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First let’s go over the “works” that James expects to proceed from faith.

Jas_2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

James sums up the entire law into just one principle. This same idea is repeated in other places:

Rom_13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Gal_5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

No complicated rituals are being commanded here, nor obedience to one particular church authority. It is very simply, after believing in Jesus Christ, love your neighbor as yourself. Not too complicated. And notice what this emphasizes! Rituals or other works that aren’t aimed at serving others are simply not found in this saying at all. The law is summed up, entirely, in your conduct with others, not your personal rituals. So even if your contention is correct (and it’s not) that one must perform works to be saved, we are not bound to any heavy yoke of vain things which do not edify.

Speaking of the Old Testament rituals, Paul asserts that they had no effect on the person’s conscience. They could not make a man “perfect”:

Heb 9:9 Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;

Christ’s teachings were never to focus on rituals of these kind, which the RCC embraces as the center of their worship, but always to better ourselves morally, to be “born again” in a spiritual sense, an invisible reality (already complete) which is visibly seen in our service to others.

Now, does James believe it is possible to keep the law at all? He goes on to say:

Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

To commit even one sin, no matter how “minor” it seems to you (recall that Jesus defines even THINKING of the sin, imagining it in your mind and committing it there, is to become a transgressor), is to put you under the penalty of the entire law, which is death. It is with this in mind that James begins his discourse, wherein he speaks to another man saying “shew me thy faith by thy works”:

Jas 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

He goes on to compare the difference between simple belief, which even the devils believe, and actual saving faith, which is a living faith that produces good fruit.

Now we know from what James says earlier, that even one bad fruit ruins your whole tree in the sight of the law, at least if we understand it as you do. (That is, of a world wherein we are trying to be good enough to get to heaven.) He cannot mean that any number of works can make one man superior to another, or more likely to get to heaven than another, but rather that it is the kind of faith which comes from a new born Christian. It is a faith that can be seen by another man that is the context, but God sees the heart. This salvation must be seen in the heart, and even a man who does works and yet does not believe has no life in him. The story does not end at justification when one believes, but rather what follows is a continual sanctification. If one shows no evidence of regeneration, likely their faith is only in vain.

Now, both Faith and Works at this point must bow, utterly, to the grace of God. Neither can be attributed to the man who wills or runs, but to God alone who foreknows you and predestinates you to salvation.

Joh_15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

1Co_12:3 ... no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

It is the first order of business for the Christian to understand that he did not come to Christ by his own free will. On the contrary, his “will,” prior to salvation, is utterly bent on doing evil.

Rom 3:10-12 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: (11) There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. (12) They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Therefore, their choice, on every occasion, is to choose sin. They are simply incapable of doing good. They are the slaves to sin. Or as Augustine says “Without the Spirit man’s will is not free, since it has been laid under by shackling and conquering desires.” - Augustine, Letters cxlv 2 (MPL 33. 593; tr FC 20. 163f.)

Therefore, it is necessary that God must reveal Himself to the man.

Christ declares that we have not “chosen” to be believers, but rather that He has chosen us. There is no willing on his own in regards to salvation, it is only an illusion. Neither does this allow for any sort of cooperation (synergism) with God’s grace, since that involves a “choice” to remain in Christ. This is a drawing that is either given, or not given:

Joh 6:42-44 And they said, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? (43) Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves. (44) No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Joh 6:64-65 But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. (65) And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.

Notice here that the Jews who did not believe are not defined as being “drawn” and then rejecting Christ, but rather that they are not drawn at all. This happens frequently in Christ’s dealing with them. Even Peter is blessed for calling Jesus the Christ, not because of his own merits (which the RCC always seem to suggest), but because it was revealed by the Father:

Mat_16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Without being ordained to eternal life, a person simply cannot come to faith.

Act_13:48 ... and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Now, notice the other part of my original passage. Christ chooses us and “ordains” us (appoints us) that we should “produce fruit,” and furthermore, that this fruit “should abide.” So not only is our faith given to us as a free gift, but so also are works. For no man can produce a fruit that eternally abides except if God does it. No man produces fruit of his flesh, but rather it is “ordained” before the foundation of the world that we should produce fruits. Augustine makes the same observation in his refutation of the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians:

“But these brethren of ours, about whom and on whose behalf we are now discoursing, say, perhaps, that the Pelagians are refuted by this apostolical testimony in which it is said that we are chosen in Christ and predestinated before the foundation of the world, in order that we should be holy and immaculate in His sight in love. For they think that “having received God’s commands we are of ourselves by the choice of our free will made holy and immaculate in His sight in love; and since God foresaw that this would be the case,” they say, “He therefore chose and predestinated us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Although the apostle says that it was not because He foreknew that we should be such, but in order that we might be such by the same election of His grace, by which He showed us favour in His beloved Son. When, therefore, He predestinated us, He foreknew His own work by which He makes us holy and immaculate. (Augustine, A Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints, Chapt. 38.)

Now, the presence of commands to be “perfect” or to “abide” do not imply a moral ability of the hearer to do them. After all, we are a fallen race, no longer innocent. Christ commands us to “be holy as my Father in heaven is Holy.” That’s an incredible request! Yet, if Christ thought that we could do it, then every man would be damned, even Paul:

Rom 7:18-24 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. (19) For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. (20) Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. (21) I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. (22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

Do we fall in an out of abiding in Christ’s commandments every time we fail to meet this perfection? And perfection does not just imply not sinning, but even our good works must be perfect and without flaws “as my Father in heaven.”

Now the scripture does say to persevere and work out our salvation, but then it says a sentence after that it is God who works in us both to will and to do:

Php 2:12-13 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (13) For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Php 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Isa_26:12 LORD, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou also hast wrought all our works in us.

So, if all our works are wrought by God, how can a man be justified by works that belong to someone else? With the new heart given to us by God, we produce fruit. But this heart is the gift of God, and not of ourselves.

This is true in Romans 8 as well, where the whole golden line of salvation is placed before us:

Rom 8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Notice it does not say that those whom God called, justified themselves in cooperation with God, and glorified themselves as the reward of God. It is God who calls, justifies, and glorifies, not according to the man “who works, but of Him that calleth.”

Eph 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (9) Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Rom_9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Therefore salvation is wrought by God alone, and all our works are the results of His sovereign decision to save us, and not of ourselves.

Now one last matter, it is important to note that no one is chosen by Christ because He foresaw any glint of goodness in us, lest any man should boast. He chose us, according to His own will and purpose, DESPITE our works, and not because of them:

2Ti_1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

Rom 9:11-16 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) (12) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. (13) As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (14) What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. (15) For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. (16) So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

Therefore, we conclude that salvation is entirely up to God, and not on Him who “runneth” or “willeth,” but on God who chooses to pluck us out of the fire according to His own mercy. Faith and works, therefore, must bow to God’s will.