Is Your Faith Living or Dead?

“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can that faith save him?” (James 2:14)

Martin Luther called this epistle, “an epistle of straw,” because he believed that it was teaching works for salvation and not faith alone, in contradiction to Paul’s teaching on salvation by grace through faith.

In verses 15 and 16 James gives the illustration of someone in need of clothing and food being told  by another to be “warmed and filled,” expressing with the mouth great faith, but not helping with the destitute person’s needs. “Of what profit is it?” James asks. Then he concludes, “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17)

The difference is not between faith and works but between living faith and dead faith. In verse 14 when the question is asked, “Can faith save him?” a better translation is, “Can that kind of faith save him?”

Study the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 and see what actions their faith prompted. Someone said that a faith that does nothing is worth nothing.