There are vocations that endeavor to deal in certainty. Take engineering: I’m not certain that I would feel comfortable driving over a bridge designed by a person who simply ‘felt’ that their design would have integrity. I want somebody who will crunch the numbers and who understands beam and column formulas. Without that sort of clear demonstration that bridges are safe, it would be difficult to declare them safe for public use.
Physicians do the same thing. About fifteen years ago, my physician heard a bruit in one of my carotid arteries. His word to me was, “I am pretty certain that there is nothing wrong – it is probably an artery that takes a torturous path through your neck. But I’m not paid to guess, so I’m sending you to have a sonogram and then we can talk. Turns out that his intuition was right – but, again, physicians are not paid to guess – they want to make the very best diagnosis possible.
Teachers do the same sort of thing. They spend a lot of time teaching and providing students with exercises and practice that allows them to master the subject matter. But at the end of they day – they determine how well the material was taught and mastered by administering some sort of assessment instrument.
But what about areas that are not so easy to measure? - For example, what about love? Is it fair to say that love is not measureable and that we must simply go by a feeling or an intuition? Interestingly enough, the Scriptures really do speak about love as being very measureable and observable. Listen to what Saint Paul speaking through the Spirit tells us:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13.4-8a)
Love is something we can see in action. Love is something we can see – not just an airy feeling. Hey – and I’d like to direct this to the young ladies in the congregation this morning – before you fall head over heels for a guy, make sure that you consider what love really looks like before you make any serious commitments. Love looks like something!
Ok, so let’s talk a bit about another one of these things that is not always easy to pin down – saving faith. The picture on the cover page of the sermon notes is instantly recognizable by much of the world. Of course, you know that the drawing is a depiction of Mother Teresa – the nun who established the Missionaries of Charity and dedicated her entire life to serving the poorest of the poor. There is a story about some very wealthy and well-placed people visiting Mother Teresa in Calcutta. She received them graciously and showed them the work that she and the Sisters of Charity did. The story goes that at one point along the way, Mother Teresa stopped to dress the wounds of a leper. As she cleaned the oozing wounds and replaced the soiled bandages, one of the wealthy people was heard to say, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars!” – To which Mother Teresa was said to have replied, “Neither would I.” Now this story may be urban legend because I’ve read a number of different versions of it on the Internet. But it almost doesn’t matter, because Mother Teresa did devote her entire life to helping the lepers and the homeless and the abandoned in Calcutta, India. What is undeniable is that Mother Teresa’s faith drove her to devote her entire life to helping the most helpless and needy people in the world.
Ok, so is there a way to determine whether a person has saving faith? Can we look at the way a person engages life and come to a position about whether a person has faith that is the genuine article? Saint James suggests that yes, we can tell whether faith is the genuine article. Let’s read what he says:
What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. (James 2.14-18)
James is concerned about Christians whose faith is based only on knowledge about God rather than on having faith that trusts God. As Christians, there is always the temptation to rely more on “head faith” rather than “heart faith”. The Apostle James was pointed to a number of things that were going on in certain congregations that seemed to indicate that many people lacked true, saving faith. He pointed out such things as: Showing partiality to the rich in church; being calloused about the suffering of believers in need; and believers not demonstrating that their faith made a difference in the way that they lived their lives. You can almost hear James saying, “Head faith is not enough because that isn’t the genuine article!” And he caps off the argument with the verse immediately following our text for today, where he writes: You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder. (James 2.19)
Theologians have long struggled with the tension or maybe even the paradox that exists between saving faith and works of righteousness. It is sometimes a struggle for us to ferret that out also! One of the theological constructs that may be helpful to us in talking about these things is the teaching on Passive Righteousness and Active Righteousness.
Active righteousness refers to the wonderful blessings that God offers to us in Christ Jesus. What is this? Maybe the best way to conceive of this is as God’s response to our sinfulness. We don’t have to do anything to receive this righteousness – Christ earned it through his perfect, sinless life and at the great exchange – the Cross – He offers us this perfect righteousness in exchange for our sinfulness. Through this, He forgives us and makes us his beloved children. Saint Paul talks about this Passive Righteousness:
• For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
And also:
• For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1.17)
The Scriptures make absolutely clear that we are blessed beyond understanding. The Passive Righteousness that God freely gives to us can’t be earned, can’t be bought and is in no way deserved. The Lord Jesus did it all and we simply receive it by grace through faith in his completed work.
Active Righteousness is a bit different. One of my very favorite verses in Scripture is John 1.16 – “Out of his fullness we have received grace upon grace.” God’s blessings in our lives overflow and begin to touch and affect the lives of other people. So Active Righteousness refers to our response to God’s wonderful blessing in our lives as evidenced by service to our neighbor. (Now don’t ask me who our neighbor is because I’ll have to talk about the story of the Good Samaritan!) The Scriptures are also full of references to Active Righteousness:
• For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2.10)
• Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. (James 2.18)
• This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15.8)
Active Righteousness, therefore, is where we look to find the evidence of saving faith. That is what James is talking about when he writes: Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. (James 2.18) It is, the test result, if you will, that allows us to make the diagnosis: This person has saving faith.
Here is a good way to remember Passive and Active Righteousness: Think of the Cross. One of the beams on the Cross is vertical. This is symbolic of “Passive Righteousness”. It is up and down and so we know that this is represents the righteousness that comes from God to us. It reminds us that we are connected to God – up and down – by this passively, we did nothing to earn it. It is all Christ’s work! It reminds us that our salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone!
The other beam of the Cross is horizontal. It is symbolic of “Active Righteousness”. This horizontal beam of the Cross reminds us that we are connected to each other – to our neighbor. How we live out that connection is Active Righteousness. Through the way that we live out that relationship with the neighbor we demonstrate the evidence of our faith. In a very real way, we show our love for God by the way we love our neighbor.
Let’s close with a though from the Christian mystic A. W. Tozer: The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are opposite sides of the same coin.
