Lutheran 106: A Faith That Is Never Alone

We are saved by grace through faith: this wonderful confidence stands at the core of our Lutheran Confessions. Only grace. Only faith. Yet the faith that is “only”… is never alone.

“Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith,” wrote Martin Luther. Faith is constantly birthing works of love, acts of kindness, gospel outreach, and gestures of peace and reconciliation. It is forever reflecting the light that it has found in Jesus, and forever erupting in love and good works. Indeed, “it is impossible for it not to do good works incessantly,” wrote Luther.¹

Faith is not an action itself: this is most certainly true. It is an open hand more than a capable intellect. It is a yielding more than an act of will. Faith is the simple acceptance of God’s grace for our desperate need. Indeed, it is desperate need before it is anything else.

Yet faith erupts in action and service from the moment we believe. The Gospel “has been bearing fruit among yourselves,” St. Paul wrote to the Colossians, “from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God” (1:6). Luther put it this way: “If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained…. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself.”²

“After a person has been justified by faith,” our Confessions explain, “a true living faith becomes ‘active in love’ (Galatians 5:6). Thus good works always follow justifying faith and are certainly to be found with it, since such faith is never alone but is always accompanied by love and hope” (FC Ep, III, 11, italics added).³

What are these “works” exactly? In a wonderful sermon from 1522 based in Matthew 21:1-9, Luther explained that the works produced by trusting faith “have no name.”

“They have no name, so that there may be no distinction made and they be not divided, that you might do some and leave others undone. You shall give yourself up to [your neighbor] with all that you have…. Thus it is not your good work that you give alms or that you pray, but that you offer yourself to your neighbor and serve him, be it with alms, prayer, work, fasting, counsel, comfort, instruction, admonition, punishment, apologizing, clothing, food, and lastly with suffering and dying for him” (WA 10, I, [2], 38, 2).⁴

Luther does not mean to say that we cannot recognize good works when we see them. You may recognize prayer when you see it, often enough, or the sharing of food and clothing, and so on. Good works are discrete, identifiable actions of love and obedience.

Yet to “name” them may give you the idea that you can complete them, if you try hard enough. Good works are simply incalculable. Their responsibility is simply immeasurable. Good works have no discrete “name” or boundary – as if you could discharge them, then tick them off your check-list of responsibilities.

Maybe you will think that “good works” include feeding the hungry – but not programs of development. Maybe preaching good news – but not works of justice. Maybe helping the poor – but nothing to do with politics. Maybe compassion – but not discipline. Maybe visiting the ill – but not those in prison. Good works are more wholistic than this. They have no limit or “name.”

This also means that good works are not easily self-aware. They do not even “name” themselves – as if to conclude, “Ah, now I am feeding the hungry or preaching the gospel – now, I am really good!” Good works do not notice what they are doing (cf. Matthew 6:3). As Luther explains, “[Faith] does not ask whether there are good works to do, but before the question rises, it has already done them, and is always at the doing of them.”⁵

And what makes our good works good? It is not the action in itself that makes a work good, or sometimes bad. It is the heart from which it springs. If our service is fueled by trust in the dependable grace of God in Jesus Christ, it will issue in good works naturally, in the spirit and style of Jesus – as a wholesome vine produces wholesome fruit. But if our service is fueled by doubt and uncertainty, self-reference or self-serving – if we are more interested in our own advancement or recognition than the simple benefit of another – then our service will issue in evil works – “commendable” things, perhaps, yet done for the sake of commendation (cf. Matthew 6:1). Works like these do not easily lead to the Savior.

Here on Clifton Avenue, we have recently enjoyed the visit of Margaret Obaga. Margaret serves with her husband, William, in Bavaria. William gives direction to our far-flung ministries in Africa.

Margaret made mandazis for us, one day – a kind of East African donut. I asked her for the recipe. “The first ingredient is love,” she said. “If you have everything else right – and forget love – no mandazi will turn out well. You must mix, stir, fry and drain first of all with love.”

Love makes a good mandazi. Faith makes good works good. “[F]aith alone is the mother and source of the truly good and God-pleasing works,” our Confessions explain (FC SD, IV, 8-9). Faith, indeed, is their recipe.

So faith in Jesus is never alone: it is always breaking out! If your kind of faith is this kind of faith, so will you.

Other posts in this Lutheran series:
Lutheran 101: The First Thing to Say… • Lutheran 102: Becoming Confessional • Lutheran 103: Sola Scriptura • Lutheran 104: Sola Gratia • Lutheran 105: Sola Fide • Lutheran 106: A Faith That Is Never Alone • Lutheran 107: Solus Christus!