(=2=) =James and Christian Doctrine.=--In the second place, moreover, the Christianity of James is religious as well as ethical. Of course it could not be like the teaching of Jesus if it were merely ethical; for everything that Jesus taught even about the simplest matters of human conduct was determined by the thought of the heavenly Father and by the significance of his own person. But by the religious character of the Epistle of James even more than this is meant. Like all the writers of the New Testament James was well aware of the saving significance of Jesus' death and resurrection. For him as well as for the others, Jesus was Lord, ch. 1:1, and a Lord who was possessed of a heavenly glory. Ch. 2:1. James, as well as the others, was waiting for the second coming of Christ. Ch. 5:8. He does not directly refer to the saving events that form the substance of Christian faith; but he takes them everywhere for granted. The word of truth through which the disciples have been formed by God, ch. 1:18, the implanted word, v. 21, that needs ever to be received anew, can hardly be anything else than the apostolic gospel as it was proclaimed in the earliest speeches of Peter which are recorded in The Acts, and as it found its rich unfolding in the teaching of Paul. Just because that gospel in our epistle is presupposed, it does not need to be expounded in detail. The men to whom James was writing were not lacking in orthodoxy. If they had been, he would have set them right, and we should have had another exposition of the gospel. As a matter of fact their fault was in practice, not in theory; and it is in the sphere of practice that they are met by James. The epistle would be insufficient if it stood alone. It does not lay the foundation of Christian faith. But it shows how, upon that foundation, may be built not the wood, hay and stubble of a wordy orthodoxy, but the gold and silver and precious stones of an honest Christian life.
This epistle, then, might be misleading if taken by itself; but it becomes salutary if it is understood in its historical connections. Far from disparaging Christian doctrine--as the modern Church is tempted to suppose--it builds upon doctrine. In that it agrees with the whole of the Bible. Christianity, as has been finely said, is a life only because it is a doctrine. Only the great saving events of the gospel have rendered possible a life like that which is described in the Epistle of James. And where the gospel is really accepted with heart as well as mind, that life of love will always follow.