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ristians throughout the ages have noticed that Paul and James, at the word level, use the verb “to justify” (dikaio ) differently relative to “faith” and “works.” Paul writes, “One is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Rom. 3:28). James writes, “A person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). Since God is the ultimate Author of both Romans and James, this cannot be a concept-level contradiction. But how do we put these two verses together? In the 1500s, portions of the Roman Catholic Church were insisting that the verb “to justify”...