Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Faith That Works

Few people have struggled with the relationship between faith and works as Martin Luther. As today, people in Luther's time wanted to separate faith and works as if they were two distinct acts of the human will. Or we think we begin with faith and then works take over to get us the rest of the way. Instead, Luther saw faith as a living vital work of God that would inevitably produce a changed life. Here is how he put it:

Faith, however, is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit. O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith. It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly. It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them. Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever. He gropes and looks around for faith and good works, but knows neither what faith is nor what good works are. Yet he talks and talks, with many words, about faith and good works.

So the key to good works is true saving faith. True faith produces action naturally, without even having to be told! Luther goes on to say:

Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. This knowledge of and confidence in God's grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures. And this is the work which the Holy Spirit performs in faith. Because of it, without compulsion, a person is ready and glad to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown him this grace. Thus it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire.

So it all comes back to the Gospel. It's not about trying harder. Rather, "God's grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures". Go to the cross! Saturate yourself with the gospel of grace until true faith arises in your soul!

The well wisher of your soul's happiness,

Pastor Tom

Quotes from "Martin Luther, "Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans," in Luther's Works, vol. 35, Word and Sacrament I, ed. E. Theodore Bachmann (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1960), 365-380, at 370-371.)

No comments: