For even as the body without the spirit is dead: so also faith without works is dead.
ωσπερ γαρ το σωμα χωρις πνευματος νεκρον εστιν ουτως και η πιστις χωρις των εργων νεκρα εστιν
Didymus the Blind reads the comparison thus: as the spirit gives life to the body, so works keep faith living. Symeon the New Theologian says that whoever believes Christ keeps His commandments, and that "the sign of deadness is inactivity." John Chrysostom adds that works without faith are also dead, so the spiritual house "must be strong on both sides."
14 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Works without faith are also dead. If we hold sound dogmas but neglect life, the dogmas will be of no benefit to us. Again, if we care for life but limp in dogmas, there will likewise be no benefit. Therefore our spiritual house must be strong on both sides.
Do you call yourself knowledgeable? Let this be known by your works. As the body without the spirit is dead, so knowledge without activity is idle.
[...] works must be judged according to faith, and faith must be animated by works, because without works it is dead.
So that we may bear the name of Christians not for judgment, but for defense, let us turn to good works while the means of defense are in our power.
James speaks of faith after Baptism. Faith deprived of works brings no benefit, unless it makes us guilty of a greater sin, as those who received a talent but add no activity to it. Therefore the Lord, giving an example that one must have works after Baptism, went into the wilderness after being baptized by John and entered into combat with the devil. And Paul exhorts those already deemed worthy of the mysteries, saying, “Let us strive to enter that rest” (Heb 4:11). Faith is no longer sufficient. One must also add purity of life, and add to this much diligence.
What kind of Christian is one who does not believe Christ? He who believes Christ keeps His commandments. He who does not keep His commandments does not believe Him.
Is not one who does not believe Christ the same as an unbeliever? Therefore all who are called Christians, yet do not live according to His law and commandments, should know that they have not yet believed in Christ, though they confess Him as God.
For whoever truly believes in Christ will not live lawlessly or transgress the commandments of God. So too, one who sees a precipice before him cannot throw himself into it, unless he has lost his mind.
Let such people seek to believe in Christ as they ought. Thus they will begin to live according to God, receive the spiritual light within themselves, behold God, and acquire the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom.
Faith without works is dead, like a body without a soul. For faith that has no works does not have God, who gives it life. It is dead, since it has not acquired what Christ says: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My commandments, and My Father and I will come to him and make Our abode with him" (Jn 14:23).
He comes to raise the soul from the dead by His visitation and to give life to the one counted worthy to acquire this. This is why such faith is dead, and those who possess it without works are dead.
Whoever lives in Christ also has the mind and character of Christ. Whoever lacks the character of Christ is dead. Let him not deceive himself, as Christ says: "Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?" (Lk 6:46).
The sign of deadness is inactivity, since everyone who is dead is also inactive. Therefore whoever does not act according to God is dead to God. In him there is no life according to God.
For one who does not live for God and according to God, it would be better not to live at all. Our bodily life is simply life, like the life of all animals.
But the rational soul must receive the life which God gives, the light granted to men from above by God. Whoever is deprived of this life lives like all irrational animals.
Since he falls to this condition while being rational, he will be condemned with the bodiless rational creatures who lost such life. That is, he will be condemned with the demons to eternal death, or to endless torments in Hades.
From all that has been said, it is clear that our chief work consists in a life pleasing to God. Christians who do not lead a life fitting for Christians are weak in their nature, powers, life, and deeds.
The strength of Christianity consists precisely in this: through Jesus Christ it receives complete well-being from God, who gave being. Therefore those who did not seek to receive well-being from God through Jesus Christ naturally are not counted worthy to live as they ought.
They fail both in relation to God and in relation to men. This well-being was lost in the first-created Adam.
Faith alone without works is like a soulless body, my Christian brother. Such faith is dead, like a dead body, if it is wholly inactive and without deeds.
When the soul is separated from the body, the body has no living energy. It is not even called a man. So too, when faith does not share in works, it has no living energy for the service of God.
According to the interpretation of Saint Mitrophan, such inactive faith does not even allow the man who has it to be called faithful.
Oecumenius says that the brother of God here has in mind faith after Baptism. If it has no works, it not only brings no benefit, but procures greater condemnation for a man.
He is like one who received a talent and did not increase it by works. Therefore after His Baptism the Lord withdrew to the mountain and there struggled against the devil.
He did this to show us an example. After Baptism we must struggle to conquer the devil and acquire Christian works. Without this it is impossible to be saved.
As Chrysostom said: "Even if someone believes rightly in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, if he does not live as he ought, faith will bring him no benefit for salvation.
Therefore, when Christ says, This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, let us not think that this alone is sufficient for our salvation. A good life and virtuous conduct are also necessary" (Homily 31 on John).
The divine Cyril of Jerusalem also said: "It is of no benefit to us to bear the name of Christians if Christian works do not accompany it. Otherwise these words may be applied to us also: If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham."
At least from these words of the Lord's brother, the rotten theories of the Lutherans and Calvinists collapse. They say that faith alone is sufficient for salvation without works.
You see that the dead are not counted among the living, and ought not to be among the living. They are carried out of the house and the city and buried in the earth.
So it is with the soul that has died through sin. It is carried out, or even cast out, from the fellowship of the saints, from the house and city of the living God, that is, from the Holy Church, "which is the house of the living God" (1 Tim 3:15).
It is not fitting for such a soul to be together with the living, who live by faith and love and serve God. As the soul is the life of the body, so the grace of God is the life of the soul.
As the life of the body is known from bodily actions, such as movement, speech, and the like, so the life of the soul is discerned from spiritual actions: true repentance, prayer, love, and the fear of God.
From this example, Christian, examine your soul, lest it be dead. "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead," says the Apostle (Jas 2:20-26).
Faith without works, that is, without the fulfillment of Christ's commandments, is dead. Even its introductory knowledge remains extremely dark and confused for a man, because it has not been explained in him and to him by action, and still more by the Holy Spirit.
In this state of confusion and darkness we now see many who consider themselves Christians, and even teachers of Christ's Church. One of them does not believe the miracles of Christ listed in the Gospel.
Another believes one part of Christ's teaching and rejects another. Another does not believe in the existence of demons.
Still another, unable to distinguish the works of faith from the works of nature, thinks that all will be saved for their good works, and so on.
You think and say in vain, and mistakenly, that good people among Muslims will be saved, that is, will enter into communion with God.
In vain do you regard the contrary thought as something new, as some error that has crept in. No. Such has always been the constant teaching of the true Church, both Old Testament and New Testament.
The Church has always confessed that there is one means of salvation: the Redeemer. She has confessed that the greatest virtues of fallen nature descend into Hades.
If the righteous of the true Church descended into Hades, then how do you want Muslims to receive salvation merely because they seem kind to you?
Those righteous were lamps from whom the Holy Spirit shone forth. They were prophets and wonderworkers, who believed in the Redeemer to come, but by their death preceded the coming of the Redeemer.
Yet Muslims have not known and have not believed in the Redeemer. Salvation is granted by one, only one, I repeat to you, means: faith in the Redeemer.
Christians, know Christ. Understand that you do not know Him, and that you have denied Him by recognizing salvation as possible without Him, through certain good works.
He who recognizes the possibility of salvation without faith in Christ denies Christ. Perhaps unknowingly, he falls into the grave sin of blasphemy.
"Therefore we conclude," says the holy Apostle Paul, "that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
"The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
"They are justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus" (Rom 3:28, 22-24).
You will object: "The holy Apostle James absolutely requires good works. He teaches that faith without works is dead."
Consider what the holy Apostle James requires. You will see that he requires, like all the God-inspired writers of Holy Scripture, the works of faith, not the good works of our fallen nature.
He requires living faith, confirmed by the works of the new man, not the good works of fallen nature, which are contrary to faith.
He cites the deed of the patriarch Abraham, a work by which the righteous man's faith was revealed. This deed consisted in offering his only-begotten son in sacrifice to God.
To slaughter one's son in sacrifice is not at all a good deed according to human nature. It is a good deed as the fulfillment of God's commandment, as a work of faith.
Look carefully into the New Testament, and into all Holy Scripture in general. You will find that it requires the fulfillment of God's commandments.
This fulfillment is called works. By this fulfillment of God's commandments, faith in God becomes living, because it is active. Without it, faith is dead, because it is deprived of all movement.
On the contrary, you will find that the good works of fallen nature, arising from feelings, from blood, from impulses and tender sensations of the heart, are forbidden and rejected.
Yet it is precisely these kindly works that please you in Muslims. For them, even with the rejection of Christ, you want to grant them salvation.
"As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." According to the course of the argument and the comparison used by the Apostle, one might expect him to say that works, as fruits of faith and actions called forth by faith, are dead without faith.
But in the Apostle the reverse is stated. Works are not ensouled and enlivened by faith. Rather, faith is enlivened by works, or more precisely, by that love for God and neighbor which disposes man toward good works.
According to the Apostle's thought, this very love produces faith, just as it produces good works. The Apostle Paul also affirms that faith acts only when ensouled and stirred by love (Gal 5:6).
Indeed, only the one who loves God or his neighbor believes every word of theirs. He doubts nothing and is ready to do everything out of love for the beloved.
"And we have known," says the Apostle John, first "we have known," and then "believed the love which God has for us. And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also" (1 Jn 4:16, 21).
Instead of love, which ensouls faith, the Apostle James takes works as the outward expression and fruit of love. He says that faith without these works, that is, without the love that produces them, is dead.
Only works of love give significance and power to faith, teaches the Apostle James. Only love warms and gives life to faith, insists the Apostle Paul: "Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor 13:2).
The Apostle concludes this whole teaching on faith and works by repeating the proposition he had stated earlier, now proved beyond dispute: faith without works is dead (Jas 2:17 and note). He explains it by the comparison, "as the body without the spirit is dead."
At first sight there is no exact correspondence between the parts of the comparison. In the relation between spirit and body, and between faith and works, it would seem more natural to compare faith to the spirit and works to the body.
Then the comparison would read: as the body without the spirit is dead, so works without faith are dead. This thought is also entirely true.
But the Apostle directs his speech not against those who ascribed significance to works, whatever they might be. Rather, he had in view those who dismissed the necessity and significance of the deed itself, content with faith alone.
Therefore, in view of his chief purpose, he expresses only the general thought of the comparison. Faith alone, by itself, if it is not expressed in works, is like a dead body. It is lifeless.
These words of the holy Apostle James are wholly clear and simple in themselves. They would raise no perplexity if they were not set against the words of the Apostle Paul concerning faith, which saves apart from works of the law (Rom 3:28). Nor would anyone find disagreement between the Apostles on this point.
What, then, actually saves a man: faith or works? And how do the Apostles James and Paul reason about this?
The answer to the first question, apart from the apostolic sayings, may be stated thus. Neither faith nor works, taken separately from one another, save a man, for one is impossible without the other. They are two inseparable, though distinct, aspects of one and the same reality.
When these aspects are one in the man being saved, faith has primacy and comes first, as the cause. Works follow as its consequence.
Why, then, does one Apostle speak chiefly about the importance of works, James, while the other speaks about the importance of faith, Paul?
Because the disciples of one Apostle, those of James, were directing their attention ever more toward one side, faith in Jesus, while neglecting the other, works. The disciples of the other Apostle, those of Paul, were being drawn by false teachers in the opposite direction.
They were being drawn toward the works of the Old Testament law, and away from the first side, faith in Jesus. Therefore each Apostle wished to explain to his disciples the importance of precisely that side of the matter which they neglected, or at least left without due attention.
To the Judaizing Christians of the dispersion, who carelessly dreamed of being saved by exalted Christian privileges alone, which they proudly claimed for themselves, the holy Apostle James had special reason to explain the importance of moral works.
He also had reason to explain the need for such labors of self-purification from sinful defilement as each one could undertake.
But to Christians converted from paganism, upon whom some wished to impose Jewish ritual and law, the Apostle of the Gentiles, Saint Paul, had a special reason. He had to explain the preeminent and decisive significance of faith in Jesus in justification.
He set it before the works of the Jewish ritual law, which in Christianity had become unnecessary. He also set it before works of the moral law in general, of which man has too few for justification.
Apart from the concepts and disposition of their disciples, the holy Apostles James and Paul held entirely the same view of faith and works.
For if the holy Apostle James lowers faith before works, he means only that faith which even the demons have and tremble, that is, a merely abstract and intellectual faith, cold and superficial (Jas 2:19). This is certainly not Paul’s faith.
Conversely, if the holy Apostle Paul exalts faith before works, he does not mean the faith which the Apostle James lowers. He means faith working through love (Gal 5:6), that is, faith accompanied by works of Christian love.
This is precisely the very thing for which the holy Apostle James contends.
For what works does the holy Apostle James consider necessary for salvation? They are "to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (Jas 1:27).
They are also works like the deeds of Abraham and Rahab (Jas 2:21-25). That is, they are works of mercy toward neighbors and unquestioning obedience to God.
And what works does the holy Apostle Paul declare indifferent and unnecessary for salvation? They are the works of the Old Testament ritual law. "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything" (Gal 5:6).
As for the moral duties of active piety, the strongest passages on their importance and necessity are found precisely in the Apostle Paul, for example Rom 6:1, 2, 7, 11, 18.
If the holy Apostle Paul nevertheless ascribes decisive force and significance in justification to faith and not to works, it is not because he denies their necessity for justification.
On the contrary, it is because even the most pious man does not possess as many righteous works as would be needed for his justification. Rather, we are all sinners by our fallen nature.
All our moral deficiencies are supplied only by the merits of Christ. When they are imputed and appropriated to us through faith, they also give value to our own good works.
Finally, the same thing is evident from the comparison of faith with the body and works with the spirit. By comparing faith with the body and works with the spirit, the Apostle does not demean faith.
He only shows the absolute necessity of good works for believers. Otherwise they will be a dead body without the spirit of life.
Such a dead body was represented by the Jews who had not turned to Christ. Yet some Christians sought to imitate them in an inactive faith, which the Apostle exposes.
Let us remember here that Christ Himself also said: "Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Mt 7:21).
Since the spirit, joined to the body, gives it life, and since works corresponding to faith in turn labor to make faith living, one must consider that faith should be joined to works worthy of virtue. Thus it becomes not dead, but living.
For one who has an ensouled body, not a dead body but a living one, wishes to have it through communion with the spirit.
It must also be noted that when faith is dead without works, it is no longer faith. A dead man is no longer a man.
Why do some, naming the spirit as the cause by which the body lives, say that it is worthier than the body? Why, accordingly, do they maintain that the works which give life to faith are more honorable than faith itself? I think I have tried to set this out more perfectly.
For just as the spirit is certainly better than the body, so works must not, without qualification, be placed before faith. Man is saved by mercy, not by works, but by faith.
Yet this too is perhaps rightly said: the faith that saves is faith living with its own works. It is as though there were another kind of works, apart from which salvation comes through faith. These are not the works honored under the shadow of the Law.
THEOSIS