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“James 2 Isn't About Baptism”
Categories: Bulletin Articles, M. W. Bassford
When I was growing up, I attended many Bible classes about the necessity of baptism for salvation. Clearly, that’s a good and worthwhile thing to teach children, but not all the arguments I heard in defense of that Biblical truth were equally good.
In particular, I remember being taught to use James 2:14-26 as a counter to Ephesians 2:8-9: “You say that we’re saved by faith apart from works, and baptism is a work, so we don’t have to be baptized? Well, here’s a passage that says we’re saved by works, so we do have to be baptized!”
There are several problems with the above exchange. First, despite the multitude of claims to the contrary, Ephesians 2:8-9 isn’t about baptism. Baptism isn’t even referred to in Ephesians until 4:5, which describes baptism as an essential ground for the unity of the Spirit.
Instead, 2:8-9 is an abbreviated form of the arguments Paul makes in Romans 3:19-4:12 and Galatians 3:1-14. In those passages, he contrasts justification by faith with justification by the works of the Law, especially circumcision. There is no reason to read any other meaning into “works” in Ephesians 2 than the meaning Paul repeatedly assigns to it elsewhere, particularly when no Biblical author ever describes baptism as a work. All Paul is saying in 2:8-9 is that we cannot be saved by perfect Law-keeping.
In short, the argument against baptism from Ephesians 2 is a bad argument. The text doesn’t come anywhere close to supporting it. Sadly, when we argue for baptism from James 2, we implicitly accept the false equivalence between works and baptism and concede the validity of this bad argument.
However, James 2 in context isn’t about baptism either. As far as I know, baptism is not mentioned anywhere in the entire epistle. Instead, where Paul is concerned with defeating Judaizing teachers, James has a different objective. He’s addressing brethren who have gone to the opposite extreme, who claim that because they are justified by faith in Christ, they don’t have to make any efforts to live righteously.
In response, James points out that the faith that does not produce spiritual fruit is useless, dead, and ineffective for salvation. The “Christian” who agrees that Jesus is the Christ but lives wickedly is no better than the demon who agrees that God is one and shudders. We cannot be justified by works in the sense that we keep the Law perfectly, but we are justified by the works that complete our faith and give it life.
This is a valuable argument, and one that ought to apply a boot to the backsides of do-nothing disciples everywhere. It does not, however, prove that baptism is necessary for salvation, nor do we need it to. There are plenty of other passages for that!
