Jesus was only satisfied by faith working through love

JESUS WAS ONLY SATISFIED BY FAITH
WORKINGTHROUGHLOVE
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Galatians 5:6 For in ChristJesus neither circumcision
nor uncircumcisionhas any value. All that matters is
faith, expressed through love.
Amplified - For [if we are] in ChristJesus, neither
circumcisionnor uncircumcisioncounts for anything,
but only faith activatedand energized and expressed
and working through love.
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Faith Working Through Love
Galatians 5:6
W.F. Adeney
St. Paul has just been writing of the relation of faith to hope (ver. 5). He now
shows how it is connectedwith love. We can only separate the Christian
graces in thought. In experience they blend and interact one with another.
I. FAITH IS AN ACTIVE POWER. It works. Christtells us that it can move
mountains. Through lack of faith the disciples had not strength to cure a
lunatic boy (Matthew 17:19, 20). This faith of St. Paul is very different from

the "dead" faith which St. James scoutedwith so much scorn. It is not a cold
intellectual convictionof the truth of certainpropositions calledcollectivelya
creed. Nor is it a mere passive reliance upon the efficacyof the "finished work
of Christ," or upon the grace ofGod which is to do everything for us while we
slumber in indifference, or upon Christ himself solelyas a Saviour. it is active
trust rousing all the energies ofour soul to loyal service.
II. FAITH SHOWS ITS ENERGYIS LOVE. We do not read of love working
through faith as some would prefer to regardthe mutual operation of the two
graces.We are familiar with the idea of love as a motive, and we canwell
understand how faith might give it a ground and channel of definite action.
But the converse is here. Faith begins to operate in its ownenergy and
discovers a field of enterprise in love.
1. Faith inspires love, as love also in turn inspires faith. We believe in and
trust the goodnessofChrist, and so we are moved to love him. If we did not
believe in his love we should never return it.
2. Faith having once rousedlove exercisesitselfin promoting the objects of
love. We trust in the unseen God, we also love him; then we try to please him,
to enjoy his favour, and to live in his presence - objects of love; but objects we
should never seek if we were not supported and urged on by our belief in and
trust to what is beyond our sight and experience.
III. FAITH WORKING THROUGH LOVE IS THE ONE ESSENTIAL
CONDITION OF SUCCESSIN THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. Circumcision is of
no use. Uncircumcision and the liberty that boasts ofit by themselves are
useless. Mere barrenliberty is nothing. Freedom is conferredthat in it we
may have a field and range for noble enterprises. Mere rites, baptism, etc.,
mere observance ofreligious services, will not advance us in the spiritual life,

neither will resistance to the bondage of such things. The negative side of
Protestantismis no gospelif we rest only in that. Spiritual, active life is the
greatthing. Faith alone would not suffice, because oursupreme duties are
love of God and love of man, and faith is only valuable as it leads up to these.
But love alone would not suffice, for without faith, even if it came into being, it
would languish and perish in despair. "Faithworking through love "- this is
the motto for the healthy Christian life. He who relinquishes this will turn not
only to a lowermethod, but to a worthless and fatal one. Nothing else will
avail, and nothing more is neededfor growth up to the attainment of the most
perfect saintliness and the most fruitful service. - W.F.A.
Biblical Illustrator
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor
uncircumcision; but faith which workethby love.
Galatians 5:6
The order of gracious exercisesin the renewedheart

N. Emmons, D. D.
All evangelicalwriters and preachers maintain that none canbe real
Christians without exercising faith, repentance, and love; but they differ
widely in respectto the proper order of these gracious affections. Some place
faith before love and repentance, and some place love before repentance and
faith.
I. Let us considerTHE ORDER IN WHICH HOLY EXERCISES TAKE
PLACE IN A RENEWEDSINNER. The Spirit of God in renewing,
sanctifying, or converting a sinner, does not give him any new natural power,
faculty, or principle of action; but only gives him new affections or exercises
of heart. It is true, indeed, the Holy Spirit commonly awakensand convinces a
sinner, before He converts him. But as both sin and holiness consistin free,
voluntary exercises, so the Divine Spirit, in converting sinner, only turns him
from sinful to holy exercises. Having premised this, I proceedto considerthe
order in which the Spirit produces the first gracious affections. If love be
distinct from repentance, and repentance distinct from faith, which cannot be
reasonablydenied, then one of these affections must be exercisedbefore
another, in a certain order. They cannotall be exercisedtogether.
1. And here it is easyto see that love must be before either repentance or faith.
Pure, holy, disinterested love, which is diametrically opposite to all selfishness,
is the essence ofall true holiness;and, of consequence, there can be no holy
affectionprior to the love of God being shed abroad in the heart.
2. The next fruit of the Spirit is repentance. As soonas the renewedsinner
loves God supremely, he must loathe and abhor himself for hating, opposing,
and dishonouring such a holy and amiable Being. As repentance follows love,
so faith follows both love and repentance. When the sinner loves, he will
repent; and when he repents, he will exercise notmerely a speculative, but a
saving faith. It is morally impossible that he should feel his need of a Saviour,

until he sees and feels that God would be righteous and amiable in sending
men to destruction.
II. THE IMPORTANCE OF REPRESENTINGTHESE FIRST EXERCISES
OF THE RENEWEDHEART IN THE ORDER I HAVE MENTIONED.
1. Unless we place love before faith and repentance, we cannot reconcile
regenerationwith the Divine law, which requires all men to love God
immediately and supremely. If we say that faith is the first gracious exercise,
then we virtually saythat men ought to believe the gospelbefore they love
God; which is the same as to saythat it is not the duty of sinners to obey the,
first and greatcommand, until they become true believers in Christ.
2. It is of importance to represent love as before repentance and faith, in order
to make it appearthat sanctificationis before justification and the only
proper evidence of it. Those who place faith before love and repentance,
suppose that men are justified before they are renewedor sanctified. They
suppose that saving faith consists in a man's believing that he is justified and
entitled to eternal life without any evidence from Scripture, sense, orreason.
3. It is absolutely necessaryto place love before repentance and faith, in order
to distinguish true religion from false. All true religion essentiallyconsists in
pure, holy, disinterested love; and all false religion essentiallyconsists in
interested, mercenary, selfishlove. Now those who place faith before love and
repentance, make all religion selfish; because, upontheir supposition, all
religious affections flow from a belief of their being electedand entitled to
eternal life. But if we place supreme love to God, for what He is in Himself,
before faith, then all the gracious exercises whichflow from it will be holy and
disinterestedaffections.Conclusion:

1. If the first exercises ofrenewedsinners always take place in the same order,
then all real saints have always had preciselythe same kind of religious
experience.
2. If the Holy Spirit, in converting sinners, always produces love to God before
faith in Christ, then it is extremely erroneous to representfaith as previous to
love in the renewedheart. This is the greatestand most prevailing error
among those who believe in expert-mental religion.
3. If there can be no true experimental religion but what originates from that
supreme love to God which is before faith in Christ, then there is ground to
fear that there is a greatdeal of false religion among all denominations of
Christians. Finally, this subject teaches allwho have entertained a hope of
having experienceda saving change, the greatimportance of examining
themselves, whetherthey have ever exercisedthat precious faith which flows
from supreme love to God,
(N. Emmons, D. D.)
Prevailing faith
C. H. Spurgeon.
I. WHAT IS THIS FAITH?
1. It is not a mere creed-holding. Though the creedbe true, it may not be true
to you, if you just repeat it and put it awaylike a paper in a pigeon-hole. No
use if it does not influence your heart and affectyour life.
2. It is trust. As creatures we look up to the greatFather of spirits; as sinners
we trust for the pardon of our sins to the atonement of Christ; as being weak

and feeble we trust to the power of the Holy Spirit to make us holy and to
keepus so; we venture our eternal interests in the vesselof free grace, content
to sink or swim with it. We rely upon God in Christ. We hang upon Christ as
the vesselhangs upon the nail.
II. WHY IS FAITH SELECTED AS THE WAY OF SALVATION?
1. No other way is possible. The road of goodworks is blockedup by our past
sins, and it is sure to be further blockedup by future sins: we ought,
therefore, to rejoice that Godhas commended to us the open road of faith.
2. God has chosenthe way of faith, that salvationmight be by grace. All idea
of our own merit is thus shut out.
3. That there may be no boasting.
4. It is a way open to the most. unlearned. Howeverlittle you may know, you
know that you have sinned; know, then, that Jesus has come to put awaysin,
and that there is life in a look at the crucified One.
III. HOW DOES FAITH OPERATE?
1. It touches the mainspring of our nature by creating love within the soul.
2. It puts us into a new relation. No longerservants, but sons.

3. It creates agreementwith the Divine will.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
What makes a Christian: circumcision or faith
A. Maclaren, D. D.
? — Mistake to suppose the Primitive Church can be regarded as a pattern.
Apostolic teaching they had; -yet they were only beginners. Just rescuedfrom
heathenism, no wonder their spirits long bore the scars oftheir former
bondage. To know what they were like, we must look at the communities
gatheredby modern missionaries. The same infantile simplicity, the same
partial apprehensions of the truth, the same dangerof being led astrayby the
low morality of their heathen kindred, the same openness to strange heresy,
the same dangerof blending the old with the new, in opinion and practice,
besetboth. The first theologicaldifference in the early Church illustrates this.
It was an attempt to put new wine into old bottles. The Jewishand the Gentile
elements did not coalesce.The point round which the strife was wagedwas not
whether Gentiles might come into the Church. That was concededby the
fiercestJudaisers. But it was whetherthey could come in as Gentiles, without
being first incorporated into the Jewishnation by circumcision, and whether
they could remain in as Gentiles, without conforming to Jewishceremonial
and law. Those who said "no" were members of the Christian communities,
and, being so, they still iasistedthat Judaism was to be eternal. Those who
said "yes" were mostly Gentiles, headedand inspired by St. Paul, a Hebrew of
the Hebrews. They believed that Judaism was preparatory, and that its work
was done. This Epistle is the memorial of that feud. It is of perennial use, as
the tendencies againstwhichit is directed are constantin human nature. The
text contains St. Paul's condensedstatementof his whole position in the
controversy.

I. The first grand principle containedin these words is that FAITH
WORKING BY LOVE MAKES A CHRISTIAN (Comp. 1 Corinthians 7:19;
Galatians 6:15.)
1. Religionis the harmony of the soulwith God, and the conformity of the life
to His law. Obedience must be the obedience of a man, and not of his deeds
only; it must include the submission of the will and the prostration of the
whole nature before God. To be godly is to be godlike. As two stringed
instruments may be so tuned to one keynote that, if you strike the one, a faint
etherealecho is heard from the other, which blends undistinguishably with its
parent sound; so, drawing near to God, and brought into unison with His
mind and will, our responsive spirits vibrate in accordwith His, and give forth
tones, low and thin indeed, but still repeating the mighty music of heaven.
2. This harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling powerof our
lives. Love to God is no idle emotion or lazy rapture, no vague sentiment, but
the rootof all practicalgoodness, ofall strenuous effort, of all virtue, of all
praise. That strong tide is meant to drive the busy wheels of life, and to bear
precious freightage on its bosom; not to flow awayin profitless foam. All the
virtues and graces will dwell in our hearts, if Love, their mighty mother, be
there.
3. The dominion of love to God in our hearts arises from faith. How can we
love Him so long as we are in doubt of His heart, or misconceive His
character, as if it were only Powerand Wisdom, or awful Severity? Men
cannot love an unseen personat all without some very specialtokenof his
personalaffectionfor them. It is only when we know and believe the love that
God has to us, that we come to cherish any corresponding emotion to Him.
Heaven must bend to earth, before earth canrise to heaven. The skies must
open and drop down love, ere love can spring in the fruitful fields. And it is
only when we look with true trust to that great unveiling of the heart of God

which is in Jesus Christ, that our hearts are melted, and all their snows are
dissolvedinto sweetwaters, which, freed from their icy chains, canflow with
music in their ripple, and fruitfulness along their course, through our
otherwise silent and barren lives.
II. But we have to consideralso the negative side of the apostle's words. They
affirm that IN COMPARISONWITH THE ESSENTIAL — FAITH, ALL
EXTERNALS ARE INFINITELY UNIMPORTANT.A generalprinciple.
Rites, sacraments, etc., maybe helps: nothing more. If religion be the loving
devotion of the soul to God, resting upon reasonable faith, then all besides is,
at the most, a means which may further it. The testof all acts and forms of
Christian worship is, Do they help men to know and feelChrist and His truth?
They are but fuel; the flame is loving faith. The only worth of the fuel is to
feed the flame. We are joined to God by faith. Whatever strengthens that is
precious as a help, but worthless as a substitute.
III. THERE IS A CONSTANTTENDENCYTO EXALT THESE
UNIMPORTANT EXTERNALS INTO THE PLACE OF FAITH. So long as
men have bodily organizations, there will be need for outward helps. Forms
are sure to encroach, to overlay the truth that lies at their root, to become
dimly intelligible, or quite unmeaning, and to constitute at last the end instead
of the means. Necessaryto remember, in using them, that a minute quantity
may strengthen, but an overdose will kill. Even freedom from forms may be
turned into a bondage.
IV. WHEN AN INDIFFERENTTHING IS MADE INTO AN ESSENTIAL,
IT CEASES TO BE INDIFFERENT,AND MUST BE FOUGHT AGAINST.
(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The office and operationof faith
TheologicalSketch-book.
The peculiar characterofthe gospelis, that it shows how a sinner may be
justified before God. Yet the generality of Christians are far from
entertaining just views of this most fundamental point. They confound the
different offices of faith and works. But St. Paul distinguishes them with much
accuracyand precision. He invariably declares that our justification is by
faith. Yet, though he denies to works the office of justifying, he invariably
insists on them as the fruits and evidence of our faith. Nothing canbe more
decisive than the declarationin the text.
I. We shall EXPLAIN IT.
1. Man is prone to trust in outward rites and[ ceremonies. The Jewstrusted in
the ordinance of circumcision; some among ourselves think it sufficient Chat
they have been baptized, or are communicants.
2. But no outward observancescanavail for our salvation.(1)An external
conformity with the rule of duty may proceedfrom the basestmotives;
(a)to obtain man's applause;
(b)to establisha righteousness ofour own;(2) it may consistwith the
indulgence of
(a)evil tempers;

(b)vicious appetites.It cannot, therefore, of itself characterize the true
Christian. Nor can it avail anything towards procuring the Divine favour;
though, if it proceedfrom faith and love, it will doubtless be rewarded.
3. That which alone can avail for our acceptancewith God is faith. It is by
faith that all the saints of old obtained salvation(Romans 4:3, 6, 7). All the
promises of God are made to faith (Mark 16:16;Acts 10:43).
4. Yet this faith must be productive of goodworks. It is not a mere notional
assentto certaindoctrines; nor a confident assurance respecting the safetyof
our own state;but a living, operative principle in the heart.
5. It is, on our part, the bond of union betweenChrist and our souls;and it
cannot but discoveritself by works oflove.
II. IMPROVE IT (2 Timothy 3:16).
1. Forthe establishment of true doctrine. Let us renounce all confidence in
our own works, andrely wholly on the blood and righteousness ofChrist.
2. Forreproof, i.e., refutation of false doctrine. We are not justified by faith as
an operative principle, but simply as uniting us with Christ. Our works do not
make our faith to be goodor saving, but only prove it to be so.
3. Forcorrectionof unrighteous conduct. Let unrighteous Christians put
awayeither their professionortheir sins.

4. Forinstruction in righteousness. Love should operate uniformly, and
respectboth the bodies and souls of men. Let us abound in it more and more.
(TheologicalSketch-book.)
Faith
E. B. Pusey, D. D.
Faith is the foundation of the whole spiritual building, whereby we are built
on Christ Jesus. It is the rootof the whole spiritual life of grace, the ground
whereonthe soul rests securely, the beginning of our spiritual existence. The
cross is not far off, not over the seas,in the Holy Land, nor removed by length
of time. Faith sees it close athand, and clasps it and loves it, and is crucified
on it with Him, dying to itself with its Lord, nailed to it, motionless to its own
desires, deadto the world, and living to Him. Nor is heaven far off to faith.
For where its Lord is, there is heaven. Faith is with Him, present with Him in
spirit, though absentin the body; a penitent amid those who, around the
Throne, sing "Holy, Holy, Holy." Faith, in one sense, goesbefore love,
because, unless we believed, we should have none to love. Faith is Divine
knowledge. As in human love we cannot love unless we have seen, heard, or in
some way known, so, without faith, we cannot know aught of God, or know
that there is a God whom to love. Yet in act, faith cannot be without love.
"The just,' says Scripture, 'shall live by his faith,' but by a faith which lives. A
dead faith cannot give life." Faith without love is the devils' faith. For they
believe, and tremble. Hearing must come before faith, for "faith cometh by
hearing." But faith cannotfor an instant be separatedfrom love. Who is the
objectof faith? God the Father, who createdus, and gave His Son to die for
us; Godthe Son, who became one of us, and by dying, redeemed us; God the
Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth us, and "pours forth love," which He is, "abroad
in our hearts." We were as stocks and stones without faith; but He died, even
"of these stones to raise up children to Abraham." Are we stocks orstones
now, that, having faith, we can believe without loving? Which of His acts of

boundless love should we believe without loving? Were it not enoughto bear
us out of ourselves for love, to transport us, to make us give up our lives for
love, to carry us awayout of ourselves and of all that we are, to think that for
us, earth-worms and defiled, Jesus died? Does not the very name of Jesus
make the heart beat, and tremble, and thrill with love? Could a criminal
really believe that he had receiveda full pardon from his injured king, or that
the king's son had suffered to obtain his pardon, and was come to tell it him
and forgive him, and not love? Well might he doubt such love. But he could
not believe it and not love. Faith and love would enter his soul together. Love
is in all true faith, as light and warmth are in the ray of the sun. Light and
warmth are in the sun's ray, and the sun's ray brings with it light and
warmth; not, light and warmth; the sun's ray: yet, where the sun's ray is,
there are light and warmth, nor canthat ray be anywhere without giving light
and warmth. Even so, faith it is which brings love, not love, faith; yet faith
cannot come into the heart, without bringing with it the glow of love, yea, and
the light wherewithwe see things Divine. So soon as faith is kindled in the
heart, there is the glow of love; and both come from the same Sun of
Righteousness, pouring in faith and love togetherinto the heart, and "there is
nothing hid from the heat thereof." In winter, fewer rays come upon any spot
of this land from the sun; whence there is then less brightness of light and less
glow of heat than in summer; and so the surface of the earth is chilled; and
though for a time the frost be melted by that fainter sun, this warmth, coming
upon it only for a short time, soonpasses away. Evenso, there are degrees of
faith and love. Yet they may be real faith and love, even when the powerof
both is lessened, in that the soul does not keepitself or live in the full presence
of God. Or, as through a closedwindow, more light comes than heat, so in
some hearts, there may be more of knowledge than of love. And again, as on a
cold misty day, when the sun is hidden from our eyes, we are so oppressedby
the clamminess of the chill damp upon the surface of our bodies, and by the
heavy gloom around, that we scarcelyfeelthe presence ofthe light and heat;
and yet the light and heat are there, else we should be in utter darkness, and
our bodies would die; even so, many hearts, at many times, when some mist
hides from them the presence oftheir Lord, feel nothing but their own
coldness and numbness, and all seems dark around them, and yet in their very
inmost selves they believe and love, else their souls would be dead, and they

would be "pastfeeling," and they would not pine for more light and love. A
dead body is in darkness, andseethnot the light of this world, and has an
awful coldness to the touch; yet itself feels not its own coldness, norknows its
own darkness. Evenso, the dead soul, being without the life of God, feels not
its own death, craves not to love more. For He who is love hath left it, and it
hath no power wherewith to desire to love, unless or until the voice of Christ
raises it from the dead and awakensit and it hears His voice, and lives. Or
think on the greatinstances of faith in Holy Scripture. Think you not that
Abraham loved, as wellas believed, when God first spake to him, and called
him to give up his country, and his kindred, and his father's house, and
instead of all, God said, "I will bless thee," and he took Godfor his all, and
"wentout, not knowing whither he went," save that he was following God?
And of that greatpenitent, St. Mary Magdalene, ourLord bears witness that
in her there were togetherlove and faith; and for both together, a loving faith,
or a "faith working by love," our Lord tells her, "Thy sins are forgiven." Or
was there not love in the faith of the penitent thief, when he discerned his
Saviour by his side, in that marred form, which "had no beauty or
comeliness,""His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form
more than the sons of men," and he said, "Lord, remember me in Thy
kingdom." There was humility, which ownedthat it deservedto be forgotten,
and wondrous faith which ownedin Him, "the rejectedof men," his Lord and
King and God. But there was love too. For love only craves to be remembered.
Or think you not that, when God "openedthe heart of Lydia, to attend unto
the things spokenby Paul," He poured into her heart which He had opened,
love with faith? Faith which loves not, is not faith; it is dead. And what is
dead, hath ceasedto be. A "deadfaith" is a "faith without love." A dead body
is, for the time, until it wholly decays in outward form, like a living body or a
body asleep;a dead faith has an outward likeness to a living faith. But as a
dead body has no warmth nor powerof motion, nor feeling, nor canuse any of
the powers it once had, nor has them any longer, it can neither taste, nor see,
nor hear; so a dead faith is that which has no love, no powerto do goodworks.
It perceives not, hears not, tastes not, feels not, the things of God. As love is
the life of faith, so with the increase oflove, faith increaseth. Evenfrom man
towards man, faith and love grow together. The more we love, the more we
understand and the more we trust one another. We trust, because we love,

and by loving, know God, We canonly know God, by loving Him. St. Paul
says, "I know in whom I have believed." Want of love is the cause ofall want
of faith. Did we fully love God, who could for a moment doubt of Him? But
love liveth by good works. Love cannotlive torpid. Even in human love, love
which never did deeds of love would grow chill and die. We love those most, to
whom we do most good. Love is perhaps increasedmore by doing than by
receiving good; at least, by doing goodout of the love of God. Acts of love do
not prove only that we have a living faith they increase it. But it has been
thought, "if faith, on which Godholds us righteous, or justifying faith, have
love in it, are we not accountedrighteous for something m ourselves?"We are
justified, or accountedrighteous before God, neither for faith nor love, but for
the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ alone. And faith and love alike, although
in us, are not of us; both are alike the gift of God. But this gift, whether of
faith or love, is so given, that it is with us to receive it. We come to God by
faith and love. But "no man comethunto Me," saith our Lord, "exceptthe
Father, which hath sent Me, draw him." "Believe, andthou comest;love and
thou art drawn." The drawing of grace changes nature, and strengthens
nature, reforms nature, subdues nature, but only if we be willing to be
changed, reformed, subdued, strengthened. How then may we know if we
have this faith? How may it grow and be strengthened in us? How do we know
that our bodies live? "As," says a holy man, "we discern the life of this body
by its motion, so also the life of faith by goodworks. The life of the body is the
soul, whereby it is moved and feels;the life of faith is love; because by it, it
worketh, as thou readestin the apostle, "faithwhich workethby love: Whence
also when charity waxethcold, faith dies; as the body, when the soul
departeth."
(E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
The grandeur of faith
B. M. Palmer, D. D.
I. View, then, the GRANDEUR OF FAITH as the great collective act, in which
all the powers of the soul are alike embarked. If God, in the beginning, by the

constitution which He gave to man, made him a creature of law, if it canbe
shown that man fell from his original holiness in the free exercise ofall the
powers by which he was characterizeda responsible being, then it follows that
the gospel, as a remedy, must, in all its provisions, recognize this fundamental
fact. The whole work of salvationhas been already achievedby One from the
bosom of the Father, acting as our substitute under the law, satisfying the
claims of justice, and rendering obedience to the precepts. Where, then, if we
do not work out the righteousness by which we are saved, comes into play our
agency? Whathas man to do in this matter of personalsalvation? Where does
God place the testof our responsibility and freedom? Exactly at this point:
Not in working out a righteousness,not in making atonementfor sin, but in
accepting the righteousness whichis already provided — by cleaving to the
Saviour whom the gospelpresents to us as our Redeemer. Therefore, withthe
highest philosophy, do the Scriptures say, "He that believeth shall be saved;
he that believeth not shall be damned." I ask you, now, to notice how
completely, in the simplest exercise offaith, every faculty of the human soul is
brought into action. There is the understanding, which must employ itself
upon the propositions of Scripture in order to perceive what they say. There is
the judgment and reason, whichmust meditate upon what is contained in
these statements, in order to see whether they constitute a sound basis for a
sinner's hope. Here are the affections, allbrought into exercise whenwe
behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and feelthat He is, to us,
"the chiefestamong ten thousand and the one altogetherlovely." Here is the
will, putting forth its determinate actof choice whenit accepts the Lord Jesus
Christ, and accepts His work; and, in this very act of acceptance, distinctly
and consciouslyrepudiates every other ground of trust-exclaiming, with the
apostle, "I desire to be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the
righteousness whichis of God by faith." Nay, even the subordinate faculties of
the human soul, such as the imagination, and the fancy, and the taste, all are
brought into exercise in order that the greatfacts of the gospelmay be
presentedbefore the mind as realities which it can touch and apprehend. Even
the faith which is but as a grain of mustard seed, overwhich you and I weep
in the closetbecauseit is so feeble, when you come to analyze it in its
constituent parts, is found to have drawn upon the whole contents of your

spiritual being. It has occupiedthe understanding, it has employed the
conscience, ithas drawn out the affections, it has exercisedthe will; so that not
one single powerin man has remained dormant in that faith by which we
cling to the Lord Jesus Christ. We hear the eulogypronounced every day
upon the achievements ofintellect. Men spread out their philosophies before
us, and we follow the painful steps with which they have proceededfrom the
first premise to the most distant conclusion. We walk with the scientists, who
seemto have wrestedfrom the hand of the Creatorthe keys of His own
universe, and with bold adventure have roamed through its wide domains,
opening its secretcabinets and unlocking their treasures to our gaze. And as
these high achievements of science andof philosophy are held up before us, we
are filled with astonishmentand pride. God forbid that I should lack in
sympathy with these grand movements of the human mind! But they are the
exercise ofonly one powerof our nature, even at the best. They revealman in
the towering reachof his intellect, which is bound to expand throughout the
eternal ages, growing largerin its grasp and holding within its embrace the
greattruths of eternity and of God. By so much as I hope hereafterto see in
heaven the boundless glory of Jehovah, and to spread out all my intellect in
the contemplationof what is sublime and beautiful in God, am I forbidden
this day to utter one word of disparagementupon the proofs of man's gigantic
understanding. But I turn to faith, which equally exercises this intellect, which
draws out all the affections of the soul and the immense powerof the will;
which presents man before me in the full complement of his powers;which
reveals me to myself in the superb integrity of my nature — and I feel that if,
through grace, I have been able to exercise this faith in the gospelof Jesus
Christ, I have put forth an act which has brought out the totality of my being,
which has expressedall the constituents of my nature, and which, therefore, in
its essentialglory, immeasurably transcends all other acts within the compass
of the human soul. Under this aspectof it, then, I ask you to look at faith — as
the greatcollective actof the soul, in which a man embarks all the constituent
faculties of his being.
II. Faith is the full and final CONVEYANCE OF THE SOUL TO THE LORD
JESUS as His possessionfor ever. So that the first act of faith, by which we
cleave to Jesus Christ, contains potentially within itself every subsequent act.

Just as the seedimplicitly contains the whole plant which is evolved from it, so
all other acts of faith, until the hour when faith shall lose itself in sight, are
containedwithin this first conveyance ofthe soul over to the Lord Jesus
Christ. For, my hearer — God help you to understand it! ten myriads of
times, in sins of desire and of thought and of deed, you have, with your own
signature, endorsedthe original apostasyin the gardenof Eden and
underwritten it for yourself. All your days, by personal transgression, you
have assumedthat guilt as your own. But now comes the hour when the
connectionwith the first Adam is to be broken, when, as far as in us lies, we
openly and publicly recant all our sin, and say to the secondAdam, who
stands upon the ruins of the first covenantand fulfils all of its forfeited
conditions, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." My hearer! is
there no powerin such an act? and must there not be a Divine virtue in the
principle which enables you to perform it — when you can thus cut the
connectionwith all preceding sin, and with him who by his fall precipitated
you beneath the curse, disavowing all the transactions ofthe past, and giving
yourselves over in an everlasting covenantto Him who is your Redeemer?
III. View faith as the GERMINAL GRACE, out of which the whole
experience of the Christian is developed — the rootof all repentance,
obedience, love, and worship. Thus I meet the shallow criticism which men
sometimes make againstthe gospel, when they say, "We turn to one Scripture
which declares, 'Believe onthe Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved;'
and we turn to another Scripture which proclaims, 'Repent and be converted
for the remission of sins.'" They ask of what value is that system which, in the
very terms of salvation, is found so contradictory? Faith and repentance are
but the two poles of one and the same truth. As there can be no faith which
does not involve repentance as its immediate consequence, so there canbe no
repentance which has not been precededby the faith of which it was born:
and the difference betweenthe two is simply in the order of thought in which
you choose to contemplate them. When you shall presently go out of this
building, every step down those aisles towardthe door carries you just so
much awayfrom your pew: but as egressfrom the building is before the mind
as the objectto be attained, the motion toward the door, in the order of

thought, precedes the motion from the pew; yet every inch that lessens the
distance from the one increases justso much the distance from the other. The
two are necessarilyreciprocal. Then the faith which accepts the Lord Jesus
Christ, accepts Him in all of His offices. Thus, faith is seento be the germ,
first of our repentance, then of our obedience, and then of that supreme love
which we have to God when we love Him with all the heart and with all the
soul and with all the strength and with all the mind. And if faith be, as I have
sought to represent, the full conveyance ofthe soul to Christ as His possession,
then is it in itself a complete and sublime devotion; and becomes the germ of
that positive worship which we render to God upon His throne here upon
earth and hereafterin heaven.
IV. See the grandeur of faith as it is the human correlative, and the human
measure, of the ATONEMENTOF JESUS CHRIST. Here, again, as I put into
these cold words a thought that burns like fire, I tremble at the presumption.
The obedience of Jesus Christis the measure of God's holiness. And you find
that there is a human measure and a human correspondentto this atonement
of the Redeemeritself. For when our faith embraces it — when our faith looks
upon the blood of Christ, and upon the obedience of Christ, and upon the
sufferings and upon the cross ofChrist — when, with all the powerthat
belongs to thought, with all the pathos that belongs to feeling, with all the
energy that belongs to will, man brings out his whole nature and grasps that
atonement, and draws it up to him, and lays it over againsthis own guilty
conscience, andrests in life and in eternity upon its blessedprovisions — you
have the bestexpressionthat earth can give of its estimate of the glory that lies
in obedience to the law. I cannotafford to disparage that faith which thus, in
its excursions, travels over the atonement of the adorable Redeemer;which is
itself the measure of the infinite justice of God, and takes the dimensions of
the boundless glory of Jehovah.
V. In the lastplace, I signalize the grandeur of faith, in that it is the
PERFECTIONOF REASON. Philosophers are wontto glory in the prowess

of human reason. Let me illustrate this, most simply, from the science of
mathematics. If I say that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right-
angles, I by no means state a truth that is intuitive, but one that is
demonstrable. But, then, how do I demonstrate it? By proving that the things
which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. Through the
demonstration I carry the mind back, stepby step, until it is landed in one of
those original and necessarycognitions. And yet the mathematician will smile,
with the most self-complacentdisdain, upon the very principle which gives
him the postulate upon which his reasoning depends. Now, consistencyis a
jewel;and when you undertake to flout faith, you must go cleanthrough and
strike at all these beliefs. When a man tramples upon this principle of faith,
which demands the acceptanceofthe Saviour, I debar him from the
possibility of reasoning on any subject under the sun. If the human reason
starts from what it is obligedto accept;if, in all the after process, it is obliged
to remand its conclusions to that elementarytrust from which it in the first
instance departed, in order to verify them — if you are obliged, for example,
to believe in the principle of causality; if you are obliged to believe in the fact
of your personalindentity; if you are obliged, by the necessityof your mental
constitution, to believe in the reality of the external world, and to rely upon
the evidence and the testimony of sense whichunderlies all the demonstrations
of our proud physical science;if you are compelled, by the same necessity, to
rely upon memory, which hangs togetherall the links of every chain of
reasoning through which you are carried — I say, just in proportion as you
reasonwith powerto conclusions that are satisfactory, the verification of
those conclusions is found in the elementary beliefs which you acceptsimply
and alone with the trust of faith; and I interdict you, by this known fact, from
undertaking to despise or contemn it. The man of intellect, who is proud of his
powerof thought, is the very last under the broad heavens to despise the
principle of faith, which gives him his postulates, and the tests by which his
conclusions are verified. One other suggestion, andthen I am done with this
point; which is, that if we start from faith, and if all the time we are going
back to faith to verify every course of reasoning, it would seemthat when we
have accomplishedthe grand circuit, and know all things that are knowable,
and have proved all things that are demonstrable — it seems to me in perfect
analogywith man's mental constitution and with God's high prerogatives,

that He should open to us the infinite beyond the finite; that we should rise at
last beyond nature up to God; that we should ascend, atlast, above these
mortal shores to the immortal; that we should have power, by this principle of
faith, to take possessionof another world, grander, larger, more glorious than
all these myriads of worlds which dot the immensity of space;and that, by and
by, when we shall have illustrated all the triumphs of science, we shallbe able
to put the climax upon all this by the higher triumphs of a grander faith. God
is infinite, lying beyond the sphere of human thought. Can He everbe known
exceptthrough revelation? Could we ever understand Him, exceptby the
powerof faith?
(B. M. Palmer, D. D.)
Faith working by love
C. H. Spurgeon.
I. FAITH ALWAYS PRODUCES LOVE.
1. By a necessityof faith's own nature.
2. By the discoveries ofbeauty in Christ which faith is sure to make.
3. By its appropriation of the love of Christ.
4. By its enjoyment of mercy, leading the heart to a grateful acknowledgment
of the source of mercy.
5. By the familiarity with God and the congenialityof disposition which it
breeds in the heart.

II. LOVE IS ENTIRELYDEPENDENTON FAITH.
1. No man loves a Saviour in whom he reposes no confidence.
2. Love cannotflourish except as faith flourishes.
3. Love cannotwork without faith.
III. FAITH DISPLAYS ITS POWER BY LOVE. Compare faith to an
artificer in metals.
1. Love is faith's arm.
2. Faith's tools.
3. Faith's furnace.
4. Faith's mould.
5. Faith's metal, for into the mould of love faith pours love itself.
6. Faith's burnisher.

IV. LOVE REACTS ON FAITH AND PERFECTSIT.
1. Love leads the soul into admiration and so increases faith.
2. Love forbids unbelief.
3. Perfectlove casts out fear.In conclusion
(1)Faith works:let us as a Church work because we have faith.
(2)A working Church must be a loving Church, for faith works by love.
(3)But if you are to be a working and a loving Church you must be a believing
Church, for that is the bottom of all.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
That salvationis conditional does not affectits gratuitousness
H. MeIvill, B. D.
A nobleman might declare his intention of giving a purse of money to all who
would walk to his castle, knock athis door, and ask for the treasure. The
walking, the knocking, the asking, would be the conditions of bestowment; but
certainly the conditions, when fulfilled, would leave untouched the

gratuitousness;and no one who walked, knocked, and asked, and obtained the
purse would regardit as wagesdue for what had been done. The case is
preciselythe same when the proposedbenefit is salvation, and the prescribed
conditions repentance, faith, and works.
(H. MeIvill, B. D.)
Uncircumcision availeth nothing
A. Maclaren, D. D.
There may be as much formalism in protesting againstforms as in using
them. Extremes meet; and an unspiritual Quakeris at bottom of the same way
of thinking as an unspiritual Roman Catholic. They agree in their belief that
certain outward acts are essentialto worship, and even to religion. They only
differ as to what those acts are. The Judaizer who says, "you must be
circumcised," and his antagonistwho says, "you must be uncircumcised," are
really in the same boat. Neither rejectionof forms nor formalism, neither
negations nor affirmations, make a Christian. One thing alone does that, faith
which workethby love, againstwhich sense everwars, both by tempting some
of us to place religion in outward acts and ceremonies, andby tempting others
of us to place it in rejecting the forms which our brethren abuse.
(A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The relations betweenfaith and love
C. H. Spurgeon., T. Adams.
The two gracesare inseparable. Like Mary and Martha they are sisters, and
abide in one house. Faith, like Mary, sits at Jesus'feetand hears His words,
and then love, like Martha, diligently goes aboutthe house and rejoices to
honour the Divine Lord. Faith is light, while love is heat, and in every beam of
grace from the Sun of Righteousnessyouwill find a measure of each. True
faith in God cannot exist without love to Him, nor sincere love without faith.

(C. H. Spurgeon.)Faithand love are the brain and heart of the soul, so knit
togetherin a mutual harmony and correspondence,that without their perfect
union the whole Christian man cannotmove with power, nor feel with
tenderness, nor breathe with true life.
(T. Adams.)
Faith and love
T. Adams.
Judith goes in alone, and by her own hand delivers Israel; the waiting woman
hath not a stroke in it (Judith 13.). Faith is this greatlady, and charity her
handmaid; through all the actions of goodnessshe attends on her mistress;
when faith sets down the objects of her beneficence, love is her secretary;
when she disposethher gooddeeds, love is her almoner; when she treats a
league of peace, love is her ambassador;what work soevershe undertaketh,
charity is her instrument. But when it comes to a point of justification to enter
the presence chamberof the GreatKing, to procure remissionand peace,
charity leaves her to herself. Thus is it now. But hereafterthese two shall
change places;charity shall be the lady, and faith the waiting-woman. When
the soulis to be dischargedout of prison and moves to the high court of
heaven, faith waits upon her all the way; but at the presence-chamberof
glory, faith stays without and love only enters. Yet though faith at last perish
in the act, it shall never perish in the effect;for we shall enjoy what we have
believed.
(T. Adams.)
The relation of faith and love to spiritual life
T. MacNeece,D. D.

We may compare the infusion of spiritual life by God to His importation of
vegetable life to a tree; faith and love, consideredas organs of the inner life,
we may compare to the roots of the tree which cleave to the soilfor
nourishment and support, and to the sap which is propelled through the trunk
to every branch and fibre; and finally, we may compare goodworks, which
are the products and manifestations of the vital energies, to the leaves and
blossoms with which the tree is adorned, and to its fruits, which are pleasant
to the eye and grateful to the palate. No one of these is to be overlooked, nor
are they to be confounded with eachother.
(T. MacNeece, D. D.)
Faith, a power
T. MacNeece,D. D.
Whenever the things believed are fitted to awakenany emotion or other active
principle of our nature, belief becomes a power. Such it is in all matters
respecting man's life, his interests, and his passions. Leta geologisttella man
that there is coalon his property; if he believe him, be assuredhis faith will
not be long inoperative.
(T. MacNeece, D. D.)
Love impossible without faith
H. W. Beecher.
You cannot love by mere trying. Trial is the first stage in Christian
development, but do not callyourself an expert Christian until the
distinguishing Christian graces come to you in ways that are spontaneous,
automatic, overflowing, consentaneous, symmetrical, and brood as the stream
of life — until every thought and feeling has been subdued to the supreme will
of God, which is love. When you have reachedthat condition, then you may
call yourself an expert Christian.

(H. W. Beecher.)
Faith working by and not by love
DeanStanley.
Faith is one of the mightiest powers that the world contains. It is like the
central fire of the earth, it is like the fountain of the great deep. But whether it
be a power for goodor evil depends entirely on the objects to which it is
directed, or the wayin which it "works."It may be a volcano scattering ruin
and desolationaround it, or it may be the genial heatand warmth which fuses
togetherthe granite foundations of the globe, and sustains the life of every
human being on its surface. It may be a torrent tearing and rending
everything before it; it may be diverted into a hundred insignificant streams;
or it may be a calm and mighty river, fertilizing and civilizing the world.
There is a faith which justifies and a faith which condemns. Faith which
workethby love justifies, sanctifies, elevates, strengthens,purifies Faith which
workethnot by love, condemns, hardens, weakens, destroys.The ordinary
means and ways by which the faith of a Brahmin, e.g., works are not love, and
truth, and justice;but meats, and drinks, and washings. To eatthe flesh of a
cow is the most enormous wickednessofwhich a Hindoo can be guilty, and
one for which there is no forgiveness in this world or the world to come. To
bathe in the waters of the sacredriver, is a passportto heaven which will avail
though every moral virtue he castaside. On the avoidance of this sin and the
preservationof this virtue the Hindoo expends an energy, a courage, a faith,
which would be sufficient to convert a kingdom, and the consequenceis that
the wilder passions ofhis nature are left either altogetherunrestrained, or are
actual]y stimulated and aggravatedby the faculty which was meant to purify
and elevate them. It is like any other power of the human mind, which, if fed
on useless orpoisonous substances, becomes unable to attend to what is useful
and wholesome. There may be a gigantic memory, which lays up the most
trifling details, and forgets the most important events. There may be a
gigantic intellect, which wastes itself awayin subtlety, or degrades itselfin
fraud and treachery. There may be also a gigantic faith, which squanders its

powers on things without profit, which works by blindness of heart, vainglory,
and hypocrisy, by envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness. But
Christian faith worketh always and everywhere by love. In this one broad
channel, faith may work as it will; it will find enoughto fill, enough to
fertilize, many rough corners to be rounded off, many intervening obstacles to
be washedaway, many winding tracks to be followed. Do not divert the faith
of Christ our Saviour, that world-controlling, world-conquering faith, from its
proper functions; we cannotafford to lose its aid, we want the whole volume
of its waters, the undivided strength of its stream, to moisten the dry soil of
our hardened hearts, to feed and cleanse ourdark habitations, to turn the vast
wheels of our complex socialsystem, to deepen our shallow thoughts, to widen
our narrow sympathies, to sweetenour bitter controversies, to freshenour
stagnantindolence. "Faith working by love," can do this, and nothing else
can; and we can neither with safety spare its motive power, nor yet without
danger open another path for its energies.
(DeanStanley.)
Faith working by love the only genuine faith
Jeremy Taylor.
That only is faith that makes us to love God, to do His will, to suffer His
impositions, to trust His promises, to see through a cloud, to overcome the
world, to resistthe devil, to stand in the day of trial, and to be comforted in all
our sorrows.
(Jeremy Taylor.)
T. Adams., CanonLiddon.
Faith is able to justify of itself, not to work of itself. The hand alone can
receive an alms, but cannot cut a piece of woodwithout an axe or some

instrument. Faith is the Christian's hand, and can without help receive God's
given grace into the heart; but to produce the fruits of obedience, and to work
the actualduties required, it must have an instrument: add love to it, and it
workethby love. So that the one is our justification before God, and the other
our testificationbefore man.
(T. Adams.)Faith when once it lives in the soul is all Christian practice in the
germ.
(Canon Liddon.)
How to estimate the strength of faith
W. Gurnall.
Faith works by love, and therefore its strength or weaknessmay be discovered
by the strength or weaknessofthe love it puts forth in the Christian's actings.
The strength of a man's arm that draws a bow is seenby the force the arrow
which he shoots flies with. And, certainly, the strength of our faith may be
known by the force that our love mounts to God with. It is impossible that
weak faith, which is unable to draw the promise as a strong faith can, should
leave such a forcible impression on the heart to love God as the strongerfaith
does. If, therefore, thy heart be strongly carriedout from love to God, to
abandon sin, perform duty, and exert acts of obedience to His command,
know thy place, and take it with humble thankfulness; thou art a graduate in
the art of believing.
(W. Gurnall.)
Faith and love intimately connected
Luther., F. Quarles., S. T. Coleridge., Erskine.

Faith without love is, as it were, a dream, an image of faith; just as the
appearance ofa face in a glass is not a real face.
(Luther.)Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God, if thou wantestcharity for thy
neighbour; and think not thou hastcharity for thy neighbour, if thou wantest
faith to God: where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they
are both dead if once divided.
(F. Quarles.)Faithis the source;charity, that is, the whole Christian life, is the
stream from it. It is quite childish to talk of faith being imperfect without
charity; as wisely might you saythat a fire, howeverbright and strong, was
imperfect with heat; or that the sun, howevercloudless, is imperfect without
beams. The true answerwould be, it is not faith, but utter reprobate
faithlessness.
(S. T. Coleridge.)Faithis that nail which fastens the soul to Christ; and love is
the grace whichdrives the nail to the head. Faith takes hold of Him, and love
helps to keepthe grip. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, and He burns in the
heart by love, like a fire melting the breast. Faith casts the knot, and love
draws it fast.
(Erskine.)
Faith's evidences
J. Vaughan, M. A.
Considerthe characterand the position of a man of simple faith. That man
walks this earth, and with every step he feels and realizes that he is in another
world of unseenthings, greaterand far more realto him than what he cansee
about him. Now let us see what some of the consequencesofthat faith are —
its results, and its evidences. It is quite evident that such a man is, and must

be, at peace, for he possesses everyelementof peace. The pastpardoned; the
present furnished and supplied; the future secure. Now that rest makes
composure, and composure is strength. Faith, and faith only makes strength.
Faith is strength. Or look at him againin another of the consequences offaith;
"And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatestofthese is
charity." Then you say, charity — that is, love — is greaterthan faith? Yes,
greateras a tree is greaterthan its root, or as a river is greaterthan its spring;
but the faith makes the charity. It is an indispensable ingredient and
representationof all charity. I must believe before I can love; I must believe in
God before I can love God. Now we are all kind in proportion as we are
happy. Who has not found it so? Why do we feel kind on a birthday, or at a
marriage, or when we receive some very goodnews? Why are we kind at
Christmas? Becausewe are happy. For to be happy, we must have no bitter
past; we must have no dreaded future; but there must be in the future hope
which casts back its happiness upon the passing hour. To make happiness
there must be a happy to-day, and a happier to-morrow; without a happier to-
morrow, no day will be perfectly happy. This again, is just what faith gives.
What is bad in the past is cancelled. The future is bright; and the bright
future brightens the passing hour. Faith makes hope, hope makes happiness,
and happiness makes love. The next thing is union with Christ. It is a new
creation, and faith, faith has done it. "Faithhas workedby love," and made
the union. That union is heaven; it is heaven begun upon earth. Let us follow
that man now that he is united. See him at his prayers. O, so different to what
he used to call"saying his prayers." It is a child speaking to a Father; and he
goes boldly. "Faith workethby love." Observe the relationship. Faith is
mistress, love is the handmaid. "Faithworkethby love." Love subordinate to
faith. If love is not subordinate to faith, love becomes misplaced. Love
subordinate to faith. Faith has to do with the unseen, and makes it seen, and
then the love clasps the seenand makes it his own. We begin by believing the
greatUnseen; we go on to believe that is love; we apply that love to ourselves,
and so that is faith.
(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

J. Vaughan, M. A.
Now observe, this "love" has nothing to do with saving you. You were saved
before the "love" began. It owes its existence to the fact of your being saved. It
is no cause, it is an effect — an invariable effect — an effect which loves the
presence ofthe cause. "We love Him because He first loved us." And now you
come to the secondstage. You"love:" deeply, gratefully, irrepressibly, you
"love." What comes next? "Love" is a feeling which always looks aboutto
find, or make for itself language. If it do not this, it may be a passion, but it is
not "love." The language oflove is action. We all wish to please where we feel
affection. Therefore, by a necessarylaw, the forgiven soul — happy and
attached— looks at lovingly — to see how it can testify its gratitude to the
God of its salvation. In God's greatscheme, every Christian is working under
constraint of the most powerful impulse that ever animates the breast of man.
It is a spring strong enough for the machine, the greatmachine which it has to
move; but all the while he works happily because he works under the smile of
God, who has forgiven him, and who loves him with an everlasting love:sure,
because it is free, and certain to continue on to the end, because it was all
Christ at the beginning. In this little ladder of three steps which goes up from
sin to peace, andfrom peace to glory — the only point that unites the two
worlds: faith resting on Christ, love springing out of faith, and goodworks
crowning love — I do desire to trace with you, for a minute, how they actand
re-actone upon the other, interweaving themselves endlessly, into greaterand
greaterunity and strength. "Faith" is the only basis of "love." You cannot
really "love" God until you believe that He has forgiven you. You cannot
"love" an angry God. you cannot"love" an object of fear — such as God
must be to every man who does not feel that he is pardoned. Well, now, see the
return. Every goodwork re-acts to feedthe "love" from which it sprang. Do
not you know how, by doing something for any person, you may make
yourself, at last, begin to "love" that person? Do not you know still more how,
by every actof self-denying affectionto those you love, you increase the
feeling, and deepen the tendency of the attachment? So that the rule is goodin
the heavenly code, every goodaction, done for Christ's sake, increases
spiritual affection, and enhances the desire to love — just as the dropping of

the fruit strengthens the roots for the next autumn's harvest. It is a blessed
thing to have a religion which I 'am now endeavouring to shew in its whole
nature is a "faith which workethby love."
(J. Vaughan, M. A.)
Faith worketh
I have read that a bishop of the EpiscopalChurch said, "When I was about
entering the ministry, I was one day in conversationwith an old Christian
friend, who said, 'You are to be ordained: when you are ordained, preachto
sinners as you find them; tell them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
they shall be as safe as if they were in heaven; and then tell them to work like
horses.'"
Christian enthusiasm
American Homiletic Review.
I. Define enthusiasm.
1. Origin of the word, and its uses at that time.
2. Etymology: marking changes in meaning.
3. Emphasize presentuse — Christian enthusiasm.
II. Enthusiasm subjectively considered. Godin. Love dwelling in the
Christian's heart.
1. Crystalized energy;energy taking form; efficiency.

2. Concentratedearnestness;sincerity and singleness ofpurpose.
3. Unwavering perseverance;continuity.
4. Indomitable courage;bravery.
III. Objectively considered. Love at work. Love gives faith its life, and causes
it to glow with fervency, but it does more: it gives action. Faith workethby
love. This action depends upon two conditions, viz.:
1. A correctideal. Love reveals Christ as the One altogetherlovely.
(a)In His character.
(b)In His work.
2. A worthy cause. Love seeksthe best time, place, subject. What can be more
worthy to engage the Christian's powers than the gospel? When once at work,
what will net a Christian endure? (Hebrews 11.) (Missionaries.)Faithmay
subdue kingdoms, may overcome worlds, but first of all it must be inspired by
love. Faith workethby love.
(American Homiletic Review.)Doctrine

1. That the grace of faith is a working grace if it be of a right kind.
2. That if faith be right and true it workethby love. First. — That faith is a
working grace:we have many Scriptures that prove this (2 Thessalonians
1:11). If faith be living it works. Show
I. — What the work is that faith doth. Answer — It is that which nothing else
can do. If we ask faith, as Christ did His disciples, What do ye more than
others? Faith might say, Yes, I do.
1. It doth more than sight or sense cando. Faith can make that which is far off
to be near (Hebrews 11:1).
2. It will do that which reasoncannot.[1.]In reference to doctrinal revelation,
as —
(1.)The doctrine of the Trinity.
(2.)Of the creation.
(3.)The doctrine of the resurrection.[2.]In reference to providential
dispensations. Godtold Abraham that he should have a child, though he were
an hundred, and Sarahfourscore and ten; and Abraham believed it, and it.
was so.

3. It can do that which no other grace cando. Faith doth all things well. This
will appearby three things —(1) Other graces are but particular graces, but
this is a universal grace.(2)Othergraces depend upon faith, but faith depends
upon none. If faith be strong, then patience will be so, and meekness will be so,
and charity will be so. Faith is the mouth of the soul: it maintains the whole
body.(3) Other graces are useful, but all the graces togetherwithout faith will
not justify a man. Show
II. — How it comes to pass that faith doth all these things? Answer — Not by
its own power. Whence then is it?
1. It is from the supplies of the Spirit of God; the Spirit of God works in every
act of believing (Colossians1:29). Faith of itself can do nothing.
2. As it hath Christ for the objectof it (John 14:1; Philippians 4:13).
3. By applying the promises, which are the food of faith (Psalm60:6).
Secondly. — Faith works by love. Question — What are we to understand by
love? Answer — There is a two-fold love.(1)The love of God.(2)The love of
our neighbour. This may be understood of both these. Question — How doth
faith work by love?
1. Passively. Faithis acceptedby love.(1)By works faith is discovered, and
made manifest, as life by action, and fire by flame. Compared to — 2
Corinthians 12:9.(2)It was improved and bettered. Abraham's faith had three
greattrials.[1.]Leaving his kindred and country to follow God, he knew not
where.[2.]When God told him that he should have a son, which was greater
than the former.[3.]The offering of this son, which was the greatesttrial of all
to him.

2. Actually.Show
I. — How faith in God doth produce love to God.
1. By acquainting the soul with His most excellentperfections.
2. By acquainting the soul with the greatlove of God to us.
3. In revealing this to us in the gospel, by inviting us; when the soul sees this
greatlove of God, saith, How canI choose but love Him again? (Psalm31:19,
23).
II. Where this love is, it works desire of obedience to the command of God.
Where love is, obedience is.
(1)Free and voluntary.
(2)It is abounding (1 Corinthians 15. last verse).
(3)It is constant, like the waters of a spring. How should I know whether mine
be a true faith?Answer — If it doth work.
1. If it sets the Lord always before us.

2. It sets the things of the other world before us.
3. It purifies the heart.
4. It overcomes the world.
5. It overcomes the fiery darts of the devil.Thou hast faith, but it hath these
characters:—
(1)It is a blind faith.
(2)It is a barren faith.
(3)It is a profane faith.
(4)It is a presumptuous faith; it works security; it rocks thee asleepin the
devil's cradle.
(5)There is a faith which men do swearby, but they cannot live by.
(6)See whetherit works by love (1 John 4:20).

(7)Try the strength of your faith.[1.] If faith be weak, it will work but weakly.
When faith is weak, itwill look upon that to be a discouragementthat is
indeed an encouragement.[2.]If it be weak, it will not work alone, it must
have company.[3.]If faith be weak, it will not work in the dark.
(Philip Henry.)
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(6) In Jesus Christ.—Whenthe Christian has entered into those close relations
with Christ which his Christianity assumes.
Availeth any thing.—As “shallprofit” in Galatians 5:2; avail in the wayof
justification.
Faith which workethby love.—Faithin Christ, the devoted attachment to
Christ, is the greatmotive power, the source or mainspring of action; and the
law by which that action is regulatedis the law of love. (Comp. Galatians
5:13-14 below, and Romans 13:8-10.)Faith makes a man seek to do the will of
Christ; love tells him what that will is. It is clearthat the faith thus described
by St. Paul does not stop short in a mere head notion, and so is in no conflict
with the teaching of St. James. (See James 2:14-26.)
MacLaren's Expositions
Galatians

WHAT MAKES A CHRISTIAN: CIRCUMCISION OR FAITH?
Galatians 5:6It is a very singular instance of imaginative misreading of plain
facts that the primitive Church should be held up as a pattern Church. The
early communities had apostolic teaching;but beyond that, they seemto have
been in no respectabove, and in many respects below, the level of subsequent
ages. If we may judge of their morality by the exhortations and dehortations
which they receivedfrom the Apostle, Corinth and Thessalonicawere but
beginners in holiness. If we may judge of their intelligence by the errors into
which they were in dangerof falling, these first congregations hadindeed need
that one should teach them which were the first principles of the oracles of
God. It could not be otherwise. Theywere but just rescuedfrom heathenism,
and we need not wonder if their spirits long bore the scars oftheir former
bondage. If we wish to know what the apostolic churches were like, we have
but to look at the communities gatheredby modern missionaries. The same
infantile simplicity, the same partial apprehensions of the truth, the same
danger of being led astrayby the low morality of their heathen kindred, the
same openness to strange heresy, the same danger of blending the old with the
new, in opinion and in practice, besetboth.
The history of the first theologicaldifference in the early churches is a striking
confutation of the dream that they were perfect, and a striking illustration of
the dangers to which they were exposedfrom the attempt, so natural to us all,
to put new wine into old bottles. The Jewishand the Gentile elements did not
coalesce. The point round which the strife was wagedwas not whether
Gentiles might come into the Church. That was concededby the fiercest
Judaisers. But it was whether they could come in as Gentiles, without first
being incorporated into the Jewishnation by circumcision, and whether they
could remain in as Gentiles, without conforming to Jewishceremonialand
law.

Those who said ‘No’ _were_ members of the Christian communities, and,
being so, they still insisted that Judaism was to be eternal. They demanded
that the patched and stiff leathern bottle, which had no elasticityor pliability,
should still contain the quick fermenting new wine of the kingdom. And
certainly, if ever man had excuse for clinging to what was old and formal,
these Judaising Christians held it. They held by a law written with God’s own
finger, by ordinances awful by reasonof divine appointment, venerable by
reasonof the generations to which they had been of absolute authority,
commended by the very example of Christ Himself. Every motive which can
bind heart and conscienceto the reverence and the practice of the traditions
of the Fathers, bound them to the Law and the ordinances which had been
Israel’s treasure from Abraham to Jesus.
Those who said ‘Yes’ were mostly Gentiles, headedand inspired by a Hebrew
of the Hebrews. They believed that Judaism was preparatory, and that its
work was done. Forthose among themselves who were Jews, theywere willing
that its laws should still be obligatory; but they fought againstthe attempt to
compel all Gentile converts to enter Christ’s kingdom through the gate of
circumcision.
The fight was stubborn and bitter. I suppose it is harder to abolishforms than
to change opinions. Ceremonies standlong after the thought which they
express has fled, as a dead king may sit on his throne stiff and stark in his
golden mantle, and no one come near enough to see that the light is gone out
of his eyes, and the will departed from the hand that still clutches the sceptre.
All through Paul’s life he was doggedand tormented by this controversy.
There was a deep gulf between the churches he planted and this reactionary
sectionof the Christian community. Its emissaries were continuallyfollowing
in his footsteps. As he bitterly reproaches them, they entered upon another
man’s line of things made ready to their hand, not caring to plant churches of
circumcisedGentiles themselves, but starting up behind him as soonas his
back was turned, and spoiling his work.

This Epistle is the memorial of that foot-to-footfeud. It is of perennial use, as
the tendencies againstwhichit is directed are constantin human nature. Men
are everapt to confound form and substance, to crave material embodiments
of spiritual realities, to elevate outward means into the place of the inward
and real, to which all the outward is but subsidiary. In every period of strife
betweenthe two greatopponents, this letter has been the stronghold of those
who fight for the spiritual conceptionof religion. With it Luther wagedhis
warfare, and in this day, too, its words are precious.
My text contains Paul’s condensedstatementof his whole position in the
controversy. It tells us what he fought for, and why he fought, againstthe
attempt to suspend union to Christ on an outward rite.
I. The first grand principle containedin these words is that faith working by
love makes a Christian.
The antithesis of our text appears in somewhatvaried forms in two other
places in the Apostle’s writings. To the Corinthians he says, ‘Circumcisionis
nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the
commandments of God.’ His last word to the Galatians--the gathering up into
one strong sentence of his whole letter--is, ‘In Christ Jesus, neither
circumcisionavaileth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.’
Now, all these assertions embody substantially the same oppositionbetween
the conceptionof Christianity as depending upon a ceremonialrite, and as
being a spiritual change. And the variations in the secondmember of the
contrastthrow light on eachother. In one, the essentialthing is regarded from
the divine side as being not a rite performed on the body, but a new nature,
the result of a supernatural regeneration. In another, the essentialthing is set

forth as being not an outward act, but an inward principle, which produces
appropriate effects on the whole being. In yet another the essentialthing is
conceivedas being not a mere ceremonial, but practicalobedience, the
consequence ofthe active principle of faith, and the sign of the new life. There
is an evident sequence in the three sayings. They begin with the deepest, the
divine act of a new creation--and end with the outermost, the lastresult and
objectof both the others--deeds of conformity to God’s law.
This one process in its triple aspects, says Paul, constitutes a man a Christian.
What correspondence is there betweenit, in any of its parts, and a carnal
ordinance? They belong to wholly different categories, and it is the most
preposterous confusionto try to mix them up together. Are we to tack on to
the solemnpowers and qualities, which unite the soul to Christ, this beggarly
addition that the Judaisers desire, and to say, the essentials ofChristianity are
a new creature, faith, obedience--andcircumcision? That is, indeed, sewing
old cloth on a new garment, and huddling together in grotesque chaos things
which are utterly diverse. It is as absurd bathos as to say the essentialsofa
judge are integrity, learning, patience--and an ermine robe!
There would be less danger of being entangled in false notions of the sort
which devastatedGalatia and have afflicted the Church ever since, if people
would put a little more distinctly before their own minds what they mean by
‘religion’; what sortof man they intend when they talk about ‘a Christian.’ A
clearnotion of the thing to be produced would thin awaya wonderful deal of
mist as to the way of producing it. So then, beginning at the surface, in order
to work inward, my first remark is that religion is the harmony of the soul
with God, and the conformity of the life to His law.
The loftiestpurpose of God, in all His dealings, is to make us like Himself; and
the end of all religion is the complete accomplishmentof that purpose. There
is no religionwithout these elements--consciousnessofkindred with God,

recognitionof Him as the sum of all excellence and beauty, and of His will as
unconditionally binding upon us, aspiration and effort after a full accordof
heart and soul with Him and with His law, and humble confidence that that
sovereignbeauty will be ours. ‘Be ye imitators of God as dear children’ is the
pure and comprehensive dictate which expressesthe aim of all devout men.
‘To keepHis commandments’ goes deeperthan the mere external deeds.
Were it not so, Paul’s grand words would shrink to a very poor conceptionof
religion, which would then have its shrine and sphere removed from the
sacredrecessesofthe inmost spirit to the dusty Babelof the market-place and
the streets. Butwith that due and necessaryextensionof the words which
results from the very nature of the case,that obedience must be the obedience
of a man, and not of his deeds only, and must include the submission of the
will and the prostration of the whole nature before Him; they teacha truth
which, fully receivedand carried out, clears awaywhole mountains of
theoreticalconfusionand practicalerror. Religionis no dry morality; no
slavish, punctilious conforming of actions to a hard law. Religionis not right
thinking alone, nor right emotion alone, nor right action alone. Religionis still
less the semblance of these in formal profession, or simulated feeling, or
apparent rectitude. Religionis not nominal connectionwith the Christian
community, nor participation in its ordinances and its worship. But to be
godly is to be godlike. The full accordof all the soulwith His character, in
whom, as their native home, dwell ‘whatsoeverthings are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely,’ and the full glad conformity of the will to His sovereignwill,
who is the life of our lives--this, and nothing shallower, nothing narrower, is
religion in its perfection; and the measure in which we have attained to this
harmony with God, is the measure in which we are Christians. As two
stringed instruments may be so tuned to one keynote that, if you strike the
one, a faint etherealecho is heard from the other, which blends
undistinguishably with its parent sound; so, drawing near to God, and
brought into unison with His mind and will, our responsive spirits vibrate in
accordwith His, and give forth tones, low and thin indeed, but still repeating
the mighty music of heaven. ‘Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is
nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.’

But our text tells us, further, that if we look backwards from characterand
deed to motive, this harmony with God results from love becoming the ruling
powerof our lives. The imitation of the objectof worship has always been felt
to be the highest form of worship. Many an ancientteacher, besides the Stoic
philosopher, has said, ‘He who copies the gods worships them adequately.’
One of the prophets lays it down as a standing rule, ‘The people will walk
every one in the name of his God.’But it is only in the Christian attitude
towards God that the motive poweris found which makes such imitation more
than an impossible duty, even as it is only in the revealedcharacterof God
that a pattern is found, to imitate which is to be perfect. Everywhere besides,
harmony with the gods meant discord with conscienceand flagrantoutrages
of the commonestmoralities. Everywhere else, the task of copying them was
one lightened by no clearconfidence in their love, and by no happy
consciousnessofour own. But for us, the love revealedis the perfect law, and
the love evokedis the fulfilling of the law.
And this is the might and nobleness of the Christian love to God; that it is no
idle emotion or lazy rapture, no vague sentiment, but the root of all practical
goodness,ofall strenuous effort, of all virtue, and of all praise. That strong
tide is meant to drive the busy wheels of life and to bear precious freightage
on its bosom; not to flow awayin profitless foam. Love is the fruitful mother
of bright children, as our great moralist-poetlearned when he painted her in
the House of Holiness:
‘A multitude of babes about her hung, Playing their sport that joyed her to
behold.’
Her sons are Strength and Justice, and Self-controland Firmness, and
Courage and Patience, andmany more besides;and her daughters are Pity
with her sadeyes, and Gentleness withher silvery voice, and Mercy whose
sweetface makes sunshine in the shade of death, and Humility all unconscious

of her loveliness;and linked hand in hand with these, all the radiant band of
sisters that men call Virtues and Graces. Thesewill dwell in our hearts, if
Love their mighty mother be there. If we are without her, we shall be without
them.
There is discordbetweenman and God which can only be removed by the
sweetcommerce oflove, establishedbetweenearth and heaven. God’s love has
come to us. When ours springs responsive to Him, then the schismis ended,
and the wandering child forgets his rebellion, as he lays his aching head on the
father’s bosom, and feels the beating of the father’s heart. Our souls by reason
of sin are ‘like sweetbells jangled, out of tune and harsh.’ Love’s master hand
laid upon them restores to them their part in ‘the fair music that all creatures
make to their greatLord,’ and brings us into such accordwith God that ‘We
on earth with undiscording voice May rightly answer’even the awful
harmonies of His lips. The essentialofreligion is concordwith God, and the
powerwhich makes that concordis love to God.
But this text leads to a still further consideration, namely, the dominion of
love to God in our hearts arises from faith.
We thus reachthe last link, or rather the staple, of the chain from which all
hangs. Religionis harmony with God; that harmony is produced by love; and
that love is produced by faith. Therefore the fundamental of all Christianity in
the soulis faith. Would this sound any fresherand more obvious if we varied
the language, andsaid that to be religious we must be like God, that to be like
Him we must love Him, and that to love Him we must be sure that He loves
us? Surely that is too plain to need enlarging on.
And is it not true that faith must precede our love to God, and affords the only
possible basis on which that canbe built? How can we love Him so long as we

are in doubt of His heart, or misconceive His character, as if it were only
powerand wisdom, or awful severity? Men cannotlove an unseen person at
all, without some very specialtokenof his personalaffectionfor them. The
history of all religions shows that where the gods have been thought of as
unloving, the worshippers have been heartless too. It is only when we know
and believe the love that God hath to us, that we come to cherish any
corresponding emotion to Him. Our love is secondary, His is primary; ours is
reflection, His the original beam; ours is echo, His the mother-tone. Heaven
must bend to earth before earth can rise to heaven. The skies must open and
drop down love, ere love can spring in the fruitful fields. And it is only when
we look with true trust to that greatunveiling of the heart of God which is in
Jesus Christ, only when we can say, ‘Herein is love--that He gave His Son to
be the propitiation for our sins,’ that our hearts are melted, and all their
snows are dissolvedinto sweetwaters, which, freed from their icy chains, can
flow with music in their ripple and fruitfulness along their course, through
our otherwise silentand barren lives. Faith in Christ is the only possible basis
for active love to God.
And this thought presents the point of contactbetweenthe teaching of Paul
and John. The one dwells on faith, the other on love, but he who insists most
on the former declares thatit produces its effects on characterby the latter;
and he who insists most on the latter is forward to proclaim that it owes its
very existence to the former.
It presents also the point of contact betweenPaul and James. The one speaks
of the essentialofChristianity as faith, the other as works. They are only
striking the stream at different points, one at the fountain-head, one far down
its course among the haunts of men. They both preachthat faith must be
‘faith that worketh,’not a barren assentto a dogma, but a living trust that
brings forth fruits in the life. Paul believes as much as James that faith
without works is dead, and demands the keeping of the commandments as
indispensable to all true Christianity. James believes as much as Paul that

works without faith are of none effect. So all three of these great teachers of
the Church are representedin this text, to which eachof them might seemto
have contributed a word embodying his characteristic type of doctrine. The
threefold rays into which the prism parts the white light blend againhere,
where faith, love, and work are all united in the comprehensive saying, ‘In
Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but
faith which workethby love.’
The sum of the whole matter is this--He who is one in will and heart with God
is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who
trusts Christ loves God. That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result.
That is Christianity in its means and working forces. Thatis Christianity in its
starting-point and foundation.
II. But we have to consideralso the negative side of the Apostle’s words. They
affirm that in comparisonwith the essential--faith, all externals are infinitely
unimportant.
Paul’s habit was always to settle questions by the widestprinciples he could
bring to bear upon them--which one may notice in passing is the very opposite
to the method that has been in favour with many Church teachers and guides
since, who have preferred to live from hand to mouth, and to dispose of
difficulties by the narrowestconsiderationsthat would avail to quiet them. In
our text the question in hand is settledon a ground which covers a greatdeal
more than the existing dispute. Circumcision is regardedas one of a whole
class--namely, the class ofoutward rites and observances;and the contrast
drawn betweenit and faith extends to all the class to which it belongs. It is not
said to be powerless becauseit is an Old Testamentrite, but because it is a
rite. Its impotence lies in the very nature which it has in common with all
external institutions, whether they be of the Old Testamentor of the New,
whether they be enjoined of God or invented by men. To them all the same

characteristic cleaves.Comparedwith faith they are of no avail. Not that they
are absolutelyuseless. Theyhave their place, but ‘_in Christ Jesus_’they are
nothing. Union to Him depends on quite another order of facts, which may or
may not existalong with circumcision, or with baptism, or with the Lord’s
Supper. However important these may be, they have no place among the
things which bind a soul to its Saviour. They may be helps to these things, but
nothing more. The rite does not ensure the faith, else the antithesis of our text
were unmeaning. The rite does not stand in the place of faith, or the contrast
implied were absurd. But the two belong to totally different orders of things,
which may co-existindeed, but may also be found separately;the one is the
indispensable spiritual experience which makes us Christians, the other
belongs to a class ofmaterial institutions which are much as helps to, but
nothing as substitutes or equivalents for, faith.
Keep firm hold of the positive principle with which we have been dealing in
the former part of this sermon, and all forms and externals fall as a matter of
course into their proper place. If religion be the loving devotion of the soul to
God, resting upon reasonable faith, then all besides is, at the most, a means
which may further it. If loving trust which apprehends the truth, and cleaves
to the Person, revealedto us in the Gospel, be the link which binds men to
God, then the only way by which these externals can be ‘means of grace’is by
their aiding us to understand better and to feel more the truth as it is in Jesus,
and to cleave closerto Him who is the truth. Do they enlighten the
understanding? Do they engrave deeperthe loved face carvenon the tablets of
memory, which the attrition of worldly cares is ever obliterating, and the
lichens of worldly thoughts ever filling up? Do they clearout the rubbish from
the channels of the heart, that the cleansing streammay flow through them?
Do they, through the senses, minister to the soulits own proper food of clear
thought, vivid impressions, loving affections, trustful obedience? Do they
bring Christ to us, and us to Him, in the only wayin which approach is
possible--through the occupationof mind and heart and will with His great
perfectness? Thenthey are means of grace, precious andhelpful, the gifts of
His love, the tokens ofHis wise knowledge ofour weakness, the signs of His
condescension, in that He stoops to trust some portion of our remembrance of

Him to the ministry of sense. But in comparisonwith that faith which they
cannot plant, though they may strengthen it, they are nothing; and in the
matter of uniting the soul to God and making men ‘religious,’they are of no
avail at all.
And such thoughts as these have a very wide sweep, as wellas a very deep
influence. Religionis the devotion of the soul to God. Then _everything_
besides is not religion, but at most a means to it. That is true about all
Christian ordinances. Baptism is spokenabout by Paul in terms which plainly
show that he regarded it as ‘nothing’ in the same sense, and under the same
limitations, as he thought that circumcisionwas nothing. ‘I baptized some of
you,’ says he to the Corinthians; ‘I scarcelyremember whom, or how many. I
have far more important work to do--to preach the Gospel.’It is true about all
acts and forms of Christian worship. These are not religion, but means to it.
Their only value and their only test is--Do they help men to know and feel
Christ and His truth? It is true about laws of life, and many points of
conventionalmorality. Remember the grand freedom with which the same
Apostle dealt with questions about meats offered to idols, and the observance
of days and seasons. The same principle guided him there too, and he
relegatedthe whole question back to its proper place with, ‘Meat commendeth
us not to God; for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are
we the worse.’‘He that regardeththe day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he
that regardethnot the day, to the Lord he doth not regardit.’ It is true,
though less obviously and simply, about subordinate doctrines. It is true about
the mere intellectualgrasp of the fundamental truths of God’s revelation.
These, and the belief of these, are not Christianity, they are helps towards it.
The separationis broad and deep. On one side are all externals, rites,
ceremonies, politics, Church arrangements, forms of worship, modes of life,
practices ofmorality, doctrines, and creeds--allwhich are externals to the
soul: on the other is faith working through love, the inmost attitude and
deepestemotion of the soul. The greatheap is fuel. The flame is loving faith.

The only worth of the fuel is to feed the flame. Otherwise it is of no avail, but
lies dead and cold, a mass of blackness. We are joined to God by faith.
Whateverstrengthens that faith is precious as a help, but is worthless as a
substitute.
III. There is a constanttendency to exalt these unimportant externals into the
place of faith.
The whole purpose of the Gospelmay be describedto be our deliverance from
the dominion of sense, and the transference of the centre of our life to the
unseen world. This end is no doubt partly accomplishedby the help of sense.
So long as men have bodily organisations, there will be need for outward
helps. Men’s indolence, and men’s sense-riddennatures, will take symbols for
royalties, bank-notes for wealth. The eye will be tempted to stay on the rich
colours of the glowing glass, insteadofpassing through them to heaven’s light
beyond. To make the sensesa ladder for the soul to climb to heaven by, will be
perilously likely to end in the soulgoing down the ladder instead of up. Forms
are sure to encroach, to overlay the truth that lies at their root, to become
dimly intelligible, or quite unmeaning, and to constitute at last the end instead
of the means. Is it not then wise to minimise these potent and dangerous
allies? Is it not needful to use them with the remembrance that a minute
quantity may strengthen, but an overdose will kill--ay, and that the minute
quantity may kill too? Christ instituted two outward rites. There could not
have been fewerif there was to be an outward community at all, and they
could not have been simpler; but look at the portentous outgrowth of
superstition, and the unnumbered evils, religious, moral, social, and even
political, which have come from the invincible tendency of human nature to
corrupt forms, even when the forms are the sweetand simple ones of Christ’s
own appointment. What a lessonthe history of the Lord’s Supper, and its
gradual change from the domestic memorial of the dying love of our Lord to
the ‘tremendous sacrifice,’reads us as to the dangerous ally which spiritual

religion--and there is no other religion than spiritual--enlists when it seeksthe
help of external rites!
But remember that this danger of converting religioninto outward actions has
its root in us all, and is not annihilated by our rejection of an elaborate
ceremonial. There is much significance in the double negationof my text,
‘Neither circumcisionnor uncircumcision.’ If the Judaisers were tempted to
insist on the former, as indispensable, their antagonists were as much tempted
to insist on the latter. The one were saying, ‘A man cannot be a Christian
unless he be circumcised.’The other would be in danger of replying, ‘He
cannot be a Christian if he is.’ There may be as much formalism in protesting
againstforms as in using them. Extremes meet; and an unspiritual Quaker,
for instance, is at bottom of the same way of thinking as an unspiritual Roman
Catholic. They agree in their belief that certain outward acts are essentialto
worship, and even to religion. They only differ as to what these acts are. The
Judaiserwho says, ‘You must be circumcised,’and his antagonistwho says,
‘You must be uncircumcised,’are really in the same boat.
And this is especiallyneedful to be kept in mind by those who, like the most of
us, hold fast by the free and spiritual conceptionof Christianity. That freedom
we may turn into a bondage, and that spirituality into a form, if we confound
it with the essentialsofChristianity, and deny the possibility of the life being
developed exceptin conjunction with it. My text has a double edge. Let us use
it againstall this Judaising which is going on round about us, and againstall
the tendency to it in our own hearts. The one edge smites the former, the other
edge the latter. Circumcision is nothing, as most of us are forward to
proclaim. But, also, remember, when we are tempted to trust in our freedom,
and to fancy that in itself it is good, _uncircumcisionis nothing_. You are no
more a Christian for your rejectionof forms than another man is for his
holding them. Your negationno more unites you to Christ than does his
affirmation. One thing alone does that,--faith which workethby love, against
which sense everwars, both by tempting some of us to place religion in

outward acts and ceremonies, andby tempting others of us to place it in
rejecting the forms which our brethren abuse.
IV. When an indifferent thing is made into an essential, it ceasesto be
indifferent, and must be fought against.
Paul proclaimed that circumcisionand uncircumcision were alike unavailing.
A man might be a goodChristian either way. They were not unimportant in
all respects, but in regard to being united to Christ, it did not matter which
side one took. And, in accordancewith this noble freedom, he for himself
practisedJewishrites; and, when he thought it might conciliate prejudice
without betraying principle, had Timothy circumcised. But when it came to be
maintained as a principle that Gentiles _must_ be circumcised, the time for
conciliationwas past. The other side had made further concessionimpossible.
The Apostle had no objectionto circumcision. What he objectedto was its
being forced upon all as a necessarypreliminary to entering the Church. And
as soonas the opposite party took that ground, then there was nothing for it
but to fight againstthem to the last. They had turned an indifferent thing into
an essential, and he could no longertreat it as indifferent.
So whenever parties or Churches insist on external rites as essential, or
elevate any of the subordinate means of grace into the place of the one bond
which fastens our souls to Jesus, and is the channel of grace as wellas the
bond of union, then it is time to arm for the defence of the spirituality of
Christ’s kingdom, and to resistthe attempt to bind on free shoulders the iron
yoke. Let men and parties do as they like, so long as they do not turn their
forms into essentials. In broad freedom of speechand spirit, which holds by
the one central principle too firmly to be much troubled about subordinate
matters--in tolerance ofdiversities, which does not spring from indifference,
but from the very clearness ofour perception of, and from the very fervour of
our adherence to, the one essentialof the Christian life--let us take for our

guide the large, calm, lofty thoughts which this text sets forth before us. Let us
thankfully believe that men may love Jesus, andbe fed from His fulness,
whether they be on one side of this undying controversyor on the other. Let
us watch jealouslythe tendencies in our own hearts to trust in our forms or in
our freedom. And whensoeveror wheresoeverthese subordinates are made
into things essential, and the ordinances of Christ’s Church are elevatedinto
the place which belongs to loving trust in Christ’s love, then let _our_ voices at
leastbe heard on the side of that mighty truth that ‘in Jesus Christneither
circumcisionavaileth anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith which worketh
by love.’
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
5:1-6 Christ will not be the Saviour of any who will not own and rely upon
him as their only Saviour. Let us take heed to the warnings and persuasions of
the apostle to stedfastness in the doctrine and liberty of the gospel. All true
Christians, being taught by the Holy Spirit, wait for eternallife, the reward of
righteousness, andthe objectof their hope, as the gift of God by faith in
Christ; and not for the sake oftheir own works. The Jewishconvert might
observe the ceremonies or asserthis liberty, the Gentile might disregard them
or might attend to them, provided he did not depend upon them. No outward
privileges or professionwill avail to acceptancewith God, without sincere
faith in our Lord Jesus. True faith is a working grace;it works by love to
God, and to our brethren. May we be of the number of those who, through the
Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. The dangerof old was not
in things of no consequence in themselves, as many forms and observances
now are. But without faith working by love, all else is worthless, and
compared with it other things are of small value.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
For in Jesus Christ - In the religion which Christ came to establish.
Neither circumcision... - It makes no difference whether a man is circumcised
or not. He is not savedbecause he is circumcised, nor is he condemned
because he is not. The design of Christianity is to abolish these rites and
ceremonies, andto introduce a way of salvationthat shall be applicable to all

mankind alike; see the Galatians 3:28, note; 1 Corinthians 7:19, note;
compare Romans 2:29.
But faith which workethby love - Faith that evinces its existence by love to
God, and benevolence to people. It is not a mere intellectual belief, but it is
that which reaches the heart, and controls the affections. It is not a dead faith,
but it is that which is operative, and which is seenin Christian kindness and
affection. It is not mere belief of the truth, or mere orthodoxy, but it is that
which produces trite attachmentto others. A mere intellectual assentto the
truth may leave the heart cold and unaffected; mere orthodoxy, howeverbold
and self-confident, and "sound," may not be inconsistent with contentions,
and strifes, and logomachies, anddivisions. The true faith is that which is seen
in benevolence, in love to God, in love to all who bear the Christian name; in a
readiness to do goodto all mankind. This shows that the heart is affectedby
the faith that is held; and this is the nature and design of all genuine religion.
Tyndale renders this, "faith, which by love is mighty in operation."
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
6. For—confirming the truth that it is "by faith" (Ga 5:5).
in Jesus Christ—Greek,"in Christ Jesus." In union with Christ (the Anointed
Saviour), that is, Jesus of Nazareth.
nor uncircumcision—This is levelled againstthose who, being not legalists, or
Judaizers, think themselves Christians on this ground alone.
faith which workethby love—Greek, "working by love." This corresponds to
"a new creature" (Ga 6:15), as its definition. Thus in Ga 5:5, 6, we have the
three, "faith," "hope," and "love." The Greek expresses,"Whicheffectually
worketh";which exhibits its energy by love (so 1Th2:13). Love is not joined

Jesus was only satisfied by faith working through love

Jesus was only satisfied by faith working through love

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