1.
Faith and Its Object
Faith
is certainly an event in which we participate. But it only occurs in a
relationship with Jesus Christ established by him. The Jesus Christ of this
relationship is neither a remote heavenly figure, nor a set of beliefs, but the
Lord actively ruling in our midst. He has established such a relationship with
every single person. The disadvantage of non-Christians is that they do not yet
acknowledge this relationship, so do not yet participate in it.
Faith
means letting go of being in control of our lives and actively focusing on
Christ’s lordship. It means losing our life so we can find it (Mark 8:35). It
means getting to do this spontaneously and genuinely.
Second,
Jesus Christ is not only the object but the origin of our faith. Faith is the
freest possible human act. Yet we freely believe in Jesus Christ only because
he sets us free to do so. Our faith is his work. As proud sinners we would not
and could not do it. When faith appears before us, it does not do so as mere
possibility. It confronts us as an irresistible actuality. When the power of
the Holy Spirit awakens us, we can only open our eyes in free acknowledgment of
God’s gracious decision.
Third,
it is in our awakening to faith in Christ by the power of his Spirit that we
actually begin to live as new beings reconciled with God. We acknowledge,
recognize, and confess the radical alteration of our situation which has taken
place in Christ. We witness to this change in Christ as representatives of
everyone. We witness to the actuality that Jesus Christ is for the world, for
the Church within the world, and especially that he is for each of us as Savior
of the world and Lord of the Church.
2.
The Act of Faith
Faith
is always a spontaneous and active event. But as such it is a cognitive event
expressed in active acknowledgment, recognition, and confession of Jesus Christ
as Lord. Faith begins with acknowledgment because this is knowledge in
obedience. When Jesus Christ encounters us, he does so in some way through his
body the Church in such a way that we are freed to freely acknowledge his
lordship and the relative authority of the community representing him.
Acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Lord is the basic act of faith upon which
recognition and confession are based.
Second,
Christian faith involves active recognition. Jesus Christ confronts us as Lord
in a very definite and singular form. We rightly recognize him in this one
authentic form insofar as our understanding of him is informed by Scripture and
by Church proclamation disciplined by Scripture. The form in which Jesus Christ
presents himself to us through Scripture and proclamation is unimaginably rich,
but we rightly recognize him through them because they remain the means he has
chosen as normative.
All
of us as Christians are theologians, and we need to be good ones, because being
a Christian means having a true vision (however simple) of Jesus Christ,
thinking true thoughts about him, and finding fitting expression for both. Our
knowledge is both theoretical, being objectively true of our Lord; and
experiential, being our active recognition of Christ’s lordship in our life as
he increasingly shapes our lives in conformity with his. This is the analogy of
faith.
In
faith, we actively recognize that our own pride and fall were overcome, and we
as sinners were destroyed, in Christ. On one hand, our destruction as sinners
has already happened in Christ but not yet in us. On the other, what has
already happened in Christ has already altered our own situation. When in faith
we actively recognize our destruction as sinners in Christ, we repent of our
former way of living without Christ. In this way we exist in analogy with Jesus
Christ our Lord.
This
analogy of faith has a positive side as well. Jesus Christ not only destroyed
our pride and fall. He also restored our right and life. Again this restoration
has already happened in Christ for us but not yet in us. But again what has
already happened in Christ has already altered our own situation. In faith we
actively recognize our restoration to righteousness and life before God in
Christ. We trust joyfully in the promise of eternal life given to the Church
and us by God in Christ. We move in freedom from being victims of our own pride
to being humbly obedient to our Lord and so, at last, to living in peace with
ourselves and others because we know we are at peace with God who holds us in
the palm of his hand.
The
goal of faith as the free acts of acknowledgment and recognition is confession.
Confession is our humble service to God as witnesses to his glory in Jesus
Christ. To acknowledge and recognize his radiant self-revelation in Jesus
Christ is to be illuminated by it and shine with it in the world. This means a
public confession of our attachment to the Church and the Lord through and by
whom we were confronted with the awakening power of the Holy Spirit. It also
means our humble but courageous sharing with the world the truly good news that
God in Christ has reconciled all people to himself.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci.
All rights
reserved. Fair use encouraged.