James 2:26
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As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Faith is a spiritual thing: works are material. Hence we might expect faith to answer to the spirit, works to the body. But James reverses this. He therefore does not mean that faith in all cases answers to the body; but the FORM of faith without the working reality answers to the body without the animating spirit. It does not follow that living faith derives its life from works, as the body derives its life from the animating spirit. Next: James Chapter 3
Open source ↗In this chapter the apostle condemns a sinful regarding of the rich, and despising the poor, which he imputes to partiality and injustice, and shows it to be an acting contrary to God, who has chosen the poor, and whose interest is often persecuted, and his name blasphemed, by the rich (Jam 2:1-7). He shows that the whole law is to be fulfilled, and that mercy should be followed, as well as justice (Jam 2:8-13). He exposes the error and folly of those who boast of faith without works, telling us that this is but a dead faith, and such a faith as devils have, not the faith of Abraham, or of Rahab (Jam 2:11 to the end).
Open source ↗2:26 Good works are as necessary to faith as breath is to a physical body (Gen 2:7). We cannot have one without the other.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
O foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is worthless?
So too, faith by itself, if it does not result in action, is dead.
What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
When You hide Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to dust.
Then Jesus called out in a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” And when He had said this, He breathed His last.
Put no more trust in man, who has only the breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he?
When his spirit departs, he returns to the ground; on that very day his plans perish.