"Justification By Faith"

Dr. George R. Sinclair, Jr.
Pastor

July 8, 2007

          Galatians is not Paul’s longest letter or his most profound, but it may be his most passionate. Paul was disappointed. He was worried. He was angry. He feared the church was losing its way, that the very ground of its existence was being eroded by what he termed “a different gospel,” a gospel grounded not in God’s gracious forgiveness of sin, but in what Paul termed “works of the law.” In time, Paul’s answer to the Galatian crisis became a center piece of Christian faith. Simply stated, as Paul put it, “We know that a person is justified not by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” 

Paul rejected the posture which says: “If God is going to love me, I’ve got to do something to deserve it. I’ve got to work my way to heaven. And I can only do that by being a good person. If I’m not a good person, I won’t go to heaven. God rewards good works. There are no free lunches, not in this life or the next.”

Following Paul and reacting to the medieval system of indulgences, which was a very clever and effective way of paying down the debt on St. Peter’s by promising sinners absolution for cold hard cash, reformers like Luther and Calvin drew sharp distinctions between the polarity long ago recognized by Paul. In their books, sermons, and classes, Luther and Calvin repeatedly pitched “justification by faith” against “justification by works.” Salvation, they argued, was not payment for work, but a gift received. Think for a moment about the difference between working for pay and receiving a gift.

My birthday is coming up Tuesday. I’m telling everybody I see ‘cause I want lots of gifts—cash mainly. I told that to the staff last week and they thought I was kidding!

It’s your birthday and you expect, well, you expect some kind of acknowledgement. But really, why should we expect anything? “Here, George. Here’s the new heart-monitor for your bike you asked for and some cake and ice cream. Happy Birthday!” 

I should expect cake and ice cream just for being born? I mean, really, who deserves cake and ice-cream, much less a heart monitor just for being born? Maybe for living for 54 years—I could see that. I’ve had something to do with staying alive. I’ve tried to take care of my health.  I’m generally careful when I drive. But really, I didn’t have a thing to do with my birth. I didn’t ask to be born and I’m certain my mother did most of the work, which is all the more reason why the only thing that makes any sense on anyone’s birthday is a gift. “Here, George, have some cake and ice cream on us. We’re celebrating the fact that you entered life on July 10, 1953. And while we’re at it, here’s a heart monitor for just being born. Happy Birthday!”

Gifts are given not because we’ve done anything to deserve or earn them but because givers choose to give them. Yes, we sometimes receive gifts when we’ve done something for someone. Say you take your friends to the airport and they go on a nice, two-week European vacation. While they’re away, you water their houseplants and feed their cat. Their flight arrives back in town. And you pick them up at the airport and take them home. The houseplants and cat are fine. Everything’s in order. They better have a gift. A “Thank-you” card would be nice, but a stein from Germany would be better or a bottle of Bordeaux from France.

Here’s the thing, it’s not that you expect to be paid. You didn’t feed their cat and water their houseplants because they hired you. You took care of their stuff because you’re their friend.  You don’t expect to be paid; acknowledged, maybe, thanked with an expression of appreciation, but certainly not “paid.”  We expect to be paid for work. Work and gifts are quite different. 

Say I drive a cab and the same European vacationers hire me to take them to the airport.  I don’t particularly care where they’re going or why—vacation or business. It doesn’t matter to me. If they say, “Thank-you” when they hand me my fare that’s fine. And it makes the exchange more pleasant, but what I really expect is their money. I’ve earned it. I deserved it. And I’m right to expect to be paid. Just as gifts are given by givers, so pay is earned by workers. 

The good news of God in Jesus Christ is not about payment for works done but a gift received from God’s generosity. God is the ultimate gift giver. Just as we don’t “deserve” birthday presents, so we don’t “deserve” salvation. And just as our friends don’t pay us for being their friends, so God does not pay us with eternal life for being his children. 

To use the reformers’ language, we are saved by faith not by works. Salvation is God’s gift to us. We don’t go to heaven because we are good. We go to heaven because God is good, which, when you think about it, almost sounds too good to be true—there must be a catch. 

I might agree that I can’t work my way to heaven or do anything to deserve God’s love.  And I might even agree that salvation is a gift, not a work I’m paid for, but a gift I am given. But just because a gift is given doesn’t mean it is received. Sometimes gifts, even very good ones are lost or misused, sometimes gifts are stolen. They can even be refused.  So, what does it mean to receive God’s gift? Can a person tell? Is salvation all of God and nothing of me? Am I totally passive? Am I just acted upon?

Here’s how Paul answers (and notice the word that shows up in his answer), “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” Faith works through love. When God gives gifts we are changed, or rather as we receive God’s gifts we are changed. Faith makes us workers. We are not slugs. We are not just acted upon. When we receive grace we are changed. God’s grace does not eliminate work. Grace inspires work. And to be perfectly clear, grace inspires the work of loving our neighbors as we are loved by God.

In his book, Who Prospers, Lawrence Harrison argues that cultural progress or its lack is at least partially determined by cultural values. Harrison is persuaded that progress is more likely in cultures where religion explains success than in those where religion explains suffering.  Secondly, he believes development is more likely in cultures where wealth is based on initiative rather than redistribution. And thirdly, cultures are more likely to be progress-prone when labor is viewed as a moral duty rather than a necessary evil. In short, success is more likely when life is seen as “something I will do,” rather than as “something that happens to me.”

I don’t want to press Harrison’s argument too far but I think Paul was saying something like that when he taught that we are “justified by faith.” Faith does not make us passive watchers but rather engaged participants. Paul said we are like farmers. We both sow and reap.

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.

If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.

So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at the harvest time, if we do not give up.

Despite all Paul says about gifts and grace he is not adverse to work or to accountability.   For Paul, God’s giving inspires our working. Justification by faith is not only something that “happens to us.” Justification is something “we do.” When we receive God’s love, we act lovingly. “The only thing that counts,” Paul insists, “is faith working through love.” And faith works through love when we use God’s gifts not for our own benefit, but for the good of all.

Luther, one of Paul’s greatest champions, expressed this beautifully when he wrote:

If there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God. But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love. . . [a]nd if it is a debt owed to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself. Thus my learning is not my own; it belongs to the unlearned . . . . My chastity is not my own; it belongs to those who commit sins of the flesh . . . . My wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed . . . my wealth to the poor . . . . It is with all these qualities that we must stand before God and intervene on behalf of those who do not have them . . . for this is what Christ did for us.

Faith works through love.  I think that’s one of the greatest misconceptions about justification—that faith is somehow a general belief in God or even a set of very orderly, profound beliefs about God. Faith is first of all a verb. And when we have it, when we are faithful, we work. We love others as Christ loved us. And that is no bed of roses; it is work.

Consider how Paul advises the Galatians about their relationships. Paul says they are to “bear one another’s burdens” and yet also “all must carry their own loads.” 

Paul had just finished an extended discussion of “fruits of the Spirit” which he contrasted with “desires of the flesh.” In that discussion, he defines the contours of neighbor love. And he says those contours are easy to spot. Things like “fornication, impurity, licentiousness” certainly don’t fit love’s contours any more so than “anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness and things like these.” These behaviors simply don’t fit love and they ought to be obvious to everyone. Love rules out certain behaviors. 

But likewise, love rules in certain other behaviors. Things like “joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control,” all of these are expressions of neighbor love. They are “fruits of the Spirit” and they’re obvious. Everybody knows what love is—“love your neighbor as you love yourself.” 

Paul was not only a very passionate man, he was also very wise. After laying out the contours of neighbor love and after exhorting the Galatians to practice it, he issues a warning: “Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.” Paul worried about faith becoming a kind of Olympics. “Let’s see whose best and alternately let’s see whose worst.” And as is usually the case among Christians the “best” define themselves over against those they deem the “worst” and the church appears for all the world as the least likely place anyone would ever want to be. 

All of that said, Paul does not settle for an ethic of tolerance, a live-and-let-live, anything-goes, you-leave-me-alone-and-I’ll leave-you-alone attitude. To the contrary, he expects when Christians are “detected” in some “transgression” that they be “restored” in “a spirit of gentleness.” Detection, at the very least, requires honesty. It requires truthfulness. We’re not all perfect, far from it. That’s when Paul starts talking about “burdens.”  “Bear one another’s burdens,” he says, “and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

You remember what Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” Sometimes we can be burdened by troubles—you know, you get a worrisome report from the doctor or you have a sick child or a financial loss. Troubles can weigh you down. But there are also moral burdens—and think here about Paul’s list of “desires of the flesh,” all of the crap we’re capable of—all of the stuff we say and do that is a burden to those around us. Those are the burdens Paul says we must bear. And that kind of love is work. 

People are not always easy to love—sometimes they’re a burden. Faith working through love “bears with” our neighbors. That’s what Luther was talking about when he said our wisdom belongs to the foolish and our power to the oppressed. Faith works through neighbor love, but faith also works when we “carry” our “own loads.” 

Justification by faith is not something that happens somewhere off in heaven. Justification is not about some change in God, as if God’s attitude needed adjustment or amendment or correction. Justification is about what happens to us when we receive God’s grace.  And when we receive grace we are enabled to carry our own weight. Faith is “something we do.” It is a response to the gift of God’s love, “My sins are forgiven. Thanks be to God.” 

That thanksgiving is most clearly expressed whenever we “work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.” God’s grace, like life itself, is not a payment we earn, but rather a gift we receive, a gift for which we can only say Thanks by working “for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”  Amen.