“And Abraham believed God, and it was imputed (reckoned) to him for righteousness.”
These words of Gen. 15:6 are used by the apostle Paul in two places (Romans 4, and Galatians 3) to demonstrate that faith-righteousness only, and not works, is acceptable to God. The same words are appropriated by James (2:23) to establish that it is works that count, and that “faith without works is dead.”
It is truly strange that the same Old Testament passage can appear to set inspired apostles at loggerheads! Experience shows, however, that it is hardly wise to jump to conclusions that at least one of the apostles was either a heretic, or someone with so little knowledge that he could not be taken seriously on any subject. The fault might conceivably be in the incapacity of the reader to understand the reasoning of spiritual giants. Such is nearly always a safer attitude of mind, and in the long run may be less humiliating.
In this particular instance light dawns as soon as the importance of one neglected word is appreciated. Abraham had been promised (Gen. 15) a multitudinous seed like the stars and sand for multitude, and this at a time when he and his wife were old and also childless. On the face of it, the thing was impossible. Nevertheless Abraham believed God’s promise. The far-reaching consequences of this faith were demonstrated years later when Abraham proved himself willing even to sacrifice the one son who by special gift of God had now been born to him.
It is this combination of two widely separated events in Abraham’s life which has special significance in James’ argument: “Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness.” It is the word “fulfilled” which ties the argument together. The New Testament normally speaks of Scripture being fulfilled when a prophecy has its outworking at some later date. In the quotation from Gen. 15, which words are prophecy? It can only be the phrase “it was reckoned to him for righteousness.” So it was at some future time, after Abraham had received the promise of a multitudinous seed and had believed it, that he came to be reckoned righteous before God. The context in James indicates when this was, on the occasion of his offering of Isaac. Faith was now expressing itself in works, and then (and only then) was the prophecy fulfilled about Abraham being reckoned righteous.
Confirmation of this reading of the incident comes in Gen. 22:16,17 where the Lord said: “By myself have I sworn, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee . . .” This is nothing less than the forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness, for so Peter and Paul both expound the similar words that follow (Acts 3: 25, 26; Gal. 3:8). And this glorious divine declaration followed immediately after the “offering” of Isaac, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Genesis 15:6.
As Calvin tersely puts it: “It is faith alone which justifies, but the faith which justifies can never be alone.” True conviction leads to conversion, and true conversion inevitably expresses itself in a consecrated life.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One