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Martin Luther on Faith

Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they speak and hear much about faith. ``Faith is not enough, they say, ``You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved. They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working, creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, ``I believe. That is what they think true faith is. But, because this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn't come from this `faith,' either.

Instead, faith is God's work in us, that changes us and gives new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits, our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn't stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are. Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many words.

Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it. Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy, joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they're smart enough to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools. Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do.

Martin Luther's Definition of Faith: An excerpt from "An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans", Luther's German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546. Translated by Rev. Robert E. Smith from DR. MARTIN LUTHER'S VERMISCHTE DEUTSCHE SCHRIFTEN. Johann K. Irmischer, ed. Vol. 63 (Erlangen: Heyder and Zimmer, 1854), pp.124-125. [EA 63:124-125] August 1994

This text was translated for Project Wittenberg by Rev. Robert E. Smith and is in the public domain. [source]

Destined to Be Holy

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

... 经上记着说：“你们要圣洁，因为我是圣洁的。” (彼得前书 1:16)

...it is written, ’Be holy, for I am holy’ (1 Peter 1:16)

We must continually remind ourselves of the purpose of life. 我们不是注定会快乐、或健康，但注定要圣洁。 We are not destined to happiness, nor to health, but to holiness. Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them. Many of them may be right, noble, and good, and may later be fulfilled, but in the meantime God must cause their importance to us to decrease. The only thing that truly matters is whether a person will accept the God who will make him holy. 不论代价，人必须要摆正与 神的关系。 At all costs, a person must have the right relationship with God.

Do I believe I need to be holy? Do I believe that God can come into me and make me holy? If through your preaching you convince me that I am unholy, I then resent your preaching. The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me. God has only one intended destiny for mankind— holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. 神不是任人使用的祝福机器。祂来救我们，不是因为我们可怜；祂来救我们，是因为祂造人的本意是要我们成为圣洁。 God is not some eternal blessing-machine for people to use, and He did not come to save us out of pity — He came to save us because He created us to be holy. Atonement through the Cross of Christ means that God can put me back into perfect oneness with Himself through the death of Jesus Christ, without a trace of anything coming between us any longer.

不论是出于对自己还是对别人的同情，圣洁的 神不容许的，我们千万不可容忍。圣洁意味着一切方面的纯洁无瑕，无论行为，还是言语，甚至每一个念头 -- 让 神仔细查看你生活的每一个细节。圣洁不是单单 神所加给我们的，而是我们活出来的 神所加给我们的。

Never tolerate, because of sympathy for yourself or for others, any practice that is not in keeping with a holy God. Holiness means absolute purity of your walk before God, the words coming from your mouth, and every thought in your mind — placing every detail of your life under the scrutiny of God Himself. Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.

Wise Teachers, Sound Teaching by Eugene H. Peterson

In preparing to teach a course, I looked through a folder of accumulated notes and realized that I first taught the course to an adult class consisting of three women: Jennifer, a widow of about 60 years of age with an eighth-grade schooling, whose primary occupations were keeping a brood of chickens and a goat and watching the soaps on television; Penny, 55, an army wife who treated her retired military husband and her teenage son and daughter as items of furniture in her antiseptic house, dusting them off and placing them in positions that would show them off to her best advantage, and then getting upset when they didn't stay where she put them -- she was, as you can imagine, in a perpetual state of upset; and Brenda, married, mother of two teenage sons, a timid, shy, introverted hypochondriac who read her frequently updated diagnoses and prescriptions from about a dozen doctors as horoscopes -- the scriptures by which she lived. (Ironically, she lived the longest of the three.)

Looking back, I could not have picked a more ideal student body for my teaching. As I taught my fledging course in spiritual formation, using Ephesians as my text, I learned the difference between information and wisdom, and that wisdom was all that mattered to these three women. It was slow work, but gospel words have power in them. These women learned with their lives. The three women are now dead. I sometimes wonder if they are amused as they see me teach bright and gifted students from all over the world who pay high fees to be in the class. They paid by putting a dollar or two in the Sunday offering.

All wisdom is acquired relationally, in the context of family and friends, work and neighborhood, under the conditions of sin and forgiveness, within the complex stories that the Holy Spirit has been writing and continues to write of our lives.

Excerpt from Eugene H. Peterson: Wise Teachers, Sound Teaching [Full Article]

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