(7) James's Concluding Words (2:24-26)
Leaving the imagined objector behind, James returns in verses 24-26 to address the readership directly. Rahab furnishes him with his final Biblical example of justification by works. James says:
You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also (Jam. 2:24-26).
It should be carefully observed that he does not say, “Was not Rahab justified by faith and works”! As already mentioned, such an idea is foreign to James. He is talking about exactly what he says he is talking about: justification by works!
Rahab, however, is superbly suited to tie his thoughts together. The passage had begun, as we have seen, with a reference to his theme of “saving the life” (2:14; 1:21). Not surprisingly, Rahab is selected as a striking example of a person whose physical life was “saved” precisely because she had works.
With James’s words the statement of the writer of Hebrews can be profitably compared. In 11:31, that author writes of her:
By faith the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.
Notice that the author of Hebrews points to her faith and lays the stress on the fact that she “received” the spies. James, on the other hand, points also to the fact that “she sent them out another way.” This has considerable significance for James’s argument.
Although Rahab’s faith began to operate the moment she “received the messengers,” she could not really be justified by works until she had “sent them out another way.” The reason for this is obvious when the story in Joshua 2 is carefully considered. Up until the last moment, she could still have betrayed the spies. Had she so desired, she could have sent their pursuers after them.
That the spies had lingering doubts about her loyalty is suggested by their words in Joshua 2:20, “And if you tell this business of ours, then we will be free from your oath ...” But the spies’ successful escape demonstrated that Rahab was truly a “friend of God” because she was also their friend. In this way, Rahab was justified by works.17
And in the process, she saved her own life and her family’s! Her faith, therefore, was very much alive because it was an active, working faith. Though she was a harlot - and both inspired writers remind us that she was - her living faith triumphed over the natural consequences of her sin. While all the inhabitants of Jericho perished under the divine judgment which Israel executed, she lived because her faith lived!
James therefore wishes his readers to know that works are in fact the vitalizing “spirit” which keeps one’s faith alive in the same way that the human spirit keeps the human body alive (2:26). Whenever a Christian ceases to act on his faith, that faith atrophies and becomes little more than a creedal corpse. “Dead orthodoxy” is a danger that has always confronted Christian people and they do well to take heed to this danger.18 But the antidote is a simple one: faith remains vital and alive as long as it is being translated into real works of living obedience.