Years ago, I heard a preacher reading scripture that clearly said that right ethical behavior (faithful choices) saves us from sin, leads to life everlasting, etc… But he had to continue and ‘correct’ the implication of that passage lest we ‘by-faith-alone’ Protestants got the notion that our actions/doing, had anything to do with our long term justification/sanctification.
I’ve seen this repeated over the years; a NT passage clearly says that actions/doing (faithful choices/action) do in fact play a role in our ongoing salvation as well as our ultimate salvation. But whenever we encounter these passages, some of us have to cite some other proof text somewhere, sometimes wildly out of context, in order to correct the trajectory of things and keep us on the ‘faith alone’ track. And given modern understandings of faith, this generally means “mental assent, confident feelings, positive thinking, the inner state of ourselves…etc” (And/or other invisible things happening in your heart/soul/mind somewhere…) Basically the tactic boils down to continually reinforcing a prejudice that downplays ethical behavior and diverts attention back to our assumptions of an abstract, disembodied, mental/emotional-activity notion of ‘faith’.
But starting with the incident I outline at first, I’ve never had the opportunity to record and cite a word for word instance of this practiced diversionary interpretation of Scripture in order to make it sound like we want it to sound, rather than what it actually says. Well, that’s what this post is ultimately about. I’ve found an instance, in writing that illustrates this diversionary tactic. The setting is the last Sunday School lesson of the International Lessons, Spring 2022 for May 29. First I’ll quote the Scripture passage and then quote the part of the commentary where the ‘correction’ tactic is employed.
Galatians 5:19-21“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
The Sunday School commentary then says this about v21b… “The first two phrases of this partial verse indicate that this was not the first time Paul had taught the Galatians concerning these topics.
To those people who live like this, the listed vices of the flesh a strong warning is evident. People gain their eternal inheritance of life through faith, not ethical behavior. But right behavior serves as an indication of the presence of God’s Spirit.” (my emphases)
But that’s not what the verses say! This is injecting something that’s not there… Paul IS saying if you do these unethical/immoral things, you won’t inherit the kingdom and by logical extension, if you DO the opposite, ie ethical/moral things you WILL inherit the kingdom! We ARE saved by faithful/right choices and faithful actions… And there are many more passages with the same implication and no accompanying caveat that says… “no, this passage isn’t really saying what you just read… ignore this and think about other phrases from 1 prooftext elsewhere…” But this passage in Galatians is one of many! scriptures that suggest that actual DOING, concrete, faithful action/choices DO play a role in our future inheritance, ie afterlife…
Not surprisingly, even in the Sunday School session in which we were studying this, someone actually brought up their own version of this tactic of correcting the clear implication of this passage. It was done quickly and kind of in passing, so there wasn’t really room for more discussion, but they implied that this passage seems to ‘contradict’ other parts of the NT where we are supposedly told that faith (our modern/Protestant understanding of it) alone saves us… So the person clearly understood that this passage might be saying something else, but… we can’t go there, so we have to ‘correct’ it. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. We’ve been so thoroughly catechized by simplistic, exclusively Protestant (white European at that) notions of ‘faith’, that our recoil away from what we’re reading in Scripture is as automatic as a doctor’s knee tapping reflex test…
To wrap up, so much of this controversy comes down to the definition of faith that you claim. If faith means faithful, trust-in-God action/choices, then there is no contradiction throughout Scripture, Old or New! When Paul or anyone is referring to faith, they are talking about concrete action/doing/choices. But if your understanding of faith has been shaped by the modernist Protestant one that imagines faith as some kind of inner, invisible force that hits you out of the blue, or a wow! feeling, or some kind of confident mental activity or state of your inner, invisible self, then yes – you’ll think Scripture is a muddy mess and contradicting itself and has to be continually ‘corrected’ by your flawed understanding of ‘faith’…
Finally, here are some other resources besides my ranting, that I think will help in forming a more Scriptural, coherent and plausible/logical understanding of faith…
“Faith alone does not save… “ (not sure about all of this gentleman’s conclusions, but I think his questions about Protestant use or misuse of Scripture is spot on… and the historical origin of “faith alone”) I love this question he asks “What do you spend more of your time at: believing things or doing things?”
“Do Faith to Have Faith” – wow, so many good thoughts…
“The Work that Saves” – deep deep discussion, that may even bring some balance to a discussion that too quickly goes, either/or (like my first resource link…)
Voxology podcast with Dr Gombis – starting around the 38 min mark is when this gets into the faith/works discussion. So good! So wish our churches and more of us church people could think and talk about faith and works like this… so much confusion, so much silliness, so much misguided, frankly bad indoctrination would be taken care of!
The Persistent K.o.G. 