Luther reinforced the fact that it is Sola Fide, by faith alone, that one is justified, and he was right to do so. The Bible is very clear that it is by faith, and not by works, that one is put into right standing with God. Unfortunately though, we have long forgotten what faith is, and have watered grace down so fully that we have people running around our churches with no love for or knowledge of God, and still thinking they’ve God things wrapped up with a nice bow. As I was reading Romans 4 last night, I had some things open up for me in a new way. None of these revelations are new, but I believe the perspective is new, and I want to explore them a little more deeply.
Verse 3:b – “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Here we have the definition of grace. Abraham believed that the Lord was capable of doing what he said he would do, and thus God just cleared his account history and wrote a big old perfect righteous in the ledger. This is the promise for all of humanity, and why our God is the god who, “gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.” – 17b. Abraham was not perfect, but through his faith God chalked it up for him as perfection. The Lord was so impressed, so moved by Abraham’s faith that he failed to see anything but righteousness in him. In fact, he was so moved that God made Abraham the father of many nations, and the root of his redemptive plan for humanity. So what was the faith that Abraham had that so deeply touched God?
First of all, I think we should ask the question of what people most often think of when they think of Abraham. The answers I think would either have to do with his having a child when really, really old, or with picking up his family and moving just because God told him to. What is interesting is that both of these things are works, and yet we cling to Abraham as a kind of proof that faith without works can get the job done. James is clear in telling us that “faith without works is dead,” but let’s see if we can find that right here in Romans 4. Here is the sticky verse with number 5, “However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Many lukewarm, mainstream, lazy, American Christians love to get their hands on that verse and do nothing for God. It does say after all that the one who does not work gets it credited to him as righteousness. The problem is that we tend to jump right over the middle part about trusting God who justifies the wicked. We have a God who takes dead people and makes them alive, who takes wicked people like Abraham and calls them righteous. It is our trusting in him that is the key to freedom. The problem is that we have to walk with God from death to life, and the cheap flaky grace so much of the church totes does not recognize the fact that we are dead in our sins. Anyone who has not died and been resurrected through Jesus Christ is simply dead. Thus, you cannot simply tack on a faith in Jesus, go nowhere and pretend that you are no longer dead. Verse 12 tells us that Abraham is the father of those who, “walk in the footsteps of the faith,” that he had. It is a tragedy that faith is no longer thought of as an action, as a lifestyle. This is not wholesale true, but largely and too largely faith is thought of as something one possesses, has, or says. The reality is though that Abraham’s faith is only in his works, in his action. If Abraham would not have picked up his family and moved, or would not have trusted God to give him a son, he would not have had it credited to him as righteousness. Why? Not because he didn’t do the works, but because if he wouldn’t have done the works he also wouldn’t have had any faith. This is the clincher. Much of the church today actually believes that the works of Abraham are just for the radical, the crazies, and because they have grace they can just hang on to their faith. If you aren’t willing to be obedient to the Lord in your actions then you don’t have faith! If you aren’t doing things that seem downright impossible than you probably aren’t trusting the God that calls things that are not as if they were.
Interestingly enough, I think the fundamental question is about God’s power. Do you believe that God has the power to save you, and the power to orchestrate your life. Do you trust him enough to hope when it seems hopeless. Abraham was fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised, thus he was willing to try things that were impossible. Neither going to an unknown land of promise, nor having a child at 100 were things that Abraham could have done under his own power. These works required authentic faith in the power of God. We have today created a church where humble works of talent are considered the best display of faith. Anyone who does anything too crazy is simply caught up in trying to earn their salvation. This is a lie, and 180 degrees of a falsehood. It is the church where people serve in their menial ways based on what they can do under their own power that is trying to be justified by works. Such a people have no faith in the power of the Living God, they simply want to please him, and soothe their consciences with churchy tasks. The reason Abraham had it credited to him as righteousness was not because he had the faith to do churchy tasks, the Pharisees had that. It was credited to him, because he had such faith in God that he was willing to see works done in his life that he could not do himself. His works were extraordinary because he actually trusted in the God that supercedes human capability with marvelous power. His faith was in a God much bigger than his works, and thus his works testify to his faith in a way that is seldom seen in the American church. I am convinced that the church that gets most defensive when people start doing big “works” in the name of Jesus, is the church that is least under grace, and most caught up in trying to earn salvation by their own works. The symptoms of a grace church, of a church justified by faith is one where ridiculous works are happening because people, “[do] not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but [are] strengthened in [their] faith and [give] glory to God!” Let us WALK in the footsteps, the active lifestyle of faith, of our Father Abraham, and leave behind our cheap, false grace of works.
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