Except, he never said that. Ch 2 and 3 are about hypocrisy, even though he never used that word. But just look at all the examples in those 2 chapters. They are all about hypocrisy.
His issue was believers who were hypocrites. He was calling them to account.
Yes, that's James' point. If they're not bearing fruit, they
are hypocrites and have never been saved.
The fact is, salvation and fruit are inseparable. There are no saved people who fail to bear fruit.
Granted, we onlookers may not see a particular person's fruit, but to go to James' example, the person who believes, "I'm saved, but have not borne fruit and I don't have to bear fruit" is not actually saved at all.
If a person is saved, he
will be moved by the Holy Spirit to bear fruit.
As I said, it may not be apparent to the external onlooker. For instance, a man with a secret addiction to inappropriate contentography (or any other secret addiction), may break that addiction without anyone else knowing it. But
he knows it, so he would never say "I'm saved, but have not borne fruit and I don't have to bear fruit."
In a former house, we had an old tree--we knew it was over 50 years old--in our back yard. We'd lived there for about three years, then one summer it bore pears. Pretty good pears, too...and we'd never even known it was a pear tree. In fact, a pear tree that old should not have been able to bear fruit. But it
was a pear tree, darn it, and one year when it was able, it bore the fruit it was predestined by God to bear.
