Previous chapter: Chapter 9: Repentance from Sin to Righteousness
The righteousness God expects from humans begins with faith and ends with love. That is, faith is its foundation and love is its capstone. Put another way, faith is the budding of righteousness and love is its full blossoming. In between those two virtues will grow all other virtues. Therefore, let us begin our study of righteousness by explaining faith.
The Nature of Faith
Faith does not stand alone. It is a response to something else. The Bible says that faith is the righteous human reaction to the word of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the primary, eternal word of God. To believe it is righteous; to not believe (or to doubt) it is unrighteous. I hear people talk about having faith as if it was some nebulous stand-alone force. You can’t have faith (trust) without having it in someone or something.
The Focus of Faith
The proper focus of faith is Jesus Christ. Faith is tied to Him. God did not call the world to faith until Jesus Christ came. That is, in the 4,000 years of human history before Jesus Christ, God was preparing for Jesus Christ. He “said all that” (the Old Testament), “to say this” (the New Testament). God came to the earth as Jesus Christ so that He could be believed in through Jesus Christ. All of God – not some of Him – is found in Jesus Christ. Faith must not be in God generically, but in Christ specifically.
The Feeding of Faith
Faith resides in our souls and is fed by continuing to hear the word of God in Christ just as faith was formed in us in the first place by hearing the word of God in Christ. And just like our physical feeding, this spiritual feeding of faith must be engaged in daily – even more than once a day. Who eats only one physical meal a day? Why then should we only hear the word of God once a day?
The Practice of Faith
Eating physical food without getting the proper exercise doesn’t lead to health but rather to obesity. Likewise, reading about Jesus every day without acting according to what we’ve read leads to poorer – not better – spiritual health. Faith in Christ acts. It can’t help acting. Faith in Christ that doesn’t act is not genuine. The more we practice faith in Christ, the more it grows – like muscle.
The Supremacy of Love
All other virtues, built upon faith, roll up into love. Thus, love is patient, love is kind, love is peaceful, love is gentle, and so on. Love does the right thing for the right reason at the right time and in the right way. Love is the one virtue that the Bible personifies as God – the apostle John writing, “God is love.”
The Meaning of Love
Love is so sublime a thing that we should not be surprised if words seem inadequate to fully describe it. And we only confuse matters when we try to make the one word “love” do way too much work. For example, saying “I love my wife” and “I love ice cream” is either saying too little about your love for your wife or too much about your love for ice cream. In any case, the word “love” is way over-used. A common understanding of its meaning simply does not exist.
Confusion about the word “love” gets serious and problematic when people use the word “love” to describe lust. (The word “lust” is another casualty of the “forgotten gospel” – we hardly ever hear it anymore.) Isn’t a “love affair” usually a “lust affair”? The word “love” in that context is just trying to cover up the sad truth with euphemism. But then we really descend into madness when we say something like “Love is love is love.” Such a statement cannot mean what it says because it doesn’t say anything – at least not on its face. Using the word “love” in these ways is not intended to reveal truth; on the contrary, it’s language being used to obscure truth.
Summing up, can there be any English word that has been more misunderstood, abused, and corrupted than the word “love”? We need a reliable definition. And that can only come from someone with sufficient authority to define such a word. An innocent man who gave Himself to be crucified for the sins of the world is the only one who qualifies.
Love Is What God Did in Christ
Jesus defined love in this way: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down his life for his friends.” This is just what He did. It is the path to which God committed Himself when He became Jesus. This love can be contrasted with the normal way that people live, which is for self. In this context, the meaning of the word “love” is profoundly simple. It is living for another instead of for self, which starts with living for Christ…just as Christ lived for us. When we live for Christ above everyone else, He takes all our devotion to Him and distributes its benefits to those nearest to us…by telling us to love our neighbors.
The love we show God and others is the reasonable response to the love God has shown us. We love because He first loved us. We are not initiating love on our own; we are reciprocating His love. It is easier to love when you first know that you yourself are loved. God took upon Himself the harder part of the equation.
The Learning Curve
How are we to progress up the learning curve of righteousness – which is faith working through love? For that we’ll need a teacher, a classroom, a laboratory, and, of course, a textbook.
Next chapter: Chapter 11: The Textbook of Righteousness
DM-10
The Duty of a Man 