Chapter 2
Favoritism Forbidden
1 My brothers and sisters, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with acts of favoritism.
2 For if a man wearing gold rings and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in,
3 and you look with favor on the one wearing fine clothing and say, “Sit here in this good seat,” but to the poor man you say, “Stand over there,” or, “Sit on the floor by my footstool,”
4 have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil reasoning?
5 Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into courts?
7 Is it not they who blaspheme the honorable name by which you have been called?
Translator’s Notes — vv. 1–7:
προσωπολημψίαις (prosopolēmpsiais) — v.1: “Acts of favoritism” — the word προσωπολημψία (prosopolēmpsia) literally means “receiving the face” — judging by outward appearance, showing partiality based on external status. It is a distinctly biblical word, coined to translate the Hebrew idiom נשא פנים (nasa panim, “lifting the face”). The Old Testament is emphatic that God does not show partiality (Deuteronomy 10:17; 2 Chronicles 19:7), and this attribute is to be reflected in his people’s conduct (Leviticus 19:15: “You shall not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great”). Peter arrives at this same conviction in Acts 10:34: “I now realize that God shows no partiality.” Paul echoes it in Romans 2:11 and Galatians 2:6.
τῆς δόξης (tēs doxēs) — v.1: “The Lord of glory” — the genitive τῆς δόξης (tēs doxēs, “of glory”) is grammatically unusual, and its placement in the sentence has been debated. It most likely functions as a title for Jesus: he is the Lord who embodies the divine glory. The term δόξα (doxa, “glory”) in Jewish theology refers to the radiant presence of God himself — the Shekinah. By applying it to Jesus, James makes a striking Christological claim: the one whose followers are showing favoritism to the rich is the Lord of the Shekinah, who himself came in poverty. Compare 1 Corinthians 2:8, where Paul calls Christ “the Lord of glory.”
συναγωγὴν (synagōgēn) — v.2: “Your assembly” — remarkably, James uses the word συναγωγή (synagōgē, “synagogue”) rather than ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia, “church”). This is the only place in the New Testament where a Christian gathering is called a “synagogue.” This strongly suggests an early date, before the Jewish and Christian communities had fully separated, and when Jewish believers in Jesus still gathered in ways continuous with synagogue practice. James does use ἐκκλησία elsewhere (5:14), but his default here is the older, Jewish term.
χρυσοδακτύλιος (chrysodaktylios) — v.2: “Wearing gold rings” — the word χρυσοδακτύλιος (chrysodaktylios, literally “gold-fingered”) is found only here in surviving Greek literature and may be a Jamesian coinage. In Roman society, gold rings were not merely decorative but signified social rank. Roman equestrians (the second-highest social class) wore gold rings as a mark of their status, granted by law. Multiple gold rings signaled ostentatious wealth. The scenario James paints is vivid and specific: a wealthy patron walks into the assembly dripping with status markers, while a destitute man enters in ῥυπαρᾷ ἐσθῆτι (“filthy clothing” — the same root ῥυπαρία that appeared in 1:21 for “moral filth”).
vv.2–4: The scenario James describes is not hypothetical but drawn from life. Early Christian gatherings, like synagogues, had limited seating, and the assignment of seats reflected social hierarchy. James’s point is devastating: to arrange people by wealth in a gathering devoted to the Lord of glory is to apply the world’s values in the very place where they should be overturned. The Greek κριταὶ διαλογισμῶν πονηρῶν (v.4, “judges with evil reasoning”) is biting: when you sort people by wealth, you have set yourself up as a judge — and a corrupt one.
v.5: “Poor in the eyes of the world ... rich in faith ... heirs of the kingdom” — this is the clearest echo in James of the Beatitudes. Compare Luke 6:20: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” and Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” James’s formulation is closer to Luke’s — the literally poor, not just the spiritually humble — though the phrase “rich in faith” adds the spiritual dimension. The phrase “those who love him” repeats from 1:12, again echoing the covenant language of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Exodus 20:6.
vv.6–7: James’s three rhetorical questions (“Is it not the rich who...?”) paint a picture of economic oppression: the wealthy exploit the poor, drag them into courts (likely debt courts), and blaspheme the name of Christ. This places the community in a specific social context — a vulnerable minority being economically squeezed by powerful elites. The prophetic tradition stands behind this: Amos 2:6–7; 4:1; 8:4–6; Isaiah 3:14–15; Micah 2:1–2. The “honorable name” (τὸ καλὸν ὄνομα) invoked over them likely refers to the name of Jesus pronounced at baptism (cf. Acts 2:38; 8:16; 19:5).
The Royal Law
8 If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.
9 But if you show favoritism, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10 For whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles at one point has become guilty of all of it.
11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.
13 For judgment is merciless to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 8–13:
νόμον βασιλικόν (nomon basilikon) — v.8: “The royal law” — the adjective βασιλικός (basilikos) means “royal, kingly, belonging to the king.” James calls the command to love your neighbor the “royal” law — either because it is the supreme law, the law that rules over all others, or because it is the law of the Kingdom (the βασιλεία promised in v.5). The command itself comes from Leviticus 19:18, and Jesus identified it as one of the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27). Paul likewise calls it the summary of the whole law (Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14). James’s use of this command is deeply significant: it shows that his understanding of “law” is not the ceremonial code but the moral law as interpreted and fulfilled by Jesus.
νόμου τῆς ἐλευθερίας (nomou tēs eleutherias) — v.12: “The law of freedom” — this phrase returns from 1:25 (“the perfect law of freedom”). For James, the law that believers will be judged by is not the Mosaic code in its ceremonial totality but the law as reinterpreted through Jesus’s teaching — summarized in the royal command to love one’s neighbor. This law is “freedom” because it is no longer an external imposition but an internalized principle of love (cf. Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:17: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”).
v.10: “Stumbles at one point ... guilty of all” — this principle was well established in rabbinic thought. The rabbis taught that the law was a unified whole, and to violate one command was to violate the will of the Lawgiver behind all of them. The Mishnah records a similar teaching (m. Avot 2:1): “Be as careful with a minor commandment as with a major one, for you do not know the reward given for each.” Jesus taught the same principle in Matthew 5:19. James’s point is not that all sins are equal in severity but that the law is an indivisible unity — you cannot selectively obey.
κατακαυχᾶται ἔλεος κρίσεως (katakauchatai eleos kriseōs) — v.13: “Mercy triumphs over judgment” — the verb κατακαυχάομαι (katakauchamai) means “to boast against, to exult over, to triumph.” Mercy is personified as a victor standing over defeated Judgment. This is one of the most powerful single sentences in the letter — a miniature gospel. It echoes Jesus’s teaching in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy”) and the parable of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21–35), and Hosea 6:6 (“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”), which Jesus quoted twice (Matthew 9:13; 12:7). James ends the section by establishing that the standard by which believers will be measured is mercy — not ritual precision, not social status, not wealth.
Faith and Works
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no works? Can that faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister is without clothing and lacking daily food,
16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is that?
17 So also faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
19 You believe that God is one. Good for you! Even the demons believe that — and shudder.
20 But do you want proof, you empty-headed man, that faith apart from works is useless?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?
22 You see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was brought to completion.
23 And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called “friend of God.”
24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
25 In the same way, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by a different route?
26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
Translator’s Notes — vv. 14–26:
πίστις ... ἔργα (pistis ... erga) — v.14: “Faith ... works” — these two words, πίστις (pistis) and ἔργα (erga), are the terms around which the entire passage revolves, and the same terms at the center of Paul’s argument in Romans and Galatians. But a crucial distinction must be made: when Paul speaks of “works” he is typically referring to “works of the law” (ἔργα νόμου, erga nomou) — the boundary markers of Torah observance (circumcision, food laws, Sabbath) that distinguished Jew from Gentile. When James speaks of “works,” he means acts of obedience, mercy, and practical love — clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, the moral fruit of a living faith. They are not debating the same question.
v.14: “Can that faith save him?” — the Greek uses the definite article: ἡ πίστις (hē pistis), “that faith” — not faith in general, but this specific kind of faith, the kind that exists without works. James is not asking “Can faith save?” (to which the entire New Testament answers yes), but “Can that kind of faith — bare intellectual assent without obedient action — save?” The answer is no. This is the same distortion that Paul also rejected: “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” (Romans 6:1–2).
vv.15–16: James grounds his argument in a concrete, human scenario before stating it theologically. A brother or sister is freezing and starving. Someone says, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled” — a pious-sounding blessing that costs nothing. James asks: what good is that? The parallel to 1 John 3:17–18 is striking: “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” Compare also the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 25:35–46: “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat ... whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”
νεκρά ἐστιν (nekra estin) — v.17: “Faith ... is dead” — the word νεκρά (nekra, “dead”) is not “weak” or “immature” but dead — a corpse. James will repeat this verdict in v.26 with a grim analogy: faith without works is like a body without the spirit. It is not sleeping; it is a cadaver. This is James’s most provocative claim, and the one that drew Luther’s ire. But James is not saying that works create faith or earn salvation; he is saying that genuine faith, by its very nature, produces works — as a living body, by its very nature, breathes. A body that does not breathe is not a sick body; it is a corpse.
σὺ πιστεύεις ὅτι εἷς ἐστιν ὁ θεός (sy pisteueis hoti heis estin ho theos) — v.19: “You believe that God is one” — this is the Shema, the foundational Jewish confession of faith from Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” James’s point is devastating: correct theology is necessary but not sufficient. Even the demons affirm monotheism — and they tremble (φρίσσουσιν, phrissousin, a word conveying visceral horror, the hair standing on end). The critique cuts deeper than it first appears: the demons’ faith actually exceeds that of the “empty-headed man” (ἄνθρωπε κενέ, v.20). They have correct theology and an intense emotional response to the reality of God, and it still does not save them. If intellectual assent plus terrified awareness of God’s reality does not constitute saving faith, then mere doctrinal agreement certainly does not. Belief that does not reshape how one lives is no better than demonic theology.
ἀνθρωπε κενέ (anthrōpe kene) — v.20: “You empty-headed man” — literally “empty man” (κενός, kenos, “empty, hollow, vain”). This is diatribe style — James addresses an imaginary interlocutor, a technique common in Greco-Roman moral philosophy (compare Paul’s use of it in Romans 2:1, 17; 9:19–20). The word κενός suggests a person who is all surface and no substance — the perfect image for someone whose faith is all confession and no action.
vv.21–24: The argument from Abraham — Here is the crux of the apparent tension between James and Paul. Both appeal to Genesis 15:6: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Paul cites this verse in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:6 to argue that Abraham was justified by faith, not by works of the law. James cites the same verse here but points to Genesis 22 — the binding of Isaac, decades later — to argue that Abraham’s faith was “brought to completion” (ἐτελειώθη, eteleiōthē) by his obedient action. The two are reading different chapters of the same life. Paul looks at the moment Abraham first believed God’s promise and was counted righteous. James looks at the moment Abraham proved that belief was real by his willingness to sacrifice everything. They are answering different questions: Paul asks, “How does a person enter into right relationship with God?” (answer: by faith). James asks, “How do we know that faith is genuine?” (answer: by its fruit). These are not contradictory answers but complementary perspectives on the same reality.
v.22: “Faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was brought to completion” — the verb συνήργει (synērgei, “was working together with”) gives us the English word “synergy.” Faith and works are not opponents; they are collaborators. The verb ἐτελειώθη (“was brought to completion, was perfected”) uses the same τέλειος root that appeared in 1:4 (“complete and whole”) and 1:17 (“every perfect gift”). For James, faith reaches its τέλος — its intended end, its full maturity — when it expresses itself in action. An acorn’s τέλος is an oak tree; faith’s τέλος is obedient love.
v.23: “Friend of God” — this title for Abraham is not found in Genesis 15:6 itself but draws from a broader tradition. Isaiah 41:8 calls Abraham “my friend” (‘ohavi, “my loved one”). 2 Chronicles 20:7 refers to Abraham as God’s friend. The same tradition appears in the Apocalypse of Abraham and in Philo. In Islam, Abraham carries the title Khalil Allah (“Friend of God”), and the city of Hebron, where Abraham is buried, is called Al-Khalil. James takes the Genesis 15:6 declaration of righteousness and the broader tradition of Abraham as God’s friend and weaves them together: Abraham’s faith made him righteous, and his life of obedience made him God’s intimate companion.
v.24: “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” — this is the only verse in the entire Bible that contains the phrase “faith alone” (πίστεως μόνον, pisteōs monon) — and it is negated. Luther, whose watchword was sola fide (“faith alone”), found this verse so troubling that he considered removing James from the canon. But the tension dissolves when the different senses of “justified” are understood. Paul uses δικαιόω (dikaiō) in the forensic sense: God’s declaration that a sinner is righteous on the basis of faith. James uses the same word in the demonstrative sense: the visible evidence that proves one’s faith is genuine. Paul speaks of the root; James speaks of the fruit. Paul describes how the tree is planted; James describes how you know the tree is alive.
v.24: It is worth noting the historical context of this ongoing dialogue. James and Paul knew each other personally. They met in Jerusalem (Galatians 1:19; 2:9; Acts 15:13), debated matters of Torah observance and Gentile inclusion face to face, and according to Acts, reached agreement at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:19–21). If James is writing in the mid-to-late 40s AD, before Paul’s major epistles were composed, he may not be responding to Paul’s letters at all but rather to a distorted oral version of Paul’s preaching that was circulating among believers — a version that had stripped away Paul’s own insistence on holy living and reduced the gospel to mere intellectual assent. Paul himself battled this same distortion throughout his ministry (Romans 6:1–2, 15; Galatians 5:13; Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works”). If anything, James and Paul were allies against a common enemy: a faith emptied of its moral substance.
τοὺς ἀγγέλους ὑποδεξαμένη (tous angelous hypodexamenē) — v.25: “Rahab the prostitute ... when she received the messengers” — from Abraham, the father of the nation and a man, James pivots to Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute and a woman — the widest possible contrast. The story is told in Joshua 2:1–21 and 6:17–25. Rahab’s “work” was an act of risky, costly faith: she hid the Israelite spies at the peril of her own life because she believed that Israel’s God was the true God (Joshua 2:11). Hebrews 11:31 also cites Rahab as an example of faith. Her inclusion in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5) signals her place in salvation history. James’s choice of examples is deliberate: he pairs the most honored man in Israel’s history with one of the most unlikely heroines, showing that the principle of faith-expressed-in-action applies universally, across every boundary of gender, ethnicity, and social standing.
τὸ σῶμα χωρὶς πνεύματος νεκρόν ἐστιν (to sōma chōris pneumatos nekron estin) — v.26: “The body without the spirit is dead” — James closes with a stark analogy. The word πνεῦμα (pneuma) here means “breath” or “spirit” — the animating life-force. The echo of Genesis 2:7 is unmistakable: God breathed the breath of life (πνοήν ζωῆς, pnoēn zōēs, LXX) into the dust, and Adam became a living being. Without that divine breath, the body was inert matter. James’s analogy carries the same force: without works, faith is not merely inadequate or underdeveloped; it is lifeless dust. The analogy is precise: works do not create faith any more than breath creates the body. But without breath, the body has no life. Works are the breath of faith — the visible evidence that it is alive. This is James’s final word on the subject, and it is not a refutation of grace but a description of what grace looks like when it lands in a human life.
General Notes on the Chapter
James 2 is one of the most consequential chapters in Christian history. It provoked Luther’s famous dismissal of the letter as “an epistle of straw” — a judgment Luther himself later softened but which shaped Protestant attitudes toward James for centuries. The irony is considerable: Luther’s great insight was that salvation comes by grace through faith, and James agrees. What James refuses to accept is a “faith” that produces no transformation, no mercy, no justice, no tangible love for the poor. Luther was fighting medieval works-righteousness; James was fighting complacent orthodoxy. Both enemies are real, and both must be resisted.
The chapter has a carefully constructed two-part structure. The first half (vv.1–13) addresses the sin of favoritism, grounding it in the royal law of love and the law of freedom, and culminating in the great declaration that mercy triumphs over judgment. The second half (vv.14–26) addresses the relationship between faith and works, grounding it in the examples of Abraham and Rahab, and culminating in the declaration that faith without works is dead. The two halves are not separate topics but two faces of the same argument: if you claim faith but treat the poor with contempt, your faith is dead; if you claim faith but produce no works of mercy, your faith is dead. The command to love your neighbor and the insistence on living faith are, for James, the same demand.
The use of συναγωγή (“synagogue”) in v.2 to describe the Christian assembly is one of the strongest arguments for an early date of this letter. By the time the Gospels and Paul’s letters were being circulated, ἐκκλησία had become the standard term for the Christian community. James’s use of the older term suggests a period when Jewish believers in Jesus had not yet broken organizationally from the synagogue — a situation consistent with the Jerusalem church in the 40s AD, before the Gentile controversy forced a more defined separation. This detail, combined with the absence of any reference to the Jerusalem Council or the Gentile question, supports the view that James was written before AD 49 and is among the very earliest — perhaps the earliest — New Testament documents in existence.
James’s pairing of Abraham and Rahab (vv.21–25) is theologically brilliant. Abraham is the patriarch, the father of Israel, the recipient of the covenant — a man. Rahab is a pagan, a prostitute, a woman living in a city under divine judgment. Together they demonstrate that the principle of living faith is universal. What they share is not ethnicity, gender, or social standing but the pattern of belief expressed in costly action: Abraham obeyed God at the cost of his only son; Rahab obeyed God at the risk of her own life. The same pairing appears in Hebrews 11:17–31, and Rahab’s inclusion in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5) — as an ancestor of David and therefore of Christ himself — makes the point unmistakable: the faith that saves is the faith that acts, regardless of who you are or where you come from.