Sola Fide

27 October 2019

Leviticus 18:1-5; Psalm 65; Romans 10:1-13; Luke 18:9-14

Paul Tillich, an early 20^th-century Lutheran theologian, as he had commented on the Apostle Paul's assertion that the gospel is a stumbling block (1 Corinthians 1:23), once said the real danger may be in stumbling over the wrong thing.  For me, the “wrong thing” to stumble over may be like getting caught up in the false dichotomy between the Reformation’s “sola fide” (by faith alone) and the apostle James’ clear statement, “not by faith alone” (2:24).

I thought about that as I was reading today’s portion of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.  He wrote, in part, “Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law.  Why not?  Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works” (Romans 9:30-32).

He continues in chapter 10, “Being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.  For Christ is the end of the law so there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (vss 3-4).

St. Peter also wrote, “Some parts of [Paul’s] letters are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16).  That is, these “ignorant and unstable people” make it mean what they want it to mean rather than to pray for wisdom and learn what it actually means.

Romans can be hard to understand because Paul is addressing two different groups – Gentile converts and Jewish converts - but he also jumps from faith to law and back again. 

There is one statement from Romans, however, that demands attention as we navigate our Gospel reading from Luke about the “self-righteous” Pharisee: “Christ is the end of the law …”  For our purposes, and as I suspect Paul was trying to convey given the overall context of Romans, when he wrote “Christ is the end of the law”, what may be closer to accurate is, “Christ is the goal of the law” – the Law as a “means to an end”.  At no time, however, does Paul dismiss the Law of Moses as unimportant.

Just as Jesus proclaimed He did not “come to do away with the law but to fulfill it”, we must learn to read, to pray, to live, and to finally understand how the Law is perfected in faith to our goal of sanctification, spiritual perfection.  As The Lord spoke to Israel and Jesus affirmed in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect”.

We should also bear in mind Jesus’ moment with the rich man in Matthew 19.  The man asked how to gain eternal life.  Jesus mentioned the Law of Moses to which the man responded he had done all those things his entire life.  Then Jesus upped the ante by adding faith: “If you want to be perfect, sell all your possessions and give your money to the poor.  Then you will have treasure in heaven” (Matthew 19:21).

According to the Law, the Pharisee in Luke’s Gospel was right on the money.  He was not a thief, a man without principles, or an adulterer.  He fasted and tithed regularly.  Strictly by the Law of Moses, he was, like the rich man, a righteous man.  And although in his prayer he gives a nod of acknowledgment to The Lord, it cannot truly be said he was a man of faith.  If he believed in anything, it may have been in his own awesomeness.

The tax collector, on the other hand, did not seem to have much to be thankful for but much more to be sorry for.  Seeming to understand the depth of his sinful state, he could not even bring himself to look up to heaven but could only “beat his breast and say, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’.”

So through the Word by which we will be judged (John 12:48), the tax collector “went down to his home justified rather than the [Pharisee]”.

How can that be?  It is a good thing to be upfront and honest with The Lord – and with ourselves - in our prayers, especially in our prayers of confession, and it is a good thing always not to be thieves, rogues, or adulterers.  So how is it the Pharisee gained nothing by his prayer, according to Jesus, but the tax collector gained his very life?  It is because the Pharisee “loved human glory more than the glory which comes from God” (John 12:43).

We may not think of ourselves as “thieves, rogues, or adulterers”, but as a childhood priest once told us, “there is always something to confess – if we are willing to be honest and if we recognize our constant need to grow in faith and in love – and if we realize that won’t happen without The Lord”.

Yet if we become so overly confident to the point that we no longer feel a need to confess anything but do actually see ourselves as better than, well, anyone, we have crossed a very dangerous line.  Self-righteousness enables us – in fact, encourages us – to judge others; i.e., the poor are victims of their own carelessness; illegal immigrants are just law-breakers; prison inmates got what they deserved.  And the list goes on.

Self-righteousness – whether by our own awesome deeds or the self-proclaimed salvation we refuse to live into – draws us into a false sense of spiritual security.  Self-righteousness allows us to look down on others.  As bad as that alone may seem, there is an even worse element: the utter loss of humility, and the false sense that we are somehow on equal footing with The Father.

As vital as faith is to the life of the soul AND the life of the Church, faith is only as good as its object.  This is the danger of misunderstanding what “by faith alone” means: that we would focus on faith in and of itself and lose sight of the Object of our faith. 

The question is not whether we have faith; the question is whether we believe in the right thing.  We can have all the sincerely held beliefs we want, but are they true?  Are our beliefs true only because we need them to be true?  If the thing we believe in centers on what we choose to believe, then our faith is worthless.  It is not faith alone that saves, but trusting fully in Christ Jesus enough to follow Him, obey Him, and long for more.

The Lord spoke through the prophet Zechariah, “Return to Me, and I will return to you” (1:3).  And when humanity did not return to Him, He chose to come to us – to take us by the hand and lead us Home.  Do we have faith enough to take Him by the hand and allow ourselves to be led?  That, dear friends, is the faith which saves – because it is He who saves.  Amen.