[AI translation] There is hardly a part of the Bible that has been the subject of so much debate in history as the one I have just read. One of them refers to the Apostle Paul, who in his letters repeatedly asserts that our works, even the best and holiest, are so tainted with sin that they cannot stand before the judgment seat of God, and that we deserve punishment, death and damnation. We cannot produce works that are in accordance with God's righteousness, that are righteous according to God's standard, that God can justify us by. Thus Paul says, among other things, "Being justified freely by his grace through redemption in Christ Jesus, ... without works of the law." (Rom 3:24 28.) The other position appeals mainly to James, who seems to state the opposite, saying, "....man is justified by works, and not by faith only." (James 2:24) Well, which is right? Is justification by faith, salvation before God, or by works? This age-old question runs throughout the history of the church.Yes, thus, by taking the two words out of context, we can contrast the apostle Paul and James, the Lord's brother. But in examining the spirit of the whole New Testament, we see at once that this is not the issue here: that is, not the primacy of faith or works, their importance for salvation, but the truth or falsity of faith. Yes: everything turns on faith, but true faith, true faith! If faith is of such great importance for man's salvation as a whole, then it is necessary to examine very seriously whether it is true or false - for there is such a thing!
Yes: there can be no doubt that it is by faith in Jesus Christ that we become children of God, forgiven of sin, justified heirs. God's free grace does this to us for the merit of Jesus Christ. Not what we do, but what God alone has done and does in Jesus Christ, in His atoning sacrifice, in His resurrection: that alone saves us all from judgment. Jesus paid our bill, Jesus paid the penalty for us, Jesus earned for us the right to salvation. In Jesus, God says to sinful man, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine" (Is 43:1). It is by grace that He has thus received us into His paternal love. And we can all accept this grace of God without further ado. This is the acceptance of grace for Jesus' sake: this is faith! Thus we receive God's justifying grace through faith in Jesus Christ. So it is truly not our works, but the works of God that save us!
Our faith, then, is clinging to the works of God, the gracious works that God did on Good Friday and Easter. Without this faith is worthless. A faith that would not take into account the works of God done by Christ, a faith that would ignore the cross and resurrection of Christ, is simply not a Christian faith. Whoever says that he believes in the forgiveness of sins, that he believes in the mercy of God, not with regard to the cross and not with regard to the open tomb of Easter, but simply because God must be such and such a good God - is simply deceiving himself with his faith! So, indeed, the whole question of our salvation, the whole question of our relationship with God, turns on whether we can accept by faith what God has done for us in Jesus Christ?
But: let this faith be real faith! Do not let Satan deceive you with a faith that is only a semblance, an imitation of the true faith, that is, a false faith! What is false faith? This is what James is talking about when he says: the faith that has "no works is dead in itself." (James 2:17) So he does not call faith that does not show itself in works a false faith, but dead faith! We know what that is, don't we, faith without works? That is what it means: to know something - for example, the Sermon on the Mount - and not to live by it! To read the Bible, to go to church, to Bible study, to listen to the preaching of the Word, to say at the set table that I believe and confess that it is by faith in Jesus Christ alone that I am justified freely by the grace of God - and then, with the taste of communion wine still in my mouth, to quarrel with someone, to complain bitterly, to think or look at someone with unforgiving anger!
Once someone came to see me in the pastor's office, an elderly woman. I'd like to introduce myself, she said, because I'm moving out of the church area. I wondered: why are you coming to introduce yourself now? 'Because,' she replied, 'I didn't want to disappoint the Reverend. I was not disappointed because I wanted to meet the great minister. Well, this is faith without action. Getting to know him better, looking into the problems of everyday life: he disappoints. A faith that does not match up to action. It is a faith whose credibility is undermined by words and deeds. Believing in Christ, but not living according to Christ. Confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, but separates himself from Him in his thoughts, feelings and actions. And that, as nice as it sounds in the confession, is not true faith. It is a false, dead faith. It resembles living faith, just as a photograph can resemble a living person. That's what they say about a good photograph: it's like a photograph in every way! But - it doesn't speak! Because it is not alive. It does not move. It is dead!
Do we understand now what faith without action is? A man who professes faith in Christ, nourishes it by reading the Bible, praying, taking communion, but his faith is not living, and in everyday life it is like a man who is always sharpening a knife, but never cuts or uses it. He just admires it, shows off how sharp it is! Or like the man who tunes his violin every day, but never plays it. What is the point of tuning the strings of faith, however precisely, if we do not then let Jesus play on them the heart-lifting, refreshing heavenly melodies of his love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness? "What profit is it, brethren, if a man sayeth that he hath faith, and works not?" asks James.
For true faith is not a mere intellectual acceptance, a holding true to the great fundamental truths of Christianity. This so-called intellectual faith, or head-faith, does not save, any more than a hungry man is not well fed by my encouraging him to eat with participating words, and then sending him away: 'Go in peace and be well fed! Intellectual faith does not make my life any different, my heart any purer, my actions any better, any more Christlike. It will be of no profit to me or to others. So do the devils believe, says James. The devils have theological knowledge too, much more precise, more direct than we have! But they do not become angels through it!
But true faith is a surrender to God in which I give myself to Him. To believe in Christ is to be gripped by the power of His death and resurrection, to be penetrated, to be worked in, to be shaped, transformed, renewed, moved by the power of His resurrection. By His creative power He creates in me something that was not in me before, He inspires me to acts of love that I was previously incapable of doing. A whole new life is born in me. I have said before that grace is nothing but the energy of God. Redemption is nothing but the energy of God. To believe in Christ is to have the energy of God within us. True faith makes a man different from what he was without it. He is truly born again. Christ's death and resurrection, God's redemptive work in Christ, cannot be seen as one observes a play: then one goes on and everything remains the same. By true faith, the atoning power of His death and the restorative power of His resurrection surround me, flow into me, burst out in me, strain in me like divine energy - in other words: it moves me to action, it manifests itself in new, Christlike actions!
That is why James says: "Show me your faith by your works." (James 2:18b) Faith is an attachment to Christ, a growing into Christ, just as a branch is grafted into a branch and continues to live by its vitality. And whether the graft has taken hold depends on whether life has begun to take root in it, whether it grows, blossoms and bears fruit? There is also a barren graft. It also dries up quickly. Such is dead faith. Very soon we find out whether the faith is true or dead. Your actions will tell you! Like a thermometer tells the temperature. Our actions do not earn us salvation, just as the thermometer does not make the weather. Our actions only indicate whether God has already begun to work salvation in us, whether we are already in the effect of the energy of Christ's death and resurrection, that is, whether we truly believe in Christ? Well: do we?! Through James the Lord now calls us to self-examination: "Show me your faith by your works." Do not deceive yourself: read the thermometer!
The real, true faith will be immediately evident in deeds. The faith of Zacchaeus was evident to all, for the formerly miserly, heartless man went out to seek out all those he had wronged and gave back four times what he had taken from them. Everyone could see that something had happened to this man. Through faith in Christ, the condemned man on the cross comes to the greatest realization, the most difficult one: that he is suffering deservedly, that he deserves his fate! It is an unspeakably great thing when one can accept from the hand of God even the most cruel fate. A clear testimony of true faith! The prison guard in Philippi heats water and washes the bloody wounds of the prisoner whom he has thrown into the deepest prison before. What a change in a man's whole attitude! What has happened to him? He believed God, who in Christ stooped down to him and washed the bloody stains of his soul with His blood! Where such fruits, such visible signs of faith are absent, it can be stated with absolute certainty that true faith is absent!
Faith and works, then, are not exactly opposites, but one and the other of the same thing. They are inseparable, they belong together. Faith is justified by action and action is made possible by faith. It is somewhat like the horse pulling the cart with two harnesses. One is faith, the other is action. Both must be equally taut. If the horse pulls by only one, the carriage will not go, or will go badly. He who only wants to believe and does not care about his actions: he sinks into dead orthodoxy. And he who wants to get along only by his own efforts falls into the trap of self-righteousness and self-redemption. Faith that does not act, that does not obey in practical deeds: it becomes paralysing inertia, a dream-dust indeed, an opium! And the one who expects everything from his own actions, who thinks he can solve the problems of his life by his own efforts, either falls into moralism or despair.
The right balance is found in the tension between faith and action. The important thing is not to separate the two! Let's not think that when it comes to God: this belongs to the world of faith. But if you have to grab a hammer, a shovel, a pen, a schoolbook, a spoon - in other words, if you have to do anything in practical life: that is independent of faith. It is in the double harness of faith and action that we can pull the cart of our life, the cart in which is our whole baggage, our burden, our life, our religious, family, political affairs, our conduct, our salvation!
Believe as if everything depended on our faith - and obey, act as if everything depended on our obedience! From this then comes what God really expects of us: obedience in faith!
Give me strength from your Spirit to understand and love
My appointed way and all thy commandments.
Leave me one desire: that I may hear and follow
Your holy justice, your holy truth.
(Canticle 512, verse 2)
Amen
Date: 17 May 1953.
Lesson
Jak 2,14-26