James appeals confidently, therefore, to the example of Abraham in offering up Isaac upon the altar (cf. Gen. 22:9). He had shown that he served God from love and not merely from fear. His faith had stood the severest of all tests--believing that God would go with him down into the darkness of death and make plain his command that was so hard to obey.
James interprets the case of Abraham with his usual pungency. "Thou seest," or at least, "thou oughtest to see." The deduction is inevitable. "Faith wrought with his works," "faith cooperated with deeds" (Moffatt), just the opposite of "apart from works." It is thus clear that James did not mean to say that Abraham had only works and not faith. It is faith and works with Abraham, as he had contended in verse 18. It is like Paul's "faith working through love," energetic faith. So James adds: "by works was faith made perfect," "completed by deeds" (Moffatt).
Thus with Abraham faith was shown to be alive, not dead; fruitful, not barren; brought to a good result or end, not cut short with mere profession or promise. So the Scripture was fulfilled (made full or complete) in the case of Abraham: "And Abraham believed God, and it [the faith] was reckoned [set down to his credit] unto him for righteousness." Paul in Romans 4 lays emphasis on the verb "believed," and James stresses the obedience which proves the reality of the trust.
Both points are justly made. In each instance faith precedes the works. We are set right with God by trust, but the life must correspond to the new relation with God. It was so with Abraham. He was called "the friend of God." Compare 2 Chronicles 20:7. "Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do?" (Gen. 18:17). With the Arabs the term "Khalil Allah" (Friend of God) is the current name for Abraham. Epictetus (bk. II, chap, xvii, [S] 29) speaks of looking "up into heaven as the friend of God." Plato calls the righteous man "on terms of friendship with God." Jesus calls his disciples "friends," no longer "servants," in John 15:14 f. There cannot be such friendship without trust of the most absolute kind, a trust that means loyalty to the end.
One must not think that James discredits faith. He does not. He assumes the need of it. In verse 24 James uses "justified" more in the sense of final approval (set right at last) than of the initial restoration of peace with God. And even so "the faith as a ground of justification is assumed as a starting point" (Hort).