Get to Work

 

Get to Work

Comments on Galatians with an ear to Luther’s commentary

Scripture Text: Galatians 2:4-5 and James 2:14-26

Series: Comments on Galatians

Today's Scripture Jigsaw

Just as there is the “true gospel” and “false gospels” there is true faith and false faith. False faith is simply religion. Some people go to church but have never gone to God. This is religion or false faith. Some people have gone to the altar but never sacrificed their hearts to God. They are religious people who have no faith. Some people have been baptized but have never begun to live to God. This is merely religion.

James tells us what we instinctively know: many people insist that they have faith, just as the majority of Americans tell surveyors. Polls vary with up to 95% of Americans saying that they believe in God. In other words, they think there is a God but their belief is substantiated only by their own value systems. Most have no idea who God is or how he is involved in their lives. Indeed, the majority believe he is not engaged with the world at all.

People may say they have faith — but without works that faith is dead (James 2:17). That dead, false faith is not faith at all. If James were here saying it, the word “faith” in the last sentence of James 2:14 might be said sarcastically. We might indicate it is not faith at all by writing the sentence in a way the New Testament writers could not: Can that “faith” save him?

Real faith, true faith, produces results. But faith does not require them. It is perhaps a fine line but fine lines are important. They are, after all, lines. It cannot be faith in God if it requires anything from anyone else. Yet it is not true faith if nothing comes of it. You do not need to come to an altar to be saved; your faith in Christ saves you. But if it is true faith, a faithful life will follow. One is not saved when she makes it to the altar, though saving faith may have driven her to that altar — and driven her to do so much more. 

Christians should produce works of faith. They should get to work. The world might be a better place. Their lives would surely change and their churches become lively. So, let us get to work, but not depend upon our works or hold them conditionally over the lives of others. Faith. Alone. Saves.

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