LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Working and Believing
The starting point in God's dealings with man is speaking on God's part and believing on man's part. This believing may involve acting immediately in a certain way, or simply waiting for God's spoken word to be fulfilled. In believing there is not always an immediate action, but many times there is a long wait.
If the point of departure were in the acting, then the point of touch would be the strength and the capacity of man. But in believing, the touchstone is God, the will of God, the capacity of God.
In the past, God gave commandments to man so that he could prove his sinfulness and his impossibility to fulfill them. God said to him: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them" (Gal. 3:10). The man naively and boldly said: "We will do all that you say". But he did not. In fact, he could not do it.
Since then, it is clear that man cannot fulfill the law, he cannot please God on his own. "By the law no one is justified in the sight of God", Paul says firmly (3:11). Rather, it is by faith that man is justified. And not only that, it is by faith that one receives the promise, the inheritance and the rest of God.
When someone does something, he expects a reward or pay in return. But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, Paul says: "His faith is counted for righteousness" (Rom. 4:5). When he who does not work, but believes, receives the promise, and the righteousness of God, he receives them with a clear feeling of unworthiness, and will praise God for it. But if he works and receives that as wages, he will praise himself, and not God.
It is clear that true faith is followed by action. But the starting point, the touchstone, is not working, but believing. Paul himself speaks in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 of "the work of your faith". And in Galatians of "the faith that works by love" (5:6). James also emphasizes that "faith, if it does not have works, is dead in itself" (2:17). Abraham himself did works of faith, as every believer does. However, that is not the beginning, but the consequence of faith.
The natural man, the religious man, is always waiting to be told what he must do to justify himself before God, or to please God. If he is told to do a few things, he will do them with alacrity, and will be left with a pleasant feeling of satisfaction. But if he is told to do nothing but believe, he will not know how to do it, and will even find it ridiculous and even offensive.
He does not know his sinfulness, he does not know -or does not want to know- that God does not receive the offering of an unredeemed sinful man, for his hands are defiled. He does not know that before God it is preferable to live the displeasure of proving the uselessness of personal efforts, to the vain satisfaction of working from himself. To receive by faith, out of pure grace, diminishes us, but magnifies God.