Let Your Faith Be Living, Not Dead

Recently, I found myself in a friendly yet spirited Facebook debate with a colleague of mine in another diocese. He had put out a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery that stated “if you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

I made the point to him that if all we do is yearn for the vast and endless sea, the ship will never get built. Why merely stand on the shore and yearn for the sea, when we can yearn for the sea, build the ship, and then experience the sea in all its power and might?

The quote really is a metaphor for our relationship with Jesus Christ. As we continued to debate, we ended up in a discussion that I believe will be debated in the Anglican Church for a long time. How do we as Anglicans understand salvation? What role does justification play? Sanctification? Grace?

I can sum this up for you in one clear and concise statement – and scripture supports this. Our road to salvation begins with justification, is perfected by sanctification, and it cannot at all be possible without grace. In other words, grace is the glue that holds it all together. Let’s look at each of these terms more closely.

Justification. By theological definition, the term justification means that moment in which we are declared righteous. In a sense, justification is the beginning of that race that St. Paul talks about. According to St. Paul, we are justified by faith – and that justification takes place when we put our complete faith and trust in Jesus – and we cannot do this on our own merit. We need grace to make it happen. Baptism and Confirmation, as sacraments, are the outward and visible signs of this inward and spiritual grace.

Sanctification. Sanctification in its most basic sense is that process by which we are made holy, and it is also a critical component of salvation. In 2 Timothy 4:7-8, Paul said “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” For Paul, faith was a component of salvation, as well as sanctification. Notice that Paul did not stand idly at the starting line. He ran the race that the Lord laid out for him, and through that process, he was sanctified – and the combination of his faith (justification) and his running the race (sanctification) led to salvation.

Grace. Grace is defined as “God’s favor towards us, unearned and undeserved.” Since grace is absolutely necessary for our own salvation, there is nothing we can do on our own accord to earn our own salvation. We are totally dependent on God’s grace.

We have to be balanced in our understanding of salvation or else we can devolve into one of several inadequate practices of the Christian faith.

Works-Based Righteousness. This places too heavy of an emphasis on sanctification, while ignoring justification (faith). People who are guilty of this can generally be found in two camps. The first are those who thinking that if they do nice things for people enough times, they can earn their salvation, regardless of whether they either believe in Jesus, or are faithful to Him. The Pharisees in Biblical times were guilty of this and Jesus called them up short. They tried to selectively apply parts of the Old Testament law in the hope that they could earn salvation. Jesus pointed out to them that they were missing the whole point. They did not love God with their whole hearts. They obeyed the letter of the law, but not the spirit, and Jesus made it quite clear that salvation was not theirs. The second are those who have an overly mechanistic and quantitative understanding of the sacraments – particularly the Eucharist. These see the grace that is imparted in the Eucharist as a quantifiable amount, and if they can get to the Eucharist enough times within a given amount of time, then they are automatically saved. People who hold this view have a misguided understanding of what grace really is.

Dead-faith Christians. These are Christians who talk a big game about their faith and their belief in Jesus Christ, but are sorely lacking at actually putting their faith into action, as Scripture calls us to do. James, in his letter, it very clear about this. “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17) If we truly love Jesus with all of our hearts, he will call us to do some really amazing things. We can’t be caught sitting around. I would hate to meet Jesus one day and have to explain why I was sitting around when he called me to do something. Somehow I don’t think he would accept the following explanation: “Well, Lord, I got the sense that you were calling me to do something, but I was so afraid that it would be considered works-based righteousness that I didn’t do it.”

My brothers and sister, maintain the balance. Know that everything you do must be centered around one thing, and one thing only – a deep, heartfelt faith in and love for Jesus Christ. But understand also that justification by faith does not give us a blank check to sit around. May your love for Jesus Christ cause you to do great things for His Kingdom.