“Faith in Christ Alone”
Romans 3:19-28
October 25, 2009
Reformation Day Sermon - Grace Lutheran Church
“I have confidence in confidence alone! Besides which you see I have confidence in me!” So sings Julie Andrews as Maria in the movie The Sound of Music, while she is on her way to meet the seven von Trapp children for whom she will be the new governess. Pretty as the song is, however, it’s bad theology. Better yet, it’s bad Christology! Still, it is the song that many Christians sing when talking about faith. When asked what they’re trusting in for their salvation, it’s all about their faith. “I’m saved, because I believe,” or “I have faith; therefore I have eternal life,” or worse “I asked Jesus to come into my heart.” Advanced conversations about faith will even include discussions about how strong your faith is, how much of it you have, or how genuine it is. Even our own Lutheran liturgy can lead to trouble, if, for example, in the confession of our sins we focus on how “heartily sorry” we are or how “sincerely we repent.” How sorry are you really? How sincere is your repentance? But these are “damned if you do, damned it you don’t” questions, because the one who recognizes that his sorrow and repentance aren’t hearty or sincere enough will fall into despair. He will be damned, because he believes there’s no hope of salvation for him. On the other hand, the one who thinks his sorrow and repentance are “spot on” falls into a Phariseeism that boasts in itself. He will be damned, because his faith is in the wrong thing, that thing being his faith.
But their faith is what many Christians (including many Lutherans) cling to for the assurance of their salvation. Just as Maria von Trapp’s confidence was in her confidence, so often times our faith tends to be in our faith, which is simply another way of saying that our faith is ultimately in ourselves. Yet you hear this kind of faith-talk come out at Christian funerals, when people say things like, “Oh, that person had such a strong faith!” or “If only I could have the kind of faith she did!” or “She was such a faithful Christian!”
But what are we to do? The Scriptures speak everywhere about faith. Even the solas of the Reformation - sola gratia, sola fide, and sola scriptura - remind us that it’s by faith alone that we are saved. The thrust of the Reformation itself was a call to restore the biblical teaching that we are not saved by our works but by faith. As a result, Protestants today boast in the fact that they don’t believe as the Roman Catholics do, who maintain that they’re saved by faith plus works. In reality, however, by focusing our faith inwardly upon our believing instead of outwardly upon our good works as those people do, we’ve simply traded one false teaching for another, as both ways trust in the wrong thing for salvation. Roman Catholics may focus on works, and Protestants may focus on faith, but both have missed faith’s true object.
So, what is the focus of Christian faith? It’s certainly not our good works, but it’s also not our impressive faith! The best thing you can do when talking about faith, really, is not to talk about it at all. The Apostles only talk about it, when they want to make clear what faith’s object is supposed to be. That object is not your works or anything you do, least of all your act of believing, but your Savior Jesus Christ. In your discussion on faith, the best thing you can say about it is what you can say about Jesus, because faith talks about Him, not itself.
Faith has often been described as the hand that receives the Gift. Well, if this is so, you know that no one who receives a gift ever boasts in his hands and what they’re doing. No one but an idiot would make the mistake of rejoicing in what he or she did to receive a gift rather than rejoicing in the giver of the gift and the gift itself. Parents who teach their children to say “thank you” to those who give them presents know that to be on the receiving end of a gift is to be nothing but given to. Infants are the best at teaching this lesson. No wonder Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it.” It would be the height of audacity to take any credit (no matter how small) for receiving a gift. And in the case of salvation, the Scripture states that even the ability to receive this Gift is itself a gift, so that no one can boast, save in the Lord, who is both the Giver of the Gift and the Gift itself.
True Christian faith neither trusts in itself nor in anything it has done, but in Jesus alone. Rather than talking about how strong his faith is, a Christian talks about how strong his Savior is. Rather than talking about how big his faith is, he talks about how big his Savior is. Instead of talking about how much faith he has, he talks about much Jesus he has. It’s not our great faith that saves us, but our great Savior who does. And when you talk about Him and what He’s done for you, that’s when faith is talking.
And tonight’s epistle text is an example of faith talking. Though the Apostle Paul mentions faith a number of times here, it’s not faith that he boasts in, but faith’s object, Jesus Christ, His work and His righteousness. That is the Gift that God gives to you. The Law cannot bestow this Gift upon you. The Law makes demands and threatens punishment for disobedience. Those who think they can save themselves by means of the Law don’t see any need for Jesus - at least, not as their Savior. Those who live by the Law boast in themselves and what they do in order to get righteous before God. But God never gave His Law as a means by which people might work their way into His favor. As Paul writes, the main purpose of the Law is to reveal sin. It doesn’t make anyone righteous; rather, it opens up our eyes to the fact that we aren’t righteous and therefore can’t obey the commandments perfectly. We’re sinners who have inherited Adam’s fallen condition from conception. And that condition manifests itself every day in our sins of omission and commission. The Law only diagnoses this. It only declares those who are perfect perfect and those who are guilty guilty. And if you want to know which category you fall into, James reminds us that if you’ve broken just one of the commandments of the Law, you’ve broken them all and are worthy of both God’s temporal and eternal punishment. There’s no hope of salvation for those who put their faith in the Law or their ability to keep it, including their ability to come up with a hearty sorrow, a sincere repentance, and a really outstanding faith. Rather, the Law simply puts us in our place, and that place is condemned sinners before God.
But God in His mercy does not want you to remain in this condition. Having brought you to the knowledge that you are dead in your trespasses and sins, unable to help yourself, He now delivers the Gospel’s Gift to you - Jesus Christ and His righteousness. Apart from any willing or doing on your part, even apart from your faith, God sent His Son to be the propitiation, or the atoning sacrifice, for your sins. Throughout His life, Jesus lived in perfect obedience to His Father’s commandments. Where Adam, you, and I failed, Jesus was victorious, living a holy and godly life in our place. He had the faith that you and I lack. Then, at His Baptism He soaked up your sins in His body that He might take them to the cross. On Calvary He took the punishment for sin that you and I deserve, and with His blood He paid the price for our redemption and reconciled us to God. In another place Paul writes, “For our sake God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” In Jesus a glorious exchange took place: your sin and death were given to Him, so that His righteousness and life could be given to you. That exchange takes place now for you as the Holy Spirit works through the Word and the Sacraments to deliver Jesus and His righteousness to you. By way of your Baptism your sins are cleansed with the blood of Jesus and you are clothed with Him. By way of His Word of absolution you are declared free of sin. And by way of the Holy Supper you eat and drink the true body and blood of Him who died and rose again from the dead for you for the forgiveness of your sins.
And this is where faith comes in, because though the Gift of salvation that Jesus won for you through His life, death, and resurrection has been achieved apart from your faith, it is now received by faith in Him, as He is given to you through these means. Again, this is no faith that boasts or trusts in itself, but it boasts and trusts in Jesus alone. Now, in the Lutheran Church you find that we like to boast in our Baptism and in the Lord’s Supper. Is this wrong? In doing this are we not focusing our faith on the wrong things? No! It’s only those who see these as works you do for God, who hold such a view. When we look at the Sacraments as gifts of God by which He delivers Jesus and His righteousness to us, then to boast in them is to boast in what God is doing for us and not what we’re doing for Him. And so Lutheran Christians not only boast in what Jesus did for them some 2,000 years ago, but that He and His gifts are being delivered to us today through His Word and Sacraments.
The Word and Sacraments point us to Jesus, and so it is through these very means that God works the faith in our hearts that He requires. Through these gifts He causes us to look to Jesus and be saved. Through them He creates in us the kind of faith the people of Israel had, when they looked at the bronze serpent which Moses had erected upon a pole at God’s command, so that according to God’s promise, all who did look upon it did not die, but lived. Now through the Word and the Sacraments God puts our crucified and risen Lord Jesus before our eyes, so that we might look upon Him and not die, but live.