Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

James 2:26

James 2:26. For as the body without the spirit is dead. The ‘spirit' here may either be the intelligent spirit the soul of man; or the breath of life the living principle; as in the expression, ‘all flesh wherein is the breath of life' (Genesis 6:17).

so faith without works is dead also. Here faith without works answers to the body without the spirit. At first sight it would seem that the comparison, in order to be correct, would require to be inverted; inasmuch as faith is a spiritual principle, whereas works are its external manifestations; so that we would require to read: ‘so works without faith are dead also.' But what James insists on here is not the deadness of works without faith, but the converse, the deadness of faith without works. According to him, a faith without works is like a body from which the living principle has departed; works are the evidences of life, and if these be absent, the faith is dead. A mere system of doctrine, however correct, is a mere dead body, unless it be animated by a living working spirit. We must not, however, press the metaphor too far. Strictly speaking, the works do not correspond to the spirit, but are only the outward manifestations of an internal living principle the proof that there is life. An unproductive faith is a body without the spirit; a productive faith is the living body.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

James 2:26

Old Testament

New Testament