Faith Misplace

One of the great reformers and John Calvin's successor, Theodore Beza, in one of his works, called "Faith and Justification," explains the concept of justification by faith alone in this way: "faith is the instrument which receives Jesus Christ and, consequently, which receives His righteousness, that is to say, all perfection. When therefore, after St. Paul, we say that we are justified by faith alone, or freely, or by faith without works, we do not say that faith is a virtue which makes us righteous, in ourselves, before God. For this would be to put faith in the place of Jesus Christ who is, alone, our perfect and entire righteousness."

The point he is making here is very important and relevant for our own days. Without realizing it, many protestant christians today make the very mistake he was warning us here against "transforming" our faith into a virtue that makes us righteous, in ourselves, before God.

It's a subtle mistake, but it causes you to find in your own faith the reason for your salvation rather than the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ and his glorious resurrection. We make out of our own faith the object of our faith (trust), which will cause us to believe - even unconsciously - that the reason for our salvation and perseverance is in ourselves.

Faith, when properly understood, is the instrument by which we embrace Jesus Christ and everything that is in him. And this is essential for our Christian walk. When faith tries to find in itself salvation, it will leave you hopeless. When faith tries to find in itself strength, power, assurance, boldness, and hope for the walk (among other things), it will invariably fail. These things can only be found in Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith.

True salvific faith finds in Jesus Christ all that is necessary for salvation. And we need to be very careful because once we teach a "gospel" in which faith is a virtue, we are falling again into a work/virtue-based religion that can't save anyone. It's a powerless message that only reinforces our natural and sinful self-absorbed tendencies instead of calling us to fix our eyes on Jesus - the saviour of the world.

Nino Marques