Codes for Christian Living

A Faith Without Fruit is a False Faith

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. —JAMES 2:14–17

James wasted no time getting to the heart of the issue in this passage. He began with a question: “What does it profit—what good is it—if someone claims to have faith but doesn’t back up that claim with actions?” To put it bluntly, a faith without any accompanying fruit is a false faith. Earlier, on a Galilean hillside, our Lord had said the very same thing in a different way: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:20).

Observe carefully what James was saying—and note what he did not say as well. James was not referring to a man who has faith, but to someone who “says he has faith.” James was addressing a false claim to faith, not the nature of genuine faith. The mere claim that one is a believer does not make him such. Many people today say they are people of faith, but they have never placed their faith in Christ alone and experienced what Jesus called “the new birth.” In fact, Jesus framed it rather bluntly: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21).

Much of the unnecessary confusion in the faith-works debate stems from the translation of James’s second question in James 2:14. Both the King James Version and the New King James Version ask, “Can faith save him?” The Greek text has an article in front of the word faith, indicating that this faith is the same faith just mentioned in the first question of verse 14—that is, a false faith. Properly translated, the question reads, “Can such a faith, can that kind of a faith, save him?” James was certainly not saying that faith cannot save a person, but that a faith characterized only by intellectual assent but exhibits no fruit is, in the final analysis, a false faith.

Every Sunday multiplied thousands of people say they have faith. But James asked, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can [that kind of] faith save him?” The answer is no.

Among the legacy of the Reformers is their often-repeated affirmation, “It is faith alone that saves, but faith that saves is never alone.” In James’s words, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Remember, James was not talking about faith and works but about a faith that works.

Content drawn from The James Code: 52 Scripture Principles for Putting Your Faith into Action.