---
title: James 2:22
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/james-2-22/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/james-2-22.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: James 2:22
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# James 2:22

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> You see that his faith was working with his actions, and his faith was perfected by what he did.

## JW Usage

Cited as proof that justifying faith is a faith that has been "completed" by works — the Watchtower reads eteleiōthē as "supplemented and made sufficient." Abraham's faith of Genesis 15:6, in this reading, was inadequate until the offering of Isaac filled in what was missing. The pastoral effect inside the organisation is to keep faith permanently unfinished — works of preaching, meeting attendance, donations, and baptism into the organisation are presented as the "completing" works this verse demands.

## Protestant Usage

The Greek verb is teleioō — to bring to its intended end, to mature, to display in full expression. A seed is "completed" by becoming a tree, not by becoming a different kind of thing. James's own example proves this: Genesis 15:6 says Abraham "believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Genesis 22 — when Abraham offered Isaac — is fifteen to thirty years later. The faith was real at Genesis 15. Its character was made visible at Genesis 22. The works did not turn dead faith into living faith; they showed that the faith was alive all along. That is exactly what the Reformers meant by living faith working itself out in love (Galatians 5:6).

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [James 2:22-24 — 'Not by Faith Alone'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/james2-22-completed-by-works.md) — eteleiōthē, pistei monon, and the vindication reading [Salvation]