James 2:26

‘For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead.'

Then he comes to his final conclusion. Just like the body is dead if it has no spirit (when the spirit has departed from it), so is faith dead if no life can be seen, if no works can be seen to be springing from it. Such a situation makes clear that that faith is totally unproductive, and is not genuine faith in ‘the God Who acts' at all. It is moribund. The picture is a vivid one. He imagines looking down at the dead body, unmoving and lifeless with no reaction at all. And then he adds, and if faith is like that, producing no reaction and bringing about no movement and no living response, then it too is clearly dead.