Dead Faith: Are You a Zombie Christian? – James 2:14-26

Have you ever met a Zombie Christian? I’m not talking about zombies like in the horror movies. I mean, somebody who has the appearance of spiritual life (goes to church, knows the Bible, believes in Jesus) but they’re actually full of dead faith.

They’re like the walking dead, showing signs of life but still dead. This is a bigger problem than many might think.

There are zombie Christians in every church. 

We live in a culture that often reduces Christianity to what you believe. If you say, “I believe that Jesus died for my sins and rose again.” Most people would immediately think you are saved by your faith in Jesus, and they may be right. But is intellectual belief the same as genuine saving faith?

Today, we’re digging into James 2:14-26, and this is the problem he addresses without mixing words. There are zombie Christians in the church, those with the appearance of faith, but their faith is dead. So how do we know someone’s faith is alive and genuine?

Many people hear this passage and think James is saying you have to earn your way to God. He’s not. And when you understand what he is actually arguing, it changes your understanding of what it means to be saved.

The Problem of Dead Faith

James leads with the big question right away.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14 ESV)

In other words, can faith without works save someone? Our first instinct is to say yes, because the Bible teaches that if we have faith, we are saved. That’s true, but James is going a little deeper here.

What if a person is only saying they have faith? How do we know if that faith is genuine? How do we know that we are not being fooled or even fooling ourselves?

According to James, if you say you have faith but don’t back it up with doing good works, we have reasons to question the sincerity of that faith.

Look at how James explains it.

¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.  (James 2:15-17)

What good is it for you to say, “Be warm and filled,” to someone in need of food and clothing? It doesn’t matter how much you believe it, or how much you sincerely hope they are warm and filled. If you don’t follow up with action, the person is no better off.

Dead faith is what James calls anyone who claims to have faith but does not have good works that back up their claim.

If you have no good works, you may think you have faith; it might look alive and well on the outside, but it’s dead faith on the inside. You’re a Zombie Christian. And dead faith doesn’t save.

Now I know that sounds harsh, but keep following James’ reason here to understand what he is getting at.

Demon Faith: Belief is Not Enough

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (James 2:18-19)

How can you show your faith apart from works? It’s an impossible task. You cannot show anyone your faith except through your actions. I can’t see your heart. I can’t read your mind. James is pointing to how absurd it is to say that I have faith, but it never shows.

Instead, he says, I will show faith by works. Faith is evident in the way you live, speak, and the decisions you make. You cannot divorce them.

And then James hits on something truly terrifying: Believing in God is not enough. 

Why? Demons believe in God, too. They are more convinced of God’s existence than anyone else, but is their acceptance of the knowledge of his existence enough to save them? No. Why? Because saving faith is more than easy believism. They have knowledge of God without devotion to God. They knowingly rebel against God.

Authentic faith changes you from the inside out. Not where you simply believe in God, but where you worship him as Lord, and submit your life to his service.

Now, James is about to get into something highly controversial in his case that faith apart from works is dead. He uses two examples from the Old Testament to support his point: Abraham and Rahab.

Abraham and Rahab Are Justified By Works?

²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. (James 2:20-26)

If you don’t know these stories. In Genesis 22, God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Abraham’s faith was evident in his willingness to do it because he trusted God so fully. But God graciously provided an alternative sacrifice, which is a beautiful foreshadowing of what God would one day do for us all by sacrificing his son, Jesus. And James quotes Genesis 15:6, which says that God counted Abraham’s faith as righteousness. This was genuine faith. 

And Rahab, in Joshua 2, was a gentile prostitute living in Jericho who sheltered the spies from Israel in her home and helped them escape. When God brought down the walls of Jericho, she and her family were the only ones spared because of her good works that flowed from her faith in God. And by the way, Jesus would eventually be born from her lineage.

And this is the controversy: James says both Abraham and Rahab are examples of people who were justified by their works.

Why is that controversial? 

Justification, or to be justified, is a legal term that means to be declared righteous. When Jesus saves us, we are justified (declared righteous) before God based on the finished work of Jesus, not by anything we have accomplished. 

Paul writes in Romans 3:28, “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”

And in Galatians 2:16, he says it even stronger:  “a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

The Bible teaches that we are justified by faith alone. We are not saved by works. James sounds a bit like works-based salvation, in which you must do enough good to outweigh the bad so you can be saved. And that’s what every other religion teaches. 

So which is it? Are we justified by faith alone (as the protestant reformers emphasized) or by works (as James seems to be saying)? And is this a contradiction in the Bible that people may point out to disprove the reliability of the Bible?

When James says in 2:24 that “a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” He is not actually contradicting what Paul is teaching. He does not say we are not justified by faith alone, but that we are justified by faith that is not dead.

Reconciling Faith and Works

Perhaps the best way to think about this is to imagine a healthy tree in an orchard. A healthy tree will eventually produce fruit. The fruit does not make the tree healthy. The fruit is evidence that the tree is healthy. 

Genuine faith is like this tree. Faith is the root. Good works are the fruit. It is not the good works that save you. You are saved by faith. But saving faith will always produce fruit in your life.

This is what James is getting at. As the reformers said, “We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. But saving faith is never alone.” Saving faith always produces fruit. 

This fruit of good works in a person’s life is evidence that saving faith exists. If you see no fruit in your life or the life of another who claims to have faith, you are correct to question if they truly have faith or if it is the same faith as the demons. 

We see this clearly in Paul’s writing in Ephesians 2:8-10,

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, ⁹ not a result of works, so that no one may boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Do you see the chain here? We are saved by grace through faith in Christ for good works.

We are not saved by good works for grace through Christ in faith. It is not a result of works. But God saved us so that we would do the good works that he created us to do. 

If we say we are saved by grace through faith in Christ, but don’t see any good works flowing from it, we’re zombie Christians. Our faith is dead, just like the demons.

A Spiritual Audit for Living Faith

So what do we do with this? There are two traps to avoid here.

First, don’t be fooled by the trap of legalism, that you have to do good works to earn your salvation. We are not saved by our works; we trust in the work of Christ.

But the second is the trap of lawlessness. It’s living like you are saved by faith, so it doesn’t matter how you live. So you indulge in the ways of the world and produce zero fruit. 

So it’s time for a spiritual audit. Ask yourself, “Am I a Zombie Christian?”

Examine your heart and your hands over the last week:

Do you have a “demon faith” where it is all head-knowledge with no heart for God? You know God, but do not love to follow him?

And what are your hands actually doing for the kingdom of God? Are you serving God and others around you, or only giving lip service?

Now, this isn’t meant to guilt you into thinking you have to produce mountains of fruit to be saved. My seminary professor, Dr. Wayne Grudem, used to ask, “How much fruit does a Christian have to produce to know they are saved?” 

His answer: “Some.”

It is not enormous amounts, but it can’t be nothing. You should see some fruit. 

Just look at the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. 

Do you see the fruit of faith in your life?

Knowledge about God doesn’t make you a Christian. Genuine saving faith in Christ does. And you will know you are a Christian by the evidence of good works that are the natural fruit of faith.

Don’t settle for zombie Christianity.