²¹Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?

This statement is completely true, and the apostle Paul would agree with it, as James uses it in context. Let’s look briefly at Abraham’s justification. Paul takes us back to the story of Abraham’s righteousness, before his offering up Isaac on the altar:

And [God] took [Abraham] outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:5–6)

Paul interprets this:

[I]f Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (Rom. 4:2–3)

Notice the distinction: if works justified Abraham, then that justification was not “before God.” The justification Paul talks about, and which he understands applies to Abraham, therefore needs no works to prove the genuineness of his faith. God saw, as only He can, into the depths of Abraham’s being, that his faith was genuine. God needs no outward proof. It would be ludicrous to suggest that God saw Abraham attempting to count the stars; clearly God’s intention was to call forth a faith in God’s doing something that was humanly impossible: propagating Abraham’s descendants, when in his old age he had no children of his own! God reckoned his faith (“it”) to Abraham as righteousness. That means Abraham became righteous in God’s eyes, according to God’s definition and use of the term in that context.

This reckoning of righteousness (Gen. 15) took place approximately thirty years before Abraham offered Isaac (Gen. 22). In the original story, the word “righteousness” was not used to describe Abraham’s actions in offering Isaac, but God did reaffirm the covenant to Abraham. So when Paul used the term, he was using it as God used it in Genesis 15. But James, although referring to the story of Abraham offering Issac, did not use the term “justified” or “righteousness” as a quote from Genesis 22, but as an explanation. So this means he is not necessarily using it in the same way Paul was using the term.

James uses the term “justified” in the sense of showing one to be justified by the evidence of their faith. We shall see this developed more by James.

Lord, thank You for communicating our only justifiable path to righteousness.