Faith Expressed in Love

Text

Galatians 5:4 (MSG) For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

Background

In the book of Galatians, Paul works to combat the notion of strict adherence to the law in order to earn salvation. It would seem that some of the Jews from Jerusalem had erred into thinking that observance of the Jewish ceremonies and procedures (including circumcision) was necessary to be saved. Paul points to the passage in Habakkuk where it is stated that the (Galatians 3:11 NASB) “ THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” What this means is that we cannot earn our salvation, but can only be made righteous and partake in the benefits of salvation by believing in the sacrifice of Christ, believing that God has sent His son to die for our sins.

Not Even Our Disregard For Religion

Paul takes this a step further though, and challenges the idea that even taking a stance in which one disregards religion is no benefit as one might think. For when Paul cites Habakkuk “… the just shall live by faith…” it would seem as if to be on the right path with God is to deny all religion including ceremony and religious procedure. But this is not the case, for disregarding religion is also a work and as many non-denominational churches have proven, takes effort as well to consciously adhere to nothing, or at least very little.

So What Must We Do?

So what are we to do; nothing? Is that the response? We find the key to this answer in the text, “…faith expressed in love” Christ commanded the lawyer, in response to his question, what must I do to be saved to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart.. and your neighbor as yourself.” We are called to love, this is the work that we must be doing. To seek the good of others before ourselves and to give all that we can to God. Not with a view toward saving ourselves, but out of a genuine desire for the other to be blessed, be it God or our fellow man.

But Isn’t Loving God and Our Neighbor Just Works?

The short answer is yes, but it is different. The works Paul shunned were ones of outward effort and show that have no intrinsic value. Take circumcision for example, though it was believed as necessary to identify oneself as an adherent to Judaism, and to make one right with God thereby inheriting salvation, it serves no true benefit to one’s life of faith. One will notice in the passage that “What matters is something far more interior…” It is the motivation and the intrinsic value that makes a work “value-add” and appropriate. When we love our neighbor, it is an expression of our faith, and is born out of the desire to see others benefit. This is different from religious works in that those efforts are solely for the benefit of the doer. When we love God and our neighbor, we are letting go of any efforts to save ourselves ,and conversely, only seek the benefit of others, which is faith; a belief that God will save us, despite our lack of religious works for our benefit.

Conclusion

So it would seem that religious procedure and ceremony is of little to no value and that the opposite, to disregard all religion is similar. While it is true that in this sense, works are of no benefit, it does not in the same sense mean that we are not to work out our salvation. The work we are to be doing in this case, is not to benefit ourselves, but to benefit others, thereby placing our salvation solely in Gods hands and not within ours.