This depends on the date of the epistle. (For the discussion of this question, see chapter I.) It is here assumed that James wrote before the Jerusalem Conference, before A.D. 50.
Paul wrote Galatians and Romans, as well as 1 and 2 Corinthians, in the heat of the Judaizing controversy, to answer the contention that circumcision was essential to the salvation of the Gentiles, that Christianity alone was not sufficient but must be supplemented by Judaism. No issue ever stirred Paul's nature like this. It is possible that Paul may have had in mind a misuse of James 2:14-26 by the Judaizers when he wrote, knowing that James in reality agreed with him in the matter (Acts 15:14-21; Gal. 2:1-10). But James clearly is not attacking Paul or Paul's theory of grace. He rather has in view a perversion of the Christian emphasis on the spiritual side as opposed to the ceremonial ritualism of the Pharisees.
The pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. The Jews had laid too much emphasis on religious duties (cf. James 1:26), and some of the Christians went to the extreme of thinking that no works at all were needed in the Christian life. Some of the Jews, on the other hand, had already gone so far as to consider creed alone essential. "As soon as a man has mastered the thirteen heads of the faith, firmly believing therein ... though he may have sinned in every possible way ... still he inherits eternal life."[70] This Jewish unconcern for real piety in life is reflected in the lives of some of the Jewish Christians and is the occasion of the remarks of James.
James's use of righteousness or justification is in the sense of actual goodness as Jesus uses it in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6:1) and of sanctification as Paul has it in Romans 6 to 8. It is not the "imputed righteousness" of Paul in Romans 3 and 4. James has a practical purpose, not a theological one. He is not discussing the question as to how Abraham was set right with God, how faith was reckoned as righteousness, the point seized on by Paul in the verse. James quotes the whole verse (Gen. 15:6), as Paul does, but he is concerned with it as proof that when put to the test, Abraham lived up to his faith in that he actually "offered up Isaac his son upon the altar" (James 2:21). It is the deed as proof of faith that James emphasizes, though both points are in the narrative.
