If you have a body without any spirit in it, all you have is a dead body. It may be a beautiful body and may be decked in the finest clothes, but without the spirit, it's still just a dead body. And if you have faith without any deeds or actions, you may have a beautiful faith and you may have it all decked out in the latest Christian jargon, but without deeds, it's still just a dead faith. A body that doesn't live is no good to anyone; and neither is a faith that doesn't live. "It's not what you believe that counts; it's what you believe enough to do." Faith that doesn't live is no good.
In all of my life as a Christian, any time that I've read this verse, I have always reversed the equation in my mind. In other words, I've always read it like this: spirit equals faith; body equals deeds. And so, I interpreted it to mean that the spirit makes the body alive; therefore, faith makes deeds alive. But that's not correct. James, the Lord's brother, says that the body equals faith; spirit equals deeds. This changes everything. The interpretation now is that deeds makes faith come alive! Not the other way around.
In the same way that spirit animates a body, the Lord desires for deeds to animate our faith. The Lord wants faith to produce actions. "Faith expressing itself through love" (Gal. 5:6) will produce deeds of love. Jesus never intended for the gospel to simply be assimilated by our brains and stored away inside of ourselves. He intended it to be received and acted upon (Matt. 7:21-27). He desires that my belief will be expressed through loving obedience and trust. He desires more from me than an intellectual nod of approval and agreement. He expects actions of love that animate my faith. Anything less is dead and useless.
Therefore, how do you tell if faith is dead or alive? By deeds of love. If faith doesn't have these with it, it's only a dead faith.
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