Meet Your Maker, Vol. V (The Long Awaited One)

Sorry, O gracious and ever-thirsting audience of the SOTH blog, for the absence of this particular post from the page you no doubt check everyday! I have been away both of the last two Fridays. Forgiveness is mine, though, so its time to move on.

In today's Wesleyan wisdom, I read his explication on Ephesians 2:8 which reads like this:

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith..." (TNIV)

Wesley, after stating the scripture, poses this question:

What faith is it through which we are saved?

An interesting thought that may not have crossed our minds previously. He draws out four different "kinds" or "levels" of faith and determines whether or not each is the faith by which we are saved.

"The faith of the heathen" - This is merely an idea of who God is, largely based on heresay. Wesley states: "A Greek or Roman, therefore, yea, a Scythian or Indian, was without excuse if he did not believe thus much: the being and attributes of God, a future state of reward and punishment, and the obligatory nature of moral virtue." Though we may have this faith, it is, quite obviously, not the grace by which we are saved.

"The faith of a devil" - This is knowledge of who God and Jesus are. In Luke 4:34, you can read the account of a demon that declares: "I know who you are - The Holy One of God!" In this one exclamation, that demon shows knowledge of the Father and the Son. But it is silly to say that this kind of faith, though we possess it, is the faith by which we are saved.

"The faith of the apostles while Christ still walked the earth" - This is faith by seeing and not faith of heart or belief. Sometimes we find ourselves convinced that had we walked the earth when Jesus did and followed him around, watching him perform these miracles of which we read, we would, no doubt, have greater faith. But if you read the story of the disciples closely, we see quite the opposite from time to time. Wesley cites one instance in particular, Matthew 17:14-21, where the disciples are unable to cast out a demon. They ask Jesus why, and his responce is, "Because you have so little faith." This, again, is not the faith by which Wesley believes we are saved.

"The faith in Christ" - This is to be distinguished from the knowledge of Christ. Wesley says, "it is not barely a speculative, rational thing, a cold, lifeless assent, a train of ideas in the head; but also a disposition of the heart." So this is the "everything-and" faith. It is the sum of the first three with an addition - belief coming from the heart. Wesley leans on Romans 10:9:

"If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (TNIV)

Where in the faith-chain are you?

Its great to be able to tell me who God and Jesus are, but I know athiests, agnostics, and even Muslims who can tell me as much, and are we not claiming to be different than they? The faith by which we are saved is that faith which comes from the heart; a faith that is more than academic, it is essential in the definition of who we, as individual Christians, are. It is a faith that calls forth the desire for devotion to the one towards whom it is directed.