And if a brother or sister be naked and want daily food:
εαν δε αδελφος η αδελφη γυμνοι υπαρχωσιν και λειπομενοι ωσιν της εφημερου τροφης
10 Church Fathers comment on this verse
These words are true for those who know that the one God is the Father of all the sons of God. One half of love consists in food, drink, and clothing. The other consists in helping souls. He said that bodily things are half because he is addressing the rich, not the wise.
Since mercy will be exalted over judgment, and the gifts of tenderheartedness will surpass every recompense of justice, the whole life of mortals and the variety of all actions will be assessed under one rule. Where the labors of compassion are found together with confession of the Creator, no mention will be made of any crime.
Who does not hate such a kind of mercy, where idle piety consoles with the ineffective beauty of words, and useless tears stretch toward heaven? Why lament another's shipwreck if you do not help the body cast overboard? Why share in the torment of the spirit through the pain of another's wound if you refuse the cup of healing?
The words of Christ: My justice will be able to accomplish for you only what your works deserve. You cry out in vain, lost man, held in another's power. For when you were able, you were blind while seeing Me in poverty.
Naturally, pious words alone will not help the naked and hungry man. If you do not clothe and feed him, the word of faith will not possess its saving power. It is dead without the works of love, the love that regenerates and gives life.
According to Saint Metrophanes, Saint James gives an example here to show that faith without works brings no benefit.
He says that the poor, naked, and hungry are not fed, warmed, or benefited in any way by the beautiful words of those from whom they ask help.
Moreover, when they know that those whom they asked are rich, they grieve and grow despondent even more, seeing such unapproachability and lack of mercy in those rich men.
So also Orthodox and true faith alone brings no glory or good pleasure to God when it does not also have corresponding good works.
Rather, the one almighty God, full of glory, is more provoked against those who have such abstract and unstable faith, and makes them liable to judgment.
For after being made worthy to believe and to know the true God, they despised His life-giving and saving commandments, preferring sinful death.
Therefore God will say of them what He then said of the ungrateful Jews: "They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and hewn out for themselves broken cisterns, which can hold no water" (Jer 2:13).
For those who leave God and depart from His love by turning aside from the right and true faith, the prophetic word is fitting. It also fits those who fall away from a righteous and chaste life: "Behold, those who remove themselves from You shall perish" (Ps 72:27).
Some are perplexed that Paul writes in many places in his epistles that works do not save, but faith does. Yet here the brother of the Lord says the opposite, that works save, and not faith.
Saint Theophylact resolves the difficulty by making the following distinction. He says that the term faith has two meanings.
On the one hand, faith is the simple and superficial assent of the soul, without any action. With such faith, as we say, even the demons believe in Christ, that He is the Son of God.
On the other hand, faith means an active following from love of the heart, with firm and unshaken assent.
Paul calls such faith voluntary, that is, active through love: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love" (Gal 5:6).
This faith is not without works, because such faith is not given as a reward to a man who is idle in works.
Works also have two meanings. They mean the works of the old law, that is, Sabbaths, circumcision, new moons, bodily purifications, and the other observances.
They also mean the works that follow faith in Christ, which confirm and enliven it, namely the keeping of Christ's commandments.
When Paul says that works do not save, but faith does, on the one hand he means the works of observance of the old law. Without these, Abraham and all Christians who believe in Christ were justified.
On the other hand, he means voluntary faith, working through love, which is followed by works.
This is clear from Paul's own words. He said, "By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified" (Rom 3:20). And again, "We conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law" (Rom 3:28).
And again, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ" (Gal 2:16).
Do you see that Paul everywhere adds, "by the works of the law," and not simply, "by works"?
But when the brother of God says here that faith without works is dead and does not save, he is speaking of simple and superficial assent that has no works. Therefore he added, "by itself."
By works he does not mean the works of the law, but those that follow faith in Christ and enliven it, that is, the commandments.
Thus the words of the divine Apostles James and Paul agree, and there is no disagreement between them. Each Apostle used one meaning of faith and works, according to the need each had.
The God-bearing Maximus gives a beautiful example of this: "As the remembrance of fire does not warm the body, so faith without love does not produce in the soul the light of knowledge" (First Century on Love, 31).
And again: "Do not say that you are the temple of God, says the divine Jeremiah (7:4). Do not say either: faith alone in our Lord Jesus Christ can save me.
"For this is impossible unless you also acquire love for Him, witnessed by deeds. As for bare faith, even the demons believe and tremble" (Jas 2:19).
We note here that these works of the law are called the law of sacred rites by Clement, the author of the Stromata. Therefore Christians have no need to keep them.
The old law is divided, as the wise Platon, Metropolitan of Moscow, says, into three parts: sacred-ritual, civil, and moral.
The sacred-ritual part contained the worship customs of the Jewish synagogue. These are what Paul calls works of the law, as we have already said.
They were an image and guide toward the New Covenant, and had to be abolished because Christ came.
The civil part contained what was needed to preserve the Jewish people as distinct.
The moral part contained the duties that had to be fulfilled properly toward God, one's neighbor, and oneself. This was called the Decalogue.
This part must be kept by Christians even now, because it is the eternal and unchangeable law. Before the written law, it was imprinted in nature, and therefore is called the natural law.
After the law, it was written in the New Covenant of the Gospel. Therefore the works of this part, that is, the commandments, must not be transgressed.
For this reason the brother of God says here that without these works and commandments, faith is dead.
That faith without works, as a dead faith, cannot benefit the one who believes in this way, the Apostle explains by the example of sympathy for the condition of the poor. This sympathy is limited to words and is not expressed in any good deed toward them. The example is presented in the same form as in verses 3 and 4. “If a brother or sister,” that is, someone belonging to the Christian community and therefore having a greater claim to assistance in the name of Christ, is poor and so miserable as not even to have clothing to cover his nakedness, “naked” being a concrete designation of poverty, and lacks daily food, [...]
What particular feature may be observed here in the judgments of the holy Apostle James on faith and good works, in comparison with the reasoning of the holy Apostle Paul? It is this: the Apostle Paul reasons on this subject more from the dogmatic and theoretical side. Therefore he brings into view the primacy of faith, which belongs to it inseparably. But St. James reasons from the practical and living side. Therefore he values faith only according to its manifestations. Thus, by the words cited above, he wishes to express this thought. Our mere compassion will not help a needy man in the least if we give him nothing. So too our faith, if by its warmth it does not warm our neighbors and is not reflected upon them in some good works, will be, so to speak, a dead capital only. It will therefore be useless for us and will not save us.
More than once the apostle has spoken of the agreement of word with deed, and of understanding a deed with carrying it out. Now he unfolds with particular clarity and fullness the teaching on the relation of faith to works, and their meaning in the work of salvation. Having shown by a vivid example the barrenness of faith alone, he concludes thus: faith, if it has no works, is dead. This saying is repeated in a slightly different form in verse 20. It then appears again at the end of the chapter, as the conclusion to a series of proofs concerning the saving benefit of faith joined to good works.
Do not be satisfied with thought, feeling, or word, where a deed is needed and possible. It is good if you do not have a heart of stone. But it is not good if you have a dry and withered hand, not stretched out and not opened to the poor man. "If a brother or sister," says the apostle, "is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' but does not give them the things needed for the body, what profit is it?" (Jas 2:15-16). "My little children," cries another apostle, "let us not love in word or tongue, but in deed and in truth" (1 Jn 3:18).
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 12 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS