Paul Says that Salvation is Not by Faith Alone

Since Luther, we Protestants have repeated the dictum that salvation is by faith alone and not by works.  We have selectively quoted scripture to prove that point and largely avoided reading those parts of the Bible that don't support our insistence that we cannot be saved by what we do but only by what we believe.  The thing is there are many places in the scriptures that say exactly the opposite, even in the writings of the Apostle Paul.

Take Galatians 6:1-10.  It states in the clearest language possible that Paul's readers were to pay attention to their works, change them, and then test them. He urged them to do what was right and to give up things of the flesh for things of the Spirit.  In verse 9, we read, "So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up." (NRSV, italics added)  In verse 7, Paul invokes the law of karma, warning his readers that they will reap what they sow.  In context, it is clear that he was writing about their behavior as verse 9 demonstrates.

In Galatians, Paul expressly warns his Christian audience that they cannot be saved by the Law.  Nowhere does he state that their "works" are not part of the equation of salvation.  I've said it before—(here), (here), and (here)—but let me say it again.  The life of faith involves both putting our trust in God in Christ and living accordingly.  Faith and works are not really two things.  They are two sides of the same coin.  We both believe in the Kingdom by God's grace and work to create it as co-conspirators with God.  It is Christ in us and us in Christ.  Amen.

Christian Non-self

Yesterday, I shared with you the thought that the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:15-21 didn't go far enough in working out his profound spiritual insight that we are not reconciled with God by keeping the Law.  He was still seeking a legal state, justification, but proposes a non-legal remedy, faith.  The problem is that faith can too easily be turned back into a work of the Law because at some level we have to do something to be justified.  We have to believe, which is too often taken as the same thing as faith.

The concern for justification, thus, can obscure the most important consequence of Paul's insight, namely "For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (2:19-20, NRSV, italics added)  If we live in faith, it is no longer "us" who lives at all but Christ who lives in us.  This does not seem to be a kind of self-nullification, however.  It is self-fulfillment, which when achieved merges "us" with the One who created us.  In an almost Buddhist way, "we" become a non-self and the "space" formerly occupied by our unfaithful "self" is now occupied by that One, by Christ.

In our walk of faith, we discover that I Alone is empty of meaning and purpose, that I Together is better but still filled with hurt, and that Not I But Thee is the surest way to a life of meaning and purpose.  As Paul says, "It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."  For all but a few, that is a goal and a possibility more than a reality, but it is the goal or a path on which we  seek to walk in faith.  Amen

Getting Beyond the Law

It was the Apostle Paul's amazing spiritual insight that humanity cannot be justified in the eyes of God by keeping the Jewish Law.  As Christians, we are justified by our faith in Christ.  This is the point he makes in Galatians 5:15-21, which has become settled Christian theology and ethics.  In all of the standard English-language versions (for example), the same language is used to make Paul's point: humanity is not justified by works of the law but by faith (2:15-16).  The Message and Today's English Version translate "justified" (see here) as either being put right or set right with God, which seems slightly different but not that much so.  All of these translations retain Paul's legal terminology of justification, being proven not guilty in a court of law.  Yes, "justification" can mean more than that (see here), but its legal sense lingers in the other possible meanings.

The problem here is that if we are justified by faith rather than the law, we are still being justified.  We are still operating in a legal framework.  Our understanding of how faith operates in our personal faith is still tinged (tainted, if you will) by the idea that we need to be justified in the eyes of God.  And while it was surely neither his experience or intent, Paul's insight that we are justified by faith too often fails to free the faithful from the Law.  Indeed, it can turn faith into a form of law.  Faith becomes something we have to achieve in order to be justified.  Yes, yes, it is not supposed to be that way, but generations of faithful believers have and many still do worry about whether or not they have been "put right" with God.  Is their faith genuine?  How do they know?  The surest indication that faith has been sucked into the legal realm is how closely it is tied to judgment and judgmental attitudes.  There has long been a huge cottage industry among Christians aimed at judging who is "really" a faithful follower of Christ and who is not according to one measure or another of what is "real faith."  And that is a legal concern.

Interestingly, the Laughing Bird paraphrase of Galatians 2:15-16 manages to remove the matter of faith and works from the legal realm.  It has these two verses saying, "We ourselves are not lawless Gentiles, but 'born and bred Jews'—people of the law.  However, we now know that this gives us no particular advantage, because God's approval is not a reward for careful compliance with the law, but a gift to those who entrust themselves to Jesus Christ."  Here, the issue at stake is the gift of God's approval and the route to that approval is faith.  We are not longer standing in a court of law before God the stern Judge but in the kitchen with God the loving Mother.

Paul gives us the freedom to no longer hold to the legal metaphor for understanding our relationship with God and to discover other metaphors for that relationship instead, such as one centered on our experience of family.  Historically, I assume that Paul did mean for us to stick with the legal metaphor but it also seems to me that his insight that justification is by faith freed him from the Law and by implication allows us to be freed from the legal metaphor—to see our relationship with God is a fundamentally different way, one that is not at all outside of the biblical tradition.  God is "Abba" (Mark 14:36) not Judge.  Faith really is a matter of trust in God, not of measuring up to God's expectations.