There’s No Debate

This week witnessed a so-called “debate” in which seven candidates for the Presidency answered questions and traded barbs at each other, all hoping to gain popular support for their candidacies. I say, “so-called” not to insult the participants, but to point out that neither the format nor the results conformed to what I had learned in school about how debates are to work. In a classical debate, there is a proposition, which one side affirms and the other side denies. Then the two sides take turns arguing for their side and against the other. There are rebuttals and counter-arguments, until all the points are made. Finally, the judges, or the audience, declares which side won the debate.

While pondering this week’s debate, another debate came to mind, one which I instituted a number of years ago. For my sermon one Sunday, I pitted my two associate pastors against each other over the question, “Which is more important in Christianity: faith or love?” Defending the former was Reverend Faith, a.k.a. Pastor Salge, and the other, Brother Love, i.e., Pastor Brokenshire. (Of course, neither had a chance, since I provided them with scripts to follow.) In a key exchange, Brother Love claimed to be “another Abraham,” to which the (much) older  Reverend Faith retorted, “I knew Abraham, and you’re no Abraham!”*

It was a lighthearted recap of a very real controversy fought between two major branches of Christianity, over what was necessary for salvation. The Roman Catholic position was that God gave faith to people which enabled them to do works of love, which in turn saved them (salvation by works). But following Martin Luther, Protestants claimed that it was faith alone, apart from works, which saves (sola  fide). Both sides recognize that without God’s grace and Christ’s death and resurrection, there would be no salvation. They differed on how to receive that salvation.

When it came to my faux debate, neither side argued for salvation by works. Both insisted on salvation by God’s grace alone through faith alone as exemplified in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Their debate was therefore about which was more important in the life of a Christian. 

Brother Love had a wealth of passages to draw from. Key passages included the following:

1. Jesus himself taught us that the greatest commandment is love. ^“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40).
2. The Apostle Paul elevated love over faith when he said in 1 Corinthians 13, “and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing,” (v.2) and “so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (v. 13).
3. Even the Old Testament, with its many laws which commanded works, also demanded  love: Leviticus 19:18 says, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
4. At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).
5. The Apostle John repeated this command in his 2nd Epistle: “the [commandment] we have had from the beginning—that we love one another” (v. 5).
6. John also said in his 1st Epistle, 4:8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
7. And finally, we read in James 2:17, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

Brother Love made a strong case, but as Proverbs 18:17 says, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” Now we hear from Reverend Faith:

1. The very beginning of God’s relationship to a people was when he made a promise to Abraham, and Abraham believed him. Genesis 15:6 says, “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.“
2. Paul quotes that verse in Romans 4:3, and in verse 5 adds: “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”
3. In Galatians 3:7, Paul says, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”
4. Even James speaks of Abraham’s faith: “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness—and he was called a friend of God.”
5. Numerous times when Jesus healed someone, he credited their faith as having saved them: a paralytic, an ill woman, a leper, blind men, etc.
6. Hebrews 11 recounts many faithful heroes. It begins with the statement, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” It speaks of faith’s power: “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.” Hebrews then praises those who believed God’s promises, yet died before seeing their fulfillment in Christ.
7. In Matthew 17:20, Jesus said, “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
8. Finally, the importance of faith is given in Mark 16:16, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

So, which is it? Faith or love? Which is more important? Of course, when all is said and done, “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35), so one must take all of what the Bible says about both faith and love. They are both vital in the life of a Christian. It’s like a coin with two faces: which is more important? They are both important; if one face is missing the coin is incomplete. Without either faith or love, the Christian life is incomplete.  Our faith receives God’s love and compels our response to love God back, to love those whom he created in his image, and to love the creation which he made. Our faith demands works of love, not just feelings of love which are cheap and transitory. Love is costly; it is risky. But if we trust God through faith, we will act, and our love will draw others to the faith which will save them.

After all is said and done, there is no debate. Faith and love. What a powerful combination of two of God’s greatest gifts. May they both be active blessings in your life!

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you,may the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: 1 Corinthians 13; Hebrews 11.

*An allusion to a famous remark during the 1988 Vice-Presidential debate, when Dan Quayle claimed to be another JFK, and his opponent, Lloyd Bentsen, snapped, “I knew Jack Kennedy, and you’re no Jack Kennedy!”