Resisting the collapse of faith and love.
Resisting the collapse of faith and love.
Rightly distinguishing between faith and works is never an unnecessary endeavor.
Though I don’t wish to belabor a point unnecessarily — you know, dead horses being beaten and all that — I dare say that rightly distinguishing between faith and works, as the apostle Paul notably does throughout his New Testament epistles, is never an unnecessary endeavor. Indeed, I’d say that such a distinction is unassailably foundational to one’s understanding of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Blending the two is tantamount to losing the essence of the gospel altogether, as Paul definitively says in his letter to the Galatians (Gal. 2:17–21). Faith and works aren’t parallel lines of religiosity that conduct devotees to the same eventual end. Their trajectories are as divergent as life and death. The latter always ends in death, while the former not only brings life but ends in everlasting life.
Many more learned and more eloquent commentators than yours truly have already weighed in on the matter at hand, but I would be remiss if I didn’t share in the conversation for the simple fact that the conclusion to which John V. Fesko, Harriet Barbour Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, arrives is not only timely but verges on the timeless. In his recent essay in Reformed Faith & Practice: The Journal of Reformed Theological Seminary, “A Historical-Theological Response to John Piper’s What Is Saving Faith?” Dr. Fesko interacts with John Piper’s book What Is Saving Faith? Reflections on Receiving Christ as a Treasure, in which Piper seems to marry or “collapse” faith and love, to use Fesko’s terminology, resulting in a view of faith that is largely “indistinguishable from Roman Catholic views.”
To be sure, I haven’t been the most subtle when it came to my own misgivings concerning some of Piper’s late-blossoming doctrinal views. Depending on whom you talk to, his affirmation of “final justification” isn’t a belated realization on his part but a position that’s been simmering under the surface for decades. Only lately has it reached full bloom in the broader evangelical sphere, so to speak. With What Is Saving Faith? however, Piper puts all his proverbial cards on the table. The result, according to many in the Reformed camp, is the miscarriage of Christian orthodoxy. Paul might call it the nullification of grace (Gal. 2:21). Dr. Fesko’s concluding paragraph is worth its weight in gold in this matter:
The critical question is whether the essence of faith is trust as it passively rests, receives, and accepts Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, and reflexively works by love. Or, contrariwise, as Piper suggests do we collapse what faith is and does together so that love lies at the heart of faith? The reason that the Reformed tradition opted for the first choice by distinguishing what faith is from what it does is that if love lies at the heart of faith, then faith ceases to be the lone instrumental cause of justification and our salvation no longer rests exclusively upon the alien righteousness of Christ but also upon our own affections and love for him. Piper’s errors are like a medical doctor who says, “See! The human body breathes and pumps blood, but I refuse to distinguish between the heart and lungs.” Such an error may be understandable but nevertheless deadly if the doctor operates on the lungs when he should be operating on the heart. If we fail to distinguish between what faith is from what faith does do we not conflate faith and works and compromise the doctrine of justification by faith alone? The Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture is the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined. Has Piper rightly heard the voice of the Spirit speaking in Scripture? Has he rightly interpreted the Reformed tradition on this issue? At this point, I am convinced that the historic Reformed tradition is saying something different than Piper regarding the nature of saving faith.
I would strongly recommend reading Dr. Fesko’s entire critique since it situates some of Piper’s citations into their broader context. The result of which strongly indicates that Piper has misused some of his sources to make a predetermined point. As regrettable as that might be, though, it is the conflation of faith’s passivity and activity that really does Piper in. Upholding love as the essence of saving faith muddies the whole paradigm of God’s law and God’s gospel, culminating in the salvific mess known as “the glawspel,” which doesn’t actually save. As it happens, it is precisely a mutated “glawspel” that Paul has in his crosshairs in his letter to the Galatians. The only news that saves, absolves, and justifies dirty, rotten sinners like you and me is the word of promise that God offers and invites us to receive.
As my friend and Mockingbird Ministries director Dave Zahl recently wrote, when it comes to faith, passivity trumps activity every time. The righteousness by which we are approved in the sight of God is none other than the “passive righteousness,” as that stalwart Luther puts it, which is bestowed upon desperate and destitute sinners through the death and resurrection of the Christ of God. “There is no comfort of conscience so firm and sure,” the reformer attests, “as this passive righteousness is” (xiii). “Saving,” “justifying” faith is always a beggarly hand on the receiving end of the infinite gift of Christ crucified. And, as Dave says, “The less you bring to the table, the better.” The fact of the matter is that we don’t bring anything to the table at all, save for the sin that makes salvation necessary.
Grace and peace to you.
Works cited:
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, translated by Erasmus Middleton, edited by John Prince Fallowes (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1979).