Sunday, June 1, 2008

Salvation through Faith Alone
Romans 3: 22b-28
Reverend Jennifer A. Little, M.A., M.T.S., M.Div
First Presbyterian Church of Tolono
June 1, 2008



Deitrich Bonhoffer wrote a powerful book called The Cost of Discipleship.[1] Bonhoeffer was, as you may know, a Reformed pastor (Confessional Church) in Germany. He defied Hitler and the Nazi’s and continued to run an outlawed seminary and church for those who opposed the culture and teachings of Hitler. Bonhoffer was eventually imprisoned and later hanged. In his teaching and in his writing, he was trying to convey to people the protestant principle: Salvation by grace alone. This passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans is the most important statement of this principle. We cannot rely on anything but God’s grace, this grace is not due us and we cannot earn it.

We have to understand this cost, brothers and sisters, otherwise we are living in cheap grace. Today we are going to try to make this clear.

The cost of our salvation and blessing is really the cost to God’s own self. It is not costly for us in an ultimate way, but in the way of obedience or thanksgiving to God for God’s cost. God’s very self in Jesus the Christ is the cost of our re-uniting with God. The sacrifice Paul talks about here is indeed a costly giving, it is a self giving and it is nothing short of God’s very self that is given so that we may be justified, forgiven and saved.

I am not fond of scriptural interpretation that incorrectly separates Jesus from God. In this kind of scriptural interpretation, when we hear that “Jesus is the Christ whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement,” we can’t help but have images of divine parent abuse! In light of this inappropriate separation, the crucifixion is ONLY the sacrifice of an only son. This is not morally appropriate. We have to remember this statement in the context of the good news: God came to us in Jesus the Christ, as God’s very self: Jesus is fully human and fully God. We are monotheists: we worship one God in three persons, not two Gods –God and Jesus.

When we remember that the cross is the gift of God’s self given so that we might have eternal life, then we can hear it as good news. Then we can feel the hope offered in these words of sacrifice and atonement. The sacrifice is a self-sacrifice –something that makes moral sense. The atonement, is truly an at-one-ment: a reunification of us as persons with God’s person.
This is the first point we have to wrap our minds around with this scripture.

Most of us feel isolated, lost, fall short of the glory of God. We ourselves could not effect this at-one-ment, this full acceptance and re-unification. We can’t work hard enough, believe strongly enough, or pay enough money to make this happen.

In the Hellenist world in which Paul was writing, almost anything could be bought or gained. Human beings, through might, knowledge, patronage, or wealth could achieve perfection in this life, it was thought. And what else was there? Well, there was death --which could take all of that away. No more knowledge, privilege, or wealth. And what about those who did not have access to knowledge, privilege or wealth? In this system of belief there was no justice for them; all was fate.

Paul is announcing to the Romans a different system –God’s system, God’s justice, God’s justification and God’s righteousness. Everything in this passage is about God! “since all [human beings]have sinned (there is no human perfection) and fall short of the glory of God; they [that is, we] are now justified by God’s grace as a gift.” The gift of God’s self for our salvation, “at-one-ment” –redemption –you pick the word—because we can’t do it on our own.

We ought not hear in this the story of a vengeful God sacrificing one human being for the salvation of all. That would make God a moral monster. Rather God gave God’s very self in the person of Jesus of Nazareth so we could experience God’s righteousness and God’s forgiveness and God’s healing, and so God could share with us in an extraordinary way, our humanity.
Therefore, we are “justified,” accepted, made whole, by God’s grace as a gift of God’s self put forward in the life death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ effective through faith.
So, does that mean that God’s grace is a gift only if we have faith?

No. If that were true, it wouldn’t be a free gift. Our faith or lack of faith has nothing to do with God’s gracious giving of salvation. Our faith doesn’t earn God’s grace. We can’t earn it. We don’t have to believe in order to receive God’s grace.[2]

God’s grace makes it possible for us to have faith. Faith itself is part of the gift.

Does that mean that if we question God that we aren’t saved? No. Does that mean that if we don’t have faith as strong as we’d like that we aren’t beloved of God? No.
We have nothing to boast about. Nothing.

Paul asks, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. We maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the law.

It is faith alone, a gift from God, that saves us by God’s righteousness.
It’s all about God. Everything is given by a righteous and loving God. Salvation, faith, blessing.
We come back to where we started: God’s grace is free.

It is, however, not cheap. Cheap grace is a grace that is proclaimed as if there is no soul response on our part. Cheap grace is a grace that is taken for granted. Cheap grace is a feeling that because we are saved we don’t have to practice the good news of God’s love as we saw it in the life and teaching of Jesus.

For us grace is a gift that is so dear in is unimaginably costly. “It costs us loving obedience.” It compels us to love God so much that we must live in response and love our neighbor as ourselves. Grace is a free gift so dear that we must spare no cost to live in integrity and self-sacrifice.

[1] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship.(1937) Rev. Ed. Tr. R.H. Fuller. New York: Collier Books, 1963
[2] Preaching note: Here I inserted a some brief statements about “irresistible grace.”