Dead Faith James 2:14-26

The associate ministers and the pastor are together in the pastor’s office preparing to enter into the sanctuary for the worship services. As one of the associate ministers prays, she asks God to help those who are suffering from depression. Of course I do not know what is in her mind and on her heart. I must say that it raised my eyebrow. Do you know why? Let me tell you. In the church, mental illness has often been a taboo subject. People don’t want to talk about it. People who are suffering from mental illness are often shunned and/or pitted, but people don’t want to talk about it. So, in my mind, I am thinking, why are we offering prayers about something that we are unwilling to do something about? I remember the words of James, “faith without works is dead.”

In this article I want to raise the issue of “dead faith.” What is dead faith? What leads to dead faith? How do I distinguish the difference between dead faith and a living faith?

Before we begin this discussion let us give a working definition of faith. First, faith is belief in someone or something. We all have faith. In the bible the authors of the sixty-six books are promoting faith in God. They are specific about the God that they are talking about. The bible informs us that we are to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are the patriarchs of Israel. The patriarchs do not invent a god. God reveals Himself to Abram (Abraham). God makes a covenant with Abram that is passed on to Abraham’s son Isaac, and to Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob becomes the father of twelve sons that become the twelve tribes of Israel. Through the seed of Abraham the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is born to become the Savior of both Israel and the entire world. So, the one that we are to have faith in is the God of the bible.

What is dead faith? James writes, “Even so faith, if it has no works is dead, being by itself” (2:17, NASB). Now this leads us to another matter of faith. What do the theologians mean when they talk about “subjective faith” and “objective faith?” It is said that the great leader of the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther, was not fond of the book of James. Apparently, he could not resolve the Apostle Paul’s subjective faith with James’ objective faith. What are the differences and how do we hold to the teaching of both Paul and James.

Paul preaches a subjective faith. Subjective faith is what we believe. It is what we say (subjective). James writes about what we do (objective). Paul writes that our works of the Law do not save us. He says, “By the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20, NASB). On the other hand, James tells us that believing in God alone is insufficient. James writes, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?” (Jas. 2:19-20, NASB). In verses 21-26, James gives us the examples of Abraham and Rahab. They not only believed in God; their faith in God produced works. Thus, dead faith is a faith that does not produce works. This brings us to this question: What are the works that James is talking about, and how might these works be different from our own ideas of appropriate works?

First, James is talking about what we do. However, before we begin to do anything, we must have a right relationship with God. We must be justified. God justifies us when we express our faith in Him. Paul writes that Abraham believed God’s promises in spite of his own limitations (Rom. 4:17-25). Further Paul writes “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1, NASB). We have said that subjective faith is what we believe and what we say. Paul writes: “‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:8-10, NASB).

Now, that we have believed and confessed subjectively, we must establish our stated belief by our works. You see, the two, subjective faith and objective faith are not separate. The two go together. True subjective faith leads to objective faith. Since our faith is in God, our works must be the works of God. It is failure to do the works of God that shows us that our faith is dead. If we have dead faith, our belief in God is no different from that on demons (Jas. 2:19). A living faith is a faith that causes us to do the works that God calls us to do.

The world does a lot of good works, and the church should support the efforts. However, unlike the world, Christians do not work for their own glory and the praise of the world. “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism” (Jas. 2:1). “‘Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven’” (Matt. 6:1, NASB).

What are the works that God calls us to do? In many instances the same things that the world does are the same things that the church is to do. Matthew 25 gives us examples of some practical things that we are to do every day. James gives us one example. “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food and one of you says to them ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” (Jas. 2:15-16, NASB)). The difference between the world and the church is this. The world does good works for its own glory. The church does good works to bring glory and honor to God.

The works of God include living by the teachings of Jesus. We are called to be disciples of Jesus. This means that we do what He teaches us to do, and we say what Jesus says. Our faith is dead when we do good works but deny that we represent God. When we agree with the philosophies and doctrines of the world instead of recognizing the Lord we have dead faith. When we allow the world to tell us what our priorities are to be we have dead faith.

In order to do the works of God we must be empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit keeps us connected to the God. The Holy Spirit keeps us under the Lordship of Jesus. The Holy Spirit causes us to think like God. The Holy Spirit develops our character so that we are able to please God. The Holy Spirit gives us a living faith. We are called not to a dead faith, but we are called to a living faith.

Finally, let us return to the beginning of this article. I asked if our prayers come from a dead faith. Do we pray without any intent to do anything about the things that we are praying about? Certainly we can find examples in the Bible where people are unable to do anything about their circumstances. So, we see people bringing these people to Jesus and they take Jesus to the people in need. These are the works that we are to do. We cannot expect that we can simply send Jesus to those in need. We have to participate. We have to do our part. The church must teach and preach about matters that we often avoid. The writers of the sixty-six books of the bible do not avoid these issues. Rather, they raise the issues and tell us that God is involved in all circumstances. When we pray about issues but fail to do what we can do, we have dead faith.