"Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?"Faith and works are dove-tailed together, inextricably connected, each element reliant on the other for purpose. Thus, this is a clause declaring how essential one element is, but only to increase the reality that without either you do not have the “product” of justification. It is not to be linearly interpreted as faith precedent to works, thus leaving potential to surmise the possibility of faith absent works. Rather these texts serve as a “gauge” for our justification indicative of our current state; answering a true or false statement, either you are justified and living with both faith and works, or you are not the product of a justified being.
Analogy for faith and works: We are stranded on the top of a cliff with no way down except for a weather balloon marked (faith) and a canister of helium (works). To think you can jump off of the cliff clutching to the canister of helium is as ignorant as presuming the deflated weather balloon will prevent your deadly impact on the surface of the earth.