The Third Sunday After Epiphany

One of my favorite words is "uff dah." In the upper Midwest, it is a word for all and any occasion. It is a term of endearment, it is a term of distress, and it is a term of joy and a term for pain. It is a term for so many things that we have forgotten what it means. We have used this word in so many different contexts that we have loved it into meaninglessness. In many ways, our use of the word "uff dah" parallels the churches use of the word "faith." Throughout the history of the church, particularly since the Reformation, faith has been a vital vivifying word for Christians. Yet it seems that we have used this word so many times and in so many different contexts, that we may have forgotten what it means. To make matters worse, the word "faith" is no longer a word of esteem or praise; it has become a derogatory word for a blind, ignorant fundamentalist who refuses to acknowledge the entitlements of science and reason.

The best scriptural definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11: 1, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Faith is putting our trust and our hope in the promises of the Lord. Faith is also our appropriate response to the grace of the gospel as St. Paul said in Romans 10:17, "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." Therefore, we may say that faith is our appropriate response to the gospel and putting our trust and our hope in the Lord. One of the best images of faith is John Calvin's emblem: a flaming heart held in an outstretched hand. This image is explained by Calvin's motto, which was "Cor meum quasi immolatum tibi offero, Domine." (My heart I offer as it were a sacrifice to you, Lord). This image cogently conveys that the grace of the Lord ignites our hearts and our appropriate response is faith and placing our trust and hope in the Lord demonstrated by giving him back our hearts.

This image of faith contradicts and challenges the modern assumption that faith is a mark of simple-minded, illogical people as H.L Mencken said, "Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable"¹ Since faith is our appropriate response to grace, faith is necessarily cognitive; it involves true knowledge and reason. Faith, therefore, is not a blind leap into the dark; it is a stepping forward out of the darkness into the light. As we step into the light of Lord through faith, faith becomes a magnifying glass concentrating God's light unto hearts, igniting our hearts in hope and trust. Since faith sets our hearts aflame with a surety of hope and an unwavering trust in God's promises, faith is not as George Santayana said, "a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes."² Faith is not the desperate act of a cold and poor heart, it is the response of flaming heart, a heart burning just like the bush through which God spoke to Moses - a bush burning with the intense and radiant heat of the glory of the Lord but not consumed. When our hearts are lit on fire by the grace of the Lord our appropriate response is faith and putting our unequivocal trust and hope in the Lord.

Two questions remain to be answered. First, what role does faith play in our salvation? Does our faith justify us? Second, are we the source of our faith, after all faith is our response to the grace of the gospel? These questions may seem peripheral, but if we are responsible for authoring our faith into existence and if we are justified and saved by our faith, we are responsible to save ourselves. Faith, than, becomes a covert and pious way of works righteousness. Indeed, many Christians have mistakenly understood faith to be a type of work they must accomplish to earn salvation.

It is abundantly clear in Scripture that no is saved without faith as Habakkuk said, "The righteous will live by his faith" and as St. Paul said in Romans 5:1, "we have been justified through faith." Therefore, many have concluded that we are justified or saved by our faith. However, this understanding of salvation does violence to faith, strips it of it scriptural knowledge, and commandeers the glory of our salvation from the Lord - to whom it rightly belongs - and gives it human effort. This is why Leslie Newbigen can say, "I suddenly saw that someone could use all the language of evangelical Christianity, and yet the center was fundamentally the self, my need of salvation. And God is auxiliary to that. .. . I also saw that quite a lot of evangelical Christianity can easily slip, can become centered in me and my need of salvation, and not in the glory of God."³ When the Anglican Divines said that justification by faith is a very wholesome doctrine and full of comfort⁴ they did not mean that we are justified and saved by our faith. They meant that we are saved and justified by the grace of Jesus Christ and that grace operates through and only through faith. To put it simply, we are not justified by faith; we are justified by Jesus Christ.⁵ Far too often, I have placed the burdensome weight of my salvation on my own shoulders because I thought it was my faith that saved me. I cannot bear the weight of this burden, it is a burden too weighty and cumbersome; a burden only one person can carry, Jesus Christ. Therefore, since he bore my burden, it is his grace that saves me, as St. Paul said in Romans 3: 24, "[We] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." We are justified by grace through the redemption that came by Jesus and grace operates through faith, not as a result of it.

Furthermore, we are not the source of faith; it is not something we conjure up at will nor is it something that originates in us. Faith is a gift from God. St. Paul says this in Ephesians 2: 8, 9, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. Grace by definition is undeserved and unmerited favor, therefore St. Paul's phrase, "this is not from yourselves" would be redundant if it referred back to grace. This phrase refers to faith. Faith, therefore, is a gift from God, we are not responsible to create it or make it as it says in Hebrews 12:2, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." We do not author our faith into existence, Jesus does. Nor do we perfect our faith, Jesus does. We are not just dependent upon God for his saving gift of grace, we are dependent upon God for our appropriate response to grace, his gift of faith. Therefore, the glory of our salvation belongs only to the Lord.

Our culture has a habit of using and abusing words and far too often, the church has copied cultural habits. Let us not abuse the word "faith" because it is a gift from God, a gift for which his son shed his blood. Let us not abuse faith for through it and it alone we receive God's grace. Finally, let us not twist faith to glorify our selves, our words, and our deeds. The glory of our salvation belongs only the Lord, therefore, since he has set our hearts on fire with his grace; let us glorify him through faith by giving him back our hearts promptly and sincerely.