Even so faith; that which they boasted of, and called faith. Is dead; void of that life, in which the very essence of faith consists, and which always discovers itself in vital actings and good fruits, where it is not hindered by some forcible impediment; in allusion to a corpse, which plainly appears to have no vital principle in it, all vital operations being ceased. It resembles a man's body, and is called so, but in reality is not so, but a dead carcass. Being alone; margin, by itself, or in itself; be it what it will, it is but dead: or, as we render it, being alone, i.e. not in conjunction with works, which always it should be.
Related Commentaries of James 2:17
James 2:17
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.c