James is speaking of faith without works as if it were a dead body without the spirit. Here, it is implied that "works" refers to things people do because they believe in God, such as obeying God and doing good to others. This can be restated to remove the abstract nouns "faith" and "works." Alternate translation: "For just as the body is useless without the spirit, even so it is useless for a person to believe in God if he does not do anything" or "For just as the body is useless without the spirit, even so it is useless for a person to believe in God if he does not do anything as a result of his belief" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-metaphor]] and [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-explicit]] and [[rc://en/ta/man/jit/figs-abstractnouns]])
See in Reader
