What Does “Faith Without Works Is Dead” Mean? (James 2:14-26)

A hopeful boy watches the street, waiting for his mom’s car. “See you this weekend,” she had said. “I’ll pick you up; I promise!” But time ticks by. The sun sets and there’s still no car. “Sorry bud,” his dad says, “looks like she’s not coming.” The boy’s hope evaporates, and worse, he’s not surprised.

At first, his mom’s promises held power and meant everything. But without real action to accompany her words, her promise is dead.

The New Testament talks like this about faith.

The book of James’ famous phrase “faith without works is dead” means that when faith isn’t accompanied by real actions rooted in love for God and others, it is useless. Living faith is more than mere belief in God. It involves partnering with God through actions that bring peace, order and life in the world.

This phrase belongs to a gut-wrenching story about starving, unclothed neighbors who receive nice-sounding thoughts and prayers from people who claim faith in Christ but never help to feed or clothe them. James’ point seems clear enough: If you proclaim faith, then show it.

But notice that word “dead.” In this part of his letter, James isn’t talking about whether a person does or does not have faith—he’s talking about whether the faith a person has is living or dead.

So what is dead faith? And how does that differ from having no faith at all?

To better understand the difference, we want to pay close attention to the images and stories James uses to illustrate his point. Buckle up, because James’ words tend to jostle readers. Dead faith (that is, proclaiming faith without acting in faith) often camouflages itself as devotion or compassion, so it can be hard to recognize. But like a hollow promise, dead faith hurts people and accomplishes nothing good, whereas living faith bears fruit and brings healing and life to the world.

What Is Dead Faith?

James offers three examples to show what a dead faith looks like. The first comes at the beginning of James 2: “My brothers and sisters, do not have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Messiah with acts of favoritism” (Jas. 2:1, BibleProject Translation).

As an illustration, James describes a dinner party where the most wealthy guest receives respect and a seat of honor at the table, while a poor guest gets shoved to the side (Jas. 2:2-4). Back then, and still today, we tend to treat people with high status (power, money, education, family connections, etc.) as more important than poor or so-called “insignificant” people. We want a selfie with the big-name celebrity, not with the no-name landscaper who mows his lawn.

But James says it’s impossible to love and trust God while also relying on these common cultural evaluations. The person who treats some with honor and others with contempt is revealing a dead faith. Living faith in “our glorious Lord Jesus” is incompatible with favoritism because God has lovingly created every person in his image and invited them to mutually share in Jesus’ glory. A living faith leads us to see each other not with our own eyes but through God’s eyes—such faith trusts God’s perspective, compelling us to disregard social status and love all our neighbors as ourselves (see Jas. 2:8).

As a second example, James asks, “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, but someone among you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warm and feed yourself,’ but you do not give them what is needed for the body, what good is that?” (Jas. 2:15-16, BibleProject Translation). But he’s not really asking, is he? He’s making a point.

Conventional wisdom suggests that giving to our neighbors will reduce the resources we need to care for ourselves and our families. Our worries, rooted in the (false) assumption that there’s not enough to share, tend to make us stingy and hard-hearted toward others. So in James’ story, the well-wisher offers kind thoughts and prayers, but he leaves his neighbor starving and naked, saying, “Be warm and feed yourself.” It’s like promising that you care, but refusing to provide any care.

New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III says, “The person in question is being very callous, juxtaposing warm words with cold deeds. Like so many others since, this person is saying, ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,’ or, ‘Do it yourself.’”(1) James calls this kind of faith dead—it looks religious and sounds holy, but is not rooted in love for God and others and, therefore, accomplishes nothing good. A living faith involves trusting that God will generously provide for us as we provide good nutrition and adequate clothing for others.

James’ final example of dead faith shocks everyone, as he turns toward the demonic world. “You believe that God is one, you do well,” James says, which sounds encouraging. But then he suggests that such belief, on its own, isn’t that significant, continuing with, “Even the demons believe, and they tremble!” (Jas. 2:19, BibleProject Translation). The demons believe the truth about God, but something is obviously off.

The word translated here as “believe” is the Greek verb pisteuo, which is about believing, trusting, or having faith in someone or something. It’s related to the noun pistis, which is used for “faith” throughout this passage. This connection helps readers see that much of what passes for faith in their culture is the same thing demons have: nice-sounding, accurate proclamations of truth; genuine belief in God’s existence and sovereign power, yet without loving action toward others.

When James says, “You believe that God is one,” he’s alluding to the first portion of the Shema, a daily prayer recited by ancient Israelites and modern Jewish people today that begins, “Hear O Israel, Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is one” (Deut. 6:4). Reciting that prayer is a way to claim faith in the one true God. Yet, in James’ view, that’s not enough. Even demons do that!

So why does James say that the demons tremble in fear? That’s not as clear, but it could be because they know that God is the one true God (the sovereign power) and that they’re not acting in line with his life-giving ways. New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III says it well: The demons are “perfectly orthodox and perfectly lost.”(2) Their faith is dead. They live out of sync with God’s creation and oppose his will, seeking to cause harm, chaos, and destruction instead of partnering with God to bring peace, order, and life.

Living Faith in the Bible

James then hyperlinks to two mysterious stories to illustrate what a living faith looks like. From among the many examples of faith in the Hebrew Bible, James chooses two powerful examples: Abraham and Rahab.

It appears that Abraham and Rahab form a merism—a figure of speech that uses two opposites to represent the whole of something. Abraham is a Hebrew man, the father of Israel and a wealthy landowner. Rahab is a Canaanite woman, who finds herself on the margins of society as a sex worker, but ends up becoming a matriarch in Jesus' genealogy. James pitches Abraham and Rahab together as a representation of all who trust God and live according to his instruction in faith, whatever their social standing.

Abraham’s Faith

James first focuses on the faith of Israel’s original patriarch: “Was our father Abraham not considered righteous by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was working together with his works and by his works, his faith was made complete. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness,’ and he was called God’s friend.” (Jas. 2:21-23, BibleProject Translation)

James condenses the narrative arc of Genesis 15-22, which begins with Abraham trusting God’s promise of a son and ends with Abraham entrusting that promised son back to God (see Gen. 22:1-19), as a paradigmatic example of living faith. But in between, we see moments where Abraham’s faith appears to be dead.

When Abraham’s wife, Sarah, remains barren even after God promises the couple a son, they distrust God and come up with their own plan to resolve the problem. Following an ancient practice, they force an enslaved woman to bear a child for the family. Their plan works (kind of) when Sarah’s slave Hagar gives birth to a son named Ishmael (Gen. 16). But Ishmael is not the son God promised.

By letting go of his trust in God and relying on harmful cultural patterns for dealing with barrenness, Abraham creates conflict in his household. And this ultimately leads to intense suffering for Hagar, Ishmael, and probably everyone involved (Gen. 16:4-6; Gen. 21:8-21). This is definitely a dead-faith moment in the middle of Abraham’s story, though it’s not highlighted by James.

We might say that once Sarah finally gives birth to Isaac, everything she and Abraham have hoped for has finally come to pass. God’s promise to give a son is fulfilled. Their future family is secured. Things are good, and they can breathe deeply again. But then God tells Abraham to give Isaac back—to sacrifice him on a mountaintop altar. What?!

After years of waiting and believing God’s promise to bless the entire world not through any son but through Isaac specifically, Abraham is still willing to entrust the life of his son back to God. This demonstrates the deep living faith James wants us to see. In our human economy, this makes zero sense. But that’s the point.

When Abraham and Sarah trust mainstream methods for securing their future, their actions “make sense” but lead to corruption and harm. Then, in the story with Isaac on the mountain, Abraham does not put his trust in cultural assumptions about family lineage, male heirs, or even the permanence of death. Instead, he actively trusts God by listening to and obeying God’s instruction, and this results in blessing and life for everyone (Gen. 22:17-18).

Although Abraham’s larger story reveals some dead-faith moments, which James and his readers are also aware of, setting Abraham up as an example of faith doesn’t really surprise anyone. But when James says that Rahab, a woman stuck in prostitution, provides an example like Abraham—well, that’s a lot more surprising.

Rahab's Faith

“And likewise,” James writes, “was not Rahab the sex worker also considered righteous by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?” (Jas. 2:25, BibleProject Translation).

Although James doesn't explicitly mention Rahab's faith, he connects her to Abraham's story with the word “likewise” (Greek homoios), suggesting that she demonstrates the same kind of faith that he does.

The “messengers” James mentions are Israelite spies sent to scope out the Canaanite city of Jericho. Upon arrival, Rahab welcomes them into her home and offers them safe haven from the king of Jericho. She then makes them promise to spare her family when the battle begins (see Josh. 2:1-14).

But wait—as a Canaanite, wouldn’t Rahab regard Israelite spies as enemies? Why risk her own life to protect them?

Rahab explains that reports about Israel’s journey have convinced her that Israel’s God is the “God in heaven and on earth below” (Josh. 2:11). Rather than opposing him, she chooses to partner with God in his intention to bring Israel into the promised land (Josh. 2:8-13). So when the Israelites enter Jericho, they spare Rahab and her family, welcoming them into their community (see Josh. 6:17; Josh. 6:22-25). And according to Matthew, Rahab becomes part of the ancestral line of Jesus (see Matt. 1:5).

Rahab's actions also reveal a living faith but, unlike Abraham, Rahab acts from the margins of society in a way that requires remarkable courage. Both Abraham and Rahab are willing to surrender everything to align themselves with God’s plans and receive the life he gives.

Living Faith Is More Than Belief

James illuminates and clarifies our understanding of faith by bypassing questions about whether one has (or does not have) faith and focusing instead on whether a person’s faith is living or dead.

Faith as mere belief in God? Dead, says James, by pointing to demons who proclaim correct beliefs but embrace corrupt actions. What about faith as pious “thoughts and prayers” that posture and impress but provide no tangible love or assistance to anyone? That’s faith without works, James says, and that means it’s dead.

Proclaiming trust in God while remaining embedded in harmful thought-patterns and practices of the surrounding culture reflects a faith that remains just as empty and powerless as a broken promise. So James invites us into something better—something real and alive.

The examples of dead faith described in James 2 are ultimately not too shocking. It’s common to honor people who have high social status and ignore (or dishonor) those who don’t. It’s not weird to neglect the needs of other people when we’re focused on providing for our own families. But living faith involves a willful departure from much that the world calls normal or “okay.” Living faith calls us to completely reorient our thoughts, affections, and actions to the ways of God—the creator—who breathes life into existence and designs all of creation to support ongoing, flourishing life.

Salvation by Faith or Works?

Some readers may wonder how James’ teaching about works and faith squares with Paul’s teaching on the same subject. After all, James says: “You see that from works a person is made right and not by faith alone” (Jas. 2:24, BibleProject Translation)

But Paul seems to say the opposite: “For we conclude that a person is made right by faith without works of the law” (Rom. 3:28, BibleProject Translation).

Which is it? Are we made right by faith without works or by faith alongside works? Doing justice to the complexities of this interpretive challenge would warrant another article, but here we can say with some confidence that Paul and James are talking about two different things. Similar, yes, but different.

Paul is talking about “works of the law,” which is likely a technical term for the kinds of boundary markers that kept Jews set apart from Gentiles, such as circumcision and food laws. He wants people to understand that their relationship with God is not restored by keeping those laws, but by faith.

But the kind of faith Paul has in mind is the same kind of living faith that James is talking about—a faith that totally reorients how we live in the world. For Paul, faith leads us to surrender to God’s way of life, doing good works that bless and enliven our neighbors by the power of God’s Spirit (see Rom. 6:1-23; Gal. 5:1-26).

1. Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Hebrews, James, and Jude (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2016), 474.
2. Witherington, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians, 476.