Sola Fide

I've been reading a book about a couple who grew up solidly on the Word of God, was very against the Catholic church, and eventually through their study in the Word came to the conclusion that the Catholic church was the true church founded by Jesus Christ. While I'll obviously disagree with some of the arguments in the book, it's still an interesting read.

The man did make some good points I never thought about how the different covenants in the Bible (with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David) were connected and how the groups involved grew from a couple to a family to a tribe to a nation to a kingdom -- until at the end you reach the new universal covenant through Jesus Christ. I've never really looked into the different covenants all together before, so that to me was an interesting approach about how the bigger picture went.

But now on to the main two points of this pair of posts -- sola fide and sola scriptura. The man he said that through his studies, these two pillars of the Reformation, which he held as the only pillars, were knocked over for him. Those are what I want to think and talk about here. For today, I'll deal with sola fide. I wanted to deal with both, but this ended up to be a very long post as it is.

Sola Fide

Sola fide means "faith alone". In other words, we're justified, or made right with God, solely by our faith in Christ, not our faith plus works we do. Now I didn't quite follow how the man's logic went as he told his story, but he did quote two verses, James 2:24 (a man is justified by works and not by faith alone) and 1 Corinthians 13:2 (if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing). Well those sound pretty compelling on the surface, but you can make a lot of things compelling when you take them out of context.

First let's look at the James verse. There's a part of the verse missing. It starts "You see, a man is justified...". He is concluding an argument. Go read the rest of James chapter 2 for the full argument. He uses the word faith in two ways. One way is "lip service" which is bogus faith. In other words you say that you believe but that's about it. The Bible has a lot more to say about that kind of non "faith", and it's never anything good. The other ways is "real faith". What kind of faith is real? The kind that produces something -- for there will absolutely be evidence in your life to show that your faith is real. If someone can't look at your life and tell that you have a heart for God, you should be very troubled.

Now let's look at the 1 Corinthians verse -- the argument here seems to be that I am nothing if I have faith but not love -- so to be something, I must have faith plus love, which is shown by my good works. How about the verse just after it too, though? "If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." Those are works, that without love, make him nothing. There's other stuff in that passage too, that, without love, makes him nothing. One might say then "well then, I need faith, and works, and love, and " but read the whole passage and get the context. Paul isn't talking about justification anywhere in the passage -- he's talking about the importance of love and what it looks like. That's it.

Now, to be fair to the man, he's not presenting his full argument in this book -- just telling his story and throwing in some key points. I'm sure these two verses aren't the extent of his supposed discovery, but for a person who writes about himself as a student of the Word, to take them out of context like that to argue an important point is not a good thing.

What his wife said in her explanation resonated with me more: "Justification meant being made a child of God and being called to live a life as a faithful child of God through faith working in love." I read that and thought "duh" but I also don't see how in the world that goes against sola fide. I'm really not quite sure what she understood it to mean before! Absolutely justification means being made a child of God, and after you're justified, you're called to, and will, produce fruit -- with the Spirit in you, you'll have a desire to obey God and live a life that glorifies him.

Look at how it works from my understanding and experience -- you repent of your sins and put your faith in Christ. That in itself is a gift from God, and recognizing it as such glorifies him. We're not talking "I said the sinner's prayer and I'm good to go" nonsense, we're talking "Jesus barged into my life with a wrecking ball and got me" faith. Okay, at that point, you're justified. Born again of the Spirit. A new creation. Adopted into sonship. Bye bye heart of stone, and hello heart of flesh. After that, what are you going to do? Walk the walk without taking away the credit from God -- glorifying him. What about when you fall? Mourn over your sin and thank God for his grace and mercy in forgiving you and picking you up -- glorifying him.

Notice there's a running theme here, and it's not about you.

So however you say the words to understand this mystery of being "right with God" through Jesus Christ, never go down that dangerous road where you think "I NEED to do [whatever] TO BE or STAY in good standing with God." It's evil. The proper response for the Spirit filled believer is "I WANT to do [whatever] BECAUSE I'm ALREADY in good standing with God."

The first takes the focus off God and puts it on you. The second takes the focus off you and puts it on God. Only one of those glorifies him.