In the “Faith vs. Works” debate, Love wins.

Faith and works only make sense in light of love.  Love is the “big picture” of Scripture by which every piece of the puzzle can be properly understood.  Faith alone is worthless, works alone are worthless, faith and works together are worthless — unless you have love.  And with love, of course there will be faith, and of course there will be works, so the debate becomes moot!

God’s Nature

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)

God is love.  It is a radical claim, and a radical deviation from the common view of God as an oppressive Taskmaster with His finger on the “SMITE” button… but this is Scripture.  This is true.  In fact, I am not aware of a more explicit statement in Scripture about the nature of God.  God is love.

God’s Command

Many have trouble believing that “God is love”.  What about the Old Testament?  What about the Law?

Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.  (Romans 13:8-10)

(Jesus taught the same thing.)  It turns out that the whole Law was actually an attempt to show mankind what it looks like to walk in love!  Interesting, eh? Perhaps truth isn’t as complex as we thought.

In fact, the commonly-quoted passage that says “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments” is sandwiched between “”A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” and “This is my commandment, that you love one another” – all in the same discourse!  Likewise, the oft-quoted “you shall be perfect” is the conclusion of a paragraph about loving without partiality!

It seems like God is trying to tell us something… “I want you to be loving!”

Man’s Nature

Man is not loving.  Actually, we are the opposite.  This is why no one could fulfill the Law.  Even those who appeared to fulfill the law by obeying the commandments were not motivated by love, which is why Jesus had to explain in detail that it is your heart that God cares about. (Matthew 5)  All of us our guilty of being unloving.

God’s Invitation

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  -Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30, NASB)

Jesus invites us to come to Him and “take His yoke” upon ourselves.  Modern Christians may not recognize this allusion.  In Jesus’ day, when a farmer acquired a young, untrained ox and wanted to train it to plow, he would yoke it together with an older, well-trained ox.  Over time the untrained ox would learn to plow as the well-trained ox did, and would eventually be just as useful.  The goal was imitation.  Jesus is inviting us to come alongside Him, learn from Him, and imitate Him.

As you have probably guessed by now, imitating Jesus means walking in love.  Jesus is our perfect example:

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. -Jesus (John 15:13)

In order to follow Jesus in love, we actually have to die to ourselves.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”  -Jesus (Luke 9:23, NASB)

and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. (2 Corinthians 5:15, NASB)

Our nature is evil, disgusting, selfish, and bad.  God is love.  We need to die to ourselves and follow Jesus, our perfect example, and walk in loving partnership with our God.

Understanding “Salvation”

The word salvation has many meanings:

• Conversion: This is where you join God in loving partnership.  This marks the beginning of a new life of following Him in love.  We are only able to do this by the blood of Jesus, poured out for us in love.  Here we are saved from our independence from God’s loving ways.
• Transformation: This is the ongoing process of being transformed more into His image day by day (including things like baptism).  Here we are saved from our disgusting nature (little by little) by learning to be more loving.
• Resurrection: One day you will be raised up and given a new body.  Here you will be saved from your cursed flesh which is doomed to destruction.
• Inheritance: The end goal is to find yourself in Heaven for eternity, saved from Hell (which is the ultimate isolation from God’s love.)

Before discussing “what saves you”, we need to consider which “salvation” we are talking about.  Of course, the “salvation” everyone really cares about is the last one.  “I want to go to Heaven when I die!”

So how will we inherit eternal life?  Good question!

And a lawyer stood up . . . saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”

Now that we have the proper context, let us examine the individual pieces of the puzzle

Faith

Are we saved by faith?  It depends on what you mean by “saved”, and it depends on what you mean by “faith”.  However, faith does play a crucial role in your reconciliation.

• If you are going to follow God, you need to first believe that He exists (Hebrews 11:6)
• You’ll also need to trust that the blood of Jesus is actually enough to pay for all of your filthiness
• You will need to trust that He is good, and entrust your life to Him

Works

Are we saved by works?  It depends on what you mean by “saved”, and it depends on what you mean by “works”.  However, works do play a crucial role in your reconciliation.

• You need to repent.  This means making a decision to walk in the opposite “way”; go to God in prayer, acknowledge your nature, confess His goodness, and commit yourself to Him and His ways.
• You need to die to yourself.  You cannot follow Jesus and live for yourself, in your disgusting self-serving ways.
• You need to take up His yoke and follow Him.  This means beginning to live for Him, in His beautiful, loving ways.
• You need to obey Him.  His ways are higher than yours, and often times, what He calls us to may not make sense.  Why should I get baptized?  What’s the point?  Oh, that’s right – because You commanded it, and you know better than I do what is good and loving.

Love

Faith is important, and works are important.  In fact, they are both essential.  However, if faith and/or works is all you have, that would be pretty worthless.  Love is greater than faith, and faith is worthless without love.  (1 Corinthians 13:2,13)  Love is greater than works, and works are worthless without love.  (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)  Jesus clarifies it for us here:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

You confess Jesus as Lord by faith.  You prophesy by faith.  You cast out demons by faith.  You perform miracles by faith.  Confession, prophecy, exorcisms, and miracles are all works – and good works at that!  Yet Jesus says to these, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”

Hopefully this is beginning to make sense.  We need to love Him and love others.  It is about relationship (i.e. knowing Him.)  And this was the message from the very beginning – indeed, this was the whole point of the law.

Conclusion

If you believe “faith alone” is going to land you in Heaven, you are wrong.  (Sorry!)

If you believe you can be right with God by trying to follow commandments, you are wrong.

The only thing that is going to land you in Heaven is God. And He wants you to return to Him. That means learning to love Him. That means loving others – even your enemies. That means trusting Him. That means following Him. Faith has a role in this, and so do works, but neither of those is going to save you if it is all you have.