Faith is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. With and in this faith, all of life is sacramental, and the two sacraments proper are clear and unobstructed meetings with God in Christ. But without faith, everything becomes blurry, and religion is reduced in principle to shamanism.
The faith that God gives is no momentary flash in the pan. It is not given just long enough for the recipient to believe unto justification, and then expire. Rather, this faith, as the instrumentality of everlasting life, is everlasting faith. It pervades everything. And like wisdom, it is recognized in her children — it is only seen in its incarnational forms.
These children of faith are the good works which God prepared beforehand for us to do. By grace are you saved, through faith, and that faith is not of yourselves but is the gift of God, lest anyone boast. And that faith, given by God, is used to eternal effect, to shape us into God’s design, for we are God’s workmanship, God’s great work of art. And this faith is everlastingly alive.
This is why James tells us that as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead. Note how easy it is for us to assume that James got his analogy backwards. We tend to think of works as the inert carcass, and faith is the animating principle. But James states it the other way. In his illustration, faith is the body, and works are the animating principle.
Is James urging formalism, externalism, Pharisaism? Not a bit of it. Whatever we emphasize, wherever we start, we have a temptation to run from Christ in that emphasis. James addresses those who want a truncated, momentary faith—not true faith. Jesus and Paul address those who want truncated, momentary and sporadic works—not true works. They all address those who hate wisdom, and who therefore love death. But we serve the Lord of life, and do not divide what God has joined together.