James 2:24 — "Justified by Works"

Biblical Unitarians affirm James 2:24 that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. They understand 'justification' in both the Pauline and Jamesian sense as deliverance and vindication before God through faith that manifests itself in moral obedience. True faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God necessarily expresses itself in keeping God's commandments and living righteously.

Biblical Unitarians do not posit a tension between James and Paul on justification, as some Protestant theologians have. Instead, they hold that Paul emphasizes that justification does not come through works of the Jewish law (circumcision, dietary rules, festival observance) apart from faith in Christ, while James emphasizes that the kind of faith that saves is not merely intellectual assent but active trust expressed through obedience. Both apostles agree: genuine faith produces works; mere intellectual acknowledgment without moral transformation is not true faith. This understanding emphasizes the ethical dimension of Christian discipleship central to Biblical Unitarian theology.