I am sitting in Paddington St Station Starbucks (for the iced coffee and the internet) after about 26 hours in a plane. On the flight I watched a movie for the explosions (KIngsmen: in part because the green fanatic is the villain). But within the movie they paraphrase Hemingway: a man is not noble because he counts himself better than others; he is noble because he counts himself better than his previous self.
For when we think about where our salvation comes from it is not by inheritance or tradition. It is not because our ancestors had faith, and in particular it is not because we think we are part of the lost tribes of Israel.
Paul was a Jew, and he knew the law. When he says it has no effect, he is speaking from experience: his zeal for the law made him hunt out those of the faith and give them to the authorities for execution.
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
It is faith alone that allows the grace of God to work. We cannot earn our way to heaven: we have all too many things to repent of.
And repent and reform we should: not say that this sin or that is reasonable and sensible. We may love, as Abraham loved Sarah (who was beautiful, even into old age) and we may fail. But it is the Holy Spirit that preserves us and brings us back to Christ and the Cross. It is not our doing: the sheepdogs of heaven drive us back to the shepherd.
Donsider for a second that each decision we makes limits what we do next. I am blogging at a Railway Station and catching a direc train in thirty minutes: I could have taken an earlier train, and if I did I would have met different people, and done different things. I chose to go to Medical school, not envineering or theology: one can have but one profession.
The habits of discipline: exercise, diet, prayer, confession, bible, musical practice… all are good and useful and balance us. They make us grow, they make us better. And that allows God to be glorified, and his sheepdogs to rest.
But it is not our works that save us. It is our works that bear witness to our salvation. The test is not your sins — for anyone with some introspection let alone scrupulosity will find they sin daily nad grieviously — but how we influence those around us.
Which brings me to the other movie I saw twice, whcih involved bethany Hamilton losing an arm while out surfing. When you are too close to the situation you don’t have perspective. None of us have a good judgement of ourselves.
Which is onoather reason for the church: so we can be accountable, and we can see each other become better than the person who walked into the kirk. And in thus, we let God be glorified.
Let the heathens (including in today’s financial times) glory in the sins and evil of this world. We will glorify God.