in our modern context, we could sign a card or walk an aisle, or we can make a profession of faith; we could say certain things are true; and we could really believe them on an intellectual level. And it’s interesting, the demons believe, and they shudder. So, not only do they believe, but they have some kind of emotional, affectional reaction to it. So, we can know the truth, and it can have some kind of impact on our emotions, but that’s not necessarily true saving faith. That’s demonic, it can be demonic faith. James is unpacking all of that, and saying there is this kind of fake faith that you say you have but the true demonstration, the true evidence of your faith is… Well, let’s look at the example of Abraham… The true evidence of your faith is, like Abraham, will you obey God? He’s not saying that God accepts you or that you earn favor with God through your works, but rather, like Abraham, you believe God, and then you have this status of righteous, and then that status is proved, it bears itself out. James doesn’t get at it here, but Paul gets at it more. I mean, theologically what we are talking about here is union with Christ, at the heart of all this. If we are reunited with Christ, we are justified. But if we are united with Christ we are also sanctified. That is, we are transformed. I’m going away from James 2 a little bit here. The key concept, I think, or one of the key concepts to understand is James is arguing against a phony faith.
Zaspel:
I have always wanted to emphasize that Paul taught the same thing James taught. Still, they do each have their respective emphases, and my favorite way to describe them is to say that they were not standing face to face fighting each other but back to back fighting off different enemies. Is that right? And can you sort all that out for us?
Bruno:
Yes, I say something very similar. Maybe I heard it from you sometime, I don’t know, but several others have said something along these lines. They are not fighting against each other, they are fighting back to back. I think there’s a scene in one of the Lord of the Rings movies where Gimli and Legolas are standing back to back fighting off orcs, or something like that. Something like that comes to mind.
So, on the one hand we just talked about James fighting against this fake, phony faith. Paul, on the other hand, is fighting against a wrong view of works, right? Whereas James is saying, “you think you have faith, but you don’t understand what saving faith is,” Paul is saying to his audiences, “you guys don’t understand the place of works in the Christian life.” You think that works, whether it’s keeping the law, having some kind of status, however you frame out all the discussion of what does Paul means by works of the law, at the end of the day what he’s arguing against is the idea that what we do is going to be the basis of God’s acceptance of us, that our works are going to justify us. So, Paul is arguing against a wrong view of works and their place in the Christian life. Where James is fighting against fake faith, Paul is fighting against a wrong idea of works. But at the end of the day, they are both arguing against a wrong view or wrong idea of how faith and works fit together, because they are both standing on the same foundation. They are both building on that Genesis paradigm where Abraham believed God, and then as a result of that, or flowing from that, he obeyed God. They are fighting against misunderstandings of those on either side.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Chris Bruno, author of the new book, Paul vs. James: What We’ve Been Missing in the Faith and Works Debate. It’s a wonderful read – plainly and simply sorting out the various issues in this important discussion. Very highly recommended.
Chris, thanks much for talking to us today.
Bruno:
It’s my pleasure; thank you very much, Fred.
