For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Faith is a spiritual thing: works material. Hence, we might expect faith to answer to the spirit: works to the body. But James reverses this. He therefore does not mean that faith answers to the body; but the FROM of faith without the working reality answers to the body without the animating spirit. It does not follow that living faith derives its life from works, as the body derives its life from the animating spirit. Faith apart from х chooris (G5565)] the spirit of faith, which is LOVE (and love evidences itself in works), is dead, according to Paul also, 1 Corinthians 13:2.