Posted on 01/04/2019 8:20:14 AM PST by Salvation
Rest on Flight to Egypt, by Caravaggio (1597)
At Christmas we celebrate the Word becoming Flesh, but what does this mean for us today? Fundamentally, it means that our faith is about things that are tangible. As human beings, we have bodies. We have a soul that is spiritual, but it is joined with a body that is physical and material. Hence, it is never enough for our faith to be only about thoughts, philosophies, concepts, or ideas. Their truth must touch the physical part of who we are. Our faith must become flesh; it has to influence our behavior. If that is not the case, then the Holy Spirit, speaking through John, has something to call us: liars!
Therefore, away with sophistry, rationalizations, and intentions. Our faith must become flesh in the way we act and move. God’s love for us in not just a theory or idea. It is a flesh and blood reality that can be seen, heard, and touched. The Word of God and our faith cannot simply remain on the pages of a book or in the recesses of our intellect. They must leap off the pages of the Bible and the Catechism and become flesh in the way we live our life, in the decisions we make, and in the way we use our body, mind, intellect, and will.
Consider the following passage from the liturgy of the Christmas Octave:
The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:3ff).
Note some teachings that follow from it:
Faith is incarnational. What a practical man John is! Faith is not an abstraction; it is not merely about theories and words on a page. It is about a transformed life; it is about truly loving God and making His commandments manifest in the way we live. It is about loving our neighbor. True faith is incarnational. That is to say, it takes on flesh in our very “body.”
Too many people spout the phrase, “I’ll be with you in spirit.” Perhaps an occasional absence is understandable but after a while the phrase rings hollow. Showing up physically and doing what we say is an essential demonstration of our sincerity. We are body persons and our faith must include a physical, flesh-and-blood dimension.
Keeping the commandments is a sure sign. John said that The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Now be careful of the logic here. The keeping of the commandments is not the cause of faith; it is the fruit of it. It is not the cause of love; it is its fruit.
In Scripture, “knowing” refers to than an intellectual understanding. It refers to deep, intimate, personal experience of the thing or person. It is one thing to know about God; it is quite to “know the Lord.”
In this passage, John is saying that in order to be sure we have deep, intimate, personal experience of God, we must change the way we live. An authentic faith, an authentic knowing of the Lord, will change our behavior in such a way that we keep the commandments as a fruit of that authentic faith and relationship with Him. It means that our faith becomes flesh in us. Theory becomes practice and experience. It changes the way we live and move and have our being.
For a human being, faith cannot be a mere abstraction. In order to be authentic, it must become flesh and blood. In a later passage, John uses the image of walking: This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked (1 John 2:6). Although walking is a physical activity, it is also symbolic. The very place we take our body is physical, but it is also indicative of what we value, what we think.
Liars – John went on to say, Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandments is a liar. This is strong language! Either we believe and thus keep the commandments, or we are lying about really knowing the Lord and we fail to keep the commandments.
Don’t all of us struggle to keep the commandments fully? John seems so “all or nothing” in his words, but his point is clear. To know the Lord fully is never to sin (cf 1 John 3:9). If we know him imperfectly, we still experience sin. Hence, the more we know him (remember the definition of “know”) the less we sin. If we still sin, it is a sign that we do not know Him enough.
It is not really John who speaks too absolutely; it is we who do so. We say things like “I have faith,” “I am a believer,” “I love the Lord,” and “I know the Lord.” Perhaps we would be more accurate if we said, “I am growing in faith,” “I am striving to be a better believer,” or “I’m learning to love and know the Lord better and better.” If we do not, then we risk lying. Faith is something we grow in.
Many in the Protestant tradition reduce faith to an event such as answering an altar call or accepting Christ as “personal Lord and savior.” We Catholics do it too. Many Catholics think that all they need to do is be baptized; they don’t bother to attend Mass faithfully as time goes on. Others claim to be “loyal” even “devout” Catholics yet dissent from important Church teachings. Faith is about more than membership. It is about the way we walk, the decisions we make.
Without this harmony between faith and action, we live a lie. We lie to ourselves and to others. The bottom line is that if we really come to know the Lord more and more perfectly, we will grow in holiness, keep the commandments, and be of the mind of Christ. We will walk just as Jesus walked and our claim to have faith will be the truth, not a lie.
Faith and works cannot be separated. This passage does not claim that salvation is by works alone. The keeping of the commandments is not the cause of saving or of real faith. Properly understood, the keeping of the commandments is the result of saving faith actively present and working within us. It indicates that the Lord is saving us from sin and its effects.
The Protestant tradition erred in dividing faith and works. In the 16th century, Protestants claimed that we are saved by “faith alone.” Faith is never alone. It always brings effects with it.
Our brains can get in the way here and tempt us to think that just because we can distinguish or divide something in our mind we can do so in reality, but that is not always the case.
Consider, for a moment, a flame. It has the qualities of heat and light. We can separate the two in our mind but not in reality. I could never take a knife and divide the heat of the flame from its light. They are so interrelated as to be one reality. Yes, heat and light in a flame are distinguishable theoretically, but they are always together in reality.
This is how it is with faith and works. Faith and works are distinguishable theoretically, but the works of true faith and faith itself are always together in reality. We are not saved by works alone or by faith alone; they are together. John teaches here that knowing the Lord by living faith is always accompanied by keeping the commandments and walking as Jesus did.
Therefore, faith is incarnational. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, really and physically. Similarly, our own faith must become flesh in us, in our actual behavior.
Enjoy this incarnational Christmas carol:
Verbum caro factum est The Word was made flesh
Porque todos hos salveis. for the salvation of you all.
Y la Virgen le dezia: And the Virgin said unto him:
‘Vida de la vida mia, ‘Life of my life,
Hijo mio, ¿que os haria, what would I [not] do for you, my Son?
Que no tengo en que os echeis?’ Yet I have nothing on which to lay you down.’
O riquezas terrenales, O worldly riches,
¿No dareis unos pañales will you not give some swaddling clothes
A Jesu que entre animals to Jesus who is born among the animals
Es nasçido segun veis? as you can see?
Your Catholic file must be larger than the Mormon one by now.
Looks like it's time to play defense again.
I; for one; do NOT 'agree with Luther'.
What I agree with is clear division of the Word of GOD.
If Luther happens to agree with ME; then more power to him!
I really don’t understand how protestants don’t believe the Letter of James.
You GOTTA be kidding me!!!
Call no man father...
LOVE your tagline!
"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours."
--Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)
Golly!
I've missed those!!
Sometimes this stuff just writes itself!
HMMMmmm...
I have ~600 separate replies stored away.
I do not know how many of which type are in the folder.
There are some Evolution, Abortion, and, if you can believe it, some political ones mixed in there as well.
To those I offend when re-posting them; they must think that they are from my Boilerplate Spam folder; but it's true name is 1MORMON.
It used to be just MORMON, but I stuck the "1" on it to make it float to the top of the list.
X
Is that an indication of a general acceptance by Protestants that one is not saved by “faith alone.” ?
or is that a personal point of view ?
***
And once again, you don’t even bother to ascertain what Protestants believe and instead start attacking your fake Roman strawmen.
Sad.
The truth of the matter is that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, but saving faith always produces works.
But if Roman Catholics would ever admit that’s what Protestants believe, they’d lose one of their favorite talking points.
Dude, I KNOW you’ve never read Luther at ALL with that comment.
Perhaps you should read Luther’s own words on the subject of faith and works instead of attacking a strawman. Because your statement is exactly what Luther taught and preached.
On the other hand, Catholicism in its own catechism insists that you have to earn salvation by works and you can only get started with ‘adoption by grace.’
It seems that your beliefs are more Lutheran than Catholic.
“How can this be a Catholic Caucus?”
I was informed several weeks ago by a fellow FReeper and/or a moderator that any Catholic Caucus will have those words in the title.
I wonder how many of our Roman Catholic friends will disagree with this statement? I honor Mary and respect her place in the salvation of mankind, but I do not "serve" her. Instead, I serve only God as Jesus rebuked Satan, "For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.' (Matt. 4:10). I am saved through faith in Jesus Christ because of the grace of God. Mary was saved the same way.
I mean it's not as if the Bible is written in some kind of secret code or something. Words in context mean what they say and Scripture interprets Scripture. Believers have the added benefit of the indwelling Holy Spirit who will lead us into ALL truth. The funny thing is Catholics ALSO rely on their own personal interpretation of Scripture as well as their Catechism. How ELSE does anyone read and comprehend what they are reading?
Isn't it curious what a loaded word "dead" is there? For some people, a "dead faith" means a faith that is unproductive. Others read that and automatically think "dead" means YOU'RE going to hell! Still others see "dead" as meaning a false faith, or a disingenuous faith, a head knowledge instead of a heart knowledge. Good Biblical hermeneutics say that you don't read a verse in isolation nor should only a snippet of one be used to base a whole doctrine upon.
Probably the most telling is how much importance works-based salvation religions place on that one passage while they ignore the myriad others that clearly teach we are NOT saved by our works. It's no wonder some early church leaders doubted the authenticity of James - they didn't fully understand its point. Genuine, soul-saving faith WILL be marked by an intrinsically changed life - how could it not?! But these good, holy actions/works are not what merits salvation they are only the outward evidence of our faith and God's working within our lives. Man looks upon the outward appearance. God looks upon the heart.
YOPIOS is a beautiful thing. Everyone should try it. 👍
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