Musings -- A Continuing Series of Comments on Specific Translation Issues within the International Standard Version New Testament

by Dr. David Alan Black

"So great is the force of established usage that even acknowledged corruptions please the greater part, for they prefer to have their copies pretty rather than accurate."

Jerome

Dr. David Alan Black
Associate Editor, ISV NT

Can Faith Save?

James 2:14 has sometimes been misunderstood as conflicting with Paul’s doctrine of justification by faith. No less a scholar than Martin Luther insisted on a contradiction between the teachings of James and Paul. This misunderstanding is perpetuated in the KJV rendering, "Can faith save him?"

However, James more literally says "Can the [aforementioned] faith save him," referring only to the works-less faith he has just described. This is nicely brought out in the NIV ("Can such faith save him") as well as in the NASB ("Can that faith save him?"). Neither translation, however, goes far enough.

The question "Can the [aforementioned] faith save him" is so structured in the Greek text that it expects a negative answer. James is really asking, as it is rendered in the ISV:

This kind of faith can’t save him, can it?

The answer is, Absolutely not! What James writes is really a statement couched in the form of a question: faith without works cannot save anyone. Faith must prove itself in the deeds it produces.

Therefore, faith that does not issue in actions is superficial and spurious—a point with which the apostle Paul certainly agreed (cf. Galatians 5:6—"What matters is faith that is active through love").