Now if a brother or a sister is naked and destitute of daily food,
James paints a picture you can see: a fellow believer without proper clothing and without food for the day. He sets it in front of someone who claims to have faith, and asks what the claim is worth if the hand never moves.
The older wording calls this brother or sister "naked." In Scripture that word covers a range of meanings, and here it lands on the body's need, not the soul's.
The word, besides its ordinary meaning, was often used of a man who was without his outer cloak (1 Samuel 19:24; Isaiah 20:2; John 21:7). It also stands for natural destitution, as in James 2:15; for spiritual destitution (2 Corinthians 5:3; Revelation 3:17; Revelation 16:15); and for being stripped bare (Revelation 17:16).
James does not reach for a heroic example. He picks a case that even people with no faith would respond to.
The last half of chapter 2 shows us the kind of works that come out of faith. Works of mercy are only normal and indeed elementary, as verses 15 and 16 show. Even unbelievers often feel some duty to help those who suffer poverty and hunger. Should I then tell suffering believers that I have faith God will provide for them, while I myself give them nothing? In these very things my faith is to be proven.
The reply in the next verse — go in peace, be warmed and filled — sounds kind. That is the problem.
Some people will give the poor good words, and that is all. Good words are only a cold kind of charity. Your words may be as smooth as oil, but they will not heal the wounded. They may drop like honey, but they will not feed the hungry.
Another writer names what lies under such polite talk.
There is a danger of being satisfied with words alone. The apostle John warns the whole family of God about this. "Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:18). Nor is he alone in this, for James asks the same question here. Such conduct is only a veiled form of apathy, so utterly distasteful to the Lord.
A person may truly believe that God provides for His people. One writer points out where that belief was meant to lead.
We may profess faith in God's care for His people in the things of this life. But that faith must make us ready to be the channel His care flows through. If it does not, our faith is of no profit to the needy brother or sister, nor indeed to ourselves. Our faith on that particular point is dead, and so it does nothing, as verse 17 tells us. We must not be surprised if others challenge it.
The failure says something about the faith itself, not just about money.
A faith that is unproductive has no living link with God. What good is a faith that is only agreement with a list of doctrines, and so shows it came from man? The faith that is given us of God saves; not that which is the fruit of man's nature.
Two things are easy to confuse here: what God can see, and what people can see.
Remember, James never says that works justify us before God; for God can see the faith without its works. He knows that life is there. That life is active towards Him. It trusts His word and Himself, and it receives His testimony despite everything inside him and around him. This God sees and knows. But when our fellow-creatures are in question, when it must be said "show me," then faith, life, shows itself in works.
That same distinction settles what this passage was written to answer.
The Scripture before us does not answer the question of how a sinner is cleansed before God. It answers what conduct suits those who have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.
- See — In Scripture "naked" can mean a man without his outer cloak. Here it is bodily need: clothes and today's meal.
- Say — Good words alone are "a cold kind of charity"; smooth speech heals no wound and feeds no one.
- Send — Faith that God cares for His people should make you the channel His care flows through. Refuse, and that faith does nothing.
- Show — God sees faith without works. People cannot, so works are how faith answers a neighbour who says "show me."
- Sift — The test is elementary, not heroic. If the plainest mercy is missing, the faith has no living link with God.
and one from amongst you say to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled; but give not to them the needful things for the body, what [is] the profit?
James pictures a familiar scene: you face a believer with no clothes and no food, and you send them away with kind words and an empty hand. The question that follows — what good is that? — tests the speaker, not the one in need.
James does not choose a hard case. He chooses one no reader can argue with.
No one would imagine it does the slightest good just to say to a needy person, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled", and yet do nothing to meet the need. However fair the words, they bring no profit unless deeds go with them.
Mercy of this kind is not advanced Christianity.
Works of mercy are only normal, and indeed basic, as verses 15 and 16 show. Even unbelievers often admit some duty to help those who suffer poverty and hunger. Should I then tell suffering believers that I have faith that they will be provided for, while I give them nothing myself? These are the very things that must prove my faith. If good works do not accompany it, then such faith is dead. It bears no fruit. It is alone, solitary, cut off from reality.
The words in the verse are pleasant. That is the trap: they sound like kindness and cost nothing.
There are some who perhaps will give the poor good words, and that is all. Good words are only a cold kind of charity. Let your words be as smooth as oil; they will not heal the wounded. Let them drop like honeycomb; they will not feed the hungry.
The needy person walks away hungry. The speaker walks away having cheated himself.
This is a real test of the heart. To say, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, and then not give them the things the body needs, is to cheat ourselves quite as much as them.
The refusal is not open hostility. It hides behind pleasant speech.
There is a danger of settling for what is only of the tongue... Such conduct is only a veiled form of apathy, or Laodiceanism, so utterly distasteful to the Lord.
Laodicea was a church the Lord rebuked for being lukewarm.
James is not changing the subject from faith to charity. Love that stays in the mouth and faith that stays in the mouth fail in the same way.
The principle that love must show itself in deeds and not in words brings in the question of works. James is practical. He deals with the evil of professing Christianity without a practical life to match that profession... Faith is a powerful principle. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart. It is a spring that moves all the wheels of the heart, a principle that lifts the heart above selfishness and all the low motives of the world.
Kelly presses the illustration into two questions.
Does Christ own a faith that does not work through love?... The tongue may be active, the heart cold, the walk selfish as before. But are these the ways of a nature brought to birth by the Father of lights through the word of truth?
Some have read James as contradicting Paul on how a person is declared right with God.
Any difficulty the reader finds disappears as soon as he grasps this fact: Paul deals... with the justification of the ungodly, while James (in James 2) speaks of the justification of the godly. The one is before God and the other is before men. God justifies the ungodly on the principle of faith. It is by grace alone, and works have no part at all... A life full of good works flows from a living faith. When the works are missing, we may well doubt what the lips profess.
The Lord Himself met hungry people the opposite way.
He did not say to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," where you can. In the fullness of His love as of His power, He provided the fire and the food, "needed for the body," and refreshing to the soul.
- Say — The verse turns on a sentence spoken to a hungry person. Fair words are the cheapest thing a heart can produce, and they will not warm or feed anyone.
- Withhold — The failure is not cruelty but a hand kept shut. Commentators call this a veiled apathy, the Laodicean temperature the Lord finds distasteful.
- Profit — Neither side gains anything. The needy leave empty, and the speaker cheats himself with a faith he only imagines he has.
- Prove — Works do not earn salvation; they display it. Paul speaks of the ungodly justified before God by grace alone. James speaks of the godly justified before men by what their lives show.
- Pattern — Christ did not send hungry people away with words instead of bread. He lit the fire and laid out the food, and that is the shape love takes when faith is alive.